Oral Answers to Questions
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Irene Campbell (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)
Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) (Lab)
Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
Tackling violence against women and girls is a top priority for this Government. We will deliver a cross-Government, transformative approach underpinned by the new strategy, which we aim to publish as soon as possible. This strategy is overseen by the violence against women and girls ministerial board, the safer streets mission board and regular stocktakes by the Prime Minister. This structure holds the Government Departments to account.
Irene Campbell
As a former chair of North Ayrshire Women’s Aid, I was concerned to read reports that sexual assault and harassment of women and girls on trains has risen by more than a third over the past 10 years. That adds up to 2,661 incidents reported across England, Scotland and Wales last year, with one in 10 of them affecting children. Does the Minister agree that that cannot be allowed to continue, and that we must do more to tackle this shocking rise in violence against women and girls?
Jess Phillips
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. However, there have been recent successful campaigns by British Transport police and the Rail Delivery Group, which is the rail industry-funded group representing the views of the rail industry, to encourage reporting of offences against women and girls, and we believe that some of the rise in recorded offences is because of that success and the willingness of victims to come forward and bystanders to intervene or report on a victim’s behalf. However, we are not complacent. The Department for Transport recently announced £17 million of investment to better connect CCTV at train stations. The project will enable greater real-time access for the BTP to accelerate investigations and identify offenders as quickly as possible to bring them to justice.
Ms Minns
Over the past year, my office and I have supported a depressing number of constituents who have been failed—failed by the police and social services for not listening to reports of coercive control; failed by the family court for not recognising who the victim is; and failed by the Crown Prosecution Service for not proceeding to prosecute cases of domestic abuse because it does not believe the victim to be credible. What steps is the Minister taking with colleagues from across Government to ensure that women are believed and listened to?
Jess Phillips
Sadly, what my hon. Friend describes is something that I think everybody in the House would recognise. We are strengthening the justice system to better support victims, and we have committed to ensuring that there are specialist rape and sexual offences teams in every police force and that police officers receive stronger training on violence against women and girls, including on coercive and controlling behaviour. We will also ban anyone with a history of violence against women and girls from joining the police force and we will increase the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner through the Victims and Courts Bill, so that they can hold criminal justice systems accountable and independently scrutinise the victims code of compliance.
Steve Witherden
Survivors of domestic abuse and violence, along with their children, must be able to access affordable housing. The local housing allowance, introduced by the last Labour Government to cover the lowest 50% of private rents, now covers only 1% of private rents in Wales and 2.4% in England. Does the Minister agree that unfreezing LHA and linking it once more to actual local rents is vital to reducing the risk of homelessness for survivors and ensuring that they have the safety of a stable home when fleeing abuse?
Jess Phillips
I thank my hon. Friend for his passionate plea, and I absolutely will take up his suggestions in the meetings to which I have already referred. Tier 1 local authorities in England have a legal requirement to assess and address the need for support within safe accommodation for all domestic abuse victims. The Government have increased the funding to local authorities to £160 million this year—an uplift of £30 million from previous years—to provide further support in safe accommodation for domestic abuse survivors. The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government has published statutory guidance, which is clear that local authorities should ensure that sufficient suitable support in safe accommodation is available to meet the needs of victims locally.
Dr Opher
Last week, I met “Loose Women” presenters in Parliament and heard about their “Facing It Together” programme. First, will the Minister support the “Facing It Together” programme? Secondly, will she support a plan we have hatched to get a poster about it in every GP surgery in this country?
Jess Phillips
I absolutely do support the “Loose Women” in this regard. I was about to say that I would like to think of myself as one, but I am not sure that that would come across very well. I agree that signage in GPs’ surgeries, dentists’ waiting rooms and pubs and clubs are valuable tools to warn the public about the signs of domestic abuse, and can help to point those who are worried about a friend or family member to places where they can be helped. We as a Government must ensure that when people need to see that signage it will be there, and that is what we are doing
Ben Obese-Jecty
In June I asked the Government to consider my private Member’s Bill calling for them to publish a strategy to tackle interpersonal abuse and violence against men and boys. The strategy would ensure that male survivors of crimes that are considered to be violence against women and girls—such as rape, sexual assault, domestic abuse, forced marriage and honour-based violence—were given dedicated support, and would also prevent male survivors from having to be in spaces that should be for women. On 1 September, the Minister told me that the strategy
“will be published early in the autumn.”
We are now well past that. What is causing the delay in the publication of the revised VAWG strategy, and can the Minister assure me that it will specifically address male
survivors of crimes that are considered to be violence against women and girls?
Jess Phillips
Yes, I can absolutely give the hon. Gentleman that assurance, and I would be more than happy to meet him to discuss these matters and see where we can go forward together. The delay is being caused by the fact that the work will be completely cross-governmental; we must ensure that the allocations processes, and all the things that go on in Government Departments, are as good as they possibly can be, because the National Audit Office reports about previous VAWG strategies have left a lot to be desired, and I do not want that to happen again.
Warinder Juss
In the last couple of months the west midlands has seen a spate of racially motivated attacks on women of colour, including rapes of Sikh women, who now tell me that they are scared to walk on our streets or use public transport to go to work. Does the Minister agree that there is no place in Britain for any kind of racial hatred and that these crimes must be punished to the full extent of the law? What assurance can she offer women and girls in my Wolverhampton constituency that they will have the full protection of the police and the authorities so that they can feel safe?
Jess Phillips
I thank my hon. Friend and Birmingham constituency neighbour and share his real concern about a spate of what appear to be instances of racially motivated sexual violence. All I can say is that some of these cases are sub judice and charges have been laid, but I absolutely assure him that I have spoken to organisations that work on the ground with black and minoritised women to ensure that we do everything we can, along with the police and other agencies, to make sure that women where he and I live feel safe.
Aphra Brandreth (Chester South and Eddisbury) (Con)
Strangulation is an extremely common form of gendered violence: up to two thirds of women suffering domestic abuse report having been strangled. I have corresponded with the Minister about the need for the Institute for Addressing Strangulation to have funding certainty beyond March next year in order to continue its vital work, but have had no assurances. I know how seriously she takes this issue, but can she tell us what she is doing to make it clear to the Chancellor that sustaining this lifesaving work must be a priority if we are to meet the Government’s target of halving violence against women and girls?
Jess Phillips
I greatly appreciate the hon. Lady’s question, and I was very proud when it was announced yesterday that this Government would make strangulation in pornography illegal in our country, because of the rising tide of its becoming acceptable. Much of that work comes from the institute that she mentioned. She must be in absolutely no doubt that there is not a Cabinet Minister in the country who is not aware of the strength of my feelings about what should be spent on violence against women and girls.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
We know—and I have sadly seen through my casework—that coercive control can continue for years after a relationship has ended through the manipulation of child maintenance payments by perpetrators. What steps is the Minister taking with her colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that the systems work to support survivors rather than enabling perpetrators?
Jess Phillips
I have seen those cases. Domestic homicide reviews point to failures in the Child Maintenance Service that have led to the most tragic circumstances. We are working with the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that the system that operates in our country is completely safe, but we are also working with the DWP more widely on exactly what we are doing in that Department on violence against women and girls.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
One of my constituents was domestically abused by someone on a dependant visa. She has been trying to obtain information from UK Visas and Immigration about whether that person is still in the United Kingdom, or still has a visa. Would the Minister consider a measure similar to Clare’s law, so that people have the right to ask what a person’s current visa status is and UKVI can release that information to them?
Jess Phillips
I have handled cases myself that were not dissimilar, where a third party could not be given that information, so I absolutely understand the hon. Lady’s frustration. That area, which sits within the Home Office, is one that I scrutinise very closely, and I will gladly take away her recommendations, because, frankly, I think they are quite good ones.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
The Minister will know that I am unashamedly pro-life. While I strongly welcome the Government’s commitment to ending violence against women and girls, surely that must mean protecting women from harm and coercion in every setting. Given the serious safeguarding concerns and reports of coercion linked to abortion pills by post, will she commit to reviewing that policy to ensure that women are never put at risk?
Jess Phillips
The hon. Lady makes a very important point about how women’s health can be used in coercion, especially their fertility—on both sides of the coin: about having an abortion or not having one. She will know that, unlike her, I am positively pro-choice. However, she is absolutely right that, when we look at any changes to abortion legislation in our country, those conversations will absolutely be going on, and all safeguards will be put in place.
Mims Davies (East Grinstead and Uckfield) (Con)
This Government talk about better protection for women and girls while actively passing changes to our sentencing laws that disgracefully mean that more than 90% of grooming offenders and 60% of rapists sent to prison will get their prison time cut. Was there an assessment of the impact of those changes on women and girls specifically? Can the Minister point to a single organisation representing women and girls that supports cutting prison time for sexual assault or grooming to one third of the sentence?
Jess Phillips
I will have to go away and check exactly what the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) has said regarding the people who the hon. Lady says will be released, because there are, of course, exceptions—and more exceptions than there were under her Government’s prison release scheme, because people like me and my hon. Friend had oversight of this process and cared about the women involved.
It is absolutely shocking that someone from a Government who oversaw the total collapse of our prison system, where we would not have been able to arrest rapists because there were no places for them in prison, can dare to stand there and suggest that that is something that we should—it is unbelievable that she cannot recognise her own role in this.
Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)
I recently met the Centre for Action on Rape and Abuse, also known as CARA, which supports thousands of victims and survivors of sexual violence across Essex, including in my constituency. CARA is concerned about future funding and the need for a stronger focus on tackling sexual violence. Will the Minister confirm that funding for the rape and sexual abuse support fund and independent sexual violence adviser services will continue beyond March 2026, and outline how the Government will prioritise addressing sexual violence?
Jess Phillips
The Ministry of Justice, which oversees victims funding, absolutely ringfenced those two sexual violence funds last year to ensure that they were protected. As for future funding, it would be difficult for me to stand here and guarantee anything while the comprehensive spending review is being allocated, but as someone who used to work in one of those services, I find it vanishingly unlikely that they will not be funded in the future.
Kenneth Stevenson (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)
The Minister for Equalities (Seema Malhotra)
Across Government, we are supporting a number of initiatives to increase the number of women in science, technology, engineering and maths. We have a target of 35% women’s participation in the advanced manufacturing sector. We are investing £18.2 million to ensure under-represented groups get the maths support they need in schools, and are working with schools to support them in developing a triple-science offer for all pupils ahead of introducing a statutory entitlement. A successful STEM sector is a diverse one, and it starts with inspiring the girls of today.
Kenneth Stevenson
Thanks to this Government embracing AI, constituencies such as Airdrie and Shotts are seeing substantial investment in data centres, which will create jobs and reindustrialise former industrial heartlands. On National Engineering Day, does the Minister agree that this Government’s commitment to vocational training and apprenticeships will open more doors for young women in towns and cities across the country to join the STEM workforce and lead the AI revolution?
Seema Malhotra
My hon. Friend speaks from experience in education, and he is absolutely right. We are investing £187 million in our TechFirst programme to bring digital skills and AI learning into classrooms and communities, while 7.5 million workers are set to gain essential AI skills through our industry partnership. Training will open up opportunities in constituencies such as Airdrie and Shotts, and put women and girls at the centre of the AI revolution. I commend his work in this area.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
Does the Minister seriously believe that cutting funding for the international baccalaureate, a qualification that is proven to keep more girls studying STEM subjects, will help increase the number of women entering STEM industries?
Seema Malhotra
An Education Minister will be happy to discuss that with the hon. Lady.
Jack Rankin (Windsor) (Con)
The Minister for Equalities (Olivia Bailey)
This Government are determined to break down barriers to opportunity so that everyone can achieve success, and this commitment is underpinned by strong data and evidence.
Jack Rankin
Earlier this year, the Education Secretary said that white working-class boys “have been betrayed”, yet this summer, MI5, MI6 and GCHQ ran an internship scheme that was open only to people from ethnic minority backgrounds. I am afraid the House of Commons runs a similar scheme, in partnership with the Windsor Fellowship. What message does the Minister think it sends to our children when some doors are closed to them because of the colour of their skin, particularly in the context of what the Education Secretary said about white working-class boys?
Olivia Bailey
I have a lot of respect for the hon. Gentleman, who is a fellow Berkshire MP, but I gently say to him that it is right that people who serve our country, in whatever form, reflect the communities that they serve. These schemes are about levelling the playing field, not creating an unfair advantage, and everybody who gains a place has done so on merit. On the Government side of the House, we follow the evidence; he just follows the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage).
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)
As we come to the end of celebrating Black History Month, it is vital that we continue to promote diversity in all workplaces. Does the Minister agree that it is fundamental for us to have DEI practices in all workforces so that we can fight for equality, fairness and transparency and prevent discrimination, especially the discrimination that far too many people still face in the workplace?
Olivia Bailey
I thank my hon. Friend for her great campaigning work. I agree with her that we must do absolutely everything possible to break down all barriers to opportunity in our country.
Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)
Labour’s previous definition of “Islamophobia” was adopted by councils that had grooming gang scandals, and it said that even talking about grooming gangs was an example of “anti-Muslim racism”. We know from Louise Casey that public servants did not speak up because they were scared of being called racist. The Government are now bringing in a new definition, but they are refusing to tell the public what is in it. Will the Minister commit to publishing the draft definition, before it is adopted, for full public scrutiny?
Olivia Bailey
Wherever there is abuse, it should be tackled, and we will publish details in due course.
Gill Furniss (Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
The Minister for Women and Equalities (Bridget Phillipson)
In October, we celebrated Black History Month. It has been an opportunity to renew our commitment to maintaining all the progress that we have made and ensuring that racial hatred has no place in our society. This year also marks the 60th anniversary of the Race Relations Act 1965, enacted by a Labour Government. We will continue to build on its legacy with our plans to introduce the equality (race and disability) Bill in this Parliament, and we have also established the Race Equality Engagement Group, chaired by the noble Baroness Lawrence.
Gill Furniss
Endometriosis care is in urgent need of reform. I have lost track of the number of young women who have contacted me to share their horror stories, some of whom have waited more than a decade to receive a diagnosis. The system is failing them. I welcome the Government’s commitment to update the women’s health strategy, but can the Minister confirm that menstrual health conditions such as these will be at the forefront of the renewed strategy?
Bridget Phillipson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for all her campaigning on this issue. She is right that too many women suffer trauma and pain, their symptoms and concerns not taken seriously. We are committed to prioritising women’s health. We have commissioned a number of studies focused on endometriosis diagnosis, treatment and patient experience, alongside six research trials, totalling an investment of approximately £5.8 million. This will be an essential part of our 10-year health plan.
Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)
In January, the Supreme Court ruled that sex means biological sex. This was a huge victory for women’s rights, but now we hear that the Minister is kicking the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s much-needed guidance into the long grass. The law is not changing—the law is as it has always been—so will she release the guidance and make sure that women’s rights are protected?
Bridget Phillipson
If I may, Mr Speaker, I would just like to say how moved I was by the interview that the right hon. Lady gave to The Times about her experience and that of her son. I am really pleased that both of them are doing so well and that she is back with us in this House today.
