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Use of Drones in Defence
(2 days, 22 hours ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the use of drones in defence.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank colleagues for enabling me to secure this debate.
Contrary to what some people may think, drones are not a new tool. The UK first began testing unmanned aerial vehicles for training during the first world war and later developed them in the 1930s for anti-aircraft gunnery target practice. Much like the noble tank owes its name to Britain, the drone does too: the Hatfield-built Queen Bee radio-controlled aircraft is thought to have inspired the term “drone”. As technology has improved and drones have become more sophisticated, their military use has expanded over the decades to include reconnaissance, surveillance and targeted strikes.
From the Queen Bee to bomb disposal vehicles to today’s Reapers, the UK armed forces have long used drones, but while we were an early pioneer, we now risk falling behind. The slow evolution of drones is now fast revolutionising warfare. Their mass use has transformed combat in Ukraine, on the land, in the air and at sea, with cheap kamikaze drones causing immense damage. Staggeringly, up to 80% of Russian and Ukrainian casualties are due to drones. They have transformed combat on the frontline. Drones threaten infantrymen, fortified positions and vehicles up to 9 miles from contact lines. Moving positions and supplies has become a deadly task.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He is outlining accurately the issue in Ukraine, where the Russians are deploying drones to devastating effect. Does he agree that, unfortunately, the west has not armed Ukraine sufficiently to counter that threat and ensure there is a pushback against the Russian aggressor, and we need to reassess that threat not just in Ukraine but across the globe?
Peter Fortune
It is right that we continue to support Ukraine. Our support of Ukraine is keeping us safe in the west, and we need to redouble our efforts to make sure the brave soldiers and people of Ukraine are well defended.
Drones are now an important part of supply chains and logistics, with Ukraine using ground drones to move ammunition and other supplies to the frontline. Operation Spiderweb saw Ukraine smuggle 117 cheap first-person-view drones to successfully strike a Russian airfield, disabling a third of Russia’s strategic bombers. That is drones worth a couple of hundred dollars inflicting an estimated $7 billion of damage.
Sea drones have changed the balance of power in the Black sea. A third of Russia’s fleet was damaged or destroyed by relatively low-cost sea drones packed with explosives ramming ships. While Russia’s navy has adapted to make these attacks harder, sea drones carrying missiles or other drones are still causing immense damage—a $300,000 sea drone can destroy fighter jets worth $50 billion.
Drones are transforming warfare and levelling the playing field in asymmetric fights, but the change can be seen beyond Ukraine. Israel weakened Iran’s attacks on its territory by covertly transporting drones in suitcases and trucks to destroy Iranian air defences and missiles. Houthi rebels used drones to target HMS Diamond, requiring the ship to use its expensive missiles to stop a relatively cheap attack. Even drug cartels in Mexico are using cheap drones to launch targeted strikes against security services. Terrorist groups are also adapting commercially available drones for reconnaissance and filming propaganda, and they will undoubtedly be used in future attacks.
The pace of change is unbelievably fast, but the direction is clear: drone warfare is the future, and Britian must be the leader in the development, testing and mass deployment of drones. That means three things. First, we must develop an ecosystem of private enterprises that can innovate, test and build drone models—big and small, sophisticated and simple—at a larger scale. Ukraine is armed with many UK-made drones. We have supplied some 70,000 already and have a target of 100,000 by the end of the year, but that pales in comparison with the numbers required for drone warfare. Ukraine aims to produce 4.5 million this year.
It would take relatively little money to kick-start a collection of competing companies, capable of innovating to keep up with battlefield changes, to build inexpensive or sophisticated drones. We must also help commercial drone enterprises to thrive. Although they were not initially intended to, those machines can have military purposes and can provide the industrial-scale drone warfare that we require. It is disappointing and frankly unacceptable that, since the general election, the Government have purchased only three drones for the UK armed forces.
Secondly, if the UK procures many new drones, we will be able to start training our forces and learning the lessons from Ukraine. Although our brave service personnel use drones for many tasks, they are not as widely utilised as modern warfare demands.
Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, with which I agree. Like him, I have been part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme with the Royal Marines. Over the past year, he and I have seen drones deployed—I will not say where. More importantly, there is innovation in the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines, but it is compartmentalised and bitty, and it is not at the scale that he is talking about. Is it not time for the Government to use the innovation in the armed forces to expand out into the private sector?
Peter Fortune
This is a good point at which to mention the armed forces parliamentary scheme, of which colleagues from across the House are part. That great enterprise enables us to better understand the pressures and the reality that our armed forces personnel face. My hon. Friend is right that we have visited sites where we have seen how drones can be used and how effective they can be for deployment on the battlefield. That drives my request to the Minister to look at how we can procure more drones.
We are steadfast in our support for Ukraine, where we have made the military links we need to learn how drones can make our British forces even more lethal. They can carry out unmanned assaults and provide the support that our personnel need.
Finally, and in equal measure, we need to look at how the armed forces can counter drones—what we can do to fight them off. HMS Diamond is a particular case in point, as it successfully destroyed nine Houthi drones, but at huge expense. We have seen the damage that drones have inflicted on prestigious targets—Russian jets, ships and bombers—so we clearly need to defend ourselves from them. As a nation, we cannot afford to let cheaply purchased drones with a grenade attached wreck a multimillion-pound piece of equipment. We are already developing solutions such as radio frequency directed energy weapons, capable of neutralising swarms of drones, but as we look to ramp up defence spending in a more dangerous world, the threat posed by cheap drones must be answered.
Drones will not make infantry, artillery, ships or aircraft obsolete; they are a new tool that will help to transform warfare. They must be an integral part of our efforts to strengthen the UK’s armed forces and face down the threats our country now faces.
Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. Yesterday afternoon, we were in this Chamber discussing the battle of Britain, and we spoke at length about the reforms made prior to the second world war to the British military—especially to the Royal Air Force, including the use of radar. In fact, I am currently reading a book on the pre-world war one Haldane reforms to the British armed forces. In the light of the defence review and the changing nature of warfare, does the hon. Gentleman believe that the current structure and make-up of the British military reflect the urgent, pressing reality that we will be facing war close to our borders in the next five years? Does he have any recommendations to the British military for the changes that are needed?
Peter Fortune
I was hoping to attend the debate yesterday—of course, Biggin Hill in my constituency played a huge part in the RAF’s incredible efforts during the second world war and the battle of Britain—but sadly I was in the main Chamber in a different debate. Through those big conflicts at the beginning of the last century, we saw huge innovation and people learning, as the cliché goes, not to fight the previous conflict. We will always have to adapt and change. I know, especially through the armed forces personnel scheme, which my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) mentioned, that senior people—and, I am sure, Ministers, with their huge experience—are considering all the time how we best get ready for the conflicts that we do not yet know we are about to face.
In conclusion, the Government must embrace a review of how we are developing drones, fast—
Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Ind)
The hon. Member may be aware that some months ago a surgeon broke down while giving evidence to the International Development Committee describing what appeared to be some form of artificial intelligence or unmanned vehicles descending to shoot children in Gaza after bombing had occurred. Does he agree that drones should never be used to kill children? We must know whether drones developed or made in the UK that were exported to Israel before licences were suspended are being used to shoot children in Gaza.
Peter Fortune
It is not my place to talk about what the Israeli Government are doing, but I know that there are international laws of conflict, and everybody should adhere to them.
In conclusion—I have started so I shall finish—the Government need to embrace this issue, and fast. We cannot afford to wait and see. Britain must foster companies, train our forces and develop countermeasures to ensure that we master this new form of warfare.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell.
The potential of drones first struck me shortly after I was first elected to this place. In August 2017, the new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth went on a tour of the north of Scotland and tied up at Invergordon. While she was there, an enterprising photographer flew a drone from the Black Isle across the Cromarty Firth with a view to taking pictures of the new aircraft carrier. The wind got up, and the drone automatically landed on the deck. That posed the question in all our minds: “How on earth did this happen? How did that drone get so close to an incredibly expensive warship—the pride of the Royal Navy?”
The photographer was quite open about what he had done, and he wittily quipped to the BBC that he could have put a couple of pounds of Semtex on the drone. Nothing was done about it, and the following week he did it again—he took photographs, but he did not land the drone that time. I made the point in the press that if that person had been of wicked intent, he could have flown the drone straight into the radar assembly and made a complete mess of our fine warship.
We have all seen the extraordinary effectiveness of drones, as has been referred to by the hon. Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune). I congratulate him on a thoughtful and timely speech—I will come to that in a second. We have seen what happens when a Ukrainian drone drops an explosive device through an open hatch on a Russian tank. Some military experts have argued that the massive explosion that happens is partly due to the way the munitions are stored in a circular fashion within the turret of the tank—it is called the “jack-in-the-box” effect. One thing is for sure: the crew have no chance of survival when that happens. The T-14 Armata tank was reckoned to be the last word in armoured vehicles, but Russia perhaps has not talked about it quite so much recently. We are pretty sure that drones may not get through its armour, but they have taken out the engine, and when a tank is immobilised it loses most of its effectiveness.
I suppose the point I want to make is an historic one. In 1906, Admiral Lord Fisher set about building HMS Dreadnought—it was very much his brainchild—and he completed it in nine months flat. Dreadnought completely transformed the way navies build their ships. It rendered every other warship in the entire world obsolete in one fell swoop, and all the other countries had no choice but to think that they had to build ships equivalent to Dreadnought—turbine powered, high speed, all big guns—and hundreds of battleships were just sent for scrap. The reason why I think this debate is historic is that it occurs to me that we may have such a moment on our hands right now.
I was my party’s defence spokesperson for a number of years. We all knew about Challenger 2 being upgraded to Challenger 3, but just how drone-proof will Challenger 3 be? We have all read about constructing cages over tanks, in the hope that drones will bounce off, but the fact is that all tanks have weak spots—we have heard about the engine of the T-14 Armata. Tanks are designed with their armour forward or to the sides to deflect at very high speed a missile or a shell; the rear of a tank is the most vulnerable bit.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
My background is in armoured infantry and warfare, and I completely concur that the weak spots of a tank are probably underneath it or to the rear. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out with the Armata tank, we should consider the use of drones to immobilise, and not just the engine block. The weak spot of any tank is its tracks, which are very easily disabled—that is the point of an anti-tank mine. During the second world war the Russians trained dogs to find food under tanks, so that they could then strap explosives to them, send them under German tanks and detonate them. Should we be looking at the protection that we provide to the side of a tank, to further protect its tracked infrastructure and prevent it from being mobility-killed?
Jamie Stone
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He knows his subject—we can see that.
In conclusion, as we plough on from Challenger 2 to Challenger 3, and as we develop armoured personnel carriers and other armoured vehicles, have we in fact come to the Dreadnought moment, when we have to completely rethink how we design and indeed deploy armour? That could be the case, and if an APC is equally vulnerable to a drone, which it will be, we must think about how we move infantry around. I seek reassurance that the Government are taking a completely new look at that. As I say, I believe this is a Dreadnought moment, and we owe it to our armed services to have the courage to say, “Wait a minute, hang on. Do we need to start all over again with a blank sheet of paper?” Drones are here to stay, and the point made about us being at the forefront of constructing drones is true and I concur with it.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell.
The nature of warfare has changed. During the last three years of conflict driven by the war in Ukraine and, perhaps controversially, two years of Israel Defence Forces operations in Gaza, we have seen a paradigm shift in the nature of warfare—a tangential move away from the manoeuvre warfare that has shaped military thinking since the blitzkrieg illustrated the potential of speed and firepower. The previous Conservative Government recognised the direction of travel and introduced the UK defence drone strategy prior to the election, in February last year. Backed by an investment of £4.5 billion, the intention was to enable the rapid experimentation, testing and evaluation of uncrewed platforms.
The past year has seen the publication of the strategic defence review, which reflects the continued change of focus. It makes much of the need to adopt a high-low mix, combining exquisite capability with attritable capability such as drones—for high-low, read “expensive-cheap”. At the recent Royal United Service Institute land warfare conference, the opening address of General Sir Roly Walker, Chief of the General Staff, directly referred to the change to a high-low mix in the British Army. He said:
“I want 20% of our lethality to come from the survivable layer, 40% from the attritable, and 40% from consumable. That does not mean I want 1/5th the number of crewed platforms in the Programme of Record, it’s that I want each one to be five times more lethal, survivable and sustainable…And I want to spend 50% of our money on the 20% of crewed and expensive, and 50% on the remaining 80% of attritable.”
We have all seen footage of first-person view drones and how they have been used in the Ukraine-Russia conflict. As a former infanteer, the sight of individual soldiers being stalked slowly by drones hovering just behind them, and menaced and killed at will, strikes fear into my heart for the future of being an infantryman. This is, hopefully, a temporary situation, and in much the same way that the improvised explosive device was in conflict with electronic countermeasures—ECMs—so too will drones find themselves, in time, at the mercy of counter-unmanned aircraft system solutions. Last week, there was an article in The Washington Post about the measures the Ukrainians are taking to combat Russian drone threats, which include going as far as using a biplane with a crew member firing them out of the air with a shotgun. That is the sort of inventive stuff that is currently going on in the east—we would not believe it if we saw it in a movie.
We have already seen the RAF and the Army begin to employ agile combat employment such as the penetrative threat of drones, as illustrated by the bold attack by Ukraine on airfields deep inside Russian territory mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune). There is, however, very little in place to prevent a copycat attack against our forces in the UK. If RAF Brize Norton can be breached by civilians on scooters, it can be easily breached by a swarm of drones. What price our air-to-air refuelling or heavy lift capability? That is not easily replaced and fairly easily defeated on the ground. What efforts are the Government making to ensure that we have permanent counter-unmanned aircraft systems capability at all operational flying bases? Agile combat employment will get us only so far and, as we have seen, it takes only a couple of litres of red paint to destroy a jet engine.
In Ukraine, we have seen that survivability is key: how we fight a vehicle is as important as how we physically protect it or conceal it. Before any talk about thermal camouflage or, increasingly, multispectral camouflage, we should consider how the age and capability of the kit we have makes it vulnerable to a drone threat it was never designed to encounter.
The strategic defence review outlines the British Army’s intention to move to a dynamic high-low capability mix, as I alluded to earlier, of 20-40-40: that is 20% crewed platforms to control 40% attritable—preferably survivable—platforms, and 40% consumables such as shells and missiles, also including attritable one-way effector drones. For such a fundamental doctrinal shift in manoeuvre warfare around which the entire Army would need to be restructured, a single sub-paragraph on page 110 of the SDR does not really cut it. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s view on how he plans to extrapolate such a paucity of strategic intent.
At the lowest consumable level, handheld off-the-shelf drones are a plentiful, cheap and effective tool. They are low cost and high volume. Our funding of capability in Ukraine should really be seen as an investment; it is not cynical to suggest that the current conflict is a helpful proving ground for our own future capability. First-person view drones have quickly become a stalwart of the modern battlefield and sit within what the Ministry of Defence considers to be tier 1 and tier 2—those that are consumable or attritable. It is those drones that will see the quickest development, the biggest leaps in capability, and the most effort going into combating them from an anti-personnel perspective. We have already seen the development of a counter-UAS ECM that has led to the impractical horizontal development of fibre-optic drones. The pace of development should force us to ask what the capability will be like by the time British troops are required to use them in anger.
Edward Morello
The hon. Member is right to point out the rapid change in drone technology in the field in Ukraine. We have also seen the deployment of artificial intelligence such that where drones are being jammed, the AI can take over and continue to lock on and have something in the region of a 70% success rate even after jamming. Obviously, there is an understandable shift in UK military thinking towards drones, but that needs to be supported by UK innovation in the AI space. We need to get greater ownership of that, especially in our technology sector and our universities, to support development. Does the hon. Member have any views on that?
Ben Obese-Jecty
I think AI will increasingly become a mainstay of the battlefield, and how we employ it will become incredibly important. My concern is about the control of AI and knowing that the target we are trying to prosecute is indeed still viable right up to the last safe moment. Once we lose control of a drone and it becomes AI-capable, in theory it could switch to a more preferential target, which may be a good opportunity, or it may be a catastrophe that ends up as front-page news. We need to think carefully about how we employ drones.
On the overall development of drones, another important factor to consider is how we employ the warhead. It is only a matter of time before we look at options such as the replacement of Javelin—I was a Javelin platoon commander when I was in the Army—which has a two-stage warhead, with the first stage penetrating the armour and the second stage going inside the vehicle, exploding and detonating to kill the crew. The application of something like a two-stage warhead to an FPV drone is going to become an increasingly potent threat. It will be interesting to see at what point that emerges on the battlefield.
At tier 3—a level up—we have those platforms that are firmly considered to be survivable. The entry into service of Protector RG mark 1, replacing Reaper, illustrates how the Royal Air Force is moving further into the world of uncrewed air systems. With a ceiling of 40,000 feet and a mission endurance in excess of 30 hours, it marks the next evolution in our drone capability. With an ongoing project to enable it with the low-collateral Brimstone 3, it will be a potent weapons delivery platform, although that project is currently rated at amber.
Indeed, the introduction of remotely piloted aircraft systems—RPAS—as its own stream within RAF pilot training illustrates the complexity of how drones will be used going forwards. We have already seen the SDR outline the desire to introduce a hybrid carrier air wing, with crewed and uncrewed platforms operating alongside one another from our carrier strike group.
That leads us into the category of exquisite capability. The elephant in the room is GCAP—the global combat air programme—a trilateral endeavour with Italy and Japan that aims to deliver a sixth-generation fighter by 2035. I do not wish to derail the debate by talking about the merits and pitfalls of sixth-generation fighters, and whether by the time they arrive we will still need or want an exquisite capability, given how precious we are already about our fifth-generation F-35s, but there is a key issue with the platform as an exquisite capability.
The intention of GCAP is not to have massed squadrons of fighters flying into dogfights over Russia. Those days are long gone; in future, we should expect most, if not all, engagements to take place beyond visual range. Any near-peer conflict will involve formidable air defence that will render the low-level bombing runs of yesteryear the stuff of Hollywood. No, the intention is to operate GCAP as a system of systems: a crewed platform where the pilot is less of a pilot and more an integrated part of the system—effectively, a weapons platform operator co-ordinating the battle space—and where the uncrewed autonomous collaborative platforms, or loyal wingmen, operate as a squadron and conduct the task as an attritable but very expensive asset that can complete the mission without risk to aircrew, impervious to being disabled by ECM, and operating networked to GCAP itself.
The RAF’s autonomous collaborative platform strategy aims to have ACP as an integral part of the RAF force structure by 2030, and we have started to see that being rolled out in recent weeks. This is a concept that I do not believe we can fully afford. The National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority already has the future combat air system rated at red—that is not just GCAP but the ACP strategy that accompanies it. It would be one thing to achieve an ACP capability, and another to develop and deliver a sixth-generation fighter, whether on time or decades late, but to deliver both seems fanciful based on the Ministry of Defence’s procurement track record.
In a world where the infantry are still using armoured vehicles that came into service the same year the Beatles released their debut single—closer to the end of the first world war than to today—with no current plans to replace them, I cannot envisage a situation where we have a sovereign fighter jet that ranks as the best in the world and a squadron of drone fighters operating alongside it. We urgently need to start managing our expectation.
The Government talk a good game on RPAS but, for all the talk of increasing the defence budget, our drone strategy looks an incoherent mess. I am sure the Minister will set me straight on whether that is accurate. We are pouring money into exquisite capability while watching the war in Ukraine spiral-develop capability that we have no idea how to use in the last 100 yards. The pace of technological change that is driving the evolution of the threat environment is such that unless we leverage the spiral development capability that already exists here, coupled with the expertise that now exists in Ukraine, British forces will be left behind.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship again, Ms Lewell. I commend the hon. Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) for setting the scene so well. I had hoped to see more people at this debate; I expected a full house. This is about modern technology—this is the future—and something we really have to look at. There are fantastic benefits to using drones in our defence sector. It is a real pleasure to see the Minister in his place again; he is becoming a regular in Westminster Hall. He is trying to catch me up, and I am sure he is almost there.
Drones can provide real-time intelligence and access hard-to-see areas, providing essential information for local armies and for the Government—I will mention some roles outside of defence in which they can be effective. We must make sure they are used correctly and to the best of our ability. It is great to be here to discuss that. I was sitting here thinking about drones, and I can remember, because of my age, the first episode of “Star Trek” with the laser guns and “Beam me up, Scotty.” We are not yet at that stage, but I do wonder whether one day we will be. It would be great for an MP living in Northern Ireland: I could be in my office at 9 o’clock and at 25 past be beamed over to Westminster. I know that is fictional and highly improbable, but drones were once highly improbable, and now they are not. They were once fictional, but now they are reality.
We can cast our minds back to The Terminator films, in which drones chase the Terminator and other people about. That shows what can happen, and that is what is happening today in Ukraine. Fictional things of the past that we thought were not going to happen clearly can happen—and perhaps they will. I am not sure whether anybody else saw in the paper yesterday that China seems to have a laser attack capability. There was a tank in the square, on parade yesterday, that has laser capabilities and could be the weapon of the future. Again, it is early days, but who can say it will not happen sometime in the future?
In February 2024, the UK Ministry of Defence launched a defence drone strategy backed by a £4.5 billion investment over the next decade. There is a need for new advanced technology, especially after the conflict we have witnessed in Ukraine. When I watch the things happening in Ukraine, I find them almost inconceivable; I know others feel the same. We see innocent civilians in their gardens or going to the shops and children coming back from school being targeted by Russian drones—the Russians know fine rightly that those are innocent civilians and yet they attack and kill them. On the buses there are no army personnel; they are civilians. The Russians know exactly what they are doing with the drones. Russia has shown technology at its worst. We should be aware of what is happening.
I was watching TV last week. A civilian journalist and cameraman went down to the battlefront in Donetsk. A drone followed them; they got under the trees and hid there. When they were driving down there, there were net-type things over the roads that deflect the drone activity. These are some of the things that have to be done, but technology is moving so fast. What we thought in the past would never happen is happening today. That tells me that in the future, when I will probably not be here, there will be even more of the impossible becoming the reality.
The UK Government have invested over £40 million in radio frequency-directed weapons research. I thank the Government for that as well as the previous Minister, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge). To give him some credit, when he was in government he made regular visits to Thales in Belfast and across Northern Ireland, and he—now the shadow Minister—recognised the importance of the new technology. I know the present Minister and the Government feel the same way, so there is no dispute and they will continue with that policy. I am convinced of that.
There are 135 skilled jobs at Thales in Northern Ireland offering further support in our defence. My right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and I visited Thales in his constituency last year to ascertain where it was going. I was incredibly impressed by the modern technology and how we are leading the way. I am also pleased that when it comes to technology in modern warfare, there is a real Government policy, of the previous Government and this one, to ensure that all parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland can take advantage of it. I thank them for that.
To look at a different angle, the Police Service of Northern Ireland uses drones in operational support and border surveillance. It can keep track of what is happening in border areas. It also supports police officers on the ground. There are other ways of doing things and we have to acknowledge what those ways are. Are they effective? Yes, they are. Can they help and do the job? Yes, they can. They assist in monitoring crime hotspots as well. When someone is involved in drugs, antisocial behaviour, attacks, assaults or whatever it may be, a drone in the air can spot that person, providing an evidential base for the future. Drones are used in search and rescue and managing public disorder. Let us not forget that the eye in the sky is keeping an eye on us when we are on the streets, as happens in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
As everyone knows, I represent Strangford. Boats in Strangford lough have unfortunately got lost or have overturned over the years, and one of the ways of doing search and rescue is to use a drone. When young people go missing, drones are used to ascertain where they were. Unfortunately, on the occasions that I can recall us hoping to find someone alive, that did not always work out, but drones did help with the search and rescue. That is what the PSNI and other organisations are doing, and we have to recognise the good that that brings.
Drones are crucial for situational awareness and enable personnel to make quicker and more effective decisions. The soldier of today is much better equipped, more able and more experienced in modern technology than soldiers would have been in the past. Drones allow for constant surveillance and the detection of enemy movements or illegal activity. More importantly, they enable early intervention, which can reduce casualties and military deaths, making sure that those who do their best for our safety are as protected and safe as possible.
