House of Lords

Thursday 30th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Thursday 30 October 2025

11:00

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Winchester.

National Curriculum: Religious Education

Thursday 30th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Question

11:06

Asked by

[Lord Rook]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure any reformed national curriculum includes religious education in a form which promotes mutual understanding.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)]

My Lords, schools are required to promote the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of their pupils. They can do this within lessons on religious education and in other teaching. Schools are required to promote fundamental British values, including encouraging mutual understanding, respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. The curriculum and assessment review has considered RE in its work and its final report will be published this autumn.

[Lord Rook (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for the Answer. My sons were privileged to go to Rutlish School, a diverse state comprehensive in south-west London with no religious affiliation. They received excellent religious education—in fact, it was compulsory until GCSE—that enhanced the community cohesion in a very diverse setting and, most importantly, equipped pupils for the world in which they now live. Currently, 95% of teachers say that high-quality religious education is more important than ever, yet Ofsted reports that, in far too many schools, the delivery of RE is either poor quality or not fit for purpose. At a time when our country and communities need far greater social cohesion, will His Majesty’s Government ensure that religious education is properly prioritised in the new national curriculum, so that our young people can continue to develop and flourish within our multireligious and multi-ethnic world?

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his enormous interest in this important subject. I reassure him that the Government note the findings of the Ofsted subject report and are committed to ensuring high-quality provision of religious education. To support teachers and help ensure high standards and consistency of teaching, we have funded Oak National Academy to develop a full suite of high-quality RE resources. We also welcome the work of the Religious Education Council to assist curriculum developers by publishing its national content standard for RE in England. I can only emphasise my comments; I cannot pre-empt the findings of the curriculum and assessment review, but we look forward with enormous interest to the conclusions of this work.

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister say when the school curriculum will include the contribution of minority ethnic communities—for example, to World Wars I and II, to rebuilding Britain after World War II and to the NHS, which is a contemporary contribution? Some 18% of doctors are Muslim.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I can only repeat that I cannot be specific about the content of the curriculum after the finding of the review, but all the matters that the noble Baroness raises around inclusion, respect and recognising achievements in the areas that she mentioned are critical. We look forward to the result of the findings and the debates that will continue as a consequence.

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, mutual understanding must mean the end of antisemitism in schools. Six months ago, Bridget Phillipson warned that antisemitism in schools is now a national emergency, but incidents continue to rise. When will the Government take decisive action to end this scourge, which endures across classrooms and playgrounds?

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

The noble Earl puts his finger on one of the most sensitive issues in education at the moment. I reassure noble Lords that we are absolutely committed to making improvements in this area. Hate crime, discrimination and racism have no place in Britain, particularly not in our schools. I am delighted that we have committed £7 million to tackling antisemitism in schools, £3 million of which has been spent already. We are launching an innovation fund to look at new initiatives, which will open some time towards the end of November.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, the 2015 High Court Fox judgment made it clear that non-religious world views such as humanism must be treated on an equal footing with major world religions in religious education. What steps will the Government take to ensure that this principle is embedded in any future national curriculum?

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

We have had several conversations on this, and I can only repeat the comments that were made. It is fundamental that we have a full range of views, right across the spectrum, and that they have equal respect within the curriculum. I look forward to taking these issues forward. They have been part of many discussions we have had recently, not least on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. The noble Baroness raises important points that need to be addressed.

[Lord Raval (Lab)]

My Lords, one in three secondary schools now teaches little or no religious education, even though, as we have just heard, incidents against faith groups have doubled in the past year. Does the Minister not agree that it is high time we invested in the one subject that can nurture faith literacy and the ability to disagree well?

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

It is a very wide-ranging subject, and students also need to be taught to have critical appreciation of what they read in the media, for example. We need to make sure that every aspect of the curriculum picks up on the points my noble friends have raised, but there are other aspects in schools such as restorative practice, resilience, and nurturing and supporting young people wherever they are, as well as the subjects that are taught through the curriculum. We are going through a very difficult time, and we owe it to all our young people to make sure they get the support and subject input they need.

[The Lord Bishop of Winchester]

My Lords, I was pleased to hear the Second Church Estates Commissioner confirm recently in another place that the Government are committed to implementing the recommendations of the Truro review, which I wrote several years ago at the invitation of the then Foreign Secretary. I have to say that that came as a pleasant surprise to me. In view of the significant and egregious growth in international violations of freedom of religion or belief in the intervening years, does the Minister agree with me that we need to ensure a high level of religious literacy among our young people and that professionally delivered RE is critical to that end?

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I must confess that I do not know the Truro report in detail, but I am happy to look at it. The right reverend Prelate raises very important points. The positive thing is that religious education, while not compulsory, is still a very popular subject at GCSE and A-level. We need to make sure that it is promoted and that there is a real understanding of its relevance and importance in today’s climate.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, the national security strategy and the strategic defence review both talk of the need to build societal resilience in an age of hybrid attacks. I understand that the national resilience Bill, which is to come before the House, deals exclusively with regulation in the world of cyber. Does any revision of the national education curriculum not allow a golden opportunity for the introduction of resilience education and training of our youth, along the lines of what happens in Finland and Sweden? My first command experience was as a six year-old milk monitor, and I found that this gave me certain skills that were very valuable in later life.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I will not recount the experience of some of our milk monitors in our school. The noble and gallant Lord raises an important point. Of course, the curriculum is important, but as I mentioned before, skills such as helping young people move towards a position of resilience, fostering good relationships, and restorative practice are crucial and need to go along with a broad curriculum to help young people move forward.

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, given that over 75% of the world’s population profess to have some kind of religion, does the Minister agree with me that the confidence of the teachers delivering this curriculum is as important as the curriculum itself in making sure that our children are educated properly? What work are the Government doing to make sure that teachers have the confidence and the training to deliver this curriculum properly?

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

This is a critical issue. To be honest, the Ofsted review has highlighted some failings in this area, which I know will have been the subject of representations to the curriculum review. Teacher training is absolutely at the top of our agenda, and this whole area comes under the heading “need to develop”.

Public and Private Sector Productivity Trends

Thursday 30th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Question

11:16

Asked by

[Lord Londesborough]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the United Kingdom’s productivity trends across both public and private sectors.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Livermore) (Lab)]

My Lords, in the decade from 2010, the UK economy saw the lowest productivity growth since the Napoleonic Wars, which led to the lowest growth in living standards ever recorded. This Government also inherited a situation where public sector productivity was 7.2% below pre-pandemic levels. Reversing that poor productivity performance is the number one mission of this Government. As part of our growth strategy, we have set out measures to increase productivity, including reforms to planning and skills, record levels of investment in R&D, new investment in transport connectivity, a modern industrial strategy and a 10-year infrastructure strategy.

[Lord Londesborough (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. Low productivity has indeed been a running sore for almost 20 years now. Frankly, there are no real signs of progress, which is why the OBR is poised to downgrade its trend forecast and leave the Chancellor with an even deeper black hole. We need a major reset, so is it not time to set up an office for productivity alongside the Office for Budget Responsibility if we want to achieve per capita growth and fiscal discipline? This would be an office with experts with first-hand industry experience delivering on productivity, including how to lead, manage, train, set targets, and reward and incentivise our workers in public and private sectors.

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question and suggestion. On the progress that has been made, he will know that the drivers of productivity are fundamental and deep-seated challenges that exist in our economy, that they are long-standing, and that obviously we cannot come in, click our fingers and improve that productivity performance—it will take time. For example, investment is one of the most important drivers of productivity. That requires changes to our planning system and the planning Bill is still going through this House, so of course it is going to take time. As I say, the productivity performance that we inherited from the previous Government has been too weak. Austerity, Brexit and the Liz Truss mini-Budget have left deep scars on the British economy that are still being felt today, but those past mistakes do not need to determine our future. That is why, as part of our growth strategy, we have set out measures to increase productivity in the British economy.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, on the point from the noble Lord, Lord Londesborough, would the Minister consider looking at how the figures are compiled? Personally, I think that the contribution from the services sector is underplayed and undervalued in the calculation of productivity. Would the Minister also recognise the contribution from the 13 leading business representative bodies—indeed, pretty much every business in the UK—that the Employment Rights Bill will reduce productivity and growth?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

On the noble Lord’s first point, I am very aware of some issues around the data, and I believe the ONS has been reviewing it along the lines he suggests. On the Employment Rights Bill, he will know that labour supply is also a fundamental component of driving productivity, and that a more motivated and more secure workforce is a more productive workforce. I hope he will take that into account.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, we hear this week that only 11% of UK SMEs say they use technology to a great extent to automate or streamline operations. Do the Government understand that the slow pace of adoption of new technology by SMEs—many of which have not even adopted first-generation technology—lies at the heart of our productivity problem, which is why it remains incomprehensible that the Government keep adding burdens on SMEs? I know the Minister cannot tell us what is in the Budget, but can he at least tell the House that he recognises the problem?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

Yes, I absolutely recognise the problem and I agree with 90% of what the noble Baroness said. The only part I disagreed with was when she criticised the Government. I agree: digital adoption and AI adoption will be central to solving the productivity problem. SMEs are vital to that. It is why digital adoption was a key part of our small business strategy. I hope we can work together on this important issue.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, the period from 1970 to 1990 was a time of rapidly increasing productivity, of rapidly increasing Japanese investment in particular, and of great reduction in trade union restrictive practices, which the Japanese would not put up with. What lessons does he draw from that for today?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his insight from that period. He is absolutely right. It was a time of high productivity; it is a shame that the second Conservative Government after that did not maintain it. We now have to deal with the inheritance from that Government. He is right to say that private sector investment is a key driver of productivity, so the lesson I draw from that period is that we have to encourage greater levels of private sector investment. Under the previous Government, private sector investment fell to the lowest in the whole G7. We have so far welcomed £120 billion in private investment and a further £150 billion during the US state visit last month alone.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that we are very good at telling other people what to do? Is it not time that we started having a look at our practices and productivity to see whether we can run Parliament and the Commons much more effectively than we are at the moment?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am very happy to say that that may be a question for someone other than me.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister will know that, with 52% of the adult population having numeracy levels at or below those of a primary school leaver, low numeracy acts on a drag on the UK economy, leading to a critical skills gap and, ultimately, limiting productivity. Does he agree that unless we address low numeracy, as we have addressed core reading skills, we will struggle to achieve the economic growth that is at the core of his Government’s ambitions?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her question. I agree. Fundamental skills are vital to improving our productivity. Labour quality is a key driver of productivity. The skills agenda is vital to that. That is why we recently set out measures to tackle that in the skills White Paper. I hope the measures she speaks about will also be looked at carefully.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I very much agree on skills, but a large part of the productivity problem in the UK has been in the public sector. This is hardly surprising, since the Government awarded huge public sector pay rises last year without a direct productivity link. Civil service numbers have also increased. Low productivity and growing headcount are not a happy state of affairs. How does the Minister plan to improve that rather dispiriting situation?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is correct to say that public sector productivity is a major issue. I know that it is something she cares about deeply. Obviously, she will be aware that the Government inherited a situation where public sector productivity was 7.2% below pre-pandemic levels; that is obviously and clearly unacceptable. She said that pay rises were awarded without any link to productivity. That is factually incorrect. At the spending review, the Government established a programme of public sector service reform to drive greater productivity. Every department has committed to at least 5% savings and efficiencies over the spending review period, with the Office for Value for Money working closely with departments to agree bespoke targets. This will result in savings and efficiencies equivalent to nearly £14 billion a year by 2028-29, and public sector productivity has already risen by 1.5% since the election.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, in 1964 the then Labour Government sought to separate the Treasury into two pieces: one to look after the short-term fiscal tax-raising element and one to look at economic development. The same tension exists today. Can the Minister tell your Lordships how the Treasury is balancing them? At the moment, it looks as if short-term fiscal concerns are outweighing long-term economic needs.

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I disagree with the noble Lord. I do not think that there is any tension between economic stability and economic growth. As I say, under the Liz Truss mini-Budget we saw the damage that grotesque economic instability did to business confidence and business investment in this country. Maintaining stability—that starts with stability in the public finances—is why our fiscal rules are so important to our growth mission. Stability is the precondition for economic growth in this country, so the two go very much hand in hand.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

My Lords, would the Government agree that, because we have a low-wage economy, we also have a low-investment economy? That is shown in the fact that 80% of all the transactions carried out by our banks, which were formerly owned by us, are in buying and selling private property, not in investing in new businesses and the kind of investment that the Government are now calling for.

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am not quite sure what the question was. I do not think that I agree with noble Lord’s diagnosis.

Heathrow Airport: Third Runway

Thursday 30th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Question

11:27

Asked by

[Lord Moylan]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what information they intend to publish about the proposals they have received for a third runway at Heathrow Airport before announcing any major decisions.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, Heathrow expansion will support UK competitiveness and economic growth. In June, the Secretary of State invited proposals; several were received, and two remain under active consideration. My department will decide on a single scheme by the end of November to inform the Airports National Policy Statement review, which was launched on 20 October. Proposals will not be published by the department, in accordance with the Secretary of State’s letter of 30 June to potential promoters, though some have independently released details of their schemes.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, Heathrow expansion is an absolutely enormous project, and there has been remarkably little public engagement. Before deciding between the two remaining bidders, will the Government agree that they should engage in public consultation, particularly on the costs that will flow through to passengers as a result of the regulatory structure, so that they are aware?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The launch of the Airports National Policy Statement review on 22 October is one of the significant steps that the Government are taking to support the expansion of Heathrow. The review has begun before final scheme selection to allow early policy and analytical work. Public consultation will, of course, take place. Round tables with key stakeholders will be held during the review and consultation phases. The further DCO process afterwards will include statutory consultation and public examination.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, given the significant congestion already around Heathrow Airport and the impact on local communities, will the Government be making improved public transport access a condition of any plans for Heathrow expansion, in particular for southern and western rail links?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness will know that, on Monday evening in this House, we discussed the Statement made in another place on Heathrow. She is right—I said so then, and I will say so again—that the public transport links to and from Heathrow must be a critical feature of any proposals put forward by any promoter. There are, as she mentions, schemes for southern and western access. The Elizabeth Line has significantly improved connectivity to the airport since it opened, and we await promoters’ proposals for public transport links to the airport.

[Baroness Winterton of Doncaster (Lab)]

My Lords, at the same time as considering proposals for Heathrow, would the Minister, using his huge talents, give his full support to the Mayor of Doncaster, Ros Jones, for the reopening of Doncaster Airport, which is vital for regional economic growth in Yorkshire and the Humber?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My noble friend raises a point that has been raised here before. The Government have put themselves out, as they should, to support the reopening of Doncaster Airport, and of course we will support the Mayor of Doncaster in the aspiration to have better connectivity for that part of Yorkshire.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, the debate over Heathrow expansion, which I strongly support—and I draw attention to my entry in the register about working in the aviation industry, albeit not at Heathrow—is often couched in terms of passenger flights. In terms of the Government’s decision-making, what consideration are they giving to the fact that more than £200 billion-worth of trade goes through Heathrow, including a majority of trade in some very important sectors, such as our world-leading pharmaceutical industry?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

A number of noble Lords are re-running the debate we had on Monday evening. The noble Lord is right that 72% of UK air freight by value goes through Heathrow because it is the only hub airport in Britain, and that is why the Government are so keen to expand it. The noble Lord is right that the value of air freight to international trade to and from Britain is an important issue in considering the expansion of the airport.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, can I just challenge this issue of air freight? High-value air freight takes up very little capacity in the holds of aircraft. In fact, we could double the high value, and scarcely no one would notice. Will the Minister confirm that the majority of air freight by bulk and by weight is fish, followed by books, with medicines coming up third? In fact, the Scottish farming industry would do much better if, instead of hubbing all its fish and Scottish passengers down to London, BA ran direct flights from Edinburgh to New York, the route which is most useful for fish.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I had a feeling that fish and books would come up again because they came up on Monday. Of course, value and size are two different things. The point of an international hub airport—of which I should continue to say we have only one and we will have only one, which is Heathrow—is international connectivity around the globe. Expanding an international hub airport should mean more connectivity to more places, and that will enable more fish and books and salmon to be sent all around the globe.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, as part of the assessment of the two remaining bids for the third runway, will my noble friend take into account the additional carbon footprint of the additional planes, the concrete and steel that go into the construction and any other transport that is needed to service the passengers?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My noble friend is right that the carbon footprint of building a third runway and operating the airport is significant. The Government have made it clear that any proposed scheme must meet four clear tests, of which aligning with our legal obligations on climate change, including net zero, is one. He is also aware, I think, that the construction industry is moving forward with more carbon-friendly methods of construction, and I think it reasonable that the Government and the country expect a successful scheme to be carbon friendly, if not carbon-neutral, in construction.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, lest there be any doubt, I was here for the beginning of this Question—I was on the Steps. I am sure my noble friend recalls the plans for expansion at Stansted Airport, which extended over more than a decade, 20-odd years ago. They did not, in the end, come to anything of any significance, but there was a lot of collateral damage in the form of compulsory purchases and other acquisition of land that then had to be fed back into the system, and many people suffered as a consequence. Can he reassure us that, when whatever plan is brought forward for expansion at Heathrow, if it is, it will attempt not to put people in that situation again?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My noble friend raises an important point. The history of airport expansion in Britain is not particularly happy, and a number of proposals have taken a very long time. Indeed, the previous Government’s ANPS did not go anywhere. This Government are determined to make progress in these areas. My noble friend is right that the long-term uncertainty of failing to progress with plans leaves many people uncomfortable or worse. The Government are determined to make progress and have set themselves targets in getting to the DCO and building this thing so that people can be uncertain for as little time as possible and the certainty is as great as possible thereafter.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

Will the Minister say whether it is possible for the Government to buy my ex-wife’s house, which is right near the runway? It is absolutely appalling when you go down there. If the Government are going to make billions and billions of pounds for the UK, then perhaps they should be spending some of that money on improving the lives of people who live under the flight paths, because they are going to be adding an enormous amount of worry and concern to people living down there.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I am sure the noble Lord will recognise that it would be unusual for a Minister to commit from the Dispatch Box to buying somebody’s property, but the noble Lord’s more serious point is about noise commitments. Any scheme that comes forward should meet the Government’s four clear tests, of which one is that it is consistent with our noise commitments. I would expect promoters not only to meet the Government’s commitments about noise but look at the effect on properties immediately adjacent to the runway that they propose to build.

El Fasher

Thursday 30th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Question

11:37

Asked by

[Lord Austin of Dudley]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the situation in El Fasher in Sudan.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)]

My Lords, on Monday, the Foreign Secretary issued a statement calling on the RSF to protect civilians and facilitate unimpeded humanitarian access into El Fasher. As she made clear, the RSF leadership are accountable for these crimes. UK Special Representative Richard Crowder and his team in Addis have been in touch with the RSF and their political alliance, Tasis, as well as the Sudan Armed Forces, to urge restraint, the protection of civilians and acting in accordance with international humanitarian law. We are mobilising £23 million of existing UK aid to support the delivery of life-saving food and health assistance in northern Darfur, as well as support to those facing sexual violence.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, this is the world’s greatest humanitarian catastrophe. Famine alone has killed half a million children, and 10 million people are starving. That is more than in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Gaza, Mali and South Sudan combined. Some 9 million people have been internally displaced, 3.5 million have fled the country as refugees and thousands of civilians have been murdered just this week. The UK is the UN Security Council penholder on Sudan. What more can His Majesty’s Government do to mobilise the international community, get aid in, protect civilians, press for a ceasefire and enforce an arms embargo? Why do we hardly ever discuss this issue? This House and the other place should be raising this, day in and day out, until this carnage is brought to an end.

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I thank my friend the noble Lord for that question and for his constant advocacy of this important subject. He has brought it to our notice before, and I agree entirely with his view that we have not spent enough time on it in the past. Let me set out where we are now. As he rightly says, we are the penholder at the UN Security Council and we have consistently advocated for a ceasefire, the protection of civilians and unhindered humanitarian access. Those have been our strategic commitments throughout. There will be an urgent UN Security Council meeting today, Thursday 30 October, called by the UK as penholder, and this was only agreed overnight. That is, as it were, breaking news, and I am pleased to report it to your Lordships’ House.

In November 2024, the UK and Sierra Leone prepared a UN Security Council resolution addressing the protection and humanitarian crisis in Darfur. This was vetoed by Russia, despite support from every other Security Council member. The UK welcomes the efforts of the Quad—the USA, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE—in seeking a resolution to the conflict in Sudan. The Quad statement issued on 12 September is a significant development. We stand ready to support the Quad’s effort.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, the UAE is probably the only country able to exert significant leverage on the RSF, given the level of its support for them and the fact that it is the repository for most of the wealth of many of the RSF’s leaders. The UAE does not seem inclined to pursue an end to the fighting in Sudan, but would it be possible at least to get it to pressure the RSF to allow sufficient humanitarian aid and medical care into Darfur to the people who need it? Otherwise, the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding there will only worsen.

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I thank the noble and gallant Lord for that important question. The Government’s view is clear: external support to the SAF and the RSF only fuels the conflict. We continue to emphasise to all parties the importance of refraining from actions that prolong the conflict. We ask all those with influence over the warring parties—including the members of the Quad, of which the UAE is one—to bring them to the negotiating table to seek a political resolution. I may say more about this if noble Lords ask me about it, but the most important thing is humanitarian access.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, more than 5% of the population in Sudan are Christian. Since the start of the civil war in Sudan, there have been reports of both the RSF and the SAF targeting the Christian population. What engagement have the UK Government had with other Governments in the region to help to support and protect their Christian populations?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. We are very concerned about religious violence in Sudan, and indeed anywhere else in the world, and we certainly have sought to engage with the RSF on this. As the noble Lord knows, this conflict has a long history. I visited Sudan myself many years ago.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, Darfur has been a horrific conflict for decades and, as the noble Lord rightly said, we have not talked about it enough. However, a massacre based on rape, pillage and ethnic cleansing if El Fasher fell has been widely predicted for months. It is now happening, but all we are doing is passing resolutions and engaging in discussions. What are we actually going to do to protect civilians? What action will the Government take—or what is the point of being the penholder?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. As I said, we too have been urging action for the duration of this conflict, and we are very pleased with the efforts of the Quad. The most important priority, as set out in the Quad statement, is that we must have humanitarian access. The problem is not funds; the problem is access.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the horrific images are finally pushing through into our media, and they should be an absolute wake-up call for this place and the other place. It has been a long time coming, as other noble Lords have said. For years, Christians have been slain and displaced, and women subjected to sexual violence of the worst kind. Given that we are the penholder at the UN, will the Minister confirm that, as a first step, His Majesty’s Government will press for a ceasefire and protection for the civilians in El Fasher?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that question. I am happy to confirm that we will continue to press for a ceasefire, support the Quad and, through our role at the UN, promote the priorities that I have set out. I should say that the reports of mass atrocities caused by the RSF in El Fasher are deeply alarming, and we do not in any way underestimate the seriousness of what is going on.

[Baroness Goudie (Lab)]

My Lords, we know that the elections have been postponed. Women leaders and women candidates are already preparing for office. Sudan has a 35% quota for women but, while all this is happening, women are being maimed or violently threatened and are not being allowed to stand and be open about that. What is the penholder doing to ensure that we have women candidates, that women can win and that women will be part of the peace process—otherwise, there will be no stability at all in Sudan and other areas?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. I entirely agree with her view that women must play a full role in the transition that we look forward to in Sudan, although it may be some time coming. On conflict-related sexual violence, which my noble friend refers to, noble Lords will know that we have been dedicating a lot of effort to that issue. We are currently designing a dedicated women and girls programme on gender-based violence and conflict-related sexual violence, which assures a strategic approach to gender mainstreaming, and we have new humanitarian programmes that will provide dedicated resources to women-led organisations. I should say to my noble friend that we are also concerned about reports of sexual violence against men and boys in the area.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, the Security Council resolution for the protection of civilians was passed in June 2024. On its anniversary, I asked the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, what enforcement measures—which it is the duty of us as penholder to put forward—there were to enforce the Security Council resolution. Her answer to me on 17 July was:

“I often find myself asking what the point is of many of these declarations and resolutions in these situations”.—[Official Report, 17/07/25; col. 2000.]


Further to my noble friend’s question, what is the point of being a penholder in the Security Council if we are not actually implementing measures to enforce resolutions for the protection of civilians that the Security Council itself has passed?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. I have already said that there is a meeting of the UN Security Council today to discuss this further. I understand the frustration that he expresses. The biggest problem now is humanitarian access. Until we make progress on that, with the help of the warring militias, we will make very little progress on the wider ceasefire.

Sentencing Bill

1st reading
Thursday 30th October 2025 Lords Chamber

First Reading

11:47

The Bill was brought from the Commons, read a first time and ordered to be printed.

Human Medicines (Authorisation by Pharmacists and Supervision by Pharmacy Technicians) Order 2025

Thursday 30th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Motion to Approve

11:48

Moved by

[Baroness Merron]

That the draft Order laid before the House on 17 July be approved.

Relevant document: 34th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 21 October.

Motion agreed.

Asylum Seekers: MoD Housing

Thursday 30th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Commons Urgent Question

The following Answer to an Urgent Question was given in the House of Commons on Wednesday 29 October.

