Oral Answers to Questions
(1 day, 13 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms (Chris Bryant)
The Secretary of State is in Singapore celebrating 60 years of diplomacy between our countries and drumming up investment, so I am afraid you have the deputies today, Mr Speaker.
Access to high-speed internet is essential and we are determined to take everyone with us into the digital age. I am glad that 98% of people now have access to superfast speeds and 88% have gigabit. Our latest type C contract with Openreach is adding connections every single day.
Josh Babarinde
Project Gigabit’s stated aim is to ensure that no one is left behind, but that is not true for the residents of Mulberry Close on my home estate in Eastbourne, who have not been connected to full fibre despite bearing the brunt of invasive works on their doorstep. Will the Minister meet me, residents of Mulberry Close and local internet providers to ensure that those residents are connected and not left behind?
Chris Bryant
Funnily enough, the statistics in the hon. Member’s constituency are better than the national average—just very slightly, by a smidgen—but I am very happy to meet him. More importantly, he could come into the Department and meet Building Digital UK so that we can explain exactly what needs to happen in his constituency to secure the aims that he is seeking.
Gregor Poynton (Livingston) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Feryal Clark)
As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on children’s online safety, my hon. Friend will know that keeping children safe online is a priority for this Government. We are focused on implementing the Online Safety Act 2023 so that children can benefit from its wide reach and protection. The children’s code that is coming in next month will see a step change in the experience of children online in the UK. While we do not pretend that that is job done, and we are working at pace to develop a further online safety package, children will no longer be able to access pornography or other unsuitable content, including content that encourages or promotes self-harm, eating disorders or suicide.
Gregor Poynton
The National Crime Agency and other law enforcement agencies have highlighted the growing prevalence of AI-generated child sexual abuse material as one of the biggest threats to public safety. It is a growing threat to us online. That is why I was astonished last week to see the Tories and Reform vote against the Crime and Policing Bill, which contains world-leading measures to tackle this horrific crime. Does the Minister agree that it is frankly disgusting to see the Tories and Reform using this issue for party politics?
Feryal Clark
I do indeed agree with my hon. Friend on that. Child sexual exploitation and abuse is one of the most horrendous harms, and the Government are committed to ensuring that UK law keeps pace with criminal use of technologies including AI. As he says, we have introduced a world-leading offence in the Crime and Policing Bill to criminalise AI models that have been optimised to create child sexual abuse material. This new offence builds on the protections in the Online Safety Act, and I am very clear that nothing is off the table when it comes to keeping our children safe.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
As the Minister says, the Online Safety Act has passed into law and is being implemented, but parents in my Gosport constituency are still desperately worried about the scale of the inappropriate content that very young children can stumble across in the online world. Can she reassure us? When will they begin to practically see the changes that the Online Safety Act promised, and when will the big online providers really start having to do what they say they are doing to keep our children safe online?
Feryal Clark
I absolutely agree that some children are still stumbling upon material and content that they should not be. When the Online Safety Act is fully enacted in July, we will see a step change in what children can see online. Ofcom will monitor this and ensure that where such material is continuing, we take action.
Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)
May I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Dame Chi Onwurah) on her well- deserved honour in the King’s birthday honours? I hope the whole House will agree that it is a fitting and well-deserved honour for her expertise and service to the House.
Protecting children online should be a top priority for every Government, and that is why the Conservatives passed the Online Safety Act to give this Government all the sweeping powers they need to act, but when the Minister was asked in Parliament why implementation under Labour was so slow, she said that implementation must be
“as proofed against judicial review as possible.”—[Official Report, 26 February 2025; Vol. 762, c. 405WH.]
Why is she more concerned about protecting herself and the Government than about protecting children?
Feryal Clark
It was the hon. Gentleman’s party that dragged its feet in bringing forward the legislation and that watered it down. We are busy trying to implement the Act as it was set out in the guidance. While the Act is not perfect, we will see a huge step change. Where there are issues and gaps, we are not afraid to act.
Alan Mak
It was my party that passed the Online Safety Act; it is the Minister’s party that is failing our children. Ian Russell, who set up the Molly Rose Foundation following the tragic death of his daughter, says that Britain is now “going backwards” when it comes to protecting our children online. The Government are being timid when they should be bold. Their priorities are wrong, and legal caution is trumping children’s safety. Why is the Minister still defending this Government’s track record of total failure?
Feryal Clark
I thank the shadow Secretary of State for his question. The implementation is happening as set out and against the timeframe that was set out. As I said, we are not only busy implementing the Act, but looking at all the gaps that exist in it because Ministers in his Government watered down the Bill as it went through the House. We will review those gaps in the legislation and come forward with extra measures where they are needed.
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms (Chris Bryant)
Rural mobile coverage just is not good enough, which is why we have committed all the money needed to complete the shared rural network, with new masts coming online every month. I can also announce that Ofcom’s new coverage checker will come online tomorrow, and I urge every single Member to check their constituency then.
Caroline Voaden
I thank the Minister for his answer. I was going to say that having looked at the villages in my constituency on the mobile map, which was supposed to be updated this month, it is not up to date; it is good to hear that it will be. Many of my constituents have to rely on the 3G network, which is being shut off. We may be years away from getting high-speed broadband across the South Hams, so having access to a reliable 4G network is crucial. Can the Minister tell me exactly how he is working with mobile phone providers to ensure that everyone has access to mobile voice and data coverage?
Chris Bryant
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The new checker comes online tomorrow—I know that many hon. Members will have looked at the checker in the past and thought, “That simply doesn’t bear any relationship to my lived experience.” From tomorrow, it will. The new checker is much better; Members will be able to see different numbers for all the mobile operators, which I think will encourage the operators to put up more masts and improve their coverage.
I know that the hon. Lady has talked about the village of Staverton in her constituency, which has a population of 717 people—the Sea Trout, I think, is the pub. It even has a telephone booth in it, although I am not sure whether it is still working. I have this horrible fear: I do not want to leave the hon. Lady, like Blondie, hanging on the telephone.
Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) (Lab)
In my constituency—one of the most rural parts of the UK—whole areas are without mobile phone coverage. People are forced to cope with unreliable phone lines and, most worryingly, are sometimes unable to call 999. Can the Minister assure me that after the withdrawal of the public switched telephone network, no one will be left without access to a phone simply because there is no mobile signal once their landline is switched off?
Chris Bryant
I have been very keen to ensure that the withdrawal of the PSTN—which is being done because it is necessary, as the copper system is not working any more and is more fallible—does not leave anybody unable to contact 999 or get the services that they need. I am very happy to arrange for my hon. Friend a meeting with BDUK to go through precisely how we can ensure that we have proper investment in every constituency in the land so that people have the mobile signal they need to live in the modern era.
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Feryal Clark)
My Department is working closely with the Department for Education and Skills England to ensure that the education system is ready for the opportunities and the challenges that AI poses. We are assessing the AI skills gap and mapping pathways to address it. My officials have been working closely with the DFE on the education content store, for example, which is a pilot project that seeks to help developers to make better AI tools for teachers by providing a store of reliable and relevant UK data. Last week, the DFE produced guidance to support schools with the safe and effective use of AI in education.
Bradley Thomas
Will the Minister outline what steps are being taken to reduce academic dishonesty and plagiarism in schools resulting from the use of artificial intelligence tools?
Feryal Clark
AI has demonstrated that it can help the education workforce by reducing some of the administrative burdens and the hard work that teaching staff and school leaders face in their day-to-day role. On the hon. Gentleman’s question, evidence is still emerging on the benefits and risks of pupils and students using generative AI. We will continue to work with the education sector on use cases to develop our understanding of how to use AI safely and effectively. As I have said, the Department has issued guidance to teachers on how to identify and best use AI in schools.
Mr Speaker
I call the Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee.
Dame Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)
AI is already prevalent in the workplace and in the education system, and we need to equip the next generation to be able to use AI tools productively and securely while also delivering on their unique potential as human beings. How is the Minister working with the Department for Education to ensure that the AI tools that are used in our education system support this kind of learning? Specifically, what advice has she given to the Department with regard to the procurement of edtech tools, which are widely available? Some are free and some need to be paid for, so how are schools to decide which to use?
Feryal Clark
As I have said, I work very closely with my counterparts in the Department for Education. Earlier this year, we launched safe standards for the sector and provided guidance on how to safely develop AI tools for education. The DFE has also provided guidance to schools on how to safely use AI in schools. That work is ongoing. As I have said, we are working both with the sector and with educators to make sure that we get this right.
Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms (Chris Bryant)
As soon as we have legislative proposals on AI, we will introduce them to the House and let the right hon. Member know in the usual way.
Sir John Whittingdale
Is the Minister aware of the concerns about the proposed creative content exchange, which appeared without consultation in the creative industries sector plan? Will he confirm that any AI legislation will not seek to impose a statutory licensing model, but will instead facilitate a market-led, dynamic licensing model based on robust copyright law and enforceable through meaningful transparency?
Chris Bryant
The right hon. Member has become terribly Eeyore-ish of late—he has been eating too many thistles, I think. The truth of the matter is that this is a really good idea. It is only at an embryonic stage. It was consulted on in the creative industries taskforce, which is led by Baroness Shriti Vadera and Sir Peter Bazalgette. Of course we will consult with everybody else in the sector about how we can make this work, but it could be an answer to ensuring more licensing of creative content by AI companies and, importantly, remuneration for the creative industries.
Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)
First, I echo the congratulatory comments about the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Dame Chi Onwurah)—they are absolutely deserved.
Donald Trump’s proposals to ban US states from regulating AI for 10 years have been condemned by Microsoft’s chief scientist, showing that we cannot trust the US to provide safe and sensible AI regulation. Does the Minister agree that now is the time for the UK to lead on AI safety, and will he join me and the head of Google DeepMind in calling for an AI safety agency modelled on the International Atomic Energy Agency and headquartered here in the UK?
Chris Bryant
Both the Under-Secretary of State and I have been remiss in not congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Dame Chi Onwurah) on her damehood. As you know, Mr Speaker, all knights love to see a dame enter the Chamber. The Under-Secretary of State and I work closely on AI and copyright, and on making sure that we have the AI safety and security that we need. The Liberal Democrat spokesperson makes a fair point and it is one of the things that we are considering at the moment.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms (Chris Bryant)
The Chancellor has announced that the Government’s research and development spending plans go through to 2029-30 and that our R&D budget is rising from £13.9 billion in 2025-26 to £15.2 billion in 2029-30—a real-terms increase—and will total £58.5 billion over the spending review period. I am sure that that will benefit my hon. Friend’s York constituency.
Rachael Maskell
York and North Yorkshire is a national leader in the bioeconomy. BioYorkshire will create 4,000 jobs, as well as start-ups and spin-outs. It requires £67 million to build its facilities over the next decade, but it will return £215 million back into the economy. When will the science plan recognise the economic and scientific impact of the research base? Can we have a meeting to talk about the brilliant BioYorkshire project?
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend is right that it is a brilliant project, and it is precisely the kind of thing the UK excels at: we manage to get the private sector working with Government and local government to deliver not only jobs but real innovation. As the Secretary of State is not here today, I am sure I can offer my hon. Friend the opportunity of a meeting with him.
Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)
Over the past 10 years, many tech start-ups have left the UK and gone to silicon valley, which costs the UK a huge amount in jobs and tax revenue. What are the Government doing to ensure that start-ups currently at seed stage stay in the UK and grow here, so that we avoid the UK becoming an intellectual property farm for other countries to harvest?
Chris Bryant
One really important part of the industrial strategy we published on Monday and the sector plans within it is that we identified a problem many people in the UK face, which is that they have a really good idea but cannot take it to market because they do not have access to finance, in particular to capital, unless they are in London—and sometimes unless they are a man. We want to change all that, which is why we have said categorically that we are giving the British Business Bank much more significant power to be able to invest in these sectors. That will mean we are a powerhouse in precisely the way the hon. Member wants.
Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)
The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms (Chris Bryant)
From the development of vaccines to the discovery of the structure of DNA, British medical innovation has played a fundamental role in changing the lives of people globally and extending the UK’s global influence. Our industrial strategy and forthcoming life sciences sector plan will put the UK at the very centre of global efforts.
Emily Darlington
As the Minister will know, Gavi and the Global Fund not only provide a global vaccine programmes and programmes on saving lives from malaria and HIV, but provide us with biosecurity and jobs in the UK, not least over 500 research and development jobs and funding for the institute of tropical medicine. What assessment has he made of whether the UK is to reduce our efforts in that regard?
Chris Bryant
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is absolutely essential, not only for other countries in the world, where we have managed to save many lives by introducing vaccines, but for UK innovation. We are fully committed to Gavi. We will be producing our life sciences sector plan soon, and we want to celebrate the sector, which represents 6,800 business and £100 billion of turnover every year.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
The Minister will be aware that the life and health sciences launchpad in Northern Ireland has so far funded 32 business-led projects. That is good news, but 23 of the projects are in the Greater Belfast area. Will the Minister join me and others in our efforts to ensure that there is greater knowledge about the launchpad across the whole of Northern Ireland so that we can all benefit from this very worthwhile project?
Chris Bryant
Yes, indeed. When I was talking about the creative industries sector plan as part of the industrial strategy last week, exactly the same point was made. Belfast is obviously a great centre for innovation and the creative industries, but we need to make sure that the sector extends across the whole of Northern Ireland. It is a point that has been extremely well made.
Mr Bayo Alaba (Southend East and Rochford) (Lab)
The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms (Chris Bryant)
The digital inclusion action plan is one of things I am proudest of. Only this morning I launched the “IT reuse for good” charter. One thing that is really problematic for many families who do not have access to the internet is that they simply do not have a device. I urge every Member of the House to get every business they know to sign up to the “IT reuse for good” charter so that we can get devices to the people who really need them.
Mr Alaba
Digital inclusion and exclusion vary widely between individuals, households and even communities. Often it is those in low-income, rural and coastal communities who are left behind. What steps are being taken to ensure that Labour’s action plan reaches all communities and equips everyone with the tools they need?
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend makes a strong point: we need digital inclusion for every community. If we are going to have a digital Government, we need to have a digital nation, and we cannot have some people excluded from that future. That is why we have announced £6 million in this financial year for the innovation fund, and I hope that local authorities will come forward with innovative ideas on how we can break down the barriers to digital inclusion.
Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)
The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms (Chris Bryant)
The Department is determined to make the UK the best place in the world for science and technology. Last week, the spending review committed £86 billion to research and development, enabling every aspect of our tech economy to start firing on all cylinders. Building on that, we published the digital and technology sector plan as part of our modern industrial strategy on Monday, backing our innovators in fields like quantum, life sciences and engineering biology with over £1 billion.
Patrick Hurley
Across the northern part of my constituency, from Marshside over to Hesketh Bank—
Mr Speaker
Order. Members are not meant to walk in front of the Member who is speaking; it is discourteous. The hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) deliberately looked and carried on.
Patrick Hurley
The mobile phone signal is uniformly terrible across the northern part of my constituency, meaning that my constituents are missing out on opportunities. Will the Minister work more closely with industry to identify and deal with those rural mobile blackspots to further the Government’s growth mission?
Chris Bryant
I know that that is an issue in my hon. Friend’s constituency because he has tabled at least 10 questions to me on the subject over the last week, all of which we have answered in time. I am keen to ensure that we as MPs persuade the mobile companies to invest more in getting better mobile coverage across the country, both in rural areas and in urban ones.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
Why are the Government ignoring the advice of the AI opportunities action plan to encourage the start-up and scaling of tech businesses in the UK and instead favouring market-dominant corporations from abroad over our own domestic businesses when awarding Government contracts?
Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Feryal Clark)
The Government remain committed to ending the use of all animals, including dogs, in scientific procedures, replacing them with modern, human-relevant technologies. Our long-term goal, as set out in our 2024 manifesto commitment, is to phase out animal testing entirely. As my hon. Friend said, we will publish a detailed road map this year alongside convening roundtables with researchers, industry and animal welfare organisations to ensure that we achieve that and hit the target.
Liz Jarvis (Eastleigh) (LD)
Chris Bryant
We are completely and utterly not complacent, and we are determined to ensure that creators are remunerated for their work. We would never surrender other people’s labour to a third party. I know that the hon. Member used to be the editor of Cruise International, and I very much hope that as a former journalist she will help us develop policies that can answer the question she asked.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
Chris Bryant
One of the issues that is undoubtedly at the heart of AI and copyright is how we ensure that the policy we advocate in the UK works with other countries’ around the world. I assure my hon. Friend that we are working closely with our European allies to ensure we do precisely that.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
Chris Bryant
I am afraid the shadow Chancellor came in during the question. I have known him for a very long time, and I would not cheer him quite so enthusiastically myself—[Interruption.] As charming a man as he is, it meant that I did not hear the question asked by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), so I am happy to write to her afterwards to confirm.
Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)
Stratford and Bow is a thriving hub of innovation, which is why the Prime Minister chose it for the launch of the AI opportunities action plan earlier this year. One brilliant example is Healthtech-1. Once a kitchen table start-up of doctors and tech experts, it now automates admin for 22% of GP practices, and its new patient registration system has saved the NHS a staggering 183 years of time. What are the Government doing to support home-grown innovation like that to scale up its work?
Feryal Clark
My hon. Friend’s constituency is indeed a hotbed of innovation. She will be delighted to know that Healthtech-1 has benefited from a range of Government support to date, including a recent Innovate UK grant.
Mike Tapp (Dover and Deal) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister (Angela Rayner)
I have been asked to reply as my right hon. and learned Friend the Prime Minister is attending the NATO summit in The Hague. At this time of international volatility, we are working with our allies to de-escalate tensions in the middle east and ensure that the conflict does not further intensify. Our aim continues to be preventing Iran from securing nuclear weapons and urging the Iranians to return to negotiations.
The situation in Gaza remains of the gravest concern. Seeing the return of more hostages’ bodies, including that of Shay Levinson, an Israeli with British family, is heartbreaking. The remaining hostages must be released, while aid must be delivered at greater speed and volume.
This week is Armed Forces Week. Our commitment to the armed forces is unwavering. The strategic defence review outlines how we will give our armed forces better pay, better housing and better kit. I pay tribute to their commitment, bravery and selflessness.
This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
Mike Tapp
The Conservatives gave up on law and order. They betrayed our country and let criminals run riot. Now, they desperately post wannabe superhero videos, shamelessly pointing at the problems they created. Last week, they had the chance to put it right, and what did they do? They voted against tough action on knife crime, on antisocial behaviour and on violence against women and girls. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that they should hang their heads in shame for failing to protect our streets?
Mr Speaker
Order. This is about Government responsibilities, not the Opposition. I call Sir Mel Stride.
Sir Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to stand opposite the right hon. Lady. Despite what many may think, we have a great deal in common, not least that we both viscerally disagree with the Chancellor’s tax policies. It is also great to see the right hon. Lady standing in temporarily for the Prime Minister for the second week running—although I know that many sitting behind her wish that this was a permanent arrangement. Indeed, we will find many of their names among the 122 who have signed up to oppose the Government’s welfare Bill. They say that the Bill is dangerously rushed and ill-thought-through. Will the right hon. Lady explain why she thinks that she is right and 122 of her colleagues are wrong?
The Deputy Prime Minister
First, it is nice to face the latest wannabe at the Dispatch Box. I will tell the right hon. Member why we are pressing ahead with our reforms: it is because we are investing a billion pounds in tailored employment support, in a “right to try” in order to help more people back into work, and in ending reassessments for the most severely disabled who will never be able to work. We will not walk away or stand by and abandon millions of people trapped in the failing system, left behind by him and his colleagues.
Sir Mel Stride
The right hon. Lady completely sidestepped my question. She cannot even defend her own Government’s policy. Can she at least assure the House that the vote on Tuesday will actually go ahead?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I do not know if the right hon. Gentleman listened to what I said, because he was reading off his script—I do not need a script—but I can tell him that we will go ahead on Tuesday.
Sir Mel Stride
There you have it: there will be a vote in this House on Tuesday on the welfare Bill, although many on the Back Benches could be forgiven for thinking that they have heard this before with the winter fuel payment, where they were marched up the hill, and we all know where that story ended. On the Conservative side of the House, we are absolutely clear that we will help the right hon. Lady get their Bill through if the Government can commit to actually reducing the welfare bill and getting people off benefits and into work. Can she make that commitment right now—yes or no?
The Deputy Prime Minister
If ever we needed a reminder of the Conservatives having no shame, it is their demands for this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman demands a programme to help people into work—exactly what this Bill does—after he left one in eight young people out of the economy. He demands no new taxes—from the party that raised taxes to record levels. He demands welfare savings—from the man who was in charge as the welfare bill absolutely ballooned. They say cut the welfare bill; they failed. They say put people in work; they failed. They say no tax increases; they failed.
Sir Mel Stride
I am afraid that the right hon. Lady has clearly not read her own legislation. The Bill will see the number of people on welfare rising for every single year going forward. There is no commitment from her to cut the number of people on welfare. Even if the Government manage to deliver these reforms, almost every respected economist now says that tax rises are all but inevitable in the autumn. But after the Budget, the Chancellor said,
“I’m not coming back with…more taxes.”
British businesses have been hit again and again by Labour’s economic mismanagement. They are desperate for certainty. Can the right hon. Lady give them that certainty now and repeat to the House the Chancellor’s promise not to raise taxes at the Budget?
The Deputy Prime Minister
This is a bit rich—unbelievable. With inflation above 11% and the biggest tax rises, I will take no lectures from the Conservative party. On this issue in particular, they cannot make up their minds. First, they said our reforms were taking too long, then they said they were rushed, then their Front Bench said our measures were too tough, and now they say they need to be tougher. No plan, no idea—I wonder why their party was left in such a mess.
Sir Mel Stride
The whole House will have heard that the right hon. Lady did not repeat the Chancellor’s promise not to raise taxes. Britain’s businesses have today been put on notice: tax rises are coming. Specifically, in the right hon. Lady’s own area, despite Labour’s promises to freeze council tax, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that the spending review will mean the biggest council tax increases in a generation—a £7 billion tax rise. Yet the Chancellor and the Prime Minister have repeatedly claimed that the Government will not raise taxes on working people. Why does the right hon. Lady think that council tax is not paid by working people?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Again, the Conservatives have an absolute nerve when council tax rose ever single year under their Government. In fact, I had to turn down the Tories on the Local Government Association who wanted me to take away the precept to ensure that they could raise taxes above the 5%. We have kept it there while delivering money for local government, while they had austerity, put taxes up and ruined the British economy.
Sir Mel Stride
When you cut out the blather, is not the reality that this Labour Government have condemned us to higher taxes, more debt, fewer jobs and more pain for businesses up and down our country? Borrowing, unemployment and inflation are up, yet the right hon. Lady tells us that the Government’s plan is working. It is not just me who is not convinced; the Members behind her are not convinced either. Nor are the public. In fact, I am not even sure whether the right hon. Lady herself is convinced. Is she not just a little embarrassed to defend policies that she does not even agree with?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am embarrassed every week that an Opposition Member comes here who does not apologise for the mess they left this country in. One party crashed the economy and left families to pay the price. We are putting working people first. I am proud that we have got a huge boost to the minimum wage, the biggest uplift in affordable housing in a generation and that we have expanded free school meals to half a million children. The Tories’ choice: billions of pounds in unfunded tax cuts for the very wealthy—we know where that gets us. It is the same old Tory failed approach. They have not listened, and they have not learnt a thing.
Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will do. I thank my hon. Friend for bringing this important issue to my attention. I can only imagine the disruption and challenges facing the school community. One of the shameful legacies of the Conservative party was leaving schools across our country literally crumbling. We are fixing that with £20 billion of investment in the school rebuilding programme over the next decade to rebuild more than 750 schools. I know that the Minister for Early Education will be happy to meet him.
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
I associate myself and my party with the remarks of the Deputy Prime Minister in calling for de-escalation in the middle east, the release of hostages and urgent aid to get into Gaza.
We Liberal Democrats oppose the Government’s cut to personal independence payments and carer’s allowance. With a growing rebellion on the Government Benches, the Government may be forced to push these cuts through with the support of the official Opposition. The Deputy Prime Minister knows that some of those affected are still waiting for justice after the carer’s allowance scandal saw thousands of innocent carers hounded for repayments. Can the Deputy Prime Minister give a cast-iron guarantee that if these cuts are pursued, at the very least, not a single person will lose a penny until the carer’s allowance scandal review has been completed and the recommendations have been implemented?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I thank the hon. Member for her opening comments. She knows that we have already taken steps on the carer’s allowance, and those steps will continue. As she also knows, the welfare system is failing people. Labour is the party of work, but we are also the party of fairness. That is why our Bill will deliver the largest, permanent, real-terms increase to basic out-of-work support since the 1980s, invest in tailored employment support so people can try work safely, and ensure that those who can never work are properly supported.
Daisy Cooper
It is disappointing that the Deputy Prime Minister could not give that cast-iron guarantee, but if the Government pursue the Bill next week, we will pursue this matter on behalf of carers.
Given the reports that the Government are giving a green light to President Trump’s demands for a state visit to be brought forward to September, does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that the UK should urgently convene talks with the White House in advance of the visit in order to leverage it to secure US guarantees for Ukraine, including the use of frozen Russian assets, and to secure a joint UK-US message to Putin that together our two countries will not let him win his illegal war?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The UK Government are always in discussions, negotiations and talks with our US counterparts. We are really pleased that the US President is coming for a second state visit, and we will continue to welcome in that vein and continue to have those discussions.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right, and as neighbouring MPs we know the impact that temporary accommodation and children being homeless has on their life chances. She is absolutely right to raise the issue, and to highlight the excellent work of Dr Laura Neilson, who is supporting us to develop a cross-Government homelessness strategy. All children should have a safe and secure home. That is why I am so proud that we have confirmed the biggest boost to social and affordable housing investment in a generation. We are getting on with the job, after the mess that the Conservatives left behind.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
My colleagues and I identify with the comments around de-escalation in the middle east.
I hope that the Deputy Prime Minister will condemn recent disorder on the streets of Northern Ireland, as the Prime Minister and my colleagues have done. Does she accept that the Windsor framework, although sold to this House as a trade issue, is fundamentally impacting the ability of this sovereign Parliament to legislate on a UK-wide basis on matters of immigration? Will she commit to ensuring that the Government continue to challenge robustly the expansionism that is currently before the courts? If not, will she legislate to ensure that we as a country can control our own borders?
The Deputy Prime Minister
First, I do condemn the violence on the streets. Provisions in the Belfast/Good Friday agreement referred to in article 2 of the Windsor framework sought to address the long-standing and specific issues relating to Northern Ireland’s past. I hope the right hon. Gentleman is assured that we are appealing on a number of the laws relating to article 2 in the courts, including the Supreme Court. I hope he will also be assured by the reality that the Government have consistently applied and enforced immigration law on a UK-wide basis. The Government will take all necessary steps to defend that position, just as we will remain committed to protecting rights across the whole UK, as it should be Parliament that makes rules on immigration.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I commend my hon. Friend for her campaigning work on this issue. I have met some of those affected and know their strength of feeling; I have heard their deeply personal testimony of their experiences. Especially during Armed Forces Week, I pay tribute to all nuclear veterans and their enduring contribution to our nation’s security. We are looking into unresolved questions regarding medical records as a matter of priority.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion Preseli) (PC)
The Deputy Prime Minister
Part of our reforms are to ensure that those who can never work are properly supported and not put through endless assessment, and I thank the hon. Member for raising this case. We are committed to renewing the nation’s contract with those who have served, and a range of support is in place for veterans, including dedicated medical and physical healthcare pathways in the NHS, employment, and housing. The new support system, VALOUR, backed by £50 million of funding, will provide a network of support centres to connect veterans with local and national services.
Natasha Irons (Croydon East) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I completely agree with my hon. Friend that the Conservatives left a trail of devastation across education and youth services. [Interruption.] Given half the chance, judging by their moans, they would do it all over again. We are making different choices—working with young people to draw up a landmark new national youth strategy, investing £145 million this year to provide stability to the youth sector, rolling out youth future hubs to expand access opportunities and reduce crime, and extending access to mental health support to nearly 1 million more children this year.
James MacCleary (Lewes) (LD)
The Deputy Prime Minister
First of all, I will out one of my kids in the Gallery, because he has just completed his studies on early years, so hopefully that will add a little help. We inherited a depleted early years sector, but we are determined to make sure that all children have the best possible start in life. That is why we are delivering the largest ever uplift to the early years pupil premium, boosting family hubs and Start for Life, funded by £126 million this year, and investing £370 million to create tens of thousands of places in new and expanded school-based nurseries.
Chris Curtis (Milton Keynes North) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am glad that I am not the only one who has a young person destined for the future in the Gallery today. My hon. Friend has been a huge champion for Milton Keynes, and he is right. After the Tory decline, it is time to turn the page. We have already created 384,000 jobs since the election, and our industrial strategy will create opportunities across the country and invest in jobs and industries of the future, including in Milton Keynes, where East West Rail will help to build 100,000 new homes and put £6.7 million a year in the local economy.
Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)
The Deputy Prime Minister
Again, I know the strength of feeling. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman’s constituent Ronald and all the service personnel who participated in the British nuclear testing programme. I am sure that the Minister for Veterans would be happy to meet him and the veterans to discuss this issue.
Mrs Sureena Brackenridge (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
Under the old guard of the Conservatives, families had to earn less than £7,400, often in low-paid and insecure work, to qualify for free school meals. Under this Labour Government, thousands more children in Wolverhampton North East and 500,000 more across the country will benefit from free school meals. Will the Deputy Prime Minister outline how Labour’s plans will put more money in parents’ pockets?
The Deputy Prime Minister
We are determined to tackle child poverty, which rose catastrophically under the last Government. That is why we are expanding access to free school meals to more than half a million children, which will lift 100,000 of the poorest children out of poverty and put £500 back into parents’ pockets. This is on top of 750 free breakfast clubs, worth £450 a year to parents, and a historic uplift in the national minimum wage, worth up to £2,500 to the lowest-paid workers.
Mr Andrew Snowden (Fylde) (Con)
The Deputy Prime Minister
Maybe the hon. Gentleman wants a go next week, because it has been quite a carousel. The Leader of the Opposition said that she was going to get better week on week—she already has in the last two weeks by not turning up. I am just wondering when she is going to give the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), a go.
Mr Bayo Alaba (Southend East and Rochford) (Lab)
I am proud and honoured to say that I have served this country as a reservist Parachute Regiment soldier. That is why I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our service members and their families during Armed Forces Week. This Labour Government have announced the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war. Will the Deputy Prime Minister set out how the Government will rebuild Britain and secure our defence for the future?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for his service. He is absolutely right—our armed forces represent the very best of Britain, and put their lives on the line for us every day. It is our responsibility to support those who defend us, so we are delivering the biggest sustained boost to defence spending since the end of the cold war. The strategic defence review sets out our vision for defence, driving jobs and prosperity and renewing the nation’s contract with those who serve to secure Britain into the future.
Sir Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I do miss our exchanges. I hope the right hon. Gentleman has been wearing his factor 50—he knows how it can get for us gingers in the hot weather. He also knows that local authorities have planning powers to limit the proliferation of small houses being turned into houses in multiple occupation. His Government left a housing crisis, and I am getting on with fixing that through the 1.5 million homes that we are going to deliver.
Kanishka Narayan (Vale of Glamorgan) (Lab)
Just this week, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) put a singular burning injustice first: the plight of overseas billionaires who pay too much tax. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree with the hon. Member’s priority, or does she agree with me that Reform UK doing sweetheart deals with the super-rich is a betrayal of British working people?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I was asked about the hon. Member for Clacton’s mathematics the other week, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right—the mask has slipped again this week. The hon. Member for Clacton demands billions more in unfunded tax cuts for the very richest while he marches through the Lobby in the House of Commons to vote against sick pay for the lowest earners. We know what would pay for Reform’s tax breaks for overseas billionaires; it would be tax hikes on working people and patients being charged to seeing their doctor. Labour will not let that happen.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am really sorry to hear about Axel and the other cases that the hon. Member mentioned. Those with special educational needs deserve proper support and should not be left at home. We are determined to fix the SEND system and support children before issues escalate to this type of crisis point. We are investing £3.4 billion this year to deploy specialist teams across early years and primary school settings, helping to identify and respond to speech and language needs, particularly for children with SEND. We will set out our full plans on the reform of SEND this autumn, including support for the early years.
Emma Foody (Cramlington and Killingworth) (Lab/Co-op)
Growth needs to be delivered and felt in all parts of the country, and the infrastructure strategy, changes to the Green Book and the £1.8 billion secured for the north-east are a clear demonstration of our commitment to that. In my area, Moor Farm roundabout is blocking growth and causing misery for people locally. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that improving infrastructure in the north, like at Moor Farm, will show how we are investing in all parts of the country?
The Deputy Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The previous Government did not have a plan for areas like the north-east. I know she has been a champion for the Moor Farm roundabout. This Government are changing the situation by investing £15.6 billion in local transport projects across the country, opening up access to jobs and improving living standards, including in the north-east.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
The Deputy Prime Minister
Well, what the Conservatives were told at the general election was, “We don’t want you.” [Interruption.] All right, I meant “them”: the hon. Gentleman’s Government. He might have slipped through! The one thing that I will say is that the hon. Member has said about his own Government, “There’s a lot of things we should have done that we didn’t do.” To be honest, I could not agree more—and we are getting on and doing it.
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
In Armed Forces Week, will the Deputy Prime Minister join me in paying tribute to my former colleagues at RAF Brize Norton? I know she will share my horror that some on the Opposition Benches responded to the appalling attack on that base not by recognising the consequences of 14 years of Conservative under-investment in our defence, but by personally smearing one of our brave members of the Royal Air Force. Does she agree with me and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Louise Jones) that this Labour Government will always support our armed forces, and that those shameful comments by the deputy leader of Reform, the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice), bring disgrace upon him and his party?