Numerous manufacturers across this nation are more than capable of making and supplying drones for our defence industry. I am told by my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East that 60% of the workforce at Thales, in my neighbouring constituency, comes from Strangford. We are very pleased to make a direct contribution to the Thales workforce. The efforts that they make are critical for defence.
There is a real opportunity to progress technological warfare and to share data with our allies, especially the US. One day, we will have our drones, others will then find a way of deflecting the drone, another side will get another way of modifying the technology, and then we will have to come back again with something else—it is always going to evolve. We have to support the Government’s commitment to spending money on cyber-security and drone technology, and we thank the Government for it. Drones are a key element of UK defence. They aim to enhance our national security and, importantly, protect lives. We must invest wisely in their use.
We must also remember the opportunities for local people. Thales employed 200 new people, some of whom were apprentices. The apprentices receive a level of remuneration that makes them want to stay there. I know some of the young apprentices; the company was paying their student fees so that they would stay, because Thales wants to have a level of technological advantage by bringing in people at an early stage. That is a point about employment and job creation.
I look to the Minister to ensure that we can continue to be a leading nation in surveillance and drone defence, and to commit to proving that over the next decade. I know that he will, but we must all be focused on that.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) for securing this important debate; I was sorry not to be able to hear from him yesterday in the battle of Britain debate.
The integration of drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles, into defence has transformed the way that nations think about security and the battlefield. Over the past decade, we have seen a steady growth in their use, and the war in Ukraine has made clear to the world just how central they have become. What was once considered cutting-edge technology is now an everyday feature of modern warfare. It is alarming that more soldiers today are being killed by drones in Ukraine than by any other form of warfare.
However, the benefits of drones are undeniable. Drones allow us to project force and gather intelligence without putting soldiers directly in harm’s way. They give commanders a real-time picture of the battlefield, overcoming traditional line-of-sight limitations and extending awareness deep into enemy territory. They have become central to surveillance, targeting, logistics and even battlefield medical support. For example, drones equipped with advanced thermal imaging can locate casualties hidden in rubble, smoke or woodland. They can deliver medical supplies, bandages, medication and even defibrillators into remote or inaccessible areas, providing rapid aid while reducing the need to send medics into danger.
In defensive operations, tethered drones are able to remain airborne for hours, providing uninterrupted surveillance and protecting bases from surprise attack. AI-enabled drones can patrol throughout the night, automatically detecting and flagging suspicious activity, which reduces the pressure on human surveillance teams and cuts the risk of fatigue.
Cost is another factor. Compared with tanks, aircraft or armoured vehicles, drones are relatively cheap to produce, quick to deploy and often expendable. Ukraine’s experience shows how even commercial drones adapted for reconnaissance or artillery targeting can deliver immense tactical advantage. Their real-time video and geolocation data have significantly improved artillery accuracy, reducing waste of ammunition and increasing strike precision. Drones have also enabled Ukraine to conduct long-range strikes deep into Russian territory, disrupting logistics and undermining morale.
However, alongside those advantages, we must acknowledge the challenges. Drones are not a silver bullet. They come with ethical concerns about remote warfare, accountability and lethal decision making, and the potential for escalation when operators can strike from thousands of miles away.
Technically, they are also highly vulnerable. Drones depend on data links—radio or satellite based—and GPS signals to navigate and communicate. Adversaries with electronic warfare capabilities can jam, spoof or hijack those links. That is not theory: as has already been mentioned, in 2009 Iraqi insurgents intercepted live US drone video feeds using cheap, commercially available software. In Ukraine, Russian jamming and interference has disrupted as many as 60% to 80% of drones before they reach their targets. That has forced Ukrainian forces to innovate using frequency-hopping communications, deploying fibre-optic cables up to 50 km long, and even experimenting with AI-based navigation when comms fail.
The lesson is clear: we must be realistic about what drones can do. Overreliance on them would be reckless. Ground forces remain indispensable for holding territory, engaging with civilian populations, providing humanitarian relief and responding to dynamic battle conditions. Drones can enhance these missions, but they cannot replace them. A balanced force of combined arms structure is essential.
I welcome the Government’s announcement of a £2 billion drone investment package and the establishment of a drone innovation centre. Those are important steps, but technology alone is not enough. A fleet of advanced drones is only as effective as the people who operate and maintain it, and all three services will need drone pilots. That should form part of basic training.
Drone warfare requires highly skilled professionals—pilots trained to control aircraft in contested environments, engineers able to maintain complex systems, data analysts capable of interpreting live feeds and AI specialists who can design resilient autonomy. Without those skills, our investment risks being underutilised or, worse, ineffective. Recruitment, training and retention must therefore be a central part of any strategy. We need a robust pipeline of talent if we are to scale drone operations responsibly and securely.
We must also recognise the speed of innovation because our adversaries are not standing still. They are rapidly working to advance their drones as well; if we are to maintain our edge, sustained research and development is a necessity. That means investment not only in next-generation drones, but in secure communications, anti-jamming technology, counter-drone systems and resilient AI. It also means collaboration, working closely with universities, private sector innovators and start-ups that can bring new technologies quickly to the table.
It is essential that the UK can quickly adapt to the rapidly evolving nature of warfare. Drones are not just another tool; they are reshaping the character of conflict. They save lives by keeping soldiers out of harm’s way, they improve precision and they provide persistent surveillance and awareness, yet they also carry risks—ethical, strategic and technological. Our task is to embrace their potential while also guarding against the vulnerabilities. We need investment in technology but also in people. The Government must work to balance technological innovation with conventional strength and ensure that the UK remains at the forefront of research and development, so that we are not only consumers of new technologies but leaders in shaping how it is used responsibly in defence.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I know you take a great interest in these matters because you served on the Defence Committee when I was a Minister, and I am sure you regard this debate with great interest.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) on introducing this debate, because the issue of drones is so timely, interesting and, I dare say, urgent for defence procurement, defence training and all aspects of defence. He made a brilliant speech. It was not only delivered well but made some important and substantive points on, for example, countering drones, which should be considered as important in this debate as the acquisition of our own strike-reconnaissance capabilities and so on. I am pleased that we have the Veterans Minister here, and I know he is also very passionate about this subject.
I quickly say, especially as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is here, that people are still the most important capability, despite everything we will say in this debate. I hope he will be as robust as possible in standing up for our veterans in the weeks ahead, because this stuff will come to a head. All of us who care about the British armed forces have to stand by those who served all those years ago, so that we do not undermine the morale of those who serve today.
On the key subject of drones, my main argument is that they are an amazing opportunity for the United Kingdom to fundamentally modernise its armed forces in a way we have not done for a long time. In many ways, we are quite lucky, because drones bring mass and lethality to our existing forces relatively cheaply and relatively quickly. Above all, and this is underestimated, we are in an amazing position to capitalise on that in many ways, for reasons that have not been fully shared with the public. I will now try to do that.
The day I became Defence Procurement Minister in April 2023, there was a vote in the House of Commons. People came up to congratulate me as I walked through the Lobby, and every other colleague said, “By the way, you’ve got Ajax,” which is what defence procurement was known for at the time. Two months later, I made a statement to the House about Ajax resuming field training with the Army and the Household Cavalry, and how it is a highly capable vehicle.
However, I had a sense, as Defence Procurement Minister, that there was a parallel universe. There was business as usual, with long procurement times and many delays under successive Governments—the old way. On the other hand, there was what we were doing in the MOD for Ukraine. It was like a parallel universe. We acted at pace for Ukraine with incredible scale and innovation. We got thousands and thousands of shells from around the world and delivered them to Ukraine. It was an incredible exercise, of which I am very proud. I am also very proud that the current Government have continued it.
Nowhere was this difference more striking than in drones. I would not quite call it an epiphany—I do not know the right word—but my most memorable moment as Defence Procurement Minister came in the autumn of 2023, when I visited an SME in the south of England. It had developed a drone—at the time it was highly sensitive, dare I say classified—that went on to be used in Ukraine. It was a highly effective long-range, one-way attack drone, now a matter of public record. This SME, not a big prime, had developed a drone relatively cheaply and very quickly, and it made an impact on the frontline against a peer military of Europe.
That was extraordinary. Revolutionary. I was so struck by it, but what really got me—the thing that is most important about the uncrewed area—is that the SME was getting feedback from the frontline within days, if not hours. It was using that feedback to immediately upgrade the capability by changing various important but relatively subtle parameters. I was immersed, as all Defence Procurement Ministers are, in the endless emails about delays to the latest big platform, or whatever it was, so I was struck that there is a different way.
What did I do about it? As my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) and the hon. Member for Strangford said, I launched the drone strategy in February 2024. It was relatively simple. The Secretary of State always says it was only 12 pages, but the truth is that it was a lot shorter when it was first presented to me. I was pretty furious about that, because to me drones are a fundamental part of defence. The key point is that I wanted it to reverse the sense of living in a parallel universe. I wanted us to embrace what we were doing for Ukraine so that our armed forces could benefit in the same way. It is simple to summarise the strategy: to continue delivering drones at scale for Ukraine—thousands of them, as we did and as the current Government have done—but, in parallel, to develop our own SME drone ecosystem for the British armed forces. That is what I wanted to do.
In February 2024, I also announced the integrated procurement model, which I am very grateful that you mentioned in the recent Defence Committee debate, Ms Lewell. The key thing is that it was also relatively straightforward. Instead of these very long development times for new equipment, it is about setting minimum deployable capability—to get things into use as quickly as possible, where they can be used if the balloon goes up, to put it bluntly—and then to develop them spirally in service. That is how the modern world works, and it is how software companies have always sought to work: get it going, and then constantly upgrade. That is the only way to keep pace with technology. That procurement model went live in April 2024, and the general election was called in May, so it is fair to say that there was not a huge amount of time to introduce some of it, but we made some progress.
I now want to talk about some key points about how to ensure that the UK seizes this opportunity so that our armed forces are world leaders in the use of drones. The first point is the most important. This has not been a political debate, and I am not trying to play party politics, but I have also been a Treasury Minister. When I was the Minister for Defence Procurement, I was in all the discussions about how to get to 2.5%, so I know what it is like to deal with the Treasury. What happened is that when the new Government came in—they are not the first to do this—the Treasury put a clamp on procurement as a way of controlling in-year budgets. It is very common. The Treasury frequently tried to do it with us, but Ben Wallace and Grant Shapps, the Secretaries of State, always pushed back. I tried to work with the Treasury to find compromises and to prioritise the procurements that were most important to the Department.
The consequence is that, for months, there has been an effective procurement freeze. Defence companies tell us that they are waiting and waiting. They were waiting for the SDR, and now they are waiting for the defence investment plan, which will put in place the decisions of the SDR. They have been waiting for the defence industrial strategy. They have been waiting for the appointment of a national armaments director, who will come in as a great white knight and solve all these problems. By the way, when the problems are really tough, the companies will turn around to the Defence Procurement Minister, who earns about a thirtieth of what they do, and ask them to solve it because it is political, which it always ends up being.
In the meantime, we need to get on with it, so let me suggest an idea. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill said that when we tabled a written question asking how many drones have been ordered since the general election, we were told three, which is extraordinary. When I raised the matter with the Secretary of State, he said that it was a specific answer to a specific question. It certainly is, but it is still fairly shocking. What we have found, particularly when we talk to those in the Army, is that there are drones coming into their units, but they are, for example, through sports—they do drone sports. There is not yet a central push to transform the forces to fight with uncrewed systems.
So where could we get the money? My personal view is that the Chagos deal is basically bonkers. Next year, we as a country will spend £250 million leasing back a base that we currently own freehold—the islands too, of course. Half that budget could transform the UK drone ecosystem, because tens of millions of pounds would make a difference.
There is one risk: how do we buy drones when, in theory, they go out of date so quickly? There is no risk to what I would call a training order. We should buy enough drones from British companies so that the Army can start training with them at scale. But the crucial thing is not the manufacture or the initial buy; it is establishing the relationship between our forces and those SMEs so that they are constantly developing them in service. That is how new technology works. That is a relatively inexpensive step to take; it just needs leadership, and I know the Minister wants to make it happen.
Another key point is testing. In June 2023—two months after I became Defence Procurement Minister— I held a roundtable in Larkhill with what were then the main UK defence drone SMEs. It was a really fascinating meeting. I went round the table and said to all of them, “Name the one thing the Government could do to help you,” and they all came up with the acronyms CAA and MAA—in other words, the Civil Aviation Authority and the Military Aviation Authority. They all wanted it to be easier to test drones, particularly kinetic drones, in the UK.
I was encouraged recently when I attended the Royal International Air Tattoo and was told by a relatively senior military officer that there will be testing on the Outer Hebrides range—in Benbecula, I think, which I visited when I was a Minister—for firing what are still dummy drones, but testing them as far as we can in the UK. I fully accept that there is a limit to how we can test, particularly if the drones have explosives, but we have to be able to test more than we currently do.
It is not just testing for the SMEs. My team met some reservists recently who talked about the red tape and what they have to fill in even to be able to use a reconnaissance drone for Army training. As is so often the case in the MOD, others will assure us, “It’s all fine, Minister.” On the MAA and the CAA—we set up a working group with the Department for Transport—I remember being told, “Minister, it’s all sorted. It’s all fine,” but then the SMEs told me something different. We have to grip this competition because we want to win it and it is vital to our prosperity.
Colleagues talked about training. The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) made a very good point about making drone use part of regular training. This is not so much my area of expertise. The Minister obviously has great expertise in this area, and I hope he will touch on how we are bringing forward training in the use of drones at a unit level.
My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon, having served in the infantry, obviously speaks with massive experience. He made the point that we need an Army that can fight with these things. It is all well and good talking about procurement, which is the side I have seen, but how do we get them into the Army to rapidly boost its lethality and survivability? That is what we all want to see, and it is what the new head of the Army, the Chief of the General Staff, will deliver.
My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon raised an important point about GCAP. When I worked on GCAP as a Minister, it was primarily on the diplomatic side. [Interruption.] The roof is creaking slightly. Hopefully that is merely the power of my oratory and rhetoric, and nothing to be concerned about.
On GCAP, I will refer to a couple of points I made last September when we were invited to make submissions to the SDR. At the time, I was merely the interim shadow Defence Secretary while my party awaited a new leader. I do not know if anyone read our submissions—I think AI read a lot of the submissions—but my two points are still worth considering.
First, instead of focusing on 10-year equipment plans, which would become the defence investment plan, we need much more focus on a three-year war readiness plan in each of the forces. That is something that the Chief of the General Staff has, in effect, been talking about. If that were done with the RAF, it would be much harder for it to meld all the elements of GCAP into one. The other point I made is that we really need a two-pillar GCAP—a bit like AUKUS.
The first pillar is the platform, which is where the focus inevitably always is in defence—that is the old, platform-focused procurement model. Instead, we should have a second pillar with all the ancillary stuff. That would include, as my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon said, the “system of systems,” particularly electronic warfare capability and drones. That needs to come into service much faster.
The key thing to all of this is the threat. If the threat really is only two or three years away, we have to be stronger in two or three years. The aspects of RAF development that are to do with loyal wingman are about helping our current aircraft. Forget about the stuff that will arrive in 2040, important though that is; it is about the capabilities that can help the current Typhoon fleet and the F-35s to be even more lethal and capable. We know that drones can fly with them. We need to accelerate all of that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill made an important point about the Red sea, which has also been a key testing ground for drones. The key point is that the drones were not only threatening Ukraine; they were threatening our own Royal Navy. HMS Diamond was attacked. As a Minister at the time, I had a real sense that this was a clear and present danger because the drone attacks had to be thwarted with much more expensive missiles, which is the key issue.
However, we know that Iran was supplying more and more sophisticated ballistic missiles to the Houthis. That is on public record. How could we defend against all those things? I therefore felt we needed to accelerate all ranges of technology that could help to intercept drones relatively cheaply, so that we could keep our missile stocks for the really exquisite threats. We need a balance between expensive and cheap capabilities, which is why DragonFire is a good example of something we should take forward.
All Members have focused on the counter-drone point. I cannot think of a better symbol of the parallel universe—the way we have delivered for Ukraine but not for our own armed forces—than the fact that, if we visit the Army today, its electronic countermeasures will be the box that was used in Afghanistan. That was very good at the time, but it is not up to date. Nevertheless, a British company has been delivering, in real time, countermeasure kits to Ukraine that have been incredibly successful and are saving lives on a real frontline. We should be buying those for our Army at the same time. That is why I say it feels like a parallel universe, which is what we need to break. I know the Minister understands that and is as passionate about it as I am.
The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) spoke about how to defend against the drone threat, and he particularly spoke about armour. My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon spoke about tanks and the need to protect their tracks. I do not have that level of battlefield experience, but it is true to say that we must move quickly on lasers, directed energy weapons and, particularly, sound weapons that use radio frequencies—they are currently a bit indiscriminate, but they have a lot of potential if they are refined. We have to go at these things as fast as possible. Britain has an amazing science base.
That brings me to my final point, which is about autonomy. This is really about technology and the need to outthink one’s opponent, as much as anything. If we are honest, we will never have every aspect of every drone made in the UK. The areas where we really need to lead are the brain—the science. Britain has an amazing science base. I always found the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory’s advice fascinating. The DSTL has huge experience and works well with the military. We could go further on the way in which DSTL and the defence science base link in with SMEs. There has been a lot of progress on that, but we can go further. Going back to the drone I was talking about, the company was successful because its link to the data really gave it the edge. That is what we have to do: we have to enable SMEs to come into Main Building or other secure environments and to be constantly fed the battlefield data—what is really happening in warfare—so that they can respond quickly.
This is really about autonomy. The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) spoke about the situation in Gaza. I know that there are people who are worried about the ethics of the autonomous use of weapons, and I understand that. I appeared before the AI in Weapons Systems Committee in the House of Lords, where the Bishop of Coventry asked me some interesting questions about the ethics of all this. I would simply say—okay, this is a defence point of view—that we should be very wary of in any way tying our hands on the use of autonomy, because you can bet your bottom dollar that the Chinese and the Russians will not be doing that. We have to maintain our ability to compete with them.
Phalanx is the gun on the side of some of our ships. When it is on, it is effectively autonomous. If something flies into its sight that fits certain parameters, it will fire. No one presses a button. The point, though, is that there is a chain of command and a way back that will have been built by someone from a country with a democracy and so on. So it is the whole life cycle that we have to take into account. We should really invest in autonomy. We should back our science base, working closely with our SMEs.
I finish by saying to the Minister that we are all patriots here. We want to succeed. We want to have the world’s best armed forces. We want to lead in this. We know we can. We have done amazing things. When we supply Storm Shadows and leading drones to Ukraine, we are going to know a bit about how to use them. We have never been directly involved, but we have done so much that we are well placed to learn from it. I hope the Minister can drive this forward. He knows he has our backing in doing so, but we need to see greater pace and urgency and, ultimately, not just big defence documents, but kit in the hands of those who serve our country.
The Minister for Veterans and People (Al Carns)
I am truly grateful to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) for securing the debate—I genuinely believe that we are at a pivotal time, so having it today is poignant. The opportunity to discuss the critical importance of uncrewed systems to our armed forces and our national security is a continual requirement in this place.
It will not be lost on hon. Members that I am not the Minister for Defence Procurement, but I have a vested interest in this subject. I have been helping a cross-ministerial team to design our strategy as we move forward. Why am I passionate about this issue? Mentioned in dispatches, combat; Military Cross, combat; Distinguished Service Order, combat; OBE, combat—I spent a lot of time in combat. What we are seeing now in Ukraine gives the soldier, the airman or the sailor the ability to disengage from combat and to send technology forward. We are seeing a revolution in technological affairs in Ukraine, and it is of the utmost importance.
The devastation and horror of war provide an imperative for rapid innovation. Each side pitted, racing to gain decisive advantage by innovating faster than the other. These developments define an era of conflict and innovation. Think the Parthian shot, the longbow, the crossbow, the musket, the tank, the aeroplane and, as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) mentioned, the Dreadnought. They have all marked a pivotal moment in technological change. Today, I would argue that it is uncrewed systems. The lesson for the UK is that we must be a leader in the revolution in uncrewed systems—which has not changed the nature of conflict, as Clausewitz would say, but changed its character forever—or be left behind.
In no small part, this understanding motivated me to enter politics, and it was one of the key reasons I left the military: to galvanise change and to do what I could to safeguard this great nation, because I saw war changing the entire character of conflict itself. Today’s discussion addresses an existential challenge, which this Government, the Defence team, and I are absolutely determined to grip.
Uncrewed systems have fundamentally changed the character of conflict—fact. In Ukraine, thousands of drones fill the skies every day and night. On average, thousands of drones a day—up to 2,000 or 3,000, and, at the very height, 6,000—are being flown on the frontline. A division has hundreds of drones that observe every section of the battlefield 24/7 and cue strike platforms at a moment’s notice. Drones are 22 times more lethal and accurate than an artillery round. For the first time since the first world war, more casualties have been caused by a system other than artillery or offensive support—that is, drones. Not training our people in drones would be like not training our people in artillery prior to the first world war.
A year ago, I was quoted as saying that uncrewed systems represent
“a machine gun moment for the Army, a submarine moment for the Navy and a jet engine moment for the Air Force.”
I also said that the inclusion of data, AI and quantum would only deepen the effects of this revolution. I would say now, one year later, that we are at an inflection point similar to the moment when armies fighting in world war one realised the utility of airpower. We know what happened then: the “Top Gun” generation was born, and airpower changed every nation’s way of fighting.
We are approaching the 85th anniversary of the battle of Britain, which is a poignant reminder of the significant impact of cutting-edge technology, such as the Spitfire, radar, importantly, or our very first computers, on the defence of our nation. Unlike those previous advances, the impact of uncrewed systems across air, land and sea is simultaneous, undermining many existing, exquisite and expensive capabilities.
As I reflect over 24 years of military service, I recognise just how much of what I did could now be done by uncrewed systems. I mean that, because about 75% of everything I have done could be done by uncrewed systems. That would have made my life a lot safer, although it would probably have reduced the medal count.
We have seen this revolution shape Putin’s war of aggression. On land, surveillance and attack drones stalk the battlefield around the clock. Thousands of drones, whether FPV—first-person-view—drones, surveillance drones or long-range strike drones, dominate the battlefield. There is a dead zone on the frontline, about 30 km deep, where no one moves: small teams or individuals are the only ones who survive, and they do not survive for long. Interestingly—the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) mentioned tanks earlier—tanks’ sustainability on the battlefield is limited. Not K-kills but M-kills—mobility kills, taking off the tank’s tracks, immobilising its engine, or immobilising the crew, the sights and the sensors—happen relatively quickly. Perhaps we can allude to what that will look like in the future later in the debate.
In the Black sea, we have seen a navy without a navy sink a navy—that is, Ukraine’s unmanned vessels have sunk or scattered Russia’s once all-powerful Black sea fleet.
James Cartlidge
The Minister is making a fascinating speech, and he knows that I am as interested in this subject as anyone. On the naval point, it was an incredible moment in May when a Ukrainian naval drone downed a Russian Su-30, I think. Does that not point to some of our looming procurements—for example, future air dominance, the Type 83, and all those things in the Navy’s assumptions about how we defend this island in the future? We are an island, so the potential for us to be protected by uncrewed barges and sensors carrying effectors way out in our ocean is an exciting development.
Al Carns
I completely agree. I can see a future—we will talk about this later—involving a high-low mix, in which we have very sophisticated fifth generation capability matched by relatively low-end hardware with very sophisticated software. When we combine the two, we can increase our mass, our lethality and our overwatch of large swathes of land, sea and air. It is also worth noting—I will cover this later—that there are false lessons from Ukraine. The Black sea is not the Pacific or the north Atlantic. However, the technology, when designed with the right hull form, can absolutely survive in those environments.
Moving on to air, we see co-ordinated waves of drones penetrate the most sophisticated air defence systems in the world and strike far beyond the frontline. I mentioned yesterday, in relation to the remembrance of the battle of Britain, that we are hearing air sirens every day in Ukraine. We are not talking hundreds of drones; we now talking, in some cases, of thousands of drones attacking major cities and critical national infrastructure throughout Ukraine.