“The use of hotels to house asylum seekers is a disgrace. As Members on both sides of the House know, it is a practice that became widespread long before this Government entered office, and it is one of the clearest indicators of the shambles that we inherited last summer. People across the country are frustrated, if not furious. We wholeheartedly agree, and that is why since the general election we have been working to address the chronic issues in the asylum system that have been allowed to build up over several years. At their peak under the previous Government, there were 400 hotels in use; now, the number is around 200. That reduction has been achieved despite what the Home Affairs Select Committee has called a ‘dramatic increase in demand’. Under this Government, decisions on asylum applications are up, as are asylum-related returns, while system costs are down.

However, as my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has made clear, we must go further and faster. That means moving at pace to fulfil the Government’s commitment to close every asylum hotel. Work to facilitate this exit is ongoing, and the asylum accommodation task force is working across government to deliver alternative asylum accommodation. I can confirm to the House that plans are under way for the temporary use of Ministry of Defence sites at Cameron barracks in Inverness and at Crowborough training camp in East Sussex for the purpose of asylum accommodation. Under the plans, a total of around 900 people will be housed across both sites.

Those two sites are among a number of options that we are looking at as we seek to alleviate the pressure on the system and drive down hotel use, and while this is a complex and fast-moving operating environment, there is a strong understanding within the Home Office of the importance of local engagement. My officials have been engaging directly and regularly in advance of this announcement with the Scottish Government, the relevant councils and local service providers, and will continue to do so. Whatever decisions are made regarding specific locations, we are clear that the impact on communities must be minimised. The safety and security of people living and working in the surrounding areas is paramount.

A crisis of the scale we were left with was always going to take time to correct, but we know that the British people are impatient for change, as are we. This Government will do whatever it takes to end hotel use, fix the broken asylum system, and secure our borders”.

11:49

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, both military sites proposed to house asylum seekers have significant local consequences. Cameron barracks in Inverness is close to the city centre, and local communities there are rightly concerned about the lack of consultation with them about such a major proposal. Crowborough army training camp in East Sussex is used by a large number of cadet forces, who will now be deprived of its use. Of course, if the Government truly wanted to clear the asylum backlog and close more asylum hotels, they would ban asylum claims from migrants entering the country illegally and deport them. Can the Minister say why the Government would prefer to move asylum seekers to sensitive sites—which have just as large an impact on local communities—rather than take real action to solve the problem?

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, for his question. The local authorities in both areas were informed two weeks ago, and we are continuing to ensure that we discuss the arrangements to date with the police, the National Health Service and local councils in each area. The Government are trying to do what I hope the noble Lord wishes the Government to do, which is to put a deterrent in place. The individuals who will be going to these sites in a phased, operational way, over a period of time, will have arrived, been processed and been put into those sites pending asylum decisions being taken. That is a real deterrent to people: it is not about going to a hotel or into the community—they are going to a very firm site where action can be taken. It is our ambition to reduce the number of hotels, and we have reduced the number from 400 at its peak to 200 now. It is our ambition to stop the crossings that are leading to these pressures in the first place. I look forward to the noble Lord’s support on both matters.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I rise simply to ask the Minister whether contracts will be issued for looking after these two sites, and whether the lessons learned from Napier and Wethersfield will be transferred to the actions that are now taking place in those two sites. It is all very well to simply emergency-open new sites, but not if they are going to be managed inappropriately. The substantial changes that were made in Wethersfield should be transferred, and that knowledge transferred onwards. Also, what is the timescale of those contracts? When are they due to start and end? I draw attention to my interest in the register in the RAMP organisation.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

We have had around 1,000 learning points from discussions with a range of agencies over the use of previous sites. I know the noble Lord has visited, and that has been very helpful. Members of this House, and others, can visit and examine the conditions in the proposed new sites by arrangement with the Home Office. We are anticipating that the sites will start to be used from around the end of November, subject to discussions with local authorities et cetera. The plan is for around 12 months’ use. We are looking at phasing in entrance to the sites at around 30 people a day, to a maximum of 600 in Scotland and 300 in East Sussex. I hope that we will have robust management information in place to ensure that those learning points are put in place and are managed in a proper and effective way.

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as director of the Army Reserve. The MoD training estate is oversubscribed; indeed, that is one of the biggest factors when it comes to trying to train the Army Reserve. While I commend to the Minister the announcement in the SDR that the reserve and cadets will be expanded, this will place even greater pressure on the MoD’s training estate. Crowborough training area is a vital estate used not just by cadets but by the reserve and the regular Army. I simply ask the Minister to be very careful about the selection of sites that we choose. It is not just about the accommodation; it is the second-order impact on the estate.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a valid and important point, and certainly one to reflect on. It is extremely important that we encourage and continue that training and support, as the noble Lord has identified. Government policy is designed to do that. He will note that my noble friend Lord Coaker, the Defence Minister, is on the Bench today. He is very much apprised of the issues raised, and we will work in close quarters to ensure that the objectives outlined by the noble Lord are achieved.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, what plans do the Government have for looking after the children who continue to come into this country? In the past they have been kept in completely unsatisfactory hotels, and many have vanished without trace.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I assure the noble Baroness that there will be no children in the two sites that are before the House in this Urgent Question today. She makes a valid point: a number of children have gone missing. We inherited that—it is not a political point; we just inherited that position. We are putting some urgency into trying to track down those children. We have put in place revised arrangements, particularly with the Kent local authority, to ensure that it is engaged very strongly in the initial arrival point. Children should not be damaged because, for whatever reason, their parents, guardians or relatives have arrived in the United Kingdom.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I urge the Minister and the Government to have the guts to stick to this plan to use the barracks in the short term, and not to be terrorised out of it by immigration pressure groups, one of which said yesterday that this would further traumatise people who have suffered enough. I stayed in the Cameron barracks and the Crowborough barracks in the late 1970s, and they were pretty okay then. I am sure they are much more luxurious now. I read that £1.3 million may be spent on refurbishing Cameron barracks in Inverness. Can I get the Minister’s assurance that if any money is spent, it will be used for essential fire and safety measures, and not in creating individual private bedrooms with en suite facilities? If barrack-room accommodation is good enough for our single male soldiers, it should be good enough for illegal asylum seekers as well.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord and hope he enjoyed his time at both barracks and found it convivial, as far as possible given the service it presumably had at that time. We are trying to ensure that this is a temporary measure. Ultimately, the purpose of all this is to ensure that we process people very quickly, eventually with off-site decision-making, and that we then disperse or remove those individuals when asylum decisions are taken. I will look into the £1.3 million that the noble Lord mentioned and give him a formal response by letter. Please rest assured that the purpose of this is to provide temporary accommodation to reduce hotel numbers, and ultimately to help us on the path to reduce them to zero.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

The Minister just acknowledged that speedy determination of asylum claims is essential to addressing this problem. You obviously need less accommodation if people can be moved on when they have no asylum claim, and moved to other countries speedily. That will have a greater deterrent effect on those who want to come here. What is the current backlog of asylum claims? What are the Government doing to ensure more speedy determination of those claims?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful that the noble Lord has put his finger on a point that the Government have also put their finger on. The current initial claim for decision-making on outstanding asylum decisions is around 91,000. In the last three months alone, the number of people awaiting that initial decision has fallen by 19,000, or 17%. That is because we have taken decisions to put extra staff into that area to speed up asylum applications, and we are looking at using that newfangled thing, AI, to try to improve speedy applications and understanding of those applications. It is absolutely right that we get those application numbers down. The number of people awaiting a decision is down by 24% over the period of the previous Government.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, when I was standing in the shoes of the Minister, answering questions about our plans to put asylum seekers in military accommodation, noble Lords will recall the waves of opprobrium received from the Labour Benches, and in particular the Labour Front Bench. I welcome the Government’s change of heart. There is nothing quite like the joy of a sinner who repenteth. As an officer cadet, I too stayed in Cameron barracks. It is largely barrack-room accommodation. The previous Government were the subject of litigation in relation to the use of Penally and Napier barracks. The courts found that the accommodation was unsuitable on human rights grounds because it was not individual accommodation. How do the Government propose to address that issue in relation to their new plans?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

When the noble Lord stood in my shoes there were 400 hotels being used, and there are now 200. There was also a higher backlog of asylum accommodation, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, referred to, because he put his faith in a Rwanda scheme that removed nobody. When he was in my shoes, he failed miserably in dealing with an issue that his shoes put in place in the first place.

Let us put that to one side. He has asked a perfectly legitimate question. We want to ensure that we are not subject to legal challenge, and it is important we do that. That decision, ultimately, is not for us to determine. We want to make sure that we provide accommodation that is of an acceptable standard, but a standard that, as I have mentioned to the House, is temporary. This is so that we can end both asylum accommodation and, in the long term, this type of accommodation. In doing so, we can stop small boat crossings happening in the first place.

Town and Country Planning (Crown Development Applications) (Procedure and Written Representations) Order 2025

Thursday 30th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Motion to Regret

12:00

Moved by

[Baroness Pinnock]

That this House regrets that under the Town and Country Planning (Crown Development Applications) (Procedure and Written Representations) Order 2025 (SI 2025/409), the new routes for applications for planning permission for Crown developments of national importance will disregard accepted democratic processes and will be determined by the Planning Inspectorate and not local planning authorities.

Relevant document: 23rd Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I tabled a regret Motion on this statutory instrument well before the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, now making its way through your Lordships’ House, had even had its Second Reading. Many of the issues I am still concerned with in this order have been debated during the progress of the Bill.

However, I make no apology for once again making the case for community involvement in developments that affect their locality. The Town and Country Planning (Crown Development Applications) (Procedure and Written Representations) Order 2025 fundamentally alters the planning landscape in England. While this instrument appears to be merely procedural, it is in fact a key mechanism for cementing a significant power grab that threatens local accountability and transparency.

The SI we are debating is one of three other statutory instruments that implement the new routes for Crown development, which, to be fair to the Government, were introduced by the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act. During the debate on the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, I argued that there had to be community involvement in planning applications, in particular those on behalf of the Crown. Unfortunately, what this statutory instrument does is put central expediency over local democracy and due process in regard to Crown planning applications.

To give a bit of an example, the central purpose of this route for Crown development is to allow government departments—the “appropriate authority”—to apply directly to the Secretary of State for planning permission, bypassing the local planning authority entirely. The rationale provided by the department is that

“Government departments have faced challenges securing planning permission”

through the local planning authority route. This has resulted in delayed decisions for

“nationally important planned projects such as prisons or defence facilities”.

My argument is simple: challenges are the bedrock of a vibrant democracy and, in particular for planning, a vibrant local democracy. When a local planning authority scrutinises a development, it is ensuring that the project is in line with community needs and environmental standards, as well as the national need. By shifting the power of determination from local authority to the Planning Inspectorate, which acts on behalf of the Secretary of State, the local checks and balances are being sacrificed for the sake of speed of decision.

One of the most startling issues I noticed in the Explanatory Memorandum for this SI is that there has been no public consultation on the instrument. The department claims this is due to the “technical nature” of the SI. Yet this technical instrument results in a major policy shift, affecting potentially every community in England.

While the statutory instrument sets out procedures for standard Crown development, the legislative package also covers urgent Crown development. For this, the department has indicated that the need for community engagement will be assessed on a case by case basis, meaning that the Secretary of State appears to have it almost entirely in their discretion whether local engagement is needed at all. If they have this discretion, obviously it puts in peril the public’s right to engage with nationally important projects that could drastically alter their neighbourhood.

The entire system hinges on the concept of a development being defined as “of national importance”. The statutory instrument uses the words “Crown development”. So can the Minister provide an explanation of what is defined as Crown development? Is it any development, whatever size is applied for, that takes place on Crown land?

Article 5 of the instrument allows for the Secretary of State to direct that information related to an application can also be defined as “sensitive information”. If the Secretary of State deems that information relates to national security or security measures and its public disclosure would be contrary to the national interest, the provisions requiring public disclosure will not apply. I can accept that sometimes this is the case. However, in the modern world, nothing is secret and nothing stays away from the public gaze. While sensitive projects may require limited disclosure, this provision actually provides a broad mechanism for withholding crucial information from the public under the umbrella of national interest.

The Government propose that this package of reforms will bring benefits to the public sector, enabling faster planning decisions and potential cost savings to capital programmes—but at what cost? This statutory instrument and the supporting ones undermine the very principles of local planning. They centralise power, sidestep public consultation, rely on vague criteria and restrict transparency. We are being asked to accept an instrument that accelerates government projects by silencing local voices.

I urge the Minister to consider the long-term impact on local governance and planning democracy, as I have done throughout the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, and to consider enabling communities to have their voice heard before the process is concluded. You can guarantee that local voices will be raised at some point. How much better that those voices are heard during deliberations on a planning application on Crown land, and not after the deal is done? I beg to move.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a councillor in central Bedfordshire. We on this side of the House believe in local democracy. It is why I proposed an amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that would ensure local democracy where there are valid planning grounds, and why I was pleased that my noble friend Lord Lansley’s amendment on ensuring affirmative procedures for delegated planning powers was passed.

However, there is a need for balance. Today, we are seeing a government programme for the early release of prisoners. While this is, in large part, due to a failure to manage the prison population and deport foreign-born criminals, the lack of prison capacity is a factor. Importantly, the lack of prison space hampers prison rehabilitation—a matter that I know the Prisons Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, is much vexed about. As my noble friend Lady Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist raised last night, the huge impact that the delays to and additional costs of the UK nuclear programme is having on the cost of energy is a major issue for struggling families and industry. It is therefore right to have a balanced approach.

Section 109 of the previous Conservative Government’s Levelling-up and Regeneration Act added two new sections to the Town and Country Planning Act, creating new routes for Crown development. These provisions allow for an appropriate authority to apply to the Secretary of State for planning permissions, rather than the local planning authority. The intention behind this change was clear: to prevent delay or obstruction to vital national development, such as prisons.

As I have said, we are sympathetic to the concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, but these powers are proportionate and balanced. It is our understanding that the Town and Country Planning (Crown Development Applications) (Procedure and Written Representations) Order 2025 concerns development applications on Crown land that are deemed to be of national importance. The instrument sets out the procedure for such Crown development applications, including applications for planning permissions and approval for reserved matters. Crown development refers to applications made by the Crown bodies for development of national importance.

As so often in matters like these, the key issue is balance between local voice and national need, and between the principle of localism and the imperative to deliver key national infrastructure efficiently. We stand by the intentions of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act, which expands local voices in the round, taking them seriously by strengthening the role of local plans, creating new opportunities for communities to shape development in their areas and ensuring that decision-making is rooted closer to the people it affects. The Act sought to make planning more transparent, more accountable and more responsive to local priorities. It was never about sidelining local democracy but about creating a system capable of delivering both local consent and national progress.

The provisions on Crown development sit within that broader context. They are not a retreat from localism but a recognition that, on occasion, public interest requires a more streamlined route for developments of genuine national importance. As ever, the challenge is to strike the right balance, to protect local accountability while ensuring that the machinery of state can deliver where delay would carry a wider national cost. That principle underpins this instrument and the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act itself. It is right that we reaffirm it today.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

My Lords, perhaps it is due to the many hours we have spent in the Chamber debating the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, but I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, just said.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for bringing this debate, and I thank her and the noble Lord for their contributions. I must admit that I was a bit surprised to see the noble Baroness’s regret Motion on the agenda, as she herself had requested—through her Amendment 87E to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill—a streamlined planning process for asylum processing sites. However, she has explained that her regret Motion was tabled before we started debating that Bill.

In May, we brought forward the regulations subject to this debate, along with a wider suite of regulations to bring both Crown development and urgent Crown development routes into force. These are the Crown development route for developments that are considered of national importance and the urgent Crown development route for a nationally important development that is needed as a matter of urgency. Some noble Lords in attendance today will remember when we debated these regulations earlier this year. As I said then, these routes are crucial to ensure that there is a more timely and proportionate planning process for nationally important public services and infrastructure that the state directly delivers; for instance, new defence facilities, prisons and border control—issues that we debated in this House a very short time ago and which are essential for the effective running of this country.

Recent experience, including the response to Covid, exposed that the existing route for securing planning permission for urgent Crown development, which was introduced in 2006, was not fit for purpose. In fact, it had never been used. Further, government departments have historically struggled to secure local planning permission for some nationally important public service infrastructure, such as prisons.

12:15

This is why, when we came to power, we decided to take forward the provisions in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act that legislate for new Crown development routes in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, as the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, mentioned. It is worth reiterating that these new routes can be used only where it is justified. Crown development provisions in the Town and Country Planning Act require that applications be accepted by the Secretary of State only if he deems that the proposed development is of national importance and, in the case of the urgent Crown development route, urgent.

That being said, noble Lords will recall that, when we were in Opposition, we too had our concerns that these powers, which were being taken by the Government at the time through the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, would not be used appropriately. Therefore, before we brought the regulations into force, on 13 February the Housing and Planning Minister and I made Written Ministerial Statements setting out the principles under which these new routes would be used and outlining the safeguards and transparency measures that would be put in place. We published the draft regulations to allow scrutiny of their provisions.

Notably, the regulations for both routes require applicants, when submitting an application, to set out the reasons why they consider the development to be of national importance and, in the case of urgent Crown development, why it is needed as a matter of urgency. The Secretary of State, or Ministers acting on his behalf, will then assess whether this justification meets the criteria set out in the Written Ministerial Statement. The gateway process provides an important safeguard, as we as Government Ministers are accountable to Parliament. In the WMS, we committed to writing to the relevant MPs when we accept proposals through this gateway process and when decisions are made under the routes. These letters are deposited in the Library of both Houses of Parliament.

I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, is most concerned about public engagement, so it might be helpful if I give some brief information on that. Community engagement is a key part of the Crown development process. Much like an application submitted to the local authority, there is mandatory consultation on and publicity of the application for a minimum period of 21 days. This includes notifying neighbours, affixing a site notice and advertising the application in a local newspaper. This period will be 30 days if the development is subject to an environmental impact assessment. This enables members of the community to view and comment on the application.

Any comments made during the consultation, publicity period and hearing that raise material planning matters will be taken into account as part of the decision-making process. We expect that the majority of Crown development applications will be subject to a public hearing, and those who made comments will be notified when this is to take place. Interested parties can attend the hearing if the inspector allows it.

The local planning authority will have a role to play. It will need to place the application and associated documents on its planning register. As PINS does not have a local presence, the local planning authority will be required to affix site notices during the mandatory publicity period and to notify those owners or occupiers who adjoin the site.

The consultation procedure is slightly different for urgent Crown development. We appreciate the importance of community engagement but, given the urgency with which such decisions must be made, we have to assess urgent applications on a case-by-case basis. Where decisions need to be made very quickly, it may not be possible to conduct a meaningful public consultation and reach an urgent decision. However, we emphasise that alternative methods may be available for use and will be taken into account. For example, if necessary, digital methods could be used to consult on a speedy basis.

On an annual basis, the Secretary of State will publish a report of all decisions taken under these routes. Taken together, these steps will ensure that Members in the other House are properly apprised of any applications that relate to their constituencies. It will mean that both Houses will have the opportunity to consider and scrutinise the general operation of the routes.

With regard to the involvement of local planning authorities, the regulations for both routes ensure that the local planning authority that would normally have determined the application is still involved. It is notified when the application is accepted, consulted before a decision is made, and its comments must be taken into account by the decision-maker before issuing a decision. Within the Crown development route, it plays an active role by providing the planning inspectorate with a questionnaire setting out the key policies and site history, as well as publicising the application to the local community by putting up site notices. While it is not the decision-maker, it is definitely engaged and involved.

The noble Baroness asked what Crown land is and what the route to this is. Section 293 of the Town and Country Planning Act defines who is an applicant, known as an appropriate authority, for the purposes of applications under these routes. For example, this includes where land belongs to a government department or is held in trust for His Majesty for the purposes of a government department. That government department is then considered the appropriate authority. For land belonging to His Majesty in right of the Duchy of Lancaster, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is the appropriate authority. For land belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall, such a person as the Duke of Cornwall appoints is the appropriate authority. I hope that explains who the authorities are in this case. The person making the application will be expected to demonstrate that the Crown has a sufficiently high degree of interest in or control over the proposed development for which planning permission is sought.

The noble Baroness also asked about sensitive information and how that is handled. In the majority of cases, it may not be necessary to include sensitive information as part of the application because it may not be relevant to whether planning permission should be granted. However, there may be cases where that cannot be avoided, and where this is so there are provisions to enable that information to be withheld. There is a Crown casework team in the department which is made aware when sensitive information is involved. That ensures that the level of care is appropriate and that inspectors or officials with the right level of clearance can be stood up to deal with that application. I hope that is helpful.

These regulations are important to ensure a more timely and proportionate process for dealing with planning applications of national importance for Crown development in England. The Government are taking steps to ensure that these routes are used appropriately and that there is full scrutiny of the use of the powers. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for allowing me to explain the basis of Crown development.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I thank the Minister very much for her full and detailed response to my concerns. Unfortunately, the fundamentals remain. The Minister is quite right to say that the local planning authority will be involved in all the notifications and that voices and comments and so on can be heard, but in the end, the decision is taken over there and not where it should be, in the locality. That has always been my concern, as the Minister will know.

The balance has tipped too far in favour of government planning applications on Crown land, rather than trying to speed up processes which still engage local people fully. Having said that—–

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness has spent many hours in this Chamber debating what we are doing elsewhere in the planning system to speed up decision-making. While I understand her great championing of community engagement in planning, we are trying to get the balance right here.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I accept that wholly. The Minister has always responded positively to the queries I have raised; it is just that we disagree on the balance.

I shall continue challenging because I think that is always needed. With those few remarks, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.

Protection of Children Codes of Practice

Thursday 30th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Motion to Regret

12:24

Moved by

[Lord Clement-Jones]

That this House regrets that the draft Protection of Children Codes of Practice for search services does not fully deliver the level of protection for children envisaged by the Online Safety Act 2023 due to regulatory gaps, accessibility challenges, and the consultation process failing adequately to address feedback from civil society organisations and victims’ groups.

Relevant document: 25th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument).

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, this is a regret Motion, and one of my regrets today is that we are debating it so long after it was tabled back in May this year. The Online Safety Act 2023 was born from tireless campaigning over a long period, and when I look around the Chamber, I see a number of those who were heavily engaged on that Act. The clear parliamentary intent was to create a safer digital environment. This House passed landmark legislation with the clear ambition to compel online platforms to take proportional measures to safeguard children from accessing or being exposed to harmful and inappropriate content and behaviour.

One of the key questions today, which many have continued to raise since I first put down the regret Motion, is: does the implementation of the Act match that ambition? The children’s codes of practice were intended to translate Parliament’s intent into practical reality; yet following scrutiny by the Secondary Legislation and Scrutiny Committee, extensive feedback from civil society organisations and analysis of emerging online harms, it is clear that in their current form these codes present significant shortcomings, hence this regret Motion. For example, the Molly Rose Foundation, founded following the death of 14 year-old Molly Russell, is deeply dismayed by the lack of ambition in these codes and states explicitly that it does not have confidence that the Online Safety Act will prevent a repeat of Molly’s death.

The Online Safety Act explicitly mandates that a higher standard of protection is provided for children than for adults. It demands that services are safe by design, yet the codes recommend only a limited number of measures that do little to address the fundamental design features and functionalities that facilitate or exacerbate harm to children. Specifically, the codes fail to address the harmful design features that platforms have embedded in their business models, features that prioritise engagement and monetisation over safety. These include scroll mechanisms that trap children in continuous content consumption, push notifications that constantly pull them back to platforms, loot boxes that exploit addictive behaviours, and algorithmic amplification that prioritises content designed to maximise engagement rather than well-being.

Ofcom will require platforms only to reduce the frequency with which children are shown certain forms of harmful content, such as dangerous stunts, rather than demanding they stop recommending it altogether. Several platforms have persuaded the regulator that content moderation is not technically feasible, leading Ofcom to require only “proportionate alternatives” such as preventing access to group chats where primary priority content has been identified, which the Molly Rose Foundation anticipates is highly likely to be gamed by the industry. Measures that could have helped, such as enabling children to provide feedback on algorithmic recommendations, appear to have been watered down and are now effectively left to the platform’s discretion.

The codes fail adequately to require safety by design or to require companies to take specific actions to address high-risk functionalities such as live streaming, despite Ofcom highlighting them in its register of risks. Civil society organisations such as Internet Matters have expressed disappointment that key recommendations on parental controls were not included as specific duties. There is a notable lack of reference to media literacy, which is essential for equipping families to support children’s safety. Concerns surrounding complex issues such as child-on-child harms were raised in consultation, yet these recommendations were not taken forward. The fundamental problem regarding pornography is not just access, but that the pornography itself is extreme, depicting acts that could not be legally published in offline formats such as DVDs. The regulator’s proposed measures for recommender systems are seen as having misdiagnosed the core problem, focusing narrowly on demotion of illegal content rather than addressing the amplification of lawful but cumulatively harmful content.

The second key issue is the failure of process. It is a matter of great concern that civil society organisations and victims’ groups felt that they were not listened to during consultation. These groups draw on the lived and often traumatic experience of victims and survivors, and they report that fundamental issues that they flagged remain unaddressed. There is a suggestion that Ofcom may have given greater weight to industry concerns than to the voices of safety advocates. Ofcom has explicitly confirmed that it has made no quantitative assessment or modelling of the societal costs and impacts of harmful online content. The quantified financial costs to businesses of compliance are given disproportionate weight compared to the immense potential impact of harm on individuals and the wider economic and societal costs.