The Deputy Prime Minister
My hon. and gallant Friend speaks with great authenticity and authority on this matter. The attack on RAF Brize Norton was disgraceful, but what was even more disgraceful was Reform blaming the commanding officer—an accomplished woman who has served her country—rather than the criminals who were responsible. That is not leadership, but we should not expect anything better from the party of the Putin apologists.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
The Deputy Prime Minister
We are fixing the foundations of local government after the 14 years of austerity that were inflicted on local government, with the aiding and abetting of the hon. Lady’s party. We have put record funding into local government, with multi-year settlements: we are helping local government, where the last Government ruined it.
Mrs Elsie Blundell (Heywood and Middleton North) (Lab)
Digital black spots—areas without good mobile broadband connectivity—are holding communities back. In Middleton, an area that my right hon. Friend knows well as a fellow Greater Manchester MP, many local businesses and people remain cut off from the economic growth of the wider city region due to the lack of a mobile signal. How can we ensure that this Government’s mission to capitalise on the promise of technology is felt in all parts of the country, including Middleton?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I have experienced digital black spots as well, so I understand my hon. Friend’s frustration. The industrial strategy was launched this week, and there were some great ideas to make sure that we get superfast broadband everywhere and we can all use our phones—to make sure we can get connected, whereas the last Government left us disconnected.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
The Deputy Prime Minister
Israel’s recent action is appalling and counterproductive, and we strongly oppose the expansion of military operations, settler violence and the blocking of humanitarian aid. We have suspended free trade agreement talks and sanctioned extremists supporting settler expansion in the west bank. It is a long-standing principle that genocide is determined by competent international courts and not by Governments, and we do not sell arms directly to the Israel Defence Forces when that might breach international humanitarian law.
Nuclear-certified Aircraft Procurement
(1 day, 13 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on his Department’s plan to procure nuclear-certified F-35A aircraft.
The Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry (Maria Eagle)
The UK will purchase 12 new F-35A fighter jets and join NATO’s dual capable aircraft nuclear mission in a major boost for national security. The Prime Minister has announced at the NATO summit that the UK intends to buy at least a dozen of the dual capable aircraft, which can carry both nuclear and conventional weapons. The Secretary-General of NATO, Mark Rutte, said this morning:
“The UK has declared its nuclear deterrent to NATO for many decades, and I strongly welcome today’s announcement that the UK will now also join NATO’s nuclear mission and procure the F-35A.”
The decision will support 20,000 jobs in the United Kingdom, with 15% of the global supply chain for the jets based in Britain, supporting highly skilled jobs and opportunities for working people and delivering a defence dividend across the country. The announcement responds to two recommendations in the strategic defence review: recommendation 30, that the UK commence discussions
“on the potential benefits and feasibility of enhanced UK participation in NATO’s nuclear mission”,
and recommendation 46, on the mix of F-35B and F-35A.
The purchase represents the biggest strengthening of the UK’s nuclear posture in a generation, and reintroduces a nuclear role for the Royal Air Force for the first time since the UK retired its sovereign air-launched nuclear weapons following the end of the cold war. The UK’s commitment to NATO is unquestionable, as is the alliance’s contribution to keeping the UK safe and secure, but we must all step up to protect the Euro-Atlantic area for generations to come.
James Cartlidge
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. You will recall that the Government’s plan, announced today, to procure nuclear-certified F-35As was previously covered in The Sunday Times the day before the SDR was published. You therefore granted an urgent question that day on this very subject, but we received no meaningful answers at all. I hope the Minister can be more forthcoming today.
On 25 May, I wrote in the Express that our nuclear forces needed to be “even more resilient”, including in respect of the continuous at-sea deterrent, but also,
“potentially, by diversifying our methods for delivering nuclear strike.”
That is because we have to recognise the threat posed by Russia in particular, and its ability to operate nuclear weapons at tactical and theatre levels. To deter effectively, we must be able to do the same.
In principle, then, I welcome the announcement, but I have the following questions. What is the anticipated in-service date for the 12 F-35As? Will they already be nuclear certified, or will that occur after delivery? We note that the 12 F-35As will be ordered instead of 12 F-35Bs, but will the Government still order the remaining F-35Bs as planned? How will the F-35As be air-to-air refuelled, given that the current RAF refuelling capability is probe and drogue? On operational sovereignty, we are fully committed to our strong military partnership with the United States, but given that the announcement is about diversity of delivery, has the Department given any thought to additional tactical options for which we have greater industrial input, such as Storm Shadow and Typhoon?
Ironically, it was Lord Robertson, as Defence Secretary in 1998, who removed our last air-launched nuclear capabilities. It is noteworthy that, as one of the authors of the SDR, he said to the Select Committee recently that the authors were
“not terribly enthusiastic about it.”
That is before we get to the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary voted against the renewal of Trident. On this side of the House, we wholeheartedly back our nuclear deterrent. Does this situation not show why we need a robust plan to get to 3% on defence in this Parliament, rather than Labour’s smoke-and-mirrors and lack of a fully funded plan to properly increase defence spending in this Parliament?
Maria Eagle
On the in-service date, as the Secretary of State said this morning, we are hopeful that the aircraft will start delivering before the end of the decade. On the tranche being ordered that will now include 12 F-35As, yes, we will still be ordering the remaining F-35Bs, so there will be 15 extra F-35Bs in the next tranche. On refuelling, this is a NATO mission, and NATO will of course be able to do the air-to-air refuelling. It is quite normal for different allies to contribute their different capabilities, whether nuclear capable or conventional, to NATO’s nuclear mission.
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
I welcome the announcement and, on behalf of the Defence Committee, I welcome the additional detail that has been added to the SDR. It is imperative that we recognise and close some of the gaps in our national defence, including the size and shape of our combat air force, and this announcement does part of that. But 14 years of under-investment mean that some of the choices about basing and complementary capabilities will bring some challenges; will the Minister provide additional detail on how some of them may be addressed?
Maria Eagle
I am pleased that my hon. Friend is supportive of the announcement. As the House is aware, this Government have increased our defence spending by more than at any time since the end of the cold war. The increase is fully funded, unlike some of the fantasy plans of the previous Government.
Maria Eagle
We have shown how we will increase spending to 2.6% of GDP by 2027. That is fully funded, and we have made clear how we will get to 3% in the next Parliament, as conditions allow. The announcement was made today at NATO of a 5% target; all allies will focus on providing that funding in due course. Over the next 10 years, NATO will check every year, as it always does, whether its requirements are being met, and we fully expect to be able to meet them.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
It is clear that we have entered a new and uncertain era. Putin’s imperialism represents a once-in-a-generation threat to our security. We must maintain the effectiveness of the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent to stop Putin or anyone else launching a nuclear attack. It remains the ultimate guarantor of Britain’s security.
We support more investment in our defence capability, but we need more detail on the proposed use cases for the F-35As, and on their relation to our existing strong deterrent through Trident. We also need a clear explanation of why the Government have chosen this priority over others. There are still huge gaps in the armed forces, including as a result of 10,000 troops being cut by the Conservatives, and those gaps need filling if we are to show Putin that we are serious. Can the Minister confirm whether the Government will move further, faster, in rebuilding the strength and size of the other essential guarantor of UK security and deterrence—the British Army?
Maria Eagle
I am glad that the hon. Lady supports these measures. As I have already made clear, this decision is not at the expense of buying more F-35Bs, which we will do. The extent to which we fully implement the strategic defence review, and the order in which we implement its recommendations, will be decided through our investment plan, which is being worked on now and will be fully published and available in due course. There is no doubt that, as she says, the threats we face are increasing. We need to make sure that we are capable of deterring those threats, with our allies in NATO, and this decision will assist us in that. By joining the NATO nuclear mission, we will be able to play our part. As we said in the SDR, our policy is “NATO first”, and our commitment to NATO is unshakeable.
Mr Paul Foster (South Ribble) (Lab)
I commend the Government on the prompt procurement of the F-35A fixed-wing, which is of huge strategic importance, but this is already creating great uncertainty in Lancashire—in Chorley, Mr Speaker, and in my constituency of South Ribble—where the workforce of the Typhoon Eurofighter live. Can the Minister please assure me that the Government will still be constant in looking to procure the Typhoon aircraft for the RAF? Also, with our NATO partners all increasing their defence spending, is there not a huge opportunity to urge them to procure the Typhoon Eurofighter as well?
Maria Eagle
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. What we are talking about does not of course preclude any support for the Typhoon. We are very committed to our Typhoons, and we are committed to upgrading them, as per our existing plans. We are engaged in many efforts to export, and one would hope that some of them will come off at some point in the not-too-distant future.
We are very keen on making sure that the skills and abilities of the workforce at Warton are fully used. We of course have the future combat air system and the global combat air programme, which will use those skills in the longer term. Many people working for BAE Systems—not at Warton, but at Samlesbury—make parts for the F-35, and I think they will be pleased to hear the announcement today.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
I join Conservative Front Benchers in welcoming the answer to the urgent question, although maybe it should have been a statement. May I ask about autonomy and national sovereignty over the weapons system that will be deployed from this aircraft? There is considerable press reporting that it will be dual key, meaning that the Brits cannot use it without American say-so. Is that true? If so, why has the Ministry of Defence elected to take that option, rather than having full national sovereignty?
Maria Eagle
We have a fully sovereign national nuclear capability—a continuous at-sea deterrent—that is dedicated totally to NATO and to protecting the European homeland. The current decision is about joining the NATO nuclear mission. Any deployment under that mission requires the agreement of the NATO nuclear planning group of 31 allies, who act as a senior body on nuclear matters in the alliance. Under that governance arrangement, the UK will always retain the right to decide whether or not to participate.
Louise Jones (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)
May I say how much I welcome this announcement, and the extra capability that it will bring? Will the Minister outline how this decision will support jobs across the UK, particularly for those in my constituency of North East Derbyshire who work in defence?
Maria Eagle
The procurement of the F-35As and the next tranche of F-35Bs will support 20,000 jobs across the UK, with over 100 UK-based suppliers contributing to the F-35 programme. That demonstrates yet again that defence can be an engine for growth, because these are good jobs across all parts of the nations and regions of the UK, including in my hon. Friend’s constituency.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
I fully welcome the announcement, and I thank the Minister for making the statement. In an age of uncertainty about the reliability of our US ally, it seems an odd choice to be leaning into them, in the sense that we will be dropping dual-key, US-made munitions from these planes. It makes more sense if this is a stepping stone to a fully sovereign UK capability, but that would raise questions about the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Will the Minister comment on whether this is a stepping stone to a fully sovereign UK capability?
Maria Eagle
It is not such a step. We are joining the NATO nuclear mission. We have just published a strategic defence review that sets out that our defence posture is “NATO first”. We are trying to support our allies in NATO in deterring any threat that might come from possible adversaries; that is what this is about. It is not a stepping stone to anything else.
Kevin Bonavia (Stevenage) (Lab)
I also welcome this announcement of increased capability—the F-35As that will be brought to the defence of this country. This announcement, which is in line with the strategic defence review, shows that this country is once again serious about defence. What response have we had from our NATO allies to our joining NATO’s nuclear mission?
Maria Eagle
I welcome my hon. Friend’s support. We have had strong support from our allies in NATO. In my reply to the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), I read out the response of the Secretary-General, who was full of praise.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
The Minister is well aware of my interest in the F-35 programme. Lockheed Martin manufactures around 150 jets a year, and there are nearly 600 on order by everyone from Switzerland to Singapore. On top of that, there are 1,200 still to be delivered to the US air force, so whereabouts are we in the queue? She mentioned that we would expect the first deliveries before the end of decade, but are we cutting to the front of the line? Given that the orders from some allies are not due to be fulfilled until 2032, will delivery of all 12 planes be completed within a decade? On refuelling, will she clarify that we have no sovereign air-to-air refuelling capability outside of a NATO mission?
Maria Eagle
I know that the hon. Gentleman has a very close interest in these matters because I have to answer all his parliamentary questions, and I welcome that interest. As the Secretary of State said this morning, we hope that we can start receiving delivery of these planes before the end of the decade. The hon. Gentleman is right that any manufacturing capability has queues, but orders are subject to contractual discussions and arrangements can be made, so that is what we are aiming for. Obviously, we will keep the House informed of how we get on.
Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)
I welcome the news that our deterrence capability will be enhanced and made more flexible as we take another step on the escalatory ladder. We are talking about a US aircraft with substantial UK industrial participation, a US weapon, US-UK decision making and a NATO mission. Does the Minister agree that this is a powerful statement about the strength of the special relationship between the US and the UK, and the strength of the NATO alliance?
Maria Eagle
I agree very much with both points. The decision indicates the strength of our alliance with the US, as well as the growing strength of NATO.
Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)
I do not understand industrially or militarily why the F-35 is the default choice. If the F-35 can be delivered only by the end of the decade, why is Tempest, which is more than capable of being delivered by the mid-2030s, not being considered? That is if we agree with the decision to be part of the nuclear sharing enterprise, and I do not agree with that, because no other nuclear-armed state takes part in nuclear sharing, no other P5 member delivers any other nation’s nuclear deterrent, and no nuclear power in the world delivers anyone else’s nuclear weapons.
Maria Eagle
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. We are committed to buying 138 F-35s in the next tranche of F-35s. We have substituted 12 F-35As for what would have been 12 F-35Bs, so there is that change to the mix, as recommended in the strategic defence review. One of the recommendations was that we should consider the mix, and we have considered it. Another was that we should rejoin the NATO nuclear mission; we have considered that and consulted, and we are acting. We have already implemented two of the major recommendations of the SDR. Given the welcome that the SDR had from Members around the House, we should all be glad to see the implementation of those recommendations.
Tristan Osborne (Chatham and Aylesford) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for the welcome announcement of the F-35A programme, which comes at a time when this Government are increasing defence spending at a rate not seen since the cold war. BAE Systems, in my constituency, is one of the companies leading on the programme to support avionics for our forces, and there is an outstanding invitation for the Minister to visit the company. Will she confirm that this announcement will mean a significant increase in jobs and opportunities, including apprenticeships for local people, young people, and constituents across my area and the country?
Maria Eagle
Yes. I have been reminded of my promise to visit; that is on the list, and the visit will move closer to the top of the list after today. I agree with my hon. Friend. If we are to deter potential aggressors and adversaries, it is key that we implement the findings of the SDR and increase our capability, and that is what we are doing.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
May I encourage the Government not to be at all bashful about the fact that the decision on whether one of these weapons will be used—heaven forbid—will be an American one? There is a long tradition of American nuclear weapons being based in NATO countries, not least the Cruise and Pershing missiles of the 1980s, which helped to end the cold war. Will the Minister confirm that not only does this fill a gap in our deterrence spectrum, but it reasserts the commitment of the United States to the defence of the other NATO countries?
Maria Eagle
The right hon. Gentleman is correct that the decision does all those things, and he has made a very good point.
Chris McDonald (Stockton North) (Lab)
I welcome the acquisition of the F-35As, not least for the impact it will have on industry and jobs in my constituency. In answer to the question about refuelling, the Minister described very well how this new capability meshes with existing NATO capability. Will she say a little more about how this capability supports the defence of not only the UK, but our NATO allies?
Maria Eagle
My hon. Friend is correct. In addition to the industrial benefits that we ought to glean from increasing the F-35 order, it is absolutely right that it strengthens NATO. That is what the strategic defence review said that we should focus on, and NATO first is what we are doing. Rejoining the NATO nuclear mission is a striking commitment. We accepted the recommendation to make that commitment and we are now implementing it.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
I also welcome this announcement, but can we talk about money? We already know that 20% of our defence budget is spent on the nuclear deterrent. It is disproportionately expensive. If we are now extending the nuclear capability with these airdrop weapons, what impact will that have on the budget for the rest of our conventional armed forces?
Maria Eagle
I welcome the hon. Lady’s support. The F-35As are actually cheaper than the F-35Bs, so replacing 12 F-35B orders with 12 F-35A orders is a cheaper option and she does not have to be too concerned about the direct impact of the decision on budgets. The total cost of the next procurement tranche, including the 12 F-35A models, will be an estimated £3.2 billion, but these are plans that were there and that we are now funding.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
Will my right hon. Friend join me in praising the Rugby No. 1 branch of the Royal British Legion, who I believe are in Tesco this week for a service, and the Hillmorton branch of the RBL, who will be holding a ceremony on Armed Forces Day? I was pleased to see that this commitment will support 20,000 jobs across the UK in the years to come, with over 100 UK-based suppliers contributing to the F-35 programme. Does she agree that this demonstrates that our national security and economic security go hand in hand, and that this Government will deliver that?
Maria Eagle
I commend my hon. Friend’s Royal British Legion branches who are getting on with what many of us are doing in Armed Forces Week, which is attending events that show our appreciation for our armed forces in every part of the UK. He is correct to say that, in addition to deterring our enemy and supporting NATO and our allies more strongly, there is growth potential and economic benefit from the spending that we put into our armed forces and our capabilities.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The proposed NATO 5% target will be split into two categories: a new, broader set of defence-related items at up to 1.5% of GDP, alongside a commitment to spend at least 3.5% of GDP on traditional defence. Will the Minister confirm the UK Government’s commitment to article 2 of the NATO treaty on the development of peaceful and friendly international relations? Will she also confirm that funding for UN peacekeeping missions qualifies as defence spending to NATO and that this budget will not lose out on the increase in the MOD budget?
Maria Eagle
I would argue that defence spending is there to create peace, not to fight wars. It is cheaper to deter wars than it is to end up fighting them, so I would argue that our commitment to 2.6%, as it will be by 2027, to 3% in the next Parliament and then on to the 5% target—including the 1.5% broader definition—by 2035 shows a very strong commitment across NATO to do just that. Let’s deter these wars.
Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister’s response to the urgent question. The purchase of 12 new F-35A aircraft will increase our nuclear capabilities and shows that our commitment to NATO is unshakeable. As the chair of the Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire all-party parliamentary group, I am always on the lookout for opportunities for growth in my region. Given that this announcement supports 20,000 jobs and places 15% of the global supply chain in the UK, will the Minister say how that will benefit my region and how she will ensure that all the investment, jobs and growth opportunities will be spread to each part of the UK?
Maria Eagle
I cannot say precisely whether any of the 100 companies that are UK-based suppliers on this programme are in my hon. Friend’s constituency or his region—I will have to go away and look it up—but I do know that these procurements spread prosperity around all regions and nations of the UK. That is one great thing about the defence industry: it provides jobs and growth across the UK.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (North Cotswolds) (Con)
I welcome the Minister for Defence Procurement’s announcement. This is welcome news for our country. Given that in-service dates for key pieces of military equipment are often later than predicted, has she given any thought to training our pilots in advance of delivery, either on a simulator or by embedding them into a unit that operates these planes around the world, so that we are ready to hit the ground running as soon as they are delivered?
Maria Eagle
The hon. Gentleman is correct. Anything that can bring in-service dates forward slightly by planning and training in advance is something that we will be in favour of trying to do. These days it is much more the case that such arrangements are thought of at the same time as the procurement, so I am certain that we will be on to the point that he makes.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
Following on from the previous question, I have to declare that I have flown an F-35—[Hon. Members: “Ooh!”] It was a simulator. Dramatic pause there. There are companies in Edinburgh that are involved in the supply chain and I was keen to see what they were constructing.
I welcome the Minister’s leadership on this. It is a fantastic sign that we are absolutely committed to NATO, and it is also a fantastic advertisement for our young people who are looking for a great career. They need look no further than the RAF. Much of the discussion has focused on the nuclear capabilities of this aircraft, but can she confirm that it could have a much wider role and be put to much greater use?
Maria Eagle
My hon. Friend is correct. This is a dual-capability aircraft, which will not only be used to fly NATO nuclear missions but be available to do training and all the other things that our fantastic pilots in the RAF do.
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
I feel like a lone voice, but in an increasingly unstable world I personally find it quite harrowing that the British Air Force might be flying planes that can drop nuclear bombs and where that might lead. Can the Minister tell us whether, under this agreement, tactical nuclear weapons will be stored on UK soil; and if so, what safety and security measures the Government will be undertaking for their storage?
Maria Eagle
I am not sure I quite understood that question, Mr Speaker. What I can say, though, is that we do not normally confirm or deny where nuclear weapons might be stored. It is not something that we have ever done. I think that is what the hon. Member was asking, but I am not absolutely sure. I would be happy to speak to her afterwards if I have got that question wrong.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Have any alternative platforms been considered for the potential delivery of a tactical nuclear weapon? In particular, have the Government looked at the Astute class attack submarine as an alternative or additional platform, or at its successor, the SSN-AUKUS?
Maria Eagle
We are not seeking to widen our range of nuclear capability. We are joining the NATO nuclear mission and contributing to that. As I said earlier, this is not some kind of stepping stone to acquiring tactical nuclear weapons. Our nuclear deterrent is our submarine-operated continuous at-sea deterrent—CASD—and that is how it will continue.
Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
The prospect of UK fighter jets carrying Donald Trump’s nuclear bombs cannot be anybody’s vision of security. This decision flies in the face of our obligations under the non-proliferation treaty. It ties us further into a US military that cannot even keep its own classified intelligence secure. It ties us further to a Trump Administration who are the very definition of a loose cannon. Given the inescapable truth that nuclear weapons make the world more dangerous, and that normalising tactical weapons is incredibly reckless, how can the Minister possibly justify this decision?
Maria Eagle
First, what I have announced today is compliant with the non-proliferation treaty—
Maria Eagle
It is compliant with the non-proliferation treaty. The NATO nuclear mission has as a governance the NATO nuclear planning group of 31 allies—everybody gets a say—so it is not a question of it being Donald Trump or any other US President’s nuclear bomb. This is a NATO mission to defend Europe and to do what NATO was set up to do: deter another war.
Mr Andrew Snowden (Fylde) (Con)
On 6 January, I raised with the Minister in this Chamber the fact that refurbishing Typhoons will not touch the sides of maintaining the 6,000-strong workforce at Warton, in my constituency, and that relying on export orders that have not been secured will not keep the workforce in work for now, before the GCAP comes online. When I asked the Minister whether she would give a delayed Christmas present of an order for 25 Typhoons, she replied:
“It might not be a Christmas present—I do not know when his birthday is—but a present some time later.”—[Official Report, 6 January 2025; Vol. 759, c. 586.]
We were awaiting an order of Typhoons for the Warton site in the strategic defence review, but it turned out to contain an empty box instead of a present. If the Minister was not simply buying time and giving false hope to the workforce then, when will we see the order of 25 Typhoon jets for the RAF?
Maria Eagle
I do not think the previous Government were committed to buying Typhoons, so I do not see why the hon. Gentleman should be so outraged by the fact that after less than a year, we have not yet ordered any more Typhoons. We are committed to the Typhoon fleet that we have. The buying of any more will have to be considered in the investment plan that is being worked on now. Other European nations are buying some Typhoons, so there is some work there, although I know they are not assembled at Warton if other nations buy them. We also have export orders that we are trying to pursue. Although I cannot advance what I said to the hon. Gentleman previously, it is something that I am very conscious of, and we will continue to see what can be done about the future of our Typhoon fleet. We are committed to the fleet that we have and to the upgrades that we need.
Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)
In response to an earlier question, I was pleased to hear the Minister commit to seeking to compress the timetable between delivery and the in-service date. I believe I heard the Minister say that the delivery date was the back end of the 2020s. Can she confirm the anticipated in-service date?
Maria Eagle
I cannot confirm the anticipated in-service date beyond saying that we are hopeful that we will get the aircraft as soon as possible and that we will be able to use them as soon as possible thereafter, subject to all the usual requirements to get something in service. That is as good as I can do for the hon. Gentleman today, I am afraid.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
The Minister just confirmed that the UK adheres to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. That treaty requires the declared nuclear-armed states not to allow proliferation and to take steps towards nuclear disarmament. What the Minister has announced today is an increase in nuclear capability, with the construction of new nuclear warheads that can obviously be used anywhere in the world by airdropping them. Can she explain how it is possible to say that this announcement is in compliance with the NPT when it is so obviously and clearly the very opposite of that?
Maria Eagle
The right hon. Gentleman is wrong, I am afraid. It is in compliance with the non-proliferation treaty. The NATO nuclear mission would carry US nuclear weapons, which are already subject to the non-proliferation treaty. What we are announcing today is the buying of aircraft that are capable of assisting with that mission, not the purchasing of new nuclear weapons. I hope that is clear for the right hon. Gentleman.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Clearly, the aim is to enhance what NATO has as a defensive structure, so will the Minister confirm that this is not a substitute for any of our other NATO allies withdrawing aircraft from service, and that we are adding to the potential cover against threat in case we are attacked?
Maria Eagle
We are adding some of our capability to the NATO nuclear mission by purchasing these weapons, which has been welcomed by our allies and by the NATO Secretary-General as improving the position for the NATO nuclear mission.
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
I thank the Minister for her statement. Following the announcement of the purchase of these 12 F-35As, I have read concerns expressed by defence analysts this morning over the size of this fleet and whether it truly represents either a capable offensive launch or, indeed, a capable deterrent. In earlier statements, I think the Minister has said both that these F-35s are part of the current F-35 purchase envelope and, potentially, that these F-35s are in addition to those currently on order. I would be grateful for clarification on that point. Finally, could the Minister offer any reflection on the effect that this purchase will have on our commitment to GCAP?
Maria Eagle
For clarity, I did not say that this order was in addition to our already committed tranche of F-35s. I said that we were substituting what would have been 12 F-35Bs with 12 F-35As, so it is not in addition. We already have 39, and we have already purchased 48, not all of which have been delivered. This is a tranche of the next 27, 12 of which will be F-35As and 15 of which will be F-35Bs. It is part of acquiring the next tranche of F-35s that Governments of all stripes have been committed to over the time that the F-35 has been in production.
Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)
I am sure the Minister recognises that in addition to this plan to diversify the deterrent launch method, the UK must ensure that our strategic CASD enterprise has an effective and productive industrial base, delivering faster maintenance times. Can she therefore confirm whether these aircraft will be budgeted from the ringfenced Defence Nuclear Enterprise budget?
Maria Eagle
The ringfenced Defence Nuclear Enterprise budget is not for purchasing aircraft; it is for dealing with our submarines. It is a fair question—I hope that that is a clear answer.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for her answers, which have been positive and strong—it is just what this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland needs today. I welcome the news that these jets are to be procured. Having watched the Red Arrows’ intricate manoeuvres in Newtownards on Armed Forces Day last Saturday, I know that our skilled pilots are world class, and they deserve the tools to do their vital job. I recently read that the Royal Navy has regularly failed to meet recruitment targets since 2011. What can the Minister do to get boots on planes, on boats and on land by enhancing recruitment, particularly in our Royal Navy, at this very important time?
Maria Eagle
Part of our commitment to defence reform is to try to improve our procurement and acquisition to ensure that we meet our contract aspirations more quickly and to give us more control of the budget and more direct lines of accountability so that it will be clearer, if things are going wrong, that there should be intervention. The defence reform agenda that the Department is undertaking should improve our acquisition and procurement arrangements.
John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the rare opportunity against the run of play to follow my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) from Strangford. Mark Rutte, the NATO Secretary-General, has recently congratulated President Trump on his “decisive action in Iran”, which he says “makes us all safer”. Will the Minister take the opportunity to do what no one in government has so far done and congratulate the Americans on taking out the Iranian nuclear programme? If not, will she explain why we are out of step not only with the Americans, but also now with NATO?
Maria Eagle
I think it has been fairly clear from proceedings in the House that the Government have said that we agree that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon, but that, in this instance, we are very keen that diplomacy is the way forward.
Dr Neil Hudson (Epping Forest) (Con)
In Armed Forces Week, I want to thank our brave servicemen and women who do so much to keep us safe. I welcome the Minister’s response to this urgent question tabled by His Majesty’s Opposition, but can she give us a cast-iron reassurance that our continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent will be supported and maintained by His Majesty’s Government, and that they will not contemplate any reduction in the submarine fleet from four to three submarines, which was alarmingly floated by the third party not so long ago?
Maria Eagle
I and the Government have been very clear about our commitment to the continuous at-sea deterrent and to procuring the new Dreadnought boats and the new warhead, so I can give the hon. Member an absolute assurance on that.
Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)
The UK has 225 warheads and a number of nuclear-capable submarines that are in a position to fire at any adversary at short notice. We are now investing in aircraft that can deploy nuclear weapons. Given that we are a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty, will that not be seen as an aggravating feature by nations that are also subscribed to it?
Maria Eagle
No, our continuous at-sea deterrent has been the policy of both governing parties for many years and that has not changed. The announcement today is about our joining the NATO nuclear mission, which carries US weapons that are already accounted for under the non-proliferation treaty. This is not about increasing the number of nuclear weapons that we hold, so it is not, therefore, a breach of the non-proliferation treaty.
Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)
As a member of the RAF contingent of the armed forces parliamentary scheme under Wing Commander Basco Smith, may I take this opportunity to say that the application window is open for next season? If any Member has not applied to it, they should consider doing so. Recently, we visited Marham, the current home of the F-35s. Can the Minister update us on what steps have been taken to remove the risk of attack on centralised basing, and to continue to invest in alternative dispersal bases for our aircraft? While these additional frames are welcome, will the Minister confirm that they are being matched by concurrent investment in the training of pilots and additional crews in the advanced skillsets that will be required for these operations?
Maria Eagle
The hon. Gentleman is correct that one cannot just buy aircraft and not train the relevant people—whether they be pilots, engineers or ground crew—to deal with the necessity of looking after them and operating them. On the matter of security, my hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces made a statement the day before yesterday about the review that is being conducted into the security of our bases, and I hope that that will be reported in due course.
Points of Order
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. On Monday, the High Court ordered a £60,000 cap on contribution to the Government’s legal fees by campaigners seeking justice for the change in the pension age—the so-called WASPI women. This is a major breakthrough for that campaign, which has had support from across the House, including from the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), who is in his place, the hon. Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey) and many others. You will recall, Mr Speaker, that the ombudsman highlighted maladministration by the Department for Work and Pensions, and no Government of any party have stepped up to the mark, including this one. Have you had any notice, Mr Speaker, that the Government will make a statement to the House to see whether an appropriate offer can be made to these women to end this injustice?
Mr Speaker
I assure the right hon. Gentleman that I have had no notice that the Government will come to the House to make a statement. What I can say is that he has certainly put his points on the record, and I know that those on the Treasury Bench will have heard what he had to say.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You may remember that on 23 April, I asked a question in Prime Minister’s questions about blood donations and how people were being turned away because of low haemoglobin levels.
The week before, I had put down some parliamentary questions about diversity and blood donation deferrals. When I got the responses back, I found that up to 70% of black donors were being turned away because of low haemoglobin levels. I had wanted to raise this matter with the Minister directly in a meeting two weeks earlier. This meeting was attended by leaders from the NHS Blood and Transplant service. A few days later, they pulled the answers to the questions that I had presented to them.
NHS Blood and Transplant’s own website states that it can meet the Ro blood type only 50% of the time, which means that black blood donations are extremely important. Since 12 May—for six or seven weeks—I have been trying to get answers to my questions, which I had been told were incorrect. I have been writing to Ministers and to NHS Blood and Transplant. The best that NHSBT could do today was to send me a letter to say that it was sorry, and that it would give a response to me next week. That is outrageous. NHSBT was talking about quality of data, but if any agency should look at its quality of data—given the important service that it provides—it should be NHSBT.
I have a number of other questions as well, but NHSBT needs to understand how much everybody is doing. A few weeks ago, it was National Blood Donor Week and people across the country donated so much that the website crashed. [Interruption.] People are doing their bit, but the same cannot be said of NHSBT.
Mr Speaker
One of us will have to give way, and it will not be me.
First, let me reassure the hon. Lady that I am very, very concerned about questions not being answered in a reasonable timeframe. I think that is totally unacceptable. It is also totally unacceptable to give the wrong answers and for the Department not to take such questions seriously. I take them very seriously. I know that the hon. Lady would not bring this as a point of order if she did not have real concerns. I know that her concerns are genuine, which is something that I am very concerned about. I know that she will keep in touch with me.
I say to the hon. Lady that, after everything she has said, she should consider putting in for an Adjournment debate where this matter could be discussed more widely. I think that that would be a good way to deal with it. I am sure that the Table Office can help the hon. Lady. If answers are not forthcoming, I ask her to please come back to me, perhaps with another point of order, but I must impress on her that she should consider an Adjournment debate, because I genuinely believe that this matter needs to be aired.
I recognise that many Members, from all parts of the House, are struggling to get questions answered and to receive letters. That is not acceptable. I say to those in Government Departments that they must get on with the job that they are there to do. This is all about looking after the Back Benchers of this House.
Bills Presented
Armed Forces (Deployment Outside the UK) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Calum Miller presented a Bill to require parliamentary approval for the deployment of UK armed forces outside the UK; to provide for exemptions from that requirement in cases of emergency or in respect of compliance with treaty obligations; to make provision for retrospective parliamentary approval in certain circumstances; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday on 11 July, and to be printed (Bill 276).
Festivals Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Max Wilkinson presented a Bill to require the Secretary of State to enter into negotiations with the European Union for the purpose of agreeing a visa waiver for UK artists and musicians performing at festivals in EU member states; to make provision to facilitate the movement of artists and musicians, and of their equipment, between the EU and the UK to perform at festivals; to require the Secretary of State to publish a Festivals Strategy; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 11 July, and to be printed (Bill 277).