These capabilities are being enhanced, made increasingly sophisticated—with the capability to map and target-identify—and combined with the use of data and artificial intelligence to train training models, with profound implications for the way we fight warfare. Our adversaries understand that. Russia, other countries such as China, and large states are developing at a different scale. They are already producing drones on an industrial scale, and investing in innovation to make them more capable and deadly, and to remove the human even further from the battlefield. War is driving an innovation cycle that cannot be replicated in peacetime.
The hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) talked earlier about the innovation cycle here with SMEs. SMEs that often have joint ventures or relationships with companies at the front in Ukraine are innovating faster than anyone else. We are talking 20 or 30 to 100 innovations in a year, in comparison with some of our contracts in the past, which have had one, two, three or four innovations linked into the contractual management.
I would argue that we need to do more. Ukraine reminds us daily that to safeguard the nation we have an obligation to lead in the development of uncrewed systems. We may not have the opportunity to fight differently. Historically, almost every major conflict has been characterised by short periods of manoeuvre, and long periods of attrition to build up capability and capacity and to innovate, which are then broken by periods of manoeuvre, with a focus on supporting the warfighter with the best technology. I would posit that, if it came to it, our adversaries would seek to draw us into an attritional conflict, which puts the burden on the defence industry, our economy and our society’s ability to sustain the fight. At a tactical level, there is an argument that this will no longer be about supporting the warfighter, but about supporting the technology in the fight. That is a fundamental shift and change in opinion, and a critical and fundamental distinction in the way that future wars may be fought.
This Government have taken decisive action, as laid out in our strategic defence review, first to integrate uncrewed systems across the British Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, and to adapt our military culture to recognise that uncrewed systems are a core capability.
Several hon. Members mentioned the innovation cycle. In Ukraine early on in the war, a stalemate took place across the frontline, broken by periods of manoeuvre and usually initiated by dominance in GPS-guided munitions. The Russians quickly learned to counter a proportion of that, and as such the innovation of drones and uncrewed systems came into place on land, at sea and in the air. We have now accelerated along that line. We have gone from hundreds of different Ukrainian companies with different intellectual property swamping the battlefield with small start-ups, to the Ukrainians synthesising that capability procurement down to a set number of drones, and mass producing. They are using the innovation cycle on the frontline, with companies embedded in combat companies to drive that innovation cycle faster than ever before. They went broad to start with, and they have now gone narrow and are scaling. It is starting to work.
We must learn some of those lessons as automated platforms are bought by the Army, Navy and Air Force. Do they all talk to each other? Do they have the same software, or different hardware? Can they work together? Can they work on an integrated kill net? If they do not, we may repeat some of the same mistakes as Ukraine. A great quote is, “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.” There is a bit that we must watch, and we must ensure that we get this right, because if we get it wrong, it may be difficult to unravel.
I mentioned adapting our military culture, and the hon. Member for South Suffolk mentioned commander training within our organisations, whether that be Dartmouth, Cranwell or Sandhurst. I have been on that, as an individual responsible for people, to ensure that these things are inculcated at the earliest stage of training, whether that be defence from drones or the adoption of drones as a critical component, much the same as a machine gun is for a rifle section. We are moving forward in that space.
Secondly, as hon. Members have said, there is a requirement to work seamlessly with industry, transforming our procurement and industrial base to meet the demands of modern warfare and drive growth for the nation. To do that, we must encourage the best of Ukrainian industry to share its expertise with us. We must continue to foster a truly innovative and adaptive defence industry that draws on the best of Britain. What I am leading to here is that British start-ups and British companies, both primes and SMEs, must engage with Ukrainian companies on joint ventures and cross-IP sharing to enhance the best of both. If they do that, I genuinely think they will be world beating, above and beyond what British industry already is.
The Government’s vision is to become a defence industrial superpower by 2035, and we are making that a reality. As a frontier industry, drone development is key to that economic transformation, which will attract major investment and create high-quality jobs. It is also vital to put the best systems into the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. Drone systems now will be out of date within six weeks on the frontline, but the training and the integration of the culture and the software may not be, so we must think carefully as we bring systems into the military and avoid 10-year contracts that buy the wrong drone in six years’ time that is way out of date in six weeks.
The Government are doing everything possible to capitalise on this opportunity. We have committed to more than doubling our spend on autonomous systems over this Parliament. I pushed really hard to get £4 billion of investment in mass-produced both unsophisticated and sophisticated weapons. The hon. Member for Huntingdon mentioned GCAP and loyal wingman; I would see loyal wingman as a sophisticated, high-end, fourth, fifth or sixth-generation capability. I see mass uncrewed systems for the Army—and in some cases the Navy—slightly differently.
Ben Obese-Jecty
If we are talking about those low-end, attritable systems being introduced at Army or Marine level as section-level capability, like a light machine gun, at what point will we look at redesigning our entire military capability in terms of logistical supply of batteries and parts for those? We all know that soldiers already carry too much kit, and carrying more batteries for drones will be key in that. How can we effectively redesign the section attack to incorporate drones? As I said in my speech, this is a fundamental shift in how the Army fights battles. I appreciate that the Minister is doing everything he can to introduce drones into the ecosystem, but it seems to me that we are making huge changes here. This is almost the same as introducing the machine gun and then wondering why we do not know how to fight it properly when we get to the battlefield. I would be interested to hear what we are doing to further that.
Al Carns
It is a combination of the two. Yes, it is a machine gun moment for the Army, but it is also an Air Force moment for the whole military, so we need careful consideration of how we will integrate this. The Ukrainians, for example, have combat companies who will fly 150 FPV drone strikes a day. They will do that with separate teams flying in support of infantry, much as we would have had close air support in the past. A drone team may fly 50 drone missions a day with 80% lethality and accuracy.
I will leave it to the generals, the admirals and the air vice-marshals to work out how they integrate the system. However, it must be integrated at the section and infantry level all the way to the division level in the Army; from the single ship all the way to the fleet level in the Navy; and from the single aircraft, if not major drone, all the way to fighting formations in the Air Force. That is the level of integration that will be required—it is pretty seismic.
We talked earlier about the high-low end mix. We will help to deliver Europe’s first hybrid carrier air wing. The hon. Member for Huntingdon mentioned, and I agree, that GCAP and the loyal wingman programme are sophisticated capabilities, but there is nothing to say that it is not—no pun intended—a Russian doll method where something releases something smaller that becomes more attritable and more mass-produced. That is probably where we are going with many of these systems.
We are also enhancing our uncrewed naval platforms. The patrol of the north Atlantic, protecting our continuous at-sea deterrent can adopt some of that technology. We will also, as the hon. Member mentioned, move towards a 20:40:40 capability mix for the British Army, which I think is essential, as is being proven in Ukraine at the moment. As he mentioned, that is 20% crewed, 40% reusable and 40% disposable uncrewed systems. I would like to see a lot of those drones used as ammunition so that, much as we would have down the range with a magazine and 30 rounds of ammunition, we should be able to go down the range with 10 drones, fly them down, use them, get proficient in that and ensure that we are as accurate and lethal with a drone as we are with a rifle, if not more so.
It is a move to help deliver our goal of increasing the Army’s lethality tenfold. I argue that we need to move on that as fast as is feasible. The critical component is our partnership with industry, and not just the big primes but SMEs are key to delivering those ambitions. That is why we have established UK Defence Innovation to connect with investors and get those SMEs, innovators and start-ups able to break into the defence market, which we know has been a problem in the past. That will ensure that we can rapidly identify and back innovative products that will give us a military, and indeed an economic, edge.
To integrate these new technologies across three military services—I think this is the critical component—we are creating an uncrewed centre of excellence, alongside a range and testing facility. It will be surrounded by SMEs and industry, with the people who know what they are talking about, because there is a lot of snake oil out there. We must put them in one place and then, as I mentioned, slow is smooth, smooth is fast. We must allow them to help the Army, Navy and Air Force to contract different hardware that has simultaneous and integrated software. That is how we will create capabilities that will be able to talk to each other in the future.
James Cartlidge
I called my reform the integrated procurement model, because I think the Minister is right: integration is so important, and it has been a deficiency of our bottom-down approach. However, does that not mean that we will need some kind of C2 system for our military? When I was in post, there was a lot of talk about ACCS, which was the system developed for NATO, but frankly was not fit for purpose. That would be a very significant investment. Is it something that the MOD is currently looking at?
Al Carns
In the SDR, there was a £1 billion investment in an integrated targeting web, and that is what ties all these systems together. The only way it will tie together is if the software is interchangeable. Indeed, if we were then to lay on AI in quantum, we would be taking it to the next step of starting to remove people further back down the chain. I believe we will always have to be in the chain, but we will move back. Our adversaries may not. That will be a pivotal change in the way of warfare again.
The uncrewed centre of excellence is one to watch within the SDR. It will be in place by February. It will provide centralised expertise, funding and standards. The Military Aviation Authority and the Civilian Aviation Authority were mentioned. The centre will help them to develop and get through some of the bureaucracies while remaining in line with the rules and regulations. It will help to develop skills across defence. For example, drone qualifications across the Navy, Army and Air Force at the moment are all starting to move in different directions. We have to synthesise them, and make sure that they are correct and that everyone is doing the same, so that we can swap and interchange people. That will help to deliver a regulatory framework in which our companies can succeed.
In June, we announced a landmark partnership with Ukraine to share technology, harness the innovation expertise from the frontline and increase our industrial co-operation, which is critical because innovation is moving at such a pace on the frontline. Our plans are a shot in the arm. We need to continue to push as hard as is feasible for what is already one of the leading uncrewed systems sectors in the world.
Ben Obese-Jecty
Recently, we saw the ACUA Ocean Pioneer granted a licence by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. Do we think that by pushing out more civilian licences to enable more companies to develop those autonomous platforms, including for things that have maritime applications, drones will be enhanced more quickly? I appreciate that a drone can be set up and flown relatively easily, but getting something that floats in the water, particularly something sizeable that has a civilian application, is quite difficult. Do we think that advancing the number of licences given to companies working on autonomous maritime capability would be an advantage?
Al Carns
The reality is that the governance and compliance of some of these systems has not kept pace with the innovation in the technological-industrial world. The drone centre of excellence will cut through that. Some countries are using dual-use technology, from drone delivery of shopping through to resupplying in disaster zones, and mapping and tracking forestry for carbon capture. We are on the very cusp of a change. It is interesting to look at the key capabilities of what each drone requires to sustain itself to innovate, and where those capabilities come from. That may give us a lead on where we should be focusing from an economic perspective as well.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made a really interesting point. He mentioned “Star Wars”. It feels a bit like that. When I watched the first destruction and sinking of a Russian frigate, I said it was a cross between “Star Wars” and “The Dam Busters”, because that is the leap it was making in war. Three ships were sunk in three weeks by relatively simple uncrewed systems, taking out the most significant naval platforms in the world. A lot of people would say that, as these ships get removed off the line of march, one of the biggest mistakes would be to replace them with the same capability.
Drone warfare is today’s reality. Capabilities are evolving faster than any of us can possibly imagine in Ukraine. That is why the Government’s response has been both immediate and decisive, but we have to go faster, and we have to go harder. Through clear leadership, unprecedented investment, closer work with industry and, importantly, our Ukrainian partners who are at the cutting edge, we will ensure that Britain remains at the forefront of this revolution. I genuinely believe that we will get there, and that it will make us stronger abroad and secure at home.
Peter Fortune
I thank the Minister for responding to the debate. I have huge personal respect and regard for him, and I feel confident that he not only heard what we said today but was already on top of it and recognised it. I trust him to have the grip, the focus and the pace to move forward with this, and he will have our support when he does so.
The shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), gave an excellent speech that literally nearly brought the roof down, with a range of well-informed views that showed his huge experience. His story about going to an SME and hearing about how these small businesses can prepare drones quickly and get them out on the frontline was very striking.
I turn to the contribution from the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone). As someone who trained as a loader for the Challenger 2, I think it is always good to spend half an hour talking about how we blow them up. That was rather disturbing, but he was right to talk about the Dreadnought moment and the fact that we are at a point of change. That was developed by my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty), who continued to talk about how he would blow me up. Using the knowledge from his previous career, with passion and compassion he talked about how we must rethink modern conflict.
The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) talked about the reality of warfare and how drones can be used to keep our soldiers safe, especially with developing AI technologies. She also touched on the ethical and moral issues, which we did not discuss for too long today and are possibly something for further debate. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about the pace of change he has seen, with the marvels of science fiction becoming a reality of modern warfare today. To build on the “Star Wars” theme that he developed, I think we all recognise that, with his wisdom, kindness and sagacity, he remains the Obi-Wan Kenobi of Westminster, and we thank him for his contribution.
Mostly, what has struck me has been the positive tone of the debate. It goes to show that we in this place are all patriots. As patriots, we recognise that the battlefield is changing, and we have a duty to our brave service personnel to ensure that they are prepared and equipped to fight on our behalf.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the use of drones in defence.
Covid-19 Vaccination Harm
(2 days, 22 hours ago)
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Emma Lewell (in the Chair)
I will call Sir Christopher Chope to move the motion and then the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Government support for people harmed following covid-19 vaccinations.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. This is a hot topic. The Secretary of State told my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) in June that it was on still on the boil. We hope today to find out a bit more about what the Government will do in response to the representations that have been made.
I have been campaigning on this issue since the summer of 2021, when it first became apparent that some people had suffered serious adverse reactions—in a few cases fatal ones—as a result of having taken vaccines against covid-19. That summer, over four years ago, I presented a petition calling from reform of the vaccine damage payment scheme, to
“maintain vaccine confidence and provide urgent support for those injured/bereaved through covid-19 vaccinations”.
The complacent Government at the time responded:
“Once more is known about the possible link between the vaccine and potential side effects, it will be considered whether a wider review of the VDPS is needed”.
Is it not regrettable that four years on we are in exactly the same position? The new Government’s line is, “We are not sure whether we’re going to review the VDPS and, if we do, how we’re going to review it and in what respects.”
What has happened since the summer of 2021? On 10 September 2021, in speaking to my Covid-19 Vaccine Damage Bill, I expressed my concerns about the victims of these vaccines. At that stage, there had been only 154 applications under the vaccine damage payment scheme. Four years later, as of June 2025, the number of claims had risen to 21,444. This is a big and serious issue, yet the Government continue to be in denial about the validity of causal links between covid vaccines and injury or death.
Now, in the face of evidence, the Government have had to change their tune, not least because, as of May 2025, 224 awards of £120,000 had been paid in respect of people who had been proved to have suffered death or serious injury as a result of having the vaccines. It is no longer open to the Government to deny that causality, but it seems that they are still intent on playing hard to get for those people who are still seeking compensation or redress for what they have suffered.
This fits closely with the whole issue of vaccine confidence. We have heard recently about the declining take-up of measles, mumps and rubella vaccines and other childhood vaccines; our levels of take-up are now well below those recommended by the World Health Organisation. The vaccine damage payment scheme was introduced to give confidence to people who did the right thing in public health terms: they got themselves vaccinated, and they knew that if something went wrong, the Government would come in and support them. That now is not happening, or at least it is not happening in sufficiently large quantities. As a result, the word on the street is that if someone takes a vaccine—if they take that risk for the sake of public health—and something goes wrong, they will probably have to pay the consequences themselves, and the Government will not help.
It is now universally accepted that covid-19 vaccines were not absolutely “safe and effective”, as was claimed at the time. For a few people, the vaccines have been a disaster. The charity UKCVFamily continues to campaign fearlessly for those victims; later this month, it will host in London a two-day seminar with leading lawyers and medical practitioners to consider some of these issues. In January, UKCV and others gave evidence on module 4 of the covid-19 inquiry, arguing for reform of the vaccine damage payment scheme. The hope at the time was that there would be an interim ruling or report, before this point, basically asking the Government to get to grips with reviewing the scheme because of the injustice that was being caused. So far, nothing seems to have happened about producing an interim report in relation to module 4.
The recognition that the reluctance of Government to face up to the facts about covid-19 vaccines is widespread globally led to the publication of “Canary In a Covid World”, a collection of essays from 34 contributors across different countries. I was privileged to be one of them. Another contributor and co-author was Dr Peter McCullough, whose latest book, “Vaccines: Mythology, Ideology, and Reality”, was published in July and for a time was in the New York Times bestseller list. The importance of this issue for tens of thousands of people cannot be overstated, yet the Government continue to vacillate.
Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend not just on securing this debate, but on all the work he has done on this subject. He knows that he and I and our right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) and others have been raising it for many years now. He also knows that the Secretary of State has said he wants time to think about the appropriate solution. That is reasonable, but he has had plenty of time to think about it now, has he not? Are not our constituents who are affected now entitled to know what the Government have decided to do, not just in the interests of those affected but, as my hon. Friend said, in the interests of the effectiveness of Government policy on vaccination?
Sir Christopher Chope
My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. I have before me the answer that he received from the Secretary of State when he raised the matter at Health questions on 17 June:
“I reassure the right hon. and learned Gentleman, the constituents of his I have met and other campaigners that I am having discussions with the Cabinet Office about how we deal with that and other issues that have been raised this morning…He knows the complexities involved, and I have been grateful for his advice as a former Attorney General. I do not have specific progress to report now, but I reassure him and campaigners that this issue has not gone off the boil and we are working to find a resolution.”—[Official Report, 17 June 2025; Vol. 769, c. 159.]
That was almost three months ago, so what has happened in the interim? I hope that the Minister, whom I am pleased to see in her place, will be able to deliver a response to the questions as to what review is being carried out, which aspects of the scheme are being reviewed, when evidence will be invited, if that is to happen, and what the timescale is for all this, because at the moment people are in the dark, as my right hon. and learned Friend said.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
I, too, want to acknowledge all the work that my hon. Friend has done. He has been absolutely tenacious on this issue. I was a Minister in the Cabinet Office, so I know. I had the calls, the questions on the Floor of the House and the meetings. I hope I can help the Minister here today, because a lot of the heavy lifting has been done in the Cabinet Office and the Department of Health and Social Care. One of the key questions that my hon. Friends raised was about the amount of compensation. Why has it not been increased, at least by inflation, in decades? A lot of that was put forward in the Cabinet Office and the Department of Health, and a lot of the work has been done and should have come to fruition by now, a year into the new Government. The other issue was about people fearful of being clocked out and not having enough time to be compensated. We need the clock to start once they are in the system and not when they are out of it. Work has been done on that as well.
Sir Christopher Chope
I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. I hope that the Minister listened to her and will have direct answers to the questions that she raised. Having spent so much time badgering my right hon. Friend, when she was a Minister in the Cabinet Office, to get something done on this issue, I perhaps need to take the opportunity to say this. I think in the end I reached the conclusion that she had been badly let down by the officials in her Department. It was unfinished business at the time of the general election, and if the current Secretary of State is in discussion with the Cabinet Office, then another 15 months have gone by. Having regard to the work that was done before, I would hope that we are getting close to having answers.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
This is not just about the damages figures; it is also about those who do not qualify through the vaccine damage payment scheme, which states they must have a 60% permanent disability. I have spoken to the hon. Gentleman about this. Many of my constituents have serious but not qualifying conditions. Those who suffer long term but do not meet the threshold may get nothing. Does he agree that there must be a better way to provide assistance than creating an unrealistic threshold that excludes those who are suffering but do not qualify?
Sir Christopher Chope
I agree absolutely. If someone has suffered serious adverse effects from a covid-19 vaccine, it is not much consolation to them, their loved ones or those whose confidence we are trying to build to be told that because they are only 30% disabled they are not entitled to a penny. Someone who is 59% disabled is not entitled to anything, even if that disability was caused by the vaccine.
To put all this in context, the VDPS was set up in 1979 to boost confidence for those receiving vaccines. Between 1979 and 31 March 2025, the total number of non-covid vaccine claims was 958. As of 31 March, 331 were still live, 88 of which had been waiting more than 12 months, and only nine had been successful. That is hardly a confidence-building measure, but as I mentioned, as of the end of June, there were more than 22,000—more than 22 times as many—claims for damage caused by covid-19 vaccines. It is hardly surprising that there has been a decline in vaccine confidence. That is why, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) said, we need some urgency.
When I ask questions about this, I keep getting fobbed off with unsatisfactory answers. Mostly recently, on 7 July, a Minister wrote in answer to my question:
“I am not in a position to comment on timelines for the consideration of options for reform or recommendations for change.”
Are those options not being considered now? When are they going to be brought forward? The answer continued:
“Ministers continue to consider options covering both potential reforms…and the situation of those who have suffered harm.”
But they will not tell us the timescale.
What are we to do? What are the punters meant to do about this? We are still waiting for the report from the inquiry, in particular on module 4, but the evidence given to the inquiry was compelling. In conclusion, I will quote briefly from the evidence that was given in the introductory statements before Baroness Heather Hallett:
“During the early months of the vaccine rollout, those who experienced adverse reactions found it nearly impossible to access information about vaccine injuries in the mainstream media. This lack of coverage contributed to feelings of fear, isolation, and a heightened likelihood of being disbelieved. Adverse reactions to the Covid-19 vaccines were largely absent from mainstream media discussions. When they were eventually covered, the stories were often framed with an emphasis on the rarity of such reactions, the safety of the vaccine, and the millions of lives it had saved. Members of the Covid Vaccine Adverse Reaction and Bereaved Groups who participated in interviews with mainstream media often had to agree to censor themselves, or had their words altered during editing.”
We now know that they were right. Their concerns that these injuries and bereavements had been caused by the vaccines were correct, although the Government at the time were in denial. That has added to the trauma of the victims and their families. I hope that the Government, which I always hope will be sympathetic to those in need and in plight, will now wake up and put a proverbial under the UK Government authorities that are trying to forestall any action. One can see the way in which the previous Government’s Ministers were disregarded on this issue and how the NHS carries on doing its own thing and being in denial. I hope that the Minister can tell us the timescales for this, exactly what is being discussed and what is not, and when we will be able to report something positive to those of our constituents who continue to suffer.
The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)
It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Ms Lewell. I am speaking today on behalf of the Minister for public health and prevention, my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton), who cannot be here for other parliamentary reasons. I know that she agrees with me that debates such as this are important to uphold the British people’s trust in public health measures, so I thank the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) for securing it.
I want to start by giving some assurance, particularly to people watching at home. We know that over 53 million people, following the example of Her late Majesty the Queen, took the jab during a once-in-a-generation health emergency, and that covid vaccines helped to keep millions of people out of hospital and, in many cases, saved lives. It is important to remember that the vast majority of people who took the jab did not suffer adverse effects. The hon. Member for Christchurch has made some of those points publicly, and I am grateful for that. However, that does not mean that we should turn a blind eye to the rare and tragic instances where things have gone wrong, as he eloquently highlighted.
I want to take the opportunity to pay tribute to some of the campaigners, Kate Scott, Sheila Ward and Kelly Hatfield, for their tireless campaigning on this issue, and to Gareth Eve and the family of John Cross, all of whom have raised the issue of vaccine injury with my ministerial colleagues. Their loved ones took the vaccine because they wanted to protect their families and the NHS.
Today, those brave campaigners are still fighting for all people who suffered adverse reactions. They are not statistics—as hon. Members have said today, they are people. They are our constituents. Their voices must be heard. I am glad that they continue to have the opportunity to raise their concerns with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and with my colleague, the Minister for public health and prevention. The conversations are difficult, but they are essential to making Whitehall understand where the system falls short and where we can make a meaningful difference. It is not just a question of making sure that systems are in place to support people when things go wrong. As the hon. Member for Christchurch outlined this morning, it is about maintaining public confidence in our health service and vaccination programmes. That is what is at stake in this debate, and that is why it is helpful that he secured it.
That said, I do not think I will be able to assure the hon. Gentleman on the exact timelines that he asked for. However, I assure him that we are neither being complacent nor playing hard to get, as he said of even his own Government. Indeed, I echo the Secretary of State’s comments to the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) back in June.
We are taking tangible steps to improve the administration of the vaccine damage payment scheme. As hon. Members know, the VDPS is a statutory route through which those who have suffered serious harm as a result of vaccination can apply for financial support. The scheme has been in existence for many years, but since the covid-19 vaccination campaign began, there has been a rise in the number of applications. That is to be expected, given the record number of vaccinations given in such a short timeframe, but it has put pressure on the processing time. That is why the Department has been working with the NHS Business Services Authority, the administrators of the scheme, to modernise operations, improve the experience of those who apply for an award and process claims at a faster rate. To get that done, additional medical assessors have been appointed and the application process has been digitised.