12:30

The third issue is the question of structural flaws—the safe harbour problem. Perhaps the most urgent concern relates to the fundamental architecture of these codes. Ofcom initially described them as transformational yet subsequently characterised them as merely a first iteration. Was this what we envisaged when we passed the Online Safety Act? Ofcom’s codes provide a safe harbour to platforms that effectively mean that the codes act as a ceiling, not a floor, for their safety standards. This provides platforms for exactly the incentive we would wish to discourage—the incentive to do precisely what is mandated and nothing more.

The measures risk baking in the current industry response rather than incentivising safety by design or taking steps beyond the status quo. The regulatory mechanism mirrors what the largest platforms are already doing, setting a ceiling that disincentivises innovation beyond the status quo. Ofcom’s iterative approach has been criticised as being too slow and reactive, leaving a big gap in outcomes. Despite claiming that the protection provided by children’s codes are transformative and a game-changer, Ofcom has not produced any impact assessment to set out their likely effects, nor does it face any requirement to meet or report against specified harm reduction targets.

Ofcom acknowledges that not all individual risks have specific measures in the codes. A platform may identify new harmful trends through its mandatory risk assessments, new forms of grooming, emerging harms in virtual reality and the exploitation of artificial intelligence. Yet these risks are not covered by specific measures in the current iteration of the codes, and there is no immediate legal obligation for the platform to address them. This means that vulnerable children are left unprotected in the interim period until the next iteration is consulted on. This is unacceptable; we need urgent assurance that the Government are prepared to address this fundamental flaw, potentially by amending the Online Safety Act to close this loophole and ensure that safe by design is delivered in practice.

Then there is the specific decision to reduce protective measures regarding smaller services. Why should smaller sites become a safe harbour where harmful activity flourishes? At the risk of returning to our previous regret Motion on categorisation, we have all been clear that there should be the highest duty on sites that pose the greatest risks. Critics rightly ask why small sites should become a safe harbour where harmful activity flourishes.

Fourthly, there are the practical and accessibility challenges raised by the SLSC. It pointed out that the regulatory framework is complex to the point of opacity. Key documents run to over 600 pages, and this complexity makes it difficult to navigate and undermines accessibility for those trying to understand service providers’ duties. This is not merely an administrative inconvenience for platforms; it makes it harder for parents, victims and smaller organisations to understand their rights and effectively report concerns. The SLSC questioned how practical it is to expect children themselves to complain about harmful content, and it is unclear what further action children could take if a service provider simply rejects their complaint. These systems must be designed with a children-first approach to guarantee that they are truly accessible and effective.

These practical challenges include immediate concerns about implementation. The widespread use of virtual private networks by children and young people risks rendering age assurance measures ineffective. What is the Government’s response to that? Concerns remain that age assurance systems may pose a data protection or privacy threat to users. Crucially, civil society organisations are concerned that both Ofcom and the ICO have not stipulated a clear approach as to how age assurance methods will be evaluated for compliance with data protection. There are concerns also that important content, such as political debate, educational sites and information sites like Wikipedia and support forums dealing with LGBTQ+ rights or sexual health are being inappropriately age gated on social media. We raised this as a major risk during the passage of the Act. What is the Government’s response?

I return to the harms and the scale of emerging threats that these regulatory gaps leave unaddressed. The Child Online Harms Policy Think Tank has highlighted emerging threats that the codes do not adequately address. These are not hypothetical harms—they are happening now. In virtual reality environments, children as young as nine are entering 18-plus virtual rooms. Instances of virtual groping and sexual assault have been documented. The VIRAC project found that grooming is a top risk, with half of young participants reporting strangers asking for personal images or details. Anonymity features in these immersive platforms encourage offenders and complicate identification, policing and moderation, and the high level of immersion makes harassment, hate speech and exposure to harmful adult content far more impactful than in traditional online spaces. Yet it remains unclear how the Online Safety Act will adequately address these challenges, particularly given its focus on content rather than the contact and conduct risks that dominate in virtual reality platforms.

I could mention the threat from artificial intelligence. It is projected that 90% of all online content will be AI generated by the end of 2025. AI-powered systems can inadvertently or deliberately expose children to inappropriate content, encourage risky behaviours and enable new forms of targeted exploitation. This represents a fundamental shift in how children are being exploited online. Young people are increasingly vulnerable to becoming both victims and perpetrators of cybercrime.

The draft codes form an essential part of the new online safety regime, but the criticisms that have been made are completely justified. These codes are too cautious; they fail to incorporate civil society expertise; and they are undermined by the safe harbour provision and an incremental approach that leaves gaps, which leave children vulnerable. Can the Minister confirm what timescale has been agreed with Ofcom for the revision of these codes? We must have assurance on the approach to future consultations and scrutiny, ensuring that Parliament is kept fully informed of progress in closing these dangerous regulatory gaps. We also need confirmation that future risk assessments will be required to consider not just content but also contact, conduct and contract risks—the full range of harms that children face.

The ambition of the Online Safety Act demands robust, comprehensive and urgent action. We cannot afford to leave children exposed to known risks in the digital world while we wait for a gradual, reactive regulatory process to catch up. I beg to move.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for initiating this debate, and I agree with almost everything he has just said.

I applaud the enormous work that Ofcom has put into creating and implementing the children’s codes. I am pleased to hear that they have already led to a huge reduction in children online accidentally stumbling on pornography and other harmful materials. However, I fear, as the noble Lord has just said, that the rules-based nature of the codes specifies narrow recommended measures rather than incentivising desired outcomes and encouraging the platforms to implement mitigations to children’s harms which go beyond these codes. This is particularly the case with live-streaming, which, according to Ofcom’s own finding, is a risky functionality. The regulator’s register of risk says that live-streaming can be a risk for several kinds of harm to children; it specifies the real-time sharing of suicide and self-harm content.

When Dame Melanie Dawes came before the Communications and Digital Committee, on which I have the privilege to serve, she said that Ofcom had implemented mitigations to live streaming for under 18s. The measures stopped them from using likes, switches off screen capture and prohibits comments on their feeds. This has the beneficial effect of stopping any adult who might consider grooming a child from interacting and encouraging the child user to take further action. However, it still exposes children to potential harms from adult predators. Surely, the best option would be to stop children from using the functionality, or at least introduce some age-appropriate design that limits usage to 16 to 18 year-olds. I know that Ofcom regards such a ban, or even age-appropriate design, as being too punitive for a service that is used by under 18 year-olds, but it would achieve the aim of the Online Safety Act, which is to protect children from harm.

In addition, I would ask the regulator to address established pathways to harm that end in live streams, even if they do not begin there, in particular the specific threat profile of “com groups”, where children are identified and contacted via other functionalities and then moved to live streams, where they are often coerced into horrific actions. These and other upstream measures will protect children from these harms. It may be a good idea to look at introducing time delays between an account being set up and being allowed to start a live stream. Some services, such as LiveMe, have already banned children from live-streaming on their apps. My additional fear is that, even when services go beyond the thresholds set out in the Act, there is no rollback provision to stop them reneging on such beneficial actions.

My other area of concern is the use of VPNs by children, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, just raised. A huge rise in their use was reported when the codes were first introduced. Internet Matters estimated that, of the under-18s, one in 10 was using VPNs. The fear was that they were going on to VPNs to access harmful content, which the codes had prevented them reaching. Ofcom has said that it is uncertain why there is a big increase in use. Many children claim that they need the VPN because the internet connection at their school is bad and it is a way of improving access to the internet. I wonder why, if this is the case, the rise in VPN use should coincide with the introduction of the children’s code. If there had been a problem with school connections, surely that issue would have been raised prior to the code’s adoption.

The Children’s Commissioner, in her August report, called for the Government to

“explore options to ensure children aren’t able to use VPNs to avoid the age assurance process”.

This could be achieved by

“amending the Online Safety Act to bring in an additional provision which would require VPN providers in the UK to put in place Highly Effective Age Assurance … and prevent them from accessing pornographic sites”.

Can the Minister tell the House whether any such measures are being considered?

At the very least, there should be an education programme for parents who, in many cases, enhance the policing of their children’s use of VPNs by understanding their possible misuses. For instance, when they are asked to pay for children’s access to the VPN app, they should interrogate the need for this access. Surely general advice for safety protection could be given to parents, as happens with parental control of video games.

I know that Ofcom is carrying out research into why children are using VPNs. It is a welcome step, but I must ask why this was not anticipated and research carried out earlier. I am pleased with the greatly improved safety environment for children introduced with these codes, but the internet is a dangerous place. I therefore ask the Minister to ensure that it is a safe place for our children in all its functionalities.

[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble, Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for bringing this regret Motion. He gave a tour de force of all the reasons why we should regret that these codes are not more ambitious. I too wholeheartedly support the Online Safety Act and, once again, it is a privilege to be with the tech team across the aisles that has worked on this legislation for a very long time. I do not in any way want to diminish the substantial work that Ofcom has done on this. It is a ground-breaking piece of legislation, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said. There is a huge amount of work to implement it and I would not want in any way to slow down that implementation. I regret, however, that these codes are not more ambitious.

My remarks will, very briefly, focus on the first group of concerns that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, focused on: insufficient protections and the lack of ambition in them. I will specifically focus on whether these codes really allow for age-appropriate experiences. Any parent or grandparent knows that what is appropriate for a 13 year-old is very different from what is appropriate for a 17 year-old. Yet, sadly, although Ofcom recognises that user-to-user services should

“consider children in different age groups”,

there is little or no guidance on what they should actually consider. As we are learning, unless those things are specified in detail, the safe harbour provision just means that the user-to-user services do not really need to do it at all. As a result, it is highly unlikely that these codes will produce user-to-user services that are age appropriate for 13 year-olds relative to 17 year-olds. Even more fundamentally, they will not address the millions of under-13s using social media platforms that even those providers themselves admit are only appropriate for 13 year-olds and above.

12:45

It is a weakness in the Act that user-to-user services are required only to ensure that their minimum age limits are enforced consistently. If you go into any primary school today, you will discover that they are indeed enforced consistently—consistently, most children aged under 13 are on the platforms. They are therefore not effective at all. It is a huge yawning gap that there is nothing in these codes that will change whether children aged under 13 access products that are definitely not appropriate for them. The NSPCC estimates that 2.5 million children are bypassing self-declaration age checks. That is your nine year-old grandchild saying that they are okay to use Facebook, Snapchat, Insta or, God forbid, much worse platforms.

I have one question for the Minister: what will the Government do to protect our youngest children—those whom even the social media platforms recognise should not be on these platforms—and ensure that they are not on them? Sadly, that will not happen through these codes.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for introducing this regret Motion. I am very familiar with it because, as a member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, I was part of the team scrutinising it when it came in front of us. I welcome the Minister to her post. This is one of her early baptisms in the world of online safety and it will be the precursor, I suspect, to many more. I suspect that she will be on a fairly steep learning curve, and I wish her well.

Many people have spoken about the perception that many of us have that we thought we were being very explicit about our hopes and ambitions for the Online Safety Bill as it went through Parliament—with, in particular, a huge amount of time in this House. If she has not yet been able to, I suggest that the Minister could benefit from sitting down over a suitable libation with the noble Lords, Lord Parkinson and Lord Clement-Jones, the noble Viscounts, Lord Camrose and Lord Colville, the noble Baronesses, Lady Harding and Lady Kidron, and others to understand what we thought we were being very clear about in terms of Parliament’s expectations when this Act passed and what we are now experiencing in terms of its enactment. That would be really helpful in understanding where we are coming from when we repeatedly raise some of these issues. That really comes under the heading of an insufficiency of ambition and of clarity of understanding about what it was that we thought we were being very clear about.

There is a failure of process in certain areas. I will not go into great detail, but the fact that smaller, high-risk sites are, to a large extent, excluded is madness. It is exactly on some of those smaller, high-risk sites where you have incidents of people being encouraged to self-harm, of people being encouraged to end their lives and of radicalisation. That is going on in plain sight. At the moment, Ofcom does not appear to feel that it has enough resources to do anything about it. I am also not sure that it feels it is entirely clear, under the auspices of the Act, whether this should indeed be a priority for it.

There are also structural flaws: the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, mentioned the safe harbour. There are three key questions that I will pose to the Minister— I do not expect her to be able to give a magic answer at the Dispatch Box—to really focus on trying to get an understanding of what is going on and some answers. I am sure she will be asked some of these questions in the future.

The first is: does Ofcom have sufficient resources and knowledge at its disposal to do what we very clearly intended it to do in the Act? Given the evidence at the moment of what it is able to do, I am not sure the resources are adequate. If the resources are adequate, they are not being tactically and strategically deployed in the best way to achieve what we were trying to do.

The second point was referred to briefly. We tried very hard, during the passage of the Act, to try to find a place for parents to go. If, under the terms of the Act, they are meant to go to the platform with which they have a problem—perhaps their child was harmed or, God forbid, even died—and the platform is unable to satisfy them and give them an adequate response, they have nowhere to go. We talked about that at length during the passage of the Act, and it is still the case. I do not think, in all conscience, that is adequate or appropriate. I encourage the Government to look carefully at that and how it might be mitigated. Talking to people such as Ian Russell and the Molly Rose Foundation would be a very good way of understanding what those families, who are not getting an adequate response, are going through and will continue to go through.

The third area is the level of scrutiny that the Act is undergoing. We fought in vain to encourage the then Government to agree to set up a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament to scrutinise the Online Safety Act on a continuing basis; to establish a dialogue with Ofcom in a direct and relatively open way, but also for it to be possible to do it, if needs be, more discreetly, away from the limelight and publicity; to try to understand some of the issues and problems that Ofcom may be having; and to see how we can help, rather than being slightly outside it, as it is currently constructed. I do not feel comfortable being critical of Ofcom without necessarily being in full receipt of the facts and understanding what is really going on inside. I think all those of us involved in the passage of the Act would like to help Ofcom do its job, not castigate it for not doing what we think it should have done. Trying to see whether there is a way in which we can have a more regular dialogue between Parliament and Ofcom, for each to understand where the other is coming from and to be better informed, would be a good step forward.

The day before yesterday, in our Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, we had yet another statutory instrument on online safety, in this case from the Home Office. Again, I am afraid it was slightly disappointing news. This statutory instrument has a particularly catchy title. It is called the Online Safety (CSEA Content Reporting by Regulated User-to-User Service Providers) (Revocation) Regulations. For those at the Dispatch Box, it is Statutory Instrument 2025 No. 1066, like the Battle of Hastings. In this case, an online portal to enable all reports of child sexual exploitation and abuse to be aggregated in one place was meant to go live, I think, next month. For reasons probably to do with poor design and project planning, it will not go live. It is effectively having to be rebuilt and will hopefully go online, if it works, at some point in the spring. We will publish our report and noble Lords will be able to read it and see that the committee was not exactly happy. In this case, the Home Office provided an inadequate Explanatory Memorandum and has agreed to go back and do a better job. I can see the chair of our committee sitting behind the Minister; he will be well aware of that.

In conclusion, I think the status quo is untenable. Until and unless the group of us who were particularly closely involved in the passage of the Act are more confident that the victims who are suffering in the online world, particularly children, are better protected—until we feel that their concerns and experiences are being responded to more robustly, succinctly and accurately—we will continue to keep on raising this issue again and again.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise: I came to listen to this debate from the steps of the throne, but the more I listened, the more I thought I would make a very short contribution. I join others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for his Motion. The noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Watson, and others in the House, will know that, as part of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and I and others have introduced a number of amendments that are relevant to our debate today. One would raise the age of access to social media for children from 13 to 15. Another would prohibit the use of VPNs by children. A third would ban the use of smartphones in schools during the school day.

The Department for Education and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Malvern, in their rejection of our proposed amendments in Committee, cited as reasons for waiting the lack of convincing evidence and the fact that these codes were going to be implemented, and said it was premature to act. I hope there is some way of making sure that the noble Baroness is briefed on today’s debate, because I think she might feel, if she listened to some of the comments around the House, somewhat less reassured. She would also have been less reassured if she had been present earlier this week at the round table we hosted, across parties and with Cross-Bench support, which took evidence from medical experts including the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, academic experts and safeguarding experts. What we heard was deeply troubling.

The Minister may be aware that there are a number of ongoing campaigns about aspects of this and the way in which social media has led to tragic deaths of children. The noble Lord, Lord Russell, referred to Ian Russell and his daughter Molly, but Esther Ghey, mother of Brianna Ghey, and Ellen Roome, mother of Jools, also lost their children tragically as a result of their involvement with social media. This is an opportunity for the Government to be on the right side of history. All the evidence seems to be going in one direction and one direction only in terms of harm to children. If there is ever a time to adopt the precautionary principle, surely this is it.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, began with an apology and I must do the same, because I did not leave my office soon enough and I missed the first few paragraphs of the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, to whom I personally apologise, and I apologise to the House in general for that. As the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said, I am the chair of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, but I speak today in an entirely personal capacity.

The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has actually left very little to say—so I will say very little. I certainly agreed with the important points he highlighted and went into in some detail. The gaps remaining in those codes are a genuine concern. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and Ofcom have pointed to the fact that they are simply the first iteration. That may well be the case, but both will need to ensure that any shortcomings that emerge are addressed at the earliest opportunity, and I hope it may be possible for my noble friend, whom I welcome to her post on the Front Bench, to offer an assurance that the necessary legislative changes that result from the shortcomings will be implemented as a matter of priority. Anything else would be entirely inappropriate, and indeed perhaps even unforgivable.

13:00

I have been critical of Ofcom in the past and I remain unconvinced that it has shown the necessary urgency, given the speed at which we all know that online platforms develop their content. In Ofcom’s defence, I am not sure that it has the adequate resources to make sure that these codes and the ones that will follow are adequately implemented. I question whether they have—or will have—enough staff with the appropriate expertise, given the way the platforms are developing, to carry out the responsibilities stemming from the Online Safety Act, and in particular these codes.

Finally, I have a word to say about the complaints process. There are questions around the practicality of expecting children to complain to a service provider in situations where they come into contact with harmful content. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, highlighted the difference between a 13 year-old and a 17 year-old. They are both children, but they are obviously significantly different in terms of their development and ability to deal with what they see as harmful content. Can my noble friend the Minister say what would happen in situations where complaints from children are rejected by service providers, and what happens thereafter?

In a world where we increasingly rely on technology as part of our day-to-day lives, ensuring that children are safe when they are online is of paramount importance and should be a key priority. Successive Governments have, I acknowledge, moved to effectively tackle this issue and protect children from harmful online activity, but I do not think any of us can get away from the speed of development. As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said, there are many issues that need to be addressed in order to ensure that the draft codes of practice operate in an effective manner. That is the least we should be seeking in protecting young people from the risks to their safety online.

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

My Lords, not much we debate in your Lordships’ House unites us so thoroughly as our shared recognition that children must be protected from harmful online content and behaviours. I am delighted that we are as one when it comes to the importance of shielding young people from extreme pornography, content promoting self-harm or suicide, or other serious risks.

This makes it all the more important to scrutinise how the Government and Ofcom have chosen to implement these protections. The role of the draft codes of practice, laid in April this year and brought into effect in July, is to translate Parliament’s intentions into practical rules for service providers. As the noble Lord, Lord Russell, set out so clearly, there are some serious concerns about whether these codes are achieving their stated objectives, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for bringing this important Motion to the House today and for giving us the chance to air our views.

There is some evidence that the codes are being applied in a way that risks overreach and unintended consequences. Some platforms, such as X and Reddit, in attempting to comply, blocked wide-ranging content, including parliamentary debates on grooming gangs and posts relating to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Several experts have warned that such overapplication risks stifling legitimate public debate. It has even been suggested that some platforms deliberately overapply some rules as a way to influence government towards weakening them.

The Act was always designed to respect freedom of expression—political and otherwise—while protecting internet users, especially children, from harm. The Government’s own guidance confirms this, but clearly the practical effect has not always to date reflected that intent.

There also exist concerns about the complexity and accessibility of the codes. Platforms, parents and of course children themselves in some instances may struggle to understand what duties are required and how to enforce them. The guidance is hundreds of pages long and, while Ofcom has issued advice on risk assessments and age-verification measures, there is a real danger that the practical realities of compliance, particularly for smaller providers, leave gaps in protection. Complexity should not become a barrier to the very protections these codes are meant to provide.

We have also been discussing the iterative approach taken by Ofcom. Presenting the codes as a first step, to be refined over time, is in principle essential, for two reasons. The first is that, as we know, this is a pioneering piece of legislation and we must remain open to adapting it. The second is that I am afraid that the people we are up against are inventive users of fast-moving technology.

However, the iterative approach is also clearly creating uncertainty. Civil society organisations have reported that their concerns were not fully addressed during consultation. Children face immediate risks and it is imperative that the Government ensure that these gaps are closed without delay. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, cited the statistic that a young life aged between 10 and 19 is lost to suicide every week where technology has been a factor. The codes should not act or be viewed as a ceiling for safety standards. Rather, they must set a floor for safety standards and be subject to firm and measurable enforcement.

Enforcement and proportionality are, of course, critical. The Act grants Ofcom significant powers, including fines, criminal liability and restrictions on financial and commercial arrangements. Yet there are practical challenges to ensuring that these powers are applied in a proportionate and evidence-based way. The critical challenge facing the Government as they operate the Act’s machinery is to protect children while avoiding excessive interference with legitimate content and adult access to lawful material.

All that said, we on these Benches do have questions over the Government’s handling of these codes. Our purpose is to challenge the Government to deliver children’s online safety effectively and proportionately. While I welcome the Minister to her place and wish her the very best for her very important role, particularly in this respect, I ask her for some greater clarity, if she is able to provide it, on three strands of Ofcom’s work. First, how will Ofcom monitor implementation by platforms? Secondly, how will it ensure that civil society is genuinely incorporated, and of course that consultees recognise that they have been listened to? Thirdly, how will it address current gaps in coverage without delay?

I am delighted to be participating in this important debate and to have the opportunity to seek these assurances from the Government. We must see rapid action to ensure that the codes protect children in practice, do not inadvertently suppress legitimate debate, and are accessible and enforceable in the real world. I support the scrutiny behind this regret Motion and hope that, when the Minister rises, she will provide answers that reassure us all that the protection of children online is being delivered with both effectiveness and proportionality.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Department for Science, Information and Technology (Baroness Lloyd of Effra) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their valuable contributions today, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for initiating the debate. I absolutely acknowledge the huge expertise in the Room today. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for his suggestion of further discussions with individual Members.

I found reading the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s report an excellent basis for this discussion. That committee plays a very important role, as do other committees, such as the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee and the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee. The role of ongoing scrutiny by all these bodies is absolutely essential. On the matter of the specific committee that the noble Lord, Lord Russell, mentioned, it would be for the House to decide whether that would be set up to monitor this legislation and the codes.

As others have mentioned, we are working closely with Ofcom to monitor the effectiveness of the Online Safety Act. While the early signs are encouraging, the true test will be whether adults and children are having a safer online experience. Ofcom has put in place a robust monitoring and evaluation program, tracking changes firms are making in response to regulation, gathering data from the supervised services and commissioning research to measure impact. Some of that research has been mentioned in the course of the debate. It is quite extensive and provides a lot of information to civil society organisations, Members of this House and others.

What binds us together is the determination to do everything we need to do to keep children safe online, as built on the evidence. That is a priority. The previous Secretary of State, in issuing his statement of strategic priorities, made it clear that the first priority was safety by design. That builds on the safety by design measures within the codes, such as the safer design of algorithms to filter out harmful content from children’s feeds. On 25 July, Ofcom published its statement, setting out what it proposes to do in consequence of that statement of strategic priorities. Under the Act, it must publish further annual reviews of what action it has taken as a result of the statement of strategic priorities, including on safety by design.

We have taken action to strengthen the regulatory framework by making further offences priority offences under the Online Safety Act, reflecting the most serious and prevalent illegal content and online activity—for example, laying an SI to make cyberflashing, encouraging self-harm and the sharing of intimate images without consent priority offences under the Act.

Others have mentioned the importance of basing our decisions on good evidence of what is happening. Recognising that further research was required to improve the evidence base, the Government have commissioned a feasibility study to explore the impact of smartphones and social media use on children.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

On the point about evidence, I am absolutely not an expert in this but the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, definitely is. I think it would be a very good use of the Minister’s time to meet with her. She described a situation where the research that is being done is at a population level, where changes and attribution will be difficult to discern. I understood the noble Baroness to be making the case that—I do not want to misrepresent her—what clinicians are seeing has a lot of parallels with her review of the Tavistock. On the one hand, you wait for great population-level surveys, but you need to act on what is being seen. It is important that the Government look at both.

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that suggestion. I would be very happy to speak with the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, and leverage her experience in drawing up the right models of evidence-gathering and research.

To come back to the core of some of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and others were making about the implementation of the Act through the codes, Ofcom has met the 18-month statutory timeline that was set by Parliament to finalise the guidance and codes of practice relating to illegal harms and the protection of children. The illegal content safety duties came into force in March this year, meaning that all companies in scope will need to protect all users, including children, from illegal content and criminal behaviour on their services. On 24 April this year, Ofcom submitted to the Secretary of State the final draft protection codes of conduct. That regime came into force on 25 July, following parliamentary scrutiny.