Criminal Cases Review (Public Petition)
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for the general public to petition the Criminal Cases Review Commission to review sentences that the petitioners believe to be either too harsh or too lenient; to make provision about the review of such sentences; to make provision about the referral of such cases to the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court; and for connected purposes.
Before looking at the provisions, I ask you, Mr Speaker, to join me in a journey of the imagination to a distant, respected democracy, where there is an elected leader, an independent judiciary that is respected and a respected legal system, and where, historically, there has been confidence among the people of this democracy in that judicial and legal system. Then imagine that a bad event occurs, and the elected leader of that distant democracy effectively instructs the judiciary to impose the harshest possible sentences on potential transgressors.
Imagine a scenario where someone in a fit of anger puts out a bad, offensive and inappropriate tweet for a few hours, then calms down, apologises and withdraws it, but because of that tweet is then charged and sentenced in a very serious way—potentially receiving a sentence of some 31 months, which might be significantly longer than the sentence given to a shoplifter, robber, mugger or drug dealer and the like. For people to have confidence in a legal system, sentences must be comparative.
Imagine that while in prison that individual is the recipient of violent maltreatment, including being manhandled to the ground and handcuffed to the point of having significant bruises five days later. Imagine that they are then being dragged up not one, not two but three flights of stairs to the naughty girls wing, when they had been a model prisoner and had been promised to be taken to the good girls wing. Mr Speaker, you may think that that must be happening in some distant democracy and cannot be valid here, but it is with regret that I must bring you back to the reality: that scenario has occurred in the United Kingdom in the last few months.
That is why I am bringing this criminal cases review Bill to the House under the ten-minute rule Bill process. It is known outside this House as Lucy’s Bill. Confidence in our judicial system and the sentences that are handed out is vital. I believe that the public want to trust our system, but justice works when it is natural, fair and decent and when the public believe that sentences are appropriate. If we lose that, potentially we lose everything.
We are all human, and even noble, experienced and wise judges can get things wrong, and there is a system of appeal. But the provisions of the Bill are so important because maybe the public would have ever more confidence in a vibrant democracy and our justice system if there were some kind of treble check, with safeguards over sentences, but without being able to impinge on the original judgment following a case. Let us say that 500 members of the public sign a petition to ask the Criminal Cases Review Commission to reconsider a sentence, and the commission, within eight weeks, felt that the sentence was too lenient or too harsh, it could then be referred to an appropriate court.
That would give people extra trust and confidence in the fairness of our system and the comparative appropriateness of sentences. I believe that people would then feel that this is a democracy and a justice system that works for all, with the appropriate safeguards. It is for that reason that I bring the Bill to the House. I believe that it is worthy of further debate and consideration.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Richard Tice, Nigel Farage, Lee Anderson, Sarah Pochin and James McMurdock present the Bill.
Richard Tice accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 11 July, and to be printed (Bill 275).
Criminal Justice
(1 day, 13 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Chair of the Justice Committee to open the debate.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for this important debate on the spending of the Ministry of Justice on criminal justice.
An effective criminal justice system is vital to the proper functioning of a democratic society. An ineffective criminal justice system presents grave risks for both social and economic stability. We are at a pivotal moment for the health of our criminal justice system, with prisons operating at close to full capacity, coupled with a backlog in the Crown courts of over 74,000 cases. Investment and reform are required.
The Ministry of Justice suffered some of the most severe budget cuts of any Department during the years of Tory austerity. In 2023-24, its resource expenditure level was 11% less in real terms than it had been in 2010-11. I therefore welcome the Labour Government’s investment in the criminal justice system, announced through the main estimates and the spending review. The main estimates confirmed that the MOJ’s day-to-day spending is set to increase by £793 million or 6.5%, which includes further investment in the Prison and Probation Service and the Courts and Tribunals Service. The MOJ’s investment capital spending is also set to increase by £351 million or over 20%, largely driven by investment in creating new prison places and major projects to maintain court capacity and invest in digital systems and security measures.
The spending review also announced £7 billion to be allocated between 2024-25 and 2029-30 to support the delivery of 14,000 urgently needed new prison places by 2031, and an increase of up to £700 million a year for the Probation Service by 2028-29 compared with 2025-26. This is especially important given the recommendations made by David Gauke’s independent sentencing review, which I will come to in a moment. The spending review also announced up to £450 million a year of additional investment for the courts system by 2028-29, aimed at increasing Crown court sitting days and implementing the forthcoming recommendations from Sir Brian Leveson’s independent review of the criminal courts, which is set to deliver its first report next month.
Combining the estimates and the spending review presents a largely positive picture for investment in the MOJ. The estimate for resource expenditure in 2025-26 is 14% more than the spending plans for 2024-25. This increase may help to offset some of the underfunding that the Department was subject to in the 2010s. The estimate for capital expenditure in 2025-26 is 32% more than the plans for the year 2024-25. This will be a record high level of capital expenditure for the MOJ over the course of a financial year. It remains to be seen whether the funding will be enough to address the challenges that the criminal justice system faces.
In the interests of time, I will focus on three key areas: prisons and probation, the courts and legal aid. His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service is the largest body within the MOJ in terms of expenditure. It makes up 47% of the MOJ’s day-to-day spending budget and in the 2025-26 main estimate will make up 82% of its planned capital spending. The prison population has more than doubled over the last 30 years and stands at around 88,000. It continues to grow year on year and is at a record high. If things continue as they are, the prison population will be at 93,500 by September 2026 and over 100,000 by September 2028, and there will not be sufficient places.
The MOJ cites the following reasons for the increase: an increase in police charging activity and flow into the courts; an increase in people on remand, who now make up an astonishing 20% of the prison population; and changes in sentencing policy, which keeps the more serious offenders in prison for much longer.
I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s commitment to build 14,000 prison places by 2031, and I hope that will ensure that emergency measures such as SDS40, which last year saw prisoners released automatically having served 40% of their sentences, do not have to be used again. In the context of the prison capacity crisis, the Government commissioned a sentencing review, which reported last month, by David Gauke, who gave evidence to the Committee last week. Many of the review’s recommendations have been accepted in principle by the Government. They include a recommendation for a new model of sentencing called the “earned progression model”, which could see some prisoners serving fixed-term sentences released after a third of their sentence, dependent on their behaviour. That recommendation and others in the review are aimed at making greater use of non-custodial sentences and therefore attempting to reduce the prison population. I look forward to seeing the detail of how those recommendations will be implemented in the forthcoming sentencing Bill.
Non-custodial sentences will place an additional burden on the already struggling Probation Service, to which I will turn. But, before I do that, could I issue a cautionary note? Even if David Gauke’s recommendations are wholly successful, prisons will still be full, and that has unintended consequences. It means, for example, that prisoners have to be slotted into places where those become available, and rehabilitation is more difficult. As Sky News reported recently, some prisoners are put into lower category prisons—category C and D prisons—years before they should be with regard to their sentence planning, and the prisoner escort service, which is already in a pretty parlous state, often brings prisoners late to court because it is not available at local prisons. Therefore, anything that can be done for effective community punishment and rehabilitation is clearly good.
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
With 80% of offenders being reoffenders, does that not show that our current system is really broken and that we need a different approach? Does my hon. Friend agree that we have an opportunity with the sentencing review to keep our communities safer by properly addressing reoffending?
Andy Slaughter
My hon. Friend, who is knowledgeable on these issues, is absolutely right. We are relying on the implementation of the Gauke review’s recommendations to do two things: to ensure there is capacity in the prisons for the growing number of people being sentenced in our courts; and, in the longer term, to reduce prisoner numbers through effective rehabilitation. That can take place in prisons—not in overcrowded prisons on the whole —but it can take place more effectively in the community by way of getting people back into normal daily life, which prison certainly is not.
In that vein, let me turn to the Probation Service, which will receive an additional £700 million a year to support the reforms in the sentencing review. That is a substantial increase in funding, which is intended to enable probation to supervise more people in the community and expand electronic tagging.
The Probation Service currently manages 240,000 individuals on court order or licence. Worryingly, in last year’s annual report, HM inspectorate of probation labelled 10 local probation services as “requires improvement” and 14 as “inadequate”. It identified staffing challenges, unmanageable workloads, deficits in casework and insufficient management of risk, public protection and safeguarding. However, it also found outstanding statutory victim work, commitment and vision from staff and some good partnership working. The Committee has seen that itself on its visit to probation services.
I will however raise my concern about the ability of Serco, the current electronic tagging provider, to deal with the dramatic increase in demand on its services that will inevitably result from the sentencing Bill. The Committee has been in frequent correspondence with the Prisons Minister to raise our concerns regarding Serco’s poor performance, which has also been highlighted by Channel 4 and its “Dispatches” programme.
The Committee has identified several issues with management of the tagging contract, including substantial delays to the fitting of tags, even to serious offenders. We were shocked to learn that financial penalties have been levied on Serco every month since it took on the service in May 2024. It is unclear how Serco will be able to deal with increased demand given its unacceptable performance in managing the electronic tagging service at its current level.
I turn briefly to conditions in the prison estate. In 2023, HM chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor said that one in 10 prisons should be closed down. He stated that about 14 Victorian jails were so poorly designed, overcrowded and ill-equipped that they could not provide proper accommodation for prisoners. Last year, 63% of prisoners reported overcrowding. That is often with two or more prisoners in a cell that was designed for one person, with no private toilet facilities.
Drugs are an increasing problem in prisons. The Committee has covered that extensively in its “Tackling drugs in prisons” inquiry, which is due to report shortly. Between April 2023 and April 2024, almost 50,000 adults aged 18 and over were in alcohol and drug treatment in prisons and secure settings, which was a 7% rise compared with the previous year. In the 12 months to December 2024, there were 10,600 assaults on prison staff—violence is also on the increase in prison, which is partly a result of the unpredictable environment created by the abundance of drugs available—which is equivalent to 122 assaults per 1,000 prisoners, an increase of 13% from the previous year and the highest number of assaults on prison staff recorded in one year. The use of force by prison officers and rates of self-harm among prisoners have also been increasing in recent years. Self-harm was 10% higher in 2024 than in 2023.
Overcrowding, increased drug use, violence and self-harm contribute towards a distressing environment in prisons such that the vital function of prisons to rehabilitate offenders can be almost impossible in some institutions. We are undertaking a major inquiry into rehabilitation and resettlement, which I hope will shed more light on these troubling pictures.
Beyond all that, we have the continuing scandal of IPP prisoners—those imprisoned for public protection. I recommend to the Minister the proposals published this week by the Howard League on a new approach to IPP prisoners, which would serve to reduce the numbers continuing in custody substantially.
Let me turn to His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service, which is the second-largest body in the MOJ. In the Government’s main estimate for 2025-26, spending on HMCTS accounted for 21% of planned resource spending and 12% of capital spending. The current backlog of outstanding cases in the Crown court stands at about 4,000. That is a result of a number of factors, one of which is the shortage of criminal lawyers, driven by low legal aid pay rates and poor working conditions. The backlog in the courts is detrimental to the lives of thousands of people. Victims, witnesses and defendants alike are forced to wait in limbo for justice.
Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point about court backlogs. Another factor is having the appropriate magistrates, legal advisers and so on to hear these cases. The Magistrates’ Association has raised concerns that the spending review allocation is insufficient to tackle that. Does he share those concerns?
Andy Slaughter
I do share those concerns. I want to take only a few more minutes with my speech, so I do not have time to go into what is happening in the magistrates courts as well—that is a debate for another day—but the shortage of magistrates, the shortage of legal clerks and low pay rates across HMCTS are clearly some of the factors that prevent us from getting to grips with the backlog, even though I have no doubt the Government wish to do that.
I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s allocation of 110,000 sitting days in the Crown court for 2025-26: the highest sitting-day allocation made since HMCTS was created and the biggest financial settlement ever made for the Crown court. I hope that that is enough to bring about some reduction in the backlog. However, I note that the allocation is below the 113,000 days that the Lady Chief Justice told the Committee the Crown court could sit for in the last financial year, and there have been similar increases in sitting days for other courts, including the magistrates court, which will sit for up to 114,000 days a year.
The Government have acknowledged that the allocation of days is not enough on its own to severely reduce the backlog in the Crown courts and that more radical reform is required. I therefore welcome Sir Brian Leveson’s independent review of criminal courts, which will propose options for both short and long-term reforms aimed at ensuring cases are dealt with proportionately in the light of current pressures on the Crown court and explore how the courts could operate as efficiently as possible. I look forward to the first report of the review, which is due to be published next month.
I will briefly touch on the role of the Legal Aid Agency. In terms of expenditure, the LAA is the third largest body within MOJ. Its day-to-day budget was around £0.9 billion, which comprised 8% of the MOJ’s total resource budget. Between 2009-10 and 2023-24, resource expenditure on legal aid decreased by 2% in cash terms and by 31% in real terms. I was surprised to see that the spending review did not include a specific funding allocation for the Legal Aid Agency; the only reference to it was in the context of potential efficiency savings that the MOJ will make in the review period.
Concerns have been raised about the sustainability of the criminal legal aid sector, given the number of legal aid firms and of solicitors and barristers practising in this area. In March 2025, the Law Society said that the number of criminal duty solicitors had fallen by 26% since 2017 and that that may, in future,
“leave many individuals unable to access their right to a solicitor and free advice.”
Even though I welcome the MOJ’s announcements in December 2024 of an additional £92 million per year for criminal aid solicitors, and I look forward to seeing the results of its consultation on that, it may well not be enough. Indeed, the 15% uplift in criminal barristers’ fees as a consequence of the Bellamy review took so long to come in and was so far overtaken by other increases in cost that that again needs to be looked at in the near future if we are to sustain the criminal Bar.
Linsey Farnsworth (Amber Valley) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the lack of legal aid solicitors and barristers will only compound the problems of the court backlog? That is because cases will either have to be adjourned as a consequence of lack of legal counsel or they will take longer when defendants appear without legal counsel because those defendants will need more time and support from the court and other court services. Is my hon. Friend concerned about that?
Andy Slaughter
That is already happening. Non-availability of counsel, whether Crime Prosecution Service or defence counsel, is already one of the main reasons for ineffective trials. I therefore hope we will hear something about that and the Government’s plans to alleviate it when the Minister responds.
I briefly mention the cyber-attack that the Legal Aid Agency was subject to in April. The attack revealed serious concerns about the robustness of Government-managed digital services and the protection of sensitive data, and holds risks for the day-to-day operation of the justice system. We need the further statement that the Courts Minister promised on the steps being taken to recover that position—not today, perhaps, but soon—and the Committee will conduct its own inquiry into access to justice, beginning with a call to evidence this summer.
I reemphasise the importance of the role the criminal justice system plays in the proper functioning of our society. Out of sight should not be out of mind, in that respect. I appreciate the steps that this Government are taking and the struggle and the tasks that they have going forward. However, there is so much to do that we need to get on with it in a speedy fashion.
Finally, let me thank all those who work in the criminal justice system: those who risk their lives and their safety as frontline prison officers and probation officers, and those who keep the system running—judges, barristers and court staff. Across the piece, we see people going above and beyond because of the situation in which the system has been left. I am sure this is one point that will unite both sides of the House: we all appreciate the work that goes on every day to keep people safe and to ensure that justice is done.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
The Chancellor substantially increased the budget of the Ministry of Justice in the spending review from £11.9 billion in 2023-24 to £15.6 billion in 2028-29. We are told that that is a real-terms increase of 3.1% over five years. It is our duty in this place not just to applaud ever larger sums of money being spent, but to scrutinise whether that money is spent well and to ensure it represents good value for money for the taxpayer. There is no question but that the criminal justice system is under strain. I trust the Lord Chancellor will do her best to ensure that she uses the money wisely to fix the various problems the Chairman of the Select Committee has described.
One of the biggest problems facing the criminal justice system is the Crown court backlog. As of the end of 2024, almost 75,000 cases were awaiting trial. That is an increase on the figure when the Lord Chancellor took office and it is projected to rise further. Justice delayed is justice denied. Witnesses’ memories fade and victims feel that they have been forgotten. I appreciate that much of that rise was caused by the pandemic, and we are still dealing with the fallout, but the Lord Chancellor must do more to reduce that backlog.
Although there is more money for the courts as part of the spending review, we need to ensure it is effectively deployed. The Government say it is a priority, yet we still have empty courtrooms. When the Lady Chief Justice came to Parliament last November, she offered 6,500 additional sitting days. Will the Minister explain why the Lord Chancellor did not accept every single one of the extra days offered? The Lord Chancellor must use the additional money she has been given to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of both the Crown and magistrates courts, and to reduce the backlogs.
The justice system also faces a lack of prison spaces. The Gauke review, commissioned by the Lord Chancellor, has effectively recommended the ending of short prison sentences in favour of community sentences. About half of admissions to prison are for sentences of less than 12 months. The Howard League says that about 30,000 people a year are sentenced to six months or less. Setting aside for one moment whether that is the right policy, which I doubt, if it is implemented by the Government it will require a very large increase in the number of probation officers.
Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)
My hon. Friend talks about probation and prison places. Does he share my concern that it is all very well for the Government to announce £7 billion to deliver prison places by 2031, which is six years away, while 16,000 prisoners are walking the streets because they were released earlier by this Government? What will happen in the next six years? Will more prisoners be released early while we wait for those prison places?
Sir Ashley Fox
The danger is that the public lose confidence in the criminal justice system if prisoners are released so early. As I mentioned, there is already a shortfall of nearly 2,000 probation officers. In fact, there are now 200 fewer probation officers than when Labour took office. If the Government intend to go ahead with this plan, we need to know how they plan to recruit the additional probation officers that they will need. What is their plan? If they go ahead with abolishing short sentences, those community sentences will have to be seen by the public to be really tough and worthwhile if the criminal justice system is to retain confidence. I fear that the Government do not have a plan for that. Although we see more money allocated in the budget for prison and probation services, we do not get any detail about what that means for the recruitment of those extra probation officers. I would be grateful if the Minister could address that point.
I also ask the Government to look at other methods of alleviating the strain on prison places that do not involve additional expenditure—for example, deporting foreign national offenders. There are currently 11,000 foreign offenders in our prisons, but our record on deporting them remains poor. Only 3,500 were deported last year, and too many are still able to avoid deportation by using the European convention on human rights. This needs to change. The Government have said that they will review the right to family life being used in appeals in serious cases related to asylum seekers who have been convicted of sexual offences. I welcome that, but we need to go much further. We should deport all foreign national offenders at the end of their sentences and disapply the Human Rights Act.
The obvious way to ensure that we have enough prison spaces in the longer term is to build more prisons. During the general election campaign, Labour promised to build 20,000 additional places, but in the year since the Government took office, little progress has been made, and it was recently revealed that they have actually cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the capital budget to cover the cost of pay increases for staff and the imposition of the Chancellor’s jobs tax.
It is always tempting to welcome an increase to a Department’s budget, but we need to ensure that the spending is matched by proper accountability and planning. We cannot afford for this new funding to be simply absorbed by justice bureaucracy. Will the Minister explain how much of the extra money that his Department has been allocated will go in additional national insurance charges, wage rises and inflation? It is simply not credible to make countless promises in opposition or on the campaign trail, only to quietly shelve them when in office. The Opposition will hold the Government to account for the commitments they have given.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool Riverside) (Lab)
I thank my good friend, the Chair of the Justice Committee, for his excellent speech and for securing this debate. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in it and I declare my interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for miscarriages of justice. I welcome the estimate and the commitment in the spending review, but I want to focus my remarks on an area of grave concern: Ministry of Justice spending on criminal justice—and, more specifically, the adequate prevention and correction of miscarriages of justice.
What is the value of justice if innocent people are still being convicted, imprisoned and left to rot in our criminal justice system? The sad truth is that for all the billions we debate today, the Ministry is failing in one of its most fundamental duties: ensuring that innocent people are protected from wrongful conviction and supported when the system fails them. Miscarriages of justice are not theoretical; they are real and ongoing, and they destroy lives.
Andrew Malkinson was wrongfully imprisoned for 17 years for a crime he did not commit. He was exonerated last year, but only after a tortuous journey through a system that was more interested in protecting itself than uncovering the truth. Peter Sullivan, wrongfully convicted of murder, spent 38 years in prison before being exonerated only last month. He is a victim of the longest miscarriage of justice involving a living prisoner in British legal history. These cases expose deep systemic flaws and happened in plain sight, but across the country individuals are experiencing criminalisation and injustice without proper recourse. Their names do not always make the headlines, but their stories are no less important. Miscarriages of justice are not rare accidents; sadly, they are now an inevitable consequence of a failing system stripped of its checks and balances.
At the heart of that system is the Criminal Cases Review Commission—a body that was designed to be the safety net, to identify where the system had gone wrong and to help innocent people find justice. Yet the CCRC is in crisis. In May, the Justice Committee published a damning indictment of its leadership and performance. It stated that the CCRC had shown
“a remarkable inability to learn from its own mistakes”
and that it had “deteriorated significantly” in its ability to fulfil its vital function. The Committee concluded that “root and branch reform” is required, and it is found in the clearest possible terms that it was untenable for the current chief executive Karen Kneller to remain in post. That is not political rhetoric; it is a cross-party Committee of this House carrying out its scrutiny function and reaching deeply troubling conclusions.
The CCRC’s failures come at a terrible cost, not only to those wrongfully convicted but to public confidence in the rule of law. Every year that it fails to identify miscarriages, innocent people remain behind bars, their lives on hold or, worse, permanently destroyed. But I also want to acknowledge a step in the right direction. I welcome the appointment of Dame Vera Baird KC as the interim chair of the CCRC. Dame Vera has a long and respected record of championing justice and accountability. I hope her leadership marks a turning point, and I look forward to seeing real progress, not just in leadership, but in culture, performance and independence. For that to happen, the Government must take these responsibilities seriously. Reform cannot come on the cheap. The CCRC must be properly resourced and empowered to do the job it was created to do, because until we properly fund our safeguard, miscarriages of justice will continue, the human cost will remain unbearable and the financial cost unsustainable.
I also want to touch on two areas critical to justice: legal aid and forensic sciences. Since 2010, funding has been slashed by hundreds of millions of pounds, and access to justice and representation is now a postcode lottery. We are seeing the collapse of criminal defence provision across England and Wales. There are now entire areas with no local legal aid solicitors, which disproportionately affects those from marginalised groups—those most vulnerable to miscarriages of justice.
Forensic science, which was once the gold standard, has been fragmented and degraded. A three-year inquiry into forensics set up by the APPG for miscarriages of justice recently concluded that the sector is in a “graveyard spiral”, leading to poor police investigations, increasing numbers of unsolved crimes and more wrongful convictions. Evidence shows that our system continues to fail to ensure not only the prevention of miscarriages of justice, but their speedy identification and resolution when they do occur. We support calls for a full national audit of forensic provision to access the urgent support needed to prevent further decline and to protect future investigations and trials from preventable failure.
Let me turn to prisons and the chronic underfunding that is failing staff and those in custody. At the justice unions parliamentary group yesterday, I heard at first hand about the crisis in prison education. According to Ofsted, 82% of prisons and young offender institutions are rated “inadequate” or “requires improvement” for education, skills and work provision. Prison educators are paid less than their counterparts in the wider further education sector. The Education Committee warned in 2022 that poor pay, unsafe working environments and a lack of respect have driven a recruitment and retention crisis. That is unacceptable. Education is one of the most powerful tools for rehabilitation, yet we are underfunding and undervaluing the very people delivering it.
The same is true of prison maintenance. Privatisation has been a costly failure. Basic repairs remain undone, squalor is widespread and the maintenance backlog is estimated to cost nearly £2 billion. I support the POA’s “Bring it Back” campaign for insourcing prison maintenance. The promised biggest wave of insourcing in a generation must start here. In our crumbling prisons, where contracts have failed, conditions are decaying and dangerous for both staff and prisoners. I also support the POA’s campaign on retirement age. Asking officers to work until they are 68 in such a high-stress, high-risk environment is simply unsustainable. Sixty-eight is simply too late.
We are debating how to spend £18 billion in the Ministry of Justice, but money alone is not the issue; it is about priorities. If the very foundations of justice are crumbling, every other investment is undermined. The criminal justice system continues to fail innocent people. Chronic underfunding has rendered safeguards weak and ineffective. Leadership has been absent where it was most needed, and time and again the system refuses to admit it when it gets things wrong.
Miscarriages of justice are not tragic accidents. They are the inevitable consequence of a system that is under-resourced, poorly led and structurally resistant to scrutiny. Every wrongful conviction is not just a personal tragedy, but a betrayal of our legal system and the values it claims to uphold. Justice denied to one is justice denied to all.
Let us invest not just in buildings, but in truth; not just in processes, but in people. Above all, let us put real justice—not convenience or cost-cutting—at the heart of everything the Ministry of Justice does.
Pam Cox (Colchester) (Lab)
I rise to speak as the Member of Parliament for Colchester and as a member of the Justice Committee. I also declare an interest as the recently elected chair of the all-party group on penal affairs.
The estimate for the Ministry of Justice proposes a 6.5% increase in day-to-day spending and a 20.8% increase in capital investment. Those are welcome figures. They are necessary because this Government inherited from the previous Government a crisis across the criminal justice system: in our courts, our prisons and our probation services.
Let us begin with our courts. As my hon. Friend the Chair of the Justice Committee outlined, the Crown Court backlog stands at more than 74,000 cases—double the number in 2019. Victims are waiting years for justice. The increase in sitting days and the investment in digital infrastructure are a necessary first step. As a member of the Select Committee, I have visited our courts where dedicated public servants are working hard, despite the challenges, to deliver justice for victims. We need bold reform, and I look forward to the recommendations of Sir Brian Leveson’s review later this year. We all hope that they will indeed be bold. The justice system too often appears to be stuck in a bygone age.
In our prisons, we all see the failures of the last Government laid bare: failure to plan for the long term in prison places, failure to rehabilitate prisoners, and failure to prevent reoffending. The prison population now exceeds 87,000, with projections of more than 100,000 prisoners by 2028. Overcrowding is rife, with 24% of prisoners held in crowded conditions. The maintenance backlog has ballooned to £1.8 billion. There cannot be effective rehabilitation in a prison system that is so overcrowded.
Time and again, the Select Committee has heard about poor contract management, and a failure around transparency and value for money across a range of contracts, from education to maintenance to drug and alcohol services. I hope that the Procurement Act 2023 will tighten up those essential processes. The Act has to be fit for purpose. If procurement is not fit for purpose, prisons will not be fit for purpose.
The Government’s 10-year prison capacity strategy promises 14,000 new places, compared with just 500 under the last Government over those 14 wasted years. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson) said, we cannot just build our way out of this crisis. We need a smarter approach to sentencing and rehabilitation. I welcome the Justice Secretary’s commitment to the earned progression model and the expansion of community-based alternatives. Earned progression must be matched with access to decent prison programmes, health, education, wellbeing and so on, so that progression is indeed earned and helps offenders to turn their life around, thereby protecting the public and victims from harm.
Those reforms must be matched by investment in probation. The Probation Service is under severe strain, with many local services rated as inadequate and staff turnover still too high. The £700 million earmarked for probation reform is a start, but we must ensure that it delivers real, measurable improvements in reoffending rates.
Expenditure on legal aid is down 31% in real terms since 2010. That hollows out access to justice. The recent commitments to increasing funding for solicitors and youth court work are welcome, but I echo Labour colleagues’ comments that we need to go further on legal aid where possible. A justice system that works only for those who can afford it is no justice system at all.
The estimate reflects a Government who recognise the scale of the challenge. The Secretary of State and her ministerial team have worked hard to deliver the increase in funding. The last Government lost control of the courts, prisons and probation. These measures will go some way towards putting that right so that we can all have faith in our justice system again.
Linsey Farnsworth (Amber Valley) (Lab)
I, too, am a member of the Justice Committee. I am also a former prosecutor who worked in the criminal justice system.
Today is an opportunity not only to examine the Ministry of Justice’s estimates for the coming year, but to assess whether our criminal justice system is being resourced to meet the scale of the challenges it faces and to make our communities safer. I want to talk about the sentencing review and its impact on resourcing, especially for the Probation Service.
We inherited a system that was on the brink of collapse. The 2024 report on prison population growth revealed that England and Wales had the highest per capita prison population in western Europe. Our Government had to respond to that crisis immediately on entering into office. My right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary’s temporary early release scheme was a difficult but necessary decision to protect the justice system from breaking altogether, and to ensure that dangerous offenders were not turned away from the courts due to lack of space.
Joe Robertson
The hon. Member referred to the early release scheme as temporary. Is she 100% confident that it is a temporary scheme, and that the Government will not release more prisoners over the next few years?
Linsey Farnsworth
We inherited a particularly drastic situation, which will not be turned around overnight. The Minister will speak on behalf of the Government, but I expect the Government to make these difficult decisions until we are in a better position. That may have to be reviewed in due course. I do not speak for the Government, but I trust them to ensure that the public are safe and that there are places available, by whatever means, so that dangerous criminals can be put in jail.
We must move beyond crisis management. This mission-driven Labour Government are investing to deliver 14,000 new prison places by 2031. My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Pam Cox) was right to point out that that contrasts starkly with the 500 prison places that the previous Government created in 14 years. However, it is clear that the solution to overcrowding cannot simply be to build more prisons, but instead lies in breaking the cycle of reoffending.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
As a member of the Select Committee, you will want to be accurate in what you say about prison places—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Dr Mullan, there is no “you” in the Chamber; you are talking through the Chair.
Linsey Farnsworth
I recognise that prison places were created, but we are talking in net terms, and net, there were 500 extra places. [Interruption.] We are certainly not happy with only 500 places, net, over 14 years. That is why this Government are taking action to increase prison places in real terms.
We must sort out the cycle of reoffending, which places a massive strain on the system. Almost 60% of those receiving a prison sentence of 12 months or less reoffended within a year, and in those instances, focusing on what happens after a crime has been committed is the best way to prevent future offending. We do not need a justice system that is bigger; we need one that is fairer and more effective. Our ambition and reforms to make our streets safer cannot be achieved by enforcement alone. They must be backed by proper sustained funding, particularly to support the Probation Service, which is at the heart of a functioning and fair justice system.
That takes me back to a project in Nottingham that I was proud to be involved with in the early 2000s. It was the community justice initiative under the last Labour Government’s “respect” agenda—yes, I am that old, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. For the record, I did not comment on the lady’s age.
Linsey Farnsworth
Indeed, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I am grateful for the fact that you did not; I am very conscious of my age myself. The community justice initiative brought the community into the justice process. It allowed community impact statements to be made for certain offences, such as antisocial behaviour, and took a holistic approach to sentencing. It aimed to tackle drivers of offending, including drug misuse, unemployment, and poor education. Although the initiative worked, it was unfortunately short-lived because it lacked the resources and funding that would have made it sustainable in the longer term.
Just like the community justice initiative, the reforms set out in the first year of this Government offer enormous promise. I do not have a crystal ball and do not claim to see into the future, but as we look ahead to the Ministry of Justice’s prescribed spending for the following year, it seems that, as ever, two possible scenarios are before us. In the first we learn from the past; in the second, we repeat its mistakes. Let me be clear: we cannot allow history to repeat itself, and we must not allow ourselves to return to crisis point because we are unable to resource initiatives that will help us to reform the justice system.
As a prosecutor, I saw the same individuals pass through the courts again and again. I saw how the cycle of reoffending devastated lives, clogged up courts, and cost the taxpayer millions. I therefore wholeheartedly welcome the shift from short prison sentences, which are proven to do little to reduce reoffending, towards community sentences, which get to the root of the offending behaviour. I am pleased that we have a research-based sentencing review, through which we can work to reduce the problem and tackle the causes of crime, but that work must be financed in a sustained manner if it is to succeed.
The Probation Service is at a crossroads, and its future will be decided by the adequacy of resourcing, staffing, and funding. The Government have promised that it will receive an increase by 2028-29 of up to £700 million to support the reforms set out in the independent sentencing review, and the Minister responsible for prisons, parole and probation has set a target to recruit 1,300 probation staff in the next year. The Ministry of Justice’s budget for 2025-26 shows other welcome increases, including nearly £800 million more for day-to-day spending, £523 million of which is allocated to prisons and probation, and a huge 32% increase in capital expenditure.
The justice system has suffered from years of underfunding and under-resourcing, which has resulted in overcrowding and overburdening. Justice reform is about protecting communities, supporting victims, and giving offenders the opportunity to transform their life and reintegrate into society. If we are to avoid a return to the crisis we inherited, the Probation Service must receive the resources that it desperately needs.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
We who knock on doors week in, week out, know all too well the trend that has grown in recent years; every display of incompetence, every proof of national decline, and every sign of political self-interest from the Conservatives has damaged—indeed, hollowed out—public trust in the ability of our democracy to get things done. The public have had their fill, and in few other policy areas, and with no other political party, have they seen such incompetence, such decline, and such self-interest as with the criminal justice system and the Conservatives. It was the Conservatives who melted our criminal justice system, and the Conservatives who lost control of the security of our communities. It was the Conservatives who clung to hopeless policies. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that in crashing the criminal justice system, the Conservatives did more harm to our country’s faith in democracy, and the ability of the state to get things done, than we can ever know or quantify.
I do not exaggerate that, because when I knock on doors I hear that when people ring the police, they cannot get them to attend. When they submit crime reports, they do not hear back, and they feel that there is an absence of visible policing on their streets. That is the inheritance that the Conservatives gave the Labour Government. There is a hopelessness in our politics, and we need to reckon with that reality. Our courts are clogged, victims are waiting years for justice, police officers are stretched to the limit, legal aid is hollowed out, and communities feel unsafe and unheard. Shoplifting, antisocial behaviour, and the illegal use of e-scooters and e-bikes are examples that people in our communities raise of local decline, and they say that there are too few police to respond to those issues. This is not just a matter of law and order; it is a matter of fairness, decency and safety.