We are committed to protecting single-sex spaces. As I set out in this House, I welcome the clarity of the Supreme Court ruling and providers should follow it. The EHRC has given me the code of practice and we are working through that. It is a lengthy document covering all the protected characteristics. Any suggestion of delay is simply wrong. The EHRC should know that I am legally required to consult the devolved Governments. The EHRC has not been asked to carry out a full regulatory impact assessment, but instead a minimum assessment.
Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)
The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)
Yes, I do. We want a more inclusive society where neurodivergent people, including those with dyspraxia, are supported to thrive. We are working across Government to support earlier intervention in schools, including through the partnerships for inclusion of neurodiversity in schools programme, and the special educational needs and disabilities reforms coming forward in the new year, but we are also, beyond education, taking a wider view of how we ensure people with conditions such as dyspraxia are not held back.
Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)
Bridget Phillipson
I recognise the concern the hon. Gentleman raises and that many Members from across the House have raised. That is why we will be setting out our plans to make improvements to the system through the schools White Paper. I would welcome the contribution of the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues as part of that process, because it is important that we put children’s interests first and get to the right system, particularly around early identification of need.
Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
The Minister for Women and Equalities is already wearing a pink jacket. I absolutely pay tribute to the group in my hon. Friend’s constituency. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), who is the Minister with responsibility for tackling violence against women and girls, will be visiting Stroud very soon and has offered to don the pink jacket on our behalf.
Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
Mr Speaker, last night I was honoured to speak at an event you kindly hosted with the Royal National Institute for Deaf People. I met Craig, the chief executive of Action Deafness, which delivers vital services across my constituency, as well as Stuart, an academic focused on the needs of deaf young people. They told me that deaf people too often navigate support from siloed health, education and welfare systems that create barriers. What steps is the Minister taking to co-ordinate cross-departmental support for deaf people to prevent them from falling between the gaps?
Bridget Phillipson
The hon. Lady raises an important point. I would be more than happy to make sure that she has a meeting with the relevant Minister to discuss her concerns, and that action is being taken across Government to address them.
Mr Speaker
Before we begin, may I extend a warm welcome to the President of the Portuguese Parliament and his delegation, who are in the Gallery today?
Mr Connor Rand (Altrincham and Sale West) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr David Lammy)
My right hon. and learned Friend the Prime Minister is in Brazil, attending COP30 in Belém and the Earthshot prize ceremony alongside His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.
The thoughts of the whole House remain with those affected by the appalling scenes we saw in Huntingdon and Peterborough, where I spent seven years of my life at school. We thank our emergency services for their outstanding professionalism and the individuals who showed such tremendous courage to defend others.
This weekend is Remembrance Sunday. We will never forget those who fought to defend our freedom. It has been one of the greatest honours of my career to meet our troops around the world, whether in Cyprus, the Gulf or Australia. This week, the Government announced the biggest renewal of armed forces housing in more than 50 years, kick-starting one of Britain’s most ambitious building programmes in decades.
This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
Mr Rand
May I start by congratulating the Deputy Prime Minister on being the first black person to ever answer Prime Minister’s questions? It is a landmark moment for this place and for our country, and I hope he is proud.
My eight-year-old constituent Phoebe is battling cancer. Her parents are fundraising to help with treatment costs and to raise awareness of Phoebe’s condition. People across my constituency have been moved by her story and have come together to raise over £122,000. Will the Deputy Prime Minister join me in paying tribute to Phoebe’s inspirational bravery, and will he celebrate the incredible generosity and community spirit of Altrincham and Sale West?
The Deputy Prime Minister
It is very kind of my hon. Friend to say those opening remarks. I am conscious that my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), and indeed the Leader of the Opposition, are both trailblazers who have stood at the Dispatch Box. It is important to recognise the progress that has been made, particularly in the wake of Black History Month.
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue. It is heartening to see a community rally around someone as brave as Phoebe, and I wish Phoebe, her twin brother Eric and her parents, Lindsey and Matt, the very best in their fight against cancer.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
May I begin by associating myself and the Opposition with the Deputy Prime Minister’s remarks about the terrible, horrific attack in Huntingdon? We wish a speedy recovery to those still in hospital and pay tribute to the brave actions of the public and the police.
Overnight, the father of the girl assaulted in Epping by Hadush Kebatu, the illegal immigrant released by accident, said that the Government had failed them “relentlessly”. I confess, I am surprised that the Deputy Prime Minister has not already apologised. I am going to give him an opportunity now: will he apologise to the family concerned?
The Deputy Prime Minister
It is great to see the hon. Gentleman in his place. I had expected to see the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), but I am nevertheless pleased to see the hon. Gentleman today. He must have missed the statement on this matter, because in it, I of course said sorry for the anxiety caused while Kebatu was at large. I repeat that now. It is hugely important that Dame Lynne Owens gets to the bottom of what has happened with her further investigation.
James Cartlidge
Watching the interview last night was absolutely heartbreaking. I have to say, I do think the Deputy Prime Minister owes it to the family to offer an apology here on the Floor of the House—[Interruption.] But he should have done it at the start of his remarks.
These are very serious matters, which is why I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman a further, very important question: can he reassure the House that since Kebatu was released, no other asylum-seeking offender has been accidentally let out of prison?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The Chamber is, thankfully, quiet, so I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman did not hear me when I said that of course I apologise and am sorry for the anxiety caused. Let me just remind him that he was a Justice Minister who allowed our prisons to get to this state in the first place. It is now for us to fix the mess that we have got into. It is important that Dame Lynne Owens can continue her work and understand what is happening. The hon. Gentleman knows that early releases began under the Conservatives’ watch in 2021.
James Cartlidge
We are talking about extremely serious crimes. I am going to ask the Deputy Prime Minister the question again. Can he reassure the House that since Kebatu was released, no other asylum-seeking offender has been accidentally let out of prison? It is a very specific question for him to answer.
The Deputy Prime Minister
After Kebatu’s release, I put in place the toughest checks we have ever had in the prison system. It is important that Lynne Owens is able to get to the bottom of her work. I suspect there will be more checks and balances that we need to do. We inherited a complicated system that the Conservatives set up that was letting people out on the sly. That is part of the problem, and we are trying to fix it.
James Cartlidge
The right hon. Gentleman is the Justice Secretary; he is responsible for the justice system, and he needs to take responsibility. I am asking him a straight question and I am going to repeat it once more, for the avoidance of doubt, because he did not answer it twice. He is here to answer questions, so can he reassure the House that since Kebatu was released, no other asylum-seeking offender has been accidentally let out of prison? It is a clear question. Can he give an answer?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Get a grip, man! I know I am the Justice Secretary. That is why I am at the Dispatch Box, also as Deputy Prime Minister. We know that. [Interruption.] I am not going to pray in aid. Dame Lynne Owens is a former deputy commissioner in London and was head of the National Crime Agency. It is for her to get to the bottom of this work. We know that there have been spikes since 2021 under the hon. Gentleman’s watch. When did he come to this House and apologise?
James Cartlidge
The purpose of government is to take—[Interruption.]
James Cartlidge
It is getting noisy in here, so I say this again, just in case the Deputy Prime Minister did not hear me. He is the Justice Secretary. Can he reassure the House that since—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I will have no gestures from Members in the balcony. Do not gesture to me; it is not a wise decision. This is important. It is Prime Minister’s questions, and all our constituents are listening.
James Cartlidge
People in Epping and right across the country want to know the answer, so I am going to ask the right hon. Gentleman this question again. He is the Justice Secretary. Can he reassure the House that since Kebatu was released, no other asylum-seeking offender has been accidentally let out of prison? Can he answer the question?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I have got to tell the hon. Gentleman: I spent 14 years in opposition and I did a hell of a lot better than he has just done. I have answered the question. Under the Conservatives’ watch, prisons were in a mess. Suicides went up, prison officers were cut, and 20,000 neighbourhood police officers were lost. We have deported more people in the last year than they deported in the last five years. Please, I am not going to take any lecturing from the hon. Gentleman—
Mr Speaker
Order. Mr Dewhirst and Mr Stafford, you test my patience each week. Today is not the day to do so; we have a long weekend coming.
James Cartlidge
The public are extremely concerned about what happened in the Kebatu case; they want to know that there will not be a repeat, so I am putting to the Deputy Prime Minister a very clear question about his responsibilities. I repeat: can he reassure the House that since Kebatu was released no other asylum-seeking offender has been accidently let out of prison? Can he answer the question?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am looking forward to being up against the right hon. Member for Newark next time. In 25 years in this House, I have not witnessed a more shameful spectacle, frankly, than what the Conservatives left in our justice system—their criminal negligence, on the hon. Gentleman’s watch as a Justice Minister. They left our prisons on the brink of collapse entirely, threatening to allow offenders to run wild on our streets—he knows that! Rape victims waited years for their day in court—he knows that! Neighbourhood policing was decimated, leaving our people feeling unsafe in their communities. The Conservatives have not learned a thing. We are tackling knife crime. That is why it is falling. We are putting 13,000 more bobbies on the streets and kicking out 5,000 foreign national offenders. I have got to say to the hon. Gentleman: he should do better.
Mr Speaker
Order. I thought we had had six. I call James Cartlidge—[Interruption.] You have had your six questions—I was correct! I call Jonathan Brash.
Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
It seems that, like the right hon. Member for Braintree (Sir James Cleverly), the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) cannot count, let alone stand up on behalf of the public.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) for his question. Our NHS has a strong record in delivering new medicines for rare diseases. The evaluation process is rightly led by NICE. As I understand it, the manufacturer of the new treatment for Friedreich’s ataxia has withdrawn from the process. However, the door remains open for the company to re-engage. I am happy to arrange the meeting that my hon. Friend seeks to help ensure more broadly that everyone gets the care they deserve while we are investing an additional £29 billion in the national health service.
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
On behalf of my party, may I join the Deputy Prime Minister in expressing our horror at the terrifying knife attack at the weekend and pay tribute to all those, including the emergency services, who put themselves in harm’s way to protect others? As we approach Remembrance Sunday, may I also join him in remembering all those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our rights and our freedoms?
Those rights and freedoms are now under threat in a way that we have not seen since the second world war. Putin is waging war on our continent and interfering in democracies across Europe, the Chinese Government are waging espionage against this House and Elon Musk is inciting violence on our streets. To date, the Government have failed to heed our calls for a new inquiry into Russian meddling, failed to place China on the enhanced tier of country threats and failed to launch an MI5 investigation into the threat posed by Elon Musk. What will it take for the Government to act and protect our democracy?
The Deputy Prime Minister
May I remind her that as Foreign Secretary I stood at this Dispatch Box and spoke to the China audit that we said we would do on coming into government? We did that; indeed, I did it on the same day that we published our national security strategy. The Secretary of State for Defence has also published the strategic defence review. If the hon. Lady looks across all three of those documents, they set this country in the best place possible to face down the threats that she rightly refers to.
Daisy Cooper
I hope that the Deputy Prime Minister in his new role will consider our calls again.
Right now, families across the country are struggling with a cost of living crisis, yet the Chancellor is preparing to increase taxes. Meanwhile, because of high interest rates and arcane Treasury rules to do with quantitative easing, the big banks are making billions of pounds in windfall profits that they never expected, never relied on and never had to take any risk to earn. Without asking the Deputy Prime Minister to pre-empt the Chancellor’s Budget, which does he think is fairer: taxing struggling families or taxing big banks?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Lady knows that we have 80 years of convention, and it is for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to present her Budget later on this month. I say gently to her: it was under her Government, in which her party was in coalition with the Conservatives, that we saw austerity right across our country; and she will know that there are major parties that are proposing austerity again. I know that the Chancellor will do everything she can to continue, as she set out yesterday, to invest in our NHS and in our public services.
Tristan Osborne (Chatham and Aylesford) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I see the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) in his seat. This may be the first time I have seen him at Prime Minister’s questions. Reform said that Kent county council would be the best advert for what a Reform Government would look like, and they are delivering on the chaos that they promised. On standards in public life, I say to the hon. Gentleman— [Interruption.] This is serious. I used to replace the hon. Gentleman on LBC, so we have known each other for many years. The disgraceful, racist language that we heard from a Reform MP last week belongs in the dark ages, and he should condemn it.
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
The week of 22 to 28 November marks BBC Scam Safe Week—it feels like it comes around quicker every year. By sheer coincidence, the Chancellor has chosen that week, of all weeks, to deliver her Budget. Given her previous broken promises on energy bills, on inflation and to businesses, will the Deputy Prime Minister confirm to the public that if they see something suspicious on tax at the Budget, they should report it?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I usually look forward to the bombast that the hon. Gentleman brings to the Chamber, but as usual, the SNP will say anything to distract from its appalling record. In the week when Scotland’s Health Secretary had to apologise for the state of the health service on his watch, the right hon. Gentleman could have mentioned that in his question. We will see what is in the Budget later on this month.
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
The actions of the driver, Andrew Johnson, and the train staff member, Samir Zitouni, were nothing less than heroic, and I am sure that the whole House would agree that some form of recognition is absolutely deserved. Our country is defined by these people working on the frontline, caring for and supporting the public every single day, and I am proud to be part of a Government who are fighting for them, increasing their pay, tackling the cost of living crisis and fixing the public services that we rely on.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am grateful to the hon. Member for his question. I bought a new suit this morning because my godmother said that she would be watching. His question brings to mind the West Indies Regiment and its contribution in two world wars. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) for ensuring that despite wearing a new suit, I have managed to put my poppy on. We wear a poppy to remember all those who fought and died for this country. They represented every walk of life, every race and every religion. My ministerial colleague, the noble Lord Coaker, will be proud to lay a wreath at the annual remembrance event at the Cenotaph to mark our enduring gratitude to generations of Jewish service personnel and veterans, and I would like to thank AJEX for organising the event and for all that it does throughout the year to keep alive the memory of the Jewish people, many of whose descendants live in Stamford Hill in my constituency, who gave their lives for this country.
Sojan Joseph (Ashford) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
For millions of leaseholders, the dream of home ownership has fallen woefully short of what was promised. That is why we are implementing the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, providing homeowners with greater rights, power and protections. We will bring the injustice of fleecehold to an end, protecting people from unfair costs. As my hon. Friend knows, the Minister for Housing and Planning, my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), is going to meet the director of FirstPort to address the serious concerns over its performance.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I took a DNA test a few years ago: I am 5% Scot. The people of Scotland are not a threat to national security; it is the SNP, and its desire to get rid of the nuclear deterrent, that is a threat to national security. The hon. Member should hang his head in shame.
Leigh Ingham (Stafford) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for championing our armed forces, who make extraordinary sacrifices to keep our country safe. We are renewing our country, and that includes renewing our contract with those who commit the ultimate sacrifice. Four thousand military homes—that is, 9 out of 10—will be upgraded thanks to the £9 billion that we are investing. Of course, that will include her constituency—homes fit for heroes delivered by a Labour Government.
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Member knows, the previous Government cut police officers and police community support officers while also critically underfunding the criminal justice system. We are acting in London, funding the Met with up to £262 million this year, and we are investing £200 million this year to put 3,000 more neighbourhood police on our streets by spring. Through our Crime and Policing Bill, we will also give them the powers they need, including tough new respect orders to tackle crime and make our streets safer. But I do gently say to the hon. Member that the Liberal Democrats come to their feet and ask for more funding, and then given the opportunity, they vote against the reforms that would actually grow our economy.