13:15

The protection of children codes are a significant step forward, with the largest social media companies having to keep children safe online by law. This means that services are required to implement age checks to stop children being exposed to the most harmful content, such as pornography and content that promotes, encourages or provides instructions for eating disorders, suicide or self-harm. Services must implement age-appropriate measures to protect children from other types of harmful content, including abusive or hateful material, bullying content and content that depicts serious violence or injury. Additionally, services are now required by law to design algorithms in ways that will protect children from being served harmful content.

I will address the question that the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, raised about age limits. As she knows, probably more so than anyone, providers have age restrictions, and these are part of their terms of service. That is something that Ofcom and others will be looking at carefully in their supervisory procedures. Providers can therefore be held to account for everything they say is in their terms of service.

I come to the question about consultation with civil society and others on the codes. In line with the statutory duties, Ofcom consulted widely on the proposals and has spoken to or heard from over 100 child safety organisations, including the Children’s Commissioners and civil society organisations, some of which have been mentioned here today. Ofcom heard from over 27,000 children and 13,000 parents when undertaking its research and conducted in-depth engagement with around 100 children across the UK during its consultation. This research and engagement identified additional ways to strengthen the codes, and that has fed into the first iteration of the codes.

In April 2025, Ofcom published a statement documenting its research and the consultation responses. This statement explains how the draft codes were changed to reflect feedback from civil society stake-holders—examples include changing the recommended system measures to provide stronger protections for children and strengthening the expectation for providers to consider children’s ages.

Noble Lords raised issues around potential regulatory gaps. It is important to note that, for the first time, the industry cannot decline to take steps to protect children because it is too expensive or inconvenient. Protecting children is a priority, and we can see this in the codes. As others have mentioned, Ofcom has taken an iterative approach to the codes. This was to ensure that the initial codes were put in place to protect children as soon as possible and to meet the 18-month statutory deadline.

Since the summer, 6,000 services have already implemented effective age assurance to prevent children seeing harmful content online. We see the codes as the foundation, not the limit, when it comes to children’s online safety. Ofcom has always made it clear that additional measures would be required to build safer online experiences for children, and it is now working to strengthen future codes on online harms technology as the evidence base evolves.

The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, mentioned live-streaming. On 13 June, the regulator announced a consultation on additional measures for the codes, which included measures on live-streaming, tackling intimate image abuse through hash matching and additional steps to ensure services are safer by design. These measures aim to stop illegal content going viral, tackling harms at source and providing further protections to children online.

Many in the House also raised monitoring and evaluation, and how successful the Online Safety Act and the codes will be in protecting children. Ofcom will continue to monitor the implementation of the codes’ measures to identify gaps in protections and the risk assessment process for platforms. It also gathers evidence through research and intelligence activity, and through engagement with civil society. It also regularly publishes its own research into online harms and relevant reports. Ofcom has the flexibility to establish other mechanisms for conducting research about users’ experiences. Examples include working with the Children’s Commissioner to establish a panel of children who regularly feed back on their online experiences and how they are changing.

The process of monitoring and research will identify areas for future consultation with stakeholders. In doing so, Ofcom is fulfilling its duties to ensure that the codes of practice are compatible with the pursuit of online safety objectives outlined in the Act, evaluating the codes and keeping them under review. It has also stated that this dynamic regulatory approach is an example of how it intends to fulfil the Government’s strategic priority of agile regulation and the need for monitoring, risk-assessing and mitigating new online harms. As the noble Viscount, Lord Camrose, said, this is intended to strike the right balance. In parallel, the Government and Ofcom are actively monitoring the regime’s impact through a programme of evaluation work, with findings feeding into the Secretary of State’s statutory post-implementation review of the effectiveness of the Act. This review must take place two to five years after the legislation comes into force.

Noble Lords also raised concerns about the ease with which services are able to access and understand Ofcom’s guidance and codes. The Act requires that measures within the codes are clear and detailed. That is why Ofcom has made a significant effort to produce accessible materials alongside the codes in order to make compliance more effective. Examples include a digital safety toolbox that supports small and medium-sized services to comply with the codes. It has also made efforts to make the codes accessible to parents and children by publishing versions of the codes at a glance for parents in age-appropriate videos. These efforts to raise awareness of the codes reflect Ofcom’s regard for the Government’s strategic priority of inclusivity and resilience—in particular, the need for parents, carers and children to understand the risks and be supported to stay safe against online harm. To the point raised about media literacy by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, the draft curriculum review raised the issue of media literacy; in due course, the response will be published by the Government.

Ofcom has built on these engagement efforts by engaging directly with different groups of stakeholders, including webinars delivered to 187 organisations and over 400 meetings with providers, providing further support to help with compliance. The Government are not saying that the codes are perfect or that more does not need to be done, but the child safety and illegal content codes are a really positive step forward.

I turn to some other points raised in the debate. On the complaints procedure under the Online Safety Act, services likely to be accessed by children have a duty to implement processes that allow parents or children to easily report harmful content that is present in parts of the service that children can access. That is something that Ofcom will look at in its supervisory activities.

Many have mentioned Ofcom’s importance and the resources that it has available to it. The resources available to Ofcom have increased significantly in the area of online safety to a projected £92 million in 2025-26, which is an uplift on previous years—something that the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and my noble friend Lord Watson of Invergowrie highlighted in the debate.

Regarding what some regard as safe harbour, which other noble Lords mentioned, we believe it would not be desirable or effective to remove aspects of the framework that require Ofcom to publish pre-emptive guidance about how far providers need to go to fulfil their duties. That would be likely to create an uncertain and unclear operating environment, reducing legal certainty for services, Ofcom and users. It could also lead to more legal challenges and obstacles to delivering the vital safety benefits that this legislation provides.

A number of noble Lords mentioned the fast-growing technological advances, in particular AI. Ofcom published an open letter to all service providers in November 2024 outlining the scope and expectations of those services to protect children online. We are seeing some activity as a result, with one service reducing services for children as a result.

On virtual private networks, the Government will continue to monitor the use of circumvention techniques, including VPNs, and any future interventions will be informed by the evidence. At the moment, there is limited evidence on children’s use of VPNs, and the Government are looking at ways of addressing this evidence gap. There are no current plans to ban the use of VPNs, as there are legitimate reasons for using them. The initial findings indicate that age verification is being implemented effectively. The Age Verification Providers Association reported that an additional 5 million age checks were conducted daily during the first few days after the child safety duties came into effect. If a provider was not complying with its duties by promoting or encouraging VPN usage to bypass age-assurance methods, Ofcom could apply any of its enforcement powers.

To address the question of small and low-risk services, it is important that we think about the risk here. Ofcom has the statutory duty to have regard to the principles of proportionality. With many services carrying a low risk of harm, the risk assessment duties that apply to all services are key to ensure that risky services of all sizes do not slip through the net of regulation.

I will make my final remarks. The protection of children codes mark a positive shift in how children will experience the online world. Ofcom’s enforcement programme has already resulted in investigations into companies responsible for 69 services. In response to one of these investigations, a prominent suicide discussion forum has chosen to restrict access to UK users. However, I repeat that these codes are a starting point. Ofcom’s recent consultations on additional measures to strengthen both the illegal harms code of practice and the protection of children code of practice show that the regulator is committed to strengthen these codes as new harms emerge. The Government have made it clear that nothing is off the table when it comes to keeping children safe, and we will continue to monitor and assess the effectiveness of the Online Safety Act in robustly protecting children online.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response and add my welcome to her to the Front Bench: you cannot have enough south Londoners on the Front Bench. I also thank her very much for the serious and comprehensive way in which she answered many of the points raised—and, indeed, some of the points that we did not raise—during the debate.

There is an essential issue running all the way through most of the speeches, which is this question of oversight and scrutiny. I very much hope the Minister will take a leaf out of her predecessor’s book—the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, who I am glad to see is also on the Benches today—in engaging with those Members across the House who have strong views about online safety, who helped take the Bill through, and who genuinely want to see Ofcom succeed in regulating social media platforms. It is not just about formal engagement through the SLSC or other mechanisms, valuable though that is; it is important that we get to grips with a lot of the new information in what she had to say, which I thought was extremely helpful.

13:30

The Minister may well have read the letter that was sent to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, on 21 May from the chairs of two Select Committees, Chi Onwurah MP and the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, complaining about the scrutiny process. This is powerful stuff coming from the chairs of two Select Committees. We really have to find a better way of doing it, particularly in this implementation period of the Online Safety Act, which so many of us helped to get on the statute books. We cannot just rely on regret Motions. This is my second regret Motion, and I do not want to be in a position of laying a regret Motion about the SI that the noble Lord, Lord Russell, mentioned, and to keep doing this on a continual basis.

It was good to hear that resources are available. The fact that further research is being carried out by the department is helpful, and no doubt will be helpful through the passage of the children’s Bill. The issue of safety by design is not going to go away. The Minister was reassuring to some extent, but I am not convinced that we have yet got it absolutely as explicit as we should. For instance, we heard—I think when we had the categorisation debate—that addiction is not covered sufficiciently in the Act as a harm for children, so there are gaps. Does that require amendment of the existing Act? Is Ofcom’s interpretation of the existing Act correct? There are a number of issues there. Are we going far enough and fast enough with the existing Act, or do we need already to start thinking about changing it?

I welcome what the Minister said about evaluating the work and that this is a foundation and not a limit. Her response merits careful consideration, and I dare say many of us will want to come back to her and have further discussions about some of the detail in due course. I thank her for taking this debate seriously—the first of many, I am sure—and I very much welcome the approach she has taken. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.

Extradition Act 2003 (Amendment to Designations) Order 2025

Thursday 30th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Motion to Approve

13:33

Moved by

[Lord Hanson of Flint]

That the draft Order laid before the House on 17 July be approved.

Relevant document: 34th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument).

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

My Lords, we live in an increasingly interconnected world, where crime knows no borders. International co-operation should be promoting justice and we should be helping to try to keep the public safe. That is really important to do. Accordingly, the instrument I bring before your Lordships’ House today will enhance our extradition arrangements and bring compatibility between our domestic and international legal frameworks governing extradition co-operation. The order was welcomed in the House of Commons earlier this month, where all sides of the House were able to support it. I welcome the chance today to probe some issues, following the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.

I start by explaining a bit more about what these changes mean. The order amends the designation under the Extradition Act of three states: Chile, Hong Kong and Zimbabwe. I will take each in turn, starting with Chile. Chile’s designation is required as it recently acceded to the 1957 European Convention on Extradition, something that the UK has been a long-standing supporter of. In the light of this change, it is appropriate and necessary that Chile’s designation be amended from a Part 2, category B territory to a Part 2, category A territory. That change means, in effect, that Chilean extradition requests will no longer require the provision of prima facie evidence, streamlining co-operations to reflect the underlying international legal framework that is now in place.

It is worth reflecting that this designation is not simply a matter of administrative convenience. It is a recognition of Chile’s commitment to international legal standards and a reaffirmation of our own dedication to maintaining robust and principled extradition agreements. It will enhance the efficiency of judicial co-operation, reduce unnecessary delays and ensure justice can be pursued swiftly and fairly.

I turn to Hong Kong and its de-designation. As Members will be aware, the UK suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong in July 2020. This move was taken in response to the imposition of national security legislation by the Chinese authorities—legislation which was and remains wholly incompatible with the principles underpinning our extradition framework and the rule of law. Since the suspension, there has been no formal treaty framework in place to underpin extradition co-operation with Hong Kong. The order before your Lordships’ House today formalises this reality, removing Hong Kong’s designation under the Act, thereby aligning its status with that of other non-treaty jurisdictions.

I want to be crystal clear about the impact of this legislation, because this goes to the nub of what the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has brought before the House today. For the avoidance of any doubt, it does not reinstate extradition co-operation between the UK and Hong Kong. It does not create any new powers for government. It does not change any powers of the UK courts to consider extradition requests.

I am aware, obviously, of concerns raised regarding the safety of pro-democracy activists and critics of the Chinese Government who sought refuge in the United Kingdom. I assure your Lordships that we take our responsibilities towards those potentially at risk of persecution extremely seriously, and that our courts remain independent and vigilant in upholding the rights and freedoms of all individuals. This de-designation is a necessary step to accurately reflect the international legal position in domestic law. It protects the integrity of our extradition process and safeguards the rights of those Hong Kongers in the UK who fled political repression. I hope that the noble Baroness will reflect on that explanation. My point is that it does not change where we are.

Finally, I turn to Zimbabwe, which the order de-designates. Zimbabwe was originally designated as a Part 2, category B territory on the basis of its participation in the London scheme for extradition within the Commonwealth, which is a multilateral treaty arrangement that underpins co-operation among Commonwealth nations. However, as Members will know, Zimbabwe withdrew formally from the Commonwealth in 2003. As such, the legal foundation for its designation under the Act has since ceased to exist. De-designation now, therefore, is not a reflection of any change in our diplomatic position, but rather a necessary legal correction, given that the current designation is incompatible with the UK’s domestic legal framework and international obligations.

Zimbabwe’s continued designation, if I can be frank with the House, was an oversight which has spanned multiple Governments, and which we are today putting right with this order. More broadly, the issue highlights the potential for a country to remain listed under Part 2, despite the underlying treaty or arrangement no longer being in force. I therefore confirm to the House that measures have now been put in place to strengthen co-ordination between policy, legal and operational teams to ensure that designation status accurately reflects the relevant frameworks in a timely manner, which it did not in the case of Zimbabwe.

To conclude, extradition is a vital tool in our fight against cross-border crime. Offenders should not escape justice by crossing borders. This order ensures that our system remains principled, effective and fit for purpose. I look forward to listening to the noble Baroness, but at this time I commend the order to the House.

Amendment to the Motion

Moved by

[Baroness Brinton]

At end insert “but that this House regrets that the Order makes changes to the extradition arrangements with Hong Kong at a time when a fair trial can no longer be guaranteed in Hong Kong due to the National Security Law; further regrets that the Government did not carry out a full consultation, preventing those who will be affected from expressing their views; and in the light of the special responsibilities of the United Kingdom to Hong Kong, calls on the Government to set out robust protections to ensure that no Hong Kongers are extradited for politically motivated purposes.”

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for meeting me to discuss this statutory instrument and my concerns, which are outlined in my amendment to the Motion before your Lordships’ House. As it makes clear, my concerns extend to only one of the three countries specified in the SI—Hong Kong—because of its specific and different status.

The reason for my concerns is that most of the Hong Kongers in the UK are holders of a British national (overseas) passport—an arrangement made after the UK’s 100-year lease of Hong Kong expired in 1997. The UK Government then made BNO arrangements for the people of Hong Kong to confirm the special status and relationship they had for over a century, when they were ruled by the British and felt British. Most importantly, these days they feel that they have a stronger tie to the UK than to China.

In 1997, many Hong Kongers felt that they were being deserted by the UK Government. At the time, the noble Lord, Lord Patten, my former colleague Lord Ashdown and many others said that we must, as a nation, recognise our responsibilities. In the House of Lords we continue to hold successive Governments to this standard.

We are told that the SI in front of us aims to correct an irregularity in relation to the arrangements for extraditing a Hong Konger at the request of China, which have been in place since 2020. As the Minister outlined, Hong Kong is designated under category 2 in Part 2 of the Extradition Act 2003, which requires prima facie evidence to the UK judicial system. In the past, Hong Kong was designated under the UK-Hong Kong extradition treaty of 1997. However, this was suspended in 2020 following the imposition by China of national security legislation containing provisions that, as the Minister said, were incompatible with the treaty. I will put it more bluntly: a fair trial in Hong Kong can no longer be guaranteed.

China’s treatment of those who disagree with it remains completely incompatible with that treaty. Protesters are repeatedly imprisoned, and prisoners who are British, such as Jimmy Lai, are treated very badly and not to a standard that our extradition processes would ever want to support. That is why Hong Kong was given a blanket “no extradition” in 1997.

The Minister says—and I hear him—that there are protections under the new proposals in this SI to look at cases on a case-by-case basis. This means that the Chinese Government could try to call for the extradition of Hong Kongers who may have both British and Chinese nationality.

The other point in relation to Hong Kongers living in the UK is that, in the last few years, there have been many reports to the police of China’s inappropriate behaviour through its agents in the UK. This includes mainland Chinese students physically attacking Hong Kongers in the streets; Hong Kongers having to move house because of threats from China; and Hong Kongers not using social media because China will use that to harass and intimidate them. This is the behaviour of a country that might try to submit extradition demands purely to get at Hong Kongers with BNO passports whom it might wish to pressure further.

I am very grateful to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, whose 34th report, published on 11 September, quoted Hugo Keith KC stating that

“it looks like the government is seeking to reverse, through a sleight of hand, the practical consequences of suspending the [UK-Hong Kong] treaty”.

In that same report, the Government responded by saying that much of that reporting is false. I am grateful for the Minister explaining earlier why he believes that to be the case, but there has been no direct explanation to our Hong Konger community here in the UK. Those people need to understand why China might not behave in the way that I have outlined and why the change in designation will give them the full protection that they need.

As I understand it, the argument runs that protection is there for extradition on a case-by-case basis, but how can that protect targeted individuals if the application itself is spurious? Once commenced, a request for extradition would cause significant anxiety to the individual concerned and their family, both here and in Hong Kong, not to mention incurring legal costs, none of which would have happened under the blanket refusal that we had before. Is it worth moving to this case-by-case basis when Foreign Office Ministers repeatedly call out China for its egregious treatment of those who disagree with it—not just Hong Kong?

In paragraph 10 of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee report, the Home Office noted that this brings Hong Kong into line with other non-treaty partners under the Extradition Act 2003. Can the Minister tell your Lordships’ House how many other countries with non-treaty partners have residents with British or British national (overseas) passports, because of our historic responsibility for them for well over 100 years?

13:45

In paragraph 12 of the SLSC report, the Government say that they

“can neither confirm nor deny that an extradition request has been made or received until an individual is arrested”.

Will their denial/non-denial process continue to happen in the future? I ask this because Hong Kongers need to know if they are being targeted. What arrangements will the Government make to inform them as a community?

I also note that there was no impact assessment published on this SI when the SI was published. That matters a great deal for those who are concerned about their protection. Is the Minister planning to remedy this?

Finally, the Government’s Explanatory Memorandum to the SI says that they consulted widely with those involved in the process:

“This included discussions with the Devolved Administrations, law enforcement partners and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office”.

Unfortunately, there was absolutely zero consultation with the Hong Konger community, whose members have been very surprised by that.

I repeat my request to the Minister that he meet with me, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and a very small group of Hong Kongers, so that they can listen to the robust protections that the Minister has said need to be in place to keep them safe and so that they know that the Government will continue to support them if they are targeted by China in the UK. For them, this is not a matter of a dry and legal structure but a matter of safety, freedom and even life and death. I beg to move.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for their contributions. While we on this side do not believe a regret amendment is necessary, I thank her for bringing to light the plight of Hong Kongers. As has already been mentioned, the case of Jimmy Lai ever serves as a reminder of how people’s freedoms continue to be curtailed.

The removal of Zimbabwe from the Extradition Act 2003 (Designation of Part 2 Territories) Order 2003 is certainly not controversial. It unfortunately left the Commonwealth in 2003, and as such has not been party to the London scheme for extradition in the Commonwealth since that date. As the Minister has already quite correctly mentioned, the fact that Zimbabwe has not since been de-designated represents nothing more than an oversight, and it is right that the Government are correcting that. Similarly, it is welcome that the Government are designating Chile in this order, following their accession to the 1957 extradition convention.

The final change—the change targeted in the Liberal Democrats’ regret amendment—is the removal of Hong Kong from Article 2 of the 2003 order. This reflects the fact that we suspended our extradition treaty with Hong Kong in 2020 following the national security law and the crackdown on pro-democracy activists by the authoritarian communist regime in China. Since the treaty is suspended, there is currently no formal framework for extradition between the UK and Hong Kong, and that is right: we should not be under an obligation to extradite anyone to a state with the kind of repressive laws we now see in place in Hong Kong. The removal of the designation does not represent any change in our policy, therefore; it simply formalises the position that there is now no extradition treaty in force between the UK and Hong Kong. I completely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that the rights of Hong Kongers must be protected, but I do not believe this draft order will do anything to detriment them. They will not be at any more risk of extradition than before.

I have one question for the Minister. Give that Hong Kong will now be treated the same as all other non-treaty states under the Extradition Act, requests will be made and assessed on a case-by-case basis. I am grateful for the Minister’s comments in his opening remarks, but I ask again: can the Government absolutely assure the House that they will not co-operate with the authorities in Hong Kong regarding the extradition of Hong Kongers, so that we are never complicit in the subjugation of Hong Kongers by the Chinese Communist Party?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the very broad support that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, has given for the order. Essentially, the speakers today have agreed that the measures regarding Zimbabwe and Chile are necessary, right and proper; the only queries we have had relate to Hong Kong, so I will park Chile and Zimbabwe and concentrate precisely on Hong Kong in winding up.

I hope I have given the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, a very clear assurance in my opening remarks, but, for the avoidance of doubt, this instrument does not place any new obligations on the UK Government to seek extradition from these countries or, indeed, to accept extradition from them, particularly in relation to Hong Kong. It also does not change any of the powers available to the UK courts to consider any extradition request on its individual merits; it does not impact on the power of UK judges to bar extradition; and, particularly in relation to Hong Kong, it does not revive the suspended treaty, and nor does it create any new powers. On the contrary, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, recognised, it formally recognises the suspension by removing Hong Kong’s designation under the Extradition Act 2003.

On the specific question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis. I cannot guarantee that no extradition will ever take place, for the reasons we have said, but it will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis and will not be automatic. We remain steadfast in our commitment to protecting those who have sought refuge here; importantly, no individual will be extradited where there is a risk of persecution. I hope that satisfies the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.

The British national (overseas) route for Hong Kongers is a historic and moral commitment. Those with BNO status and their eligible family members can apply to come to the UK. Since that route has opened, close to 225,000 visas have been granted to Hong Kongers.

I hope that today’s debate and the comments I have made give reassurance. If I may, I will take away the detailed questions the noble Baroness has asked, but I hope that that is a general reassurance. I will also look at what we can do over and above this debate to ensure that we give notice of the impact of all three orders, so that that is widely known by those who may be impacted, and that some reassurance is given.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

I thank the Minister for giving way, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, very much for describing things so well. Notwithstanding all the assurances the Minister is giving, is there not still a danger that the People’s Republic of China can put pressure on the UK Government for extraditions, through trade diplomacy or elsewhere, and that we have no way of knowing or checking what the evidence is?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

As I have said, we are regularising the situation with the legislation before the House today. The position is that there can be case-by-case basis issues, but I have been very clear that the UK Government will act against persecution and that we recognise the rights of Hong Kongers, including in the United Kingdom, to enjoy and live a fruitful and free life without persecution.

I hope that that gives the noble Baroness assurance, but she will understand that, obviously, I cannot give a complete 100% assurance on all occasions, because there may be cases where extradition for both parties is the right thing to do. It is on a case-by-case basis, not an automatic decision, and it will be dealt with on a judicial basis as well.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has asked me again whether I will meet with her and with the noble Lord, Lord Alton—to whom I again send my best wishes for a speedy recovery—and I will happily do that and meet with a small representative group. If I personally cannot do it, I will make sure that another Minister in the department does so, because we have the immigration Bill, the Crime and Policing Bill and several others in November. If there is a need for a speedy meeting, we will arrange for a Minister in the Home Office to meet with the noble Baroness.

With those comments, I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw her regret amendment and that the House will agree the order, which I believe is sensible and proportionate.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all the speakers. I thank the Minister for repeating the strong, hard processes that he believes are in place to protect Hong Kongers. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, for agreeing that Hong Kongers need very specific protection, and for the question on whether the UK would entertain or support an application from China for extradition; the Minister’s response on that was also helpful. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness for talking about indirect influence on the Government, which continues to remain a concern for us—as I am sure it is for the Minister as well—so I am grateful for his response.

The reason I tabled the regret amendment was about the difference between hard processes and soft power. Hong Kongers remain concerned that they will be further under threat, and I am grateful for the hard processes that the Minister has given. I am also grateful for the promise of a meeting, because I think that will help people within the community to feel that their concerns are being listened to and that they will know where to go if there is a concern about China pressing for extradition from the UK in the future. On that basis, I beg to withdraw my regret amendment.

Amendment withdrawn.

Motion agreed.

Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2025

Thursday 30th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Motion to Regret

13:56

Moved by

[The Earl of Caithness]

That this House regrets that the Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2025 increase the likelihood of wildfires in upland areas; risk the Fire and Rescue Service’s response capability; impact livelihoods, biodiversity, peatland protection, and human health and life; and fail to include a full impact assessment including on wider government priorities.

Relevant document: 38th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument)

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, for thousands of years, mankind has used fire to control vegetation. It is a sensible and practical process that also benefits nature. In this country, we tend to burn heather and grass in a prescribed manner and, if done correctly and under careful regulation, with practitioners trained in safe methods, only the vegetation and not the underlying soil is burnt.