The NHS Business Services Authority has also been working to improve the return rate of medical records from the healthcare providers required to assess claims through engagement with NHS institutions and using subject access requests as needed.
With regard to the ongoing work, we recognise that concerns about the scheme go wider than the application process. We have heard those calls from the hon. Member for Christchurch, other Members present and campaigners, and, as he references, during the covid inquiry hearings, when the Government were asked to look at issues such as the eligibility criteria for the scheme and the current award amount. Last September, the Secretary of State met campaigners to discuss that issue, and ministerial colleagues have had further meetings since. In those meetings, my colleagues set out that although any changes to the scheme would be a cross-Government decision, our door remains open to campaigners and we will do everything we can to keep progressing this at pace.
I recognise that individuals and their families who have suffered harm following vaccination are waiting on a more detailed update, but I reassure them that the Secretary of State and Ministers are continuing to look at the issues and a range of options. I reiterate the comments that the Secretary of State made at Health questions. We want to be clear in our response. I will not be able to offer the hon. Member for Christchurch the timeline that he wants today.
Sir Christopher Chope
The Minister says she cannot give us an exact timeline. Could she give us an approximate time? Is this going to be finished before the end of this year, for example? That is not an exact timeline, but it would be an indicative timeline. And when she talks about various options, can she not explain which of those options are being considered or which ones are not being considered? For example, is increasing the £120,000 payout being considered? Is reducing the disability threshold from 60% being considered? Is disapplying the three-year limitation period for the bringing of civil claims being considered? Please can we have a yes or no to those things? We are not asking for the decisions on those, but we are asking whether they are being considered or not.
Karin Smyth
The hon. Gentleman tempts me to give more details, which I cannot do today. But I will take back to the Department that broader request for timelines and what things are being considered. I will make sure we get back to him on that as a result of this debate.
On the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the hon. Member for Christchurch and the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) asked about the effectiveness of the MHRA in monitoring harms. The MHRA is globally recognised for requiring high standards of safety. Vaccines used in the UK are authorised only once they have met robust standards of effectiveness, safety and quality.
Once approved, the comprehensive post-market surveillance of a vaccine begins, where the benefits and risks of the vaccine are very closely monitored. The MHRA collects data through the reporting of adverse reactions by the public and healthcare professionals to the yellow card scheme, as well as from other information sources domestically and internationally.
As hon. Members know, a dedicated team of scientists constantly reviews the information to look for safety issues or rare adverse effects. All reports of adverse events, alongside other information, are analysed and reviewed continuously to identify trends and patterns that may require action, with any information indicating a possible new safety concern thoroughly evaluated. Updated advice for healthcare professionals and patients is issued where appropriate.
The covid-19 vaccines have been scrutinised continuously since roll-out, with the MHRA having implemented a proactive surveillance strategy for monitoring the safety of all UK-approved covid-19 vaccines.
I just want to end by saying that the vaccine programme—
Sir Christopher Chope
Obviously, the Minister has a brief that has been given to her by officials on behalf of the Minister with responsibility for public health, the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton), who is not able to be here. Can this Minister give me some assurance that I, together with my colleagues who have participated in this debate, will be able to meet the relevant Minister, so that we can go over some of this stuff? I realise that this Minister does not have the discretion to be able to respond to this debate, but the public health Minister would have that discretion, so can she guarantee that we can fix up a meeting, please?
Karin Smyth
The hon. Gentleman is of course a very experienced campaigner, and he asks his question absolutely appropriately. I know that my hon. Friend the public health Minister is very happy to meet people and discuss this, but I can also assure the hon. Gentleman that the Secretary of State is very much looking at this personally as well. I will take that request for a meeting with the public health Minister back to the Department, and I am sure that she will be happy to do that.
The vaccine programme was an immense contribution to public health during a once-in-a-lifetime health emergency, and many of us remember the sense of relief that we and family members felt when we got that text with the invitation to come forward. But for a small number of people and their families, it brought pain, loss and hardship. We must never forget them, and our responsibility as a Government is clear. We are absolutely committed, as I have said, to further work to improve the scheme, as well as to continue to engage with those who are affected and have suffered vaccine harm, to consider how the system could better reflect their needs. That does include the issues raised by the hon. Gentleman, and other colleagues here today, on behalf of all our constituents.
Question put and agreed to.
Duty of Candour for Public Authorities and Legal Representation for Bereaved Families
(2 days, 22 hours ago)
Westminster HallRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)
Before I call the Member in charge, let me say that 21 Members want to speak, which will mean two to two and a half minutes for each speech. There are also a lot of people who wish to intervene. I am letting the Member in charge know that in order to give him an idea of when he might want to finish his speech—I suggest that he takes no longer than 20 minutes.
Ian Byrne (Liverpool West Derby) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered duty of candour for public authorities and legal representation for bereaved families.
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I am here to speak about the urgent need for a statutory duty of candour and the full implementation of the Hillsborough law, and to oppose the forces that want to fight against this change.
Historically, the state has taken a defensive position to protect its own interests. From the Peterloo massacre to Bloody Sunday, Hillsborough, the Post Office scandal, Grenfell, the contaminated blood scandal and nuclear test veterans, to name but a few, the list of state cover-ups is long, exhausting and utterly shameful. So many families have been denied truth and justice because of the current system, which enables cover-ups. How and why has a system been left in place that has continually enabled the establishment to evade truth, accountability and justice for those wronged? That is a question that this place and this country should think long and hard about.
I was at the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 when 97 innocent women, children and men lost their lives and countless more lives were destroyed. It was not just a tragedy; it was a betrayal—a betrayal compounded over decades by lies, cover-ups and institutional failures.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool Riverside) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate and for all the amazing work he has done on this subject for such a long time. Does he agree that if the Hillsborough law is not delivered as promised, it will be a massive betrayal of not only the people of Liverpool, the families and the survivors, but the whole country?
Ian Byrne
I agree 100%.
The then chief constable of South Yorkshire police said after the findings of the Hillsborough independent panel in 2012:
“In the immediate aftermath senior officers sought to change the record of events. Disgraceful lies were told which blamed the Liverpool fans for the disaster. Statements were altered which sought to minimise police blame.”
By that point, 23 years after Hillsborough, the game was up. Even South Yorkshire police had to admit that there had been a cover-up of the true facts on an industrial scale.
At the end of the Hillsborough processes in 2020, 31 years had passed. A jury at the inquests had found to the criminal standard of proof, beyond reasonable doubt, that those who died had been unlawfully killed by the gross negligence of the match commander. The police force involved had settled the cover-up cases, having publicly acknowledged that disgraceful lies had been deliberately told by senior officers to shift the blame from the police on to Liverpool supporters. Yet, disgracefully, no public servant or police officer has ever been convicted of any offence or even disciplined. In fact, one of the officers at the very heart of the cover-up, Norman Bettison, not only escaped sanction, but was rewarded. He received a knighthood—a title he disgracefully holds to this day. Truth, but no justice.
Would anybody in this place argue that it was right that those responsible for the 97 unlawful deaths of innocent people walked away without any consequences? I would wager not. However, 36 years after the Hillsborough cover-up, nothing has changed. The very establishments and vested interests responsible for this culture are once again looking to maintain the status quo and the ability to continue state cover-ups and deny justice to those wronged. This place, which has been at the heart of this culture and done so much to enable cover-ups, must acknowledge today that the game is up and act with clarity and moral courage to push back against those vested interests.
That is why we need a duty of candour, which was built into the proposed Hillsborough law of 2017. Establishing a legal duty of candour on public authorities, public servants and corporations that are responsible for public safety would set out a legal principle that they have to tell the truth. Is it not remarkable that that was necessary and remains so?
Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that to change the culture of cover-ups that has caused so much harm to so many, we must have a duty of candour, with criminal sanctions for individuals as well as organisations and authorities?
Ian Byrne
My hon. Friend is spot on.
The second aspect of the Hillsborough law would put that new legal principle of truth into practical use by requiring public authorities, public servants and corporations proactively to assist investigations, inquests and inquiries, and providing a legal toolkit to help families and others to make them comply.
Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)
I wish to make it really clear that I am vice-chair of WhistleblowersUK, a non-profit-making organisation set up to protect whistleblowers. Nothing should slow down the promised Bill, and it is essential that those who hold public office are held fully accountable. If we are to prevent the now constant stream of scandals that blight so many innocent lives, we must not overlook the fact that the people involved in Hillsborough and every similar scandal speak up, but the system lets them down. Will the Minister address directly the fact that, as part of the important new Hillsborough law, the Government should commit to protect those who exercise their duty of candour from retaliation by also committing to the introduction of an office of the whistleblower?
Ian Byrne
I thank the hon. Member for those valid points.
The third aspect of the Hillsborough law would make new offences of wilfully failing to discharge the duty to fully assist inquiries, or intentionally or recklessly misleading the public or media. That would be an absolute game changer and would transform the country for the better.
That leads me to the current situation. In the 2024 King’s Speech, the Government pledged to bring forward legislation to enshrine a duty of candour for public servants. They called it the Hillsborough law, and it was what was promised in the manifesto that I, and many Members present, proudly stood on in the 2024 general election. We thought it was the same legislation as the Hillsborough law that was first brought to Parliament by Andy Burnham in 2017 and written by Pete Weatherby KC and Elkan Abrahamson, two prominent lawyers who have represented Hillsborough families for decades and continue to work with the Hillsborough law campaign. The Government promised that they would ensure that public officials tell the truth and proactively co-operate with investigations. They also promised parity of legal representation for bereaved families. I, as lead for the Hillsborough law campaign in Parliament, and all the campaigners connected with it over the years, were delighted by that commitment, which the Government promised to deliver by the 36th anniversary of Hillsborough on 15 April this year.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who the whole House will agree is making an excellent and powerful contribution. I congratulate him on all the hard work that he has done to advance this issue. He is right to set out the essentials of any Bill, including the duty of candour, criminal responsibility, and the criminal sanctions to follow. Does he agree that any attempt to water down the Bill in any way will be rejected and be unacceptable to the House?
Ian Byrne
I thank my hon. Friend for that powerful point—I agree 100%.
The Government’s promise to deliver that commitment by the 36th anniversary of Hillsborough was broken. Instead, they offered a watered-down version of the legislation, stripped of its moral force and legal teeth. Lawyers who drafted the original Bill refused to endorse it, negotiations stalled, and once again the families were let down. It felt a continuation of the betrayal by the state. Although the Paymaster General told me in this place in July that the Government remain “fully committed” to introducing a Hillsborough law, we still have no clarity on when or how those provisions will be enacted. There have been plenty of warm words, but warm words do not deliver justice—action does.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on all the hard work he has done on this issue since he entered the House. As he was speaking, I thought to myself that in all the cases that have led to these discussions—Hillsborough, the infected blood scandal, nuclear test veterans, the Primodos scandal and countless others—the victims and their families have had to deal with the initial trauma of the incident and then the prolonged trauma as a result of all the lies that have been told. Does he agree that introducing a duty of candour would protect victims and their families from that prolonged trauma and that that should take priority over protecting the public body that is responsible? That is how the Government can show victims and their families that they are listening. This is why my hon. Friend is so forthright on bringing forward a Hillsborough law—because it would include the duty of candour.
Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)
Order. Interventions should be short, as so many Members want to speak.
Ian Byrne
I thank my hon. Friend for making that point; she is spot on.
Out of sheer desperation at the situation, in July I used a private Member’s Bill, the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill, to reintroduce the original Hillsborough law—the 2017 version. The Government rejected it, so here we are today, without the Hillsborough law, fighting against those same vested interests, and the clock continues to tick while people’s belief in politics and politicians continues to erode.
Let me be absolutely crystal clear for the Government: a full duty of candour with criminal sanctions is non-negotiable in any legislation bearing the name of Hillsborough. It is not a technicality; it is a moral imperative, and it is a moral and legal imperative that it sits at the heart of every inquiry, investigation and inquest, local and national—no exceptions. Nothing less will change the culture, because carve-outs become cover-ups, and this must never be allowed to happen again. Simply, if it had been law at the time of Hillsborough, we would not have waited decades for justice. So much pain and suffering could have been avoided, and families could have grieved for those lost instead of fighting the state for truth and justice. The duty of candour is about accountability. It is about preventing cover-ups, and it is about restoring public trust.
The second pillar of the Hillsborough law is legal parity, which is equally vital. Time and again, bereaved families have faced the might of the state with no legal support, while public bodies are armed to the teeth with expensive teams of lawyers. Parity of arms is essential to stop false narratives being spread and families feeling like it is them who are on trial. That imbalance is not just unfair; it is grotesque. I pay tribute to Deb Coles and the team at INQUEST for their constant championing of this. Their work was highlighted in “All or Nothing: A report on the Hillsborough Law Family Listening Day”. I urge everybody in this room and beyond to read it, to understand why parity of arms is so fundamental to gaining truth and justice.
If the Government resist a full duty of candour without exception, what does that say? Do they believe public officials should be allowed to lie with impunity? Do they believe families should continue to be denied justice? Opposition to this legislation is not about practicality. It highlights the power of vested interests. It is about protecting the status quo—a status quo that has caused untold harm to so many. The ball is now in the Government’s court. More specifically, it is in the Prime Minister’s court.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Ind)
I should explain to my hon. Friend that I will have to leave the debate to attend a meeting about the violence meted out in a demonstration outside an asylum hotel in my constituency, but I want to make this point very clear. Labour is going to Liverpool for its conference in three weeks’ time. If this legislation is not sorted by then, it should not expect a welcome from the people in Liverpool, because we have waited too long.
Ian Byrne
I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend.
The Prime Minister has the ball in his court. He has made personal commitments to Liverpool, to the Hillsborough families and to survivors of other state-related scandals. He is perhaps the most qualified Prime Minister in history to understand why this matters, but understanding is not enough. We need courage, we need leadership, and we need action.
I have met countless campaigners who are formidable, tireless and brave. They have been underestimated by the establishment for far too long, but they will not go away, and neither will I. As somebody who was at Hillsborough, I carry this fight in my bones. I will not rest while injustice persists, not just for those who died at Hillsborough, but for everyone who has been wronged by the state. Unless the state learns from its mistakes, it will repeat them, and lives will continue to be destroyed. The time for delaying is over, and the time for diluting promises is over. We must legislate, we must protect truth, and we must honour those who have died at the hands of the state, and those who have fought for justice on their behalf, not with words, but with law.
Several hon. Members rose—
Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)
Order. As I have indicated, a lot of people wish to speak. I will start with a formal time limit on speeches of two and a half minutes, but we might have to reduce that further.
Sorcha Eastwood (Lagan Valley) (Alliance)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this important debate today. I recognise that he is a survivor and that he has had the courage of his convictions to talk about this issue. It is challenging not just on a personal level, but with the responsibility of carrying on his shoulders the families and what they have wanted for so many years. I give credit to him and everybody in this House who have carried that so well.
Above all, I want to pay tribute to the families and campaigners, some of whom are here today—it is fantastic to see that—who have kept the campaign for the Hillsborough law alive. We would not be here today without their courage, persistence and awe-inspiring efforts over the years. We have seen this many times in the UK; whether it is Hillsborough, Grenfell, the infected blood scandal or Primodos, it is completely endemic throughout our system and our politics. Coming from Northern Ireland, it would be entirely remiss of me not to state that many people in Northern Ireland throughout the decades have been most egregiously let down by the state.
I want to take some time to talk about my constituents, the Conroy family. Their father, Royal Ulster Constabulary Detective Chief Superintendent Desmond Conroy, was one of the people on board Chinook ZD576, which crashed in the Mull of Kintyre in June 1994, killing all 29 people on board. It was an absolutely immense tragedy, and a loss to the intelligence and security services in Northern Ireland at that time.
For 30 years, the Conroy family, the Phoenix family and many others have had their names and their family’s names brought through the mud. Not just that, but the two people, Flight Lieutenants Jonathan Tapper and Richard Cook, who were piloting the craft that day, also had their reputations tarnished posthumously—normally people are honoured posthumously. All 29 people on board that craft—although it is not relevant materially—served their country with distinction. How were they honoured? They were honoured by their families being blocked at every cut and turn, and by being told that it was “in their head” and that they were conspiracists.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see so many people here. We clearly cannot do justice to this subject in two and a half minutes, but in a way, the number of people here speaks more eloquently than any speech. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing the debate and for all the work that he has done on this issue. He has rightly identified two essential elements that are necessary to ensure justice where there is a major event resulting in death or serious injury.
This is something that the Justice Committee—and the predecessor Committee to the one I chair—has been calling for for many years. Four years ago in a report, the Committee recommended that
“Non-means tested legal aid should be automatically available at the most complex inquests such as those following public disasters. In all inquests where public bodies are legally represented bereaved people should be entitled to publicly funded legal representation.”
That is something that the Joint Committee on Human Rights has also found. Indeed, when considering the issue of the duty of candour in 2023, it recommended that a duty to be candid at inquests should be extended to all public bodies. That is essential if we are not to continue to make the horrific mistakes that have been made, not just in the case of Hillsborough, but in many other tragedies over the past years and decades.
In the short time I have, I will mention two other important elements. Yesterday, the Justice Committee interviewed an outstanding candidate for the Independent Public Advocate, Cindy Butts, who endorsed the need for legal representation and the duty of candour. If she is appointed later this week, as I hope she will be, she will be outstanding in championing these matters.
The final point I will mention is a national oversight mechanism, which is equally important. In many cases, even where there has been a proper hearing, recommendations have just sat on the shelf. I fully support the campaign of Inquest and other organisations to ensure that we have that mechanism in the future. It needs to be part of this package of measures going forward.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) on bringing forward this debate and on the passion with which he is advancing the case. The attendance in the Chamber today demonstrates the strength of feeling on the issue. My contribution will draw attention to an area of Government where the duty of candour already exists, at least supposedly—the Department of Health and Social Care. I hope that the Government will learn lessons from the way in which that is conducted within the Department.
I relate the case of one of my constituents, Joe Poynton, whose daughter Sally was murdered by his undiagnosed paranoid-schizophrenic grandson Jacob in June 2021. For three years prior to her death, Sally battled unsuccessfully to get diagnosis and treatment for Jacob. He is now receiving that in hospital, but the family are devastated at the price that she had to pay—and they are paying—to achieve it.
There is a long tragic history of innocent people being killed by young people with schizophrenia, sometimes undiagnosed and sometimes diagnosed, but usually on the radar of mental health services. Sally Poynton had made repeated attempts to get her son diagnosed, but the service never got on top of the issues. I have already furnished the Minister with my questions, because the attempts to get reports out of the NHS have simply failed—reports have been heavily redacted.
What legislative changes can be brought in to correct the failings of the service in this case? What legislative changes are proposed to ensure that an adult discharged from hospital following a mental health admission has a GP assigned to them? Can the Minister ensure that measures are proposed to reverse the disappointing lack of professional curiosity within the service? Finally, can the Minister ensure that there is legal representation at all inquests? The NHS has professionals, barristers and lawyers supporting it, and individuals and families do not.
Anneliese Midgley (Knowsley) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this debate. The day of 15 April 1989 will never leave us. On that day, fans went to the match and never came home. They were not “lost”. They were unlawfully killed: authorities protecting themselves; decades of denial, distortion and lies; that Sun front page; a cover-up; the systematic failure of the state; and still not one successful prosecution.
Charlotte Hennessy is a constituent of my right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Sir Mark Tami), who, as Government Deputy Chief Whip, cannot tell her story. Charlotte was six when her dad, Jimmy Hennessy, died. Jimmy was a plasterer, a man of morals, and a mod—he looked good. She was told that he died of traumatic asphyxiation, but in 2012 she learnt the truth: her dad was found alive on that pitch. Jimmy was carried to the gym, where he was meant to receive medical help, but he was declared dead. He was not; he was still alive when he was zipped into a body bag—he vomited inside it. Jimmy did not die in the crush; he died of his own vomit while zipped inside a body bag.
Charlotte told me that a Hillsborough law with a duty of candour is imperative. The Government must now match the courage of the families and campaigners who have fought for this. Will they be bold enough to lay the Hillsborough law?
Hillsborough was not a one-off. Again and again, the state has failed those who need its protection most. Last year, the Prime Minister promised to deliver a Hillsborough law, but the Government’s own target to introduce the Bill by 15 April this year has been missed. Families have waited too long and there have been too many broken promises. I ask the Minister: when will the Hillsborough law come before Parliament? When it does, will it give justice to the 97? Will it be worthy of their memory? Will it be strong enough to protect every victim of state failure?
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I extend my immense gratitude to my friend, the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne).
On behalf of my independent alliance colleagues, I begin by paying tribute to the Hillsborough families, survivors and campaigners who for decades have fought with extraordinary courage and perseverance. Their demand has always been simple: for the truth to be told as it is so that families can find closure and not face barriers in their pursuit of justice for their loved ones. Their legacy is the Hillsborough law: a legal duty of candour on public authorities and officials, and equal representation for bereaved families. That was promised by the Government. With trust in politicians at an all-time low in our country and around the world, I appeal to the Government to please honour their promise. I am not asking for anything different or anything more.
With high-profile tragedies such as Hillsborough, Grenfell, the Manchester Arena bombing, Horizon and infected blood, the need for such a law is undeniable. I attended the statement made yesterday by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), on child sexual abuse. Without the Hillsborough law, that inquiry may not uncover the truth about what people withheld and how many victims could have been prevented from abuse or supported in their time of need, so please—this is critical.
I will skip to one additional point. Justice is about not just how we respond after a disaster but the systems we put in place to prevent injustices from happening again. Too often, families are forced into painful struggles because institutions have failed them. While we respect the work of our public servants, we must recognise that failures within the NHS, the police, local government and the courts are sometimes systemic. One such issue relates to critically ill children, where parents have to go through adversarial court battles to get second opinions and treatment for their children. I urge the Government to look into that and to pass the Hillsborough law as promised so that those things can be addressed.
Gill Furniss (Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this important debate. As the MP for Sheffield and Hillsborough, who was living locally at the time, I will never forget the harrowing scenes—things that people really should never see—with many people just roaming around our area in complete shock. I pay tribute to the many neighbours who helped by letting people into their houses, giving them cups of tea and allowing them to phone to reassure their parents and families that they were okay.
No family should ever have to face the indifference, the lies and the avoidable trauma that the survivors of Hillsborough and the families of the 97 have experienced. I recall the debate we had on the Hillsborough families report more than two and a half years ago and the warm words and cross-party support on display for the Hillsborough law then. But warm words are comforting for only so long and, after 36 years of waiting the families deserve both the truth and justice. That was why I was proud to stand on a manifesto committing to the Hillsborough law.
Beyond that manifesto commitment, the Prime Minister pledged in 2022 that
“one of my first acts as Prime Minister will be to put the Hillsborough law on the statute book”.
We are now a quarter of the way through the potential lifespan of this Parliament and, while I appreciate that the legislative process takes time, we have not seen any public progress on that commitment.
To me, our manifesto pledge was a clear commitment to the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill of 2017, which was tabled by the former Member for Leigh and subsequently re-tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby. Importantly, we are in a position where we have a Prime Minister who has taken silk and is a former Director of Public Prosecutions. There is no man more eminently qualified to judge the Hillsborough law on its merits than him, and I trust that he would have considered the viewpoints of these anonymous detractors before making public promises.
The speculation about what form the Hillsborough law may take is only rampant due to an information vacuum that has regrettably been allowed to exist. Can the Minister outline for us, either today or later in writing, the timeline for the implementation of the Hillsborough law and commit to publishing a draft of that law, to give us proper time to review the Government’s proposals? It is vital that we get this right.
Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mrs Hobhouse, and I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this important debate and for his excellent speech. Let me take ten precious seconds to point out that, apart from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan), not one single member of His Majesty’s Opposition has come along to this debate.
Despite what the Prime Minister said on the 2 July, committing himself to the Hillsborough law, including criminal sanctions, The Times reported on 13 July that the Treasury was holding this up because of problems regarding funding for legal aid. My contribution to this debate is based on my long public service in health and social care, which spans four decades. Scandal, cover-up, service failure and outright abuse over those decades says to me that, despite the Nolan principles in public life, our leaders cannot be trusted. They cannot be trusted to do the right thing unless they are legally required to do so.