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I applaud my hon. Friend. She is a passionate champion of the next generation. She will have seen my right hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) launch her curriculum review, which will deliver high standards for every child, giving them the skills they need to thrive and boosting their engagement in our democracy. I am proud that we will also be giving 16 and 17-year-olds the right to vote in our UK elections to make their powerful voices heard.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
The Deputy Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman is very experienced. He knows that on energy, our country’s future is in renewables, and that is why we are investing in them. He should listen carefully to what the Prime Minister has to say at COP. The Chancellor will have heard the right hon. Gentleman’s observations about further taxes; he will have to wait until the end of the month to see what happens.
Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I was looking at the entry of the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. He is making quite a lot out of gold bullion. One has to ask: why does he want to cut the minimum wage for people who are not making even 1% of what he makes? The Labour party is on the side of young people, boosting their wages and delivering the youth guarantee to help everyone realise their potential. I hope that young people recognise what those two other parties want from their records.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will certainly pass it on to the Chancellor.
Tom Rutland (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right to raise that issue, which is important up and down the country. We are taking action to address the appalling inheritance we received by rolling out extra urgent and emergency appointments across the country. We are also reforming the dental contract, recruiting more dentists and ensuring that they work in the national health service for a minimum of three years.
Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)
The inclusion of Oxford University hospitals NHS foundation trust in the rapid review of maternity and neonatal services is welcome. Reports today in the New Statesman and on Channel 4 set out failures at that trust. Will the Deputy Prime Minister commit to carrying out in full the outcomes of Baroness Amos’s review, and ensure that the review is the start of a sea change in maternity services, not a whitewash?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Baroness Amos is a dear friend of mine. I know that the Health Secretary is considering her recommendations.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am deeply saddened by the loss of life and the scenes of devastation in the great country of Jamaica. Like my hon. Friend, I have relatives in Jamaica, and I thank and commend her for her personal fundraising efforts. The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have been in touch with their counterparts to offer our full support, with £7.5 million of aid funding already mobilised. We have chartered flights from Jamaica for British nationals who are unable to fly home commercially. Jamaica will also receive $71 million from the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility pool—funding that began under the previous Labour Government and that Jamaica can draw on for its renewal.
Rishi Sunak (Richmond and Northallerton) (Con)
I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for joining me at a recent event in Parliament to support the work of Prostate Cancer Research, a charity of which I am an ambassador. He and I both believe that introducing a targeted national screening programme for prostate cancer is the right thing to do and would save lives. Does he agree that the recent compelling results of the 162,000-patient European trial support the case, and that that evidence, alongside data from Prostate Cancer Research and others, should be given significant weight by the UK National Screening Committee?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I thank the right hon. Member for raising the issue. Sadly, too many of us will know someone affected by prostate cancer; too many members of my family are currently living with prostate cancer. I was proud to co-chair the Prostate Cancer Research event last year and this year with him, and I share his determination to boost research, speed up treatment and deliver better care. He knows that I am biased, but these are rightly decisions for the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. The UK National Screening Committee is reviewing the latest evidence for prostate screening and considering whether any changes should be made to save lives, and we have invested £42 million jointly with Prostate Cancer UK—
Jenny Riddell-Carpenter (Suffolk Coastal) (Lab)
In the past 15 years, there have been 170 cases of matricide. In 2022, more women were killed by their sons than by strangers. Child-to-parent abuse is often linked to complex mental health issues, and earlier this year I met Laura and Ian who are doing all they can to support their son in his rehabilitation after serving time in prison. They are living in constant fear of physical harm from their son, who they love and adore. Will the Deputy Prime Minister support my request to meet the relevant Minister to discuss the effects of child-to-parent abuse?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Matricide is a horrific crime and we are committed to tackling it. Our violence against women and girls strategy will set out how we will halve violence, including domestic abuse, against women over the next decade, and I will arrange for the Minister to meet my hon. Friend.
Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)
Lindsey oil refinery in my constituency is under threat of closure, with the loss of hundreds of jobs. There have been a number of expressions of interest in taking over the whole site. If one of those passes the test of due diligence, will the Deputy Prime Minister give an assurance that the Government will back the project and allow the continuation of operations at the refinery?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I cannot give the hon. Gentleman that assurance from the Dispatch Box, but I will ensure that the relevant Minister meets him.
Mr Speaker
Is it to correct the number of questions, and to say that I was right and you were wrong? I hope that you are not going for a job at the Treasury. Come on then.
James Cartlidge
To be clear, Mr Speaker, my point of order is about a serious issue. The Telegraph is reporting that a police manhunt has been launched for a second asylum seeker who was mistakenly freed from prison. Can you advise me on how I can ask the Justice Secretary whether he was aware of that when I asked him about it repeatedly in Prime Minister’s questions?
Mr Speaker
You have put it on the record, Mr Cartlidge. Let us move on.
Conflict in Sudan
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if she will make a statement on the Government’s approach to the worsening conflict in Sudan.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Mr Hamish Falconer)
I am sure the whole House will join me in condemning the shocking violence against civilians in El Fasher. The latest reports, including of 460 civilians being killed in a single attack, are harrowing. This is part of a pattern of appalling violence perpetrated against civilians and is just one element of the suffering driven by the war in Sudan, a conflict that has now created the worst humanitarian crisis on record. Over 30 million people need aid and 12 million have been displaced. Famine is spreading and cholera is widespread, with the parties continuing to block lifesaving assistance. As the Foreign Secretary said at the Manama dialogue last weekend,
“no amount of aid can resolve a crisis of this magnitude until the guns fall silent…the world must do more”.
The UK is using all the tools at our disposal to protect civilians, to get humanitarian aid to those in most need, and to secure a lasting ceasefire in Sudan. A year ago, the UK, along with Sierra Leone, brought a resolution to the UN Security Council. This would have brought forward concrete measures to protect civilians if it had not been so cynically vetoed by Russia. Six months ago, we brought international partners to London to host the London-Sudan conference to build consensus around strengthening humanitarian access and ending the war. On 30 October, we called an emergency UN Security Council session, condemning the assault on El Fasher by the Rapid Support Forces and its devastating impact on the civilian population. We led a press statement to maintain the spotlight on the situation and the pressure on the RSF to de-escalate in line with UN Security Council resolution 2736.
On Saturday, the Foreign Secretary announced a further £5 million in aid in response to the situation El Fasher, which will provide lifesaving food and health assistance as well as support to survivors of sexual violence. That is on top of the £23 million we have already mobilised from existing budgets through partners such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Sudan Humanitarian Fund. We are providing £120 million this year to the crisis in Sudan, and both the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have been clear that this funding is protected. We will keep working at every level to bring this horrific conflict to an end.
Priti Patel
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. The atrocities of recent days, including in El Fasher, are beyond horrifying. The suffering inflicted on the Sudanese people by this war is an affront to humanity. Red lines have been crossed in the prosecution of this conflict that cannot be allowed to stand, especially by the UK as the penholder on Sudan at the UN Security Council. Britain needs to use its influence to co-ordinate robust and stronger international action to tighten the screws on the warring parties, press them into a ceasefire and end this barbaric conflict.
The Government must go further and upgrade our support for those documenting evidence of these heinous crimes. Can the Minister confirm that that will happen? Will the Minister introduce more hard-hitting sanctions on the key operators and take concerted action to deter entities, individuals and businesses whose support continues to sustain this awful conflict? Are actions of this nature being co-ordinated with international partners, and what progress has been made to build up organic civilian political groups so that Sudan can move back to a civilian Government after the ceasefire? It is essential that we have a credible day-after plan as soon as possible.
On the dire humanitarian crisis, are the changing territorial positions of the warring parties having an impact on the ability to deliver aid, and if so, what is the plan to counter this? We note the announcement earlier this month—I think last week in Bahrain—of the £5 million being provided for emergency aid support for the survivors of sexual violence in El Fasher. The whole House will recognise the importance of getting aid to them, so what can the Minister say about the delivery of that urgently needed aid? How is that happening? What discussions have the UK Government had with the Sudan quad in recent days? How does the Minister define the UK’s relationship with the quad, now and moving forward?
Can the Minister share his latest assessment of the region’s wider ability to manage the fallout from this terrible conflict? Have the Government carried out an assessment of what different outcomes from this conflict would mean for the security of the Red sea? Those carrying out the atrocities in Sudan need to know that the whole world is watching them and can see what they are doing, and that there will be consequences.
Mr Falconer
I thank the right hon. Lady for that important set of questions. On accountability, we continue to lead the core group in Geneva. We are supporting the fact-finding mechanism of the United Nations, and it is absolutely vital that work on accountability and justice continues. Those at the top of both the RSF and the Sudanese armed forces are responsible for the conduct of their forces, and they must be held accountable for their conduct.
The right hon. Lady is right to raise questions about humanitarian aid. I am afraid I can confirm that the shifting of the frontlines is affecting aid delivery, and aid is clearly not reaching El Fasher in the volumes required. The reports, including the report from the World Health Organisation last week, of both the events in El Fasher and the consequences for civilians are horrifying. I can confirm that both the Foreign Secretary and I were in touch with many key players in the region over the weekend, including members of the quad, the secretary-general of the Arab League and a range of others. This is a situation of the utmost urgency, and more must be done.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
The UK, as penholder on Sudan at the UN Security Council, has already played an important role in calling an urgent Security Council meeting this week, but what my hon. Friend says about Russia chimes with the Select Committee’s experience when we visited New York. It was suggested to us that the UK has held back from raising Sudan at the Security Council because it knows that Russia is likely to use its veto. Beyond providing direct aid funding, which I know is a priority for the Prime Minister, what can the United Kingdom do to focus the minds of the international community on the unfolding tragedy in Sudan? It has gone overlooked for far too long.
Mr Falconer
My right hon. Friend is experienced in these issues. Questions of aid are absolutely vital, but as the Foreign Secretary said over the weekend, aid is not enough in a conflict of this magnitude. We are working with all parties to try to ensure a change in behaviour from the two conflict parties. They are taking steps that are not only inflicting horrific hardship and violence on civilians in north Darfur and wider Sudan, but restricting the vital flow of aid, which is so important. We will continue to work with a range of international partners, including members of the quad, to try to bring this conflict to a close. The quad’s statement on 12 September is important, and all external parties providing support to either side in the conflict must stop doing so.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
The Rapid Support Forces’ capture of El Fasher, following an 18-month siege, has ushered in a new phase of terror. Reports of systematic sexual violence against women and the summary execution of civilians are truly horrific. The Minister referred to the UN Security Council, which met last week and demanded that all parties to the conflict protect civilians and abide by their obligations under international law. It is clear that those obligations are being entirely ignored. As the penholder on Sudan at the UN, the UK has a unique responsibility to show leadership and ensure that protection for citizens is more than just words.
I have three questions for the Minister. First, can he confirm whether the UK sought at the UN to secure a country-wide arms embargo? Secondly, do the Government consider that the United Arab Emirates is a party to the conflict? Thirdly, in the light of reports that British weapons have been supplied by the UAE to the RSF, will the Government ban arms sales to the UAE until it can be proven that Abu Dhabi is not re-exporting British arms to the RSF?
Mr Falconer
Let me take this opportunity to be clear on reports about British arms, because I can see from previous discussions in this Chamber that there is some confusion. There was an article that made reference to a range of different arms that might be in use in Sudan, and I have already spoken about the importance of all external parties not supporting the two parties to the conflict. Let me clear: the UK is providing no arms that are of use in the conflict. As I understand it, the article referred to a seatbelt or a harness, which is not a prohibited item; components of an engine; and a target practice item, all exports of which were stopped in 2017.
I reiterate that we interpret our arms obligations carefully and strictly, but to clear up any confusion for the House, in some cases, these are not items that are prohibited at all. None of those items is eligible for export at the moment, and none would make any difference to the scenes of conflict that we are discussing this afternoon.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
The situation in Sudan is beyond devastating. Indeed, Sudan’s ambassador has warned that a genocide is taking place there. As we focus on those who are being violated, I urge the Minister to ensure that the UK Government lead international efforts to bring the perpetrators of the disgraceful violence against women and girls to justice, no matter how long that takes.
Mr Falconer
My hon. Friend asks a critical question. I am pleased to confirm that today, the UK has called for a special session of the UN Human Rights Council, in our capacity as leader of the Sudan core group. This is further action on our part to ensure that there is exactly what my hon. Friend calls for: accountability and scrutiny in this horrific conflict.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Obviously, what is happening in Sudan is absolutely appalling for the people there, but we cannot insulate ourselves from these sorts of conflicts. Mali is about to be taken over by terrorists. All over Africa, energetic young men are fleeing. They are walking across to Libya, being tortured and ending up in Calais. It seems to me that we must think outside of the box on this issue, and we should not wash our hands of it. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell): why are we cutting overseas aid at the precise moment when the whole of Africa is in absolute turmoil? We are not an island. These young men are coming here; it would be much better if we arrested and deported them, and sent them back—with some help; we should not just lock them up—so that they can assist with rebuilding Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia. After all, we are one planet, are we not?
Mr Falconer
I thank the Father of the House and my constituency neighbour for his question. His questions in this Chamber often surprise me. I am very much alive to the issues he has raised. I was in Algiers two weeks ago, I think, and met young men of exactly the profile he described—men who had sought to leave Mali and had got stuck somewhere on their way to the UK. The conditions they find themselves in are much more brutal than those that the cruel human traffickers tell them they can expect when they leave their home country, and many of them wish to return. I will have to check, but I think we have supported 6,000 men and women in Algeria who have returned to their country, rather than attempted an onward journey to Europe, and possibly eventually the UK. This is vital work. In our efforts to smash the gangs and stop the boats, we must, as the Father of the House says, look right back to the places of origin, which include some of the places we are talking about today.
James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)
It is estimated that 11.7 million civilians have been forcibly displaced. Of those, 840,000 are in Chad, which of course has its own issues. What support is being provided to Chad and neighbouring countries that are housing refugees from Sudan?
Mr Falconer
We have a programme of support for refugees displaced in the region. As my hon. Friend rightly says, Sudan’s neighbours face a range of challenges, and the burden of refugee support often falls particularly heavily on the places with the fewest resources of their own. I am very happy to write to him with details about Chad, but having served for two years in Juba when the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell) was Secretary of State for International Development, I know what a significant impact conflict in the region can have. It displaces large numbers of people, which puts huge pressure on public services elsewhere.
Sir Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, and underlining the importance of this matter by allowing further discussion on Sudan in the House. The Minister is doing a very good job, but the whole House needs top-level, prime ministerial involvement in this matter, just as Sir Tony Blair and my noble Friend Lord Cameron were involved when they were Prime Minister. We are witnessing wholesale slaughter. Today is not about money and humanitarian aid, but about impunity. These murderous thugs are bragging online about their part in the ethnic cleansing that is taking place. We need to keep very strong records, so that we can hold to account as many of these people as we can, and we need more action at the UN, where Britain holds the pen. We need to demand access for an African Union-UN delegation to El Fasher, so that they can meet the leaders of the RSF, and we need to prepare international sanctions to be visited on all its leaders.
Mr Falconer
The right hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point, based on long years of experience. I will certainly discuss his suggestions with the Minister with responsibility for Africa.