The heather and grass burning regulations effectively mean that prescribed burning, or muirburn as we call it in Scotland, as a management tool for vegetation over some 676,000 hectares of predominantly moorland is banned in England. I believe that it will increase the likelihood of wildfires in upland areas, risk the fire and rescue services’ response capability and impact livelihoods, biodiversity, peatland protection, human health and life. No full impact assessment, including on wider government priorities, has been published.

If the vegetation is not controlled, it becomes older, woodier and denser, creating a bigger fuel load and making it more prone to intense, uncontrolled and indiscriminate wildfires, which always burn the underlying soil—if that is peat, the damage to this carbon-rich soil can be devastating. A recent study by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust and the James Hutton Institute in Scotland found that

“96 % of the total wildfire area occurred outside moorlands managed by muirburn”,

suggesting that,

“may be due to fuel load reduction following muirburns”.

The National Fire Chiefs Council, in its consultation response to these regulations, expressed concerns that restricting prescribed burning would increase

“the risk of larger, more intense wildfires”,

by limiting the ability to reduce burnable fuel loads and create fire or fuel breaks. I agree with that. Alarmingly, it also went on:

“Further restricting land managers’ ability to use prescribed burning as a wildfire prevention tool could compromise FRS preparedness and response, increasing the danger to firefighters and the public”.


No Government should increase risk in this way.

In fighting wildfires, the FRS acknowledged that the expertise of landowners, gamekeepers and farmers is almost invaluable. At the recent Langdale forest fire, it was the local gamekeepers who provided the expertise for the risky operation of back-burning the vegetation to create a fire break. Without that, the fire would probably have crossed the A169, destroying Goathland village. If prescribed burning is stopped, the FRS will lose the benefit of the vital skills, local knowledge and equipment provided by grouse-shooting estates that are so vital to them.

14:00

As Britain experiences hotter, drier summers, wildfires are increasing in numbers and severity. In the UK, climate change is driving increasingly frequent periods of fire-supportive weather, as evidenced this year. This is the new norm to which we must adapt quickly. This year, 48,000 hectares have been burned by wildfire. That is seven times the average burned between 2006 and 2024, and more than twice the area burned in 2022. On 9 October, the Scottish Government delayed similar restrictions due to their fears that they could

“adversely affect our ability to prevent and respond to wildfires”.

Sadly, this Government blunder on, ignoring constructive and scientifically based advice. I agree that the scientific evidence around prescribed burning remains contested, with short-term studies identifying some impacts. That is not unexpected, as all interventions have an impact. However, long-term studies demonstrate that these are reversed and over time a net benefit emerges for carbon storage as well as other outcomes. Either way, the assessment of prescribed burning referenced by Defra—NEER155—considers only its impact and not the impact of not burning or comparison with wildfire impacts. Ideology has replaced evidence. Sherlock Holmes said:

“It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts”.

Science research demonstrates that the mosaic of habitat types and heather ages created through vegetation management supports a wide range of biodiversity, including rare birds, plants and invertebrates. Habitat diversity with areas of short vegetation due to burning management are valued by species such as the golden plover. Many plant species in the UK are now fire adapted and benefit from it as a management tool.

Turning to air quality, the Government claim that local communities are set to benefit from improved air quality. This is a new justification for the increased restrictions on prescribed burning. What data on air quality during the legitimate heather burning season was used to support this decision? What improvements are expected in air quality with the extended ban on legitimate burning? How will extending the ban on legitimate burning protect public health? What is the public health impact of wildfire smoke outside the burning season, given that the risk of wildfires is increasing? While air quality is a key wider government objective, as with carbon emissions, the relative contribution of prescribed burning to poor air quality in comparison to wildfire is not quantified. Why not?

Atmospheric particulate matter 2.5 is a major contributor to air pollution and can lead to reduced visibility and various health issues. The Saddleworth Moor fire demonstrated that PM2.5 in excess of WHO guidelines lasted for several days, resulting in more than £20 million of extra health costs, and the lives of nearly 30 people were shortened. In contrast, prescribed burn events last a matter of hours. Furthermore, given the severity and intensity of wildfires, the resultant ash, like the smoke from burning peat, contains toxic chemicals not found in vegetation burning. The health effects of co-exposure to other pollutants are significant, according to the UK Health Security Agency.

Sadly, the Minister missed the wind-up by his fellow Minister to an earlier Motion. The noble Baroness, Lady Lloyd of Effra, was replying to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and in conclusion she said, “Nothing is off the table so far as the health of our children is concerned”. Clearly, controlled heather burning to stop wildfires is off the table, and our children are likely to suffer as a result.

The Government champion the rewetting of peatlands as a silver bullet to save them. However, most of our peatlands cannot be rewetted. Moreover, the chief executive of Natural England told me only a couple of weeks ago that she did not know how much could be rewetted. Where it is possible, both Defra and Natural England acknowledge that rewetting will take time. How valid in the long term is this policy, given that climate change is affecting the potential for consistently high water tables characteristic of healthy sphagnum peatlands?

Peat bogs require a positive water balance and are ombrotrophic—that is, they are only rain fed. More rainwater must go into the system than leaves it via either drainage or transpiration. Blocking drains built with taxpayers’ money some years ago to improve farm production has and will continue to help some peatlands, but not enough. Recent research shows that, under all UK climate projections, there will be substantial losses in areas suitable for healthy peatland in the foreseeable future. Sphagnum desiccation will increase due to drought conditions, and there will be a migration to more drought-tolerant species of vegetation. There remains the problem of wildfires, and it is surely folly to stop an appropriate management approach to mitigating this during the restoration phase.

I shall pick up some points made by the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in its 38th report. The SLSC supported concerns raised during the consultation process about the timing of the introduction of these regulatory changes. While the new rules came into force on 30 September, the day before the start of the burning season, applications can take up to 12 weeks to process, and only if an appropriate SSSI consent is in place. Even so, a new application may be needed if the original consent specifies a peat depth of 40 centimetres.

If burning on an SSSI when consent is not in place, land managers need to apply to Natural England first, a process that can take up to four months before Defra will commence the licensing process. This means that about half the statutory burning season is lost, with practical experience showing that the spring prescribed burning season is more likely to be compromised by inappropriate conditions. Defra did not see the need for interim measures, given that the new process should make applications more straightforward, thereby taking far less than 12 weeks, and given the availability of other options for managing vegetation, such as cutting. However, cutting is an operation requiring consent on an SSSI and is difficult to conduct in rocky, sloping and remote areas, so it may not be an easy alternative.

I ask the Minister, first, why these regulations were timed to cause maximum difficulties. Secondly, why was the change to the wildfire licensing ground from risk to impact not consulted on? While the SLSC accepts that there was no legal duty to do this in response to consultation feedback, it states that the absence of a legal duty should not be a blanket approach. Given the contested nature of this debate, it would have been appropriate to contact land managers and their representative organisations in advance of the announcement. I think this is just another example of the Government’s dismissive attitude towards landowners and farmers.

The SLSC also picked up on the National Fire Chiefs Council’s suggestion of a more integrated cross-government approach to wildfire prevention. Can the Minister update the House on the current wildfire framework and the outcome of the scoping exercise? Lead responsibility for wildfire has moved from the Home Office and now rests with MHCLG. However, it is on the advice of Natural England that Defra has laid these regulations, which will exacerbate the risk of wildfires. Mandating the wildfire framework would require NE to consider the impact of wildfire on the conservation status of land. I suggest it should go further, and require NE to take account of the impact and enable mitigating actions. When will this Government stop talking about not working in silos and have an integrated cross-government approach to wildfire prevention? While the Government dither, England burns.

In conclusion, I ask the Minister about liability; I notified him about this yesterday. Given that a landowner can be held liable for doing something on their land that interferes with a neighbour’s land, where does the liability rest in this case? Imagine I owned land next to the noble Lord’s, who had been instructed or followed advice by Natural England as to how to manage his land—and because of that management the fuel load increases—and I warn the noble Lord, my neighbour, of the consequences the inevitable wildfire will cause. Sure enough, imagine this happens and destroys some of my property. Who is responsible? Am I entitled to sue Natural England, under the new regulations? Should not its directors face the same consequences as those that the directors for water companies face? It is a pity these regulations have been brought forward in such a hurried state after a short consultation period, and when so much badly needed research is currently being funded to try to get more science into this particularly knotty issue.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I am pleased to support the Motion in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. There are indeed matters to regret in the manner—and especially the timing—of these regulations. I cannot claim the experience that other Members of this House doubtless have in dealing with those very large expanses of northern moorland. My experience is from decades of land management on Exmoor, in particular the matter of heather burning, by which I also include gorse, bracken and grass. I am aware of the finely balanced expertise involved in burning operations: the topographical issues, soils, ground moisture, the dwarf shrub combustibility at any given moment, burnable volume or fuel load, wind direction—often depending on which side of the hill you are—and available manpower. I pay tribute to generations not only of Exmoor farmers but of land managers in the uplands in particular, across the country. Their efforts have retained much of what the public appreciate in terms of the natural beauty. I think here particularly of heather moorland—one of the reasons why Exmoor was designated a national park in the first place.

I am also aware of the effect of regulation and the perils of swamping land manager initiative in a sea of red tape, in which timeframes for consenting matters cease to be simple or cognisant of an essentially spontaneous alignment of the factors I have just referred to. In other words, practical matters are subordinate to process.

In my experience, heather is not the invasive species that obliterates moss and bog species. Most heathers do not seem to like boggy conditions, but they do like peaty podzols, where competition from other vegetation is impeded, allowing this pioneer species to develop and thrive. It is held in that balance by the management process: a management driven by purpose, usually gainful agricultural enterprise but also sometimes for game and sporting interests.

14:15

The first metric I draw to the House’s attention is cost-benefit. It is, in nature as in economics, a very fine balance. In nature, vegetation succession is a factor we have to take into account. The balance seems dependent on Defra carrying managers with it on the journey. I am not clear that it has been successful and, from what the noble Earl has said, he does not believe it is either.

The other balancing act is risk. Here, the process seems to be in a bit of a muddle. If I read the excellent 38th report from the SLSC correctly, there seems to be an association of risk with occurrence, which of course is one aspect, but the other is significance of outcomes. Those significant outcomes are themselves a cost-benefit candidate. Taking outcomes as a metric without specifying what you mean and leaving out the risk of occurrence seems a form of risk assessment innumeracy.

Let me put it this way: if management fails such that it is not cost beneficial in terms of a third party assessment of outcomes and methods to achieve them then, while everybody twiddles their thumbs and debates it, nature will take the initiative. Vegetation succession takes over. As the noble Earl pointed out, heather gets old and woody, with heather beetle usually being one of the last stages of the process. Meanwhile, bracken and sedges take over on Exmoor. The chief problem is something called Molinia, otherwise known as purple moor grass, which forms quite dense tussocks and matted vegetation. It is palatable to livestock, but only for about two or three weeks in the late spring or early summer, then it becomes unpalatable. Meanwhile, it suppresses everything else that grows with it. That is not better biodiversity—quite the opposite. Over the seasons, accumulations of the dry matter thus resulting may start to occur.

Unlike controlled burning, wildfires are essentially unplanned, unannounced and unconsented. They are most likely to occur outside the consented burning period, when things are at their driest. The resultant fire may, of course, burn quickly and cleanly through the vegetation, or it may linger in tussocks. This is where the risk of setting the peat alight comes about. Causes of such wildfires are many and various—maybe a discarded glass item, but I suspect more often a discarded cigarette or a carelessly used disposable barbecue. Where I grew up, we did not have much deeper peat. I am not sure how much peat of a depth of 30 centimetres or more there is on Exmoor, and I am fairly sure that there is not much evidence one way or the other about the distribution. It is likely to be distributed in what the noble Earl referred to as a mosaic—in other words, dotted around all over the place. If you start burning one area, how are you going to avoid these areas of deeper peat? I do not know how that works.

The proposals seem to lose the confidence of land managers and the potential for better co-operation. They certainly seem to add to the difficulties for fire and rescue, and they fail this cost benefit reality check. They bypass the agronomic value and the effects of a change in vegetation. The noble Earl referred to the use of machinery. I shudder at that in terms of surface damage, soil compaction and the amount of hydrocarbons burned in order to achieve this saving on what would otherwise be a properly managed fire. The transition implications for visual appeal to the general public are a point here. The unpredictability of timing, location, and cause and effect is a matter for concern.

When we get to the timeframes of rewetting of peat, the first thing that has to happen before you start dealing with vegetation management is to commence the process of rewetting the area. Not all areas are suitable for rewetting. On much of Exmoor, we are dealing with very shallow mineral podzols, and they do not have much peat. Therefore, there is not a lot to wet. The question then arises as to how this policy applies in such circumstances.

In passing, I note that the creation and deposition of peat at one millimetre per annum means that the policy of creating new peat and encouraging further peat depositions is a very long process indeed. Some years ago, when we had a paper at the headquarters of the RICS—my professional body—I asked at a meeting whether the period taken to deposit peat would be consonant with the time horizon of the policies in relation to relevant land management. I did not get an answer, but I note that, in my lifetime, my father was getting sums of money in grants from the Ministry of Agriculture for an excellent standard of reclamation of heather moorland for agricultural use. We then had to manage all the vegetation, and now we come full circle to having to deal with this “What-if?” of where nature is going to take us while we all contemplate what is going on. There have been so many changes in policy in my lifetime that I sincerely doubt whether the policy time horizon stands any real chance of meeting the actual ecological and deposition processes of peat creation.

I am concerned that the measures in this instrument are another straw that might break the camel’s back in this instance. That is not to say that they are not well-intentioned; I am sure they are, but, given the manner in which it looks likely they will be implemented, I cannot help feeling that there is more likely to be system failure than resounding success.

[The Earl of Shrewsbury (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on bringing this extremely important matter to your Lordships’ attention, and I support his Motion. I declare my interest as a member of the GWCT, the BASC and the Countryside Alliance.

As my noble friend has alluded to, 2025 has seen almost 48,000 hectares of the UK burned by wildfires. That is seven times the average area burned between 2006 and 2024, and more than twice the area burned in 2022. This represents the new fire norm, whereby our changing climate is driving increasingly frequent periods of fire-supportive weather. While the majority of this hectarage was in semi-natural habitats, I want to highlight the risk that wildfire is posing at the rural-urban interface.

Development of the rural-urban interface is putting more assets and people at risk, either directly through loss of life and property, or indirectly via impacts on health and vital infrastructure. The Government are now talking about the possibility of housing developments being built on grey-belt land, which is bound to further exacerbate the problems.

The Wennington wildfire in July 2022 destroyed more than 18 houses and their residents’ possessions, as well as 12 stables, five cars and six garages. Fortunately, there was no loss of life. Such risks are not limited to London. The Ordnance Survey has estimated that over 1.8 million homes sit within the first 100 metres of urban-rural edges. As the agency states, these transition areas

“are where fuel and ignition sources, and the potential for high human and economic impact converge”.

The need to create and manage fuel breaks applies as much at the rural-urban interface as it does on our peatlands. The difference is that, on our peatlands, there are expert land managers and gamekeepers whose knowledge is vital to both preventing and fighting wildfires.

The peatlands of the Peak District and the Staffordshire Moorlands—where I live— are close to the urban conurbations of Stoke-on-Trent, Manchester and Sheffield, where experience already proves that wildfires can threaten homes and affect the health of local populations. The Saddleworth Moor wildfire of 2018, which was close to the Greater Manchester conurbation, resulted in 50 homes and 150 people being evacuated; and 4.5 million people up 80 kilometres away were exposed to very high concentrations of ppm 2.5 for longer than the World Health Organization’s 24-hour guideline, causing an estimated £21 million in extra health costs.

While the debate over how we protect our peatlands becomes mired in the broader ideological debate over grouse shooting—I no longer shoot, so do not have an interest in that—the very real threat of wildfire to these precious ecosystems, and to the health and infrastructure of our communities and the role of prescribed burning in addressing these risks, is being relegated to a mere sideshow. If the Government are not prepared to accept the practical experience of land managers—the experts—then surely they should take note of the National Fire Chiefs Council’s response to the consultation on these regulatory changes. This expressed concern that policy decisions are not aligned with the need to manage wildfire risk and that increasing the restrictions on a land manager’s ability to use prescribed burning for wildfire prevention would have implications for the ability of the fire and rescue services to respond to a wildfire, thereby increasing the danger to firefighters and the public. I sincerely hope that the licensing process is able to facilitate this need.

[The Earl of Leicester (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Caithness for securing this regret Motion debate on heather and grass burning restrictions as laid out in the Government’s statutory instrument; I support it wholeheartedly. Like the noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury, I declare my interests: my membership of GWCT, BASC and Countryside Alliance. I also declare an interest relevant to today’s debate: I own and my team manage, under licence from Natural England as a Section 35 approved body, the Holkham National Nature Reserve in North Norfolk. It is the largest and arguably the most important NNR in the country. Indeed, in the years following our resumption of management of the NNR from Natural England, I received three letters from senior Natural England executives congratulating us on the excellent management of the reserve, and in particular on our interventions and the resulting outcomes. We have a team of land managers very experienced in nature conservation, forestry and nature-friendly farming, so although we do not have a current need to burn heather and grass in Norfolk, we are aware of its benefits.

I too have spent a good deal of time in the uplands, in the north of England and Scotland, speaking to practitioners of these practices, and I am well versed in the multifarious benefits preventive burning provides in protecting against wildfires, and the biodiversity benefits it provides. I am incredibly disappointed by the content of the Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2025. In fact, by the time I finished reading them my blood was boiling, such was the litany of at best contentious assertions.

For a start, I am stunned that no government impact assessment was carried out, as

“no, or no significant, impact on the private, voluntary or public sector is foreseen”.

That is a very bold assertion. I hope to demonstrate—as will other noble Lords—how wrong that is, and that the whole premise of this SI is deeply flawed and has already been found to be incorrect following the damage inflicted by two huge wildfires in the uplands this summer. The impact on forestry and biodiversity, and in terms of deep peat carbon loss, has been immeasurable. For the moment—until we are subject to even greater and more dangerous fires—the impact on communities, who, mercifully, were not hit with loss of property or life, has been less. The document also states that the purpose of the SI is to protect 676,628 hectares of peatland habitat by preventing further damage from burning—an increase of 246,000 hectares, as prescribed by the 2020 regulations of the same name.

This “protection” is a complete misnomer, because these restrictions will not protect these nature-rich habitats. Some 7,000 land managers have already contributed to the rewetting of the moorland in their management by blocking up drains as required by Natural England. That work did not stop the wildfires.

The claim that preventive burning dries up the moors is specious and not based on good science. Professor Andreas Heinemeyer of the Stockholm Environment Institute at York University is the most knowledgeable academic in the sphere of moorland management. His research into grouse-moor cool-burning’s impact on ecosystem services and aspects around alternative mowing, or no management at all, as advocated by this SI, has been broadly ignored. Has the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Katz, ever visited the uplands in February and March to witness how this preventive cool-burning takes place?

14:30

Let me make it clear that burning takes place only in February and March, when the weather is cold and wet, and therefore by extension so is the heather—hence why it is called a “cool-burn”. Trained operatives burn the heather in a light wind. A Scottish moorland group made a video of a heather burn moving slowly over a Mars bar. Five minutes later, once the fire had passed, the Mars bar was picked up and opened. The fire had not even melted the outer chocolate coating. As well as leaving the Mars bar unharmed, the process leaves the peat unharmed, and any damage to the moss and litter layer, which sits on top, is minimised.

Typically, each cool-burn undertaken in winter will be no larger than an eighth of a hectare. These burns remove older rank heather, which is drier and has a higher fuel load; this helps to reduce the risk of wildfires. In addition, it provides a mini firebreak, were a fire to come along; it will not stop the fire, but it can slow it down. More importantly, it gets rid of the old vegetation, which has limited benefit for biodiversity, and allows the heather plant to regenerate, providing new young shoots for birds and mammals to eat. If burned in a rotational fashion, as is practised, differing heights of growth provide alternately a source of food or nesting areas for ground-nesting birds such as ring ouzel, meadow pipits, wheatear, merlin, stonechats, grouse and black game—and, of course, the slightly older, deeper heather provides protection from aerial predation.

Contrast this to the extreme damage done to deep peat by wildfires, the like of which we have seen in recent years—but particularly this year in Morayshire, at Carrbridge and Dava, the largest ever in Scotland at 11,827 hectares. They were also in the North York Moors, still smouldering in the deep peat a month after the fire started and relighting from time to time, yet again bringing the fire services and local land managers back out to fight them.

In 2021, Andrew Gilruth of the Moorland Association wrote to the Home Secretary and, if your Lordships will permit, I will read excerpts from his letter. The letter outlined

“the very real risk of catastrophic wildfires engulfing our moorlands due to Natural England’s restrictions on managing vegetation … The restrictions have led to a significant increase in fuel load, making the moors highly susceptible to wildfires, particularly with climate change exacerbating the situation. The letter details the devastating consequences of such fires, including the release of harmful pollutants and the potential for loss of life. It also calls for immediate action from the government to prevent this impending disaster”.

The letter stated:

“England’s catastrophic wildfires will be blamed on the Home Office: our letter to the Home Secretary…England’s moorlands provide our northern cities with fresh air and landscapes loved for their heather-clad vistas. Yet these treasures will become a national disgrace when massive wildfires sweep through them. This letter explains why these fires will be much worse than the Saddleworth blaze of 2018, threatening urban areas with fumes and flames”.

It went on:

“Huge wildfires are inevitable when vegetation is allowed to grow unchecked. Sooner or later there will be a spark. Add low humidity and strong winds and the horrors of Los Angeles follow. California’s politicians had failed to heed the warning from scientists that the risk of high-intensity wildfires was being increased by a ‘longstanding policy failure…to counteract the gradual accumulation of flammable organic materials’”…Yet while the Los Angeles tragedy was down to political negligence, here, growing the fuel load of vegetation was the deliberate policy of the previous government. For many years Natural England has been blocking land managers from reducing the fuel load on moorland. The extension of these restrictions in 2021 immediately led to a further 73% reduction in fuel load management through traditional winter burns. Neither burned nor mowed, the heather, which was already getting too long, has since been increasing year in, year out”.

The letter continued:

“Experts who have studied the dreadful wildfires in Portugal, Greece and Australia say that we too risk these new types of fires with pyroconvection causing flames to leap huge distances as they generate their own, unpredictable and highly dangerous winds. The flames will only be part of the problem. Since much of the fuel load is accumulating above areas of deep peat, these carbon stores will belch poisonous smoke for months. We consider Natural England’s current policy of adding fuel to the coming fires is absurd…Given that the experts are shouting, why has Natural England been so deaf? Partly it is due to its fixation with minutiae instead of major policy concerns. We empathise with your cabinet colleagues’ irritation about Natural England’s pettiness over bats and newts. In the case of moorland management, it has buried itself in micro-regulating decisions about where and when to remove vegetation through mowing or winter burns and how rewetting moors can help moss grow. These are issues where people working in the hills are much better positioned to understand what nature needs than officials in glass offices”.

Finally:

“The other overwhelming concern is the harm caused by fires. The Saddleworth disaster in 2018 saw five million people breathe in pollution which included lead and cadmium deposited on the moors during the Industrial Revolution. Scientists say dozens died early because of the fumes. There was also the release of huge quantities of carbon from the deep peat”.

That was written in 2021. That warning has been ignored by successive Governments and, this year, it came to pass with the devastating fires that we experienced this summer. My noble friend Lord Caithness talked about how the fire chiefs have warned against a burning ban as the Government push ahead, so I will not repeat that.

My final point refers to something that happened in Canada at the G7 meeting in Kananaskis, which produced the Kananaskis Wildfire Charter on 17 June. Before that, in early June, wildfire was debated in Westminster. Natural England was described as “not fit for purpose”. It was said, rightly, that no one should be

“surprised that there is a fundamental breakdown in trust with landowners to whom it dictates”.—[Official Report, 12/6/25; col. GC 310.]

It is therefore fascinating to see what happened when the world’s most powerful nations met in Canada in June, with Sir Keir Starmer sitting alongside President Trump, President Macron et al. Among their formal agreements was a shared commitment to prevent wildfires getting worse. The leaders called for the use of controlled burning. There was no namecheck for the voguish notion of rewetting, which circulates within Natural England, but the world leaders did advocate controlled burning to reduce the risk of extreme wildfires, which

“are endangering lives, affecting human health, destroying homes and ecosystems, and costing governments and taxpayers billions of dollars”.

These leaders recognised the ancient wisdom of preventive burns, calling them “Indigenous” and “cultural”, so my final question for the Minister is: why do this Government accept Natural England’s recommendations when our own Prime Minister signed up to the use of controlled burning only four months ago at the G7 conference? The blame for future and much larger and more damaging wildfires, which could—indeed, will—lead to deaths, will be laid fair and square at the feet of Natural England and this Government.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, as a life Peer, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Caithness for tabling this Motion, which has enabled us in this House to hear from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and my noble friends Lord Shrewsbury and Lord Leicester, three hereditary Peers—four, including my noble friend Lord Caithness—who have tremendous experience of safely managing moorland and using controlled burning. In particular, my noble friend Lord Leicester is regularly cited by Natural England and Defra as leading one of the finest private nature reserves in the country. Goodness knows how many official visits have been made to his estate to show others how it should be done. Therefore, I think it is terribly important that the whole House and Defra should pay attention to the wise words of my noble friend.