There have been so many examples of whistleblowers in public life who, rather than being honoured for trying to put a stop to these failures, are hounded and harried by the very authorities they are seeking to challenge. That is why, more than ever, we need an office of the whistleblower, independent of Government and with the powers to enforce any duty of candour on public authorities. My public service began in the same organisation that was responsible for the Kincora children’s home scandal. Many of us in this place remember, all these years later, that we have still not got to the bottom of that.
I also want to point out that, in ensuing years, I witnessed large-scale failures in the care of older people, people with learning disabilities, children in care and other client groups, not only in this jurisdiction, but in the Republic of Ireland as well. In each and every case, the organisational system worked overtime to protect its reputation. Senior public servants, who should have come clean from the outset, worked hard to cover up these matters from full public view. That is why this law is so important, and I completely agree with the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby, who introduced this debate.
As I said, behind this law is the need to give it teeth through the establishment of an office of the whistleblower. Public inquiries simply do not provide the answers we need. Just think of the late Dr David Kelly, who died more than 22 years ago, and why details about his untimely death were sealed for 70 years by the Hutton inquiry. In conclusion, I simply ask one question: why have the Government not yet set out how they expect the proposed legislation to work? The clock is ticking. People need actions, not words.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this debate.
I speak as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Primodos, which I have led for over a decade alongside affected families in their fight for truth and justice. Primodos is one of the clearest examples of a systematic failure of candour in British medical healthcare. Between 1958 and 1978, around 1.5 million women in the United Kingdom were prescribed the hormone pregnancy test. From the 1960s, doctors and researchers raised concern that it was linked to miscarriages, stillbirths and severe birth defects.
Instead of acting, the regulators actively suppressed the evidence and colluded with the pharmaceutical companies. When Dr Isabel Gal published her study in 1967, officials undermined her work rather than investigating it. Later, archives in the UK and Germany showed that they knew of the concerns, but kept patients in the dark, even though other countries had withdrawn the drug from the market.
After years of campaigning, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency finally established an expert working group in 2017. Its task was to examine whether there was a possible association. The final report said there was “no causal association”. That was not in the original draft; it was inserted late, under outside instruction, and caused misunderstanding by giving the impression of certainty. Moreover, the families were excluded from the process. We continued to campaign; in 2020 the Cumberlege review was set up and found that there had been avoidable harm, that people should receive redress, and that there should be a duty of candour and cultural change. However, five years later, only one recommendation—a patient safety commission—has been delivered.
The impact on the families has been horrendous. I call on our Government to recognise Primodos as a case study—[Interruption.]
Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)
Order. We have been disrupted by a Division. I am expecting everybody to be back here in 15 minutes, at 3.20 pm. When we come back, the hon. Lady will have half a minute.
Yasmin Qureshi
Meanwhile, the Government have pursued legal strike-out applications to shut down the families’ cases—blunt tools that treat them as vexatious, even while Ministers have accepted in public that there was a failing. I call on the Government to recognise Primodos as a case study of breach of candour, to implement the Cumberlege review in full, including redress, to legislate for candour across public authorities, to guarantee legal parity, and to support the Hillsborough law now.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne). I remember his debate in the main Chamber well; it was highly emotional. I am pleased to see his continued passion for justice, openness and transparency—well done.
It may interest the hon. Gentleman to know that, in the Northern Ireland Assembly back home, my colleague Paul Frew MLA is currently proposing a private Member’s Bill on the duty of candour in the health sector in particular. All the issues the hon. Gentleman raised are applicable there, too. The Democratic Unionist party supports the introduction of an evidence-based statutory duty of candour within Northern Ireland’s healthcare system that can hold people to account for failings where there was a deliberate withholding of information that could have prevented harm.
The Bill is currently out for consultation. We hope that it will make a change and maybe set a precedent for the United Kingdom. The measure, rooted in transparency and accountability, is crucial for restoring trust in our health services following a series of devastating failures such as the revelations of the infected blood inquiry and the tragic hyponatraemia-related deaths. While healthcare professionals work under immense pressure, it is vital that transparency prevails—not as punishment for mistakes, but as a safeguard against deliberate misinformation or obfuscation, particularly when it leads to harm.
I believe that the duty of candour is necessary across Government Departments, while acknowledging the need for a balance to ensure that staff are not hampered from making hard decisions because they believe that they will be personally culpable for them. I can well remember that during my time in a council, when we considered going against advice given, we were warned that, in any legislative challenge, we would be personally responsible through surcharge. At times, that scare tactic would have prevented the right decisions being made. I believe that the duty of candour must be balanced with protections. I look to the Minister to ensure that that is the case UK-wide.
It is also important that, if legal cases are needed to bring openness, there are funding streams available, rather than the crowdfunding that currently seems to be needed. As always, protections against vexatious claims are also needed. Any legislation must find that delicate balance, but there must be no doubt that the right legislation is needed, and needed soon. The days of backroom dealings are done forever. The public demands and deserves better.
Paula Barker (Liverpool Wavertree) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. Let me begin by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing and leading this important debate. His personal testimony of that fateful day in April ’89 is a moving one. He has used his voice in this place to continue the fight for truth, justice and accountability. Most importantly, I pay tribute to the family and friends of the 97, to the survivors of that terrible day and to my city, which has always stood together and continues to do so today. Their tenacity, resilience and dignity are a lesson to us all.
I would like to take a moment to quote Jenni Hicks, who lost her two daughters at Hillsborough.
“I’ll never get that accountability for my daughters but we’re still fighting on behalf of Grenfell, Manchester Arena and other disasters that are bound to happen in future.
What runs alongside the loss of my daughters is the knowledge that this is a country that’s prepared to accept this injustice and that’s why the system has to be changed. You can't just say that’s it, that’s how it is. If something’s wrong, you have to try and do something about it.”
Let’s forget the legal speak. Can anyone name a better summary of the guiding light and principled mission of this campaign for change?
The truth is that none of us should be here in Westminster Hall today. Our Prime Minister promised this legislation at the Labour party conference in Liverpool last year, and in our manifesto. So, yes, I am angry that it is not yet on the statute book. Whether specific Ministers are to blame, or senior civil servants, or Government lawyers, I really do not care. This needs to be sorted, and sorted quickly. In the last week or so, we have seen several media reports that state we are near an agreement on the legislation, but I must place on record that the delay is one thing, but the watering down is another. It is quite frankly unacceptable, and should shame my party.
It should not take a backlash to focus minds to do the right thing. As MPs and Ministers, that should always be our guiding principle. We must deliver this legislation in full, no ifs and no buts. Anything else would be an affront and a betrayal to my city. The purpose of the state, indeed of our whole system of Government, is the service of people. The welfare of the people should be the highest law. I finish by asking the Minister to get this on the statute book as quickly as possible, and by saying: justice for the 97.
Emma Lewell (South Shields) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne), who has spoken powerfully many times about his own experiences and has consistently pressed for justice for the 97. There is a longstanding, deep problem in this country that smacks of cover-up and of protection of the establishment and public bodies at all costs. We see it time and time again, with Hillsborough, Grenfell, the Post Office scandal, the infected blood scandal, covid-19 bereaved families and the longest-running scandal in British history: the fight for justice for our nuclear veterans. Those who are injured, suffering from ill health and deep trauma, and those who live daily with the heartbreak of missing their loved ones have to break every single sinew fighting the very people and the very institutions set up to protect and serve them.
I know from my constituents who lost their children in the Manchester Arena terrorist attack about the financial and emotional toil and the feeling of powerlessness from being done to by those with more agency, more power, and deeper pockets. Grief is impossible when someone is locked in that battle. The daily, monthly, yearly, decade-long grind that families have to suffer just to be believed, while those responsible carry on regardless, sickens me to my stomach. When justice feels like it may be close, the public apology comes from Ministers at the Dispatch Box, followed by promises of lessons learned and change, and that it will not be allowed to ever happen again. Yet it does. Lessons are never learned. Meaningful change never takes place.
People are tired of it, and tired of hearing empty promises. Trust in Government and institutions, and faith in our democracy are at the lowest levels I have ever seen. The Government promised to enact a Hillsborough law by April this year; they have not. There have been reports that the legislation has been watered down. It has been ready since 2017, yet we are being told more time is needed to get it right. Like many others, I struggle to understand what exactly the Government need more time for, and what they need to look closer at. The Hillsborough law as is, with no changes, tweaks or amendments, should be introduced to the House now. Nothing less will do. It matters to so many people.
Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this debate. More than eight years after the Grenfell Tower fire, the fight for justice for the 72 who lost their lives, the bereaved and the survivors continues. Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the publication of the Grenfell Tower inquiry report, which shone a light on the systematic failure that led to the fire. I welcome the Government’s acceptance of the recommendations from the inquiry, but there has still been no criminal accountability and the pace of change has been far too slow—just witness the families across the country still sleeping in unsafe flats that have not been remediated.
I pay tribute again to the Hillsborough families, who have fought to ensure that other communities do not have to suffer as they did. But we know, from Windrush to the Post Office, LGBT veterans, infected blood and many other scandals, that we need to reform how we approach injustices involving the very state that is supposed to protect people. That starts with the Hillsborough law: an essential levelling of the playing field between victims and the state, including, as others have said, parity of legal aid and a duty of candour. But we should not stop at the Hillsborough law. It is also vital that we ensure that lessons of past tragedies are never ignored. To go through lengthy and expensive public inquiries and then fail to change compounds the original injustice further.
The same goes for coroners’ findings, including prevention of future deaths reports, which are vital early warnings to the state to prevent larger tragedies. Grenfell shows us the cost: after the Lakanal House fire in 2009, the coroner made clear recommendations to review building regulations, including guidance on external fire spread applicable to new and older housing stock. If those recommendations had been implemented, it is very possible that the fire eight years later would have been avoided.
I urge the Government to consider independent oversight of whether lessons from inquiries have been learned, including through a national oversight mechanism. This is not about taking power away from Ministers or Parliament. If the Government wish to reject recommendations, they can do so and explain why, but that should be done openly and transparently. I believe that an oversight mechanism would help the Government to improve, deliver on a public sector reform agenda, and deliver on justice and change for victims, including those at Grenfell.
Ian Lavery (Blyth and Ashington) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for his contribution.
The issue here, really, is class. When we look at what happened at Hillsborough, what happened at Orgreave, what has happened with contaminated blood, what happened with the nuclear veterans, what happened with Windrush and what has happened at Grenfell, who suffered? Working-class people—that is the common denominator. As soon as people uncover it, and the establishment are questioned, they circle the wagons of injustice and discredit everybody other than themselves to try to protect the establishment.
This cannot continue—I really mean that. The default position of the powerful—the establishment—is to attack the powerless. We had 72 people killed at Grenfell, we had 97 people killed at Hillsborough, people with contaminated blood are dying weekly, and we have other issues such as Orgreave. Still we have not sorted these issues out. It is an absolute disgrace from a Government that have promised so much—a Government that I am proud to be a Member of Parliament for.
It is reputations versus truth and accountability—that is where we are at this moment in time. It cannot continue. We have to get to the truth. The Prime Minister this week said “delivery, delivery, delivery”. He needs to make sure that we deliver on a proper, full Hillsborough law, which was written a number of years ago and accepted by all. We cannot let down the people in Liverpool, or any of the other people I have mentioned. We cannot let people down. We have to get to the bottom of the truth.
I have a question, by the way—in seven seconds. Why do we need a law for a duty of candour—for people to tell the truth? What on earth is this about?
David Baines (St Helens North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this debate and pay tribute to him for his tireless work, for so long, to raise awareness of the injustice suffered by the victims of Hillsborough and their loved ones.
I know people who were directly affected by Hillsborough. I have tried to support them and their truth and justice campaigning in my time in politics. As council leader in St Helens in 2022, I took forward a motion, which I am pleased to say was backed unanimously, to support the introduction of the Hillsborough law and to support my hon. Friend’s “The Real Truth” legacy project. There is not much that would give me greater satisfaction than voting to pass the Hillsborough law in this place, in the role that I now hold.
I am not trying to make anyone feel old, but I was just nine years old when Hillsborough happened. But I can vividly remember the news coming through that day. I can remember the newspapers and TV reports in the days and weeks that followed. I remember, in the aftermath, the shocking speed with which the completely false allegations were invented and deliberately spread—the lies that were told at the time about people like me, from communities like mine, by people in positions of power, including in this place. Well, we are in this place now, and we have a Government in power who have said repeatedly that they are committed to introducing the Hillsborough law and supporting victims and their families. We hold the power and we need to use it while we have it, because our enemies always do.
I know that the Minister rightly cannot and will not share the details of private conversations, but I can say that in every conversation I have had with her, her commitment and determination to get this right has come through loud and clear, for which I thank her. Enough is enough; nobody should have to fight for truth and justice over the death of a loved one. The way the Hillsborough families have fought for so long is inspirational but also unacceptable. They should never have been put through it. The state protected itself instead of the victims after Hillsborough, which it has done since time and again. It will be able to do it again unless we change things.
I will finish by saying publicly what I have said to the Minister and others privately: I cannot and will not support anything that the Hillsborough families do not support. This is not a time to be timid. The Government have been given the mandate to do this and to do it properly. If Ministers can bring forward a Bill, as I hope they will, which has the support of the Hillsborough families and those of other victims who have had to fight too hard for too long for justice, I will take great pleasure in supporting it fully and standing up to the vested interests that have delayed it for too long. Let us get it right and let us get it done.
Lee Barron (Corby and East Northamptonshire) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. At the start of this Parliament, I was glad to hear that the Government promised a Hillsborough law, which would place a duty on public workers to act in the public interest. We know from Hillsborough, Grenfell, infected blood and Horizon that too often public bodies treat inquiries as reputational risks.
In Corby and East Northamptonshire, many constituents feel let down. Zena and Nicola Stanton spent years campaigning for Jorgie, Nicola’s daughter and Zena’s granddaughter, who died in Kettering general hospital in 2016. A coroner later found that hospital staff failed on five separate occasions in Jorgie’s care. That led to dehydration, sepsis, multiple organ failure and ultimately her death.
Zena and Nicola never gave up. They exposed the unhealthy culture in the ward, later confirmed in a report. Senior staff have now admitted mistakes. I believe that without that family’s fight, the truth may never have come out. I am glad that we finally secured meetings and apologies for them, but victims should not have to fight for years and rely on their MP simply to be heard. Families like Jorgie’s are fighting for every other family who will come to rely on that same ward.
We need reporting systems that reveal failures quickly. Hospitals and other public services should have transparency. I also believe that this is about culture. We need to end defensiveness in public services. It is wrong that public bodies spend unlimited taxpayer money fighting victims. Staff must also feel free to speak up and speak out. For Jorgie’s, Zena’s and Nicola’s sake, let us deliver a Hillsborough law worthy of its name, which makes candour a duty, gives families fair representation and ensures that yesterday’s injustices never become tomorrow’s.
Derek Twigg (Widnes and Halewood) (Lab)
I congratulate my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne), on his excellent speech.
I was present in this House in 1998 when the then Home Secretary Jack Straw made a statement on the conclusions of the Justice Stuart-Smith review of the evidence and papers relating to the Hillsborough disaster, which I will quote. If anything, this justifies and underlines why we need this change in the law:
“Taking those and all other considerations into account, the overall conclusion that Lord Justice Stuart-Smith reaches is that there is no basis for a further public inquiry. He also finds no basis for a renewed application to quash the verdict of the inquest, and he concludes that there is no material that should be put before the Director of Public Prosecutions or the police disciplinary”.—[Official Report, 18 February 1998; Vol. 306, c. 1085.]
The independent panel report and the subsequent inquest followed. How misspoken was that set of words in this House. That justifies why we need this change in law.
We are again seeing continued delay. This a question of government machinery. As we have seen through the history of the campaign, delay has followed delay. There is often pushback from Whitehall and the wider public sector machine, finding problems but not solutions. It is a concern that there are issues that have not been resolved by now, and the continued delay breeds suspicion and distrust in the state’s ability to act competency and fairly. I do not doubt that there are legal matters that need addressing, but why have they not been resolved by now?
In previous Parliaments, progress was made with respect to the Hillsborough justice campaign when there was firm direction and action from Ministers, including from two previous Home Secretaries—the right hon. Alan Johnson and Baroness May of Maidenhead. They set up the independent panel and took action on its subsequent groundbreaking report. If there is a will, and direction and determination from Ministers, solutions can be found and barriers removed. There must be a duty of candour for civil servants and public servants, and parity of legal representation. Such a Bill could help to improve and repair public confidence in the Government.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) on securing it.
The Government committed to a Hillsborough law in their first year, and it should be delivered without delay and in full. The case for action is starkly illustrated by the experience of bereaved families in my constituency and neighbouring areas whose daughters died under the care of Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS trust, known colloquially as TEWV. Three teenage girls—Christie Harnett, Nadia Sharif and Emily Moore—lost their lives in that trust’s care. The independent reports by Niche Health and Social Care Consulting into their deaths were unequivocal: the statutory duty of candour was not met, families were not told the truth and were not supported after the tragedy, and lessons were not learned. The candour that Parliament demanded in 2014 was absent in practice.
The trust has since acknowledged those failings, but wider evidence shows that that is not an isolated case. The Department of Health and Social Care’s recent call for evidence found that only 40% of NHS staff thought that the purpose of the duty was clear, and fewer than a quarter believed that it was correctly applied after serious incidents. Most damning of all, 94% of patients and families felt that providers failed to engage with them meaningfully or compassionately when things went wrong. Rob Behrens, the ombudsman, said that avoidable deaths in mental healthcare are “too common” and that the duty of candour does not work.
That is why we need an updated duty of candour—one that binds public authorities and individual leaders with consequences when truth is withheld. Crucially, bereaved families must have automatic access to funded representation. For too long, the state has been represented while ordinary families have had to fight alone. I therefore add my voice to those calling for a public inquiry into the deaths of Christie, Nadia and Emily. Indeed, other bereaved families have more than justifiable cause for complaint. Only a full inquiry can reveal the truth, demonstrate why the current duty is insufficient and ensure that lessons are learned. If “never again” is to mean anything, let us deliver the Hillsborough law in full so that openness, honesty and justice become the defining standards of public service.
Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)
Before I call Patrick Hurley, let me say that there are two Members who want to speak but are not on the list. I want everybody’s voice to be heard, so I will give them two minutes each at the end.
Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing the debate. We served on Liverpool city council together many years ago, so I know how long he has been fighting this fight.
Inquiries into all the disasters and scandals that have been mentioned have shown how difficult it can be for ordinary people to get to the truth. Too often, they face the immense challenge of navigating complex legal procedures and processes without the same resources as the public authorities involved. Too often, bereaved families have to crowdfund their own legal representation, while the state tools up with expensive barristers to defend itself. What will the Government do to ensure proportionality and parity for bereaved families at inquests?
The duty of candour seeks to change the current process. It would put a legal obligation on public servants to act openly and honestly in the public interest. Institutions must proactively co-operate with inquiries, rather than retreat into the usual defensiveness. There must be parity of legal representation so that the regular person on the street is not disadvantaged at inquests. Parity of arms is essential to uncover the truth and deliver justice.
This is not just about historic injustices. The current public inquiry into the murders in my Southport constituency last year will soon examine all aspects of failure that led up to the attack. A statutory duty of candour would make a real difference there, providing a duty to tell the truth, and an opportunity for the families to achieve justice. For me, this is not just about blame, but about building a culture of openness in public life—one that helps us to learn from tragedy, supports families and prevents future harm. If we get this right, that is how we respect those we have lost and how we protect future generations.
Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I want to speak about transparency and accountability in healthcare, and about my constituents Ryan and Sarah, and their daughter Ida. Ida died in 2019 at seven days old. She died from brain damage caused by failings in her care. Those failings could have been avoided. There were eight missed opportunities to save Ida, and in the wake of her death, Ryan and Sarah have had to fight every step of the way to get the truth. After the hospital trust’s completely inadequate internal investigation declared that there were no issues with Ida’s care, her death was graded as “moderate harm”. Ryan and Sarah had to contact a senior coroner to request a full inquest, and only during that inquest this year—six years later—did the trust finally accept its failings. That is five and a half years in which Ryan and Sarah have had to fight for the truth; five and a half years in which the trust not only denied its failings, but covered them up.
For truly safe healthcare we must strengthen the ability of staff to speak up and speak out safely. People need to be thanked for raising concerns. But when problems are covered up, there needs to be accountability. For Ryan and Sarah, the grief of Ida’s death was made even harder by the denial and cover-up that followed.
Iqbal Mohamed
This is a harrowing story about Ida and Sarah. Does the hon. Member agree that not every person who is impacted by failings of state, and who has lost family and loved ones, has the resources, time and energy to fight for five and a half years?
Lizzi Collinge
I absolutely agree. People should not have to have this fight. They should not have to have resources to take on hospital trusts or the state. They should not have to do that; his point is well made.
When mistakes are hidden or dismissed, families lose faith not only in an individual hospital or organisation, but in the very systems that are meant to protect them. It is our responsibility to ensure that no other family has to endure what Ryan and Sarah went through, and that no other baby dies in that way. Accountability cannot be optional, and honesty cannot be negotiable.
Maureen Burke (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this timely and important debate. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on grief support and the impact of death on society, I approach this issue through the lens of what bereavement means for families, communities and society as a whole. The Hillsborough disaster, Grenfell and the infected blood scandal all exposed what happens when the bereaved are met with defensiveness instead of candour and support. The proposed Hillsborough law is therefore about much more than legal mechanics; it is about whether families can begin to process grief, secure in the knowledge that they have been told the truth and given a fair voice in the proceedings.
An inquest conducted in a spirit of candour can provide a form of closure. It cannot bring back loved ones, but it can help to answer the haunting questions of what happened and why—questions that, if left unresolved, prolong grief and deepen trauma. No legislation can make amends for the terrible treatment that the families of the victims of the Hillsborough disaster endured at the hands of our public authorities, but a duty of candour can seek to ensure that such treatment is never repeated. If we truly want a culture of candour, we must see it not only as an obligation to tell the truth, but as a duty to work alongside the bereaved to give them closure where possible and to signpost them to the help they need. That is the legacy that the Hillsborough families have called for. It is the least that a compassionate state should provide.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) on securing this debate. On behalf of my party, I too pay tribute to the Hillsborough families in this landmark debate.
After years of delay by the last Conservative Government —the Conservatives are, shamefully, barely represented here today—Liberal Democrats in Parliament and Liberal Democrat councillors such as Carl Cashman welcomed this Government’s commitment in the King’s Speech to create a statutory duty of candour on public authorities to force them to tell the truth. However, given the urgent need for such a duty, it is unacceptable that the Hillsborough law was not introduced in time for the 36th anniversary of the disaster, as the Prime Minister himself had promised.
Ninety-seven men, women and children lost their lives as a result of the shameful events on that terrible day in 1989, yet the families of the victims were forced to wait decades for the truth, in the wake of institutional silence and deceit from state institutions. For years they were told that Liverpool fans were to blame, but they were not. It was police incompetence, a failure of safety and then a cover-up—a deliberate attempt by public officials to shift blame, rewrite the narrative and protect institutions instead of people. It was not only public institutions that were responsible for warping narratives. I will not name the title, but we all know a particular newspaper that still lives a legacy of shame for the way it demonised fans on that day.
A legal duty of candour would not erase that tragedy, but it might have spared the families years of gaslighting, indignity and conflict. Similar is true of the Grenfell disaster, as the hon. Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) has powerfully said. Seventy-two lives were lost in that shocking disaster, including that of emerging photographer and artist Khadija Saye, who I knew. It was a tragedy that should never have happened, and a scandal that revealed deep systemic failures in not only fire safety but the way public authorities treat working-class communities, especially when they are black or brown.
Even after the fire, we saw the same pattern again: a slow trickle of information, shifting stories and an instinct—a culture—of institutional self-preservation. We must ask ourselves, how many times will we allow this cycle to repeat? How many lives must be lost before we accept that the public deserve honesty from those in power?