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification recently discovered conditions of famine in El Fasher and Kadugli. It has also stated that conditions in Dilling in south Kordofan are likely similar to those in Kadugli, but those conditions cannot be classified due to insufficient reliable data. Does the Minister agree that just as it is unacceptable to indiscriminately kill civilians, health workers and aid workers and restrict aid access, it is unacceptable to deny access for the purposes of famine classification, and are the Government making that point to the belligerents?
Mr Falconer
That is a very important point. It is absolutely vital that the IPC has the access it requires to make its classifications. I note with alarm and dismay how often this House relies on IPC classifications, not just in Sudan but in Gaza. It is vital that the IPC can do its work properly, so that its classifications, which are the world standard, can be relied on.
Brian Mathew (Melksham and Devizes) (LD)
In last night’s Adjournment debate, I called for a Lancaster House-style conference for all the parties to the Sudan conflict, so that a way to peace can be found. Government Members also called for a peacemaking force. Given the urgency of the situation, can the Minister please see to it that both of those suggestions are investigated, and that discussions are opened with our partners in the region, including Nigeria, so that the suggestions can be acted on?
Mr Falconer
I take note of the hon. Gentleman’s suggestions. I am sure that he will be aware that six months ago, we did host a conference—I think it was in Lancaster House—for the whole world, in order to try to make progress on this question. We did so mostly privately, given the sensitivities for all involved. We will continue to do all we can diplomatically, both publicly at the UN and behind closed doors, as part of a concerted effort to bring this violence to an end.
David Taylor (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab)
I associate myself with the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (John Slinger) yesterday. He noted that in previous conflicts, concerted efforts had been made to bring in some form of UN peacekeeping force, but unfortunately, that does not seem very popular in today’s world. I will forgive the Minister if he thinks this is a naive question, but in addition to the humanitarian aid we are providing and the diplomacy we are undertaking, what can we do to stop civilians from being killed right now? Are we looking at any form of peacekeeping force, be it UN, African Union or a coalition of the willing, to stop civilians being killed right now?
Mr Falconer
My hon. Friend asks the right set of questions. Of course, the first priority must be a ceasefire. As he knows, there have been peacekeeping forces in Darfur previously, and they have faced very considerable difficulties in exercising their mandate when the conflict parties are not prepared to take the vital first step, which is to hold a ceasefire.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
I have asked this before, and I will ask the Minister again: when will the Government publish their Africa strategy, covering both north Africa and sub-Saharan Africa? I fear that there will be other conflicts like this one, and as the UK, the US and the French have divested politically, economically, diplomatically and as regards the provision of aid, we have seen others fill that vacuum, such as China, Russia, proxies and terrorist groups. Unless the US, the UK, the French, and other partners and allies get together, and get back into Africa to support fragile Governments and stop them becoming failed Governments, we are likely to see our adversaries advance all over Africa—including in Commonwealth countries—and we are more likely to see more bloodshed, rape and torture and what one of our UK papers has called “hell on Earth” in Sudan.
Mr Falconer
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his commitment to these issues. I can reassure him that I have been in north Africa twice in the past two weeks, and the ministerial team will continue to pay Africa the attention that it deserves. I will have to revert to him on the question of the timetable for publishing the Africa strategy.
Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)
Despite it being the largest humanitarian catastrophe on the planet, and despite the mass rape and slaughter of civilians, when it comes to Sudan, it feels like the world has taken a moral holiday. The atrocities in El Fasher were entirely foreseeable—this conflict is not new. I understand that the Foreign Secretary is leading the fight to keep Sudan on the agenda and to secure accountability for the mass atrocities in Darfur, but does the Minister agree that it is time that global leaders followed the UK’s example and showed the moral resolve, the moral courage and the leadership needed to end this deadly assault?
Mr Falconer
I thank my hon. Friend for making that important point. It is one with which both I and the Foreign Secretary agree. As she said at the weekend, the world must do more.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
May I repeat the question that I asked the Minister’s colleague last week: are there no other regional powers that could intervene physically to separate the warring parties? May I put it to the Minister that, while it is fortunate that we have been granted successive urgent questions on this subject in successive weeks—thanks to the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), to the shadow Foreign Secretary and to Mr Speaker—it would be a recognition of the anxiety felt in all parts of the House if the Government made regular ministerial statements on it, rather than us having to rely on applications for urgent questions?
Mr Falconer
As I am sure the House knows, this ministerial team is very happy to return to the House regularly, and Mr Speaker provides us with plenty of opportunities to do so. I will take the right hon. Gentleman’s comments back to the responsible Minister. For reasons that I am sure he will understand, I will decline his invitation to comment on the regional balance of military forces.
Tahir Ali (Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley) (Lab)
Sudan is facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the world at the moment, with 150,000 people killed in the past two years and more than 14 million displaced. There are two aspects to this. First, humanitarian aid has to get to those who are affected, and urgently. Secondly, what measures will the Government take to stop the murder, rape and torture of innocent civilians in Sudan?
Mr Falconer
I agree with my hon. Friend about aid access. On the tangible steps that we are taking, as I said earlier, we have called today for an emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council on these questions. We have supported the fact-finding mission. My colleague the Minister for Africa conducted an event at the UN General Assembly in September. The Foreign Secretary has described some of the work she has done, too. We will keep at it for as long as it takes.
Dr Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
British-made military equipment has been found in conflict zones in Sudan. That includes Cummins engines found in armoured vehicles, which were not subject to export licensing, did not go through any checks and were not subject to any diversion checks having been sent to the UAE. The Minister dismissed the concerns expressed earlier by the hon. Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller), but is it not clear that our arms export licensing system is not functioning, is not fit for purpose and needs a full review, and that we should have an embargo on all arms exports to the UAE now? I agree with him that the UK Government need to do more, as does the world. Does that not include international pressure and sanctions on all those with links to the warring party, including, as I understand it, the UAE and Egypt, which are supporting and fuelling the horrific conflict in Sudan?
Mr Falconer
It is vital that external weaponry does not flow into Sudan at this time. I would not wish to characterise my earlier remarks to the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller), as dismissing his concerns; it was an effort to be precise about what we are talking about. The articles in question are a seat belt, a target practice item and components of an engine. The engine components may have been licensed at a previous time, but since then those licences would not apply for getting the components into Sudan. We need to be clear that these are neither bombs nor bullets, and nor are they items that are likely to be irreplaceable.
We are looking carefully at those reports, but given the tone of some of the commentary in this House, I want us to be absolutely clear what we are talking about. Our arms export licensing regime is one of the strongest in the world. I recognise the strength of concern in the House, but we have a duty to be precise about what we are talking about. These are not arms as the public would understand them. It is right that the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Dr Chowns) raises questions about the engine components, and we are looking carefully at the reports about when they may have been transferred, but let us be under no illusion: the components for that engine are unlikely to be making a substantial contribution to the absolutely devastating violence that we are seeing.
Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)
Some 3.5 million children under five years of age are suffering from acute malnutrition. In January 2025, the former Biden Administration said that it judged that
“the RSF and allied militias have committed genocide in Sudan.”
Do the British Government share the opinion of the former Biden Administration?
Mr Falconer
As the House will know, genocide determinations are, in the view of the British Government, a question for the competent courts. That does not in any way take away from the horror of what we see and the reports that we receive, including the World Health Organisation reports from early last week, which are absolutely horrifying about the scale of the violence taking place in Sudan.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Sudan is a crushingly poor country, but it is not without resources, so it is hardly surprising that malign state actors and their proxies are closely involved there, and not in a good way. What can be done in particular to disrupt the smuggling of gold from Sudan to Syria by the Wagner Group to fund Russia’s war in Ukraine?
Mr Falconer
My right hon. Friend—my predecessor—makes an important point about the role of what was known as the Wagner Group and is now Africa Corps. It has suffered some setbacks in the region, not least in Syria, but it continues to play a deeply malign role. We are focused on what Russian support is doing to that part of the world, and it is all malign. We will continue to bear down on those questions in the way he would expect.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I understand the importance of this urgent question, but we have substantial business to get through today, so I ask that questions are short and, Minister, that answers are just as short and on point.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the aid that the Minister has outlined for this horrific crisis. He is right that we must be precise about what military involvement, if any, the UK may have via arms sales. He will have also heard the concern about the UAE and what is happening. Amnesty International has described it as a
“hub for arms diversion for years”,
affecting conflicts not just in Sudan, but in Eritrea. Can he update the House? He says that the Government are looking closely at the reports about arms sales. Can he update us on what conversations he has had with our counterparts in the UAE on that? How can we close those loopholes so that everybody can have confidence in this matter?
Mr Falconer
We have looked closely at the reports in The Guardian and the associated documentary evidence that it has provided. I have tried to set out our assessment of those reports. We are still looking in particular at this question of the engine and the licensing arrangements by which it may have made its way to Sudan. However, unlike some of the reports that I have seen online and elsewhere, this is not large-scale British arms; this is three specific components, and the dossier of documents included a range of other countries. That is why I have focused my remarks more broadly. I can also reassure my hon. Friend that the UK and the UAE continue to discuss these issues, including discussions on Friday between the Foreign Secretary and her counterpart.
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
Given the horrendous, apocalyptic scenes we are seeing in Sudan, and the fact that 25 million people are now estimated to be in acute hunger, does the Minister still think it was right for the Government to cut our overseas development aid budget? Can he commit to the House that the Government will increase it back to 0.5% of national income and use that funding to fund the UK’s response in Sudan, which is so desperately needed?
Mr Falconer
I am happy to enter into the wider debate about aid funding, whether in relation to Sudan, Afghanistan or Gaza, but I must also tell the House what I see on a day-to-day basis: in Sudan, just as in those other countries, restricted access is the single most significant cause of harm, and that is a result of the actions of the participants in the conflict. There is a debate to be had about the overall aid budget, but at moments such as this, when areas that require aid are being cruelly deprived of it, we need to focus on where responsibility lies, and that is with the parties to the conflict.
Steve Race (Exeter) (Lab)
I thank the Government for the leadership they are showing on Sudan, including last week’s statement at the United Nations. The Minister is right to stress both the urgency and the horror of the current situation in El Fasher and beyond, but can he set out what is required next at the UN, in terms of both process and outcomes, to try to stop the violence and to tackle the ongoing humanitarian crisis?
Mr Falconer
There are three particular areas in which we are focused on UN action. The first relates to the fact-finding mission that we have supported, which is critical to accountability and justice; the second relates to the Human Rights Council itself, where, as I said earlier, there will be an emergency session; and thirdly, we will be discussing with our partners on the United Nations Security Council what more can be can be done following last week’s events there.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
The 25 million people who are starving at the moment in Sudan are obviously victims of the most ghastly proxy war. What engagement do the Government have with the UAE on all this, and on its wider war objectives, given the vast mineral deposits that exist across Sudan, including in Darfur, which clearly a lot of people have their greedy eyes on? The poorest people in the poorest place, as ever, are victims of this war.
Mr Falconer
There have been a number of contributions this afternoon about the various countries with an interest in the region. We of course continue to discuss the events in Sudan with all members of the Quad and all those in the region with an interest, including the UAE, which we spoke to on Friday.
Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Ind)
I echo the comments of those who have highlighted that the atrocities in Sudan are absolutely abhorrent, and I welcome the Minister’s statement that we must hold those responsible to account, but may I ask for some further reassurance? Will he press for the expansion of the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court to international crimes committed across the whole of Sudan?
Mr Falconer
As I understand it, the ICC already has the necessary powers, and indeed it has secured a conviction for crimes committed in 2003. I am sure that the House will not find news of that conviction reassuring, given that it is 20 years after the fact, but accountability measures taking effect whenever possible, even after such a long delay, still makes an important contribution to the international justice architecture. However, I am happy to look at the question of the mandate if the hon. Gentleman is concerned about it.
Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)
I welcome the Minister’s acknowledgment that the need to stop the horror in Sudan is urgent, but while I hear much talk of continuing actions, nothing, other than an emergency meeting called today, seems to be happening urgently. What steps is he taking to change, to move forward, to try some new things, and to make something happen as a matter of urgency to stop this horrible conflict?
Mr Falconer
I remind the hon. Gentleman that, yes, we have called for an emergency meeting in the Human Rights Council today, and we have also been in discussions with our partners today. Over the weekend we announced the provision of a further £5 million. The Foreign Secretary has been extensively engaged in discussions with all those with influence, and I have been playing my part in the region this weekend as well. We will continue to be as imaginative and as determined as the House would expect us to be.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool Riverside) (Lab)
Rape and violence against women and girls has been used as a weapon of war in El Fasher, with militias acting with impunity. What support has been given to non-governmental organisations working on the ground to support the victims, and does the Minister agree that diplomatic efforts must be ramped up to end this horrific situation?
Mr Falconer
I do agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of diplomatic efforts. We have provided support specifically to deal with sexual and gender-based violence, which has included sending out a special team under the auspices of UN Women, and we are working closely with international NGOs through the Sudan Humanitarian Fund and other partners.
Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)
The public watching will have been rightly confused to hear the Minister and the shadow Minister speak of the importance of aid when it was their Governments who walked the aid budget back to 0.3%, a large percentage of which is spent in the UK. What assessment has the Minister made of the UK’s ability to support international aid efforts in Sudan and, indeed, around the world?
Mr Falconer
I want to be so clear about what is the significant driver of hardship in Sudan. I am happy to have this debate at some other time, but it is absolutely clear that the driver of hardship is the conduct of the parties. I am sure that there will be debates at other times about the overall question of aid percentages, but, as I said in my statement, Sudan has been protected, as has the aid for Gaza. We are trying to focus on areas where we can have the greatest impact, but when the primary issue is humanitarian access and the conduct of the parties, it is right for us in the Chamber to focus on those questions.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Ind)
The Independent Commission for Aid Impact, in its evidence to the International Development Committee, made some insightful observations about the focus of the Government as the penholder. In what way is the Minister using the strength of the UK to bring parties together to stop the flow of arms, mercenaries and other resources into Sudan?
Mr Falconer
We do of course use our role as penholder at the Security Council, but we try to use the full range of our obligations at the UN on this question, which includes leading the core group on Sudan at the Human Rights Council. That is why we have taken the action that we have taken today.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
In addition to surviving bombs, bullets and sexual violence, the 24 million people in Sudan are facing an acute food shortage. According to Save the Children, people are eating leaves, grass and even peanut shells to survive. That situation has been further compounded by the expulsion of the World Food Programme’s country director and emergency co-ordinator. What steps, if any, has the Minister or his Department taken to ensure that the World Food Programme and other UN agencies can continue to deliver lifesaving assistance immediately, without obstruction?
Mr Falconer
The hon. Gentleman has raised an important point. I can confirm that we have raised directly with both parties to the conflict the importance of the issues that he has mentioned.
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
What is happening in El Fasher is nothing short of catastrophic. My former colleagues at the International Rescue Committee report that although more than 250,000 people live there, fewer than 5,000 have been able to flee and make it to nearby Tawila, which suggests that many may be dead, or trapped in the city or along the route. Can the Minister say more about what the Government are able to do to get these civilians out?