I am absolutely certain, although I am speaking from the Back Benches, that I will probably agree absolutely with my noble and hereditary friend Lord Roborough when he makes his speech from the Front Bench. I drafted my notes on the assumption that the excellent noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, would be back with us today, but that is not to be. So I hope the noble Lord will pass on our remarks and I know others in the building will pass on our remarks to the noble Baroness.

I wish to raise a related matter about the destruction of heather moorlands when the old straggly heather is not controlled properly through rotational burning. Noble Lords will be aware, as we have heard already, of the fires at Saddleworth Moor in 2018, 2020 and this year. Since 2007, the Peak District has had fires which have destroyed 77 square kilometres of moorland. In real money, that is 30 square miles destroyed, in nearly all cases by disposable barbecues. Just after the 2018 fire, which took three weeks to extinguish, people were again found on an unburned bit of the heather moor with disposable barbecues lit again, leading the Manchester fire chief to say that it beggared belief how stupid they were.

I want to demolish the myth perpetuated by some commentators that these fires are because of climate change. That is simply not true. There is no known case anywhere in the world, and certainly not in the UK, where a wildfire has started because of spontaneous combustion caused by global warming or climate change. There are no cases anywhere of dry grass spontaneously combusting. Wet grass tightly packed into hay bales can ignite when the chemical reaction causes the temperature to get to 250 degrees centigrade. Trees can self-ignite if the external temperature reaches, again, 250 degrees centigrade. Our temperatures have not quite got to that level yet. Dry heather cannot self-ignite. Of course, we all accept that when the habitat is bone dry it will burn more easily if a fire starts, and if there is wind it will burn more ferociously.

So how do so-called wildfires happen? Quite simply, in every case they are caused by humans, either deliberately or, in a minority of cases, accidently. The vast majority are caused by carelessness or stupidity, as in nearly all the cases of those Peak District fires. One was caused by a discarded glass bottle acting as a magnifying glass for the sun and one was a controlled burn this year—Beeley Moor—which got out of control due to a wind change. That should not have happened, but it is very rare.

In June 2022, the magnificent Thursley Common national nature reserve, which I have visited, was devasted by a massive fire, most likely started by a disposable barbecue. Almost half of the of the rare heath was destroyed. The Surrey fire chief said, “Help us to prevent wildfires; pack a picnic instead of a barbecue”. There was devastating fire in Wareham, Dorset, linked to barbecues, and it contributed to Dorset Council’s decision to ban them in many areas. This led to a subsequent council report that showed

“a huge increase in BBQ related fires from 2016 to 2020”.

There are hundreds more incidents that I will not go into, including 300 in Greater London itself—it is not just the urban fringe in the countryside—leaving a London fire chief to call for a ban on these filthy disposable barbecues.

My noble friend Lord Caithness had an amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that we did not debate yesterday, calling for the Government to do more on public education on the risks of wildfires in the countryside. I also want the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, when she is back in action, to do more private education: private education of the remaining supermarkets who continue to sell these dangerous items.

Keep Britain Tidy advocates for banning disposable barbecues due to their significant fire risk and environmental damage. It highlights the fact that these barbecues cause wildfires, injure people and create hazardous litter when left hot and uncooled, sometimes causing fires even in public litter bins. The organisation is campaigning for retailers to stop selling them permanently and encourages the public to support these efforts.

I congratulate the majority of shops and supermarkets that have stopped selling them, but too many still do. That is why I want the Minister to call in the other retailers still selling them and give them a bit of private education on the sheer destruction they are causing to our wildlife, habitats and heather moorlands by continuing to sell these things. If retailers insist on selling them, I believe they should be banned.

14:45

I am not a natural banner, but there is no God-given fundamental human right for people to go into the countryside, sit in a farmer’s field, nature reserve, national park or public moorland and then light a fire. Since it is practically impossible to pack away a dirty, greasy, charcoal dust-filled tray, they get left behind or dumped as a danger to animals. In fact, since these things burn at 400 degrees centigrade, they all carry warnings on them to let them cool for about eight hours before packing them up. That is another reason why they are dumped.

I end with this crucial point. People using disposable barbecues on heather moors or upland heaths do not apply to Defra for a licence. They do not care about the depth of peat, but they cause the most destruction: more than any controlled heather burning ever does. We are obsessed with moorland owners doing a controlled burn, but we are not taking seriously the huge damage caused by wildfires caused by human stupidity. So I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, that, if public education does not work, get the shops to stop selling them and, if that fails, go for a ban on the filthy things.

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Caithness for moving this debate, which touches on many important issues. Following on from my noble friend Lord Blencathra, I had to look this up, but when we have four of a kind in a row, it is a “haul”. So we experienced a haul of Earls at the start of this debate, which is a very unusual thing.

At the heart of this debate today lies our relationship with nature and our country. It is hard to find any of our landscapes that have not been managed for thousands for years. The wildest parts of Dartmoor show evidence of intensive habitation and livestock grazing dating back to prehistory. The Flow Country of northern Scotland, with its open landscape of peat bogs, occasionally shows huge networks of tree roots that were surely harvested in prehistory and replaced with grazing. In that light, I refer the House to my registered interests as an owner of land, both in Dartmoor national park and in Sutherland. Just for the sake of clarity, I do not have any grouse. I have no grouse interests in this particular debate, apart from the fact that I enjoy going elsewhere and engaging with that.

There appears to be a presumption that, by reducing management of this land through things such as the regulations we are debating today, we are somehow helping nature. However, we need to appreciate that, if we reduce our management, we are laying ourselves open to much more damaging wildfires, as many noble Lords have pointed out today, and also to negative impacts on native species that have become dependent on this management. We are also undermining farmers who derive their livelihoods from these landscapes. Irrespective of whether these regulations are right, why does government insist on using the stick of regulations rather than the carrot of incentives?

As others have pointed out, peat covers only 8.5% of the English land area, but 80% of it is degraded. When we look at these areas, the priority should be restoration. That restoration is primarily about rewetting and eliminating cultivation; it has little or nothing to do with whether you have mature or young heather or grass on top. As long as the sphagnum moss is healthy, it is rebuilding peat, and to get the sphagnum moss healthy, the water table needs to be towards the surface. As that peatland is rewetted, it eliminates the massive carbon releases from degraded and dry peat and also allows for future carbon sequestration.

The peatland carbon code is an important financial incentive for land managers to carry out this work. However, liquidity in this market is lacking, as it remains a voluntary carbon credit. Please could the Minister update the House on the status of consultations on the inclusion of the peatland carbon code and the woodland carbon code in the UK emissions trading scheme? In that light, I also point out my interests as someone restoring peatland under the auspices of the peatland carbon code and developing new forestry plantations.

The regulations we are debating today extend existing licensing from peat deeper than 40 centimetres to greater than 30 centimetres, and from heather to grass. The implication is that the area covered increases from 430,000 hectares to 680,000 hectares. That will lead to coverage of these regulations coming further down the hill towards areas of greater population density and where fire risks are even more serious.

We on these Benches are unhappy with the existing licensing regime that prevents appropriate management, and the extension is deeply unwelcome. Noble Lords have discussed that managed burning is an important component of reducing fuel load, preventing wildfires from becoming so hot and entrenched. In 2018, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service found that only four wildfires out of 153 reported were in managed moorland, and all of those were outside the burning season and the result of accident or arson. The 2018 Saddleworth Moor fire was on a moor with a no-burn policy and took seven different fire services 10 days to bring under control.

Discussion has also focused on the importance of managed burning for biodiversity. The latest scientific evidence from the University of York in 2023, cited by my noble friend Lord Leicester, found that

“the burning and mowing of heather supported an increased diversity of vegetation ... The study also predicted a greater number of some ground-nesting birds, many of which are red listed as being of conservation concern”.

As I have already highlighted, these are not natural landscapes any longer, and many of our threatened species rely on us to provide them with the right habitat. Heather is a plant that will establish dominance on acidic and peaty soils and, without management, crowd out everything else.

One of the arguments against heather burning is carbon emissions. The University of York study also found that, while there are carbon emissions from a fire, the regrowth took up considerably more carbon over the longer term. When wildfires enjoy an excessive fuel load, they burn hotter and get deep into the peat, releasing far more carbon. The flow country fire in 2019 released 700,000 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent. That is equivalent to the annual carbon emissions of 75,000 people.

That same point about the natural dominance of heather in these landscapes is also why managed burning is so critical for grazing. Cattle and sheep need grass and young heather to graze and gain nothing from veteran, woody heather. To support our farmers, we need to allow this managed burning. When adding in the benefits to wildfire management and biodiversity, the argument for including it within sustainable farming incentives is very strong. We read in the papers that new sustainable farming incentives are likely to focus more on upland farming, which was disadvantaged in the earlier SFIs. Given the many benefits of the managed burning of these upland landscapes, could I ask the Minister whether it is possible that a component of some of these SFIs could be for more of this managed burning? When will we see these new SFI regulations? We were originally promised that it would be in July of this year; we are now at the end of October.

Other noble Lords have mentioned the Carrbridge and Dava fire. Without repeating their points, I would say that this fire underscored, yet again, the importance of gamekeepers, farmers and land managers, not just in putting out these fires but in prevention through muirburn. On the back of the evidence of that incident, the Scottish Government have delayed the introduction of more controls on muirburn.

My noble friend Lord Caithness mentioned the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, and I agree with his questions. In particular, would the Government be open to more integrated cross-government development of these regulations? The Minister is today responding for the Government, but it is not clear to us that the fire service, through MHCLG, is adequately involved in setting and implementing these regulations.

The point which illuminates the entire debate on the Motion that my noble friend has moved is the lack of a full impact assessment, including on wider government priorities. Those who have contributed today have demonstrated the many benefits of heather and grass burning, if managed and done correctly. It is unclear what real merits there are in restricting it further. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, made this point most forcefully: where is the science? Surely a pragmatic, rational assessment could only conclude that it is in everyone’s interest to encourage the right kind of burning and, in instances where there is no other financial incentive to manage open land in this way, to provide those incentives.

We on these Benches fully support my noble friend Lord Caithness in this regret Motion. The extension of the burning regulations in this way appears to be unscientific and politically motivated. The Minister has been given a lot of questions to answer in this debate, and if he is unable to find the answers or does not have the time, I very much encourage him to commit to write to us.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, for introducing this Motion and all noble Lords who contributed to this debate. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, for telling us that we have had a haul of Earls from the Back Benches. I did not realise that there were collective nouns for different numbers of Earls, but in all sincerity I thank them not only for their contributions today but for their years—and, I am sure, in some cases, decades—of collective stewardship of our rich tapestry of habitats, which makes our countryside such a source of pride and one of the things we are most admired for throughout the world.

I appreciate the concerns raised particularly around the potential for increased wildfire risk because of these new regulations, which has been the focus of much of the debate. It is a valid concern, and I want to be clear that we are in no way dismissive of it: it is one that the Government have taken seriously throughout the development of this statutory instrument.

Let me begin by being clear that the Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2025 are not about ignoring wildfire risk; they are about addressing it more effectively, sustainably and scientifically. The central aim of these regulations is to protect England’s peatlands, which are among our most valuable natural assets. Here I will shamelessly steal the words of my colleague, Minister Creagh, in the other place, who calls them the UK’s rainforests. These habitats store vast amounts of carbon, regulate water flow, support biodiversity and, crucially, when healthy, are more resilient to wildfire. England’s peatlands are of huge international importance and, when healthy, provide lots of environmental benefits.

However, 80% of England’s peatlands are degraded, with rotational burning being a contributing factor in upland areas. Burning also has negative impacts on air quality and human health. Large-scale burning of vegetation releases vast amounts of smoke into the air, impacting local communities. The evidence is clear: wet, healthy peatlands are far less likely to burn during wildfires. When peat is saturated, it resists ignition, slows the spread of fire and prevents deep burns that can release stored carbon and destroy the habitat irreversibly. Repeated burning dries out the peat, alters its hydrology and makes it more vulnerable to fire. Climate change also contributes to drying out peatlands. Rising temperatures and reduced rainfall further impact the hydrology of these habitats, lowering the water table.

The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, who brought his experience of managing peatland areas in Exmoor to bear in his contribution, raised the impact on the hydrology of those peatlands. It is clear that restoring peatlands helps to raise the water table, which promotes the growth of key species, such as sphagnum moss and cotton grasses, and prevents overdominance of drying species such as heather or linnaea. Having a water table which sits close to the surface leads the site to being more resilient to the impacts of wildfire and reduces the likelihood of fire getting into the peat, causing further damage. A study following a 2019 wildfire in the flow country peatlands in Scotland suggested that the wildfire caused mostly superficial burning, except in the most degraded areas. The conclusion of this study implied that peatlands with wet conditions have the potential to help reduce the impacts of severe wildfires. We know that rotational burning can perpetuate the risks in the long term by altering the hydrology of blanket bog and making it impossible to return to its natural state. The flow country study is evidence from the field and supports the Government’s position that restoration and protection are the best long-term strategies for wildfire resistance.

Some have argued that restricting burning will allow vegetation to grow unchecked, increasing fuel loads and therefore fire risk, and we heard that in the debate this afternoon. While understandable, this concern overlooks the broader picture. First, burning is not the only tool available to manage vegetation. Mechanical cutting, grazing and other sustainable methods remain permitted and encouraged. These regulations do not restrict these practices. Secondly, the licensing regime remains in place. Where no feasible alternative exists, land managers can apply for a licence to burn specifically to reduce the impacts of wildfire. This is not a blanket ban; it is a targeted, evidence-based approach that allows for flexibility in exceptional circumstances.

This is probably as apt a time as any to refer to the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, whose conclusion referred to the discussion at the recent G7 summit, which talked about controlled burning being part of a strategy to decrease the risk of extreme wildfires. Indeed, we are not saying that burning is not the right tool in some places and for the right habitats. We are saying that, while it is a tool that works in other habitats that are at risk of extreme wildfires—one thinks, obviously, of California—it is not necessarily the right tool for all habitats, and we are thinking particularly about protecting peatlands.

Thirdly, the newly revised heather and grass management code provides clear guidance on sustainable land management, including how to manage fuel loads without resorting to damaging burning practices.

We have also taken steps to improve the licensing system itself. These aim to reduce complexity and enhance co-ordination to make the process faster, more efficient and easier to navigate for applicants. We have also removed impractical grounds as a rationale for granting a licence, such as the land being inaccessible to cutting equipment. This should be considered in all cases whenever a licence application is made to evidence why burning is the only available option, rather than the ground for application. Instead, we have introduced a new, legitimate ground for research and education, and have extended the conservation ground to include the natural and historic environment, recognising the importance of maintaining archaeological features.

15:00

The Government’s position is grounded in a robust and growing body of scientific evidence. Natural England’s 2025 review, NEER155, which builds on its 2013 report, incorporates over 100 new studies and remains the most comprehensive review of the UK’s climates and habitats, and the effects of burning on peatlands. It concluded that repeated burning alters the structural function of these habitats, undermining their ability to deliver environmental benefits and making them more susceptible to wildfire.

Although there are differing views, the collective weight of scientific research supports the conclusion that burning contributes to peatland degradation and increased vulnerability to fire. Beyond wildfire risk, the regulations deliver significant environmental and economic benefits. Healthy peatlands improve water quality, reduce flood risk, and are havens for wildlife and store carbon, helping us meet our climate goals. The Office for National Statistics estimates that restoring British peatlands could deliver carbon benefits worth £109 billion.

We recognise that change is challenging, especially for rural communities, and that is why the Government are committed to supporting land managers through this transition. We are encouraging and supporting the development of wildfire management plans, providing training and maintaining a licensing system.

As we have already heard, some stakeholders have warned of Los Angeles-style tragedies if vegetation is allowed to grow unchecked. The evidence-based approach we are taking points to restoring and rewetting our peatlands as being the most effective long-term solution to increasing their resilience to wildfire. Rotational burning perpetuates long-term vulnerability to wildfire by drying out the peat and altering its hydrology. Moreover, prescribed burning itself carries risks, particularly in the case of escaped burns. The Government’s approach is not about abandoning fire management; it is about using it prudently, safely and only when necessary.

The noble Earls, Lord Caithness, Lord Leicester and Lord Shrewsbury, have raised that this statutory instrument does not include a full impact assessment. However, this is in line with the Better Regulation Framework guidance, as the net impact on business has been assessed as being below the necessary threshold of plus or minus £10 million equivalent annual net direct cost to business. Defra did produce a less detailed but proportionate assessment of the regulatory impacts, which self-certified that the measure is below the de minimis threshold and therefore met the de minimis exception for a full impact assessment. It is worth stating that Defra estimates that the annual cost to business will likely be between £589,000 and £1.2 million for year 1, taking into account the initial capital spend required for sites that wish to adjust their operations away from burning. Annual costs are expected to decrease thereafter.

I will take a moment to acknowledge the important work of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in its review of this SI and the publication of its 38th report. The committee’s scrutiny is a vital part of our legislative process, ensuring that the policy intentions behind our secondary legislation are clear and well-founded. As we have heard, the committee’s report has raised several points regarding the instrument. Specifically, it highlights concerns—indeed, this was echoed by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and a number of other noble Lords—raised about wildfires, particularly those raised by the National Fire Chiefs Council, and issues around the timings of the implementation of legislative changes and the impacts this may have on the licensing scheme. It is worth adding that Minister Creagh met the NFCC prior to the announcement of these regulations, as well as representatives from the fire service. We will, of course, continue to work carefully and closely with them. We pay tribute to the work that they do in response to all fire emergencies.

We have considered the committee’s report carefully, and I have responded to the points on wildfire licensing in this speech. Defra will continue to work closely with the NFCC and fire and rescue services, as well as MHCLG and the lead government departments for wildfire. This will ensure open communications and collaborative working to achieve the best outcomes. I would like to thank the committee again for its thorough examination of these regulations and its ongoing role in the scrutiny of secondary legislation.

These regulations are a vital step forward in protecting our peatlands, reducing carbon emissions and building resilience to wildfire. They are based on sound science, shaped by public consultation and designed to balance environmental protection with practical land management. They do not ignore the wildfire risk; they address it head on with a smarter, more sustainable strategy. So I urge the House to support these regulations not just for the sake of our peatlands but for the long-term safety, sustainability and prosperity of our rural communities and natural environment.

I turn to some of the further points raised in the debate. I will attempt to answer the questions posed but, as the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, said, if I do not answer every one, I will reflect on Hansard and undertake to write.

The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, raised the issue of liability; I thank him for giving me advance notice of this. As I previously mentioned, burning is not the only tool to manage vegetation and other methods of land management are not being restricted through these regulations. The Government recognise that, in certain limited circumstances, prescribed burning may need to be used, which is why wildfire mitigation is included as one of the grounds on which one can apply for a licence to burn on peatlands.

The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, also asked about air quality. I do not have all the data that he requested to hand so I will have to write to him, but it is worth noting, as he said, that large-scale burning of vegetation, including of heather, releases vast amounts of smoke into the air, often impacting on local cities, towns and villages. These huge plumes can travel long distances, impacting air quality and containing harmful pollutants, such as particulate matter, both PM2.5 and PM10. As your Lordships know, PM2.5 is considered the most serious pollutant for human health, because the tiny particles can penetrate deeply into the human body, bloodstream and major organs. This is why we take this very seriously.

The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, also asked about wildfire and a joined-up approach. As I previously mentioned, the MHCLG is the lead government department for wildfire. With support from Defra, we are carrying out a number of workshops aimed at scoping out a wildfire strategy and action plan. The MHCLG is considering next steps and will continue to work closely with Defra in the next phase of its proposals. Defra, however, is the key stakeholder in the wildfire framework for England. The department’s responsibilities are laid out in that framework, the aim of which is to mitigate the impact of wildfire across England, including on moorlands. I hope that goes some way to assure the noble Earl that the Government are taking a joined-up approach to the serious and important issue of wildfire.

The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, also mentioned Scotland and its delay. Moorland burning is a devolved matter, and the decision made by the Scottish Government reflects the current situation in Scotland, but it is worth pointing out that the proposed regulations in Scotland are not restricted to peatlands, so will have a much greater impact on land managers and their ability to use prescribed burning as a land management issue.

The noble Earls, Lord Lytton and Lord Leicester, asked about the effectiveness of alternative land management practices. It is fair to say that the Government’s position on the impact of burning on the health of peatlands is long established, as is the commitment to phase out rotational burning. Through the licensing scheme, land managers can demonstrate why the alternatives—restoration or cutting—are not practicable.

Several noble Lords raised issues around the scientific evidence that these regulations are based on or that has been taken into account. In particular, the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, mentioned the evidence of Andreas Heinemeyer. I reassure the noble Earl that his research was included in Natural England’s recently published evidence review, which I referred to earlier—NEER155. Although there has been much debate in this area, the strength of the collective evidence shows that burning contributes to peatland degradation by negatively impacting its hydrology and species balance. This compromises its ability to deliver the multiple environmental benefits that it can provide when in a healthy, functioning state.

[The Earl of Leicester (Con)]

Professor Heinemeyer’s research shows that there is actually a higher water table where controlled burning takes place, which is contrary to what the Minister just said.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I appreciate that intervention and may address some of that in my answers. I believe that this also relates to the Mars bar test, which was a new phenomenon to me, but we will come to that.

The noble Earls, Lord Caithness and Lord Lytton, talked about the timing of this SI. It is worth saying that the legislation has been laid to come into force in time for the 2025-26 burn season, to ensure a greater level of protection for England’s valuable peatlands at the earliest opportunity. To allow sufficient time for comprehensive public consultation and a comprehensive analysis of responses, it has not been possible to lay the SI sooner.

This leads on to the consultation itself, which many noble Lords, including the noble Earls, Lord Caithness and Lord Shrewsbury, raised. I want to be clear that the consultation was open for eight weeks, from 31 March to 25 May earlier this year. It received 1,861 responses, mostly from the public but also from academics and bodies such as the NFCC. The response demonstrated broad support for expanding protections to all upland peatlands in less favoured areas and lowering the peat depth threshold from 40 centimetres to 30 centimetres. Indeed, most respondents opposed burning due to concerns about climate change, biodiversity, and loss of air and water quality. There was backing for mandatory fire training and improved licensing processes. I wish to make it clear that a minority of respondents were opposed to the proposals, citing, as many noble Lords have today, concerns of increased wildfire risk from higher fuel loads of vegetation that cannot be managed through burning.

The noble Earl, Lord Leicester, asked if I had visited the uplands in February and March. Sadly, I have to tell him that I have not. Maybe one of the noble Earls who contributed to the debate might wish to issue an invite—I am sure that it would be a very pleasant trip. On the serious point he was making, upland peatland habitats are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of burning. While winter burns tend to affect mainly surface vegetation rather than peat itself, rotational burning makes it difficult to restore blanket bog to its natural hydrology. He mentioned the Mars bar test, which we contend does not take into account the long-term impacts of burning, which encourages new heather growth. Heather’s deep roots dry out peat and form woody flammable material, which increases long-term vulnerability to wildfires.

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, mentioned disposable barbecues. While I will not be tempted to go down the road of bans, as he did, we must recognise the importance of good public education, which was at the heart of his contribution. Clearly, a significant cause of wildfires is ignorant, foolhardy behaviour by people who should know better. The Government recognise that good communication can shape public behaviour and decrease the chances of wildfires starting. We took lessons from the devastation we saw during the 2022 wildfire season. That is why we worked across departments to increase the prominence of wildfire messaging to the public. This has included developing government social media messaging around periods of high wildfire risk and including wildfire as part of the Cabinet Office’s newly developed resilience websites.

I am glad to be able to tell the noble Lord that officials are exploring other ways we can expand the use of our well-established Fire Kills campaign to deliver targeted messages and resources to the public. The benefit of utilising Fire Kills is the partnership approach with local fire and rescue services, with all activities and resources designed to best support their local prevention delivery. I hope that provides him with some assurance that we absolutely understand the risk of the use of disposable barbecues and other materials that can inadvertently cause fire. We will take action to ensure that the public are educated on it.

I hope I have answered most of the questions. I have possibly missed one out from the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, on SFIs. He will know that SFIs now have more than 39,000 multiyear live agreements and are not only delivering sustainable food production and natural recovery for today and the years ahead but putting money back into farmers’ pockets. I am not sure I have any more detail on that to hand, which he requested, so I will write to him. I will be very happy to undertake to write to him also on the questions that he began his contribution with on the carbon code.

Having said all that—and having probably taken more time to answer noble Lords’ questions than was warranted—I ask the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, to withdraw his regret Motion.

15:15

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, bringing their experience and knowledge to make it a very useful debate. It was wonderful to hear about Exmoor. It was very interesting to hear from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury, who mentioned Wennington, an extremely different part of the country, about 15 miles behind where the Minister is sitting now, where 18 houses were burned, leaving devastation to people’s property. It shows what an important subject this is.

I find it difficult to understand why Natural England listens so carefully to my noble friend Lord Leicester when it comes to his nature reserve at Holkham but does not listen to him when it comes to his expertise on moorland. My noble friend Lord Blencathra quite rightly wages war against disposable barbecues. I would just question one thing. He said that all wildfires are started by human stupidity. Most are, but some are started quite deliberately. The yobs go out and think it is fun to light a fire, and that it will not go very far, and they suddenly find it is out of control and they cannot do anything about it but scarper. It is the fire and rescue services and good locals who have to pick up the bill.