Andrew George
My hon. Friend is right about the need for the state to be open and honest in all these cases. As I mentioned earlier, the duty of candour already exists in the NHS. Nevertheless, in inquests where the duty of candour should be to the fore, the state comes along with barristers, lawyers and their supporters, and the victims of actions in the past are not represented at all. If the same resource that went into protecting the reputations of NHS staff went into supporting patients, these issues would not happen.
Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)
Order. May I remind Members that we have very little time? Can we keep interventions short?
Josh Babarinde
The point my hon. Friend makes is testament to the importance of parity of legal representation.
To continue, how many lives must be lost before we accept that the public deserve honesty from those in power? When will we get to the truth proactively, not just when institutions are dragged to the witness box? That must change.
I pay tribute again to the tireless campaigners—the bereaved families of the Hillsborough disaster and the Grenfell tragedy, those wronged in the Post Office scandal and more—who have refused to accept institutional silence and deceit. However, it should not be up to victims or their grieving families to fight for decades to get answers; it should be the duty of the state to give them those answers—early, clearly and completely.
The Government must act without further delay. I therefore urge the Minister to announce a timeline for a new statutory duty of candour now. I urge that it is not watered down under any circumstances, and it must be accompanied with parity of legal representation for bereaved families during inquests and inquiries into disasters or state-related deaths. This Parliament must be the one that says, “No more lies, no more hiding and no more protecting institutions over protecting people.”
Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this important debate. He has been a tireless advocate for bereaved families and communities affected by tragedy. His determination to keep these issues before Parliament commands respect across the House. We owe a debt of gratitude to the campaigners and families themselves. From Hillsborough to Grenfell, from the infected blood scandal to the Post Office Horizon affair, they have shown extraordinary courage in pressing for truth and accountability. Their persistence is the reason why we are here today, and it must not be forgotten.
The Hillsborough disaster in 1989 is the clearest example of why the call for a duty of candour has become louder over the years: 97 lives were lost and countless other people were traumatised, and it was very powerful for us all to hear from the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby, who was there on that day at a young age. In the years that followed, there were inquiries, judicial reviews and inquests, yet for far too long, the true circumstances of what happened were hidden.
In 2017, Bishop James Jones was asked to reflect on the experience of the Hillsborough families. His report set out in stark terms the lessons that need to be learned. He said that it was vital that the state ensure “proper participation” of the bereaved at inquests at which public bodies are represented. He identified four strands to achieving that: first, publicly funded legal representation for bereaved families when public bodies are represented; secondly, an end to the practice of public bodies spending limitless sums on their own representation; thirdly, a culture change so that public bodies see inquests not as a reputational threat, but as an opportunity to learn; and finally, changes to procedures and the training of coroners so that bereaved families are placed truly at the centre of the process.
His report also served a reminder that legislation alone is not enough. As others have mentioned, we already have a statutory duty of candour in parts of our system—particularly the NHS—but too often that duty has become a tick-box exercise, satisfying process rather than securing trust. If the Hillsborough law is to mean anything, it must embed a genuine culture of truth-telling and accountability, as well as changing the law.
It is against that backdrop that the idea of a statutory duty of candour has emerged and persisted. Sir Brian Langstaff, in his recent report into the infected blood scandal, reinforced the same point: too often, institutions have closed ranks, failed to disclose information openly and thereby compounded the suffering of victims and families.
The King’s Speech in 2024 committed the Government to bringing forward a Hillsborough law, including a statutory duty of candour and provisions on legal representation. The stated aims were to improve transparency and accountability and reduce the culture of defensiveness, and to ensure that failures such as those on Hillsborough or infected blood are not repeated.
Conservative Members are sympathetic to those aims, and it is worth remembering that some steps have been taken. Part 2 of the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 legislated for the creation of an independent public advocate to give victims and families a stronger voice in the aftermath of major incidents. The previous Government also worked with police chiefs, prosecutors and fire leaders to establish the Hillsborough charter, which commits signatories to put the public interest above organisational representation.
Ian Byrne
Does the shadow Minister reflect on the fact, though, that Bishop Jones’s report was in 2017? He was asked to deliver it by the then Prime Minister, Theresa May. The Conservatives had a long time in government to implement the Hillsborough law. The shadow Minister mentioned some of the things they did, but it was not enough. I have been here since 2019, and I have continuously asked Minister after Minister to deliver the Hillsborough law, but the fact is, you failed us.
Dr Mullan
I will go on to talk about some of the other steps that we did take. Labour Members might reflect on the many things that, in opposition, they called for, demanded and promised to deliver, but that they are finding considerably more challenging to get done in government. That is our experience of Government in many respects.
As I said, there are other things that we did. On legal representation, the then Government removed the means test for legal help and representation at inquests, particularly in relation to the exceptional case funding scheme, and measures were introduced to promote candour in policing. The offence of police corruption was created in 2017, and in 2020 a new duty to co-operate was written into the Police (Conduct) Regulations 2020.
As the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby highlighted, however, more needs to be done. In its 2023 report, the Joint Committee on Human Rights looked closely at equality of arms at inquests. It highlighted that during the first Hillsborough inquests, public authorities and senior police officers had multiple legal teams, all funded from the public purse, while bereaved families received no public funding at all. As I said, changes we have made would mean that that would not happen again in future in the same way. The Committee concluded that this inequality hindered the effective involvement of families, and risked damaging the ability of inquests to get to the truth.
Yet, as recent events have shown, the issue is not straightforward. As detailed in the letter the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby published earlier this year, the Government’s draft Bill was rejected by Hillsborough families, who argued that its proposed safeguards against dishonesty by public servants were not strong enough. The Prime Minister has met them on several occasions, both since taking office and previously in his role as Director of Public Prosecutions, and has emphasised that any legislation must command their confidence. As yet, however, no Bill has been introduced to Parliament.
In April, further reports suggested that draft legislation did not include provision for funding parity. Campaigners expressed real concern, and Ministers in the House of Lords offered reassurances, but admitted that there was concern in Government about the overall availability of legal aid funding.
Further reports over the summer suggest that resistance in the Treasury is slowing progress. The Justice Secretary has apparently made it clear that her Department could not fund the costs within existing budgets, and the Ministry of Justice was said to have sought over £1 billion in additional legal aid funding.
In July, the Prime Minister made the point that although he was fully committed to introducing a Hillsborough law, including a duty of candour, he wanted to take the time to get it right before putting it to Parliament. On the same day, the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby brought forward his private Member’s Bill on candour and accountability.
The desire for progress is strong, but the practicalities remain contested. We are sympathetic to the principle of a statutory duty of candour. We agree that bereaved families should not face the state’s lawyers without adequate support of their own, and we recognise the force of the campaigns that have led us here. However, we also understand the difficulty of translating principle into workable law. How do we ensure fairness for families without creating unmanageable costs and adverse unintended consequences? Those are not small questions, and they deserve careful thought.
In closing, I return to where I began: the families. Families who lost loved ones at Hillsborough, families devastated by Grenfell, families affected by infected blood and families ruined by Horizon—they have all faced unimaginable grief and years of struggle to uncover the truth. We cannot undo their loss, but we can ensure that the state learns, that institutions are held to account and that families in the future are treated with the openness, honesty and fairness they deserve. Families and victims deserve nothing less.
Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)
Before I call the Minister, I ask her to leave a couple of minutes for the Member in charge to respond. I thank everyone because we got everybody in today.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Davies-Jones)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Hobhouse. I pay tribute to my fellow Red, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne). His tireless campaigning on behalf of victims and survivors—the 97, the Grenfell families, the MEN arena families and every family failed by the state, of which there are sadly so many more—has been remarkable and inspiring, and he has always ensured that they have had a voice in this place. I also thank colleagues from across the House for coming to this important debate and for all of their engagement, encouragement and support as we seek to make sure that this legislation is truly worthy of being called a Hillsborough law.
I have heard that the time for warm words is over, but I want to reaffirm this Government’s ironclad commitment that we will put the Hillsborough law on the statute book. We will deliver on our manifesto commitments to place a legal duty of candour on public servants and authorities, and we will provide legal aid for victims of disasters or state-related deaths. The Hillsborough disaster is one of the greatest stains on British history, and the families, survivors and those who lost loved ones have shown endless determination to get justice. As others have said, they should have been allowed to grieve, love and remember in peace. Instead, they have spent decades searching for truth and justice.
The Government are clear that what happened following the Hillsborough disaster must never happen again. As Members are aware, the Government committed to bringing forward a Bill ahead of the 36th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, on 15 April this year. We did not meet that deadline, and I regret that. Any further delay simply compounds and prolongs the families’ fight to ensure that nothing like Hillsborough can happen again.
The Government worked with campaigners on a draft Bill, and when it became evident that that Bill would not fulfil the aims of the campaign, or meet the expectations of the families, we decided to take more time and get this important piece of legislation right—to deliver a legacy, to deliver a Bill that is truly worthy of being called a Hillsborough law. We committed to working further with them, and we have done that. I pay tribute to everyone who has helped with the process.
We are working in collaboration with stakeholders, campaigners and families as we develop this policy. We are clear that our approach must be families first. Before we bring any legislation to either House on this important issue, or announce precisely how we intend to deliver the manifesto commitments, we must bring this to families first. That is the least they deserve.
Iqbal Mohamed
On timelines, will the Minister elaborate on how long the Government expect to need before they can present something to the House?
Alex Davies-Jones
I am grateful for that question. I have heard the frustration and anger, both in this place and outside it, in relation to the need to introduce this quickly and urgently, but we have also heard directly from families about the need to get this right. It is our opportunity to do this, once and for all, and we will not rest until we get that right. I therefore refuse to put a timeline on it, but I do know that we need to do this quickly, and I have heard that today. First and foremost, however, it has to be done with the families first, and we will not proceed with anything that does not have their blessing and backing.
Shaun Davies (Telford) (Lab)
The passion that the Minister is showing today also underlines that the engagement over the summer has been really worthy of this Labour Minister. Inquiries will take place between now and when the Bill is given Royal Assent. Will she confirm that the duty of candour will apply to those inquiries that are live at the time that Royal Assent is provided by the King?
Alex Davies-Jones
I can confirm that. Once the Bill receives Royal Assent, it will apply immediately and cover any inquiry that is taking place. That includes the Government statutory inquiry that we have announced on Orgreave, the Government inquiry on grooming gangs, and any inquiry or inquest that will be taking place.
Andy McDonald
The Minister mentioned getting this right, yet the Government were presented with a fully drafted Bill by a learned counsel. Can she give an indication of where the discrepancies and differentiations are between the Bill that was presented—properly drawn—and the current Government position?
Alex Davies-Jones
I will happily do that for my hon. Friend. I want to put on record our thanks to Pete Weatherby KC, Elkan Abrahamson, all those at Hillsborough Law Now, Andy Burnham and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby for the Bill that was drafted in 2017. That Bill has been our guiding north star as we seek to draft a workable, practical and actually deliverable piece of legislation.
We need to remember that we will be legislating on a duty of candour for more than 1.9 million public servants. We need to get that right, with no unintended consequences, and it needs to be worthy of the families. I will happily meet with anyone, but my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) will be aware that I cannot outline the details at this stage. However, I will in due course.
I want to place on record my thanks to Inquest, as other Members have. In February, it held a family listening day for the Government on this very important issue. We rightly refer to the Hillsborough families in this debate. However, as we have heard, the campaign is much bigger than that. It is for anyone who has ever had to fight for the truth in the face of state denial and institutional cover-ups. It will stop anyone else having to go through what they endured. It is for those affected by the infected blood scandal and for those who fought for the truth and to clear their names in the Post Office Horizon scandal. If is for those affected by the horrific fire in Grenfell Tower, for nuclear test veterans, for those affected by Primodos, the MEN arena victims and, sadly, many, many more.
Inquest brought together representatives from those areas as well as other campaign groups, including those who have had difficult experiences at inquests. The event asked the question: what would make a good Hillsborough law? Inquest’s report from that day, titled “All or Nothing”, which is available online, has been instrumental for the Government in understanding exactly what is needed to rebuild trust and help improve the experiences of those involved in inquests and inquiries.
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)
Too often, bereaved families are left with no legal representation at the inquests of their loved ones. Does the Minister agree, as per our manifesto commitment, that the Government must provide state-funded legal aid to families at inquests and inquiries following state-related deaths and disasters to level the playing field between victims and the establishment?
Alex Davies-Jones
My hon. Friend is right, and I thank her for that important point. Sadly, I have heard time and again that it is David versus Goliath at inquests and inquiries, with predominantly vulnerable, working-class families left without support, having to crowdfund for a barrister—it is the Mini versus Rolls-Royce example of which we heard previously. We are committed to ensuring a parity of arms so that no family will ever have to go through that again. That was in our manifesto, and we will deliver on that promise.
The Government are keen to meet that wider group again to thank them for their time and to explain how their experiences have shaped the Bill’s development once the policy is finalised. However, I cannot mention the Hillsborough law without mentioning Hillsborough Law Now and the families bereaved by Hillsborough, because without them there would be no Bill; that cannot be forgotten. Their bravery, strength and unwavering love for their loved ones is more than admirable. They have spent decades fighting for the truth while watching the names of their loved ones be tarnished and having had their reputations and actions called into question. Too often, they have felt that everything was stacked against them. Their determination is selfless and inspirational, and it has no doubt inspired others who have sought justice when it seemed all but impossible.
I met Hillsborough Law Now and family members several times over the summer, which was an honour and a privilege. I thank them again for giving up their time. Our engagement has been open and constructive, and their feedback crucial in helping to find solutions that achieve the campaign’s intentions without any unintended consequences for the public sector. We believe that we are close to finalising a Hillsborough law that families and campaigners will be proud of.
Derek Twigg
I welcome much of what the Minister has said. She said in the early part of her speech that there would be a duty of candour and legal aid for people, so can she be clear about why there is a delay? If that is what will be in the Bill, why is there a problem?
Alex Davies-Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for that. It has taken some time to get this right, but we are committed to introducing the Hillsborough law with parity of arms and that statutory legal duty of candour, and we hope to bring that forward as soon as possible. We have worked in conjunction with the families and campaigners to make sure that we have got it right, and we feel that we are almost there.
The Bill will help to ensure that what happened following the Hillsborough disaster will never take place again, and it will undoubtedly change the culture in public authorities for the better. Until that moment, it is crucial that we are guided by the families-first principle. Engagement and conversations on this policy must take place with them before any update is given to the House or the media. Hon. Members will therefore appreciate that I am limited in what I can say today. However, I confirm that our Bill will include the pillars that are vital to the families: that legal duty of candour for public servants, with criminal sanctions for those who do not comply, and measures to rebalance the inquest and inquiry processes to tackle the disparity of power that can exist between the state and bereaved families. We will make good on our manifesto commitment to provide legal aid for victims of disasters or state-related deaths.
I hope that I have reassured hon. Members that the Government are absolutely committed to the Bill. Any absence of update has been not an absence of work but because we have had to put the families first. It is vital that we get this landmark legislation right for them, and that when the Bill finally becomes law, it achieves the change expected by those who have campaigned tirelessly for so long. After all, the Bill is for them.
When the legislation comes into force, it will stand as part of the legacy of Hillsborough and change the country for the better. It will be a law for everyone who has suffered when truth and justice has been concealed behind the closed ranks of the state.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered duty of candour for public authorities and legal representation for bereaved families.
Living Standards: East of England
(2 days, 22 hours ago)
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Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)
I will call Clive Lewis to move the motion, and I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates. A Liberal Democrat Member has just requested to make a speech. I am happy with that. Minister, are you happy with that as well?
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered living standards in the East of England.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. As I will be discussing nature, water and the far right, I would like to declare interests that meet the relevant test. The first is my role as vice-chair of the climate and nature crisis caucus. The second is that I have received donations from Compass and Betterworld Ltd, which have supported my work on water. The third is support I have received from the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung—try saying that after a few pints—to attend their parliamentarian forums on the far right. I have written about issues touched on in this debate—climate, water, the far right and economic growth—for The Guardian and Byline Times, which I have been paid for.
If we take an honest look at life in the east of England today, and in my city of Norwich, we do not see the prosperity that Governments have often boasted about. We see a region where too many people are running faster and faster just to stand still. In Norwich, wages remain below the national average. One in five workers earns less than the real living wage. One in six is trapped in insecure work—zero hours, agency or short-term scraps dressed up as jobs. Meanwhile, rents have risen by more than 20% since 2021. A quarter of private renters are handing over half or more of their income just to keep a roof over their heads. That is not prosperity; that is daylight robbery with a tenancy agreement.
Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Ind)
I also find in my constituency that the cost of a decent home is far too high for far too many of my constituents. Does my hon. Friend agree that the solution to that problem is not, as is believed in some quarters, to give the developers the right to strip away our environment and destroy nature, but rather to get on with building the council housing that delivers the genuinely affordable homes our residents need?
Clive Lewis
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and for all his work in this area. Council homes are overwhelmingly the solution to this country’s housing problems. There is always space for private housing, for affordable housing and for housing associations, but it is council housing, built in a sustainable way, that will solve the housing crisis in this country. I agree with him that developers—not climate, nature or local democracy—are the block to building more houses here, and I am firm in making that point.
Public transport in my region is patchy at best. Broadband in rural Norfolk is slower than a tractor on a Sunday morning—people who live in Suffolk or Norfolk will know what I mean. Child poverty levels run at one in three in Norwich once housing costs are factored in and, although we are blessed with extraordinary landscapes, too many of our neighbours live in what I can only describe as nature deserts—no green space within walking distance, and no safe place for kids to play.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing the debate. He is right to underline the issue of low income; the quality of life for working families on low incomes is the worst that it has ever been. When I spoke to him beforehand, I referred to my constituency, and indeed all Northern Ireland, where I understand that the rates are the same as in his constituency: 16% of working-age adults are in relative poverty. It should never be the case that working people are in poverty. The Government need a strategy to address that issue, but they do not at present. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?
Clive Lewis
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. I do not raise this in this speech, but I think that one of the key ways of lifting people out of poverty is by strengthening trade unions and their sectoral pay bargaining ability, which I do not think even this Government—my Government—are going to do. That is key, particularly in the areas of social care and many other low-paid sectors. It would ensure that people get decent pay and attract people into those areas. It would make a massive difference.
We face real and urgent challenges in the east of England. Now, the Government—my own party’s Government—tell us not to worry, because living standards are going to rise and we have a plan for growth. But what do we mean by that? In practice, it means looking overwhelmingly at one number: disposable income, or what is left jingling in our pockets at the end of the month. Useful, yes—but adequate? No.
Reducing the richness of life to something we can measure is like trying to paint a rainbow with a single grey crayon: we get the outline, but none of the colour, none of the joy, none of the lived reality. The Indian economist and philosopher Amartya Sen warned that dignity cannot be reduced to decimal points. Martha Nussbaum, a US philosopher and ethicist, reminds us that the question is not just what we earn, but what we are free to do and to be. Kate Raworth is also right: paper prosperity that trashes the planet leaves our children bankrupt.
When we are told that living standards are up because the averages look rosy, we should remember what Danny Dorling pointed out: an average can hide a multitude of sins. If Jeff Bezos walked into a Norwich pub, the average wealth in the room would shoot through the roof, but not a single person’s pint would get cheaper—and I doubt he would get to the bar ahead of anyone else, either.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do how rural and isolated much of Norfolk can be. I represent the oldest constituency in the country, and I have been shocked by the living standards of some of my elderly residents in isolated communities, who simply feel that there is no help out there to give them the quality of life they deserve. They, too, are lost among averages. Does he agree that poverty in rural communities across the east of England is often more hidden than in metropolitan areas, and needs to receive a similar level of attention?
Clive Lewis
The hon. Gentleman is a champion of such issues in his constituency, and I agree: poverty is very often out of sight, out of mind. The dispersal of rural poverty makes it easier to hide, and harder for organisations to point out, but he does a very good job of doing so. His point was well made.
Alex Mayer (Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard) (Lab)
Continuing on the theme of averages, as council areas get bigger, the averages are skewed a little. Within my area, which is already in a large unitary authority, life expectancy can vary by up to eight years. If the Government say, “Hooray! The council area is getting a Best Start family hub!”, I ask, “Where?”, because it could end up in a leafy village or in an area of deprivation. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to redouble our efforts to find pockets of deprivation, and perhaps use artificial intelligence as a new tool to do so?
Clive Lewis
I thank my hon. Friend for an interesting contribution. I will take a time-out on the AI component. I think it has a place and could, I am sure, contribute something, but the real way to ensure that resources are going to the right place is to ensure real devolution: empowering communities, local government and local people to decide where the money is spent, because they know best. Ultimately, pushing power down is how we will get better outcomes.
Let us be blunt: living standards as currently measured give us a snapshot, but not the whole picture. They can tell us whether the tills are ringing, but not whether the people are thriving. Look at Norwich: a zero-hours care worker has no work-life balance to speak of; they have work-life whiplash. Mental health referrals in Norfolk are up 40% since 2020—we will not find that in an Office for National Statistics income chart. The poorest wards in my city have five times fewer parks per person than the richest. Try raising kids in a concrete cage in one of the most polluted parts of the city—where, unfortunately, our Government subsidises electric SUVs that, through their brakes and tires, churn out more particulate matter than smaller electric vehicles—and then tell me that their living standards are on the rise.
Let us look at Norwich South. We had more than 500 sewage pollution incidents last year. My constituents are not comforted by fines levied on Anglian Water; their lived standard is filthy rivers, dead fish, cancelled swims and massive bill hikes, while they watch multimillion-pound payouts to shareholders and executives—and that is after the passing of our much vaunted Water (Special Measures) Act 2025. So when the Government cheer that GDP is up, or that the average household is a few pounds better off, I say, “Growth for whom? Growth for what? Growth at what cost?”
I acknowledge that this Labour Government have already taken steps to make a difference. The extended household support fund for councils, soon to be replaced by the crisis and resilience fund, has been a lifeline for many. Our new Best Start hubs, replacing the axed Sure Start programme, will help millions, as will our new universal breakfast clubs and investment in home energy efficiency, which will cut bills for years to come. Those are brilliant and welcome tangible measures, but we cannot stop there.
Too often, we give with one hand and take with the other. We extend support, but keep the two-child cap that pushes hundreds of thousands of children into poverty. We invest in households, but cut disability benefits that provide dignity and security for millions. We offer relief, but leave the structures that drive poverty and insecurity untouched.
As the charity Norfolk Community Law Service told me:
“We’re seeing a growing number of families live in extreme poverty, struggling with benefits that don’t provide enough to live on, unable to feed themselves properly or heat their homes. This is not because they are lazy or unprepared to work hard in their lives, but often because they are caught in the poverty trap, unable to break free.”
The problem is compounded by neglect of prevention. As Age UK in Norwich explained:
“The lack of strategic investment into community, preventative services is not only threatening the voluntary sector—it’s chipping away at the foundation, the NHS and social care so many rely on.”
Here is the challenge: unless we deal with those deeper structures, we will never truly lift standards in the fullest sense of the word. That means overhauling our tax system. Yes, we need higher taxes on wealth, windfalls, capital gains and inheritance, but we must also face a hard truth: without structural reform, much of that revenue simply flows straight back into the pockets of large corporates—companies that now absorb vast amounts of public money in contracts, subsidies and outsourcing while skimming billions in excess pay, dividends and profit.
Tax reform must go hand in hand with a clampdown on corporate capture. I fear that many of my colleagues now in Government understand that after 45 years of privatisation, deregulation and outsourcing, the levers of state are increasingly connected to very little. “Deliver, deliver, deliver,” we are told; but how can we deliver when the accelerator and the gearstick are connected to thin air?
Let us not forget that, when those same interests come under pressure, they rarely look in the mirror. Instead, they reach for the oldest trick in the book and tell us that the problem is not profiteering landlords or privatised monopolies. They tell us that the problem is foreigners; that migrants are the reason wages are low; that Europe is the reason services are stretched; that some other is to blame. That scapegoating is not accidental. It is structural. It protects an economy built on extraction—extraction of wealth, of labour, of nature—and it corrodes our democracy, replacing solidarity with suspicion, and common purpose with division.
Labour, at its best, has always known better. There was a time when our movement understood that redistribution of income, wealth and power was not a footnote to our mission—it was the mission. We understood that we could not simply leave the means of production, distribution and exchange in the hands of those who use them to extract, rather than to serve; that, if our economy was to work for the majority, if standards of living and wellbeing were to rise, people needed more than just money in their pocket. They needed more say, more power and more ownership over the things that make life bearable and meaningful.