This Labour Government have a challenge: to put right a criminal justice system that was fundamentally broken—[Interruption.] When I see that Opposition Members are here in such few numbers, and are laughing at what I say, it is really disheartening.
Dr Mullan
I gently point out that the hon. Gentleman might consider the ratio of Labour Members to Conservative Members, and look at how many people are on the Conservative Benches and on the Labour Benches. We can be pretty proud of our showing, compared to that of Government Members.
Tom Hayes
That is so wide of the mark. It is unsurprising that the Conservatives are floundering in polls and so unwelcome in our communities. We can and must regain public trust in our criminal justice system, and in the ability of our democracy to do things. We want a criminal justice system that works for everyone and protects the public, that respects victims, and that rehabilitates offenders where that is possible, and where that is not possible, locks people up for the appropriate amount of time. We want a system that protects the Probation Service and our prison officers, and ensures that we are truly able to be a secure country again.
I welcome the announcement that our Labour Government will provide 13,000 more police officers, with 40 going to my area. I welcome the fact that we are tackling court backlogs by creating more sitting days; those who work in the court system across Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole have privately told me that they welcome that. We must champion victims’ rights. Having run a domestic abuse service for five years before my election, that particularly matters to me, and I know that many colleagues across the House care passionately about tackling domestic violence, as well as rebuilding our youth services. Having run a mental health and domestic abuse service, I know the importance of the third sector. I plead with the Minister to ensure that the third sector has a role in our thinking about how we can rehabilitate those who can be rehabilitated.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way on that important point. Will he join me in acknowledging the excellent work of organisations such as Futures Unlocked in Rugby? I recently met John Powell, its operations manager, as well as its trustees and volunteers. Those small charities do so much work to help ex-prisoners transition to life outside prison. I was hugely impressed. They often do work that the Probation Service cannot do, despite its best efforts, after 14 years of underfunding under the previous Government.
Tom Hayes
I thank my hon. Friend for that really important point. I welcome the work of the charity and the charities in his area, as I welcome the work of charities in all our areas. He puts his finger on the issue.
Charities are able to do things that the Probation Service is not. They can create trust in people and refer that trust on to statutory services. They can provide bespoke support that treats individuals as human beings seeking education and skills training, employment support, mental health and addiction support, housing assistance and peer support—in some cases the most powerful support. In providing that bespoke support, charities can help not just to reduce offending rates and rehabilitate and get people into work, but to bring down crime rates and the cost to the public purse of our criminal justice system.
I will say one point on that issue: we need to recognise the link between poverty, exclusion and offending rates. I want to be very clear that that is not to say people who grow up in disadvantage ought to commit crime, but we need to recognise what the evidence shows. There is a correlation and a causation, and as a Government we therefore need to tackle the root causes of poverty and exclusion. In so doing, we can tackle the reasons why people may offend.
I thank the Minister for what he is about to say, which I am sure will be excellent, and I thank hon. Members for their contributions. If our democracy feels fragile, it is because of the record of the last Government in this area. If our democracy is to recover, it will be because of the prompt and proportionate action that I believe this Government will take, building on the action that they have taken to truly address the challenges we face. The British people know what they want—they tell us often enough. It is our job to listen and provide the competence, progress and better outcomes that they are crying out for.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
I thank the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), working with the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth), for making the pitch to the Backbench Business Committee to secure this debate. I join him in thanking the incredible staff who work across our criminal justice system. If I may, I will add that charities such as the incredible abandofbrothers in Eastbourne work with young ex-offenders across my hometown to tackle crime.
As has been documented in this Chamber today, the last Government left our criminal justice system in a state. Our prisons were left in crisis and overcrowded, with increases in violence and self-harm incidents at their highest since records began. Our probation services were left high and dry, with an electronic tagging contract that left offenders with violent convictions unmonitored for far too long. Our courts were left dealing with staggeringly high backlogs, with tens of thousands of open cases and victims waiting months and even years for justice. As has been mentioned by hon. Members, reoffending is through the roof, with 80% of people in our prisons being reoffenders. That is a symbol of more crime, more victims and more misery and harm. That carries an enormous price tag, with reoffending costing society more than £18 billion a year.
The consequences of that dire set of circumstances have been plain for us all to see; I saw them myself when I worked in this space before being elected to this House. I spent my career supporting young ex-offenders out of crime and out of gangs in the east end—very far from Eastbourne in many different ways. I remember working with a particular young person. I said to him ahead of his first day of work with us to come in wearing some smart trousers, and he did not know what I meant. He said, “Josh, do you mean court trousers?” What a sad state of affairs it is when a young person in our country has grown up more accustomed to the criminal justice system than to our education system. I am afraid that is a legacy of the last Government.
I remember working with another young person who went into a young offenders’ institution that was notorious for its issues with violence. He was working with us as a phone repair technician before he went in. He came back when he came out of that institution, except he came missing a finger as a result of some of the things going on in that place. Again, some of our institutions are out of control.
As a victim, I have experienced what it is like to wait for years to have a case heard through an adversarial criminal justice system that seeks to beat down victims, as opposed to supporting them to rise up. That needs to change. Giving credit where it is due, I welcome the investment that this Government are making in our criminal justice systems through the spending review, but that investment is not a silver bullet, and it might not go far enough to right the wrongs of the past: it must be accompanied by reform.
There is no mention in the spending review specifically of investing in our crumbling courts, which cause so much inefficiency and cost our system, victims and justice. As the hon. Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst) mentioned earlier in the debate, the Magistrates’ Association has been particularly concerned about the lack of mention of funding for legal advisers in magistrates courts. The lack thereof is resulting in one in 10 sittings being cancelled.
While investment in creating new prison places has been announced, the spending review features no reference to extra funding for women’s centres—an alternative to custody—despite David Gauke recommending that in his independent review and charities such as Working Chance telling us that women’s centres are often at least 10 times more effective at reducing reoffending and are more cost-effective than the prison system. Although we welcome the £700 million committed to the Probation Service, it is critical, as per the demands of Women’s Aid, that some of that cash goes towards mandatory training for probation officers as far as recognising domestic abuse and protecting survivors of domestic abuse is concerned.
Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)
On that point, we are clear that the money that goes into the probation system may not be enough to deal with the scale of the added pressures on the probation system. I think the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), talked about contract management. The example of Serco is a really good one; there will be so much more reliance on electronic tagging. Will the money actually allow that to happen?
Josh Babarinde
I agree with the point that my hon. Friend makes. This is about much more than just the spend: it is about the efficiency of the spend. Taxpayers deserve far better than what they are getting at the moment from the Serco contract, under which, as I said earlier, many offenders are being left without the proper, robust monitoring that victims, survivors and our communities need and deserve.
Let me come on to reoffending. The Gauke review offered many recommendations to unlock supply in our prisons, but it was fairly light on what can be done to stem the demand going into our prisons. Preventing crime and reoffending was the Cinderella of his review. It may be out of scope in some respects, but it is critical that our criminal justice system is reformed in a holistic way. That is the true means of being able to make our criminal justice system more efficient.
When it comes to victims and survivors, commitments around reversing the damaging impact of the national insurance increases for employers were missing from the spending review. Victims’ charities have written to me to say that the increase in those taxes, as well as cuts to police and crime commissioner core budgets, are tantamount to a 7% real-terms cut in their budgets. This means that victims’ services—services not dissimilar from the independent sexual violence adviser services that I once accessed at SurvivorsUK—will be compromised. I urge the Government to look again at this issue.
The status quo of more reoffending at an exponentially high cost to the taxpayer is both immoral and unsustainable. While this investment will go some way towards reducing backlogs, increasing prison capacity and improving our probation services, vital challenges are still unmet. As I have said just this week—in fact, it may have been yesterday—directly to the Minister, Liberal Democrats stand ready to work constructively with the Government. We will scrutinise their measures, but also give credit where it is due in order to help achieve more justice for victims, survivors, and our communities.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
It is a pleasure to respond on behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition to this estimates day debate on Ministry of Justice expenditure as it relates to criminal justice. I thank the Select Committee Chair, the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), for securing and opening the debate. We are in Armed Forces Week, and those of us who have been involved in the criminal justice system in various guises over the years know that in our prison service, around a quarter of prison officers have an armed forces background. In that sector alone, we see the ongoing contribution that people from the armed forces community make to our public services in different ways. It is a pleasure to be able to pay tribute to them on the record today.
Criminal justice is, of course, a very important topic for discussion. Our courts, prisons and probation services are the bedrock of our criminal justice system. This Government have been in charge of these key areas of public expenditure and activity for almost a year now, and we have heard from Members about the challenges that those who are in contact with the criminal justice system continue to face. We all know that, almost from day one, this Government have lurched from crisis to crisis, and sadly the Ministry of Justice has not been spared. As we consider the estimates for expenditure and the Government’s linked plans to overcome challenges in the criminal justice system, we can only have a meaningful debate if we consider the journey we have been on to reach this point.
I will begin by responding to the points that have been raised about the inheritance that this Government had. Their inheritance can only be fairly considered in the light of what we inherited, what we delivered despite the challenges, and what challenges remain. Labour Members talk about challenging inheritances in the criminal justice system, but what did we face upon arriving in office? We have heard a lot in recent months about Labour being forced into early release schemes for prisoners as a sign of the pressures on the system, but what exactly was happening with early release at the end of Labour’s last period in government? Under the last Labour Government, an astonishing 80,000 prisoners were released early—a huge number—with those releases stopping just before the election for purely political reasons. We were left to pick up the pieces across the prison estate that we inherited. During our 14 years in office, we released just 6% of that figure. If the number of prisoners that Labour Members say they have been forced to release since they came into office is a barometer of failure, what exactly do they make of releasing 80,000 prisoners early after more than a decade in charge?
Perhaps Labour had a good excuse for releasing that many prisoners early—maybe it happened because Labour had been spending its time in office rightly toughening up sentencing for the worst offenders. I am afraid not. In fact, in what I consider to be an enormous historical mistake—the consequences of which we are still battling today when it comes to delivering proper punishment through the justice system—Labour introduced automatic halfway release for essentially all offenders when it was last in government. Those offenders were not included in the figure of 80,000 released early under the emergency schemes I have spoken about. Essentially, all offenders were released early, yet Labour still managed to have a sustained crisis in prison capacity, so I do not take any lectures from Labour Members about the history of the Labour party and the criminal justice sector.
Under the previous Conservative Government, we worked to restore public confidence that serious offenders would face the punishment that their crimes deserved, and worked hard to ensure that—unlike when Labour was in government—we did not have to release 80,000 prisoners early through emergency release schemes. We brought in serious reforms. We reduced automatic release from halfway through a sentence to two thirds of a sentence for the most serious offenders, which was a huge step forward in introducing a greater degree of proper punishment into the criminal justice system. Building on that, we introduced whole-life tariffs for the premeditated murder of children. We increased maximum sentences for the worst child abusers through Tony’s law; for killers of emergency service workers through Harper’s law; and for those who kill through driving in memory of victims such as Violet-Grace. I am proud of all those reforms, and make no apologies for them.
Such measures do create challenges for prison capacity, but as I will go on to explain, those changes were necessary. More than any other factor, it was covid that created the challenges we now face. Of course, we had to tackle the enormous challenges presented by covid, which have left a long legacy in the criminal justice arena. We prioritised the right to jury trials in a way that the rest of the world struggled to; we had one of the shortest suspensions of sittings of trials, and did what we could to support the continuation of jury trials. We increased sitting days, allowing the courts to sit at maximum capacity for three years in a row; we invested £220 million in essential modernisation work for courts up to 2025; and we extended the use of 20 Nightingale courtrooms in 2024-25. That kept our justice system moving, despite what Labour now claims.
Undoubtedly, the backlog still presents challenges, but again, I am happy to compare records. Labour MPs are now deeply concerned about the backlog, but how concerned about Crown court backlogs were Labour MPs when they were last in government? I can tell Members that pre-pandemic backlogs in the Crown court reached higher levels during Labour’s time in office than they did under us. The increase in the remand population of approximately 7,000 above the historical average, which is directly linked to covid, is a major factor in the prison capacity challenges we now face.
What has Labour done to make a decisive difference since coming into office? Did the Government rush to maximise sitting days to get the backlog down? No, they did not—they have repeatedly dragged their feet. For almost six months, they did not take the Lady Chief Justice up on her offer of further sitting days, and even now, there are more days available to the Government that they have not funded. With each month that has passed, that has meant more lost court days, more people waiting and more pressure on the system than if they had just increased sitting days from the outset. What has been their biggest celebration when it comes to prison building? It is the opening of a new prison, HMP Millsike, which was planned, paid for and largely built under the previous Conservative Government.
Despite what Labour says, we created 13,000 prison places during our time in office, including in two new prisons, HMP Five Wells and HMP Fosse Way. I am not aware that any of Labour’s projected plans for prison places use net figures, which Labour Members want to use when looking at our record. The Government have announced plans for 14,000 prison places by 2031, supported by £7 billion, but 6,500 of those places were already in the pipeline, having been announced by the previous Conservative Government. Four of their new prisons were already planned or under construction, so this announcement is less a bold new strategy than it is a tired re-announcement. Even more concerning is the funding gap. The Government have allocated £7 billion, but the National Audit Office reports that the Ministry of Justice and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service expect the cost of expansion to be closer to £10 billion. That is a £3 billion shortfall, placing a serious question mark over how the promised places will be delivered.
How are the Government building on their legacy of releasing over 16,000 prisoners early just in their first six months, which is 11,000 more than planned? In the name of what they call sustainability, they are embedding even greater levels of early release into the system, unpicking the positive steps we took in government to turn around Labour’s legacy of weaker punishment. The Government are doing this on the back of a sentencing review carried out by David Gauke, based on the premise that increasing prison populations were unsustainable. I am clear that that review was an insult to the views of victims and their families—many have told me so directly—and it is unfortunate that so many Members speak positively about it. Imagine launching what you describe as a “landmark review of sentencing”, and then giving almost no consideration in the pages of that report to what victims and their families actually want from sentencing.
Worse, instead of a serious attempt to engage with what victims and their families might want, Mr Gauke chose to deploy the all-too-common patronising talking points of those who want us to believe that victims and their families simply do not understand sentencing, and that if they did, they would undoubtedly feel much better about it all. This might be of particular interest to the Chair of the current Select Committee, because Mr Gauke, in particular, cherry-picked quotes from our excellent report from a previous Session on public understanding and expectations of sentencing. As the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick might remember, that report very much engaged with what the public wanted and how to determine that more effectively. It takes a particular type of intellectual approach to go through a report full of rich detail and just pick out what suits you, hoping no one will notice. Well, I noticed, as did representatives of victims and their families such as Justice for Victims.
That half-baked exercise in considering sentencing has now served as the launch point for the Government’s sentencing policy. If halfway release was not an appalling enough legacy from the last time Labour was in government, the Government are reducing release to a third of the sentence for most offenders, and turning our two-thirds release for the worst offenders back into halfway release. Let us be clear: prisoners will now be rewarded for doing what should be expected of them. Obeying prison rules and engaging in education or working are the basic behaviours of any law-abiding citizen. They should not qualify offenders for early release, and they certainly should not allow them to serve as little as one third of their sentence. That is not justice.
Labour’s model rewards serious offenders, does little to protect the public, and is a dereliction of duty. All the while, our Crown court backlogs have increased by more than 10% and stand in excess of 70,000 cases. Our remand population sits at more than 17,000 people. Wherever we look, problems that Labour promised to fix in opposition are just getting worse. How does the Lord Chancellor now plan to tackle this challenge? The £450 million committed to the courts in the spending review is a perhaps useful, if not fully adequate, indication, but how will the money be spent? Unfortunately, that is where the Government fall short.
The Government have no substantial ideas of their own, with 14 years apparently not long enough for them to think of their own innovations. While we await the findings of yet another independent review that they hope will solve all their issues, they have announced that custodial sentences of under 12 months will all but vanish, replaced by community sentences. The consequences are staggering. Up to 43,000 offenders, including burglars, shoplifters and knife carriers, will avoid jail altogether. I have met local businesses at their wits’ end. They tell me about the rise in shoplifting, staff who are afraid and customers who no longer feel safe. Removing custodial sentences for repeat offenders does not send a message of reform; it sends a message of impunity.
Labour has chosen the easy way out. It is tackling the prison population not with long-term reform or capacity investment, but by quietly reducing sentences and downplaying criminal behaviour. It is short-term thinking that puts public safety at risk. In fact, just last week it was reported that the Government declined to move forward with building a new prison block. They say they are doing everything possible to avoid releasing prisoners early, but how does that square with that decision?
We might think that the Government would grab opportunities that cost nothing, but we have seen them stand in the way of reforms we put forward as amendments to the Victims and Courts Bill this week. Labour did not support making sure victims are awarded compensation equivalent to their losses, or allowing victims the freedom to speak their minds in victim personal statements. Labour did not support increasing the time available to collect courts fines, or giving victims and families a better chance to appeal unduly lenient sentences. All their lofty spending plans will be of little use if this Government’s ongoing mismanagement of the economy leaves us with even less money to spend on the Ministry of Justice.
Across nearly every single major economic metric, Labour has made things worse. Unemployment is up, inflation is up and all the projections of economic growth it inherited from us have been downgraded. Is it any wonder why? The Office for Budget Responsibility is clear about the damaging impact of the Government’s jobs tax, and businesses can see what is on the horizon with the Employment Rights Bill. The costs of borrowing are soaring. The MOJ’s expenditure pales in comparison to what we will be paying on interest in ballooning debt over the course of this Parliament.
I will finish with three short questions. First, given the funding allocated to probation and the increasing reliance on it and given that, as the Justice Committee member, my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) highlighted, the number of probation officers has gone down since Labour came into power, how do the Government plan to ensure that money is delivering effective services? Secondly, how do they plan to close the £3 billion gap in the prisons budget? Thirdly, given that so much of their own thinking is relying on it, when will Brian Leveson’s report be published? The British people deserve a justice system they can trust—one that protects victims, punishes offenders and keeps our communities safe. This Government’s approach fails on every single count.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Sir Nicholas Dakin)
I start by thanking the Chair of the Justice Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), for his opening remarks and for securing this important debate, and I thank everybody else who has contributed so thoughtfully. I echo his words in paying tribute to everybody who works in the criminal justice system. They do an amazing job to maintain public protection, which is so important. I support the words of the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan), in highlighting the role that people who have formerly been in the armed forces play in our criminal justice system. There is much for us to agree on.
One of the things we know is that Labour has always been tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. I will give three facts to evidence that. In 13 years of Labour Government, we added 27,830 prison places. In 14 years of Conservative Government, they added 500 net prison places. So far under this Government, we have already added some 2,500 prison places. The figures speak for themselves.
We want a criminal justice system that works for everyone. That is what my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) said, and I think everyone in the House would agree. Last summer, our prisons were operating at over 99% capacity. Just days after taking office, we had no choice but to take emergency measures to avoid running out of space altogether. Had we not acted, the result would have been catastrophic. Our courts would have ground to a halt and the police would have been forced to halt arrests. In short, we would have faced a total breakdown of law and order.
We were left in that parlous position because the previous Government, despite all their promises and fine words, delivered only those 500 additional prison places in 14 years. At the same time, sentence lengths rose exponentially. As a result, the prison population is now rising by 3,000 each year. This Government take our duty to protect the public seriously, and that is why we are taking the robust, bold action needed to bring an end to this cycle of crisis, ensuing that the British public are never again put at risk by the failure to have enough prison places.
We are committed to bearing down on the outstanding caseload in the courts, which a number of Members have alluded to, and delivering swifter justice for victims, but we acknowledge the significant challenge facing the Crown court. As part of the spending review settlement, we agreed with the Treasury that we will fund record investment for the courts system by 2028-29, keeping sitting days at record highs over that period. We have 110,000 sitting days in the Crown court just this year.
We recognise, however, that that is not enough given the scale of the challenge we inherited. Even with record levels of Crown court funding and our plans for record numbers of sitting days, the backlog will continue to grow without substantial reform of our criminal courts. That is why the Lord Chancellor has commissioned an independent review of the criminal courts, led by Sir Brian Leveson, one of our most distinguished judges, to consider the options for longer-term reform, as well as reviewing the efficiency and timeliness of court processes through charge to case completion. I hope that that review will report shortly. We will also fund capacity to speed up the processing of asylum appeals, supporting the Government’s priority to reduce illegal and irregular migration.
Legal aid is a vital part of the justice system, as we have heard from colleagues from across the House. It underpins our plans to build a justice system that works fairly for all parties. In December, we announced that criminal legal aid solicitors will receive up to £92 million more a year to help address the ongoing challenges in the criminal justice system and get justice for victims. Following that, in January we began consulting over a £20 million uplift to civil legal aid fees for lawyers working in the immigration and asylum and housing and debt sectors.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson), who spoke about the importance of forensic science in addressing miscarriages of justice, as well as prison maintenance issues. We are failing victims if courts cannot deliver swift justice. Prisons run out of places entirely, and crime goes without punishment. My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Pam Cox) spoke about that in her contribution. It would have damaging consequences for the criminal justice system if that happened. That is why we are taking the steps to rebuild a justice system that works and that victims can have confidence in.
We are looking at imposing tougher exclusion zones that limit the movement of offenders, instead of limiting the movement of victims, and we are continuing the provision of free sentencing remarks to victims of rape and serious sexual offences. Our reforms will include continuing to expand our application of electronic monitoring to perpetrators of violence against women and girls, and the use of specialist domestic abuse courts, with trained staff to support victims and more co-ordinated management of perpetrators. We will continue to fund services supporting victims and witnesses. The Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde), made some eloquent contributions on that issue, which I heard clearly, and I thank him for that. We are creating a new domestic abuse flag at sentencing, so that domestic abusers are known to the Prison and Probation Service and their victims are better protected.
Since taking office, we have opened 2,400 prison places. Between 2024-25 and 2029-30, the Government are providing £7 billion to deliver the commitment to build 14,000 new prison places by 2031. That is the largest expansion since the Victorian era.
Sir Ashley Fox
During my speech I asked the Minister how much of the extra money allocated to his Department would be spent on higher wage rises, higher national insurance charges and inflation. I am just giving him a chance to respond before he finishes his own speech.
Sir Nicholas Dakin
As the hon. Gentleman will understand, the budget is being applied and worked through in an appropriate way, but the figures I have just given are the figures on which we will deliver, so he can be confident about that.
While this investment is necessary, it is not sufficient on its own, so to address these challenges and ensure that our prisons create better citizens, not better criminals, the Lord Chancellor commissioned the independent sentencing review, chaired by the right hon. David Gauke. As the Lord Chancellor announced in May following David Gauke’s findings, we will be introducing an earned progression model based on a three-part sentence. On this model, offenders’ release points will be determined by their behaviour. If they follow prison rules, they will earn earlier release; if they do not, they will be locked up for longer. However, that will not be true for all offenders. For those currently serving extended determinate sentences with an automatic release point of 67%—it is different for people with earlier releases; we will leave that as it is.
In the second part of the progression model, offenders will enter a period of intensive supervision. That will see more offenders tagged and under close supervision by the Probation Service. The supervision will be tailored according to each offender’s risk and crime type, and bolstered beyond the current system with a set of new restrictive measures and a major ramp-up in tagging and probation investment. In the third part, offenders will be monitored in the community by the Probation Service, and can be returned to prison if they breach their conditions.
Alongside the progression model, we are also taking forward the recommendations to introduce a presumption to suspend short sentences. We will be investing in this model and intensive supervision by significantly increasing our probation funding through the spending review settlement. I welcomed the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth), and also what was said about the contribution of third sector organisations by my hon. Friends the Members for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) and for Rugby (John Slinger). Our additional investment will increase up to £700 million by 2028-29, allowing us to increase substantially the number of offenders on tags and to ensure investment in services that address the drivers of offending.
Tessa Munt
Following the Leveson report, will there be capacity for more funding for his recommendations?
Sir Nicholas Dakin
We await the Leveson report, and when it arrives the Lord Chancellor will update the House. Matters such as that will be rightly dealt with then.
On efficiencies, the spending review has given the Department a settlement, and the Department will ensure that it is good value for money by applying all the appropriate methods.
This Government inherited a system that was creaking under pressure, having suffered chronic underfunding for 14 years. The Justice Committee rightly pointed out that by 2016-17 the day-to-day budget of the Department had fallen by a third in real terms from its peak in 2007-08. That is why we are delivering the ambitious, once-in-a-generation reform of the justice system that the country needs, with public safety at its core.
Andy Slaughter
I do not need to add anything to my opening speech, because the inevitable gaps have been filled eloquently by the subsequent speakers. Let me just take two minutes to thank those who have contributed to the debate.
I thank the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox), my hon. Friends the Members for Colchester (Pam Cox) and for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth), the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt), the hon. Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst) and the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde). They are all members of the Justice Committee, although the hon. Member for Eastbourne was wearing his other hat today as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, and I thank them for being here today. Indeed, I thank all the Committee members. With the exception of the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills, who resumed a distinguished parliamentary career after a short gap, they are all new Members, and they all give a great deal of time to this role in addition to everything else that new Members have to do.
I also thank the other Members who have spoken. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) for his forensic dissection of the last Government’s failings in this area, and I thank, in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson), who covered ground that I did not have time to cover in relation to the Criminal Cases Review Commission and miscarriages of justice. I am grateful for her work in chairing the all-party parliamentary group for miscarriages of justice, as I am to my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson)—who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on access to justice—for her work on that and to other APPGs in this field.
I even thank the Front Benchers for their contributions. The hon. Member for Eastbourne is always very critical but very constructive. Perhaps the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan) would like to adopt that approach.
Andy Slaughter
No, I thought not. However, I very much enjoyed our time together on the Justice Committee, and I also enjoy his taking every bad point during these debates—although he should have been kinder to the distinguished former Lord Chancellor David Gauke, who, in my view, produced a very good report. As for the Minister, he is a very good friend of mine, and I thank him for his contributions. We know what a difficult job he has, but that will not stop us being on his back all the time to ensure that the many problems that have been identified today are resolved.
Question deferred (Standing Order No. 54).
National Armaments Director
(1 day, 13 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (North Cotswolds) (Con)
Let me begin by thanking you, Madam Deputy Speaker, Mr Speaker and the Backbench Business Committee for selecting this debate, which, if I may say so, is particularly appropriate in Armed Forces Week. Let me also thank the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), who is sitting on the Opposition Front Bench, for being here to listen to my speech. I hope the Minister will answer a few of my questions. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), the Chairman of the Defence Committee, who would have joined me following our joint application for the debate, but his Committee has been away from Parliament on a visit.
The defence budget is one of the most important estimates that the House can debate and scrutinise. With war waging in Ukraine, the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict and with what is now happening in Iran, our world feels increasingly unstable. The Prime Minister has recently returned from the G7 and is now at the NATO summit, ensuring that our interests align with our European, AUKUS and American allies, which is critical. As General Walker, Chief of the General Staff, said last July, we must be ready for war within three years, and the rest of my speech is devoted largely to that theme.
I wish first to discuss the figures in the defence budget. I think that most Members are pleased that defence spending is now considered a priority. The strategic defence review announced in early June was welcomed, and confirmed that defence spending would rise from 2% to 2.5% of GDP by April 2027, with an extra 0.1% going towards intelligence and security services contributions. There was a further commitment to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP in the next Parliament, but it has been noted that no date has been set so far. The new announcement by the Prime Minister at the NATO summit suggests that the Government will expect to spend 5% of GDP on national security and defence by the end of the next Parliament or by 2035, which includes 3% spent on core defence spending and 1.5% spent on resilience and security.
I ask Members to bear with me while I go through the somewhat complicated figures that this involves. In 2024, 1% of GDP was about £28 billion, according to the House of Commons Library, but hopefully our GDP will increase as the years go by. Members should note critically that a percentage increase in the budget is not the same as an increase in the percentage of GDP, hence the much higher figures that I am about to give. According to the Treasury Red Book, the current Ministry of Defence budget for 2025-26 is £62.2 billion, which is around 2.2% of GDP. For the Government to reach the needed 2.5% of GDP by 2027—setting aside the fact that the MOD budget does not quite align with the NATO-compliant spending—the defence budget must increase to around £70 billion in 2027-28. With the extra 0.1% that I mentioned earlier, the total is £72.8 billion. Therefore, another £9 billion to £11 billion needs to be found in the next two years.
If we are to reach 3% of GDP in the next Parliament, the defence budget will need to equate to around £84 billion in current prices. After today’s announcement, the equating figures are 3.5% or £98 billion on core defence and 1.5% or £42 billion on resilience, so the total spending by 2035 will need to be £140 billion. These calculations are dependent on the GDP staying the same and not increasing, in which case the budget will of course increase as well. I simply ask the Minister: where is all this money coming from? It is a huge amount of money.
Given the failure to produce the defence investment plan alongside the strategic defence review, the SDR is merely a list of ambitions and aspirations, with few receipts and invoices attached. When he gave the ministerial statement on the SDR, I asked the Secretary of State to confirm when we would be able to scrutinise the figures, but I understand that the defence investment plan is still an unfinished piece of work and is not due to be published until the autumn. That is a long way off.
I am Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, which is always looking at how effectively money is spent, whether it could be spent more effectively to give the taxpayer best value for money, and whether spending is feasible. However, the Committee has not been able to fulfil its statutory role of scrutinising defence equipment spending for at least 12 months. The last defence equipment plan was published in November 2022, and it set out a 10-year spending plan for equipment procurement, costing around £305.5 billion. There was a £16.9 billion shortfall compared with the money that was then available.
I am pleased that the permanent secretary accepted the invitation to come to our Committee in April to discuss the equipment plan, but he did not come with any proposals as to how and when we might be able to scrutinise the relevant defence expenditure, to see whether the huge aspirations were affordable in the current budget, in the next budget of 3%, or in the following one of 3.5%. It is really important that Parliament has a timetable for when we can do that scrutiny.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
My hon. Friend mentioned the equipment plan; does he share the Defence Committee’s frustration that the last time anyone was able to scrutinise that spending was in 2022? Is he aware that when Lord Robertson came to the Defence Committee to discuss the strategic defence review last week, he was surprised that the Defence Committee was being denied access to the equipment programme—as indeed are the Public Accounts Committee—meaning that the Government simply cannot be held to account for what they are spending money on?
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
My hon. Friend has made the case eloquently, and I have also made it. The Minister will have heard and, hopefully, she might have something positive to say when she responds to the debate.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
To what extent does my hon. Friend believe that the situation is even worse than he has outlined? Inflationary pressures bear far more heavily on defence than on, with the possible exception of healthcare, practically any other part of public spending, yet I see no evidence in the defence review or anywhere else over the past 12 months of that being properly accounted for by Ministers or those who advise them.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
My right hon. Friend must have read my mind; when I come on to submarines, I will mention that very factor of inflation in defence costs.
The MOD is being reorganised into four sections: there will be a permanent secretary in charge of the Department; the chief of the defence organisation will be in charge of all personnel matters; there will be a new national armaments director in charge of all matters to do with procurement, digital and research, including all the matters to deal with what is now in the Defence Infrastructure Organisation; and there is of course the Defence Nuclear Organisation. This debate is focused on the national armaments director, whose appointment has been ongoing since it was announced on 17 December 2024. I am hopeful that the Department might soon be in a position to announce who they have selected to do the job, which I have to say is very prestigious and very large, with a very large £400,000 salary attached.
As I said, the national armaments director will be responsible for all defence procurement and all of the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, including defence housing, as well as digital and research. This represents a huge part of the defence budget. He will have significantly more control over the acquisition process than hitherto. I hope that some of the Government’s announcements will come to fruition, including that on reducing the time it takes to award a contract to a two-year maximum, which the Department hopes to do by involving industry at a much earlier stage in the process, to help to solve problems. Rather than over-specifying on requirements, this should streamline things and simplify the contracts. It should also allow our defence sector to export more equipment to the international market, which will in turn support even more jobs in the sector.
One contract that demonstrates the weaknesses in our procurement strategy was that for the Ajax armoured fighting vehicle programme, which was contracted to General Dynamics. The contract was the subject of many Defence Committee and Public Accounts Committee inquiries and of many urgent questions. It was originally contracted in 2011 for delivery in 2017, then deferred to 2020-21. As we all know, the trials were halted due to safety concerns, and the contract was renegotiated for 2024. Perhaps the Minister could tell us when all 180 vehicles will be in operation?
General Dynamics was also awarded the infamous Morpheus battlefield radio system contract, which has cost £828 million so far. Will the Minister confirm that it is currently in the evolve-to-open transition partnership, and when its in-service date is likely to be? It was intended to replace the existing Bowman communications system by 2026, but that will now have to be extended with modifications to at least 2031, and possibly to 2035. That may leave a capability gap in our defence system. I think the whole House would appreciate an update on where we are with our tri-service battlefield communications system, and how it could be accelerated.
Another contract that should receive more scrutiny is the E-7 Wedgetail early-warning and control aircraft. Although the SDR says that we will procure further units, and share the costs with our NATO allies, the Pentagon has labelled the E-7 “expensive”, “gold-plated” and
“not survivable in the modern battlefield”.
Again, we would be grateful for further detail from the Minister on that contract.