My noble friend Lord Roborough mentioned the Flow Country fire in 2019, which has special interest to me, as I was living up there at the time. The Minister also raised it. It is worth pointing out what my noble friend Lord Roborough said: that fire doubled Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions for the six days of burning. The Minister said that the fire was not so strong where wetting had taken place, which had helped. At the Langdale Forest fire, the fire was not so strong where rotational heather burning had taken place. Why is one good and one bad? It is a totally illogical position for the Government to take.

The Minister said how important peat was. We all knew that peat was very important long before Defra was even thought about. The Minister mentioned NEER155. I confirmed to the Minister that that took some scientific evidence but did not take any scientific evidence on the impact of not burning. It is a biased report and has been highly criticised by those who know.

The Minister said that there was no impact assessment because the costs were not going to be over £10 million. But hang on, the health costs of the Saddleworth Moor fire were £20 million by themselves. How can the Minister possibly say that these regulations, which are going to increase wildfires, are not worthy of an impact assessment?

I finish by thanking the Minister for what he said. He ended by talking about the consultation. I am not at all surprised by the result of the consultation. We can all devise questions to get the answer we want. That is what Defra did in this case. Given that it is Thursday afternoon and there is another piece of business, I will withdraw my Motion and, once again, thank all noble Lords for taking part.

Motion withdrawn.

Control of Mercury (Enforcement) (Amendment) Regulations 2025

Thursday 30th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Motion to Approve

15:19

Moved by

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent]

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 17 July be approved.

Relevant document: 34th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, this instrument introduces the mechanisms to enforce the EU mercury regulation in Northern Ireland under the Windsor Framework, which maintains Northern Ireland’s dual market access to the EU single market and the UK internal market. I know that questions of democratic legitimacy and the effectiveness of the Windsor Framework’s democratic scrutiny mechanisms are a frequent area of consideration and discussion, and I am sure we will discuss them again today. This affirmative statutory instrument clearly demonstrates the purpose and benefit of the Windsor Framework, but before I set out its scope and objectives, I want to provide some further background on the arrangements applying in Northern Ireland that make this measure necessary.

Dental amalgam is a dental filling material made up of a mixture of mercury and metal alloys including silver, tin and copper. It is a stable, safe filling material that is widely used across the UK to fill cavities caused by tooth decay. Compared to alternative fillings such as composite resins, dental amalgam fillings are typically cheaper and take less time to apply. Last year, the EU introduced amendments to the EU mercury regulation that applies under the Windsor Framework. These amendments introduced a ban on the use and export of dental amalgam from 1 January 2025 and a ban on the manufacture and import of dental amalgam from 1 July 2026.

Here, we saw an issue that would pose particular difficulties for Northern Ireland. We saw Members of the Legislative Assembly scrutinise the issue and voice their concerns because an immediate ban on dental amalgam would have led to longer dental treatment times in Northern Ireland, meaning fewer patients being treated. This could ultimately worsen oral health outcomes in Northern Ireland. The Government acted on these concerns and made representations to the EU. The EU Commission recognised Northern Ireland’s specific circumstances last year, leading to the bespoke arrangements for Northern Ireland that we are discussing today.

Northern Ireland will have a much longer transition period: until 2034, or until an earlier phase-out date is agreed by the Minamata Convention on Mercury, an international treaty to which the UK and the EU are parties. It will mean that the continued use of dental amalgam in Northern Ireland is aligned with the rest of the UK.

The absence of these exemptions would have meant an immediate ban on dental amalgam use and import, which would have negative health and socio-economic impacts in Northern Ireland. For instance, mercury-free alternatives, such as composite fillings, generally require longer treatment times that could strain dental service capacity and may not be suitable for all patients. This could have resulted in longer treatment times and patient waiting lists, potentially harming oral health in Northern Ireland.

A gradual transition to mercury-free alternatives will ensure a managed phase-out, therefore minimising disruptions to Northern Ireland’s dental service provision. During this time, businesses and dentists in Northern Ireland may continue to import and use dental amalgam. Such treatment may be given to UK residents only, and imports need to be proportionate with use. This gradual phase-out of dental amalgam will allow a longer period to transition to alternative fillings. This will give dentists time to improve practice efficiency, gain experience with more complex fillings and adapt to emerging alternatives, and will support the training of dental professionals.

The dental amalgam exemptions on use and import have applied in Northern Ireland since 1 January 2025, and the authorities in Northern Ireland have taken the steps required to implement them, including issuing further guidance and engaging with dentists. The purpose of this instrument is further to strengthen the enforcement measures Northern Ireland authorities can take on the ground to support the arrangements in Northern Ireland. These include powers to enforce the prohibitions on dental amalgam export and manufacture, additional reporting requirements for dental amalgam importers, and restrictions on dental amalgam use for patients as set out in the European Commission notice. The instrument also implements the allowed exemptions to the import and use of dental amalgam while Northern Ireland gradually phases out its use.

On the issue of mercury more broadly, I recognise the concerns about its environmental impact. It is a highly toxic substance that can harm human health and the environment if improperly managed. When dental amalgam is exposed to high temperatures, such as during cremation, the mercury it contains can enter the environment as a toxic gas if there are no mercury-emission controls in place. I am happy to confirm that crematoria in Northern Ireland are fitted with control technologies to reduce mercury emissions. Under our environmental improvement plan, we are taking steps and further developing plans to reduce mercury emissions, including from crematoria. As part of this, the Government will soon publish an updated process guidance note for crematoria and the accompanying government consultation response, which will include further guidance on emission abatement technologies in crematoria.

In conclusion, this measure is clear in its purpose, ensuring that Northern Ireland authorities have the powers to enforce the EU export and manufacturing prohibitions, reporting requirements and exemptions on dental amalgam use and import, as set out in the European Commission notice. This instrument will also mean that Northern Ireland continues to benefit from exemptions on dental amalgam use and import, allowing for a longer transition period and equity of dental provision with the rest of the UK. I beg to move.

Amendment to the Motion

Moved by

[Baroness Hoey]

At end to insert “but that this House regrets that, while the Regulations will extend the use of amalgam fillings in Northern Ireland, they do so by means of placing their provision, and thus the provision of NHS dental services in Northern Ireland, on an uncertain constitutional foundation.”

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is nice to see the noble Baroness answering on this statutory instrument, and I thank her for her outline of what it contains. I reassure noble Lords that, while the Whip’s notice says that today’s rising time will probably be about 7 pm, I have no intention—I do not think any of us have—of continuing this debate until then. That might be helpful.

Dentists in Northern Ireland are obviously relieved that the burden that was hanging over them regarding a date has now been lifted. I have brought this issue to the Floor of the House today as I feel, along with many of my colleagues from Northern Ireland, that it is important and necessary to expose how, drip by drip, the EU is taking more control over what happens in a part of the United Kingdom.

We have talked regularly about the 300 areas of law that are now out of our own Government’s hands, and sometimes it seems that no one understands the practical problems these are causing. We have seen the questions on duty-free, pet travel and the large numbers of GB businesses that are now refusing to send anything to Northern Ireland because of the bureaucracy. Just recently, in the last couple of days, we had the ridiculous situation whereby poppy sellers in Northern Ireland had to get EU leaflets and deal with EU bureaucracy to be able to sell poppies. That is outrageous, and I am sure noble Baroness would agree with me on that point.

So why am I concerned about this SI? The British Dental Association did a great job of alerting dentists in Northern Ireland to the fact that originally, the EU directive was going to ban amalgam filling from 1 January 2025 in Northern Ireland. That became a topic of much concern, and to be fair, His Majesty’s Government sought talks with the EU, which led to a Commission notice—Regulation 2024/1849—saying that instead of Northern Ireland being required to cease using amalgam fillings in June 2026, dentists could continue to December 2034.

The purpose of today’s SI is to give effect to the solution the EU Commission developed, but the solution is deeply problematic because these regulations rest on the foundation not of EU law but of a Commission notice. I am sure I do not need to remind noble Lords that there are several different types of EU law: regulations that are binding, directives that are binding, recommendations that are non-binding and opinions that are non-binding. The reality is that Commission notices do not even have the standing of non-binding law. Indeed, Commission notices are not law because, in the constitutional architecture of the EU, the Commission proposes legislation but does not make it; that is the role of the Parliament and the Council of Ministers.

The Commission is also not the judiciary; it usually adds to its statements. It usually says that

“the following is without prejudice to the fact that it is the role of the European Court of Justice to make final determinations in the application of the law”.

Indeed, after the Northern Ireland Assembly’s EU scrutiny committee had been notified of this change—and was quite pleased about it—a few weeks later the Department of Health sent it a letter regarding the standing of the Commission notice. I quote from it:

“It is described in the preamble as a ‘guidance note’ which is intended to facilitate the application of regulation (EU) 2024/1849”.


So it is not binding legislation in itself; rather, it is an interpretative aid to the application of the law in Northern Ireland, in the unique context of the Windsor Framework.

15:30

There are further causes for concern at this particular Commission notice. First, the notice begins with the heading, in very large capitals, “DISCLAIMER”. This is very unusual: we have only discovered one other time when this happened, and it is designed to underline the tentative nature of this interpretation. Secondly, the nature of the warning itself is blunter. Rather than saying that their reflections are without prejudice to the role of the courts as the ultimate arbiter, the notice says that only the Court of Justice can do authoritatively what it is now going to do: interpret the law. I quote from that:

“While this Notice seeks to assist authorities and operators, only the Court of Justice of the European Union is competent to authoritatively interpret Union law”.

Given that the Commission notice is not law, and is supposed to interpret the EU regulation—something that only the European Court of Justice can do authoritatively—can the Minister tell us how secure these regulations are, if we pass them today?

If the court is called upon to make a judgement, it must confine itself to an interpretation of the wording of the EU legislature of the Council of Ministers in the European Parliament. How could it possibly reach the conclusion that—when the legislature determined that all states should ban the use of amalgam from 1 January 2025, with a derogation until June 2026—the words affecting this requirement also mean that amalgam fillings can continue to be used generally in Northern Ireland until December 2034, when those words actually say no such thing?

We are being subjected to legislation resting on the foundation of a non-legal Commission notice, presented with a big disclaimer in capital letters, which is really quite ridiculous. It is also contemptuous how this is being treated by the EU. Let us be clear: the regulation is here only because of the grace and favour of the European Union. If it expects me and others to be appreciative of a foreign administration giving us a few more years of affordable dentistry, then I am not. I am very ashamed that both the last Government, and I am afraid this Government, too, have allowed this to happen, and now dress it up as a statutory instrument to give authority to what they have allowed. It is a sticking plaster solution with no legal standing, which will cause dentists to be put into very difficult situations. They are not supposed to treat anyone who has come from another jurisdiction. I am not sure what is going to happen when people come over the border in the Republic. If the Republic of Ireland has not got a derogation, people will come over to Northern Ireland—because there is no hard border, as the Government keep wanting to tell us—and are the border guards going to be looking at people’s teeth? The whole thing is ridiculous. So I ask the Minister how it is going to be enforced. How are we going to make this actually happen to make sure it is being complied with?

Let us be clear: this SI is not about whether amalgam should be phased out, as I know many people want, and there are good reasons for that. We really do need a proper debate on the whole dentistry situation in the United Kingdom. The British Dental Association is very clear that a great deal more funding has to go into dentistry if we are to phase out amalgam. If not, we will see the end of any NHS dentistry in Northern Ireland, when it is already so difficult to find an NHS dentist. It is not about the issue of amalgam: it is about equal citizenship and whether we really believe that people in Northern Ireland should have the same opportunities with the National Health Service as anyone else in the rest of the United Kingdom. That is why I move this amendment today, so that at the very least we get a debate, a discussion and an understanding of what people in Northern Ireland are having to go through. I beg to move the amendment.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)]

My Lords, I will make a briefer speech, not on the constitutional aspect of this but on the dentistry aspect. I thank the Minister for introducing this, and indeed the noble Baroness for moving her amendment. I do recognise that there is a very important constitutional issue as well. The amalgam ban will come in in 10 years’ time to Northern Ireland. As regards the rest of the United Kingdom, clearly, EU rules do not apply, but the supply and price chains have a massive effect, so there is an issue about the availability of mercury and amalgam within the next period.

The Minister said quite correctly that amalgam fillings are cheaper, and that treatment is far longer for alternatives. It is also worth saying that they last longer and do not need replacing as often. So there is a very real issue about the cost going forward of alternatives. Research and development is needed within the dentistry profession, sponsored and helped by the Government, to look at alternatives to mercury. We also need investment in better oral health.

Without those things, I fear that, within the next 10 years, irrespective of the constitutional aspects we are talking about, there is a real concern for dentistry and oral health not just in Northern Ireland—although, admittedly, it will hit there harder—but in the rest of the United Kingdom. I hope the Minister will be able to address that. If she does not have specific details, I would appreciate it if she could write.

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, I am pleased to support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey. There is no doubt that one of our greatest national institutions is the NHS. The people of the United Kingdom have in the past been exercised about the possibility that those whom they elect might tamper with it, notwithstanding their accountability to the electorate. Imagine, then, the concern that attends the prospect of having a key aspect of the NHS placed in jeopardy by the politicians of a foreign country who are not accountable to you. That is the plight that befell UK citizens living in Northern Ireland when the EU Parliament voted EU Regulation 1849 in 2024.

Being disenfranchised, which has already been mentioned, in some 300 areas of law is bad enough. But when the laws give the foreign legislators the power to strike down any aspect of one of our great national institutions, the justice of that disfranchisement is completely intolerable. It is an indignity to which the people of England, Wales and Scotland should never be subjected: why, then, the people of Northern Ireland?

In this context, I was aghast to listen last week to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right honourable Member for Leeds South, giving evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee in another place that the Government had “solved” the amalgam problem. That was just quite extraordinary, to put it mildly. A piece of legislation has been imposed on part of the UK by a legislature in which it is not represented, and which places a key component of one of our greatest institutions in jeopardy. Rather than standing as citizens, we are subjected to the humiliation of being taken as supplicants to the bar of the grace and favour of a foreign Executive to see what crumbs they might be persuaded to toss from their gilded table.

To make matters worse, we are expected to be thankful, grateful and accepting of it, even though we have no more made the concession than the original legislation. Whatever happened to self-respect? Whatever happened to the United Kingdom? We are then forced to confront the consequences of the fact that, rather than being treated as legislators, we are taken for dumb supplicants in the development of the alternative provision through the fact that this alternative provision further alienates us from the rest of our home country.

Under the Commission notice, from 1 July 2026 it will be illegal to produce amalgam in Northern Ireland and it will have to come from Great Britain. This introduces two compulsions. First, in order to have amalgam, Northern Ireland must buy it from GB because it is not allowed to be produced in Northern Ireland. Secondly, its movement from Great Britain to Northern Ireland is subject to the imposition of an international customs border, cutting the United Kingdom in two. This means that, from July 2026, it will only be possible to take amalgam across the red lane as if moving it to a foreign country.

In a context where the number of traders selling goods from GB to Northern Ireland is falling all the time because of the cost of having to negotiate the border, what certainty do we have that anyone in GB will be ready to sell dental amalgam to Northern Ireland from July 2026 until December 2034? While UK citizens living in England, Wales and Scotland will be protected from this uncertainty, apparently it is fine not to afford the same protection to UK citizens in Northern Ireland.

We must confront the fact that the regulations before us today rest on a very uncertain foundation. The fundamental problem is that, when interpreting the relevant EU law to which these regulations seek to relate, the European Court of Justice will have to confine its interpretation to the law. It will have to ask what EU Regulation 2024/1849 means in relation to Northern Ireland and not what the EU Commission notice means, because, rather than being the law, the latter is simply the Commission’s rather extraordinary interpretation of EU Regulation 2024/1849.

In her response, the Minister might be tempted to say that there are other examples of Commission notices performing the same kinds of feats as that which underpins the regulations before us today. I can locate only two, both of which come with the heading “DISCLAIMER” and seek to interpret the relevant legislation to the point of changing its effective meaning. Interestingly, they both relate to the Irish Sea border and attempts to interpret one’s way out of earlier problems. One relates to human medicines and the other to veterinary medicines.

Finally, could the Minister explain why it is acceptable to bring legislation to your Lordships’ House that does the following? First, it testifies the disfranchisement of the people of Northern Ireland in relation to key aspects of the NHS; secondly, it further alienates us from the rest of the United Kingdom through the imposition of a dental amalgam sea border from July 2026; thirdly, it presents all this on a legal foundation that relates not to EU law but to an interpretation of it that bears no relation to the actual legislation, and which could be struck down by the European Court of Justice at any time; and, fourthly, it acquiesces with the unconstitutional practice of, in effect, using the Executive to suspend laws made by this legislature.

[Lord Reay (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this debate and the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, for her amendment. This SI addresses the implications for Northern Ireland of the Government’s decision not to follow the Minamata Convention on Mercury on phasing out the use of mercury dental amalgam fillings throughout the EU. I will say a few words on why it is concerning that the UK Government are rowing back on their Minamata commitments, and why mercury amalgam fillings, which are highly toxic, should be banned throughout the UK at the earliest opportunity.

This issue is not merely one of dentistry; it concerns public health, environmental protection and ethical responsibility. Mercury is one of the most toxic substances known to science, as the Minister readily accepted in her opening statement, and there is no safe level of exposure for humans. Studies show that mercury vapour is released continuously into the mouth from amalgam fillings, especially when we chew, grind our teeth or have old fillings removed. These vapours are inhaled, absorbed into the bloodstream and stored in the body’s tissues. Chronic exposure has been linked to neurological damage, kidney dysfunction and developmental harm in unborn children.

15:45

The problem does not stop at the patient’s mouth. Mercury from dental practices, cremations and landfill waste seeps into water systems, where it transforms into methylmercury, a highly toxic compound that accumulates in fish and other wildlife. That same mercury then returns to us through the food we eat. In fact, dental amalgam is one of the largest sources of mercury pollution in the UK. Once mercury enters the environment, it cannot be destroyed. It circulates indefinitely, contaminating ecosystems for generations. A ban is not just a medical issue; it is an environmental necessity.

The global community recognises this danger. The Minamata Convention on Mercury, which the UK signed in 2013 and ratified in 2017, commits nations to reducing and eventually eliminating mercury use. Countries such as Norway, Sweden and Denmark have already banned amalgam entirely. The European Union is phasing it out completely this year and next. If the UK does not act, it risks falling behind international standards and undermining its environmental commitments.

The proponents of mercury fillings in the UK, such as the British Dental Association, argue that amalgam remains necessary because it is cheap and durable. That argument no longer holds. Modern composite resins and compounds such as zirconium are strong, safe and aesthetically superior. They bond directly to the tooth, preserving a more healthy structure. Yes, they may take slightly longer to place, but with modern techniques the difference is minimal. When we consider the environmental cost of mercury pollution, composites are not only safer but more economical in the long term.

This debate is also about ethics. Can we in good conscience continue to sanction the use of a neurotoxic material in medical treatment, particularly when safer alternatives exist? Government policy on mercury amalgam fillings should not be determined solely by the British Dental Association. The Government must commit to engaging toxicologists and environmental scientists to advise them on the toxicity of mercury fillings and their repercussions as a matter of urgency. The Government should commit to granting extra funding to the already underfunded NHS dentistry to cover any increase in cost for alternative fillings. The United Kingdom has both the evidence and the moral imperative to act. By banning mercury dental amalgam fillings, we affirm our commitment to science, safety and ethical progress. Let us not cling to outdated practice. Let us consign mercury amalgam fillings to history.

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her statement, which filled out very carefully the exact situation that we now face with amalgam fillings in a useful and important way. I am very grateful for that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, is right on one key point. I have friends in the Irish Republic who regularly use Northern Irish dental services. This is, at the very least, a loose end in the regulations presented to us in the House today, which, in principle, place a burden on Northern Irish dentists. It is difficult to see how they can deal with it in any proper way. It is the loose end in the Minister’s very elegant introduction.

This is a sensitive matter. Reference has already been made to the operation of the NHS in Northern Ireland. One of the key differences between the Windsor Framework and the 2019 withdrawal agreement is that the Windsor Framework makes it clear on page 14 that basic state functions include medical supplies. This is essentially an issue of medical supplies. It is one of the things that can be said in favour of the Windsor Framework—indeed, it was the first item in the DUP’s election manifesto for the Assembly elections that this situation had to be rectified.

The debate today raises a degree of uncertainty as to how these matters are going. In broad outline, there is a practical resolution to most of the questions, and the Minister has made that clear, but one has to understand why there is a certain neuralgia in the public mind none the less. It is related to another issue, which is in no way the Minister’s responsibility—but it is the case that the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, has brought forward an independent report on the Windsor Framework for the Government in this House. My noble friend Lord Carlile’s Select Committee, on which the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, sits, has also produced an important document on the working of the Windsor Framework. Does the Minister have any ideas of any significant EU response to the issues that have been raised and the loose ends, one of which we have discussed—the burden apparently being placed on Northern Irish dentists? Given those two reports, I hear very little about the government response.

This is a moment of reset in Anglo-Irish relations. For example, at the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, which I attended last week, the Irish Minister, Mr Lawless, said that the key thing about the Windsor Framework was that it protected the Irish position on the island economy. Actually, the Windsor Framework makes it clear on page 5 that for the foreseeable future there are two economies on the island of Ireland—but for the first time in decades there was no British Minister to reply to that at the BIPA, if they had so wished.

In this House eight days ago, the noble Lord, Lord Livermore, dismissed a relatively innocent question on the green lane and its working in the Windsor Framework on the grounds that the green lane was a kind of old-style Brexit thinking. In fact, the green lane is in the Windsor Framework and is specifically referred to on page 8, so it is not unreasonable to ask how it is working out in actual fact.

For those of us who support the Windsor Framework critically but know that it leaves a lot of irritants for the public of Northern Ireland, it needs to be fully implemented. The Government cannot just pay lip service to it, as they do, but then half shy away when the Irish Government say something else, or it does not appear to fulfil commitments that were given to the electorate of Northern Ireland and are fundamental to why the Assembly and the Good Friday institutions currently operate. The fact that those commitments were given in good faith became the basis for the return of the Assembly.

A significant minority of unionists in Northern Ireland have tired of these institutions and are deeply critical of them—and, in my opinion, unrealistically and unreasonably wish to replace them. But it gives succour to that group if the Government do not just support the Windsor Framework but support it with vigour.

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

My Lords, earlier today we had a haul of Earls—I think that was the collective term. In this debate on issues that pertain to the protocol and the Windsor Framework, I rise as one of a number of unionist Peers. I am not sure what the collective term is, whether we are an anger of Peers or a frustration of Peers. I will allow some of my more erudite colleagues to disseminate the correct answer.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, made reference to the fact that a number of colleagues from across the Chamber are due on different flights tonight to return home to Northern Ireland. I am not, but I will forgo what I intended to do—a two-hour contextual dissertation on the impact of dental amalgam and its history over the past 100 years in British dentistry.

When looking at the issue and the regulations in front of us, we need to disaggregate two issues. One is the landing point of the regulation itself and the other—perhaps much more concerning, as highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and others—is the underlying issues behind it. On the regulation itself, we have heard the concerns raised in relation to the continuance of mercury amalgam. I think that has been accepted largely, not simply by the UN convention but by the World Dental Federation. I think it has been accepted that there is a need at least for a phasing out of that dental amalgam. There may be some degree of disagreement over the speed of that.

We know that if immediate action was taken, there would be financial implications for dentists. Wherever we reach in the near future, the alternatives at present are considerably more costly and time-consuming. Indeed, the real concern that was raised, particularly by local dentists in Northern Ireland, was that if we faced a cliff-edge ban in 2025 or 2026, it would lead effectively to the collapse of NHS dentistry in Northern Ireland. That was a very real fear. This does not come simply within a vacuum. We have to realise that the impact, particularly for the dental profession, has arisen from the Covid situation, when it was particularly hard hit.

With that balance in place, I think that we can, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, indicated, at least accept a level of relief that, instead of the immediate crisis that had been created, with this regulation we are now talking about the beginning of January 2035 for that phasing-out period. That is in line with what has been put forward by the World Dental Federation. It should also be indicated—I will be interested in the Minister’s response on this—that whatever happens in terms of phasing out, it should be done across the UK.

I commend the landing zone but join others in expressing concern over the underlying issues of how we got here in the first place. There are three major concerns. First, on the dental issue itself, when either a piece of primary legislation or regulations are passed, I think we all fall into the trap of then dismissing the issue—job done; we have reached a solution. It is abundantly clear that, with these regulations, we are putting it off to a particular point at the end of 2034. That does not mean that the issue can simply be ignored between now and then. As was indicated, there needs to be considerable investment and support to ensure that we have practical alternatives to the dental amalgam. As has been highlighted earlier, some of those seem to be in progress but, at the moment, it is indicated that the alternatives are roughly five times the cost in private practice of what they would be in the NHS. We need to be in a position where we can institute the alternative. That means a considerable amount of work. It means support for the dental profession and for this to be brought about on a UK-wide basis.