That meant public ownership of essential services, from water and energy to rail and post. It meant universal basic services such as healthcare, transport, housing, education and, in our age, internet access. It meant building new institutions to strengthen the cohesion of our society: co-operatives, trade unions, community media and local assemblies. It meant giving people not only the means to live, but the means to shape the communities in which they live.
These are the specific asks I would like to put to the Minister. I ask the Government to introduce rent caps in high-pressure areas, as seen in Austria and Scotland, so that families are not priced out of their communities; to cap food prices for a basket of essential goods, as France and Hungary have, so that no child goes hungry because the basics are unaffordable; to abolish the two-child cap on benefits and reverse the recent disability payment cuts—policies that undermine dignity and trap children in poverty. I ask them to launch a major programme of public housing construction using public land to build secure council homes for rent; to take our water companies back into public hands, ending the scandal of dividends flowing abroad while sewage pours into our rivers; to mandate universal broadband and affordable transport access as basic services in a modern economy.
I ask the Government to overhaul the tax system, to close the loopholes, tax wealth properly and ensure that revenues are not siphoned off into dividends and corporate profiteering, and to tie corporate subsidies and contracts to strict conditions on pay, investment and environmental responsibility. Finally, I ask them to stop mainstreaming racism. By all means, secure the borders and control migration to what we need, but take out the toxicity. Open secure routes and defend and deepen human rights—do not water them down—for all our sakes.
Those are not revolutionary demands, and they are not even radical demands; they are common-sense measures to ensure the economy serves the public, not the other way around. We need a plan for transformation, rather than tinkering at the edges or hoping that growth alone will deliver fairness by accident; a plan in which the demos, the people, have a greater say on how their life, and the life of their community, is shaped.
The alternative is stark. Failure to do those things will deliver our country into the hands of the authoritarian right. If we get this wrong, it will not mean some marginal difference in some marginal metric of living standards—it will be the difference between civil co-existence and barbarism, between a society held together by solidarity and one held together by scapegoating and fear.
People are crying out not just for a few extra pounds in their wage packet, but for security, dignity and hope. That means we must confront the extractive model, rediscover our roots in redistribution and democracy, stop pandering to racism and rebuild the social compact that once gave Britain both prosperity and purpose. People are not simply consumers to be measured or units of labour to be costed. They are the economy—not components of it, or cogs in someone else’s machine; they are the economy, and we seem to have forgotten that. If we forget it, we will not only fail to raise so-called living standards, but we will fail to rebuild trust, fail to hold our community together and fail to protect our democracy from those who would happily divide and rule. We can do better.
Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse, and I thank the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) for letting me speak. As a fellow east of England MP, I thank him for securing this important debate, and I hope he agrees with me that health is central to living standards. As vice-chair of the East of England all-party group, I note that my predecessors published a report on levelling-up in the region in 2022. The report found that women in the region can expect to spend 19 years of their lives in less than good health, compared with 16 years for men. According to an international Global Burden of Disease study, 42% of ill health in the east of England can be linked to preventable factors linked to socioeconomic deprivation and other health inequalities.
I regularly receive casework from constituents experiencing long delays in referrals following GP appointments. That is shown in the data, with gynaecology waiting times a particularly bad example. For example, in June Chelmsford’s Mid and South Essex integrated care board had the highest gynaecology treatment waiting list of any ICB in the east of England at 15,768, with almost half of women waiting for longer than 18 weeks for treatment—well below the Government’s 92% target. Indeed, one of my constituents wrote to tell me that she would face a 78-week wait for a gynaecology appointment, not 18 weeks. We all recognise that the longer someone needs healthcare, the more complex, financially costly and serious the consequences can be, and we need the Government urgently to bring down referral waiting lists.
As the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists noted, the public health grant must be adequately funded to address the underlying causes of sickness, especially those that acutely affect women. In Chelmsford, my city council has emphasised how important that is, helping to meet one of the statutory duties of ICBs, which is health and wellbeing, especially in the context of reduced staffing, the abolition of NHS England, and ICBs being asked to reduce their costs by 50%. I urge the Government to commit to expanding the number of women’s health hubs in the east of England in particular.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Emma Reynolds)
It is a pleasure, as ever, to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) for securing this debate and the opportunity to have a constructive discussion about living standards in the east of England. I thank other hon. Members who have contributed, including the hon. Members for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman), for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff), for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—he is on form, as ever—and for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone), and my hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer). I do not have an enormous amount of time, so I will crack on with my speech.
This Government are committed to raising living standards for everybody across the UK and, of course, in the east of England, but it is worth pointing out that that is no small task. When we came to power, we took over from a Government who had dropped the ball on living standards—the last Parliament was the weakest on record for living standards. We were elected to turn that around, and through our Plan for Change we are delivering policies to kickstart growth that will boost living standards in every part of the UK. Indeed, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, we can expect living standards, measured by real household disposable income per capita, to rise by 2.6% over the course of this Parliament.
I will focus on a number of measures that we have taken to strengthen household income, particularly for those on low incomes. The first is that we have increased the national living wage, which will benefit around 3 million of the lowest paid workers and make them up to £1,400 better off. We are investing more than £0.5 billion in the Best Start family service over the 2026 to ’29 spending review period, making sure that every local authority has a family hub that is open to all, and focusing—this was mentioned by one of my hon. Friends—on areas with higher proportions of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. We are putting early years back at the heart of how we deliver stronger outcomes for our children, as it has ever been with Labour Governments, including this one and the previous Labour Government, with half a million children benefiting from the roll-out of the new 30 hours free childcare entitlement that we brought forward this week.
We will be investing £410 million per year by 2028-29 to expand free school meals in England to all children with a parent receiving universal credit, lifting 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of this Parliament. We are providing £1 billion a year to reform crisis support, including the first ever multi-year settlement to transform the household support fund into a new crisis and resilience fund. We have frozen fuel duty, saving drivers about £3 billion this year, while extending the £3 bus fare cap until March 2027, keeping prices low on some 5,000 routes across England.
We are also protecting the pension triple lock and, in doing so, gave 1.2 million pensioners in the east of England a 4.1% increase to their basic or new state pension in April this year. At the recent spending review, we confirmed funding for our affordable homes programme; my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South spoke passionately about council houses. The 10-year affordable homes programme will involve £39 billion during that period. We have also committed to local transport priorities for some our larger city regions via the transport for city regions settlements.
For the east of England, we have confirmed £14.2 billion for Sizewell C, which, at peak construction, will create 10,000 jobs, including 1,500 apprenticeships, and wider economic benefits in Suffolk and the wider region. We have also made significant progress in creating the conditions for growth, with reforms to the national planning policy framework, which the Office for Budget Responsibility concluded will permanently increase the level of real GDP by 0.4% over the next 10 years—the biggest positive growth impact that the OBR has ever forecast for a policy with no fiscal cost.
We are going forward with the introduction of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and, in the east of England, with support for the Oxford to Cambridge corridor, which will bring many benefits to local communities. That approach will drive growth in city regions, towns and communities and make the most of the opportunities in each part of the country to make people better off. We are already seeing the results of our plan working, with the Bank of England having reduced interest rates five times since we came to office, which will put downward pressure on mortgage payments.
However, we recognise, of course, that challenges remain. We must support those in immediate need while making the structural changes necessary to give our cities, towns and rural and coastal communities the resources and powers that they need to succeed. Through our plan for neighbourhoods, we are providing long-term funding directly to communities, delivering visible improvements on people’s doorsteps, championing local leadership and fostering stronger communities. Of the 75 places already announced in the plan for neighbourhoods, seven are in the east of England; each will receive up to £20 million over the next 10 years.
We are also driving forward devolution, pushing power down, as my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South discussed, giving local leaders the powers and resources to shape their own futures. The devolution priority programme will see two new mayoral strategic authorities established in the east of England, both in Greater Essex and in Norfolk and Suffolk, with inaugural mayoral elections in May next year. We have established the Cambridge Growth Company, which will work with local partners to unlock key developments and deliver an “infrastructure first” strategy for sustainable growth in the area.
The Government are providing certainty and stability through our commitment to in-flight local growth projects, including freeports and investment zones. Those programmes can and should be key tools for driving growth across the UK, including the east of England. We are committed to bringing them together as part of our modern industrial strategy.
I do not have very much time left, Mrs Hobhouse. The Government are committed to sustainable and secure economic growth, and we are bringing that about in three major ways: restoring stability, as we did in the Budget last year by introducing non-negotiable fiscal rules, to put the public finances back on a stable path; secondly, investment in renewal, within the fiscal rules made in the autumn, supporting the step change needed, as confirmed in our plans in the spending review period; and changing the economy to prioritise long-term growth through key reforms.
Every investment, reform and partnership is focused on one goal: raising living standards in the east of England and across the country, creating opportunities in every community. I know that we are all passionate about that. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South again for bringing this important debate to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Pavement Parking
(2 days, 22 hours ago)
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Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of pavement parking.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I am grateful for the opportunity to raise an issue that is long overdue for a solution.
Every day people are forced into the road, into moving traffic, because the pavement is blocked by a vehicle. Parents with prams, wheelchair users and people with sight loss must choose between risking the road or turning back. These are not minor inconveniences but moments of danger, frustration and exclusion. Pavements are meant to be for the safe, independent movement of older people, disabled people, families with young children and everyone who simply wants to walk without obstruction. When pavements are blocked people are not just delayed; they are put in harm’s way, their dignity diminished and their right to use public space denied.
The law is clear in London and Scotland: parking on the pavement is prohibited unless the council has judged that it is safe and necessary on that street. But in England, outside London, there is no such national prohibition and the result is a patchwork of inconsistent rules, limited enforcement and pavements increasingly blocked by vehicles. The Government have already consulted on the issue. The consultation entitled “Pavement parking: options for change” closed on 22 November 2020, nearly five years ago. It set out three options: first, improving the current process under which local authorities can ban pavement parking; secondly, giving local authorities civil enforcement powers to act against unnecessary obstruction of the pavement; and thirdly, banning pavement parking throughout England.
My position and that of many of my residents and campaign organisations is that a default national prohibition with local exceptions, where needed, is the right choice. That would bring the rest of England into line with London, provide clarity for drivers and restore our pavements to the people they are meant for.
Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)
The hon. Member is making a powerful argument. I hear all the time from constituents concerned about pavement parking on their streets. I also hear from constituents who live in areas of Bracknell where there is no choice but to park on the pavement because of the nature of the estates. For me the right approach is to give local authorities the power to make decisions on a street by street basis. Does she agree?
Helen Maguire
Yes, I absolutely agree that councils should have the power to decide where cars can be parked on pavements.
Despite cross-party agreement in the Transport Committee’s 2019 report, clear public support and the examples already in place across the UK, the Government have still not published their response. Each time the question is raised we are told only that the Department is considering all the views expressed. After five years, that is simply not good enough. Inaction is leaving our most vulnerable residents at risk every single day.
The impact is undeniable. Living Streets found that 62% of over-65s in England are worried about obstructions on the pavement. According to research from Guide Dogs, four out of five blind or partially sighted people say pavement parking makes it difficult to walk on the pavement at least once a week, and 95% have been forced into the road because of it. Among wheelchair and mobility scooters, that figure rises to a staggering 99%. Vehicles blocking pavements creates both a physical and psychological barrier, discouraging those with disabilities from leaving their homes. At a time when the Government are claiming to support more disabled people into work, it is essential that they tackle the issue.
Afzal Khan (Manchester Rusholme) (Lab)
The hon. Member is making a strong case that pavement parking is dangerous. I hear regularly from constituents who are forced to walk their young children into busy roads or from those in wheelchairs who must go back home because they cannot get past the obstruction of cars. Does the hon. Member agree that pavement parking decreases active travel and prevents the most vulnerable in our society from safely accessing their own community?
Helen Maguire
I absolutely agree. We need to be encouraging active walking and encouraging people to use local businesses, and they cannot do that if they cannot access them by walking or being in a wheelchair on a pavement.
Parents also face the same challenges, with 87% of parents saying that they have had to walk in the road because of pavement parking. They would be more likely to walk their child to school if there was not pavement parking. They are not simply statistics; I have heard directly from residents about delivery motorcycles on Epsom High Street riding up on to the pavement in front of pedestrians, blocking footways outside fast food outlets and creating a hazardous obstacle course. On one evening earlier this year, a constituent reported 23 mopeds and motorbikes clustered on the pavement, forcing pedestrians into the road and creating congestion as they pulled in and out without warning.
Tahir Ali (Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Lady for securing this important debate. A lot of my constituents have written to me to say that we should have one system that does not confuse people, and that applies whether someone is living in London or outside London. More needs to be done to give the councils the power to take tougher action in respect of those that cause the nuisance, obstructions and safety hazards for many vulnerable people.
Helen Maguire
I absolutely agree. My constituency is just outside London, so for my constituents, it is even more confusing because many of them will drive in and out of London on a regular basis.
One visually impaired constituent, Russell, told me that when food delivery riders choose to park their vehicles, such as motorbikes, on the pavement it makes the simple task of walking down the street difficult and hazardous.
We also cannot ignore the damage that pavement parking does to the pavements themselves. Driving on to and parking on them cracks and breaks paving slabs, leaving trip hazards long after the vehicle has gone. In England, nearly a million older adults suffer outdoor falls each year, and Living Streets’ “Pedestrian Slips, Trips and Falls” report estimates that the resulting healthcare and personal injury costs could reach £500 million annually. Just the other day, I did a walkabout on Epsom High Street with Russell and Tracey from Swail House, a property in Epsom that is run by the Royal National Institute of Blind People. As we walked, they pointed out many potential hazards on the pavement, including many broken and uneven paving slabs that could easily cause an accident. Poorly maintained pavements also deter walking: 48% of adults over 65 say that they would walk more if pavements were in better condition.
Mr Luke Charters (York Outer) (Lab)
Whether it is wheelchair users in Wheldrake, children walking to school in Skelton or Mrs Charters pushing baby Louis, does the hon. Lady agree that pavement parking pushes vulnerable road users on to the roads? Does she also agree that we need to look at local councils fining those persistent pavement parking polluters?
Helen Maguire
I welcome the intervention. It is an absolute hazard that pedestrians or individuals pushing wheelchairs are continually pushed into the road, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we also need to talk to the troublemakers. In my case in Epsom, those are the many companies running fast food delivery services and so on. We need to talk to them.
The poor condition of the pavement is fuelling physical inactivity and social isolation. Because the pavements are not in great condition, individuals cannot walk on them and they are not getting out as much. Making our high streets more walkable also boosts local businesses, and Living Streets’ research shows that people who walk or wheel to the shops spend more overall. They bring increased footfall, spend more time at the shops and spend more money, which is what we want for our local businesses on our local high streets.
The current legal framework is fragmented and confusing. Driving on to the pavement is in fact already illegal under section 72 of the Highways Act 1835, but enforcement is inconsistent and largely reliant on police resources. In some cases, parking on a pavement can be treated as obstruction, but that too is a criminal offence enforced by the police, not a civil contravention enforced by local authorities. Local councils struggle to tackle pavement parking, although they can use their existing powers to make traffic regulation orders. Those are largely restricted to specific streets, and due to the requirements for advertising consultation and signage they are a costly and impractical way to tackle this problem.
Dame Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Lady for securing this important debate, which has clearly raised concerns across the country. It is clear that pavements should be for pedestrians to walk on safely. That benefits businesses and local authorities. However, many streets were designed in an era when we did not have two or three-car families. Does the hon. Lady agree that we need to ensure that, as well as consistent regulation, we have good public transport so that we have better use of that and less dependency on cars?
Helen Maguire
I absolutely agree. We need to invest in better public transport for our constituents. According to the 2023 YouGov polling, 74% of councillors in England supported a national law. As it stands, just 5% of drivers know all aspects of the laws that put them at risk of a fine. A national default prohibition would give the power and clarity to act to remove the ambiguity for drivers. That system would also allow for local exemptions so that streets where pavement parking is genuinely unavoidable could be identified and signed accordingly.
Graeme Downie (Dunfermline and Dollar) (Lab)
We are having an absolutely important debate today. It is important to make sure that we have accessible pavements for all, for all the reasons that the hon. Lady has outlined. In Fife, we have seen the implementation of the pavement parking ban just this week. Although it has been broadly welcomed, there are some challenges with implementation. Starting with a blanket ban and then allowing exemptions has been challenging for local authorities, which are under a lot of pressure with resources both for management and implementation. Does the hon. Lady agree that to make sure we have an effective parking ban, resources must be in place to make sure that exemptions in rural areas and other parts are effective, and that enforcement is done correctly? Otherwise, we will lose the support of drivers and the effect we are hoping to achieve.
Helen Maguire
I absolutely agree that councils need the support to implement this if the Government should wish to introduce it, which is what I am pressing for today. We are not asking for something radical; we are simply asking for safe and accessible streets. MPs have raised this issue repeatedly, and charities such as Living Streets, Guide Dogs, RNIB and Transport for All support a new law with clear guidance.
It is time for the Government to listen. The steps are clear. Today I am asking this Government to put the safety of pedestrians first. I ask them to, first of all, publish the long overdue response to the pavement parking consultation before the fifth anniversary of its closing, which is this November; secondly, commit to a default national prohibition on pavement parking in England, with exemptions decided locally; and thirdly, back this up with a public awareness campaign so drivers understand both the law and the reasons for it.
Every day that we delay, more pedestrians are put at risk, more pavements are damaged and more people are excluded from moving safely and independently in their communities. If we cannot guarantee that the simple act of walking down the street is safe, we are failing at one of the most basic duties of public life. Today I am asking the Minister to end the wait, end the excuses and end pavement parking once and for all.
Several hon. Members rose—
Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)
I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate. There are many more people than I have on my list. We are trying to accommodate for that, but the first people on my list get priority. I will try to get everybody in, but now, looking at the numbers, the time limit is one minute and a half.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship with a 90-second speech limit, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing this debate. In 2023, I met Elaine and her guide dog Tessy and she was able to show me first hand the impact that pavement parking was having on her life. I could see how she was terrified to pass parked cars on the pavement, and where she had to go on the road. She said she was absolutely terrified. I have to say that watching her, I felt absolutely ashamed. I think all of us are here to create a fairer and more equal country, no matter which party we are in. A pavement parking ban is an easy and simple way to make progress.
In Edinburgh, I was proud to be part of a group of councillors who introduced a ban. Of 5,000 streets in Edinburgh, an estimated 500 were going to be problematic, but within a few weeks of the ban being introduced, we were down to just 20 streets where there were outstanding issues. A year later, there are only around 20 streets where actual parking restrictions will have to be introduced to ensure that traffic can move freely. That has been completely transformative, particularly for people who have visual impairments, for people who are disabled, and for parents and grandparents pushing buggies. It has helped to create a more equal city.
James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that when constituents are concerned about going out, that increases their social isolation? There is a real risk that anxiety about going out and using pavements has a knock-on effect, and that is one of the things that we can resolve.
Dr Arthur
I do not speak for RNIB Scotland or Guide Dogs Scotland but people with visual impairments leading isolated lives are a real concern for them. They want those people to be out working, meeting their friends, shopping and so on. Cars parked on the pavement are a barrier to that happening, so this issue is absolutely core to our wellbeing and to creating a more inclusive society.
As the ban came into force in Edinburgh, we got quite a few emails from people who were concerned. The most common question was: “Well, where should I park my car?” I always say, “Look, just don’t park it on the pavement.” I think most people who parked on the pavement knew that it was the wrong thing to do. The ban was actually forcing them in the right direction, and creating a more equal community.
Each time I debate this issue, I fill myself with hope that we will get a positive announcement from the Secretary of State or the Minister. I hope that we get that in this debate.
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing this debate, and for putting another 10p in the meter—that has aged me—to allow the debate to continue. In the interests of time I will limit my comments to two topics. The first is school drop-off and pick-up.
In my community of Surrey Heath we have a major issue with roads and schools that were not designed or built to provide adequate drop-off and pick-up. I am a parent of two children who went to one such school for seven years. I and almost every other parent had to park on the pavement in order to get our kids in and out. That was not because we wanted to be inconsiderate parkers, but because we wanted to keep the carriageway clear to allow vital access routes and roads to remain open.
Dr Arthur
Often we are faced with a dilemma between driver convenience and the safety of pedestrians. I think the safety of pedestrians always has to come first. Parking on the pavement is not an alternative to blocking the road to emergency vehicles. You should not be blocking the road to emergency vehicles and you should not be parking on the pavement. Apologies.
Dr Pinkerton
I would like to engage with the hon. Gentleman’s point more, but I want to try to finish in my original time allocation.
The second key point I will raise is about planning. I recently had a meeting with representatives of a very large house developer that plans to build 1,000 houses in my constituency. They told me that, in the interests of being green, they were only going to supply one parking space per three, four and five-bedroom house, in the hope of encouraging public transport use. I think we all know that will not encourage public transport use; it will hard-bake pavement parking into the future, and with it all the issues that the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) has raised.
I encourage the Government to pick up this issue, to think about making planning regulations much tighter, and to give local authorities the ability to enforce measures against antisocial parking.
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. The issue of pavement parking has been raised with me in my constituency of Wolverhampton West. Measures have already been introduced in Scotland and Wales, where legislative action has been taken to deal with pavement parking. Pavement parking is also banned in much of Greater London.
We must improve our road safety and protect the most vulnerable in our society. The fines raised from illegal parking could be ringfenced for future road safety improvements. More than half of those aged over 65 report that they are worried about obstructions on the pavement. Over 80% of people living with sight loss say that pavement obstacles impact their quality of life, and nearly 90% of parents have had to step on to the road with their children due to vehicles blocking the pavement.
Encouraging walking is part of the Government’s ambition under their cycling and walking investment strategy. I repeat the assertion of the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) about publishing the Department for Transport report that was prepared in 2020.
Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)
Does the hon. Member agree that this is almost a circular problem? The more people park on the pavements, the harder it is to walk, so the more they have to drive and the more they park on the pavements. By getting rid of it and having consistency, as my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) is asking for, we will start to solve this problem, which is so difficult for my constituents as well as the hon. Gentleman’s.
Warinder Juss
I totally agree. When I walk around and see cars and other vehicles parked on pavements, I sometimes wonder why people could not just have parked them on the road. There never seems to be any valid reason why they are parked on the pavement.
The ability for people to walk on pavements is crucial. Walking improves physical and mental health, gives greater independence to older people and takes away the risk of isolation. It means we will have fewer cars on our roads, healthier children, and more children and parents walking to school, which does not happen now because of the dangers people face when having to manoeuvre around vehicles on pavements.
I urge the Government to publish the Department for Transport report that was prepared five years ago and to ensure that we get vehicles off pavements so that we can encourage more people to use the pavements. That is what they are there for.
Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. Over the past year, I have had the pleasure of meeting many people with disabilities, including those with sight loss or mobility aids, in my surgeries. For them, another person’s choice to park on the pavement means either risking moving into the road to avoid the obstruction or taking long detours, if it is possible to do so. People with disabilities already face unenviable access barriers, and pavement parking only adds to their struggle.
Pavement parking also impacts parents with pushchairs, prams and buggies. It prevents children on scooters and balance bikes from riding next to their parents. It can also force dog walkers—especially those who have nasty dogs like mine—into the road to avoid facing another dog. In short, it is an all-round nuisance.
The Government have so far ignored the issue. In a recent written question, my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) asked the Government what steps they are taking to reduce street obstacles. Their response was that things should be placed
“in a way that does not create obstructions for disabled people.”
That is not enlightening, is it?
The Government are trying to pass the blame to local authorities, which are poorly equipped to deal with pavement parking. My local authority, Oxfordshire county council, has raised this with me. I fully support the council and my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) in pressing the Government to provide further powers to tackle pavement parking.
Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I represent a semi-rural constituency, and one of its gorgeous little market towns, Melbourne, famously—or so it seems to me—has a high street where cars have to park a bit on the pavement, which is super-skinny because the road is super-skinny. If they did not do so, cars would speed down the road. It is a never-ending circle of challenge.