As I said to the Minister in my question on today’s statement, I welcome the fact that the Government have committed to buying more F-35 aircraft—12 F-35As and 15 F-35Bs. The F-35A capability will be an alternative to our seaborne nuclear capability. Another huge commitment as part of the SDR is the one to invest in up to 12 new SSN-AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines. The submarines are due to be in operation in the 2030s and 2040s, with one being built every 18 months, but there are huge challenges ahead due to it being a new class of submarine and concerns with the lack of capacity at Barrow-in-Furness. No cost per submarine has ever been disclosed, and the programme is likely to take more than 10 years, so we really need to see some of the detail. Is the deal underpinned by the Government’s eventual commitment to increase expenditure to 3% in the next Parliament? We need to be able see whether it is feasible.
Speaking of long in-service dates, as I was in respect of the F-35s earlier—and the Minister agreed—we need to see the early work on feasibility and contracts beginning as soon as possible to meet the long tail into the buying, building and commissioning of the submarines.
This strategically important contract will, when costs are announced, need leadership from the national armaments director to ensure that it remains on track and on budget, unlike so many others before it. The Public Accounts Committee has asked for an update by the end of June 2026, which will demonstrate how well defence procurement has improved under the first year of the national armaments director group. The renewed focus on nuclear is important when looking at the ever-increasing nuclear enterprise budget. In 2024, the budget was £10.9 billion, which is about 18% of the whole budget. The 10-year defence nuclear enterprise costs have increased by £10 billion from £117.8 billion to £128 billion, and it is not clear whether the extra £15 billion announced in the SDR that has been committed to the warhead is included in that figure.
The budget is rising due to various factors, including technical factors, inflation, and the speed of manufacturing at which we now need to build these submarines to meet the timetable that is absolutely necessary for our defence. The budget is one of the few that is left unscrutinised due to the sensitive nature of these contracts, but as Chairman of the PAC, I am constitutionally obliged to see the detail. This needs to be resolved, and I am grateful for the commitment of the Secretary of State in working towards a solution. Sensitive scrutiny has never been more important, due to the context of the figures I announced earlier.
Defence personnel is another focus of the defence budget. The budget has had to increase by £14.3 billion to pay for the Treasury’s employer’s national insurance tax rise. The number of people leaving the armed forces is far too high. Last year, for every 100 personnel we recruited to the Army, we lost 130. This is completely unsustainable, especially as the SDR commits to increasing our armed forces to 76,000. The PAC recently held a session on cadet and reserve forces, and the SDR again clarifies that the Government want to increase the number of cadets by 30% and, critically, of reservists by 20%. Again, I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed how much that will cost.
We need to make joining the armed forces a much more attractive option than it currently is. Frankly, a prisoner would get better and safer conditions than some of the defence housing I have seen, much of which has mould, rust and leaks. This must change if we want to improve the retention and recruitment of our armed forces by giving them a better package of remuneration and conditions of service. I welcome the £1.5 billion to improve defence housing as part of the SDR and the £6.1 billion spent to repurchase 35,000 homes following the landmark deal with Annington Homes. This will allow the MOD to undertake major improvement schemes.
Another recruitment issue is the length of time it takes to enrol service personnel into training. We used to have an armed forces recruitment centre on every high street in the country. People could walk in off the streets, sign up and be wearing a new uniform within two weeks. There are now stories of recruitment taking well over six months, which is simply not good enough. We need to look further afield to ensure that the military has the right skills for the future. Cyber-warfare is becoming an increasing and real threat, and I believe the MOD could do more to recruit those with artificial intelligence and digital skills, but who would not necessarily meet the medical and fitness entry requirements needed for normal military personnel.
Dr Murrison
Would my hon. Friend comment on the Government’s enthusiasm or otherwise for the Haythornthwaite review of careers in the armed forces? It was put in train by and carried out under the last Government, but we hear tell that there has perhaps been some backsliding since. That is a pity, as Rick Haythornthwaite’s review was magisterial and had already shown signs, through zig-zag careers and the spectrum of service, of being appealing to servicemen and servicewomen, and holding them in—both in the regulars and the reserves. It would be a pity if that process did not continue on the basis of not-made-here-itis.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I cannot tell what is on the Government’s mind, but maybe the Minister will be able to tell us. However, given that the SDR makes it perfectly clear that they want to increase the numbers of our armed forces considerably, we have to consider every aspect of recruiting and retaining more. We must make sure that they do not just leave the Army or the armed forces as soon as they get particular skills. My right hon. Friend has raised a really important issue.
In conclusion, there is no greater duty on a Government than defending the nation, yet all Members of this House and the general public need to have confidence that our armed forces are properly equipped to do the job. That does not mean we can complacently give in to every demand, and it is the role of PAC members to carefully scrutinise the defence budget. Wasted spending and shortfalls are stopping our armed forces keeping us safe in the most efficient and effective ways. It is therefore imperative that the MOD releases more information on its finances in a timely manner, so that we can thoroughly scrutinise it and thus assure Parliament that our armed forces can do their job in the most effective way, with world-beating equipment.
Graeme Downie (Dunfermline and Dollar) (Lab)
It is welcome that this debate focusing on the remit of the national armaments director comes, as the hon. Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) said, as the Prime Minister attends the NATO summit, where we are likely to see greater focus and action on the need to increase defence spending. However, as this Government have said, this is not all about numbers on a spreadsheet or a press release, and the national armaments director will allow the UK to focus on how defence money is being spent to increase the lethality of our armed forces and ensure that the deterrent effect of the combined UK armed forces is sufficient to prevent a war that no one in this Chamber wants to see.
The position shows that our Government are delivering the change we promised: greater coherence and a strategic focus on our procurement and industrial planning, cracking down on waste and boosting Britain’s defence industry. I want what I am sure others in this House want, which is for us to move as quickly as possible, because only by doing so can we make sure our adversaries know that we are committed to our own defence. I want to raise three specific issues, and ask the Minister to provide clarification and assure me that these will be among the first priorities for the armaments director and, indeed, the Ministry of Defence.
First, looking at a globe rather than a flat map shows the strategic reality the UK faces as well as the importance of Scotland’s position. From the High North, Russian ships and submarines can threaten NATO, merchant shipping and, crucially, underwater cables in the Atlantic. The strategic defence review highlighted the need for
“improving NATO’s deterrence…in Northern Europe and the High North.”
Recently, NATO Secretary-General, Mark Rutte, emphasised
“a larger role for NATO in the High North.”
This very much makes the UK, and Scotland in particular, a frontline nation in combating Russian aggression. To do that, the SDR spoke of the need for:
“An ‘always on’ supply line for shipbuilding”,
with the Royal Navy continuing to move towards
“a more powerful but cheaper and simpler fleet”.
The Type 31 frigates being built by Babcock at the Rosyth dockyard in my constituency would seem to fit the bill for that kind of move, along with providing the requirement for an “always on” supply of shipbuilding. The first Type 31, HMS Venturer, was recently floated off, and the other ships of the initial five ordered by the Royal Navy are progressing well. I will take this opportunity to once again thank the workforce at Rosyth for the incredible contribution they make to our nation’s defence in the construction of the Type 31, as well as the other incredible work they do for us and our American allies. Can the Minister confirm that the armaments director will urgently consider the need for more Type 31 frigates to reflect the flexibility of this platform as well as the lower cost and faster production that the incredible workforce at Rosyth have been able to deliver?
Secondly, there have been many discussions in this place, particularly those led by the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst), on the need to improve the UK’s air defence capability. This has been a key theme of the ongoing Sky News podcast “The Wargame”, created by a range of defence experts and advisers. I have certainly been listening to it over the last couple of weeks, although I think I am a few episodes behind at the moment. Improving that capability will require a number of solutions in collaboration with NATO and other allies, but it has been suggested that the future air dominance system and Britain’s next-generation Type 83 programme could be part of countering the emerging threat from hypersonic missiles. With the increased prominence of this type of threat visible in both Ukraine and recent conflicts in the middle east, can the Minister please provide an update on those programmes and on how the armaments director is likely to prioritise this important work?
Finally, as part of our increased defence spending, it is vital that we make defence an engine for growth, boosting prosperity, jobs and growth in every corner of the UK. We are strengthening the UK’s industrial base to better deter our adversaries, and to make the UK secure at home and strong abroad. That means engaging all parts of society and business, including the growing network of high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises and skilled manufacturers in my constituency, in Fife, and across Scotland and the rest of the UK.
This week, we heard from the Secretary of State for Business and Trade about the exciting prospect of a defence growth fund, which could bring together different bodies to deliver on their combined objectives of economic investment and improved defence. In my area, that could include opportunities for Fife council and Fife college, both of which could play a much larger role in delivering on defence and providing the skills and training that our young people need and deserve.
I have raised this topic numerous times in this place. We have seen the total failure of the SNP Scottish Government on devolved matters such as skills and infrastructure spending. We have the farcical position that senior people in the SNP say that it is party policy that public money should not be spent on military equipment; and even more ridiculously, the SNP responded to a request for medical aid from the Ukrainian Government by dictating that the aid could not be used on military casualties, a preposterous view that is utterly detached from reality. That position puts Scotland’s security at risk, and reduces opportunities for young people in my constituency.
Will the Minister provide an update on her discussions with the Department for Business and Trade on the defence growth fund and how it will benefit people in Scotland—something that the SNP has failed to do so far? This Government have responded brilliantly to the global threats that the UK faces, building alliances and partnerships across the world, creating the national armaments director, and undertaking the reorganisation that we have heard about today and in previous statements. I just hope that we can accelerate down that path as much as possible, to ensure that we deal with those threats, as the British public expect us to.
Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)
Today this House is quite properly considering the scale and seriousness of the threats we face, from those requiring conventional deterrence in Europe to those of strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific. The case for strengthening our armed forces is not just compelling but essential. However, we must be honest about how we fund this renewal, and what we are willing to sacrifice to do so.
Let me be clear: the case for increased defence spending is self-evident. Like many others, I have long argued that we must invest more in our sovereign capability, critical munitions, advanced deterrence and national resilience, including by expanding both the remit and the resourcing of the national armaments director. The strategic significance of that role has grown substantially. In today’s volatile security environment, the national armaments director is not merely a procurement official; they are the principal architect of our defence industrial strategy, responsible for ensuring that our armed forces are equipped not just adequately, but decisively. Their portfolio spans capability planning, acquisition reform, exportability and the stewardship of our defence supply base, from the factory floor to the frontline. In an age of contested logistics, technological disruption and rapid rearmament by authoritarian regimes, the role is fundamental to preserving both operational readiness and sovereign capability.
Delivering a credible deterrent in today’s world means accelerating procurement cycles, building in modularity and adaptability, strengthening domestic supply chains, and driving long-term collaboration between government, industry and academia. It means ensuring that we can surge production in a crisis, replenish stockpiles at speed and invest in the innovation that gives us the strategic edge. That cannot be done in isolation or as an afterthought. That work must be led, co-ordinated and embedded across defence planning, not in spite of fiscal pressures, but because of them.
If we are serious about resilience, readiness and regeneration, we must empower the national armaments director with the authority, capacity and resources to act not simply as a technical overseer, but as a strategic enabler at the heart of defence policy. Only then can we translate increased spending into real-world capability, and ensure that British power is not only credible on paper, but deliverable in practice.
However, this investment must not come at the expense of our international development commitments. Funding defence by slashing foreign aid is a false economy. Worse, it risks undermining the strategic posture that we seek to build. Aid is not an indulgence. It is not a soft option, and it is certainly not a luxury for easier times. It is an instrument of national strategy—a projection of British values, a tool of soft power, and a forward-deployed asset in the defence of the realm. When Britain pulls back from the world, our adversaries do not hesitate to step in. China in particular has understood this dynamic. It does not wait for crises to send in troops; it sends in investment, infrastructure and influence, often to the very regions from which we have retreated. When we reduce aid, we do not save; we cede ground and create vacuums that others are all too willing to fill.
Let us be frank: foreign aid and defence are not in conflict. They are complementary. One builds resilience, prevents crises and supports our allies; the other protects us as those crises unfold. A truly strategic posture requires both, because real security does not start when the first shot is fired. It starts in the classrooms of conflict zones, in the clinics of fragile states, and in the partnerships we forge before troubles take root. If we choose to retreat from the world, we shall find that the world does not retreat from us.
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
My husband was an Army reservist who served in Afghanistan. He has not told me a great deal about what his job entailed, but he has told me about taking flights in helicopters that hugged mountains on which the burned-out remnants of Soviet tanks stood ghostly guard; about his interactions with the people in the Afghan army and the civilians who worked with us; about buying bread from locals; and about visiting the children being treated in the hospital on the international security assistance force army base.
Our armed forces are the best in the world. That can be a throwaway phrase used by politicians, but it is one that I stand by, and I know that many families of our armed forces, both in Derby and across the country, stand by it too. As we celebrate Armed Forces Week in Derby, I will be thinking of them. It is essential that our armed forces have the kit, the arms and the technology that they need, and in my view, those who serve our national security by working in the defence industry and their families should have their contribution celebrated, too.
We are in a new era of threat that demands a new era for UK defence, so it was absolutely right for this Government to announce the largest sustained increase to defence spending since the end of the cold war, and to have already boosted defence spending by £5 billion this year. As the Government increase defence spending, they are making defence an engine for growth, boosting prosperity, jobs and growth in every corner of the UK.
Over the last few weeks, Derby has been mentioned many times in this Chamber. It is one of many cities benefiting from the Government’s commitment to defence and security, which is creating the skilled, secure jobs that we see in our city and across Derbyshire and the east midlands. Under the new defence industrial strategy, UK-based firms will be prioritised for Government investment, and that will drive economic growth, boost British jobs and strengthen national security. Under the last Government, small businesses often felt locked out of defence, and just 4% of Government defence spend went to small and medium-sized enterprises. The Government’s specific support will open the door to small businesses.
Derby has a large part to play in this, because we make things there. Rolls-Royce in Derby is known for having created the Merlin engine, first produced in 1936 and used in Lancaster bombers, Spitfires and Hurricanes, but we also have Rolls-Royce Submarines, which builds the nuclear reactors that power our at-sea deterrent. The UK’s submarines are the most awesome and lethal machines in the world’s history. I believe in the power of politics and the power of negotiation to preserve peace, which we all desperately want. However, we have to acknowledge that our submarines, with their sheer size and power, have spoken louder than words for more than 60 years, and they help to underwrite our security. We cannot wish away the threats that are growing; we have to deter them. Time and again, our Prime Minister has confirmed that security and defence are the first duty of Government, and that priority can be seen in the investment that is being made. From submarines to drones, Derby has a major role to play in supporting the Government in making and keeping Britain safe, so that it is secure at home and strong abroad.
John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)
I have been banging on like a howitzer—well, maybe like a small-bore cannon—about the need to mobilise British industry as we ramp up for possible conflict in an increasingly hostile world. I welcome the news that the new national armaments director is being resourced to oversee the alliance between our military brains and brawn and the sinews of the British defence industry.
Civilians talk tactics, but veterans talk logistics, for old warriors know that a modern army marches not so much on its stomach, as in the days of Wellington and Napoleon, as on a very long supply chain, anchored mainly in small and medium-sized enterprises. That extends—to use the military’s favourite phrase—to all domains.
We have had recent sharp lessons on the reality of modern warfare, from the muddy hell of trenches in occupied Ukraine to the arid highlands of Iran. We have seen high-tech systems—drones, cyber, space and stealth—undergo a baptism of fire. We have also seen weapons that would have been familiar to my infantryman grandfather on the shores of Gallipoli in 1915 plying their old trade to deadly effect; artillery remains the queen of the battlefield. While our sailors, soldiers and aircrew are the tip of the spear, the essential shaft is our factories and shipyards, and every corner of the country can play its full part. I say “every part”, but there is bad news from Scotland under the yoke of the SNP, where the nationalists and their Green party fellow travellers have engendered a hostile environment for defence firms. We have seen young apprentices denied entrance to the Holyrood Parliament by an elected representative tipped to lead the Greens; and, in recent days, we have seen former First Minister Humza Yousaf—still an MSP—blundering around on the world stage, shroud-waving about it being a war crime to allow US military aircraft to refuel at Prestwick airport, and bemoaning the proscription of the saboteurs of Palestine Action.
There is a presumption, as we heard from the hon. Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie), that the Scottish Government will not channel funding towards ordnance—a battlefield prerequisite. That has led this Government to step in and say that they will help to fund a new Rolls-Royce centre of welding excellence on the Clyde, which will be key to submarine and warship building.
The stakes could not be higher. Scotland is already a defence powerhouse. Umbrella body ADS estimates that 16,250 people in Scotland work in the sector, producing Royal Navy warships, cutting-edge radars, optronic masts—do not dare call them mere periscopes—for submarines and smart missiles such as Storm Shadow. Even my rural constituency of Dumfries and Galloway produces the helmets vital to the sensor suite on F-35 Lightning fighter bombers, of which we are purchasing 12 more nuclear-capable Alpha variants.
Figures from 2023 show that the Ministry of Defence spends £370 per person living in Scotland. It is—or ought to be—Britain’s arsenal, and as such, Scotland should be top of the national armaments director’s in-tray, yet firms wanting to set up the new ordnance factories recommended in the strategic defence review, or seeking to expand in order to fulfil new MOD orders, cannot count on financial support via the Scottish Government. Whose side is Scotland’s First Minister on? Will the Minister tell the House what powers the new armaments director will have to eliminate the Scottish Government’s reckless fifth columnist policies on defence?
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
I start by thanking everyone in our armed forces who serves, who has served, and who has fallen. Our country is safer and better because of their service.
In assessing the financial necessity of meeting our defence needs, it is important, first, to look at the state of our world—not only our real adversaries but our potential adversaries, our allies and the most powerful country in the world, the United States. In our country and across the world, there is an assumption that the foreign policy of the current President will be a blip, and I do not believe that to be so. For my constituents and for the House, it is important to reflect on that reality as the country and the Government set their path towards a long-term investment in the defence capabilities that we so desperately need.
The 2017 national security strategy of the United States, released by President Trump, said:
“After being dismissed as a phenomenon of an earlier century, great power competition returned.”
In 2022, the national security strategy released by President Biden said:
“The most pressing strategic challenge facing our vision is from powers that layer authoritarian governance with a revisionist foreign policy.”
In 2017, the era of co-operation, which had defined multiple US presidencies in the post-cold war era, was declared dead by President Trump. In 2022, the era of competition that had defined the Trump era was given new life by President Biden—two contrasting presidencies, two sides of the same coin.
As Russia illegally invaded Ukraine, a sovereign, democratic country, and China made clear its designs on Taiwan, a sovereign, democratic country, those two autocracies have deepened their ties, and they have collaborated more closely with other UK and US rivals. It is clear that the consensus that has been emerging in the beltway was accurate. The main priority of American foreign policy as great power competition is clear. The aspiration of the outcome that the US stays ahead of the pack is clear.
We in this House will debate the motivations, character and behaviour of President Trump. They will be open to interpretation, but, in some important ways, his worldview has a more settled nature. With him and Biden as presidents and the United States as a great power pursuing US interests in a world where competition is the enduring and defining feature, our American ally has for some time now been telling a story about how it sees itself and the world, and we would be foolish to see the current presidency as a blip. It is the continuation of a tradition.
Of course, there are differences between the two presidencies: in their approach to diplomacy and how nationalistically it should be pursued; in their assessment of American interests and how aggressively they should be pursued; in their adherence to American values and how devotedly they should be upheld; and in sum, whether to collaborate with countries with which it has always collaborated, such as the United Kingdom, either as an end in itself—to reinforce and sustain an American-led order of democracies—or as a means to an important end, which is to pursue an economic strength and a national security that traditional democratic allies would seek, too.
The presidencies and presidents do not differ in their assessment of the international system and the need for competition. That is a critical point that will define UK defence decisions this year and in subsequent years. I obviously have a preference for a particular style of behaviour. I would much prefer President Biden’s form of foreign policy, but the outcomes that are being pursued are clear. This prompts the question: will whoever succeeds President Trump deviate from or continue his foreign policy? I argue that it will be a continuation.
If the priority of the US, our closest ally, is to stay ahead of those autocracies in the long term, and we have stronger ties and shared values with the United States as it becomes more competitive with those rivals, it is in our interest to do all that we can to counter the rise of those rivals, to mitigate against their worst behaviours, to minimise their risk to our security and to militate against their threats to our values—with the United States wherever possible, and with other democracies that make the same assessment of our threat. That is why it is so important that we invest in our defence capabilities.
We are making the largest sustained increase to defence spending. We have boosted defence spending by £5 billion this year, and we are committed to spending 4.1% of our GDP by 2027, and 5% by 2035. I commend that strongly given the international circumstances that we face. It is so important that we achieve that, and we must educate our constituents about why that is. In this House, it is important that we bring the right scrutiny to our defence decisions.
Tom Hayes
No, I will not. Please sit down.
It is important that we bring the right scrutiny to our decisions and our defence strategy. It is important, too, that across the House we conduct ourselves in an appropriate fashion. In advancing our defence and security, with the decisions that are pursuant to that, the House should be united. Given the ways in which our society has been disunited, we need as a House to come together and find solutions in a cross-party way.
This year we marked the 80th anniversary of VE Day; 80 years have passed, but memory is not enough. Imagine a world without victory in Europe—a world where tyranny had triumphed and darkness endured. Now look at the world today—a world where autocracies dominate, divide and deceive, and where freedom is retreating. We all owe those who fought and those who fell more than remembrance, and we owe those who carried that loss nothing less than vigilance. That means vigilance against those autocracies and against the risk of misjudgment, miscalculation and misadventure.
All of us in this House have an important role to play in the defence decisions of this Government. That means being a strong democracy, cohering our society, strengthening the institutions of our state, growing economically, securing our clean home-grown energy, investing in new technologies and equipping our military with the tools and technologies that it needs. It means being a true ally and telling our allies around the world when things are not working. It means giving them reasons to listen by growing in strength and purpose. We must speak with the affection and wisdom of an old country that has known what it is to rise, to navigate uncertainty, to be attacked at home, to know the blessings of freedom being imperilled, and to decline from great power but none the less to work with allies and partners to secure freedom in our world against very difficult circumstances.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
When I gave my maiden speech just under a year ago, I took the opportunity to express my frustration that the Government had announced a spending review that would essentially buy the political cover to get to a defence spend of 2.5% of GDP. The frustration I expressed was that the dogs in the streets knew that we needed 2.5%, and that we essentially wasted the best part of a year.
The evidence for that is clear to us all. Lord Robertson and General Barrons appeared in front of the Defence Committee when the Government kicked off the strategic defence review, and I said that when Lord Robertson had done his prior defence review, it was very clearly threat-based and foreign policy-led, whereas this one seemed to be saying, “2.5% is the answer, but now what is the question?”. It proved to be the case, because part way through the strategic defence review the Government asked, “What can you get for 3% by the next Parliament?”, and then they asked, “What can you get for 3% by 2034?”, and then, “What can you get for 3.5%?”. As the Prime Minister turned up at the NATO summit, we got the mystery bump up to 5% for defence and security. My suspicion, maybe slightly cynically, is that that 1.5% is made up of 0.75% smoke and 0.75% mirrors, but we shall see. It would be churlish of me, while defence expenditure is going up, to question it. I therefore think it is important to concentrate on how the money will be spent.
I remind the House of an exchange that took place at the Defence Committee the other day with the Chief of the Defence Staff after the publication of the strategic defence review. He said that we come from a position of strength and that this additional expenditure will simply make us stronger and more secure. I said, “I obviously did not expect you to know the answer to this question, but if I were to ask you, how many working tanks have we got?” He batted away the question in the following way:
“I suppose my caution on that would be that, while we are charged with the nation’s security and safety, it may be that having 50 tanks or 100 tanks is not necessarily going to be the defining factor as to whether the country remains safe. To me, that is the problem with those questions.
I come back to this: is our readiness at a level that we are playing our part, with our NATO partners, and achieving deterrence with Russia?”
Clearly not. He continued:
“Are we really confident about that?
The problem with a micro example is that it skips over what is fundamentally our security construct. We are a beneficiary of a collective group of nations in Europe. Never mind our 50 tanks or our modest increase in the Army; they are increasing their armies by tens of thousands and they are increasing their tanks by hundreds.”
If that is the attitude the Minister is getting to our having very few working tanks, she should be wary of the voices she might be getting from certain parts of the Ministry of Defence. I think that she and the Prime Minister would like some options beyond simply reaching for the nuclear button; there needs to be something in between. I hope that she will take that forward in her conversations with the national armaments director on their priorities.
I asked the Minister when we were discussing the national armaments director whether the director would have free range to tear up the book on defence procurement. The book certainly needs tearing up. I speak as someone who, as well as serving on the frontline on four tours of Northern Ireland, the first Gulf war, the second Gulf war, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone, managed to squeeze in about five years in the Ministry of Defence. I am sure the Minister is aware of the conspiracy of optimism in equipment planning, where people in uniform will tell part-truths about how much things will cost to get them into the programme—it is called entryism, and it has been going on for years—and then, all of a sudden, those same people will come back and say, “Minister, I am afraid our aircraft carriers won’t cost the £2 billion we told you; they will cost £6 billion. But what are you going to do? You’ve already announced them, and anything else will cause you huge amounts of political pain.”
I urged the Minister to tear up the rulebook, and she gave me a positive response: the national armaments director will indeed be earning their salary. The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee said it was £400,000—I think that he or she will be on a potential £600,000 with bonuses—but they have got to be worth that. They must have free range to tear up the book. As a member of the Defence Committee, I do not want them giving us evidence a year after their initial appointment and saying, “I wanted to change things, but they just would not let me.”
This is my final point. Alongside the appointment of the national armaments director, we have defence reform going through. It was telling that when Lord Robertson and General Barrons came back to the Defence Committee having published their SDR and I asked them about the culture change required in the whole of defence reform, Lord Robertson told an interesting story. When Colin Powell moved from uniform to politics and was asked, “How do you bring about a culture change in an organisation which has gone in the wrong direction?” General Powell said, “Well, how do you stop a column of ants? You stamp on the first 10.” The Minister needs to prepare herself for some seriously robust conversations with the Ministry of Defence if money is to be spent wisely and honestly on things that go bang and bring about the effect—not just the input—that we all desire.
James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)
It is a privilege to rise on estimates day, during Armed Forces Week, an annual moment of national recognition for the extraordinary contribution of our armed forces, to speak about the importance of our defence industry. Across the country this week, from school assemblies to community events, people will quite rightly pay tribute to the men and women who serve our nation with distinction. I particularly reference my uncle, Donald Campbell, who died in 2016. He joined the armed forces as a youngster straight from school. He left aged 21 after a schizophrenic breakdown, which ultimately defined the rest of his life, but he, like so many veterans, remained extremely proud of his time in the Army and the role that he played, especially in Northern Ireland.
In my constituency, we will mark Armed Forces Week with Proms in the Park in West Bridgford on Saturday, and celebrate the two events. It will bring together families, veterans and the wider community to show their gratitude and support for those who serve. It is those local, heartfelt gatherings that remind us that defence is not an abstract concept; it is about people, communities and the security that we enjoy because of the historic and ongoing sacrifice of others.
In today’s estimates day debate, I will speak both to the reforms under way and to the Government’s broader vision for rebuilding Britain’s security and supporting jobs at home. As I said in a recent op-ed on defence to my constituents, we are now firmly in a new era for defence—one defined not just by increasing geopolitical threats, as has already been described by a number of Members, but by a determination to face them with seriousness, strategy and solidarity.
This Government have committed to the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war, already boosting spending by £5 billion this year and setting out a path to 2.5% of GDP and beyond. We have heard today about reaching 5% of GDP on defence and security by 2035, and it is important that this House can scrutinise the trajectory for getting to those targets.
Thankfully, this Government have already taken some shorter-term, practical steps that I welcome. They include awarding the largest pay rise to service personnel in 20 years; establishing the new independent Armed Forces Commissioner to improve service life; and spending an extra £1.5 billion, in a record uplift, to fix substandard forces housing. Just as importantly, we are thinking differently and changing how defence operates, ending waste, rebuilding capability and making defence an engine of growth across the country.
That is particularly notable in my constituency in the south of Nottingham. Many of my constituents work for Rolls-Royce and on their behalf, I welcome the £9 billion Unity contract announced in January to design, manufacture and provide in-service support for the nuclear reactors that power the Royal Navy’s fleet of submarines. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson), I also welcome the confirmation that Rolls-Royce will receive £2.5 billion to produce the first small modular reactor, which is key to our energy security. Both announcements are good news for thousands of people in my region of the east midlands, who will be part of the supply chain for those two iconic developments.
We cannot confront 21st-century threats with 20th-century systems. The hard-fought lessons from Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine remind us that a military is only as strong as the industrial and technological base that supports it. That is why I applaud Ministers and civil servants for their work on the strategic defence review and the defence reform programme. At the heart of those reforms is the creation of a new national armaments director to lead a unified group responsible for procurement, research, support and innovation. That is a long-overdue development.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the new national armaments director should have as one of their priorities making sure that the welcome uplift in spending by this Government means that SMEs really get a fair share of that, and that that will do great things for constituencies such as my hon. Friend’s and mine, where there are many smaller and medium-sized businesses that seek to benefit from that process?
James Naish
I was just about to get on to the fact that under the previous Government only two of 49 major defence projects were delivered on time, and SMEs have been locked out of that procurement process, so my hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the importance of changing that.
The new defence industrial strategy puts UK-based firms at the heart of procurement, ensuring that Government investment strengthens our national security and supports good jobs at home. That is great news for places such as Rushcliffe, as I said, given that it sits at the heart of the east midlands manufacturing base, which is home to firms in aerospace, engineering and precision technology, all of which are well placed to contribute to our defence future.
Importantly, not only will this new direction open the door to a better relationship with new businesses, but SMEs in Nottinghamshire will be able to be prime contractors, and it will make defence accessible, collaborative and responsive. We will be able to tackle long timelines, improve communication and, of course, invest in skills. As the Member of Parliament for Rushcliffe, I will continue to champion policies that bring jobs, investment and innovation to the east midlands. Defence must absolutely be part of that equation. Our region has a proud industrial heritage and a bright technological future if opportunities such as these are developed.
Finally, I want to return to where I began: our armed forces. All these reforms, strategies and spending commitments come back to them—the people we ask to defend our democracy, uphold international law and respond at moments of crisis. We owe them not just words of thanks during Armed Forces Week but action, investment and reform every week of the year.
This Labour Government are serious about defence and keeping Britain secure at home and strong abroad. After years of drift, we are delivering the long-term decisions needed to safeguard our country and support our communities. We are not just patching up a broken system; we are building a modern, resilient and forward-looking defence infrastructure, one that reflects the values of our armed forces and the aspirations of our country. I therefore welcome the steps the Government have taken to date and are taking through these estimates.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
Today’s debate takes place at a moment of acute global instability, with war still raging in Ukraine, mounting threats from hostile states and an unreliable security partner in the White House. The world is more dangerous than it has been in a generation. In that context, the Liberal Democrats warmly welcome the Government’s commitment in February to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027. The Government’s subsequent commitment to a new NATO defence spending target of 5% is also the right decision. It reflects a recognition of the new threat environment that we find ourselves in and of what is necessary to support Britain’s long-term defence.
It remains the case, however, that the Government are still playing catch up on questions of the nation’s security. The last Conservative Government cut the Army by 10,000 troops, even as tanks rolled across continental Europe. That decision was staggeringly short-sighted and irresponsible. Despite that, this Government have dragged their feet on rebuilding the strength and size of our Army and have said that there will be no expansion to Army numbers beyond 73,000 troops until the next Parliament. In the context of the threats we face, that timeline can only be summarised as a day late and a pound short. The British Army remains one of the strongest deterrents we have—if the Government can commit to supporting its regeneration fully. While I welcome this Government’s shift in tone compared with the Conservatives, I urge Ministers again to commit to a much more rapid reversal of those troop cuts.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
The strategic defence review mentions that there will be an increase in the size of the Army at some point if funds allow. Does my hon. Friend not agree that, now that we will be spending 3.5% of GDP on defence, we can accelerate that shift and grow the size of the Army now to provide that deterrent effect?
Helen Maguire
I agree with my hon. Friend that it would absolutely help our deterrence if we could increase troop numbers. The Liberal Democrats are calling for new bonus schemes to recruit and re-enlist 3,000 personnel, allowing the Government to reach their target of 73,000 trained troops as soon as possible, meaning that they can grow Army numbers further and faster beyond that in this Parliament. I encourage the Minister to consider those proposals.
Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)
I agree that we need an increase in troop numbers, but the challenge for any Government is not only setting the important policy, but saying how they would pay for it. I therefore invite the hon. Member to set out the Liberal Democrats’ plan for paying for her proposals. Please let her not say that it will be funded by a digital services tax, like all their other policies.
Helen Maguire
The hon. Member will know, if he has read our policies, that our proposal costs a maximum of £60 million, which is insignificant compared with the entire defence budget. Getting us to 76,000 as soon as possible will help us with deterrence.
The Government have promised a new defence investment plan for the autumn. That gives them a vital opportunity to provide clarity about how they will effectively address the ubiquitous shortage of equipment throughout the armed forces. However, serious questions remain about why they did not think it appropriate to develop and publish the plan, or a defence equipment plan, alongside the strategic defence review earlier this month. All efforts should be made to accelerate the publication of the plan so that parliamentarians can scrutinise the Government’s proposals at the earliest opportunity.
The threats to our security mean that the Government cannot afford to delay. With President Trump casting doubt on America’s commitment to NATO, the UK must lead in Europe. That means moving much faster to reach the new 5% NATO target than the currently proposed 2035 timeline, which would take us beyond the life of even the next Parliament. I therefore again urge the Minister to convene cross-party talks so that the whole House, representing the country, can together agree a pathway to the high amounts of defence spending that our security demands.