Undoubtedly, it is the case that even if this did not apply anywhere in the United Kingdom, there is a major problem facing dentistry throughout the UK because of the EU ban. It is quite likely that the supply chains, and the overall European market for dental amalgam, will collapse in the near future, which will create its own difficulties. The Government need to be aware, so I again look to the Minister to see what support they will give to the dental profession as we move ahead between now and the beginning of 2035.

Secondly, on the solution that has been reached today, I commend officials and Ministers in the Government on raising these concerns with the EU and negotiating a sensible final position. But it highlights that these issues should not have to be fought out on a one-by-one basis. It shows the fundamental flaw with the system itself. These decisions lack any form of democratic accountability because they lie, ultimately, with the EU, where sovereignty has been surrendered and a level of democratic and political autonomy has been given over. We are left in a situation where this solution has been reached only because the EU decided, in effect, to do us a favour and agree this. We cannot be in a position, in the long term, of having to fight each individual matter on the basis that issues will be resolved on the good will or otherwise of the EU. We need a better solution to that.

Finally, this also shows, as has been shown with a number of other issues that I will touch on briefly, a level of overreach when it comes to our relationship with the EU. It is undoubtedly the case that the argument for a particular form of relationship that impacts Northern Ireland is largely based on two things from an EU perspective: the protection of the single market and a reduction of any friction on a cross-border basis. But the relationship at present, through the protocol and perhaps to a lesser extent through the Windsor Framework, goes into a wide range of areas, from immigration, for example, to the selling of poppies, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, indicated, which is nothing to do with cross-border trade or protecting the EU market.

16:00

Last week in this House we talked about duty-free in airports within Northern Ireland. Again, it was the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, who raised the issue. The rationale given by the Minister then was that one of the major parts of this is to prevent us having to have some form of customs regulations in airports for flights going into the Irish Republic from Northern Ireland. Yet this was a solution engineered for a situation where there were no flights going from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland.

Similarly, the issue concerning amalgam should simply be decided within Northern Ireland. The issue may well be how exactly it is meant to be policed with people going across the border. I do not know whether we will see some form of customs posts on the Irish border, where people get their teeth examined on the way out to make sure they are not smuggling fillings into the Irish Republic. That is the kind of ridiculous situation that we have reached. Although a particular solution has been found to this problem, it highlights that there are fundamental flaws within the relationship itself, which shows that the Government have to go a lot further in any reset they have with the European Union. We need long-term solutions, not sticking plasters from issue to issue.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her very clear introduction to this statutory instrument and the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, for raising this issue, even though I will take a very different approach to the SI. I will park the constitutional questions, leaving the Windsor Framework to one side, and raise the issue of why Britain is trailing globally on the issue of mercury dental fillings.

I take issue with the Minister’s introduction, which talked about a stable, safe and typically cheaper material. It is worth stressing that this SI provides bespoke arrangements—here, I am looking at it purely from the medical health side—for a longer transition period away from mercury dental fillings in Northern Ireland compared with the EU, a delayed phase-out that is in line with the rest of the UK. This is bad for the people of Northern Ireland, bad for the UK and bad for the world.

Coincidentally, a new study is out today from the Rivers Trust and Wildlife and Countryside Link that shows that more than 98% of fish and mussels tested in English waters contain mercury levels above EU safety limits. In fact, more than half the fish and mussels tested have mercury levels more than five times above the EU safety limits. We all know that mercury is a potent neurotoxin, even at low levels of exposure. There is the tragedy of Minamata, the disease that resulted from the industrial release of methylmercury in Japan. This has been known for many decades. Some 43 countries have now banned mercury amalgam fillings, including the EU and the Scandinavian countries, but also countries such as Tanzania and Indonesia.

The practical reality is that crematoriums are now the second-largest source of mercury emissions to the air, after the combustion of fossil fuels. We know that fossil fuels are and have to be on the way out for other reasons, so the percentage contribution will only rise higher and higher. As has been mentioned, there is the Minamata convention meeting in November, and there is talk of a global phase-out by 2030, led by African countries including Botswana and Burkina Faso.

I raised issue with the “cheaper” point. Cost is often cited as the reason why we have to go slower, but countries such as Germany use safer alternatives and the cost is only very marginally higher. If Germany can manage it, surely we can manage it too.

It is also important to understand the issue of mercury pollution on a global scale. It is interesting that the African nations are leading at that November convention, because the rise in the price of and demand for gold is also associated with massive increases in mercury pollution around the world. We are used to the idea of blood diamonds; mercury-poisoning gold might not be such a catchy phrase, but it is something we should really be talking about. The risks are particularly acute in the Amazon, as highlighted by the campaigning priest Miguel Ángel Cadenas, who works in Peru. It is also a huge issue in artisan gold mining in Africa, and globally it is estimated to release 800 tonnes of mercury into the air per year. That is nearly 40% of global emissions.

These are global emissions; they do not stay where the emissions happen. I point the Minister to a very important study that has just been published in the journal of the European Geosciences Union. We are used to the idea that food crops are being contaminated by taking up mercury from the soil, so the mercury has drifted in dust around the world, settled in the soil and then been taken up. This study has demonstrated, which we have not realised before, that the mercury is being taken in from the air by plants when they photosynthesise. It is going directly into the green, leafy crops that we all need.

I put to the Minister that this SI takes Northern Ireland in the wrong direction. More than that, the Government are not taking the steps they need to take for public and environmental health here in the UK and for global One Health.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, I will briefly make a few comments on this regret amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey. I am grateful to her for tabling it, as it allows a debate on this important issue, which has caused concern in Northern Ireland about access to NHS dentists and not having massive expense imposed on people seeking dental treatment.

I listened very carefully to the arguments that were put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and by the noble Lord, Lord Reay, who spoke very eloquently about why they believe the EU is right to move to a speedy removal of dental amalgam. I also listened very carefully to other noble Lords who spoke about their real concern about a cliff edge, the impact that there may be on the supply chain and so on, in relation to this ban happening in Northern Ireland and not in other parts of the United Kingdom.

Whichever side of the argument noble Lords are on, whether for implementing an immediate ban, slowing it down, or having it at all, this is an issue that should be debated and decided by us. That is the crucial question. There is a multitude of issues within the Windsor Framework, of which this is one tiny example, ranging from the environment, agriculture, manufacturing and thousands of regulations. In Northern Ireland, we can debate until the cows come home about whether they are good or bad ideas and whether the principle behind them is a good or bad thing—which is good, and we should be debating that—but there is nothing we can do about it. The debate in the Northern Ireland Assembly is irrelevant; the British Parliament has no powers. That point has been highlighted by my noble friends Lord Morrow and Lord Weir, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey.

It is an amazing situation that the arguments that are being put forward in relation to these matters have no relevance in Northern Ireland, because the European Commission and the European Union will decide the matter and not give a fig for what anyone elected in Northern Ireland says about it.

When these issues are raised, with there being example after example, I know that there are people in the generality of Parliament who do not take a great interest in these matters, may find this tedious and may even find it laughable at times. You see people who ask, “What is this all about? What are they going on about again?” But time after time, we are seeing a situation where the impact on Northern Ireland is not just in terms of the economic costs of divergence, as has been recently highlighted by the Federation of Small Businesses report and by the Murphy review of the Windsor Framework, which the noble Lord, Lord Bew, referred to and which was highlighted in the recent report of the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee of this House. I would urge your Lordships to read that report, which sets out in very stark terms the cost and the economic damage in a whole range of areas.

So it is not just the cost but the democratic cost as well. We cannot decide these matters. I thought the most telling remark that the Minister made in her introduction, in recognising the problem and hearing what people were saying in Northern Ireland, was that the UK Government “made representations to the EU”. Somebody mentioned self-respect and dignity; this is what we have come to in Northern Ireland on this issue and across a thousand directives and regulations, across 300 areas, for vast swathes of our economy.

We will continue to highlight this issue, because it is something that is ultimately going to cause major problems down the line. I have been warning for some time about the Northern Ireland Assembly, which has been set up, has worked and has done many good things, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Bew, referred to, the basis on which it has been restored and commitments that were entered into that the Government have been cast aside. EU labelling was to be introduced for the whole of the UK, which was a commitment in Safeguarding the Union. That was one of the reasons why the Assembly was restored, but it has been cast aside, rejected and torn up; commitments have been shredded and have not been implemented. This is another example of where we are going wrong and where, ultimately, the Northern Ireland Assembly will be placed in danger.

It may be a minority concern now—it is hard to know, but we will soon find out at the next election—but the recent Northern Ireland Life and Times survey by Queen’s University indicated growing concern in the unionist community about the implications of all these issues. If that is replicated in an election, it will be very difficult to have the stability within the Assembly that is needed to have a strong unionist and nationalist presence in the Executive. I do not say that out of any desire to see it collapse or anything like it, but I am just pointing out a reality.

Whitehall generally, the Government and the big parties need to understand what is at stake. There is a growing disillusionment, anger and frustration that these debates, which we should be having in the Assembly in Northern Ireland or here, are not happening. The decisions have been made by bureaucrats in Brussels, by the Commission, and imposed on Northern Ireland, and then we have to go and beg for a grace-and-favour extension to not have it implemented immediately. That is happening over and over again.

This has been a useful debate, and I commend those who have spoken and highlighted all these issues. I know that the Minister takes a very strong interest in Northern Ireland, follows these things deeply and cares about Northern Ireland, and I look forward to her response.

16:15

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for her very clear presentation. I take the opportunity to wish the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, a speedy recovery. If she is watching this debate today, she should know that we are all thinking of her. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, for the opportunity to have this debate, because it is an important debate. However, as ever, it is a debate about two different issues. The first is the ongoing constitutional debate about the functioning of the Windsor Framework and the democratic questions arising from Northern Ireland having to accept decisions taken by the European Union when we no longer have representation there since leaving the EU. The second debate is the substance of these regulations: the phasing out of amalgam dental fillings and the exemption for Northern Ireland to 2034. I will deal with the latter point first.

I believe the exemption to 2034 is welcome. The NHS in Northern Ireland, and dentistry in particular, is in a state of some crisis. This nine-year exemption will allow time to make the transition from amalgam to composite fillings in a planned and phased manner, and will avoid the shock to Northern Ireland dentistry which many dental professionals warned about. Clearly, I am not a dentist. I listened with interest to the noble Lord, Lord Weir, and to the noble Lord, Lord Reay, but it is noticeable, I would say, that amalgam fillings have seen a marked decrease in popularity in recent years. People are keen to choose the more aesthetically pleasing white composite fillings.

The noble Lord, Lord Reay, powerfully made the case in his speech that the use of mercury amalgam fillings has always been somewhat controversial. They require much greater drilling in the tooth, which can have long-term consequences. They add enormously, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has said, to mercury pollution in the environment. Ahead of this debate today, I was reading that a recent medical research paper has indicated that their use might even have an impact on arthritis. I would be grateful if the Minister could, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, asked, clarify the Government’s position on eventually banning mercury amalgam fillings in England.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, ahead of the imminent meeting on the Minamata Convention on Mercury being held next week, from 3 November to 7 November, I would be interested to know the Government’s response to a proposal by the African nations for a ban on dental amalgam by 2030. I believe the Minister in her opening remarks said that if amalgam fillings are eventually banned for the rest of the UK ahead of 2034, Northern Ireland would follow suit and these regulations would fall. I would be grateful if she could clarify that in her closing remarks.

On the constitutional issue, as noble Lords will know—indeed, it would not be a debate on a regret amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, if I did not point this out—if we had not left the European Union then we would not be having these arguments, because we would have been able to make the case within the EU institutions on behalf of UK dentists, including Northern Ireland dentists, at the Council and the European Parliament. But she and I are never entirely going to agree on those matters.

As others have said, the Windsor Framework is very far from perfect. There is a democratic deficit, and it is something that we in the rest of the UK are going to have to face if we go further down the route of dynamic alignment. But I would argue that this set of regulations is a positive story. There was an issue, and the UK Government and the EU listened, the Northern Ireland Assembly made the case powerfully, and an exemption to 2034 was granted. That is why on these Benches we support these regulations and oppose the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, because it allows us to debate a very important subject. It is important on two counts, as we heard in the debate: first, on the constitutional issue, and, secondly, on the merits or demerits of amalgam—and some powerful speeches were made pointing out how dangerous it can be. It has allowed us to hear an excellent opening address from the Minister.

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, on two counts, the first being her assurance, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Weir, that we will finish by 7 pm. Of course, this being Northern Ireland business, I was betting on 6.55 pm. The second count is that Peers from Northern Ireland have raised the important constitutional question. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, that I do not find this tedious at all. I am afraid I share his view that, sooner or later, this is going to come to a crunch. We have yet another regulation before us here which will slowly drive a wedge between our United Kingdom and our Northern Ireland.

I had no idea about the poppies issue. I Google searched it after the noble Baroness mentioned it, and I was appalled to find that she is absolutely right—EU interference with selling poppies in Northern Ireland.

We on these Benches recognise the importance of reducing mercury use in line with the Minamata convention. We do not oppose the principle of this instrument. However, it is right that we probe the Government on how it has been implemented, particularly regarding dental amalgam and its replacement, as my noble friends have discussed.

Northern Ireland, as we know, has been granted a longer-term transition period, allowing the continued import and use of amalgam until 2034 to avoid disruption to dental services. Apart from my noble friend Lord Reay, most Members in the House seem to agree that the extension is sensible while we look for workable alternatives. What engagement has taken place with dental practitioners in Northern Ireland? How will the Government monitor the practical impacts of divergence between Northern Ireland and Great Britain? How will any future decision under the Minamata convention affect this timeline?

We note the British Dental Association’s concerns about cost and capacity. Amalgam, it says, is a widely used and affordable material, and replacing it too quickly, without proper support, could worsen access issues. My noble friend Lord Bourne also wanted reassurance on that point. On the other hand, my noble friend Lord Reay, in a very powerful speech, pointed out the severe dangers of mercury amalgam and that alternatives were available already—almost as cheap and better.

I simply do not know. I will not say that finding the answer is like pulling teeth—there is no time for silliness—but the Government ought to know. If the Government do not know now, hopefully in the next few years they will. Will we be able, before 2034, to find for the whole United Kingdom—not just Northern Ireland but the whole United Kingdom—a reasonably cheap alternative to dental amalgam?

We do not oppose this instrument, but we urge the Government to remain alert to its impact on front-line services to ensure that both patients and practitioners in Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom are properly supported. I urge the Government, as soon as possible, to work with those developing alternatives to make sure that a replacement is available to Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom as soon as practicable.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I was tempted to make a joke about filling the gap in the noble Lord’s information, given what we are talking about. Noble Lords are aware that I am passionate about Northern Ireland, and there are many issues that I thoroughly enjoy talking about with Members of your Lordships’ House. I did not realise that dental amalgam was going to be one of them, so noble Lords will have to bear with me.

I am very aware of people’s travel arrangements for this evening, so I will be short and sweet, but I will reflect on Hansard in case I have missed anyone’s comments. I also hope that my noble friend Lady Hayman is getting better, but I am not sure that watching your Lordships’ House is going to assist in that, so I hope she is having chicken soup and lying in bed.

Many points have been raised, and I will try to cover them all. There are some on which I would like to reassure noble Lords. On others, I think it might be helpful to Members of your Lordships’ House if I offered a meeting to discuss the constitutional aspects of this with regard to the Windsor Framework, because as the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, highlighted, we have a constitutional issue here and we also have the SI at hand.

I will try to touch on many issues for reassurance, but noble Lords are aware that this is not the first, nor will it be the last, time that we talk about the effectiveness of the Windsor Framework and where some of the challenges are. I would very much welcome the opportunity to have further conversations on it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, touched on the fact that pressure was placed through discussions in Parliament and elsewhere to make sure that this issue was raised. In fact, the noble Baroness had the benefit of being the first person to table a Question of this Government on any issue, and it was on this issue on our first day out. I thought I was going to have my first outing as Northern Ireland spokesperson talking about this issue; it turns out I was not first, but I was not going to escape.

Turning to the specific concerns that were raised, I want to put noble Lords’ minds at rest about poppies. They are available to be bought, with additional materials, and are freely available in Northern Ireland. As noble Lords are aware, I would be horrified if people could not purchase them.

The EU Commission notice was touched on. The Government have considered all our obligations in developing this SI, including the nature of the notice. The arrangements are already in effect and have been since January this year. The SI strengthens the enforcement measures, and we are comfortable with where we are; the SI gives it further practicalities.

On enforcement, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency—an executive agency of DAERA—will keep accurate records of all regulatory and enforcement action undertaken, along with information provided by Northern Ireland’s Department of Health. This will enable assessment, over time, of the impact of the prohibitions and exemptions on Northern Ireland.

I also assure both the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and the other Members of your Lordships’ House who raised this issue that there will be no guards on the border checking people’s teeth. I know that that was a concern, but I assure noble Lords that it will not be how enforcement of this is done.

Dental tourism and members of the republic using these services was raised by several noble Lords. Republic of Ireland patients will not be entitled to NHS dentistry, and residency needs to be proven. People will still be able to access their dentist in Northern Ireland in the same way as they did before non-amalgam fillings, as they can in the Republic of Ireland, but not via the NHS.

The noble Lord, Lord Bourne, and several noble Lords asked about dental amalgam and what the Government are doing to improve dental services. State-funded healthcare is a devolved matter and responsibility of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Governments. I was pleased to see the Northern Ireland Government announce an extra £7 million for dentistry services this year, but we are working together on both the issues that dentists currently face and these issues.

On the proposed updates to mercury regulations in Great Britain and what action is being taken in the UK to reduce mercury use, the UK will be laying legislation this year to prohibit the import, export and manufacture in Great Britain of a number of products containing intentionally added mercury. These products will also be phased out in Northern Ireland by the EU mercury regulations. The legislation will prohibit several mercury-containing products.

I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, as I realise that some of her issues interlay with others. The health impacts of the continued use of dental amalgam were touched upon. Dental amalgam is a well-established, safe and effective dental filling material. There is no evidence that amalgam fillings cause any harm to the health of dental patients. However, mercury, when released into the environment in large volumes, can cause harm and this is carefully managed by the UK to reduce any environmental impact.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I have not finished addressing the points the noble Baroness raised, if she will bear with me.

The noble Lord, Lord Reay, asked what we are doing on our long-term use of mercury, and about the Minamata convention. Noble Lords are aware that discussions will again be occurring at COP next week on what happens next with Minamata. The actions we are taking align with our international commitments under the Minamata Convention on Mercury, which is an international treaty. The convention is aimed at protecting health and the environment from the harmful effects of mercury, and the UK is a fully committed party to this convention. Our current measures were based on decisions made at the fourth and fifth Minamata convention of the parties.

In addressing what will happen next with our dental amalgam being in line with the Minamata Convention on Mercury, UK-wide restrictions on dental amalgam use have been in place for certain populations since 1 July 2018. These include children under the age of 15, and pregnant and breastfeeding women. Since 1 January 2019, there has been a requirement in UK law to use dental amalgam only in pre-dosed encapsulated form, and for dental facilities to be equipped with amalgam separators to minimise dental professionals’ and the environment’s exposure to mercury. There will be further discussions on dental amalgam at the upcoming Minamata conference of the parties, which starts next week. Discussions and conversations on these issues are ongoing.

16:30

On the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Weir, and many other noble Lords about whether a decade is long enough for NI dentistry to adapt to the legislation, the longer transition period is in line with the expert advice provided to the Democratic Scrutiny Committee by the BDA, which is the main organisation we have been dealing with, both on the ground in Northern Ireland and more broadly. It expressed the view that the need for amalgam will much likely be reduced in 10 years’ time because of all the issues raised by other Members of your Lordships’ House. It takes into account Northern Ireland’s current usage and circumstances and is expected to give Northern Ireland dentistry the necessary time to adapt.

Several other points were raised on divergence from the Minamata convention. The EU’s dental amalgam provisions go beyond the current requirements in the Minamata convention. At the last Conference of the Parties, COP 5, in October/November 2023, there was a proposal to phase out the manufacture, import and export of dental amalgam by 2030. There was no consensus, so parties agreed to discuss this at the next COP, which is happening next week. Parties, however, agreed to phase down dental amalgam and that parties yet to phase out or prohibit dental amalgam would report on their process to phase down or phase out amalgam, which is what we are doing.

On some of the other issues raised, I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, who raised a really important point that was also raised in the other place, about Northern Ireland producers of amalgam. I do not believe there are any Northern Ireland producers of amalgam, but, if he knows of any who will now struggle because of the prohibitions of this SI, we would very much want to work with them and I would appreciate an introduction.

On the ongoing report from the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, noble Lords are very aware that my noble friend published a report from the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, on the effectiveness of the Windsor Framework. I am very grateful for the effort and consideration from the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and to all who participated in his review, including many Members of your Lordships’ House. The review reflects the Government’s commitment to securing the broadest possible confidence of communities in Northern Ireland. The Government are now considering the noble Lord’s recommendations and will provide a response before the legal deadline in January. We will never be complacent and we are clear that our approach is not to pretend that problems never arise but to respond pragmatically to solve the issues where they do.

I would like to address some of the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Bew, around the Windsor Framework; we will meet to discuss them in more detail. He rightly raised the fact that, for the first time, there was not a British Minister at the British-Irish Council. I was on my honeymoon, so I give my apologies; that was also the week that we published the legacy legislation—the remedial order—in the other place and in your Lordships’ House. It was because of parliamentary demands that no Minister went. We will make sure there is a Minister at future engagements and we have been clear with the organisers to that extent, too.

To the noble Lord, Lord Weir, I say that I genuinely do not know what I would call a collection of unionist Peers, other than “I like spending time with you”. I am not sure what we would collectively be called, but I am very grateful to him for curtailing his two-hour speech—I think noble Lords will appreciate that when they are running to the airport. I appreciate his process concerns and the genuine concerns around the democratic deficit. Earlier this year, in August, with the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, I met with a group of young unionists who made very clear their concerns on the issue of the democratic deficit, the overreach of the EU and what it meant for their identity and political identity. We take these matters very seriously and we will continue to make sure that the union voice is not just heard but acted on.

On poisoning and gold, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, will not be surprised to know that that went slightly beyond the scope of my briefing for this SI, given that dental amalgam and Northern Ireland and the Windsor Framework were probably thought to be sufficient. I will write to her on the issues that she raised.

I thank all noble Lords, as ever, for their considered contributions. I know that these issues are difficult and challenging—

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister. This is not a specific Northern Ireland point, but we heard a fairly powerful speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, who said that Germany has introduced an alternative that it is only marginally more expensive than mercury amalgam. My noble friend, Lord Reay, made the point that mercury should be banned immediately because of this alternative. Will the Minister raise with the Ministers in the Department of Health and Social Care that we want a statement on these alternatives? Is the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, right? Is my noble friend right? Do we have to wait 10 years before we have a replacement? We really could do with a statement from the Department of Health on the work that is currently happening on alternatives, such as that in Germany.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord. I will raise that with my colleagues in the Department of Health. Some of these discussions are genuinely active as part of the negotiations at COP next week. We cannot withdraw dental amalgam without having cost-effective alternatives, as I would hope these alternatives are.

As ever, it is a privilege to spend time talking about the impact of legislation on Northern Ireland. I am grateful that everyone has stayed on a Thursday evening to discuss it with us, and I wish everyone safe travels.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the Minister for the offer of a letter about the gold mining issues. All these are related, because it is the amount of mercury in the environment, globally, that matters. I mentioned a study about British seafood—fish and mussels—which was produced literally a couple of hours ago. I am aware that it is not the Minister’s department, but I hope that, when she is recovered soon, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, or the relevant person could write to me on the fish study as well.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

As I said, I will reflect on everything that the noble Baroness said, and I will make sure that she receives the letter.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, having listened to the debate, I feel I should have declared an interest at the beginning, in that I have amalgam fillings. I am very pleased that the Minister reiterated that, whatever the issue is in the longer term, amalgam fillings are safe. We would not want to be worrying the millions of people out there who have amalgam fillings.

I know that the Minister is not the Minister for dentistry—and I am sure she does not want to add that to her title. It was a very interesting debate, much wider than I had intended, in the sense that it was a constitutional issue that I wanted to raise. It has been very helpful—and I now know where the dentists among us are sitting for when my amalgam fillings go.

I thank everyone for speaking, particularly the Minister for her response. I hope she knows how well she is thought of in Northern Ireland. I thought her response was, in the circumstances, given the Government’s policy positions, very helpful indeed. It might be helpful if she could write to me outlining exactly what the legal position of the Commission’s notice is.

Finally, this is not about dentistry—although, if we are to ban amalgam fillings, we need to start now, to make sure our dentists are able to cope, because they will certainly have extra costs, which will be an issue in Northern Ireland.

The noble Lord, Lord Dodds, in his usual way, expressed how frustrating it is now for people in Northern Ireland. At the beginning, when all this happened, a lot of people in the public thought that it was all about business—big business, small business—and nothing to do with us. Now they are seeing so many things happening—the chickens are coming home to roost, as they would say. I really hope that noble Lords listening to these Sis—which we will continue to challenge, because we need to get the information out there—will understand that Northern Ireland is being treated as a second-class part of the United Kingdom. That is not acceptable. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment withdrawn.

Motion agreed.

House adjourned at 4.40 pm.