I would welcome councils and local authorities having the power to fine. We all know that pavement parking gets on everybody’s nerves. We see it on online community groups, where people share photos of people parking selfishly. This is not just about parking on skinny little pavements, but about selfishly parking where there is plenty of space to park on the road. Will the Government consider an awareness campaign to ask people to be a bit more considerate?
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I commend the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing the debate.
Pavement parking is a nationwide issue that impacts constituencies across this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Every week I receive numerous complaints regarding people parking irresponsibly. To give a quick local perspective, people are often permitted to park on the pavement unless specific restrictions apply or unless doing so causes an obstruction—that is how it is done back home. If people do the wrong thing, they get an £80 ticket; if they pay it within three days, it is £45.
I quickly want to make the case for those who have guide dogs. I did a walk with one of the guide dog people some time ago, with a mask across my eyes, and it was very difficult to understand what was happening.
In Northern Ireland, we have had a “think before you park” campaign to raise awareness of the risks of pavement parking and the impact it can have on people with disabilities, those with mobility issues and parents with prams. That is why road markings and signage are important. Perhaps the Minister could do more to encourage local councils to ensure they are displayed clearly so that people can understand them.
There is much to be done on this issue. I very much look forward to hearing what the Minister can do to persuade other regional and devolved Administrations—including my own—to ensure that pavement parking is addressed for everyone across the United Kingdom.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Ind)
Thank you for chairing the debate, Mrs Hobhouse. I also thank the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing it.
Having campaigned to reclaim our streets for pedestrians for many years, I have cleared the A-boards and the clutter, but I cannot shift the cars. That is why I welcome today’s debate, as well as action at last from a Labour Government.
In York, 9.1 million visitors a year come to our city —I am sure all hon. Members do—but the streets are narrow, and we need to ensure that pedestrians can pass. That includes blind and partially sighted people, as we have heard, as well as parents and elderly people. Cyclists also get pushed further into the road as well. We need to make sure that we have our space on the road.
The problem is often worse outside schools as parents push their kids out of the car, or draw them in at the end of the day. We need to ensure that those incredibly hazardous places have provision. I would say that we should not have cars near schools. We need to clear that environment so that children can navigate the space well.
What happens? The pavements crack—of course, we pay for that—and our constituents experience accidents. The logistics companies that park their vans and lorries on pavements need to be called to account.
When we talk about parking on pavements, we should also talk about cycle lanes, which are often blocked. Even last night, the cycle lane from Westminster was occluded. We need to make sure that we include them in the discussion, too.
James MacCleary (Lewes) (LD)
Some see pavement parking as merely a nuisance, but in some parts of my constituency it is far more serious, affecting businesses and residents every day. Due to the time restriction, I will talk about just one community—the town of Polegate—where the crisis has become particularly acute.
People tell me every day that cars are parked on pavements in the town, forcing parents with prams into the road, leaving wheelchair users stuck and making the high street harder to use for everyone. Some businesses are even struggling to keep going due to parking. What makes it even worse is patchy enforcement. In Polegate and other communities in the Wealden district part of my constituency, parking has never been decriminalised. That means responsibility still sits with the police, who understandably have other priorities, so offences simply go unchecked. It is a bizarre situation that leaves residents with no effective recourse. I am pressing for urgent action so that parking can finally be enforced and my constituents are not left abandoned.
Meanwhile, there has been action in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and I believe there are preparations for action in Wales, too. Yet in England—outside London, at least—we are still stuck in limbo. Local councils want to tackle it and residents demand change, but the Government have left them with a clunky, expensive process that can take months or years to achieve little. We must give councils the powers and clarity they need and back communities like Polegate that are demanding safer streets because, every week it drags on, more families are pushed into the road, more vulnerable people are shut out, and more of our pavements are broken up. It is now time to act.
Maya Ellis (Ribble Valley) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing this critical debate, on an issue that is such a headache for so many of our constituents. As a mother to two little ones, I know only too well that getting out and about with two young children is hard enough as it is. Being hit with trying to get a pram down the pavement where it cannot get through increases the social isolation that many have talked about.
Access to pavements is a lifeline to many, especially those with disabilities or the elderly. A constituent of mine in Ribble Valley who is repeatedly affected by pavement parking recently got in touch to share his confusion about who to report his concerns to—the police or the council. We must ensure that local authorities and the police work together and are empowered to use their powers clearly not only to tackle but to visibly enforce this issue so that residents see responsible pavement parking management in action.
However, nothing is more contentious and divisive on my local Facebook groups than pavement parking because, as other hon. Members have said, in many areas insufficient parking spaces are provided. We need to ensure that national policy on pavement parking and planning is designed with the unique challenges facing rural areas like mine in mind, where public transport is sparse and car ownership rates are much higher, and recommends realistic parking provision so that all areas are safe and walkable.
On planning, I recently heard a comment that turning circles in schools are not part of planning policy because we want to increase green parking, and we all know the chaos they create.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing this debate.
Whether it is on Seaside, Melbourne Road, Linden Close, Sydney Road, Heather Close or outside Oakwood, St Thomas a Becket or West Rise schools, it is unacceptable that pedestrians, especially those with disabilities, are all too often blocked from using our pavements and pushed on to the road, and residents with wheelchairs, scooters or prams are blocked from using drop kerbs. On behalf of them and the Eastbourne access group, when will the Government share with us their national plan to empower local authorities to crack down on this problem once and for all?
While we wait for that action, I invite the Minister to join me in congratulating Langney primary academy in my patch, led by the amazing Mr Ben Bowles—an awesome local headteacher—on being part of the school streets scheme that has taken measures to safeguard schoolchildren from dangerous pavement parking at pick-up and drop-off time. I hope the Minister will congratulate them on the great work they are doing.
Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire). Pavement parking was regularly raised with me during my five years as a councillor before coming to this place, but its real impact was brought home to me by one doorstep conversation with a couple in Chadsmoor. Both are in their 80s, and the gentleman is a carer for his wife who has mobility issues as well as dementia. Luckily, they have a good social care package and access to respite care, but often they cannot get out of the house because accessible taxis cannot pull up to their home due to cars parked right up to their driveway. They cannot move her wheelchair further down the street due to people routinely parking on the pavement. Sadly and ironically, often those cars belong to care workers visiting other properties.
A blocked pavement is not just an inconvenience; it can trap people with disabilities. Councils can use traffic regulation orders, but often they are slow and expensive to put in place. People in Cannock Chase often tell me how much better it was when Staffordshire’s police community support officers could issue fines for pavement obstruction, but since those powers have been removed, any meaningful deterrent has all but gone. As has been said, drivers often worry about blocking traffic or emergency vehicles on narrow roads, and housing in many areas just was not built with cars in mind.
Looking ahead, let us consider national action, complemented by local solutions such as community parking hubs and resident permits. That should sit alongside better public transport and active travel, on which the Government are acting. This may not be the top issue for many of our constituents, but it absolutely can be for those affected. I hope that, by planning for the future, we can keep our pavements safe and accessible for all.
Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing this important debate on something that is a problem across the country.
Indeed, a Chelmsford resident recently wrote to me about taking her nan for a walk, when they were forced to walk in the road due to cars obstructing the pavement. That is entirely unacceptable for anyone, let alone an elderly resident. Parking on a pavement and blocking it is already an offence under the Road Traffic Act 1988, but only the police have the power to issue tickets, and they are rightly prioritising more serious crime.
Organisations such as the South Essex Parking Partnership have the resources to issue fixed penalty notices, but they do not currently have the power to do so, as they can issue FPNs only where there is a specific parking restriction, such as double yellow lines or residents-only parking. The use of traffic regulation orders to bring in restrictions in specific areas is slow, cumbersome and costly—something I know at first hand having previously been an Essex county councillor, as it took two years to bring in junction protection or double yellow lines to prevent parents from parking on corners when picking up their children from school.
As has already been referenced, in 2019 the Transport Committee published a report in which it made a clear recommendation that a new civil offence of obstructive pavement parking, enforced by local authorities, should be created. Given that the House yesterday debated a Bill to give more powers to local authorities, I hope the Minister will introduce that power as well.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing this debate. She and many other hon. Members have described the reasons for this debate and for a change in the law.
As Chair of the Transport Committee, it gives me great pleasure to speak in this debate, but I am not sure how many times in the 10 years since I have been in Parliament I have spoken on the issue of bringing in a default ban on pavement parking. As a London MP, and before that a London councillor and a London resident for 40 years, I know that a default ban—with specific exemptions where needed—would work. I have never understood the apparent reluctance among some to allow that nationwide.
I was an active member of the Select Committee inquiry, along with the Minister, who was then the Committee Chair; the rural affairs Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner); and the then Conservative Member for Bexhill and Battle, who took us to his constituency to show us the problems there. We recommended Government legislation for a nationwide ban on pavement parking across England outside London to give the Secretary of State for Transport the power to bring in secondary legislation. We also recommended a ban enforced by local authorities, not the police; a nationwide awareness campaign showing the problems of pavement parking for those affected; and revisions of the traffic regulation order process. The Secretary of State has shown that she and the Minister are passionate—
Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)
I thank my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire), for securing this debate. I recently met the Walton-on-Thames macular degeneration support group in Esher and Walton to discuss some of the challenges faced by my constituents with sight loss, including pavement parking. I urge the Minister to finally take the step of banning pavement parking. I recognise, however, that poor parking is often due to carelessness more than malice, so I suggest to the Minister that a public education campaign about how to park more considerately is in order—perhaps some Tory MPs would like to attend, since they do not seem to think it is a problem.
A number of my constituents have written to me specifically about the prevalence of pavement parking around schools in pick-up and drop-off hours, which is dangerous for children. Part of tackling this issue is proper enforcement of the rules. What steps is the Department taking to support local authorities in dealing with improper pavement parking?
I want to flag another issue: placing street furniture such as A-boards on streets in Surrey does not require a licence, yet it presents huge obstructions to visually impaired constituents. I congratulate the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) on dealing with it—maybe she could share what happened there with Surrey county council.
Finally, on many social housing estates, which were often built in the 1950s and ’60s when cars were small and there was probably only one, if that, many cars are now parked on pavements and on green spaces meant for children. What can the Government do to encourage social housing providers to knock down the derelict garages that are not being used to provide proper parking?
Julia Buckley (Shrewsbury) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing this important debate. The plight of pavement parking affects all our constituencies and, as we have heard, causes particular distress for pedestrians with young children, disabilities or sight loss. The statistics we have heard today are, frankly, shocking: that 65% of residents, and 73% of disabled residents, want councils to take on these powers, and that 80% of parents would be more likely to walk to school if there was no pavement parking. I have also heard that 93% of local councils have had complaints from members of the public on this issue.
In my constituency of Shrewsbury, the issue crops up time and again. We have some beautiful historic streets that can be narrow to navigate. We are blessed with a mature population that wants to stay fit and healthy and walk into our beautiful town centre, but it has become increasingly dangerous and the pavements are not safe. I have been contacted by severely affected residents on Bell Lane, Torrin Drive and New Park Road. I would like Members to hear directly from residents on Whitemere Road. They say:
“We live a few doors down from Mount Pleasant primary school, it’s becoming an absolute nightmare and is so dangerous. They park on footpaths anywhere they can, blocking drives, and access to other larger vehicles trying to get through. The state of the footpaths is terrible due to the weight of some of the cars. I have tried the Council but they say it’s up to the police. And the police tell me it’s up to the Council. Who is responsible?”
Until we get clarity from our Government, that is the question we all have.
Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for organising the debate. It is wholly unacceptable that the Conservative Government dragged their heels on this important issue. They dithered and delayed because they could not make up their mind what they needed to do. As a result, pedestrians are put at risk every day by inconsiderate parking and local councils incur significant costs repairing kerbs and verges damaged by drivers.
Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)
On exactly that issue, I represent the city of Wells, which has wonderful, beautiful streets, but when delivery vehicles park on the pavements, they break the paving slabs. That makes it an absolute peril for people who have accessibility problems and are less mobile. Does my hon. Friend agree that that has to be dealt with soon, otherwise groups such as Accessible Wells, which I am meant to meet tomorrow, will not have—
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing this important debate, which builds on some themes that were discussed in a Westminster Hall debate a few months ago on the subject of walking and cycling safely to school. I hope hon. Members will forgive me for not referencing all their contributions, given how many spoke, in the interests of speaking concisely so that we have plenty of time to hear from the Minister.
My hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell was right to highlight the patchwork of inconsistent rules across the country. She and my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) recognised that we need some flexibility in places where current street layouts are not compatible with the number and size of cars. If there is to be change, it is right that local authorities play a key role, and there needs to be dialogue to come up with the right solutions for those locations.
It was great to hear from the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) about the benefits of the recent Scottish pavement parking ban. Many hon. Members talked of the major impact on people who use mobility aids, who are blocked on the pavement and unable to walk into the road—which is unsafe anyway—because dropped kerbs are blocked by parked cars.
The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) rightly highlighted that this issue is not just about pavements; it is also about cycle paths. I know that she, like me, is very keen on cycling, and will also have experienced many times the impact of supposed cycle lanes actually being car parking spaces. The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Maya Ellis) was right to highlight that the solutions to this issue need to take account of the differences in rural areas. We must recognise the different character of places in our country.
As hon. Members have said, cars parked on the pavement can stop people from being able to walk or wheel down the street. If we have to enter the road, that is a risk to our safety. Change requires legislation, and the English devolution Bill should be amended to provide powers that enable pavement parking to be tackled. As the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) referred to, with her frustration very clear, we are now approaching the five-year anniversary of the closure of the Government consultation on pavement parking in England.
The Local Government Association has been calling for similar powers to those that exist in London for a long time. Local government should be given those powers, and we should recognise that councils and the people elected to serve on them know their areas best. More than 80% of local authorities have reported that pavement parking is a widespread problem in their area, but it is very important that we do not view this as a pedestrians or cyclists versus cars issue, because even that well-known anti-car organisation, the RAC, found that four in five drivers want the Government to take action. There are, however, differing views on how it should be done, with 42% of motorists supportive of an outright ban and 41% wanting to see councils given powers to ban the practice on specific roads.
In my Oxfordshire constituency of Didcot and Wantage, there are many examples of similar challenges. Oxfordshire county council is proposing a school street in the area of south Didcot, in recognition of pavement parking issues in places such as Ridgeway Road, the Croft and Mereland Road. It was good to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) about the success of the school streets scheme in his constituency. We have Enterprise car and van rental, which, alas, still sometimes uses pavements as a repository for its vehicles between rentals.
On Didcot Great Western Park, there are persistent problems with people parking on pavements, despite the prevalence of car parking spaces available. An example of a place where there needs to be nuance and dialogue is Charlton Road in Wantage, where the design of the road is such that pavement parking is customary. It is important to recognise that some places will need it. As many hon. Members have said, tackling it will be very important for encouraging more people to walk and cycle, including to and from school.
Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to make it easier for local authorities to use the traffic regulation order process, and to simplify that process so they can take action more quickly and robustly, and at lower cost. Clearly, more work is needed from the Government on that.
It is also incumbent on us to use the roads with consideration for others, so it is regrettable that there is a need for legislation, rather than people just thinking hard about where they park their car. That also applies to people walking who are too busy on their phones and just step into the road and nearly get hit by a cyclist—and of course, there are many examples of cyclists not cycling considerately. We should all think of other people when we are using our roads and our streets, and need for the Government to support that is perhaps just a regrettable output of the fact that we are not doing it ourselves.
From what I have heard from the Minister in a number of contexts, I genuinely believe that she would like to make progress on this issue. That is why I hope that she will give us an update today on what meaningful response will be given to the consultation, with specific timescales, so that our local authorities receive much-needed clarity about what is going to happen. We urge the Government to publish that outstanding summary of responses to the consultation, with a clear plan for how we are going to take the issue forward. I will end my remarks there, so that there is plenty of time for the Minister to respond.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) on securing this debate. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in today’s debate on pavement parking, an issue that may seem mundane at first glance, but that, in reality, touches on safety, accessibility and dignity in every one of our communities.
Pavement parking is not just unsightly; it is downright dangerous. When cars mount pavements, they force pedestrians off the footway and into the road, directly into the flow of traffic. For many, that is inconvenient; for many others, it can be life-changing. For someone in a wheelchair, a single car blocking the pavement can mean a 10-minute diversion, or the frightening prospect of rolling into a busy road. For someone with a visual impairment, it can mean walking straight into the bonnet of a car—an obstruction they cannot anticipate. Carers supporting people with hidden disabilities—perhaps guiding an autistic child who finds traffic overwhelming, or pushing a specialist buggy—find themselves in exactly the same position: what ought to be a simple walk to the shops or to school can suddenly become an obstacle course.
Guide Dogs research tells us that 85% of people know that this issue is a danger for those with sight loss, and nearly three quarters say that it is common in their area. Local councillors, including my own in Buckinghamshire, hear directly from residents and overwhelmingly report that pavement parking creates a safety risk, with many saying that it is one of the issues raised with them most often.
Of course, as the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), has already said, London has had a ban on pavement parking for many years, but the rules are far less clear outside our capital. Local councils can bring in restrictions through traffic regulation orders, and they have had permission to use standard signage without asking Whitehall for approval since 2011, but that system is patchwork, complex and slow.
That is why, in 2020, the last Conservative Government consulted on how to go further. More than 15,000 people responded. The consultation looked at a nationwide ban with sensible exemptions—recognising, for example, the realities of narrow rural lanes or terraced streets, where pavement parking has been part of the layout for decades. Yet here we are, nearly five years later, and there is still no formal response from the Department for Transport. Public opinion, though, could not be clearer: eight in 10 drivers want action. Two thirds see pavement parking in their neighbourhoods on a regular basis, and a third see it every single day.
Rachael Maskell
I am slightly baffled; I have been campaigning on this issue throughout my 10 years in this place, and the hon. Member’s Government were in power for almost the entirety of that time. Can he explain why the Tory Government did not make any improvements to pavement parking? Why is he pointing the finger at a Labour Government who clearly want to make a difference for all pedestrians?
Greg Smith
I have a lot of respect for the hon. Lady. The Government have had a year to take action, and they have not. I have not been in the House as long as she has, but I was here in the last Parliament and I was a member of the Transport Committee for the entirety of it. I, too, sat around the horseshoe with the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth, and indeed the Minister for some of that time. I certainly recognised the challenges of pavement parking and pushed for solutions in the last Parliament as well. I fully acknowledge that we are five years on, and that some of those years were under a Conservative Government, but action is required now. If we are to have a serious debate, the onus is on the present Government to come forward with the necessary actions.
One of the issues that I notice in my constituency is the challenge of pavement parking in a lot of our new build areas and estates, where the planning system has quite deliberately tried to restrict parking. Guess what? That has created chaos on the streets in its own right, because people still require the same number of cars to get about, particularly in rural communities. Someone cannot do the family shop for a family of five on the back of a bike.
We all recognise that there is no one-size-fits-all answer. A blanket national ban is not going to be practical everywhere, but we cannot accept inertia. We cannot ask people with disabilities, carers or families to keep waiting while this problem goes unaddressed. I call on the Minister to come forward with practical steps and a realistic timeline, and then to commit to that and solve the problem.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Lilian Greenwood)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I congratulate the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) on securing this important debate and continuing to shine a light on the persistent and widespread issue of pavement parking. She and many other hon. Members—26 in total, I believe—have made a clear and compelling case for change.
Pavement parking affects communities across the country, from busy urban centres to quiet residential streets, and the issue is particularly close to my heart. No one knows that better than the Chair of the Transport Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), who spoke about the work that we did together on the Committee back in 2019.
I have heard countless accounts from constituents and stakeholders of the challenges posed by vehicles parked on pavements. Those challenges are not just inconvenient but exclusionary. They disproportionately affect disabled people, those with visual impairments, older adults, parents with pushchairs, children walking or wheeling to school, and many others who rely on safe, unobstructed pavements to move around independently. I will use this opportunity to congratulate the schoolchildren and school that the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) highlighted.
I thank all the hon. Members who contributed to today’s debate. The breadth of contributions once again demonstrates the scale of this issue and the urgency with which it must be addressed. Pavement parking is clearly not a niche concern; it affects all of us. Members made an enormous number of important points in sharing the experiences of their constituents, illustrating the impact on safety and independence, highlighting the damaging effect on the quality of our pavements, and also recognising that no two places are the same. A new town will likely face different challenges from a medieval city, and there are competing priorities that need to be addressed.
As Members will be aware, after five years of inaction despite promises to the contrary, in 2020 the previous Administration finally held a public consultation on managing pavement parking. The responses to that consultation were robust, thoughtful and deeply informative. They provided clear evidence that pavement parking is a problem that affects people’s daily lives, their safety and their ability to participate fully in society. I am grateful to everyone who took the time to respond. I am acutely aware of the frustration caused by the lack of a formal response to that consultation. It is a frustration that I share, and, frankly, it seems that the previous Government were not focusing on the issue, so we have had to pick the work up from scratch. I want to reassure Members that I am straining every sinew to publish the response as soon as possible.
In the five years since the previous Government held the consultation, a lot has changed in the political landscape of the UK. Much more of England is covered by mayoral combined authorities and, because this Government believe in true devolution, we are moving to strategic authorities across England. Those changes have to be factored into our thinking on pavement parking.
More broadly, we have carefully considered the potential impacts of pavement parking to ensure that our approach aligns with the Government’s wider missions, which are focused on growth, health, safer streets and breaking down barriers to opportunity. Tackling pavement parking can contribute to safer streets by reducing risks for pedestrians who would be forced into the road. It can enable more people to walk—the perfect antidote to inactivity. By ensuring that disabled people and families can move freely and safely, it can break down barriers to opportunity, which, alongside high levels of active travel, can potentially drive growth benefits. Our work is helping us shape a policy that is not only effective but equitable. As a result of all that work, I expect to make an announcement very soon.
Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)
As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for wheelchair users, and in my conversations with Bexley Mencap, I have had many discussions about the impact of pavement parking on disabled people. Crayford is in the London borough of Bexley, but some of its roads are partly in London and partly in the area of Kent county council. Will the Minister look at how the policy will be implemented for roads that are partly in London and partly in a different area?
Lilian Greenwood
My hon. Friend makes a really important point that I am sure we will consider in our response. As I said, I will make an announcement very soon. I am also pleased to share that I have commissioned new research to update and strengthen our evidence base on the extent and impact of pavement parking. To be clear, that research is not a prerequisite for the consultation response—it will not delay progress—but it is part of our broader commitment to evidence-based policy and future evaluation to better understand the problem and ensure that the solutions we implement are working.
Lilian Greenwood
I apologise, but I will not take any more interventions, because we are so short of time.
The research will begin imminently and will involve a representative sample of local traffic authorities. It will seek to include both a physical measure of the extent of pavement parking and questionnaires to gather qualitative insights into its impact. That dual approach will allow us to understand not only where and how pavement parking occurs but how it affects people’s lives, and particularly the lives of vulnerable road users. It will also allow us to evaluate the impact of the pavement parking policies that we intend to implement.
I had a very positive meeting co-ordinated by Guide Dogs, and I will continue to engage with stakeholders across the transport, accessibility and local government sectors, whose insights are invaluable. I am also mindful of the need to balance competing priorities, such as the availability of parking, the needs of delivery drivers and the importance of maintaining access for emergency services.
However, let me be absolutely clear: the status quo is not acceptable. Pavement parking is a blight on our towns, cities and villages. It undermines inclusivity and equitable access. It sends a message, however unintentionally, that some people’s mobility matters less than others’. That is not a message that any of us should be comfortable with. We must recognise that pavement parking is not just a transport issue but a social justice issue. I am determined to ensure that the steps we take are meaningful and effective. That means considering lived experiences, closing evidence gaps and adopting policy that reflects the realities of modern Britain.
Britain has changed significantly since the consultation in 2020. Technological developments such as new mobility solutions—the dockless e-scooters referenced earlier in the debate, e-bikes and even delivery robots—have changed the landscape. Our devolution agenda is putting power and decision making closer to those affected, where it should be. Our streets and our local authorities are evolving, and so must our policies.
I thank all those who have campaigned tirelessly on this issue—Members of Parliament, local councillors, advocacy groups and members of the public—and assure them that their voices have been heard and will continue to shape the work ahead. Together, we can and will build streets that are safer, more accessible and more welcoming for everyone.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the matter of pavement parking.