Our attention has turned this week to security crises in the middle east, but it is vital that we do not lose sight of Putin’s continuing barbarism in Ukraine. We are currently sitting on £25 billion in frozen Russian assets. Across the G7, that figure rises to $300 billion. I recently visited Estonia, and I cannot emphasise enough how strongly the Estonians urge the UK and His Majesty’s Government to develop plans on how best to support Belgium in unlocking those assets, and to lead from the front by seizing assets across the UK. Liberal Democrats again call on the UK Government to work with our allies to seize those assets and repurpose them directly for Ukraine’s defence and reconstruction. If Putin’s imperialism is to be stopped, we must act decisively and boldly now.
We also need a strategy that looks beyond the battlefield, because supporting our forces must mean supporting our veterans, service families, and the defence industry. Liberal Democrats would put in place a long-term defence industrial strategy to protect sovereign capability, provide certainty to industry, and ensure investment in R&D, training and regional jobs.
Adam Dance (Yeovil) (LD)
Will my hon. Friend join me in urging the Government to award the New Medium Helicopter contract to Leonardo UK in Yeovil, and to reassure us that a “defence dividend” will include supporting jobs, apprenticeships and the resilience of domestic defence firms across the south-west?
Helen Maguire
I know how important the defence industry is to my hon. Friend’s constituency, so I ask the Minister to consider that.
We would end the scandal of poor service housing by requiring the Ministry of Defence to provide housing above the legal minimum standards. No one who puts their life on the line for this country should live with leaks or mould. We would extend access to military health services to service families, improve mental health support for veterans, and tackle discrimination and harassment in the armed forces by fully implementing the Atherton review recommendations.
As the US has become an unpredictable ally, the UK has a greater responsibility to lead, to stand with our allies and to act decisively. We must now move faster to restore and grow our armed forces, reverse past cuts, and invest in the skills, infrastructure and sovereign capabilities that our military needs.
The UK must rise to the challenges of standing with Ukraine, securing our alliances, and building the resilience to protect our people in the face of a more dangerous world.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
It is a pleasure to respond to today’s estimates debate on defence expenditure. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, for securing the debate with the Backbench Business Committee, and particularly for timing it perfectly for the NATO summit and Armed Forces Week.
Given the threats we face from Russia and the instability in the middle east and elsewhere, it is welcome in principle that NATO states have agreed at this week’s summit to increase spending. Nevertheless, when we consider what the Government’s announcement means for UK defence expenditure, we must be clear that talk of 5% on national security and 3.5% on defence is nothing but a con. It is unadulterated smoke and mirrors when we need real investment at real pace to produce a real step change in our deterrence.
Consider first the promise of 5% on national security by 2035, consisting of 3.5% on the core defence budget and 1.5% on resilience and security. The Prime Minister confirmed on GB News yesterday that the 1.5% is already being spent. Not a penny of new money is being spent on actual military capability. As for the core defence budget, Labour has promised 3.5% in 10 years’ time, but the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster confirmed on yesterday’s media round that there is no plan to fund that increase, and there will not be one until at least 2029. If there is no plan for 3.5% in the Parliament after next, what about a plan for 3% in the next Parliament? The authors of the strategic defence review wrote on the day of its publication, 2 June, that the decision to go to 3%
“established the affordability of our recommendations across a 10-year programme.”
The problem is this: the Government no more have a plan to fund 3.5% in a decade than to fund 3% in the years leading up to it. It means that the promises of the SDR were dead on arrival, and the headline pledge of “up to 12” nuclear submarines is a fantasy fleet based on fantasy funding. Most worryingly, the smoke and mirrors are not just being used for spending in future Parliaments. What I am about to say is subject to the caveat that in response to our written questions to the Treasury, it is simply not sharing with us the quantum of money that has been moved from the intelligence budget into defence. Nevertheless, as far as we can see, Labour is not going to spend the 2.5% that it promised for defence by 2027.
To recap, in his defence spending statement in February, the Prime Minister confirmed that intelligence spending would be added to the core defence budget, taking it to 2.6%. By our reckoning, that intelligence spend is the equivalent of almost 0.2% of GDP. Subtracting that from 2.6% gives a figure of just over 2.4%. The smoke and mirrors do not end there. That 2.4% will have to cover the cost of Chagos, which is at least £250 million next year, rising to a total of £30 billion. That 2.4% will also have to include spending on election interference, and other non-official development assistance FCDO expenditure that the spending review confirmed would now be added to the defence budget. The significance of that is that if 2.6% is actually in the region of 2.4%, it will mean that the increase in defence spending to 2027 is not the biggest since the cold war, because it will be less than the increase when Boris Johnson was Prime Minister in 2019.
Here is the upshot of the so-called 5% on national security that Labour has announced at NATO: no new money in the 1.5% for security and resilience, just reclassification of existing spending; no plan to get to 3.5% on the core defence budget by 2035; and no plan to get to 3% on the core defence budget in the next Parliament. The detail of the spending review confirmed that when spending hits the supposed figure of 2.6% in 2027, it does not increase towards 3% but stays flat. Worse than that, as I have explained, defence spending does not get to 2.6% on defence at all, but to something like 2.4% at best. It is smoke and mirrors at every turn.
If there is one thing worse than the lack of substance in Labour’s defence spending spin, it is the lack of urgency. Its promises are all about 2035, a decade away, but the threats that we face are real and imminent. As the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee said in his excellent speech, last July the head of the Army, General Walker, said that we must be ready for a war not in a decade or even five years, but within three years. The SDR promised a bigger Army in reserve, but only in the 2030s. Its big headline promise on attack submarines will be delivered into the 2040s.
Warfare is changing fast, but Labour is moving far too slowly. The SDR was promised for the spring, but published in the summer. The defence industrial strategy was also promised for the spring, but the Minister recently confirmed to me in a written answer that it is months away. The Government must move much faster to boost the total lethality of our forces in the near term, not least by rapidly embracing the extraordinary opportunity to boost our overall mass and capability through autonomous systems and drones.
In my defence drone strategy, the aim was to provide high-quality drone and anti-drone tech for Ukraine—which we have done, and I am very proud of that—and then to learn from that, in parallel, to build a UK sovereign drone industrial base, but that has been completely stymied by the procurement freeze effectively in place since the election. Labour is prioritising penny-pinching over rapid rearmament. While Ukraine is producing thousands and thousands of drones every month, Labour ordered just three new military drones for the British armed forces in its first financial year in government.
What would we do differently? We would go to 3% on defence in this Parliament. We would scrap the Government’s crazy Chagos deal and use the money to rapidly rearm, starting with next year’s £250 million on Chagos. That cash could be spent not on tax cuts for the Mauritians, but on drones and anti-drone tech from British SMEs—on tech that is battle-proven in Ukraine and can be produced in months, and that can be ordered at a low cost but a sufficient scale to enable the Army to start training comprehensively in drone warfare by next year. That is the kind of urgency that we need to see against the threat we face.
If the country hears that the Government are going to spend 5% of GDP on defence, it will assume that it will be like in 1985, when we actually spent 5% of GDP on our military, not on smoke and mirrors. That gave us 337,000 regular personnel, over 600 combat aircraft and a full array of tactical nuclear weapons for land, sea and air. Perhaps there is a reason why our 5% then was so different from Labour’s 5% today: in 1985, our Prime Minister actually led the country.
Instead of surrendering sovereignty, Mrs Thatcher stood up to Galtieri and successfully defended the Falklands. She would never have been neutral when asked if she supported strikes by the US on the nuclear programme of a country like Iran. By standing shoulder to shoulder with Washington, she helped to bring down the Berlin wall and relight the torch of freedom in Europe. Far from returning to the days of 1985 and actually spending 5% of GDP on defence, we now have instead a massive con trick from Labour. Unfunded ambitions and smoke and mirrors will not deter our adversaries. In Armed Forces Week, those who bravely serve our nation deserve much better.
The Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry (Maria Eagle)
I thank all those who have spoken in the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) on obtaining it, very properly in Armed Forces Week, to highlight some of the issues. I will try to answer a few of his questions. I have had an interesting read of the 32nd report of his Committee; he and I used to serve together on the Committee many moons ago, so I take PAC reports very seriously.
Although it is true that there has been no equipment plan for the last two years—during which time both Governments have been in power—because of some of the disruption around the election and the wholesale reordering of the way in which the MOD works, I recognise the fact that his Committee is not satisfied with the current state of affairs, and I agree that it cannot stay how it is.
Ministers are committed to increasing transparency, and I undertake to work closely with the National Audit Office and the hon. Gentleman’s Committee to try to work out a suitable arrangement going forward that they will be happy with. We are not seeking to undercut transparency or to fail to report properly to Parliament, so I hope that will give him some reassurance. Of course, we have only just received his report; I think we have a couple of months to ensure that we reply to its recommendations properly, and I will take an interest in ensuring that we do so.
I recognise some of the figures that the hon. Gentleman mentioned in his excellent speech. He asked where all the money is coming from—one or two others have asked a similar question, with varying levels of outrage. What I can say is that in this Parliament, we have already committed an extra £5 billion this year and resources to get up to 2.5% in the core defence budget—more than £10.9 billion extra in real terms. I do not think any of the Defence Ministers have turned up at NATO today with a fully set-out plan for getting to 5% by 2035. Each country has its own way of producing budgets and will do so over different periods, and I think it is quite reasonable for us to say that during the election we had a manifesto commitment to get to 2.5%, we have set out how we are going to do that and how we will pay for it. The hon. Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst) said that he regretted the way in which that commitment is being paid for, but we have made that choice—difficult though it is—in order to make it clear where the money that we have committed to in this Parliament is coming from.
We have always met our NATO commitments. That goes for parties on both sides of the House; when the Conservatives were in government, they met our NATO commitments, and we have always met them and will continue to do so. The way that our spending commitments will be funded in the next Parliament will be set out during that Parliament, but we cannot set a path directly from this Parliament into the next one. NATO will be looking at that. [Interruption.] Well, I would say to the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) that we do not budget for that length of time in the future, and neither did his party when it was in office. It is not how we do budgeting in this Parliament and it is not how his Government budgeted either.
Maria Eagle
I mean, the right hon. Gentleman has only just walked in. If he wants to start heckling me, I am happy to have a discussion with him in the Tea Room afterwards, but there is no point in him heckling me from a sedentary position when he has not taken part in the debate. [Interruption.] It is very kind of the right hon. Gentleman to allow me to continue my speech. I am trying to answer questions posed by the Chairman of the Select Committee, whose debate this is.
We know that NATO will—as it usually does—check each nation’s spending against its expectations on a yearly basis, so that will be an obvious way in which we can see progress being made towards our goal. We will also continue to report, as ever, and I have no doubt that we will get to 3% in the next Parliament and that there will be a trajectory towards 5% overall, with the 1.5% security and resilience spending. Instead of making allegations about that commitment being smoke and mirrors, it would be better for the Opposition to say that they would do the same if they were in Government. If they did so, we would have a proper consensus to give industry certainty that this is what we are committed to do as a nation. I welcome the fact that the Liberal Democrats said that they would commit themselves to that goal.
I look forward to engaging with the Chairman of the Select Committee on the recommendations in the report, and I intend to make sure he is satisfied by what we come back with. He had some particular requests about Ajax—we all know that notorious name—including when the 180 vehicles would be delivered. The initial operating capability of Ajax will be by December 2025; I am hoping it might be sooner, but as far as I am aware, that commitment is on track and at least 180 vehicles will be delivered by that time. Morpheus and the broader land environment tactical communications and information systems programme has been a troubled programme in some respects. It is a £6.5 billion, 10-year programme. It involves lots of things fitting together, as the hon. Gentleman will recall. We are trying to make sure that the programme delivers what it is supposed to deliver.
Some of the programmes we have inherited have troubled histories. That is one of the reasons why we are committed to defence reform. One of the problems with our procurement and acquisition system—this was mentioned, including by those who have perhaps experienced it in their professional life, whether in the forces or in the Department—is that it is not fit for purpose when it comes to doing things quickly and delivering what it says it will. The defence reform agenda is not about reorganising for the sake of it. That is not what we ought to be doing. Were the system in perfect order, we would not be reforming it. This reform is about ensuring that the national armaments director is accountable to Ministers and the services for delivering the equipment that the services need in a timely fashion, because that is not what happens now. Currently, each service goes off on frolics of their own. They have their equipment budgets and top-level budgets, and know what they want, and they never really talk to each other across services. As the hon. Gentleman said, a programme might get started because people think that they want the equipment, and it is a 10-year programme that is not funded right to the end, so money gets wasted. We have to do better.
One way we will do better is by having much clearer accountability. The NAD is a tremendously important figure in that. We will also make sure that we shorten our acquisition timescales. We cannot just have CADMID— concept, assessment, demonstration, manufacture, in service and disposal—for everything, with pre-contract phases and so on. We cannot do that any longer. We are not in times when we can get away with taking 10 years to produce something that is not quite what we wanted in the first place. There has been too much of that, and that is why we are segmenting our acquisition budget. The NAD will be in charge of delivering the capabilities that all our services need in much shorter timescales.
As for drones and that kind of capability, we are trying to get to contract within three months. By standing up UK Defence Innovation with a ringfenced budget of £400 million this year, and 10% of our investment budget in future, we aim to ensure that there is the money to innovate fast and get lethality into the hands of our warfighters faster. That is essential. We need to shorten the time it takes to get there, even for nuclear submarines. Members will have seen the aspiration in the SDR to get the time to contract down from an average of six years for those kinds of things to two years. That is a challenging aim.
On spiral upgrades and the new radars for our existing capabilities, we need to make sure that we get the time to contract down to a year. We need a much faster pace of innovation, change and improvement. The NAD will be responsible for that. There will be direct lines of accountability, and direct budget lines for which he is accountable. We have to ensure culture change to empower those at a lower level, so that we do not slip back into the old way of doing things. That is a challenge, but we need to meet it, given the times we are in.
Maria Eagle
The hon. Member is going to ask me about the new medium helicopter.
Adam Dance
The Minister must be a mind reader. Will she give us a timescale for when the new medium-lift helicopter contract will be awarded? I hope it will be awarded to Leonardo in my constituency.
Maria Eagle
I am not making any announcements today, but I have heard what the hon. Member said, and I want these matters dealt with more swiftly than in the past. He needs to listen out, because the announcement will come in due course.
We are undertaking this defence reform to make a real difference to acquisition and a real improvement to our procurement, to stop wasting money, and to get things into the hands of our warfighters faster. We can argue about money, as the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) likes to, but we must do better with the money that we receive, because the money allocated to defence could be spent on other things—on hospitals, schools, and helping people with their needs at home.
We all accept that we have to show the public—the voters—that we are spending the money in a way that provides us with maximum value. I know that the Select Committee will help the Government to do that, and I am determined to ensure that we do it. That is what defence reform means.
James Cartlidge
The Minister mentioned money, and it is brilliant that she is engaging in that debate. I mentioned the 2.6% issue. This is very important; the pledge is for 2.6% of GDP by 2027. In written parliamentary answers, we are not being told what quantum of money will be added to the Ministry of Defence budget—namely, what the intelligence spend will be, and the spend on the Foreign Office items outside Chagos. Will the Minister tell what that quantum is, so that we know whether the MOD will really be spending 2.5% on the core defence budget?
Maria Eagle
What the hon. Gentleman said at the beginning of his speech was very simple, I must say. I understand the point that he has made, although I have not seen the answers to which he has referred, so I shall have to take his point away. I am happy to discuss it with him on another occasion, but I cannot give him an answer today.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I deliberately included a little bit about recruitment and retention in my speech. There will, I think, be a tension between the armaments director and the Chief of the Defence Staff over recruitment versus the budget for equipment. It is not possible to suddenly turn on the tap and recruit more people; it takes time. Can the Minister say anything today about when she will start to ramp up that recruitment?
Maria Eagle
A great deal of effort is already being made. Both the Minister for Veterans and People and the Minister for the Armed Forces are leading a number of efforts to improve recruitment and retention. As the House will know, in a “flow and stock” situation, it takes time to turn around a long-standing trend, and unfortunately the last Government did not meet the recruitment targets for the armed forces in any one of their 14 years. This is like turning around a supertanker. We have already made some reforms to try to speed up the time that it takes to recruit a young person who wants to join the forces, and that will start to show results in due course.
Maria Eagle
I am conscious that I am probably overusing my time, so I do not want to give way any more. I apologise, but there is another debate to come.
All of us in the House essentially understand the importance of increasing our defence spending in a way that is effective and gives us good value for money, so that we can boost the capacity of our armed forces to defend the nation and deter potential adversaries. I think we are all on the same page in that regard, and that is a good way for me to end my speech. I thank all Members for taking part.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I thank the Minister for that positive contribution. Twenty-five years ago, when we sat next to each other in the Public Accounts Committee, passing each other notes and holding the civil service to account, who would have thought that we would be in our respective positions now? I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) for his contribution. In fact, I thank all Members for a very positive debate. We look forward to seeing positive results from all the requests that have been made today, and to working with the Government, while strictly holding them to account for all the promises that they have made.
Question deferred (Standing Order No. 54).
Department for Transport
(1 day, 13 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call the Chair of the Transport Committee.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Whether they are walking or cycling, riding on buses, trams or trains, or planes, transport plays a huge role in the daily lives of our constituents, and for the businesses and public services on which we all depend. I welcome the fact that the Government are investing properly in transport, particularly local transport. I also welcome the Chancellor’s announcement of £15.6 billion to connect our cities and towns, as well as the fourfold increase in local transport grants by the end of this Parliament. This Government’s ambition on transport is way ahead of the last Government’s.
The Transport Committee is tasked with holding the Department to account on its programme, in respect of both delivery and the use of resources, so I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate and to discuss the estimated departmental spend for the coming financial year. It is inevitable that Members will also want to consider the wider transport issues that affect their constituencies, but I will try to keep my remarks mainly to the estimates.
As our scrutiny role means seeking assurance that the departmental estimates link to the Department’s strategic objectives, this debate is important. Following the publication of the supplementary estimates for 2024-25, I wrote to the Department in March seeking clarity on how the spending aligned with the Department’s strategic objectives. The Transport Secretary replied saying that officials would
“work with the House of Commons Scrutiny Unit and HM Treasury to consider any changes to the presentation of the Department’s Estimates.”
I have not received more detail directly, and the Department’s main estimate memorandum provides no additional information to explain how spending is aligned with the Department’s strategic objectives. That memorandum and correspondence is linked to on the Order Paper.
Furthermore, the Department’s main estimate memorandum was not received on time, making it harder for my Committee and others to undertake effective and timely scrutiny. The Department for Transport was one of only three Departments, along with the Cabinet Office and the Home Office, whose memorandums were not provided alongside the publication of the main estimate.
Under the previous Government, outcome delivery plans were produced that listed the outcomes that Departments hoped to achieve through their spending, alongside specific metrics by which progress could be measured. The Department for Transport’s most recent outcome delivery plan was published in 2021. In the 2025-26 main estimates memorandum, the Department said:
“DfT’s Outcome Delivery Plan for 2025-26 outlines the ambition to build a modern, efficient, and sustainable transport network that raises living standards for communities. It details how resources are allocated between DfT’s three Priority Outcomes”,
which are given as growth; greener, safer and healthier transport, and improving transport for people. The memorandum later states that the
“DfT’s ODP includes delivery strategies, delivery plans and a suite of core metrics to articulate progress against each Priority Outcome.”
But the outcome delivery plan for 2025-26 has not been published, and the estimates memorandum does not explain how spending in the estimates relates to core metrics and so on.
The Cabinet Secretary recently promised to share the next set of ODPs with the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, subject to ministerial approval. Without the ODPs, how can our Committee, and therefore the House, be assured that the Department’s policy objectives are clear, and that its spending aligns with those objectives and with the Government’s really important and very welcome missions? I accept that the Minister may want to write to me after the debate to answer some of my questions. Will the Department for Transport follow the Cabinet Office in planning to publish its outcome delivery plan for 2025-26?
To move on to devolution and accountability, there have been increases in funding in the main estimates, with £100 million allocated to the mayoral combined authorities. Subsequently, at the spending review, there were increases to devolved institutions in England, with just over £15 billion for city region sustainable transport settlements and local transport grants.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
The previous Government forced Transport for London to come with a begging bowl every year to get the money needed to keep the tube and the buses going in the capital. Does my hon. Friend welcome this Government’s multi-year funding deal for TfL, which is the largest settlement for over a decade, and does she agree that it will bring stability to TfL’s finances and the ability to plan ahead?
Ruth Cadbury
I welcome the intervention from my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour. As a London MP, I know that stability in transport provision in London will be of huge benefit to my constituents, Londoners, visitors and commuters to London. We did not get everything we wanted in the spending review—in our case, the west London orbital—but we certainly got a lot more than we got from the previous Government, and for that we are very grateful.
Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)
This Government’s commitment to supporting transport across the country has led to a quadrupling of money for local transport grants, meaning that Bracknell Forest council will receive almost £7 million of transport funding through the spending review. To return to her previous point about strategy, does my hon. Friend agree that, in developing and setting out their national road safety strategy—I hope, later this year—it is important that the Government listen to local communities and areas such as Bracknell Forest. I plan to launch a consultation with my constituents on road safety this summer. Does she hope that the Government will listen to those views?
Ruth Cadbury
My hon. Friend anticipates what I will say about road safety later, but I agree about listening to communities on the devolution of funding. There are also the adjustments to the Green Book, which may have cost us a little bit in London compared with the funding we have had in recent years, but communities across the country will benefit from the overall national perspective on devolution and considering the country as a whole.
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
Mayor of the East Midlands, Claire Ward, has secured £2 billion for transport to and between Derby and Nottingham. Considering that the east midlands has languished at the bottom of the list for transport spend per person, does my hon. Friend agree that this Government are taking strides to ensure that the growth that comes through transport is felt in every corner of the country?
Ruth Cadbury
My hon. Friend and fellow Transport Committee member is absolutely right. The changes that this Government are making will be felt across the country and in all types of cities and regions.
To return to the specifics of the £15 billion for city region sustainable transport settlements and local transport grants, which I mentioned, they are deliberately not ringfenced, which is good for local democracy, but does create challenges for the Department in achieving national priorities. I heard from one colleague who is concerned that the politics of their authority is very based on cars, and although we want to encourage people to use public transport and active travel, what can the national Government do if the local authority uses that funding for cars?
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend is making an important speech, and her passion for transport is clear for all to see. I welcome the additional funding for bus travel in Essex, but I am very aware that it is for Essex county council, which oversees bus travel there. Does she agree that this is not just about providing that funding to local authorities, but about accountability and ensuring they act in the best interests of residents and spend that money efficiently and in the correct way?
Ruth Cadbury
Efficiently and correctly, but also transparently, and I hope all local authorities do fully, properly and accessibly account for their spending to their residents.
Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)
The hon. Member talks about £100 million being available for mayoral combined authorities, but is she confident that that is genuinely new money, rather than money reallocated from other pots for mayors to distribute?
Ruth Cadbury
The hon. Member asks a good question and the answer is that it is a mixture. It is the philosophy of devolution that is important because mayoral combined authorities in particular can deliver in ways that will be different according to their specific priorities and needs.
There has been a potential challenge to the Department in achieving national priorities. It is also worth noting that the main estimate for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government provides additional funding for the West Midlands and Great Manchester combined authorities, so there are other pots of money from other Departments that mayors can pool together to put to best use for their authorities. Will the Minister set out what happens if a devolved institution diverges from departmental priorities, for example by opting not to fund active travel despite the Department’s objective to increase active travel?
The future introduction of place-based business cases, as set out in the spending review, has the potential to transform how Government think about the value and benefit of transport interventions and outcomes. When business cases are reformed along those lines, we look forward to seeing a difference in how the Government draw and think about those connections.
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
I welcome my hon. Friend’s comments about the importance of place-based transport investment. Does she share any of my concerns that some of that place-based transport investment is a little too urban and concentrated too much in mayoral combined authorities, and that there may be areas outside those regions where more transformational place-based investment is warranted?
Ruth Cadbury
My hon. Friend makes a good point. One reason that the initial emphasis has been on mayoral combined authorities and urban areas is because work is already being done on such transport strategies, so they are often further ahead. Our buses inquiry deliberately focused on buses connecting communities away from the large urban areas. My hon. Friend is right that as local authorities have been stripped out over the past 15 years, much of that expertise among members and particularly among officers, just is not there, so there are often not the people needed to do that strategic work. I hope that will change and that when our buses inquiry report is published that element of the debate will be included.
I will move on to specific transport modes, starting with buses. Evidence to our Committee inquiry on buses connecting communities emphasised the value of bus services, and the need for measures to promote their use, especially in rural and suburban areas.
Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)
Buses are important to my community in Wales, including the No. 65 that connects Monmouth and Chepstow and is supported by an incredible community group called the Friends of the 65 Bus. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must have more funding for buses across the UK?
Ruth Cadbury
I cannot remember whether my hon. Friend was in the debate on the Bus Services (No. 2) Bill, but there will be more opportunities to make those points. As she says very well, it is one thing to look at the structures through the Bill, but for many areas, unless the funding is in place, the buses are not there. It is interesting that she mentions the 65: I also have a local battle about the 65 bus. However, that battle is within the context of Transport for London, a regulated transport network, so we have a level of accountability, expectation and information about our buses that was stripped out in the 1980s by the Thatcher Government, when buses outside London were deregulated.
We must ensure that there are strategic objectives underlying the Government’s buses policy, funding and fares approach. We welcome the retention of the £3 bus cap until at least March 2027, as it gives bus companies and local authorities an element of certainty that they did not have. I note that fare subsidy from Government has been cut as the cap was raised from £2 to £3, and I would like to understand from the Minister how the funding links with Government objectives. What is the Government’s bus fare strategy? Are they aiming to achieve economic growth, particularly in those towns centres that are failing because the people just cannot get to them to spend their money? Or is this about increased connectivity? Is the bus fare cap policy being used to tackle the cost of living, to increase ridership or to achieve modal shift? We are still waiting for some sense of what the Government are trying to achieve in their bus fare strategy.
I am now going to move on to roads. We are still waiting for the list of road investment projects in the third road investment strategy—RIS3. No scheme was published at the spending review. The more recent UK infrastructure 10-year strategy stated:
“A full list of projects will be set out as part of the development of the third Road Investment Strategy.”
When will that strategy and that list be published?
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
My constituents in Chichester are beyond frustrated by the congestion on our A road, the A27. A bypass was originally included in the road investment strategy pipeline covering 2025 to 2030, but that has since been deferred to 2030 to 2035, with no guaranteed funding. Does the hon. Member agree that strategic investment in key arterial roads is vital not only to unlocking economic growth but to easing the daily pressures on communities such as mine and across the country?
Ruth Cadbury
I do not know the detail of the proposals of which the hon. Member speaks, but I am well aware that there are bottlenecks on our road systems. This has to be looked at carefully. I learned a lesson about increasing road capacity many years ago when I was a planning student, and of course I remember the widening and further widening of the M25. I once had a boss who said, “You can throw seeds to the pigeons but you will get more pigeons coming to get the seeds.” People will remember the old days when we were able to feed seeds to the pigeons in Trafalgar Square, but that was stopped. We have to do the right stuff in the right way, because otherwise we could end up making the problem worse, but I take her point about the sense of frustration for her constituents.
I want to touch on road safety. Given that our serious road casualty and road injury statistics have flatlined in the UK in recent years, I am concerned that the funding for road safety research has been cut, despite the backdrop of the Government’s plans for road safety. I know that we are due to see the road safety strategy towards the end of the year, so why has that research funding been cut?
To move on to maritime, the UK Shipping Office for Reducing Emissions, otherwise known as UK SHORE, has a research and development programme that was set up to develop innovation to reduce maritime emissions and create skilled jobs across the country. Funding for UK SHORE is coming to an end this year. We are still waiting for the final evaluation report. Meanwhile, the advanced manufacturing sector plan, published this week, said that there would be
“a further £30 million towards the development of clean maritime solutions through the UK Shipping Office for Reducing Emissions (UK SHORE) from 2025 to 2026”.
My question is, will that £30 million be sufficient for the Government’s long-term plans for UK SHORE, given that, as I am hearing, the UK appears to be lagging behind competitor countries on decarbonising maritime?
On walking and cycling, I welcome the sizeable increase for day-to-day and capital spending for Active Travel England after the cut made by the previous Government, and the fact that this is an increase for the next year. However, these figures for growth appear inconsistent with the spending review announcement of a four-year figure, which, when divided by four, looks like a reduction. I wonder whether the Minister could respond to that.
The last mode I will mention is rail. Rail reform will no doubt significantly affect the size and shape of the Department’s spending on rail. The Department is right to be planning for savings and efficiencies as a result of the creation of Great British Railways removing duplication, in particular, while also delivering a better rail service for passengers. My Committee will pay close attention to the Department’s rail reform plans—not just the new structures it establishes, but how effectively those new structures are able to achieve the Government’s aims.
Does the Department have a costed, achievable plan for reducing the cost base by £200 million, as stated, and for growing passenger revenue, as shown in the estimates memorandum? What level of subsidy will continue to be required?
I look forward to responses to my specific questions on the estimates, but I would like to address a couple of other issues on revenue and investment funding. Fines, fees and charges are mentioned only once in the main estimates for transport, namely in the increase in the charge for the existing Dartford crossing. In a report published last week, the National Audit Office has said that
“The government is missing opportunities to deliver efficiencies and share good practice.”
and that
“it is unlikely that the current arrangements for fees and charges will deliver value for money for customers, businesses and taxpayers.”
I will provide two examples. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency spends £175 million a year on the costs of licences, but only £135 million comes in through fees. Is that sustainable? The fee for the driving test has been unchanged for years. In effect, learner drivers are incentivised to take their tests too early, as it is cheaper to have a go at the test than to have another lesson. Should the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency not be empowered to respond to that?
Are the Government addressing this policy vacuum on fines, fees and charges? We need a coherent strategy where each is set at a level that addresses a particular objective—this might be to incentivise or disincentivise, to cover costs, to track the retail prices index, or whatever.
It is important to evaluate how capital investment is spent, given past challenges with managing large infrastructure projects such as High Speed 2. I welcome the announcement regarding its reset; the Committee is planning to hear from Mark Wild, chief executive of HS2, on 9 July.
Finally, I will repeat the point I have made before in this Chamber about the need to develop more, and more innovative, forms of funding transport infrastructure —land value capture, risk sharing, private finance initiatives and more. Putting all that together, we can ensure that all parts of the country can benefit from badly needed transport infrastructure investment in the future.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
I agree with the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) on one thing, which is the importance of transport for connecting communities. I then diverge from her a little, because if this Government are serious about unlocking and delivering economic growth, particularly across the west midlands, they would be serious about funding transport.
This Government’s commitment to £10.2 billion for rail enhancement is welcome, but, as ever with the Government, it lacks detail and leaves unanswered questions. Take the example of the midlands rail hub, for which the previous Government not only committed to the initial £123 million, but pledged £1.7 billion to deliver the hub in full under Network North. However, today, through the spending review and responses to my written questions, it has become clear that the hub is funded not to delivery, but only to the next stage. I hope that, in his summing up, the Minister will clarify once and for all whether the new Government are committed to fully funding the delivery of this project. If so, when will it be completed? It is critical to the infrastructure of the west midlands and beyond.
Staying on the topic of trains, I cannot let this debate go without mentioning Aldridge train station. The city region sustainable transport settlements are also covered in these estimates. It was thanks to the hard work of the previous mayor, Andy Street, working with the then Conservative Government that we secured and set out a fully funded CRSTS programme. That included £30 million to deliver Aldridge train station in my constituency. The funding for the delivery of the station was earmarked for 2027, providing rail connectivity for the first time since the 1960s. Sadly, it was the decision of the Transport Secretary, together with the Chancellor, to approve Mayor Parker’s decision to convert the capital funding to revenue. The funding had been ringfenced for our station, but it has now been moved away from Aldridge train station—I suspect that it has been moved to fund the mayor’s vanity bus project.
The 2025 spending review also confirmed £15.6 billion in funding to provide transport for city region settlements for nine mayoral authorities, including £2.4 billion for the west midlands. The mayor could have chosen to get Aldridge station back on track, but no, he has chosen to keep it in the sidings. This is despite the Chief Secretary to the Treasury indicating in this House on 4 June that the mayor had not spent all his money, and even encouraging colleagues to lobby him on how he might wish to spend the rest. Suffice it to say, the Mayor of the West Midlands knows my views and he knows my ask, and I will continue asking.
Let me turn now to bus services, which are key to connectivity and to opportunity, particularly for communities such as mine which find themselves still without a train station. We have seen in the estimates that the national bus fare cap, which was increased from £2.50 to £3 in January 2025, is being extended to March 2027. That is fine, but the Transport Secretary claims that this is a measure to reduce the cost of everyday journeys for working people, yet for those of us in the west midlands, it is yet another hit on top of what we have already seen from the mayor, who has hiked fares and monthly and annual bus passes by more than 8%.
In the debate on the Bus Services (No, 2) Bill earlier this month, I asked the Transport Secretary about how the so-called “socially necessary” services referenced in the Bill would be protected and how they would be defined. She told me that it is down to individual local authorities to define what is socially necessary, but gave no assurances about how they would be supported to continue to provide these vital services. As we saw, £750 million per year announced in the spending review is to maintain and improve bus services. It would be really helpful to understand what allocation from the spending review will go to fund these services in the west midlands.
Joe Robertson
My right hon. Friend talks about the Bus Services (No. 2) Bill, which is now in Committee. Does she share my concern that the franchising arrangements that that Bill offers have little attraction for small local authorities such as mine on the Isle of Wight, because if it were minded to go down the route of franchising, it would take all the risk and could end up with a very large shortfall that perhaps metropolitan boroughs can swallow, but certainly smaller local authorities such as mine could not?