Mr Falconer
My hon. Friend is experienced in these matters, and she asks the right set of questions. The details of what has happened in El Fasher, and indeed what is still happening, are horrifying, and continue to emerge from north Darfur. We are doing everything we can to try to ensure the safe passage of civilians, but I must be clear with the House: progress is limited, and what civilians are facing in north Darfur remains appalling.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister very much for his answers. Open Doors reports that there has been a spike in the abduction and killing of Christian men, women and children by radical Islamist groups. Church leaders have been targeted with false charges, including terrorism and apostasy, while Christian converts face violence, forced marriage, sexual violence, and losing custody of their children. Many Christians are forced to flee their homes because they feel that to stay would be unsustainable. Action for those persecuted Christians is needed. May I ask the Minister what can be done to protect Christians and religious minorities, and to stop the violence against them?
Mr Falconer
Freedom of religious belief is absolutely vital in the region, and I have raised these questions in the region over the past few weeks. Obviously, in the wider context that we are discussing, almost everyone is facing very serious risks to their human rights, but I will give the hon. Gentleman a further update in due course on what we have done in Sudan specifically.
Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)
As I have said before, this is a war on women, but women are also fighting hard as human rights defenders in the diaspora and in Sudan, whether they are running emergency response rooms or advocating for change. Can the Minister say more about how we are ensuring that our aid is going to grassroots, women’s rights-based organisations? In the discussions at the UN, in line with the Women, Peace and Security agenda, will we ensure that women’s voices are heard?
Mr Falconer
My hon. Friend is a doughty champion on these issues, and I know that she has been committed to them both in the House and before her election. We are focused on ensuring that our aid reaches women and on the issues that are faced by them in particular, including— as I said earlier—sexual and gender-based violence. That includes the work through both UN Women, which I described, and mutual aid groups, and a number of other measures. I will ask the Minister for Africa to set that out in more detail for my hon. Friend.
Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow West) (Lab)
As people continue to flee from El Fasher to Tawila, a town that is already sheltering some 652,000 displaced people, it is clear that the situation on the ground in Sudan is not only extremely dangerous—not to mention barbarous in some cases—but chaotic. It is likely that Sudan will need ongoing support for a very long time. Has the Minister had those discussions with colleagues at the UN and from other interested countries, to make sure that that support is provided for the country, whenever we have the opportunity to give it that aid?
Mr Falconer
I wish we were in a position to talk about longer-term questions but, as I am sure my hon. Friend will understand, as the frontlines continue to move rapidly and the conflict remains in such an active phase, our efforts have been most focused on the urgent questions regarding a ceasefire.
Helena Dollimore (Hastings and Rye) (Lab/Co-op)
I share the view of Members across the House that the crisis in Sudan is simply not getting enough focus from the world. I thank the Minister for his leadership in this area. The situation in Sudan is absolutely horrendous. In last week’s attack on the maternity hospital in El Fasher, almost 500 civilians were killed. In the words of the UN relief chief,
“women and girls are being raped…mutilated and killed—with utter impunity”.
We know that this is an increasing trend across the world: more aid workers and health workers are being killed. What are the Government doing to ensure that aid workers and health workers are not targeted? What we are doing to tackle rape and sexual violence in conflicts?
Will the Minister also remark on the fact that 11 UN staff are still being held hostage in Yemen by the Houthis—another example of attacks on health and aid workers across the world?
Mr Falconer
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that specific attack. The details are truly horrifying: marauding through a hospital, killing civilians ward by ward, including the sick and the injured. This was a barbaric attack, and it is vital that we seek accountability for it, not simply for the people of Sudan but because we cannot, as a country or an international system, allow such things to pass without that justice and accountability.
My hon. Friend raises an important point about Yemen; the conduct of the Houthis has been appalling. I am pleased to inform the House that some of those detained UN officials have now safely left Yemen, but there is a worrying and deeply disturbing trend of Houthis capturing aid workers.
Dr Lauren Sullivan (Gravesham) (Lab)
With regard to the attack on the hospital, it is estimated that 80% of health facilities in conflict-affected regions are no longer operating, and those that are operating face shortages of medicines and supplies. That is leading to a resurgence of cholera, measles, dengue fever and malaria, as well as neglected tropical diseases such as leishmaniasis, leprosy and onchocerciasis. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that humanitarian assistance and medicines are getting to those who need them most?
Mr Falconer
My hon. Friend raises an important point. Cholera is now endemic in Sudan, and the spread of waterborne diseases is increasingly common in humanitarian crises. I know that there are Members on both sides of the House with experience of post-disaster recovery. Water and sanitation are always vital, and it is deeply disturbing that we are seeing these outbreaks in so many places. The Government will continue to do all we can in the way I have described.
Curriculum and Assessment Review
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Before we come to the statement from the Education Secretary, I should inform the House that Mr Speaker is disappointed that this announcement was widely trailed in the media this morning, before this House had an opportunity to hear directly from the Government. I remind the Government Front Benchers that the expectation set out in the Government’s “Ministerial Code” is that:
“When Parliament is in session, the most important announcements of government policy should be made in the first instance in Parliament.”
I know that the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee is looking into how that expectation is currently observed and whether it continues to meet the needs of the House, and I look forward to seeing the outcome of that work. Furthermore, engaging directly with Mr Speaker on such announcements is no substitute for the courtesy that this House deserves.
The Secretary of State for Education (Bridget Phillipson)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I note your comments, and I will make sure that they are taken forward.
With permission, I would like to make a statement to update the House on this Government’s plans to renew the national curriculum, to secure for every child an education steeped in our rich history, ready to shape our country into the 2030s and beyond.
As I outline the future of our national curriculum, I do so in full knowledge of its past, because I was part of the first wave to benefit from a process begun by Jim Callaghan’s great education debate—his ambition for a curriculum of universal high standards. When Lord Baker introduced a national curriculum for the very first time in 1988, my generation secured a common entitlement to share in the core wisdom that we as a nation value most.
Since then, our national curriculum has evolved under successive Governments, and now it must evolve again, because the world is changing as never before as a result of artificial intelligence, machine learning and hyperconnectivity. Where once our young people had to compete locally, the playing field is now global. They are stepping into a world of huge opportunity, but it is also one of immense change and challenge—a muddy landscape of misinformation and social media. Our current curriculum no longer arms them for this brave new world. It lacks the breadth of knowledge and skills that our children need, not only for the jobs they will go on to do, but for the lives they will go on to lead. We need more, and they need more.
Our curriculum sits at the centre of an education system that has forgotten too many children—white working-class children; children with special educational needs and disabilities; the children who are bright but bored, not engaged as they should be and not achieving as they should. That is why I asked Professor Becky Francis and an external panel of experts to review our curriculum, assessment and qualifications—to equip every child and every young person to achieve and thrive. I thank Professor Francis and the whole panel for their hard work and expertise. The review’s final report and our Government’s response have both been published today. We will publish a revised curriculum in 2027 for first teaching in 2028; we will update our GCSEs for first teaching from 2029; and we are planning to deliver new V-level qualifications from 2027.
This Government are facing the future boldly, taking our education system from narrow to broad. That means a curriculum rich in knowledge, strong on skills, and, in everything that we do, uncompromising on high standards, grounding every child’s education in the most important knowledge and disciplinary skills to master every subject—more specific on the most important content, to sharpen understanding, and more coherent in how different subjects slot together, to spark connections. It will be a truly world-leading curriculum: supportive, challenging, and urging all children on. The House should be in no doubt that I will put high standards to work, in the service of every child’s future.
Our work starts in the early years. Through our Best Start family hubs, we are supporting parents as their children take those first steps into learning. We are setting the foundations for their futures: developing language early, expanding the reach of maths champions, and introducing children to numbers early on.
As children arrive at school, they will begin to master the core subjects—the ones that unlock the rest of the curriculum—and reading especially. Whether it is for step-by-step instructions in a science experiment or a question in maths, reading is essential in every subject. It adds texture, colour and context—such as in history, by reading letters from soldiers on the frontline of the second world war. We have to build that right from the beginning. That is why we are introducing new training for reception teachers, to meet our ambition for 90% of children to reach the expected standard in the phonics screening check. We will double our reading ambition for all teacher training, for children who need the most help, reaching more than 1,200 primary schools, and we will train more teachers in 600 schools to help them teach reading fluency.
Together with reading must come writing and speaking, because in life we all need to express ourselves clearly and confidently, whether out loud or in writing. In July we published the new writing framework, which includes evidence-based ways to teach writing to children, and we are now going further by improving the primary writing assessment to focus on fluency. We will also design a new oracy framework to support children to become assured and fluent speakers and listeners by the time they leave primary school.
Too many children are falling through the gaps in the jump to secondary school, including on reading. Learning not just to read, but to read well, must be the entitlement of every child. It is the single most powerful driver of life chances that we have, yet too often problems that begin in primary are left to drift in those first years of secondary. The focus fades just when it should intensify. To make sure that every school is on top of this, we are introducing a new statutory reading test for all pupils in year 8. We will expect all schools to assess progress in writing and maths in year 8 as well, checking excellence in those vital skills. Our new regional improvement for standards and excellence—RISE—key stage 3 alliance will spread excellence from one school to the next. All children will benefit from a new combined oracy, reading and writing framework that will be embedded across the entire secondary curriculum, and the brand-new digital version of the national curriculum will help teachers to strengthen connections across subjects and stages.
On those firm foundations, we will build choice and breadth as children move into secondary school. That means preparing them to tell fact from fiction, truth from lies and right from wrong. Our young people need a rich core of knowledge and skills—the high standards that I am determined to drive—but we must take literacy further and wider. The reformed English programme of study and English language GCSE will open students up to a wide range of texts to see how arguments are made across different types of media, to discover the power of persuasion and emotive language in different contexts, and to understand how they can be used not just to educate but to manipulate—exploited by dark forces online to spread lies and sow division. That is why we are building media literacy to prepare young people not to consume passively, but to engage critically and to recognise and reject disinformation.
We are not just boosting media literacy. We are also boosting digital literacy through a reformed computing curriculum to allow pupils to navigate the opportunities and challenges of AI and much more, and we are boosting financial literacy to empower young people to make informed choices about money, saving and investing. All our plans aim to take education from narrow to broad.
We need a fundamental shift in what we value in our secondary schools. For that, we need a fundamental shift in how we measure attainment and progress to deliver the breadth that we want to see. Today I can announce that we will consult on improved versions of Progress 8 and Attainment 8, because the current structure holds us back in subjects that strengthen our economy and our society. Too often it restricts choice, turning children away from subjects like drama, art and design, and music. Our creative industries are a source of such national pride, but as Ed Sheeran has said so powerfully, we cannot continue to lead on the world stage without a broad base in our schools at home. The arts should be for all, not just a lucky few, so we will revitalise arts education, putting it back at the heart of a rich and broad curriculum.
To encourage variety to flourish in our curriculum, we will measure what matters. We will balance breadth with a strong academic core and promote mastery of the fundamentals, combined with student choice. We will strive for academic excellence, on a broad scale, in every classroom, art studio, dance hall and science lab. In those science labs, a new triple science entitlement will give all young people the best opportunity to get into exciting new careers in clean energy, digital technologies and life sciences. We will build the strongest science, technology, engineering and mathematics foundations, and introduce a new computing GCSE so that students can excel in the new advanced digital and AI qualifications, addressing critical skills gaps in the tech sector. We will go further, too, with a new enrichment entitlement for all that includes civic engagement, culture, nature and adventure, and sport, which will deepen children’s investment in their time at school.
The curriculum cannot begin and end in our schools; it must stretch from the best start in life programme to the post-16 White Paper. Last month, I updated the House on our plan for skills. Much of that is about supporting young people to build on this new curriculum and to make their post-16 choices from a clear landscape of A-levels, T-levels and the new V-levels, with clearer pathways through learning and into work, which will help them to develop skills to find a good job and get on in life.
Professor Francis and the expert panel have delivered a strong set of recommendations, upon which we will now build. Our new curriculum will be an expression of who we are as a modern nation—the knowledge, skills, values and ideas that will bring us together and take us forward, building on the past to shape the future.
For families who have withdrawn from education, the new national curriculum will be a chance to rediscover the power of learning once again. For every child across the country, it will be an invitation not just to share in our national story, but to write the next chapter. I commend this statement to the House.
Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement. I also thank Professor Francis for her work—any criticism of today’s announcement is directed not at her, but at the Government’s response to her review.
I welcome some of the measures announced today. I am pleased that the Government have not moved away from our phonics reforms. In 2012, only 58% of six-year-olds met the expected reading standard; today, the figure stands at over 80%. Primary school children in England are now the best readers in the western world.
I also note the introduction of a year 8 reading test, which I support in principle. If properly implemented, this could help to ensure that pupils maintain strong reading skills into secondary school. However, the review recommends maths and English tests, so why is the Secretary of State not introducing a statutory maths test?
I have serious concerns that the proposed wider changes will water down standards, lower expectations and divert teaching time away from the core education, which gives every child the best chance to get on in life. The temptation to make the curriculum a repository for every social concern is ever present, but when everything is a priority, nothing is. If we keep adding and adding, we risk diluting the very core that underpins academic success. There are many things that the Government talk about adding to the curriculum, but there is little honesty about what will be squeezed out as a result. I hope that the Secretary of State will be honest about what is being taken out of the curriculum, particularly in primary schools.
Let me make some specific points. First, the review states:
“It is vital that schools and colleges are able to innovate…and that teachers have the flexibility to extend the curriculum”.
I agree, but the Government’s disastrous Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill does precisely the opposite, by making the national curriculum compulsory for all schools and stripping away teachers’ freedom to adapt to the needs of pupils. It is nonsensical to talk about innovation while stifling it. The Secretary of State should abandon her assault on academy freedoms.
Secondly, the Government propose to reduce the number of exams by 10%, on the grounds that “only Singapore does more”. Well, Singapore also tops the international league tables in maths and literacy. Surely we should be learning from Singapore’s education system, not disparaging it.
Thirdly, the Government propose to abolish the English baccalaureate, which we put in place in order to give all children the chance to learn an academic core. Scrapping the EBacc is a backwards step. It will steer pupils away from history and languages, leaving fewer children with an understanding of our national story and fewer equipped to engage in a global economy. The irony is not lost on me that the Education Secretary herself studied history and languages. Why is she pulling up the drawbridge behind her and denying more young people the very opportunities that she benefited from?
Fourthly, the Education Secretary will introduce a new compulsory citizenship curriculum for primary schools. Forcing primary schools to use precious time to teach deprived pupils about media literacy and climate change before ensuring that they can read, write and add up is not going to encourage social mobility, which I thought Labour Members cared about. It is not clear at all how they are going to make time for this. What aspects of children’s education are being sacrificed for the Secretary of State’s political posturing?
As for new lessons on digital literacy and misinformation, I feel like a broken record. The Education Secretary said on the radio this morning, “I am worried about children spending hours in their bedroom looking at poisonous material that drips hate in their ears.” I agree. The right hon. Lady is right and I have a very easy solution: get smartphones out of schools and ban all our under-16s from social media. That does not need a lesson. It is something the Government have the power to do right now to help children with the vile content that they are seeing online, and to address the behaviour issues that we are seeing in schools—social media-driven knife crime and effects on attainment. I think the Education Secretary needs a lesson on social media harms, not children.