Wendy Morton
My hon. Friend makes an interesting point on franchising. He is right to highlight the potential impact and the challenge for smaller authorities, but there are also challenges for the bigger authorities. My constituency is part of the West Midlands combined authority, and also part of Walsall metropolitan borough, but I am equally concerned about how this new model that our mayor is pushing will be sustainable. I fear that, in the future, my residents might find either a reduction in services, or increases in cost. For constituencies on the edge of a large combined authority, there is always that feeling that services are sucked into the centre and that we are left out on the periphery.
Transport is vital to people and communities, and it is vital in accessing employment and opportunity. From the Government’s plans, it is quite clear that they have simply used reviews to move money around to their pet projects, and they are not joining up communities—simply another missed opportunity. For as long as my constituents continue to raise with me the question of Aldridge station, I assure you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will continue to raise it in this place.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
Let me begin by agreeing with the Chair of the Transport Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury). She is right to welcome the huge ambition that the Government have shown on transport. It is certainly much more ambitious than what we saw under the previous Government. I urge the Government to grow that ambition boldly, particularly for the areas that were left behind under the previous Government, and to enable growth and opportunity to reach every corner of the UK.
Much of my speech relates to my constituency and the great city of Bradford, which will not be lost on you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I welcome the recent announcement in the spending review of £2.1 billion for a new tramline and bus station in Bradford. Those projects represent an important step forward, and I am grateful that Bradford is finally receiving the long-overdue attention that it deserves. Communities in Bradford such as mine, and indeed yours, Madam Deputy Speaker, have waited too long to see promises become progress. I have long campaigned for improved transport links in Bradford and across West Yorkshire, alongside colleagues, campaigners and Bradford council, because I know how vital transport is to unlocking economic growth. It is a driver for regeneration, a bridge between communities and a pathway to opportunity.
If the Government are serious about long-term regional growth, they must go further. We need additional funding to ensure that Bradford receives the full investment in transport that it needs, not only to support our local communities but to strengthen the economic performance of West Yorkshire and the wider north. Despite being one of the largest cities in the UK, Bradford has historically been left behind when it comes to national transport planning. The absence of strong rail connectivity continues to limit our potential, and that must change.
I believe that Bradford would benefit significantly from a new, modern and fit-for-purpose railway station. While I welcome improvements to Forster Square, we must be far more ambitious if we want to deliver a station that truly connects Bradford to the rest of the country and enables wider regeneration in our city centre. A new railway station is deliverable and could be built at pace, with low risk of cost increases. I understand that different Departments have already been looking at the business case and evidence for it. The benefits would be transformative. Improved connectivity between Leeds and Bradford would unlock our huge growth potential.
I would also like to make the strong case for Bradford to be linked into the £11 billion trans-Pennine upgrade. I know that there have already been consultations on its feasibility, and I ask the Minister to address that in his remarks.
By linking Bradford to Huddersfield on the trans-Pennine line, we would have direct access to the wider region. It would speed up journeys to Manchester by half, help put Bradford on the map and be a huge boost for growth. I ask the Treasury to continue to work with the Department for Transport and regional partners to explore improvements in east-west connectivity to complement the city’s long-term growth strategy.
Let me turn to the huge economic benefits not just to Bradford or West Yorkshire but to the whole of the north. Maximising investment in mass transit and Bradford rail would open key regeneration and housing sites. It is central to delivering Bradford’s southern gateway—West Yorkshire’s largest regeneration opportunity—and could unlock up to 10,000 homes across the wider city centre. More investment in Bradford would be not a cost but a long-term saving: it would mean lower welfare dependency, better access to jobs and learning, and a more prosperous, healthier population.
If Bradford were just to meet the UK average for productivity, enterprise and employment, we would unlock over £4.5 billion in additional annual economic output. As the House will know, Bradford’s 2025 city of culture programme is already unlocking billions in regeneration across West Yorkshire, but to truly meet the Government’s growth objectives and level up opportunity, we need a fair, ambitious settlement, because without mobility there is no capability.
I welcome what the Government have done for transport in Bradford so far, but again I make the case for a new rail station, which I know the Minister and different Departments are looking at seriously. I also ask the Minister to consider the strong case for giving Bradford real access to the trans-Pennine line. I urge the Government to set out what additional funding and support can be made available.
Madam Deputy Speaker, you and I know that a fully connected Bradford will lift the entire region. We will continue to campaign for the transport investment that Bradford so clearly deserves.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
I am grateful to the Chair of the Transport Committee and the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us to debate the transport estimates.
I felt a bit underwhelmed by the Chancellor’s offering for transport following the spending review. I am not really sure what she had to offer my constituents in North Norfolk. We saw funding for the continuation of the bus fare cap, which is welcome, but still an increase to the £2 cap that was previously in place. Other than that, what will help them? Upgrades to the Ely and Haughley junctions, which would support improved connections for business and passengers out of Norfolk, were once again overlooked, which will lead only to a higher cost when the Government eventually realise they are necessary. There were also questions over funding for active travel at a time when we should be investing more to encourage modal shift and making walking and cycling an easier and more attractive option, and a complete fiscal straitjacket was placed on the future of the Bus Services (No. 2) Bill, on which I will focus my remarks.
I am serving on the Bill Committee, and we have learned that the Government have applied a money resolution that means the Bill can incur expenditure only under existing Acts and not create anything of its own that would require any actual money. It often feels like we are living through a certain political sitcom in this place. In this instance, the Treasury has effectively shut the Department for Transport in the back of a taxi and tasked it with coming up with something incredibly popular and completely free. I fear it is only a matter of time until we get a ministerial statement doubling the number of quiet carriages on trains.
The serious point is that we cannot deliver the radical change and improvement that our rural public transport network needs without new money to support it. The Minister responsible for buses, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Wakefield and Rothwell (Simon Lightwood), has made laudable efforts—I believe that he really believes in buses—and there is a lot of really good stuff in the Bill, but just creating and distributing powers without any funding to support their use, and barely any funding to support and develop best practice on how to use them, will not deliver the improvements we need. Indeed, the Department’s Bus Centre of Excellence is staffed by a grand total of three people, and with day-to-day spending cut by the spending review, we are not likely to see a hiring spree any time soon.
Supporting rural public transport helps across Departments. It supports people’s access to medical appointments in a timely manner, reducing missed appointments or worsened conditions. It reduces the benefits bill by widening access to employment and training opportunities. It is better for the planet, reducing car journeys and the resulting emissions. Revolutionising rural public transport would be a cross-Government win. I hope the Treasury can see it that way too and finally give it the funding that it needs.
Catherine Fookes
Monmouthshire is a rural county and access to transport is critical, so I am delighted to speak in this estimates day debate. Transport enables people to get to work, school, hospital appointments and, of course, anywhere else they need to be. It also enables me to get up here from Monmouthshire. I have already talked about my favourite bus service, the No. 65, which goes through the lovely villages of Trellech and Devauden, and is incredibly important for allowing young people who cannot drive yet to get to work and so on.
I am delighted with the expenditure outlined in the comprehensive spending review for improving transport links across south Wales and reaching over the border. This has the potential to be an absolute game changer for my constituents. A lack of regular, reliable public transport is holding our county back, and it is frustrating and restrictive for residents. More importantly, it is a major barrier to economic growth, which is the main mission of this Government.
That is why I and Monmouthshire residents were over the moon when, in the spending review, £445 million was committed to Welsh rail. The funding is being made available for the Burns stations—five stations outlined in the Burns review that run between my constituency of Monmouthshire and across to Cardiff. That includes an important station to me: the station of Magor and Undy. Hundreds of new homes have been built at Magor and Undy, and the commuters who live in them do not have a viable option to get to work other than by road. There are major road congestion problems around Magor, particularly on the nearby M4, so this transformative rail funding will see huge benefits for my community and allow huge numbers of people to avoid using a car at all for their commute.
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. My community, like hers, also depends on rail services running from London to south Wales. I want to underline the benefits she is outlining based on my own experience. Reading has benefited hugely from the Elizabeth line and the rebuilding of the station, and that is linked to new homes and businesses clustering around the station. Does she agree that the Government’s strategy, as outlined earlier, brings forward real benefits to many constituencies across the country, and that there are already such examples where Labour councils and the Government are working well together?
Catherine Fookes
I strongly agree. It is great to see two Labour Governments working together, here in Westminster and down in Cardiff, to deliver those better transport links between London and Reading and all the way down to south Wales.
It is important that we have Magor and Undy station as soon as possible. It is a walkway station, which is really innovative; people will walk to the station from the surrounding area. It is innovative, it is green and it is an affordable choice to kick-start this important new set of transport links. We have to start somewhere with our five stations down in south Wales, so I am using this debate to strongly suggest that Lord Hendy and the other Transport Ministers support starting the journey at Magor and Undy.
Another key issue we face is the closure to heavy goods vehicles of the M48 bridge over the Severn. That is really impacting businesses around Chepstow, particularly on the Newhouse Farm industrial estate. Drivers are being forced to add miles to their journeys. Of course the safety of our bridges is incredibly important, but the closure of the M48 bridge is bad for businesses, bad for the environment and bad for everyone driving locally, as they face even more congestion. Sadly, the situation is expected to continue until late 2026, but I am delighted that the Roads Minister has confirmed to me today that she is encouraging National Highways to expedite the process as soon as possible. I must stress that current timescales are going to hit Monmouthshire hard, so support for local businesses, many of which are in the logistics sector, and help for National Highways to move faster would be extremely welcome.
We need the bridge fixing and we need our station at Magor. Those are two really big transport issues for Monmouthshire, proving the importance of the UK and Welsh Governments working together to improve connectivity, sort out congestion, reduce vehicle emissions and, ultimately, supercharge economic growth. I wholeheartedly welcome the funding outlined in the spending review to help us take steps in that direction.
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
I praise and thank the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) for her wide-ranging opening speech to this important debate. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving time for it.
There is much to welcome in the spending review announcements for transport, particularly the capital investment in many parts of the country, but it is going to be important to hold the course and be consistent in the support for such schemes. For example, proposals for a West Yorkshire tram have been in and out so many times that people living in that region have understandably lost count. Hopefully, this time it really will happen.
Beneath the positive headlines about capital spending, and hidden a little in the footnotes, is a 5% cut to operational expenditure during the spending review period. Looking at the detail, there are some somewhat optimistic assumptions that form the basis of how that will be borne. For example, in section 1.7 of the DFT memorandum for the main estimate 2025-2026, it is clear that the assumption as to how some of those savings will be made is through ongoing recovery of passenger revenues since the pandemic, as well as planned cost efficiencies from rail reform. It states,
“Should revenue growth be lower or implementation of rail reform be slower than anticipated then that could result in spending pressures.”
Although Great British Railways certainly has the potential to improve things, I think all concerned would accept that on its own, it will not solve all our problems.
Given that our transport system is not going anywhere —we are not going to see closures of railways or large cuts—I think it is time that we collectively stop viewing it as a burden and spend intelligently to make the most of the assets and the costs that come with them. By spending a little bit more or approaching things a little radically, we can make far more of those sunk costs that go into our transport system and will continue regardless.
It is important to recognise the suggestions at the moment that funding for the existing network may well be constrained by the expensive disaster that the implementation of HS2 has become. We do need high-speed rail in this country, but the costs are simply unbelievable. However, I suggest to the Government that it would be as wrong to punish the conventional network for HS2’s failings as it would be to deprive local roads of investment because of an over-budget motorway project.
Here are a few friendly suggestions to the Minister and his colleagues for how that 5% operating expense gap could be plugged by growing revenue. When it comes to taking the railway to the next level, there are some things that cost very little, if anything, that could be done. I personally find on-train ticket checks to be inconsistent. Where guards are present, they really should be present on the train, ensuring that we maximise revenue gathering from ticket sales. Full electrification of our busiest and fastest inter-city and freight routes would lead to higher train reliability, better acceleration and therefore more capacity, making the most of what we already have. It is not just me who thinks that a rolling programme of electrification would reduce costs; chief executive of Network Rail Andrew Haines recently said in front of the Transport Committee that it is “incontrovertible” that it would do so.
David Chadwick (Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe) (LD)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the electrification of railway lines boosts capacity and enables them to ship more freight across our great nation?
Olly Glover
My hon. Friend is quite correct. Having previously worked on this subject in my past life, modelling of acceleration shows that electrically hauled freight is transformative compared with diesel, and it enables more to be hauled, making the most of the limited capacity that we have.
Let me give an example from my constituency. The electrification of the 10 miles between Didcot and Oxford would reduce operating complexity and costs by reducing the long periods when trains sit idle at Didcot because of the split between London to Didcot, which is electrified, and Didcot to Oxford, which is not. It would also enable the sort of fast and frequent suburban service that is needed to serve a proposed major housing development and an artificial intelligence growth zone site at Culham. Full electrification of East West Rail would cost very little, as the project is based on new and heavily upgraded railways, yet massively increase its potential.
Rail freight promotion would reduce the need for costly upgrades to roads such as the A34. Even National Highways acknowledged that to me in a meeting the other day. The A34 through my constituency has heavy freight traffic from Southampton’s ports, including container haulage heading to the midlands and the north. There are capacity constraints that prevent more of that freight being taken on the railway between Southampton, Reading and Birmingham.
As a recent excellent report by the Transport Committee on accessibility highlighted, accessibility improvements make our railways far more attractive. Last night, it was my pleasure to attend a meeting in Cholsey, where people are campaigning hard for accessibility improvements at their station. Such improvements have been made down the line at Pangbourne, Goring and Streatley. New stations on existing lines, such as at Grove and Wantage—an area of major population growth in my constituency—would make more of the infrastructure that we already have.
Do the Government plan to think radically, or will they be stuck in a rut, doing more of the same? Government support for more depot capacity at Temple Mills in Stratford is all that is needed to get more people using international rail services. The private sector will do the rest. That would free up landing slots at the ever-busier Heathrow airport, potentially avoiding the need for a costly and disruptive third runway. I call on the Government to provide sustained and generous funding for Active Travel England, so that it can continue its strong work of ensuring that local authorities provide not tokenistic cycle paths that go nowhere, but the highest quality infrastructure to get us all walking and cycling. Innovation in retail systems to make it clearer where and when the cheapest fares are to be had has the potential to increase revenue yields.
As we found on a recent visit to the port of Dover, there is great electrification potential for the Dover-to-Calais route, which is one of the shortest and busiest shipping corridors in the world. French ports are ready for rapid charging of battery ships, but we were told that Dover needs power supply and grid capacity upgrades. No plans are in place for those, which means that we are missing an opportunity to achieve a global first: fully decarbonised freight.
Noah Law
The hon. Member is making a detailed and impassioned speech about the possibilities for transport investment throughout the country. Does he recognise the value of electrification of the Cornish main line? The benefit would be in the region of 10 times the cost, and there would be potential for a grid upgrade of the kind he mentioned.
Olly Glover
I agree that full electrification is the best solution for the Devon and Cornwall main line, and we can use battery trains on the branch lines once that has been done. I would welcome a longer conversation with the hon. Member, because I understand that the current thinking is for discontinuous electrification with batteries, which is not the right solution for that critical artery across Devon and Cornwall, given that there are dual carriageways, but the railway has had very little investment in the past 40 years.
Integrated transport is key to growing confidence in and therefore use of public transport. It improves interfaces between modes, as well as easing pressure on our creaking road network. The forthcoming Government integrated transport strategy is welcome, but it must address disintegrated timetables for the railways, buses and other forms of transport, baffling and expensive fare structures, unwelcoming bus stations, and the lack of walking and cycling routes. Integrated transport is how Switzerland achieves the highest rate of public transport use in Europe.
The key question for our transport system, which is so critical to our economy, our environment and social inclusion, is whether we want more of the same, or whether we want to create a transport system that really enables access to jobs, social mobility and economic change. Current plans suggest a little too much of the same, rather than a real change of course.
Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)
I thank speakers who have taken part in the debate, and I particularly thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), the Chair of the Transport Committee, for her comprehensive speech.
Transport is a huge priority for residents of Dartford. The constituency contains the only Thames crossing east of London, as well as a stop on High Speed 1. My constituency has several key railway stations and bus services that need major investment. It is fair to say that Dartford provides some good examples of Government policy starting to get it right, as well as of challenges that we all face.
I will start with roads, and I put on record my appreciation for the announcement in the spending review that the Department for Transport will create a £1 billion structures fund to repair the rundown transport infrastructure—roads, bridges and the like—that this Government inherited, and for which there is no other available funding. Nowhere will that be more welcome than in Swanscombe, where the collapse of Galley Hill road more than two years ago has left residents unable to use the main road out of their town. They are also blighted by heavy goods vehicles that are using roads that are far too small for them. I particularly thank the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), for visiting soon after her appointment following last year’s election. I look forward to more information in the coming months about how Kent county council, and other councils across the country, can apply to that structures fund.
I warmly welcome the development consent order, and the funding announced for vital work on the proposed Lower Thames crossing, which, when finally built, will relieve the traffic overspill that regularly brings Dartford to a complete halt. Residents in Dartford and beyond eagerly anticipate further news on the funding package. We saw £690 million announced in the comprehensive spending review, but they want further funding in the months ahead—private sector funding, as well as more public sector funding. I look forward very much to working with Ministers to make that happen. The jobs, training and new business opportunities that the construction and operation of the crossing will offer will help to drive economic growth across the Thames estuary, and in the wider region beyond.
Money for potholes, including £54 million for Kent this year, is incredibly welcome, after our roads in Kent became a visible sign of decline under the Conservative party. Residents will be looking to the new Reform county council to make a real improvement to our roads with that money, so let us see it properly spent.
Joe Robertson
It sounds as if the hon. Member is placing his faith in his new Reform county council. Is that really the case?
Jim Dickson
Having seen the DOGE unit turn up in Kent on day one—people with no knowledge of Kent, wearing baseball hats—I am not hugely confident that the council will spend the money well, but let us give it a chance. I throw that challenge out to them. Our community needs Kent county council to put the £23 million of funding that the Government have provided to good use. It must also use the new franchise powers that will be available through the Bus Services (No.2) Bill to improve bus services in Dartford and across Kent. Again, we will be holding the council to account. I also want to say a quick word about welcome developments in rail.
Mr Luke Charters (York Outer) (Lab)
Up north, we are chuffed about the record investment in the trans-Pennine route, and chuffed about Northern Powerhouse Rail. Will my hon. Friend back my calls for better train wi-fi, so that our constituents can check their emails speedily, and my little boy Robin can stream “Paw Patrol”?
Jim Dickson
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. Wi-fi not only enables people to work on trains and maintain the connectivity that they need to live their life while using public transport, but provides huge opportunities for entertainment. I know there are many “Paw Patrol” fans out there who will want improved wi-fi on my hon. Friend’s services.
The other equally important rail development that we want in Dartford is further improvements to the reliability of services provided by the Southeastern and Thameslink lines. It is encouraging that on Southeastern, which has been Government-owned for some time, we see an early example of integrated management—the track was previously run by Network Rail—and train operations of the kind that will become the norm under Great British Railways. We are pioneering that in the south-eastern part of Network Rail in Dartford. If we only had more stations with step-free access, including at Swanscombe, where that access is particularly badly needed, that would be incredibly welcome.
On high-speed rail, I note the welcome development mentioned by the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover): new entrants to the international rail services routes have signalled their intention to stop at one or both of Ebbsfleet and Ashford in Kent, restoring international services to our county. We welcome continued support from Ministers for that new international rail connectivity.
Finally, Dartford residents want a couple of extra things to come down the line. We want the highly successful Elizabeth line—or Crossrail, as it was originally known—to reach Ebbsfleet and beyond, rather than terminating at Abbey Wood. I appreciate that funding is not on the table for that project, but given the size of the growing community in Ebbsfleet and the need for sustainable transport links to our capital, I hope that over the course of this Parliament, we may be able to look at how an extension of the Elizabeth line from Abbey Wood to Ebbsfleet might be funded.
Residents in my constituency will warmly welcome these estimates, the Government policy set out in them, and the action that the Government have taken so far to improve transport infrastructure and connectivity. As I have said, I very much look forward to continuing to work with Ministers to get Dartford moving.
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
I rise to thank the Government for the emphasis that they have placed on transport and critical national infrastructure in their agenda so far; to urge them to go further; to dangle before them the very exciting prospects offered by my constituency, which has economic potential to unlock; and to draw attention to the unmet needs of my constituents.
Along with the rest of south-east England, Surrey Heath is often seen as a well-connected and prosperous part of the country, but that perception has allowed a troubling complacency to take root. Beneath that surface impression lies a set of worsening transport challenges that limit opportunity, stifle growth and place a daily strain on residents across the towns and villages of my constituency. We are the second most car-dependent constituency in the country, with 1.64 cars per household—well above the national average. That figure is the result not of convenience or affluence, but of necessity. Public transport is patchy, unreliable and poorly integrated, and in some areas it is absent altogether.
That car dependency comes at a huge financial cost to my constituents and places a huge pressure on our road infrastructure. Junction 3 of the M3 is frequently overwhelmed and is a daily staple of the morning and evening traffic reports. Any listener to LBC or BBC Radio 2 will know the otherwise wonderful village of Lightwater by its association with congestion and long delays. That is terribly unfair, because it is a rather lovely place. The A322, our principal arterial route connecting several villages, is frequently at a standstill. Frustrated drivers bail out and cut through nearby villages such as Windlesham, which is equally lovely, turning residential roads into rat runs. The Lightwater bypass, which is designed to ease traffic flow, regularly grinds to a halt. This issue is not only congestion, but safety and liveability for those communities. Residents along the A322 report frequent speeding, dangerous driving and noise. There have been serious accidents, some of which have tragically been fatal, but calls for basic safety measures such as speed enforcement remain unanswered.
Jess Brown-Fuller
My hon. Friend mentions safety measures. In my constituency, we have the Fishbourne roundabout on the A27, which many of my constituents avoid like the plague. I was on that roundabout in my car just the other week with a staff member, and we had a very near miss. Does my hon. Friend agree that dealing with the problem once there has been an accident or a fatality is absolutely the wrong way to ensure protections on these roads? We need to fix the problem before deaths occur.
Dr Pinkerton
My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that I entirely agree with her. We have had several fatalities, and very often our local county council makes the same claim—that it cannot, or will not, do anything until there is greater evidence of safety need. Tragically, the ultimate expression of that need is often a fatality.
Bus services in my constituency are sparse, and are non-existent in some areas. In villages such as Chobham, there is no regular bus service at all, and where buses do run, they are often poorly timed with train connections, leaving residents waiting or missing links. For many, the only option is costly private transport. That disproportionately affects the elderly; young people who have not yet learned to drive, or have not been able to access driving test appointments because of the current crisis in that particular part of our civic life; and lower-income households. In 2025, the simple act of attending work, school or hospital should not be dependent on car ownership or on expensive taxi journeys, often costing more than £50.
Those pre-existing challenges now collide with demands for rapid additional development. With the Government’s commitment to build 1.5 million homes, Surrey Heath is expected to deliver a 113% increase in housing over the coming years, but 74% of my constituency is already constrained by green belt or other planning restrictions. For example, in the village of Deepcut alone, the former Army base that has become notorious in the public imagination has already delivered new homes, and will continue to deliver 1,200 new homes over the next couple of years. That is good, but it places thousands more vehicles on roads that are already under pressure, because no public transport has been introduced alongside those housing increases.
Meanwhile, our rail infrastructure has not only failed to keep up with the times but gone backwards. Camberley, our largest town and the home of Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, is just 28 miles from central London, yet journeys regularly exceed 75 minutes in duration. There are only three direct trains per day, none of which is aligned with standard commuting hours. It now takes longer to travel from London to Camberley in 2025 than it did in 1925. Commuters are often forced to jump into their cars and travel to Woking, Brookwood or Farnborough, adding to road congestion and hindering any meaningful move towards the realisation of sustainable transport aspirations.
We need a long-term, strategic approach to infrastructure. That means faster, more direct train links, dependable and integrated bus routes, and delivery ahead of—not after—major housing developments. For that reason, I call on the Government to commission a national survey of local connectivity, in order to build an accurate picture of travel times within and between our communities and regional economic centres. We must identify the areas that are most underserved and ensure that investment is guided by evidence and lived experience, not just assumptions of affluence and connectivity. Such a national review would enable a more coherent strategy to emerge.
In an era in which I think we all recognise that every single pound matters, that kind of connectivity mapping would provide a valuable guide for critical investment decisions, which must unlock latent economic potential in areas that have been left behind. Without anticipating the results of such a survey, I have every belief that it would show communities such as mine in Surrey Heath to be ripe for that kind of economic investment. If we are serious about building sustainable, connected communities and making every pound of investment count—which surely we all are—we must begin by listening, identifying the gaps, and acting to close them.
Alex Mayer (Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard) (Lab)
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate to take place. I very much welcome the investment in transport—especially public transport—in the spending review. The commitment is really clear; for example, there is £2.3 billion for the local transport grant, which will support local transport improvements such as bus lanes, as well as £616 million to build and maintain walking and cycling infrastructure and £2.6 billion to decarbonise transport, which is all very important.
Investment in public transport, particularly in buses, brings multiple benefits. First, it reduces congestion.
Catherine Atkinson
In the east midlands, we saw our bus routes cut by 60% under successive Conservative Governments. Does my hon. Friend agree that buses have a huge impact upon people’s lives and their ability to access opportunities in training and work, to get to health appointments and to connect with family and friends? Does my hon. Friend agree and welcome this Labour Government’s focus on enabling better bus travel, which is the right direction to go?
Alex Mayer
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I know she is normally a champion for trains in her constituency, so I welcome her branching out into buses. The Campaign for Better Transport says that £1 of investment in buses brings £4.55 in benefits, and I am absolutely up for that. While we are on the subject of better buses, where we have good public transport, such as busways in my constituency, people come to them. That is why I back the campaign to extend the Dunstable busway west towards Leighton Buzzard and then ideally on to Bletchley.
In her opening remarks, the Chair of the Transport Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) talked about fees, particularly for driving tests, which we have been discussing in Committee. Will the Minister consider looking at fees as a way to change behaviour? I have been contacted by constituents who have been told they will have to wait up to nine months to get a driving test slot, which is utterly ridiculous. People are putting their lives on hold for such things. One issue we found when we gathered evidence in the Committee is that people are booking up tests, regardless of whether they are ready to take a test. As my hon. Friend said, it is cheaper sometimes to book a driving test than to book a couple of lessons, and that cannot be right.
I cannot imagine any Government out there would relish putting up the price of a driving test. The hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) was challenging us to find policies that are both popular and free, but we could think about driving tests a little bit differently. For example, how about putting up the fee, but giving everybody one free go at it? Basically if someone passes their driving test, they would get a refund. That would encourage everybody to only go for it when they really thought they would pass. We could probably make it cost-neutral, and it would free up slots, because only those who thought they were definitely ready would go for it, and it would be offset by putting up the charges for everyone who fails again and again. That probably would not have done me any good; I failed my driving test about five times, but I eventually managed it.
Moving on, local roads make up 98% of the road network and carry 60% of all traffic. Every journey, however it starts—whether by foot, by bike, by bus or by car—starts and ends on a local road, and local roads are managed by highways authorities, but highways authorities are not always transport authorities. This will become an increasing issue as the Government roll on with their devolution agenda, which I welcome, and more strategic transport authorities are established. With buses, for example, whether it is an enhanced partnership agreement between a local transport authority and a bus operator, or franchising carried out with a transport authority that is not the Highways Authority, there are things that it is difficult for the transport authority to do to keep a bus running on time, because that is dependent on the road on which it is running.
As we all know, roads can be blocked by roadworks, they can be in a poor state of repair and a bus lane can be obstructed, yet a stand-alone transport authority does not have control over any of that. Such authorities do not manage the planning system, do not collect the community infrastructure levy, do not own the bus stops and do not get any cash from bus lane enforcement—none of that comes their way. However, they are the authorities expected to get on with delivering the funding, such as the £15.6 billion transport for city regions settlement.
May I ask the Minister what lessons have been learnt from CRSTS in respect of delivery? I am thinking especially of any blockages that may have been encountered because of the split between transport and highways, and indeed the lack of passenger transport executives or their equivalents. I have talked to other Ministers about that, but I am delighted to see this Minister on the Front Bench, and it would be interesting to hear anything from him on the subject of passenger transport executives.
As I have said before, we could have a much more cost-efficient system. The Government are rightly bringing track and train together, and I think we now need to have a conversation about bringing bus and bus lane together.
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
When we talk about national renewal and about building a fairer country, that promise must be visible in places such as Cornwall. I am speaking today not just as the Member of Parliament for St Austell and Newquay and the clay country, but on behalf of a nation and region that has for too long been overlooked when it comes to transport infrastructure. While urban areas receive wave after wave of capital funding, Cornwall—despite its strategic economic potential—has to fight for anything more than basic improvements.
The Mid Cornwall Metro was billed as a flagship rail project for regional regeneration, but this summer we face the real possibility of reduced services, delays in driver training, and a fractured promise to towns such as Newquay that rely on connectivity to survive and thrive. That is not fairness; it is failure. We must move beyond piecemeal, incremental improvements. A “real” Mid Cornwall Metro would link St Austell to Newquay via the western clay country, and is about as shovel-ready as is possible with a major project of that scale in Cornwall. It is backed by rigorous analysis and an albeit outdated feasibility study, and has a cost-benefit ratio of 2.3. It would connect our critical minerals industry with global opportunity, it would help our young people gain access to jobs and training, and it would breathe life into some of the most under-invested communities in the south-west.
We know there are still announcements to come, but Cornwall cannot sit at the back of the queue any longer. Over the period covered by the spending review, the south-west will receive £201 million in local transport grant funding. I think that is about a quadrupling of the present amount, which is extremely welcome, but just £24.4 million of it is allocated to Cornwall. In the same period, the West of England combined authority, despite its similar population, will receive £752 million. We should like to see the same progress on investment in transport as we have seen in so many other areas, such as local government—with its fair funding—and health, given today’s announcement about the Carr-Hill formula. What we need is a Department for Transport that works with us in Cornwall, not around us. We need proper devolved authority over our local rail system to optimise transport integration and to serve forgotten communities such as Foxhole, Nanpean, Treviscoe and St Dennis, where our track turns to trackbed; we need investment that reflects our economic and industrial ambition; and we need decisions that are based on public good, not on postcodes.
The Green Book review, in proposing place-based approaches to investment, sets our Government a clear challenge. Cornwall is ready to step up to that challenge. Much of the shadow of what we now see as our infrastructure was cast in the last industrial revolution, but with the right investment in Cornwall, we can lead in the next.
Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)
As we all know, strong connectivity is vital to economic growth and social prosperity. It is not just about convenience; it is key to boosting productivity, attracting regional investment and raising living standards. Central to that is making public transport more available, affordable and accessible.
The transport crisis in this country is clear. Since 2015 the number of local bus journeys has dropped by more than 1 billion—a quarter of all trips—with many routes cut and fares up by more than 50% since 2013. Rail use remains below pre-pandemic levels, while Government rail subsidies have surged to over £22 billion, 65% higher than they were before the pandemic, despite repeated above-inflation fare increases. So what is the plan? The estimates offer us some hope, but the picture is mixed.
Let me begin with the positive aspects. The 4.4% rise in capital spending is welcome, especially the boost for Transport for London and High Speed 2, which shows much-needed recognition of the transport network’s capital needs. The continued support for East West Rail and the trans-Pennine route upgrade is also welcome, as they are vital to connecting communities and driving growth—exactly the kind of strategic investment we need.
Sadly, although the Conservative Government claimed to back motorists, they did the opposite, and fewer than half our roads are now in good condition. The new road funding settlement is good news therefore, but it clearly falls short of what is needed. The support for devolution is also encouraging. Local leaders are best placed to deliver for their areas, and increased autonomy for transport in city regions is positive, even if not all the new money is in fact new. However, areas outside combined authorities must not be overlooked.
Of the negatives, the most concerning is the £150 million cut to day-to-day spending this year and over the spending review period, which will affect subsidies for trains and buses. The reductions threaten already fragile services and the efforts to promote walking and cycling, and raise serious doubts about the Department’s ability to achieve its stated priorities.
There is a clear mismatch between the Government’s ambitious transport goals and their budget priorities. An £81 million rise in central administration costs, largely to cover the higher employer national insurance contributions that the Government introduced, raises questions about whether resources are being prioritised towards administrative overheads, rather than directly supporting frontline transport improvements.
Despite pledges to address climate change, the budget lacks detail on funding for green infrastructure, public transport decarbonisation and active travel, leaving the DFT open to accusations of setting green ambitions without a clear financial or operational pathway—greenwashing, effectively.
The £50 million in costs tied to the closure of phase 2 of the HS2 programme further reflects issues with long-term strategic planning. Not only does the expenditure represent sunk costs, with no return on investment; it casts doubt on the Department’s ability to deliver the major infrastructure projects that are so vital for national connectivity and economic growth.
The Liberal Democrats propose simplifying ticketing, improving accessibility and boosting connectivity, and also increasing usage and income by freezing fares. We also advocate a 10-year rail electrification plan—investing in zero carbon by ensuring that all new lines are fully electrified.
Buses, the nation’s most popular form of transport, get little support from the estimates. The franchising reforms in the Bus Services (No. 2) Bill are welcome, but they will not restore regular, affordable services without funding and expertise. We need more than just three people in the bus centre of excellence. Years of neglect following Tory deregulation have destroyed much of our national bus network, isolating communities and holding back growth. Clearly, the Chancellor’s hike of the fare cap from £2 to £3 should be reversed, as it is causing real hardship for some of the poorest in society, yet the estimates reveal continued cuts to bus subsidies, which is precisely the wrong approach when communities desperately need reliable, affordable bus services.
The Liberal Democrats believe that active travel infrastructure must accompany public transport reform, but the Government’s approach is disappointing. Although £246 million is currently allocated to Active Travel England, funding is set to be cut by more than £90 million next year, undermining Labour’s earlier promises of unprecedented investment. The Liberal Democrats propose a different path: a nationwide active travel strategy to build new cycling and walking networks that are better integrated with existing transport. This cost-effective, ecofriendly approach would connect homes, schools, high streets and transport hubs.
These estimates show a Department and a Government who lack ambition. While increasing capital spending and investing for the future are positive, cutting day-to-day spending is a poor decision from a Government who say economic growth is their highest priority. We need a transport system that works not just for the next decade, but for the next bus, the next train, the next school run and the next hospital visit. This means funding day-to-day services properly, empowering local authorities and putting passengers at the heart of every decision, for which the Liberal Democrats will continue to fight.
Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)
It is a pleasure to respond on behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition. I thank the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) for securing this important debate.
Transport has always been about more than how we get from A to B. Infrastructure is the connective tissue of our economy, and investment in infrastructure can propel economic growth. I think the whole House would agree with that statement. In that light, I welcome the fact that the spending review confirmed that capital investment, excluding spending on HS2, will increase at a real-terms annual growth rate of 3.9% between 2025-26 and 2029-30. The Government have outlined where much of this capital will be directed in the spending review and the 10-year infrastructure plan, and I am pleased that many of these projects align with the commitments set out in the previous Government’s Network North plan. I look forward to the publication of the infrastructure pipeline in July to see further information.
Wendy Morton
Although some projects in the Network North plan have been transferred over and continued, Aldridge train station was not one of them. It was funded through the city region sustainable transport settlement, so does my hon. Friend share my disappointment for my communities that it has been scrapped by Mayor Parker in the West Midlands?
Gareth Bacon
My right hon. Friend is a doughty champion for her Aldridge constituents. I share her disappointment. It is not the first time I have heard her raise that disappointment in this Chamber in the past few months and—
Gareth Bacon
No, I suspect it will not be the last time I hear it.
There will be occasions when Labour Members fail to read the previous Government’s announcements, so for their benefit let me point out how the funding sums promised to authorities by the previous Government have been closely replicated, in some cases identically replicated, by those promised in this Government’s spending review announcements. For example, for West Yorkshire, £2.115 billion was promised in 2023, and £2.115 billion in 2025; for Greater Manchester, £2.47 billion was promised in 2023, and £2.47 billion in 2025; for the Liverpool city region, £1.58 billion was promised in 2023, and £1.58 billion in 2025; and for West Midlands, £2.65 billion was promised in 2023, and £2.4 billion in 2025. I could go on, but Members will recognise the point. The estimates and the spending review are not new and they are not innovative.
Turning to the substance of the Government’s plans, I want to take this opportunity to examine some of the assumptions underpinning this spending review. I am afraid those assumptions are flawed. The first relates to the supposed benefits of nationalisation. The spending review anticipates that the Department for Transport’s resource departmental expenditure limits, which is its day-to-day revenue spending, will fall by 5% in real terms during the next three years. I do not dispute that it is possible to make savings in the Department for Transport, but I do question the means by which the Government expect to deliver those savings. The spending review claims:
“Resource DEL funding falls in real terms over the period, primarily driven by a declining rail passenger services subsidy as passenger ridership and revenue continue to recover post COVID-19 and efficiencies and savings are made through public ownership.”
This is another entry in the ever-growing list of benefits that Labour claims nationalisation will deliver—lower fares, no strikes, better services and now lower spending.
Let us be clear: this is political daydreaming, not economic reality. The first train operating company to be brought into public ownership by the Government was South Western Railway, and we have already seen unexpected costs with its rolling stock. Credible reports show that mistakes made by the Government will cost the taxpayer an anticipated £250 million more. The Transport Secretary herself has admitted that nationalisation is not a silver bullet. She is right, but the narrative presented in the spending review and these estimates continues to rely on assumptions that remain unproven.
Labour’s ideological plan to nationalise even the best performing rail operators will benefit neither passengers nor taxpayers. Beyond the loss of private sector investment, nationalisation also poses a deep structural risk, because under a single nationalised employer, there will be enormous pressure to harmonise terms and conditions across the entire railway workforce. That may sound harmless or even desirable, but in practice it means the trade unions openly calling for levelling up pay, benefits and working practices to the most generous standards currently found in the system, and they have wasted no time in doing that. I am sure that their members will be delighted by that, but for the Government, the taxpayer and the fare payer, that has one inevitable outcome: rising costs, almost certainly with no corresponding rises in productivity. Far from delivering savings, this sets the stage for spiralling costs, renewed industrial action and even poorer services for passengers.
Turning to the wider economic picture, the Government claim their infrastructure plans are
“creating the conditions for sustainable economic growth in communities throughout the UK.”
However, the truth is that the greatest barrier to growth in this country is not a lack of spending. How could it be when current levels of spending are just about the highest in our entire peacetime history? No, the greatest barrier to growth is the economic mismanagement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and this Labour Government.
We know that to fund this increased spending, Labour has not got control of the welfare bill, or reduced the size of the state, but simply changed the fiscal rules to allow billions more in borrowing. More borrowing is certainly not the long-term answer—this is not free money. Britain already spends almost £106 billion a year just to service its debt. For context, those payments outweigh what we spend to protect our country not just from foreign threats, but from crime at home, because our debt-servicing payments exceed the combined amounts allocated in the spending review to the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. That is not just unsustainable, but irresponsible.
Higher spending and higher borrowing fuels inflation. It undermines growth and it blows a hole in the public finances. Of course, we all know how Labour plans to fill that hole—with higher taxes. Will the Transport Secretary urge the Chancellor to restore discipline to the public finances? I hope she does. Will she set a credible strategy to deliver efficiencies within the Department for Transport? I hope she does, so that come autumn we are not hit with yet another round of tax hikes.
I thank hon. Members for their contributions to this estimates debate, exploring their priorities for Government spending, including those Members who presented a vision with which I might disagree. We must acknowledge that the Government continue to offer more questions than solutions. In transport, we are presented with legislation to change bus policy without the funding that we know will be required to implement it properly. We await pipeline plans, railway reform papers and road investment strategies. When I was appointed shadow Secretary of State, I was initially faced by the former Transport Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh), who constantly declared that she wanted
“to move fast and fix things.”—[Official Report, 10 October 2024; Vol. 754, c. 446.]
But nearly a year into this Government, it feels as though things are moving at the speed of a canal boat in reverse—very slowly and taking the country backwards.
The problem is not the current Transport Secretary, or the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), who is responding to the debate today. The problem emanates from No. 10 and No. 11 Downing Street, because when the captain and the first officer of the ship have no ideas of their own, refuse to scan the horizon and see it for what it is, rather than what they would wish it to be, the journey ends up lost and directionless. For the good of the country, I hope that the Government will come to understand that real change means supporting British business and backing the everyday commuter. In the meantime, I fear these estimates are indicative of a Government who are not listening, failing to heed the warnings and will continue steering the ship of state straight towards the iceberg.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Kane)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker. As you cannot speak from the Chair, may I say what a doughty champion you are for the reopening of Manston airport, in your constituency?
First, I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) and for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) for securing the debate and for the work they have done on the Transport Committee. I am grateful for all Members’ important, interested and varied contributions, and will try to address as many as humanly possible—there were an awful lot of questions in many of them. I know that Members are anxious for news on specific schemes in their local areas, but I will not be able to announce any new decisions today. We will make announcements in due course through the usual processes.
Let me address the comments made by the Transport Committee Chair about how spending is linked to the Department’s strategic objectives. Our spending is wholly orientated towards delivering this Government’s missions and our plan for change. At the heart of our approach is harnessing transport to drive growth, as better transport will connect people and opportunities and ensure that businesses can grow and thrive. That is why we are investing in vital public transport services, repairing our road networks, transforming our railways and providing unprecedented investment for local leaders to invest in their priorities. Five out of the first 10 Bills in this Session were on transport—we did not have five transport Bills in 14 years under the last Government. We are moving at pace.
In the financial year 2025-26 alone, we are delivering £1.6 billion for local road maintenance, £1.3 billion for local transport in our big city regions and over £1 billion for bus services. We are also providing more than £420 million for our smaller cities, towns and rural areas, as has been mentioned today. Our investments will help to drive growth in every part of the country and raise living standards for everyone.
We are supporting the transition to net zero and an economy powered by clean energy, with more than £200 million to accelerate the roll-out of electric vehicle charge points this year. We are investing in active travel infrastructure to improve the health of the nation, with an additional £150 million of investment in cycling and walking infrastructure in this financial year alone. We are supporting bus services and capping fares to connect people to jobs and to boost opportunity. We are also supporting safer streets by making public transport safer—including, most importantly, for women and girls. Across our work, we are making sure that every penny of taxpayers’ money is put to good use, from greater efficiency within the Department to getting to grips with the spiralling costs of HS2 and bringing that project back on track.
Although this debate concerns the estimates for 2025-26, I note that only two weeks ago, the Chancellor set out how our ambitions for the transport sector will last the whole of this Parliament. With the settlement we have received for 2026 onwards, we will deliver increased local transport investment in England’s towns and cities, prioritising funding in the north and the midlands and giving local areas more control over how the money is spent. We will improve everyday journeys across this country and invest in the critical national infrastructure needed to connect our cities and our towns in the long term, enabling economic growth. This will ensure that transport plays its part in delivering the plan for change and a decade of national renewal.
I thank the Chair of the Transport Committee for her speech. She asked me a number of questions about when we will publish the outcome delivery plan. This will be done by all Departments, co-ordinated through the Cabinet Office, later this year. She asked about subsidiarity, and what happens if mayors do not use the money and new powers we have given them on the things that we want to do, citing active travel as an example. Even with subsidiarity, mayors have to deliver against Government outcomes and objectives, and we hope to work with them in a spirit of co-operation to ensure that that is done right.
My hon. Friend asked what our bus reform and £1 billion investment was meant to achieve. We introduced the new £3 fare cap on single bus fares in England outside London, which has had the cap for a long time, ensuring that millions of people have access to affordable fares and better opportunities to both go to college and work and to see friends and family.
With UK SHORE, we have moved fast with the decarbonisation plan, and the research and development funding for this will continue. We have worked internationally with the International Maritime Organisation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across our planet. We have also announced £185 million through safer roads funds to invest in the 99 most risky A roads, and we have made clear commitments on rail cost base and subsidy.
The right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), the former Rail Minister, is a doughty champion for Aldridge station—well done to her for that. The money was reallocated by the current mayor to cover the costs of schemes implemented by the former mayor that did not have the funding. She also talked about buses; I have already mentioned the £1 billion that we have invested in better buses.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain), who cannot be in his seat at the moment, is an astonishing champion for Bradford. May I pay tribute to him and to Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, the leader of Bradford city council, for their work in this area? The £2.1 billion train line and bus station investment is transformative. Some £35 million of Government money will see an additional five daily services to London, and we will be making announcements in the next few weeks regarding Northern Powerhouse Rail and how important it is to connect the cities of Leeds, Bradford, Manchester and Liverpool.
Wendy Morton
While the Minister is still talking about rail services, I just want to ask about Aldridge station to be absolutely clear about the situation. When the money for the station was allocated, it was ringfenced. It was his Government who decided to move the money from capital to revenue, so it is simply unfair to blame it all on Andy Street; it is not right.
Mike Kane
I thought the former mayor was quite a talented individual and he was succeeded by another talented individual, who has had to make tough choices around funds that were committed but never implemented under the previous Government. Promise after promise was made, but with no delivery whatsoever. None the less, the right hon. Member should carry on campaigning.
The hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) rightly talked about buses. I have already mentioned the amount of funding that we are putting in there, and the £616 million for active travel, which has been mentioned by a number of Members, on top of the £300 million that was allocated last year. I had a great time last Easter cycling with my wife around the hon. Member’s constituency on Rebellion Way, which is a wonderful piece of Sustrans infrastructure.
Steff Aquarone
I thank the Minister for coming to North Norfolk; he is welcome at any time. Having experienced at first hand the reality of rurality in my constituency, does he agree that we need to look at alternative models for rural public transport?
Mike Kane
We are giving back control of buses to local authorities—as difficult as it is in some circumstances. It is a £1 billion commitment. People in rural economies need to get about just as much as people in cities and we are committed to making sure that that happens.
Let me turn to my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes). I cannot wait to visit and to ride on the No. 65 bus. She is a doughty campaigner for her constituency. She also talked about two Labour Governments working hand in hand to bring rail investment to Magor and Undy station, and I am glad that she has had correspondence with the Roads Minister on the safety of the M48.
The hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) rightly talked about HS2. He highlighted the need to connect our maritime industries on the south coast with the rail network, so that we can take maximum advantage of both maritime and rail to get that freight off our roads.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Jim Dickson) summed it up when he spoke about the collapse of Galley Hill Road, which I thought was a metaphor for transport under the last Government. We have committed to the Lower Thames Crossing, with an initial investment of £590 million, and we will be making announcements on that in due course. We have also put in £54 million to fix potholes in Kent. The Government are showing that we are committing to the Lower Thames Crossing, with announcements to come, and are fixing the roads, and yet not one Reform Member came to this debate. Let us remind the people of Kent day in, day out about Reform’s lack of commitment to improving their lives compared with what we are doing.
I was with the predecessor of the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) at the British Ports Association. Do they only elect Scottish Members to the Surrey Heath constituency? I noticed that even some of the mannerisms were the same. The hon. Member made some important points about evidence-based transport systems. I think we are demonstrating that we are not a cultural, woke Government but are looking policy data to drive our decisions about how we best connect this country up. He also talked about road safety. Our manifesto included a commitment to long-term connectivity for transport across the country. That will be coming, so I hope he gets involved in the debate when it comes forward.
The hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage talked about HS2. We have accepted James Stewart’s recommendations about the cost overruns, although the hon. Member was right to highlight them. He also asked about how our railways and maritime industry can work together. Green shipping corridors will be key to the future of shipping, but the grid capacity in our coastal communities is not up to scratch. He knows that and we know that, and that is why we made manifesto commitments on our grid capacity. I note that we have already made announcements about greater European train connectivity, but I understand the point he makes about depot constraints; the Government are looking at that as well.
My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law) is a real champion for Cornwall. I was glad that we could announce £4.1 million for Cornwall alone in 2025-26 in addition to the £201 million —which, as he mentions, is four times greater than the last settlement. We hope to see things improve in that wonderful part of the country.
The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler) always astonishes me. He is like some latter-day Hilaire Belloc in his pinstriped suits and polka-dot tie. He was so positive about the Government that I thought he was going to cross the Floor for a second; we will give him time. He mentioned being disappointed about some areas, but we have done more to decarbonise transport this year, more for buses than any Government have done for a generation, and more for active travel in one year than any Government for a generation.
Mike Kane
Under this Government, Active Travel England gets settlements that go forward. I have to say that I thought the former Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip—the former Prime Minister—was actually very good in this space, but the announcements he made were then all pared back. Local authorities need to have long-term continuing investment to connect routes and get people walking, wheeling and cycling. My constituents die of type 2 diabetes, hypertension and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease—all things that can be fixed by more of us walking, wheeling and cycling. Active travel is key to the Government’s health mission as well as to our transport mission.
I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon), for his contribution. He mentioned that the settlements for West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and the west midlands were similar to those from 2023. Yes, they are, but this Government are delivering on these settlements. We had so many promises from the last Administration, but we are delivering.
We will take no lessons from the Opposition on the costs of Great British Rail, which I think the nation is proud of, given that we were left to clear up the debacle of the overrun costs of HS2—a project that was cut by the previous Prime Minister while he was at the Tory party conference in Manchester. It was the most astonishing decision, and the most astonishing place to announce it. As a proud trade union member, I am glad that the trade unions have come to the table this past year. After years of industrial strife, we are solving the disputes, particularly in the railway industry, and services are beginning to improve.
On long-term investment, I gently remind the shadow Minister that he voted for Prime Minister Liz Truss’s Budget, which left us with a £22 billion black hole. We have been tackling that as well as setting out our ambition for the future. We are fixing the foundations of our transport system to deliver the Government’s priorities. Our funding settlement for 2025-26 enables us to press ahead with reforming our bus and rail services, to get to grips with the maintenance backlog, to empower local leaders to deliver, and to build transformative new routes for the country. The settlement announced earlier this month will build on that; it will drive progress on the Government’s missions, and improve transport for people and businesses across the country.
I thank hon. Members for contributing to the debate. I am grateful for the important work of the Transport Committee, and look forward to continuing to work with it. I commend the estimates to the House.
Ruth Cadbury
I will do what I omitted to do at the start of the debate and thank the Backbench Business Committee for awarding us the opportunity for this debate. I also thank all hon. Members who contributed to it.
I was thinking about the themes of the debate, and the most common issue, mentioned by hon. Members from across the country, was the need for a new station, or even stations, in their constituency. All gave really coherent and rational reasons why those stations are needed. When I was growing up in Edgbaston in south Birmingham, we did not have a Five Ways station or a University station. Those stations were installed about 30 or 40 years ago, but it is unbelievable to think that they were not there, because the amount that they are used is incredible. There is a really fast service to New Street station, as the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) probably knows, although she represents the other side of Greater Birmingham.
I also want to mention the new mid-Cornwall metro that my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law) spoke about. He made a powerful case for the needs of communities that are, in many places, quite deprived. Many people go on holiday to Cornwall, but we must remember that there are economically deprived, left-out places, and they need new lines, whether full rail lines or light rail. The right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills made an important point that we picked up in our buses inquiry about the need for decision-makers to remember outer areas, which are as important as core city areas.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) not only made a passionate plea for a new station, but thanked the Government for at last funding a tramline and bus station. That is a really good example of what the Government are already achieving, and it shows how long the community has been fighting for those services.
The hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone), who is on the Transport Committee, gave a strong speech about the issues facing very rural constituencies, for which public transport solutions are not easy. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) mentioned the downsides of high rates of car dependency. In a very rural area, there is literally no way to get about unless one can drive a car, and that often decimates the population of rural villages and hamlets. In the London hinterland, high rates of car dependency have implications for congestion. I do not often drive outside London—or in London—but I recognise the issues well. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath also raised an important point about the inadequate alternatives to car travel for those living in new developments. The Government’s new planning policies seek to address that gap in policy; if that does not happen, we will just build car dependency into new developments.
My hon. Friend the Member for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes) made an important point about the implications for the local economy and local people when a major piece of infrastructure is closed. I hope that the M48 bridge is opened before too long. The hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover), another member of the Committee, made, as ever, many expert points about rail. If anybody has any questions about rail, they can just ask him. He was possibly the only Member here today—or almost—who mentioned freight. He and my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Jim Dickson) mentioned the importance of accessibility. I urge those who have not read the Transport Committee’s first report of this Session to pick it up, though the work was done in the previous Parliament. It is called “Access denied: rights versus reality in disabled people’s access to transport”, and it is about the experiences of people with disabilities.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford mentioned a subject that comes up for us again and again: potholes. Our second inquiry is on street works, the damage that potholes cause to vehicles, and the disruption caused when utility services do not repair potholes properly and repairs are outstanding for a very long time. My hon. Friend also mentioned the importance of the Elizabeth line extension. Despite criticisms over the years about the cost of Crossrail and the delays to it, now we can only look at the massive success of the Elizabeth line. It has so many huge benefits for growth; it enables new developments; and it takes pressure off underground lines, such as the Heathrow branch of the Piccadilly line in my area. That set of benefits comes from extending lines or bringing in new ones. The Elizabeth line being in London and the south-east is an example of how cheques from the Treasury are not necessarily needed to fund such projects. That is a good example of how land value capture could fund these projects.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) talked about the value of buses and the bus fare policy. She also made an innovative suggestion around the charging for the driving test, which should be noted by the Minister. I hope, as I say, that the Government look at fees and charges, and that is a new suggestion.
Turning to the Front Benches, there was nothing wrong in any of the individual projects in themselves mentioned by the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler), but as often happens with Liberal Democrat ideas, it would be financially unachievable as a programme. The Labour party is in power already delivering strategies and specific changes, but it is doing so within the financial constraints that this Government inherited.
The shadow Transport Secretary omitted to mention his Government’s lack of coherent transport policies while also trying to criticise our Government’s policies. He omitted to mention that the criteria for funding local schemes under their Government was decided more on the basis of the marginality of their Members’ seats than the rationality of those transport proposals. He also omitted to mention that cutting then stopping HS2 cost billions and billions of pounds.
Finally, the Minister reminded us cogently of the importance of transport to the Government’s missions, and that we cannot make unfunded promises.
Question deferred (Standing Order No. 54).
Delegated Legislation
Haemochromatosis Screening
(1 day, 13 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
I ought to begin with an explanation of what is a very long word. Put simply, haemochromatosis is too much iron in the blood—haemo, blood; chroma, iron; and tosis, too much of it. To save time and the good offices of Hansard, I will refer to it occasionally as HCT in this debate. It is an inherited genetic condition, a disorder often known as the Celtic curse, because it is particularly prevalent in Celtic bloodlines and is common in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I think it is more probably a Viking phenomenon—an old genetic response to times of famine that we carry into modern times.
Untreated haemochromatosis can lead to several common conditions that we might describe as Scottish diseases of ill health: cirrhosis of the liver, heart disease, arthritis and so on. Once spotted, HCT is easily treated by venesection—another long word—which simply means bloodletting. About 450 ml of blood is taken off the patient at each session to chase down the iron levels in the body to normal levels. Generally haemochromatosis is asymptomatic, and without a test to measure for ferritin levels, it can be easily missed.
I have a bit of knowledge of the bloodletting side of the business, because for the past 17 years, I have been attending the Knutsford ward at the Royal London hospital on a regular basis for venesection. I am grateful to the staff there for the incredible treatment they have given me, including consultants such as Richard Marley. I am also grateful to my younger brother, Donald, who was tested and found he carried the gene in 2008.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Gentleman—I am not going to pronounce his constituency, as I would get that all wrong with my Ulster-Scots—for bringing this debate forward. He and I spoke last night about HCT and its prevalence. He is right that it is called the Celtic curse. Some might say that maybe I am a curse on some people. I am sure nobody would come to that conclusion. However, one in 10 people have this disorder, which features strongly among the Northern Irish, the Scots, the Welsh and even Cornish communities —all the Gaelic cousins and people. However, even with that prevalence, screening does not naturally take place and quality of life is impacted for years before someone even goes to their GP. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that it is unnecessary to live with something that can be easily treated?
Torcuil Crichton
The hon. Gentleman’s interventions are always a blessing, never a curse. I have some information of particular interest to his part of the world later in my speech.
I have declared my interest, as I have haemochromatosis, but it is not just my experience, but that of my constituents and the make-up of my constituency in Na h-Eileanan an Iar that have spurred me to secure this debate. It is not all about me.
A groundbreaking DNA study headed by Professor Jim Flett Wilson of Edinburgh University discovered that the Western Isles are a hotspot for haemochromatosis, this genetic mutation that the body at some stage adopted for survival. People are at risk of developing the condition if both their parents have the faulty gene and they inherit one copy from each of them. They will not get haemochromatosis if only one of their parents carries the gene and they only get one copy, but there is a chance they could pass the gene on to their children. If people inherit two copies—that is, both their parents are carriers—they will not necessarily get haemochromatosis. About half of people with two copies of the faulty gene develop the condition, and it is not known exactly why.
What is known is that the Viking genes DNA study by Professor Jim Flett Wilson took DNA samples from islanders in Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles, and it threw up some amazing discoveries. People wanted to find out if they had Viking heritage, and many sent in swab samples and filled in the questionnaires in sufficient numbers for the scientists to crunch the numbers. I did not do that myself. Feeling Viking by name and by nature, I did not think it necessary.
Analysis of the data, and cross-examination with other gene studies, showed that in Orkney and Shetland, participants in the study had rare and unique cancer genes, which led to them being alerted to their condition. The study saved lives and is credited with doing so. The good news for the Western Isles—for Na h-Eileanan an Iar—is that no rare cancer genes were found. While the results are still being finalised, it is clear that the Western Isles are a hotspot for haemochromatosis and inherited high cholesterol, which can lead to heart disease.
According to Professor Flett Wilson, the numbers in the Western Isles are sufficiently high to justify population-wide screening. For instance, one in 212 people in the south and east of England carry two copies of the faulty gene, as opposed to one in 62 in the Outer Hebrides.
Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)
I am a member of the all-party parliamentary group on genetic haemochromatosis, and my constituent Lorraine asked me to attend the debate. She suffers from the disease, and has found a way to manage it by donating blood regularly. She is pleased that genetic testing enabled her to know about her condition so she did not suffer severe organ damage, which can affect many people with the disease. Does my hon. Friend agree that genetic testing for those who are more likely to be diagnosed is essential if we are to help people lead healthy lives without the need for medical intervention?
Torcuil Crichton
I do indeed agree. Haemochromatosis, although widespread, was not widely known about until very recently, but genetic testing, as well as simple ferritin level tests, will inform many more people. Early intervention is vital to preventing people from developing crippling illnesses which might otherwise be wrongly ascribed to a condition other than haemochromatosis.
It is not just people such as my hon. Friend’s constituent who are affected. In Northern Ireland—or the north of Ireland, depending on how we view our maps—the situation is even more stark than it is in the Western Isles. Among the population of “Ulster Scots”, if I can call them that, there is a one in 123 occurrence of two faulty copies of the gene, which is similar to the incidence in mainland Scotland. The Catholic community in the north-west of Ireland have the highest concentration in the British Isles: one in 54 carry two faulty copies. On the basis of Professor Flett Wilson’s work, we can predict that one in 94 men in the Western Isles will develop HCT, and one in 80 men of north-west Irish ancestry—and the Irish diaspora is present in constituencies in Scotland, in London and across the United Kingdom—may have the condition, perhaps undetected and perhaps mis-diagnosed, and are possibly suffering from the long list of illnesses associated with an iron overload.
In Orkney and Shetland, analysis of the Viking genes study uncovered rare cancers and lives were saved. In my constituency, people who were found to have the HCT gene have been alerted by letter. The figures for the Western Isles do not include people who did not take part in the study, but they constitute a timely warning about the advisability of screening, a procedure that is not expensive. In the Hebrides, it looks as though we should act on the spike in iron overload. Professor Flett Wilson has recommended islands-wide screening for this common blood condition, but I want to go further: I think that everyone in the Western Isles, or Na h-Eileanan an Iar, should be screened for too much iron in their blood, but I think they should also be offered DNA tests across the board to show what other inherited conditions they might have.
Jim Shannon
I will be brief, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am descended from the Stewarts of the lowlands of Scotland, and I am probably the hon. Gentleman’s Gaelic cousin. This screening needs to be carried out in Northern Ireland as well as Scotland.
Torcuil Crichton
I do not disagree with that. Screening would be revolutionary. It would save money for the NHS in the short term and the long term, and, more important, it would save lives and put us two decades ahead of the rest of the world in preventive medicine. It would be transformative for my constituency. It would be radical, but only as radical as plans to offer every baby in the UK whole genome sequencing within a decade, a plan backed by the Health Secretary. Genomics, like these tests, would put us on the front foot in preventive medicine, as the Minister well knows. Of course it would cost money—£650 million is earmarked for the boost to genomics by the Department of Health and Social Care—but a smaller and more defined pilot scheme to lead the way in preventive medicine is to hand with the samples of high levels of HCT in the Western Isles. Given the given the cost per head of screening, it is logical that starting in the places with the highest rate of faulty genes would be the most cost-effective option.
Initially at least, the Bill ought not to go to the national health service. The bill for gene testing in the Western Isles should be part of the community payback for the large-scale wind farm developments that are planned for the islands. There are already negotiations for community benefits, community funds and community shares in the many planned wind farm developments in rural Scotland. The renewables revolution is about saving the planet, but right now the consumer offer is simply to reduce bills. By properly harnessing the wealth of wind, we can not only make communities better off but transform the life chances and health chances of people and their children.
The Viking genes results are not limited to haemochromatosis; they also showed high levels of hypercholesterolaemia in the Western Isles. That is simply inherited high cholesterol —a gene fault—that leaves many islanders, and many of my constituents, with high cholesterol and many with heart conditions, which again could be avoided with predictive medicine and early lifestyle and diet changes.
Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow West) (Lab)
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the need to test in the Western Isles, and his solution of using the community payback from wind farms is an excellent idea. Would he want to go further thereafter and test more widely? My brother has haemochromatosis, and it was discovered completely by accident. The rest of the family were then tested, and one or two cousins were found to have it, although I fortunately do not. It is much more prevalent than any of us ever imagined, and I had never heard of it until my own brother was diagnosed.
Torcuil Crichton
My hon. Friend anticipates much of the remainder of my argument. As I said, the research and DNA testing in the islands could and should be paid for by community funds from large-scale renewable projects, just as similar screening projects proposed for Orkney and Shetland could be paid for by funding from wind farms there. From those discrete samples, much learning could be had, and then sampling and testing could be rolled out across not just the rest of Scotland but the rest of the UK.
Luckily for me, my siblings and I were spotted early but, as I said, if left untreated and undiagnosed this gene can lead to serious arthritic symptoms, liver cancer and heart disease, the consequences of which are often attributed to other conditions and lifestyle factors but could have been easily prevented by testing. Given the resources, we could test for a wide range of conditions and help this generation and future generations of islanders to live healthy lives. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) said, if it works for a small, discrete population—there are only 21,000 adults in the island chain—the experience and lessons learned could be rolled out across the UK.
I know, as we all know, that health services in Scotland do not fall within the ambit of the Minister, but the future of healthcare is in all our hands, and I urge UK Ministers and their counterparts in Holyrood to seriously consider a pilot screening study in the Western Isles. There is a clearly identifiable risk from haemochromatosis, and we should use the lessons from that screening to roll out haemochromatosis screening across the rest of the UK.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Ashley Dalton)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) for securing this debate and for sharing his personal connection as someone who has haemochromatosis. In honour of World Haemochromatosis Week earlier this month, from 1 to 7 June, I pay tribute to the important work that my hon. Friend and our colleagues on the all-party parliamentary group are doing to raise awareness of genetic haemochromatosis.
As we have heard, genetic haemochromatosis can have debilitating consequences, including arthritis, joint pain, diabetes, fatigue, psychological or cognitive difficulties, skin conditions, menstrual problems, impotence, breathing and heart problems, abdominal pain, liver problems and hair loss. This genetic condition, which allows iron levels to build up in the body, particularly affects people of white northern European backgrounds.
It is estimated that as many as one in 150 people in England and Wales, one in 113 people in Scotland and one in 10 people in Northern Ireland are affected. Health is a devolved matter, and I am delighted to see Members from the devolved nations represented in this debate. I note the interventions from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and from my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson), who is the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee.
All four nations in the UK are advised on screening matters by the same independent scientific advisory committee. The UK National Screening Committee is an independent scientific advisory committee that advises Ministers and the NHS in all four countries on all aspects of population and targeted screening, and supports implementation. Using research evidence, pilot programmes, economic evaluation, expert stakeholders and consultation, the UK NSC assesses the evidence for national screening programmes against a set of internationally recognised criteria. These cover the condition, the test, the treatment options, the effectiveness, the ethics and the acceptability of the screening programme. It is only where the offer to screen provides more good than harm that a screening programme is recommended.
The UK National Screening Committee reviewed the case for screening for genetic haemochromatosis in adults in 2021. After consideration, it recommended on balance against a national screening programme at that time. That was because although a faulty hereditary hemochromatosis protein gene—the HFE gene—is known to cause iron to build up, that does not happen to every person with the faulty gene. Screening could therefore result in people being told that they have a condition that would not go on to impact their lives, which may cause undue worry. Screening would identify people who may never experience symptoms.
A screening programme would be most relevant for this condition if pre-symptomatic treatment showed significant improvements in an individual’s prognosis. However, there is limited evidence on whether treatment is more effective in individuals without symptoms compared with those who have symptoms. Currently, there is no evidence that a screening programme is the best way of helping people with the condition.
However, the UK National Screening Committee keeps its decisions under review. It welcomes any new published peer-reviewed evidence that suggests the case for a new or modified screening programme via its annual call. Any individual or organisation can submit a topic to the UK NSC to consider a new screening programme or modification to an existing programme.
Haemochromatosis is one of the most common genetic diseases, and genetic testing is available. For patients in England who show unexplained iron overload suggestive of hereditary haemochromatosis, genetic testing is available at one of the seven genomic laboratories. Any healthcare professional who suspects their patient may have haemochromatosis can refer their patient for testing via their local NHS clinical genomic service.
As we have heard, the main way to treat the condition is venesection, which is a procedure to remove some of an individual’s blood. This may need to happen every week at first, but only two to four times a year once the condition is stable. For those who cannot have blood removed, chelation therapy is an option. This medicine reduces the amount of iron in a patient’s body. I know that the NHS Blood and Transplant service works with many patients who have genetic haemochromatosis. While some genetic haemochromatosis sufferers will not be well enough, many of these individuals are well enough, and like Lorraine, the constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor), offer to give blood as an alternative to venesection. Turning a life-altering condition into a lifesaving opportunity is to be commended. I take this opportunity to thank each and every patient who is able to do so and has opted for that route.
To conclude, I once again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar for bringing forward this important debate and every Member who has contributed. Let this be the beginning of a conversation about how we can best support people with haemochromatosis. The condition affects many in our constituencies, and this has been an important opportunity to highlight how we must support their diagnosis and treatment in the future.
Question put and agreed to.