Finally, I turn to the right hon. Lady’s changes to school accountability. Professor Francis was clear in her report: do not change Progress 8. She wrote:
“We are strongly committed to the Progress 8 measure…it supports both student progress and curriculum breadth. We are therefore recommending making no changes”.
Yet the Education Secretary has overruled the review—the independent review that she commissioned herself. Why? We have been here before. Under the last Labour Government standards fell, ambition shrank and the attainment gap widened. The number of pupils studying core academic subjects halved. Britain slid down international rankings. It took Conservative reformers, like Michael Gove and Nick Gibb, to turn that around with evidence-driven policy, rigorous assessment and high expectation.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Ms Trott, you have run over your time. I hope you are going to conclude very quickly.
Laura Trott
That formula works, with English schools storming back up the global rankings.
We on the Conservative Benches will always stand up for rigour, evidence and the life-changing power of high standards. We will fight Labour’s education vandalism every step of the way.
Bridget Phillipson
The right hon. Lady said at the start that any criticism was levelled my way, but she then went on to criticise many of the recommendations in the review. Has she even bothered to read it at all? She comes here time and again, every single time full of sound and fury, signifying nothing—and yes, Shakespeare is here to stay on the national curriculum. She tries to paint the report and our response as undoing the achievements in schools. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are not abandoning it; we are building on it, with a curriculum that will allow all young people to achieve high standards, with core academic subjects alongside the breadth that they deserve.
Our reforms have higher standards right at their heart. They will raise standards of pupils right across the curriculum, including in speaking and listening, reading, writing and maths. Our improved Progress 8 and Attainment 8 measures will ensure that students retain a strong academic core, but with a breadth to expand into further study. The right hon. Lady might oppose the changes we are setting out, but today they have won support from the Sutton Trust, from employers like the CBI and from Sir Hamid Patel, the wonderful leader at Star Academies, who backs the changes we are making, saying that they
“signal both a welcome emphasis on creativity—reflecting amazing career opportunities…but with continued affirmation that success in English and mathematics is crucial for everyone’s life chances.”
I could not agree more.
We know that it is important that our new measures provide breadth and enrichment. Leaving aside that the arts and creative subjects are worth up to £125 billion to our country and employ 2.4 million people, I want more young people to have brilliant careers and opportunities in those fields. The two are not in opposition. We can and will deliver high and strong academic standards, alongside making sure that a broad and rich curriculum is the entitlement of every child. There was once a time when the Conservatives supported that idea. It is why they introduced a national curriculum to apply in every school. We are restoring the Conservative principle of the national curriculum applying for every child. I benefited from that, and I want every child in our country to benefit from it.
The curriculum has not been updated for over a decade. Parents want one that is fit for the future, employers back what we are doing and children deserve it. The changes we are setting out today will secure better life chances for all our children.
Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)
I welcome a curriculum review that will break down barriers. It opens up so much of the digital and financial literacy that the Conservatives seem to think is unimportant to all, but which we know will raise aspirations by equipping young people from all backgrounds. I have two questions that I would like to ask the Secretary of State. One is on examinations. We know that this country has an examination overload and I welcome the proposed reduction by 10%.
Darren Paffey
I will listen to the experts before I listen to the Front Bench any day—the Opposition Front Bench. [Laughter.] If the right hon. Member listens, she will hear that. Will the Secretary of State please look at the overall load throughout school, not just in GCSE year, and comment on how she sees the introduction of an additional year 8 diagnostic panning out?
On my second question, I declare an interest as the vice chair of the all-party parliamentary group on modern languages. We broadly welcome the Government’s response, which goes further than the recommendations, and the recognition of importance. It is right to scrap the EBacc, which has never really been taken seriously by professionals, but will the Secretary of State please say how she will stop uptake from dropping immediately? What other incentives will there be? When will she deliver the feasibility review of the new qualification based on languages ladder expertise, which is welcomed by the sector ?
Bridget Phillipson
On languages, I share my hon. Friend’s determination to ensure that more young people have the chance to study modern languages. There is a particular challenge that we face around transition from primary to secondary—the review makes that clear—and that is one area for further action. On the EBacc, I am afraid that it did not have the outcome that was intended in improving languages take-up: we are no further forward than we were in 2010 in percentage figures. We are seeing increases in the number of teachers coming forward to train in modern languages, and that is welcome. I also believe that a new stepped qualification will provide a useful route for more young people to move on to study languages at GCSE.
On exams and time, particularly at GCSE, Ofqual has been clear that a 10% reduction in the time spent in exams—that amounts to two and a half to three hours—is more than achievable while at no point compromising the integrity or the high quality and standards of the system. We will work with the regulator to make that happen. We are an international outlier on the amount of time our children spend in exams at GCSE. On the year 8 reading test, we will introduce a statutory reading test to ensure that problems are identified and children supported. That will run alongside diagnostic maths and writing tests to ensure that children are also making progress in those key areas, but if you cannot read well, you cannot do anything else.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement and I thank Professor Becky Francis for her important work on the review. I welcome much of what has been announced today. As with free school meals and maintenance grants, this Secretary of State seems to enjoy adopting Liberal Democrat policies. I particularly welcome more enrichment activities and citizenship education, including financial and media literacy. But today, many headteachers across the country will be asking about the how. How will we fund this when budgets are already overstretched? With specialist recruitment targets missed year after year, including in physics, computer science and music, how will we find the subject specialists to deliver the new curriculum, not least the right to triple science at GCSE? Can the Secretary of State set out how she will protect time for other subjects, given the welcome new enrichment entitlement? Has she considered using money from falling school rolls to perhaps fund a longer school day?
Turning to the Secretary of State’s claims about breadth, instead of scrapping the EBacc did she consider broadening it? Having gone explicitly against Professor Francis’s recommendation to leave Progress 8 unchanged, the Government actually risk narrowing choice. The new Progress 8 model pits languages against creative arts for the first time. These two changes put together could mean the death of languages in our state schools.
The review missed the opportunity to broaden A-levels. The UK is an outlier in this regard. Combined with the defunding of the international baccalaureate in state schools, I worry that the Secretary of State’s legacy will be that breadth becomes the preserve of the privately educated.
Bridget Phillipson
The hon. Lady asks many constructive questions. It is important that all young people have the chance to study triple science, and we will work with the sector on the implementation of that. We are seeing big increases in the numbers of teachers in initial teacher training, including in physics, but there is more to do; we will work on this carefully with the sector. I do not think we can continue to defend a position where young people from disadvantaged backgrounds do not always have the chance to study triple science; we know that if they have that opportunity, they are more likely to be able to go on to study A-level science subjects, so there is an important social justice consideration that we have to take into account. Teacher numbers are up and continue to go up, and teacher retention numbers this year are also moving in the right direction.
All children and young people should have equal access to development opportunities to help them to succeed, which is why we are setting out a core enrichment offer that every school and college should aim to provide. The offer will be part of our enrichment framework, which we will develop with a group of experts across education, youth, sports and arts sectors to set out benchmarks for schools and colleges to build that offer. I know that many schools already do this very well, and we want to build on the best success out there.
We will also support the wider provision through dormant assets, our music hubs, PE and school sport partnerships and much more besides. This is a real opportunity to deliver a step change in ensuring that all children get a firm foundation in the basics and a wide and broad education. I encourage the hon. Lady to look at the document that we have set out explaining the recommended Progress 8 changes, which we will go on to consult on.
Mrs Sureena Brackenridge (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
Members should be in no doubt about the difference that these changes will make, because when our young people succeed, society as a whole succeeds. I wish to put on the record my thanks to the Secretary of State for delivering on our promise of a curriculum that will better prepare children not just for exams, but for life. Over the years, previous Education Secretaries—let’s be real: we have had quite a few—lost sight of what school should really be about. It is about more than exams; it is about preparing children for the modern world and the realities of life. This renewed focus on oracy, reading, writing, maths and triple science, which are vital life skills to—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. This is a statement—you must have a short question. Please finish quickly.
Mrs Brackenridge
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Financial and media literacy are core skills to develop young people. How will the Secretary of State ensure that schools have the funding, resources and preparation time necessary to implement the reforms?
Bridget Phillipson
My hon. Friend has a real passion for this area and brings her expertise to this House, and I am really grateful for that. We will refresh the programmes of study and publish them in 2027, so there will be an opportunity for consultation and contribution towards that. Some of this is a question about how we better sequence our curriculum between different key stages; that is an important element.
It is important that young people in primary school have more citizenship education, including in the critical area of financial literacy. I was at the wonderful Ashmole primary school in Lambeth just yesterday, where I met year 6 students who were doing precisely that. If anybody tries to say that year 6 students cannot understand complicated concepts around financial education, I would suggest that they pay a visit to that school and see the amazing work that is going on there.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
This is a thorough piece of work from Professor Francis. There are things in it to welcome, including the retention of key stage 2 assessments and the triple science entitlement, although the Government will have to say where the resourcing will come from to make that a reality. In truth, there are other things that we just do know yet. It remains to be seen what the changes in English literature mean and what will get squeezed out; it also remains to be seen what the new computing GCSE is relative to computer science—I hope it is not a return to the pre-computer science days of the information and communication technology GCSE.
One thing I regret is the demise of the EBacc. Let us remember what that is: a set of subjects that is presented clearly to children and their families, including and especially disadvantaged children, who, by studying this core set of subjects, will keep their options most open and have the most opportunity to progress in life. The EBacc did increase uptake for history and geography. It could have been mitigated if the Secretary of State had kept Professor Francis’s recommendation to retain the structure of the current Progress 8. Why did she ignore that recommendation? Is she giving up totally on modern foreign languages?
Bridget Phillipson
No, Madam Deputy Speaker. As I set out earlier, it is important that young people have the opportunity to study triple science. I recognise that the implementation and delivery of that will be important, and we will work with the sector to do that. The number of those entering initial teacher training in subjects such as physics has increased massively this year, but there is more to do, including through subject knowledge enhancement, which we also want to provide to more teachers in other science subjects.
I recognise what the right hon. Gentleman says about computing; it is important to get this right. Every area where there will be change will be subject to full consultation with expert input. Computing is one area where we also need to ensure that there is the opportunity to refresh content more regularly, given the pace of change. We will of course ensure that the qualification is rigorous.
The right hon. Gentleman talks about the review and welcomes much of Professor Francis’s work, for which I am grateful. The review found that the EBacc measure did not translate into increased study of those subjects at 16 to 19 and unnecessarily constrained student choice, affecting students’ engagement and achievement. Our revised Progress 8 measure will balance a strong academic core with breadth and student choice. I believe that is the right approach, but we will consult on the options.
Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)
I warmly welcome this curriculum and assessment review and in particular what it says about a broad curriculum and the importance of enrichment and essential skills such as digital, financial and media literacy and communication. Will my right hon. Friend go further and look at introducing a skills passport, so that young people can have the skills they are learning in school properly recognised for both themselves and employers?
Bridget Phillipson
My hon. Friend always champions children and young people in his constituency and has a lot to offer with his background in education. I would be happy to discuss his ideas further with him.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)
I am going to leave wider criticisms of this review to others. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on financial education for young people, I welcome the recognition of all the lobbying that has gone into this review. Financial education being made a statutory requirement at primary school and its position being strengthened at secondary school are good measures. The one area where I want to push the Secretary of State further is on post-16 financial education. The review made reference to many examples of best practice around the country, but it stopped short of offering ideas on how we can continue to progress financial education at a time when young people are beginning to take financial decisions themselves. Will the Secretary of State work with the APPG to develop this area further?
Bridget Phillipson
I would be keen to hear the hon. Gentleman’s ideas and those of the all-party parliamentary group, and I thank him for the work he is doing in this important area. I am glad that he welcomes many of the changes we are setting out around financial education. I note what he has to say about post-16, and I will make sure that those ideas are considered.
Tahir Ali (Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley) (Lab)
The curriculum and assessment review found that the system has inequalities built into it especially for children with special educational needs and disabilities and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Will the Secretary of State set out what interventions will be brought in to provide support and help for those with special educational needs and disabilities and those from disadvantaged backgrounds so that they are not left behind, especially during the transition from the current curriculum to the new one?
Bridget Phillipson
My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the need to ensure that children with special educational needs and disabilities secure better outcomes and have better support through their education and their school life. Every child in our country deserves the best possible school experience, and that is especially true for children with SEND, many of whom do not feel that that is a reality and whose parents are really struggling. That is why, through our schools White Paper and the wider work we will be taking forward around SEND reform, we will ensure that their voices are heard through a co-creation process as we move to a better system of support—one where every child in our country can achieve and thrive.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. We have just 30 minutes remaining, so colleagues will have to be brief.
Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)
Department for Education data shows that only 22.7% of students retaking GCSE English or maths post-16 achieve a grade 4 or above. This means that many young people are trapped in a loop, and they often miss the grade by one point. What steps will the Secretary of State take to ensure that students who are unlikely to achieve grade 4 in GCSE maths and English are offered practical alternative pathways so that they can succeed in these important subjects?
Bridget Phillipson
The hon. Lady is right to raise that point. This is an area that the review drew attention to. We will develop a new 16 to 19 level 1 stepping-stone qualification as a preparation for GCSE for lower attainers. The review was clear about the importance of GCSE English and maths, and I share that view. We need to make sure that more young people, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, secure a strong pass in English and maths.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Secretary of State for her statement. As a former teacher, which I may have mentioned a few times in this place, I broadly welcome this curriculum review. I also welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to supporting teachers through this change. When the previous Government for some random, unknown reason decided to change GCSE grades from letters to numbers, teachers got very little to no support or resources. Can the Secretary of State guarantee that that will not happen on this occasion and that she will do what she can to support teachers through this change?
Bridget Phillipson
I agree. We want to make sure that teachers are ready for the new curriculum. We will introduce a digital version of the national curriculum to support teachers to more easily sequence their school curricula. We will also provide high-quality free digital resources through Oak National Academy, as well as more curriculum support and continuing professional development. Our RISE teams will work with schools and school leaders to drive up standards.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Now for a short question masterclass from Sir Desmond Swayne.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
This is education in the clouds when contrasted with the reality of a war against elitism, which is so often actually a war against excel-ism on the ground, is it not?
Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)
I warmly welcome the statement. With improved medical care, earlier diagnosis and greater awareness, more children with special educational needs are being identified. How will my right hon. Friend ensure that schools have the right environment, staff, funding and resources for SEND children to get the most of the positive changes in the curriculum?
Bridget Phillipson
We are investing more in our SEND system and in teacher training and development, including new SEND content for those entering the profession, but there is much, much more that we need to do, as we have discussed in this House on many occasions. I know that my hon. Friend cares very deeply about improving outcomes for children with SEND, and I look forward to working with her as we bring forward the schools White Paper and reforms that deliver a brilliant experience for children with SEND throughout our school system.
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
We welcome the Government’s ambition to see arts and outdoor enrichment education included at the heart of the school curriculum, and we have some phenomenal outdoor ed going on in South Devon. We have long called for a broadened EBacc including arts subjects, but without clear incentives to encourage or require their inclusion, why will schools prioritise these experiences for pupils when they are under already severe budgetary pressure from the Government’s many unfunded commitments?
Bridget Phillipson
We are investing more in our schools and providing more support to teachers. Enrichment is important. That is why we will develop the framework with experts across education, youth services, sports and art sectors to make it a reality. I encourage the hon. Lady to look at the proposal we are setting out on Progress 8 reform, because I think it will deliver the breadth, alongside the academic core, that she seeks.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
I warmly welcome the further support for creative arts subject teaching, the new national centre and the £25 million for new instruments and much more. Right hon. and hon. Members with a musical background, such as the Prime Minister and I, know the transformative power of the creative arts— the soft and hard skills are just as impactful as in other subjects. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the Government will continue to turn up the volume, bang the drum, create a symphony and maybe even reach the tempo of “presto” on this issue, so that we can finally achieve creative arts for all?
Bridget Phillipson
Absolutely. We are investing through our music hubs and the new national centre to make that a reality. By the end of next year, we will have delivered 130,000 new instruments, pieces of equipment and other music technologies to schools to support our young people to pick up instruments and create music.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
Later today, the Government will publish their financial inclusion strategy. I welcome the steps forward for financial literacy. Will the Secretary of State collaborate with the Economic Secretary and use the wealth of expertise and enthusiasm that exists among the banks and financial services industry to ensure that maximum strides forward can be made in financial literacy across the whole age range?
Bridget Phillipson
The right hon. Gentleman has done a lot of work in this area. What he suggests is very sensible, and I will certainly take that forward. I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards would also be happy to discuss it with him.
Josh Dean (Hertford and Stortford) (Lab)
I really welcome the review’s focus on social justice and the critical skills needed for work and life. We know that young people face an unprecedented mental health crisis. Can the Secretary of State reassure me that young people’s wellbeing will be a material consideration for her Department in implementing the review’s recommendations, particularly on assessment reform? Does she agree that mental wellbeing and resilience are also critical skills that we should support young people to develop, and that they too should be included in reform of the curriculum?
Bridget Phillipson
I agree with my hon. Friend. It is why we are rolling out more mental health support across our schools to make sure that at the earliest possible point when problems arise, young people have access to high-quality mental health support. Alongside that is the enrichment framework and the opportunities there will be in music, sport, art and drama. We know that those subjects are important ways in which young people do not just find a passion and a joy but develop resilience, confidence, teamwork and much more. That is really important in what is sometimes a very difficult world for our young people.
Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)
As the Member of Parliament for Tiverton and Minehead—Minehead being one of the most deprived areas in the country, standing 324th out of 324 in the social mobility index—I wholeheartedly commend what the Secretary of State has announced. However, I have grave concerns about the state of the schools in my constituency, particularly Tiverton high school, and the paucity of teachers, particularly in the arts subjects that the Secretary of State has quite commendably supported.
Bridget Phillipson
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this issue; I know she always bangs the drum for her constituency, and we have discussed this many times. If she requires an update on wider issues, I will be more than happy to make sure that she gets one from the new Minister.
Shaun Davies (Telford) (Lab)
It has been 10 years since the last review, and the economy, education and, frankly, the world have moved on dramatically in that time, so I welcome the review. Subjects and activities like music, drama, art, play and debating have often had little to no attention and resources. Will the Secretary of State please assure me that she will learn from the best schools in the country and local authorities like my own, which have continued to invest in the “10 by 10” initiative, so that that can be cascaded across the country?
Bridget Phillipson
My hon. Friend has done amazing work in this area to make sure that children in his community have access to a wide range of opportunities. I agree that the best schools provide academic stretch as well as a broad and rich curriculum. It can be done, and we will make sure that it happens in every school.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Scrapping the EBacc means potentially reducing the exposure of disadvantaged children to modern foreign languages, and the problem with that—a bit like their access to classics in the past—is that they will become relatively disadvantaged when it comes to places at elite universities. Does the Secretary of State agree that we must make sure that that does not happen, since we all want to see improved social mobility in this country—and scrapping the EBacc looks like a very funny way of doing it?
Bridget Phillipson
I agree with the right hon. Member in so far as he is saying that we should make sure that a range of subjects are available to young people, including languages, and that young people should have a good range of options, including the chance to go on and study at university. I think it is important alongside that, as the Prime Minister set out in his target, that two thirds of young people move into higher-level learning—be that through an apprenticeship or university. That is why we are also investing more in post-16 education. I do not accept what he has to say about the EBacc or Progress 8. It did not work as intended, and it has not solved the problem that he suggests it would. Our revised Progress 8 measure will ensure that we have a strong academic offer for all young people alongside the breadth and choice that they deserve.
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Secretary of State agree that there must be strong support from school leaderships and local authorities for individual teachers as they, rightly, teach social media literacy? Does she agree that the review’s focus on social media literacy must be accompanied by stronger co-ordination on this issue across Government?
Bridget Phillipson
My right hon. Friend is right to highlight that, and I agree. Some amazing opportunities come from the use of technology and computing and from giving our young people the skills they will need to succeed. However, we also see the dangers that exist, with the big challenges from misinformation online that teachers tell me they are having to deal with day in, day out. They will have more support to make that happen with more of a focus on the areas that matter most. We will consult on all the changes to the new programmes of study.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s reference in her statement to adventure and nature. Will she go further and agree that it is essential that every child at primary school and secondary school has an outdoor education residential experience because of the wonderful advantages it gives them in building resilience throughout their lives and developing a love of learning once they are in the classroom? Will she commit to doing that and to meeting the all-party parliamentary group for outdoor learning so that we can talk about how this should be at the centre of the curriculum?
Bridget Phillipson
Either I or the Minister for School Standards will be happy to meet the all-party group. The hon. Member makes a powerful case, which I am sure we can take forward as we consider the enrichment framework. I have many happy memories of residentials in his part of the world when I was at school: they are life-changing and always stay with you. I want to ensure that more young people have access to the outdoors and to brilliant opportunities like residentials.
Liz Twist (Blaydon and Consett) (Lab)
I welcome the inclusion of community history and the acknowledgment of its importance. Does the Secretary of State think that projects such as the Addison project, which looks at a category D village in my constituency, help children to develop digital skills, learning and thinking skills and practical skills?
Bridget Phillipson
That sounds like a wonderful project in my hon. Friend’s constituency. When our children study history, it can often be brought to life by local examples that demonstrate a wider connection to our nation’s past but also allow us to shape our future. It is in precisely those kind of examples where I want teachers to have more opportunities to expand children’s minds and provide them with greater opportunity.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
It is welcome news that the Government plan that children should be taught critical thinking and how to guard against fake news and misinformation, but the Secretary of State will be aware that some teachers, like some politicians, regard “fake news” differently from the rest of society. Will she ensure that teachers who teach that subject are schooled in the knowledge of the requirement for political impartiality in schools introduced in 1986 and carried forward in subsequent legislation?
Bridget Phillipson
The right hon. Member is right to draw attention to the importance of political impartiality. The review found that the current non-statutory status of citizenship is leading to uneven and inconsistent progress in the subject. There is the chance to do this better to ensure that it is taught well and that young people are able to think critically and challenge what is in front of them. That is more important than ever given how some of those who are hostile to our nation’s interests seek to use social media to exploit division and poison the minds of our young people.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
I was delighted to bring the Chancellor of the Exchequer to my constituency to visit JPMorganChase; soon after, it announced £350 million of investment. One of the questions of the global chief executive officer was: how do we retain local talent? Financial education was a critical answer. I therefore welcome the Government’s announcement.
I am also pleased that the Secretary of State visited Bournemouth East and met 12 heads of primary and secondary schools. This was among the things that they were crying out for. Will she let me know what I can tell the heads of my schools about how the new curriculum will improve the lives of the children they teach?
Bridget Phillipson
It was wonderful to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency and meet so many of the wonderful school leaders who are changing children’s lives. We will work with our teachers and school leaders to implement the new national curriculum to ensure that they have the support and that we have the right time allocated to implementation. There will be four terms’ notice, so there will be ample chance for teachers to adjust their teaching ahead of rolling out the new curriculum. I am delighted that my hon. Friend welcomes our emphasis on financial education and the benefits that it will bring to his community in Bournemouth.
Dr Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
I welcome the review’s emphasis on preparing young people for a changing world through things like media literacy, political literacy and climate literacy. My question is about pace. The Secretary of State mentioned implementation in 2028-29, but that is too slow given the urgency of these problems—by that point, today’s 12-year-olds may be voting in the next election. What will she do to speed up implementation of those critical parts of the curriculum before then?
Bridget Phillipson
I see that there is a balance to strike. Some colleagues are rightly urging us to ensure we get the implementation right, but I understand the hon. Member’s impatience to make it happen. It is right that we update our curriculum to improve climate and sustainability education in geography, science, citizenship, and design and technology, but we do need to ensure that it is done properly. Of course, schools will be able to teach the new national curriculum sooner if they so choose, but doing so will not be a requirement until 2028.
Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
I welcome Professor Francis’s work on the review, and the Government’s commitment to upholding many of her recommendations, particularly on professional autonomy and digital literacy. The review recognises the class attainment gap that is holding back so many working-class children. What steps will my right hon. Friend take to ensure that the implementation of the curriculum review focuses resources on the places that need them most?
Bridget Phillipson
The Government are committed to ensuring that a person’s background does not determine what they can go on to achieve. To take one example from the review, it is clear that on leaving primary school, too many young people do not have the reading and writing skills that they need to succeed later in life, and the attainment gap sadly widens throughout their secondary school careers. We will take action by providing more support around reading, including through a statutory test in year 8, so that schools better identify and target support at the students who have the most to gain. That will extend to many disadvantaged children in my hon. Friend’s constituency.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I welcome the broadening of the curriculum, which will allow more children to find joy in learning, particularly children with special educational needs, who really need the benefit of creative skills. As a vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for performing arts education and training, and as the mother of a musical theatre undergraduate, I am concerned about the cuts announced just last month to teacher training bursaries in the creative arts. Will the Secretary of State confirm that they will be reversed, so that we have enough creative teachers?
Bridget Phillipson
We have to target our bursaries and financial support at the areas and subjects where they are most needed, and that is what we have sought to do through the bursaries and financial support that we have put in place. However, I welcome the hon. Member’s support for arts and creative education. The review and the Government’s response to it have been widely welcomed by the creative sector.
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
I warmly welcome the review and the Secretary of State’s statement. I am particularly pleased that the Sutton Trust is wholeheartedly behind the review. Will she say a little more about the importance of triple science, and how she hopes that will benefit social mobility across the country?
Bridget Phillipson
My hon. Friend is right. At the moment, access to triple science is uneven, with big gaps in access for disadvantaged students and big geographic inequalities. It will take time to ensure that we have the subject specialists in place to deliver that, but all children in our schools should be entitled to do triple science, so that they can go on to study the relevant A-level and T-level subjects.
Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)
There is a lot to support in the announcement, and I particularly welcome the Secretary of State’s words about the importance of financial education from primary onwards. If that is done well, it could have a positive impact on our communities for decades to come.
We all know that the key to great learning is fantastic teaching. I am in my 20th year as a primary school governor, so I understand why school leaders will be questioning how they can afford to pay for what has been announced from their already stretched budgets. Will the Secretary of State assure all the primary schoolchildren in my constituency that there will be enough brilliant teachers on hand who are properly resourced to deliver what she has announced?
Bridget Phillipson
I know that this can be done only through the amazing work of our teachers, our support staff and our school leaders. We will work with them as we roll out the new national curriculum. We are investing more this year and every year in our schools. We have also delivered two pay awards for our teachers. This year, we have seen 2,300 more secondary and specialist teachers, and we are retaining more teachers across the board. We have achieved a lot, but there is more to do. I look forward to working with the hon. Member on that.
Jacob Collier (Burton and Uttoxeter) (Lab)
At a recent Burton and District chamber of commerce meeting that I hosted, businesses raised the importance of financial education for young people about mortgages, savings and pensions. It appears that the Secretary of State was listening. What support she will give teachers, so that they can deliver that effectively?
Bridget Phillipson
I always listen to my hon. Friend’s contributions on these important subjects. Given what we have heard from business, parents and young people, we want to make sure that young people have a better grounding in key concepts in financial education, be that mortgages, savings or the difference between a debit and a credit card—something I was discussing yesterday with in a wide-ranging conversation with a group of year 6 students.
Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)
The Secretary of State rightly points to the challenge of disinformation—a challenge that democracy is losing. I would welcome her agreement that education is our greatest weapon against disinformation. Which of her changes will ensure that those voting in future general elections are better prepared to vote in their interests than those of us who went before?
Bridget Phillipson
As we move towards votes at 16, it will be important that our young people understand our democracy, our laws, our history, and their responsibilities as active citizens. That is why we want to make sure that there is better statutory teaching of citizenship in primary schools, and improvements at secondary as well. There is much brilliant practice already out there, but there is more to do to spread it.
David Baines (St Helens North) (Lab)
There is a lot to welcome in the statement, but will the Secretary of State please assure me and families in St Helens North that not only will we have the measures in the curriculum review, but more certainty will be provided in the schools and SEND White Paper in the new year, and that all proposals to help all pupils, such as extending continuous provision throughout the whole of key stage 1, will be considered?
Bridget Phillipson
Yes. In the schools White Paper, we will set out our vision for the school system into the 2030s and beyond. A central part of that will be how we better support children with SEND. So many young people face an adversarial system, in which it takes too long to get the right support, and in which parents have to battle and fight. That is why the guiding principle behind everything that we do in this area will be better outcomes and better life chances for children with SEND. I am always willing to discuss with my hon. Friend the changes that he believes are necessary.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
Understanding history has a massive impact on social attitudes and people’s relationships with communities. Will the Secretary of State therefore look carefully at the primary school history curriculum to make sure that it includes a good understanding of global history and the concepts behind it, as well as a big emphasis on local history and local achievement, to improve cohesion in our communities? That way, young people growing up will have that greater sense of involvement with the rest of the world, as well as with their local community.
Bridget Phillipson
High-quality history education should allow students to understand both our role in the world and local history. There are many powerful examples of how learning about local history can really bring a topic to life. To give one example, earlier this year, I helped unveil a statue to women shipyard workers in Sunderland who stepped in to replace the men who went to the second world war. That really brought the topic to life. It is a fantastic example of how we can combine the local and the national to understand our past and look to the future.
Leigh Ingham (Stafford) (Lab)
Earlier this year, I held a debate on access to sport in schools, and one of my key points was how vital sport is for children’s mental health, and particularly for building their resilience. I am pleased that the review recognises that, and recommends broadening physical education’s role to reflect its wider impact on pupils’ mental and physical health. Does the Secretary of State agree that improving access to sport for all pupils is vital for building resilience in young people, especially as we know that there are children who do not have enough access to sport?
Bridget Phillipson
I agree that PE and sport are vital elements of the rounded and enriching education that every child deserves. They can also motivate young people, give them a sense of purpose, help with wellbeing challenges and much more besides. That is why we have committed to strengthening the national curriculum for PE, and we want to work with many fantastic sporting bodies and other organisations that deliver enrichment activities, through the enrichment framework, to deliver that.
Adam Dance (Yeovil) (LD)
I welcome many of the changes the Government have brought forward. The review highlighted the attainment gap for people with SEND at school. To close that gap, will the Secretary of State commit to universal screening for neurodivergence, and to more teacher training on the subject for those teaching primary school-aged children? Though strengthening the phonics screener is great, it is not enough.
Bridget Phillipson
I agree about the need to provide better training and support for teachers and support staff. That is why this year, for the first time, there is expanded content on SEND in initial teacher training. However, there is more to do around teaching, training and support for the existing workforce. We are considering all that through the schools White Paper, as well as what more we can do to support staff, so that they can better identify early need and put in place the required support. It will also be important to do that through our Best Start family hubs, in which we can work with families at a much earlier stage.
Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)
This review is hugely welcome because it begins to help us address what we have known for a long time: the creative subjects in our schools have been in decline. That is bad not just for young people, but for society and our national life. May I first urge the Secretary of State to learn from this review, and implement a national centre for arts and music education? That would be an important intervention from the Government. Secondly, on what she said about civic engagement, may I urge her to go beyond the review’s recommendations on learning about local history? Every young person must learn about their locality to build a real sense of place and identity.
Bridget Phillipson
My hon. Friend always champions the importance of music education, and the right of every child to access to music. Our new national centre for arts and music education will provide support for schools and teachers in delivering the reformed curriculum, and I am delighted that 43 music hubs are rolling out music instrument tuition, and opportunities to take part in music production and creation. I know that he will continue to champion those things.
Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
The Secretary of State acknowledged in her statement the progress gap for children with SEND. How will the Government support flexibility in the delivery of the curriculum, including for those children who are unable to access a traditional school setting?
Bridget Phillipson
I recognise the challenges, and I have heard directly from many children and families about the struggles that they face. The review looked closely at this area. I understand what the hon. Lady is saying, and I recognise its importance, but alongside that, we need to continue to have high expectations of what children with SEND can achieve with the right level of support. Through the schools White Paper, we will set out how we make that a reality for every child.
Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)
I welcome Professor Francis’s review. On the critical issue of SEND, does my right hon. Friend agree that the review’s findings—on flexibility, time for repetition and revision, early identification of need and the role of special educational needs and disabilities co-ordinators in ensuring an inclusive curriculum—could go a long way to ensuring that school is a positive experience for all pupils, not just a highly academic few?
Bridget Phillipson
We want to build on the review’s work in this important area, and we will set out more detail next year, through the schools White Paper. We know that outcomes for children with SEND are not where they need to be. Parents and families have to battle, and it can all be an uphill struggle. That is why early identification of need and more support for families, as well as better training and support for our staff, will be critical elements of any reform programme.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
Food and farming are almost entirely missing from the national curriculum, leaving young people with limited understanding of where their food comes from, or awareness of career opportunities in agriculture and the food system. What plans does the Secretary of State have to embed agriculture, environment and food studies into the national curriculum, to inspire the next generation to pursue careers in those sectors?
Bridget Phillipson
The review set out recommended changes in a number of related areas to those that the hon. Lady has raised. Through revised programmes of study, we will look carefully at how we deliver that. There will be opportunities for consultation throughout the process, before a full national roll-out.
Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for her statement, and for her commitment to our young people. Parents and teachers will know just how gruelling the GCSE exams are for our students, many of whom are undertaking mocks as we speak. I welcome the commitment to working with Ofqual to reduce time volume by 10%. Will the Secretary of State outline any other steps that have been discussed, following the report about managing the sheer volume of exams that our young people are taking?
Bridget Phillipson
The review took an evidence-driven approach, informed by the data, with input from across the sector and experts, to make sure that we get this right. However, it did not seek to fix things that are not broken. I recognise that young people in England sit more hours of exams than their peers in many other countries. We will therefore work closely with Ofqual and exam boards to reduce GCSE exam time by two and a half to three hours. Ofqual is confident that that can be achieved while maintaining the integrity and validity of the qualifications system.
Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)
On Monday, I enjoyed a coffee with a lovely couple in my constituency who run a charity with the goal of delivering e-books to primary schools. Although digital is often more difficult to read, in the sense that it is on a screen, it can go further, faster, in reaching children, especially those who are disadvantaged. What consideration has the Secretary of State given to the importance of online reading?
Bridget Phillipson
In 2026, it will be the National Year of Reading, and in our work on that, we are thinking about not just physical books that can be delivered to children, but what a strong digital offer could look like. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to get involved in that process.
Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Ind)
I really welcome the efforts to curtail the excessive examination time that our children are facing. It does not help real learning and is having a big impact on the mental health of the younger generation. What opportunities does the Secretary of State see for introducing more modern approaches to teaching that offer opportunities to learn through play and would provide wider access to education than traditional methods do?
Bridget Phillipson
We want to ensure that as we reduce GCSE content by 10%, we do so, together with the regulator, in a way that maintains the validity and integrity of the system. There are a range of different approaches that teachers can benefit from, and the Department provides much in the way of training and development. We always keep that under review to ensure that this is evidence-informed and driven by the best pedagogy.
Points of Order
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. After I spoke in the British Steel debate when the House was recalled on a Saturday back in April, three newspapers from the Mirror Group published false, inaccurate and, frankly, libellous statements about me that weekend, which were retweeted by a number of Labour MPs. I am pleased to report that the Independent Press Standards Organisation, the press regulator, has found in my favour against the Mirror Group, forcing it to apologise and to permanently delete those articles and all the social media posts. I am most grateful to those Labour MPs who deleted their posts when they were so informed.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving notice of what is not really a point of order. He has most definitely made his point.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether you have had any notification of a statement from the Ministry of Justice, and in particular from the Justice Secretary, about our interaction earlier and the very serious case that it now relates to. I have strong reason to believe that the Deputy Prime Minister was aware of the case when I asked him very clearly five times about whether he knew about these sorts of cases and he did not answer the question. This is about Ministers being transparent with the House, and I seek your guidance.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Member for giving me notice of that point of order. I have received no notice that the Secretary of State intends to make a statement, but those on the Treasury Front Bench will have heard that point of order and, I am sure, will take the hon. Member’s views into account.
Charlie Dewhirst (Bridlington and The Wolds) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The recent Cabinet Office annual accounts show that the departed Cabinet Secretary and the permanent secretary collectively received a quarter of a million pounds in golden goodbyes. I asked the Minister for the Cabinet Office the rationale for such a use of taxpayers’ money, and the Minister without Portfolio replied that it was the Government’s policy not to comment on individuals. That is clearly nonsensical. There is a clear expectation of accountability and transparency on payments to the most public senior officials, so do you agree that this approach is in keeping with the House’s resolution on ministerial accountability to Parliament?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Member for his point of order. Ministers are responsible for their responses to Members’ questions, so that is not a matter for the Chair, but no doubt those on the Government Front Bench will have noted his question.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In the early hours of Monday morning there was a serious derailment at Shap in my constituency, on the Glasgow to London line. It is now Wednesday, but the Secretary of State for Transport has chosen not to make a statement to the House on the matter. The derailment shines a worrying light on the failure to invest in the modernisation of the railway line north of Warrington up to Lockerbie, putting passengers at risk on the busiest line in the whole of western Europe. Can you give us some guidance on how we can make our representations on that failure, and also voice our respect and admiration for the emergency services, the Network Rail staff, the Avanti crew, including the train driver, and the people at the Shap Wells hotel who looked after the stricken passengers on that terrible Monday morning?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving notice of his point of order. As an experienced Member, he knows that while statements are made on the initiative of Ministers, there are other ways for Members to raise matters in this House.
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to ask whether my letter to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, dated 23 October—on whether the deeply offensive comments she made to me and my independent alliance colleagues in the Chamber on 20 October were in breach of the Nolan principles of public life—will receive a reply. The football game is being held tomorrow and the police assessment found that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were experienced fighters who were highly organised and intent on causing serious violence. The Secretary of State has not, to date, clarified whether she had seen that advice before she decided to label me and those who welcomed the ban on safety grounds as antisemitic. Can you advise me on what steps I can take to seek redress with an apology or resignation?
Madam Deputy Speaker
Can the hon. Member confirm that he has actually notified the Secretary of State that he intended to raise this matter?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Well, that would be good protocol. All correspondence from Members to Ministers should be dealt with promptly, and no doubt those on the Treasury Front Bench will have noted this and will ensure that Back Benchers get answers to their correspondence in good time.
Bill Presented
Railways
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Secretary Heidi Alexander, supported by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary Steve Reed, Secretary Ed Miliband, Secretary Peter Kyle, Secretary Douglas Alexander, Secretary Jo Stevens and James Murray, presented a Bill to make provision about railways and railway services; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Tuesday 11 November, and to be printed (Bill 325) with explanatory notes (Bill 325-EN).
Ferry Services (Integration and Regulation)
Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the integration of ferry services with other transport services; to make provision about the regulation of ferry services; and for connected purposes.
Our great nation, the United Kingdom, is a nation of islands. This country also invented the railways. Rail, road and ferries together ensure that in every corner of our country there is a place that somebody calls home. There is also a political consensus in this country, stretching back decades, that those who provide public transport do so with certain conditions imposed upon them. That political consensus has existed regardless of who is in government and which party holds power.
That means that train operators—whether they are soon to be part of the state or private companies—must provide services for a fair price that the Government have a say over, and provide timetabling that allows people to move about, regardless of whether that individual train journey is profitable on its own. There are laws to ensure that those operators must publish performance data, and similar rules apply to bus service providers. However, there is no national provision that applies to those who operate the ferry services that communities all over the country—whether island communities or communities that live along riverways—rely on for accessing essential services, employment, seeing friends and family, and all the things we do in our daily lives.
That has meant that constituents such as mine on the Isle of Wight—they are just an example—are faced with huge costs to take a car back and forth to the mainland, and that who wish to visit the Isle of Wight sometimes have to pay up to £400 just to take a car back and forth on a five-mile journey. Private equity groups have taken control of Wightlink and Red Funnel, which operate across the Solent, and in an entirely unregulated market they can do what they like. There is no fair competition because the barrier to entering that market for a new provider is simply too high.
It also means that what were once half-hourly services are now hourly. When I arrived in Southampton last week, a minute late for Red Funnel’s Red Jet service to Cowes, I had to wait an hour and 10 minutes for the next ferry. Had one of my predecessors, Andrew Turner—who is sitting in the Gallery today—done that 10 years ago, he would have had to wait only half an hour.
In too many places in this country, ferry services are getting worse. There is no mandatory reporting requirement on those companies either, so we have no objective way of telling whether they are providing a good service, other than the anecdotal evidence that people like me present.
I am not looking in this Bill to put an undue burden on ferry operators—quite the opposite. I am looking to end the carve-out that they have enjoyed for too long, a carve-out that no other public transport provider benefits from.
If I had the owners of Wightlink and Red Funnel in front of me now, this is what I would say to them: “We are tired of your methods, tired of your rip-off prices, and tired of funding your huge ballooning bank debt interest. You have not done us a favour, and you are not doing us a favour. You should be providing a lifeline transport service, which the taxpayer gave you money for so that you could stay profitable during covid.” If those ferry companies, not just on the Isle of Wight but across the UK, truly believed in a quality service for their passengers, they would embrace regulation, just as other providers do in other modes of public transport.
Too often, when my neighbour the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) or I make the argument about expensive ferry prices, Wightlink in particular comes back and says, “Well, you can cross the Solent with us in a car for £31.” But it fails to admit that that is only if a person pays nearly £2,000 in advance and purchases 60 individual tickets. There are not many people living in my constituency who can afford to give the company nearly £2,000 in advance and who necessarily need to travel 60 times in a year. Ferry companies must be straight and not seek to mislead or hoodwink decision makers in this place when other Members and I talk about how expensive ferry services are.
It is not just my constituents; I have had exchanges with the leader of the council of the Isles of Scilly, and we both share the view that our constituents are entirely reliant on ferry services for some educational opportunities and essential medical services and for accessing employment opportunities—things that people on the mainland of the United Kingdom take for granted. There is no reason why we should be beholden to private profits over and above everyone else.
I present this Bill at a time when the Government are already moving in this direction in how they deal with rail and buses. While I do not necessarily agree with nationalisation, and I do not agree in the case of the railways, I agree with the sentiment and the reasons why they are presenting those Bills. The Secretary of State has said that she wants to ensure better value for money for passengers, to better integrate different modes of transport and to stop profit being a priority over passenger experience and connectivity. I invite her to transfer all that good sentiment she feels about trains and buses to ferries, too, and ensure that communities that I and others in this place serve are not left behind.
I thank the Minister with responsibility for maritime, the hon. Member for Selby (Keir Mather), for meeting me, and I know that he has met my neighbour the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West. I urge the Minister to continue to work with us to look at solutions for my constituents. I would also like the Government to bring in their own regulation for us and to devolve those powers to a forthcoming mayor, if they think it appropriate. This Bill is about more than just my constituents; it is about ensuring a fair and level playing field across the whole United Kingdom.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Joe Robertson, Mr Richard Quigley, Dame Caroline Dinenage, John Cooper, Rebecca Smith, Darren Paffey, Neil Duncan-Jordan, Jess Brown-Fuller, Andrew George, Siân Berry and Jim Shannon present the Bill.
Joe Robertson accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 28 November 2025, and to be printed (Bill 324).
Employment Rights Bill
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
16:35 - The House divided: - Ayes: 310 / Noes: 155 - Question accordingly agreed to.
16:49 - The House divided: - Ayes: 308 / Noes: 153 - Question accordingly agreed to.
17:00 - The House divided: - Ayes: 310 / Noes: 150 - Question accordingly agreed to.
17:12 - The House divided: - Ayes: 312 / Noes: 151 - Question accordingly agreed to.
17:24 - The House divided: - Ayes: 311 / Noes: 152 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I can inform the House that nothing in the Lords message engages Commons financial privilege.
Clause 1
Right to Guaranteed Hours
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kate Dearden)
I beg to move,
That this House disagrees with the Lords in their amendment 1B.
Madam Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following Government motions:
That this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 23 and amendments 106 to 120, does not insist on Commons amendment 106A but proposes Government amendments (a) to (c) in lieu of Lords amendment 23 and Lords amendments 106 to 120.
That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 48B.
That this House disagrees with Lords amendments 60B and 60C but proposes Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.
That this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendments 61 and 72 but proposes Government amendment (a) in lieu.
That this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 62 but proposes Government amendment (a) in lieu.
Kate Dearden
I am pleased to speak on the Employment Rights Bill for our second consideration of Lords amendments, and I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) for her outstanding work on employment rights and her unwavering advocacy for working people. I know how close this Bill is to her heart, and I am grateful that she is here in support today. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders) for his work and dedication on this significant piece of legislation.
The Government’s top priority is to grow the economy and improve living standards. Essential to that is the recognition that greater productivity, security and dignity in work help to grow the economy. The stronger economic performance that our country needs cannot be built on the backs of people in insecure work. For too long employment law has failed to keep pace with the fundamental changes to how, when and where we work. It is time to build a modern industrial relations framework, fashioned on the principle of social partnership that consent and consensus must replace disputes and conflict in modern employment relations. That is good for workers and good for business. Both suffer when one employer is undercut by another, using reduced terms and conditions of service for their employees. Sustainable economic growth cannot be built on unfair competition and insecure employment.
The Employment Rights Bill extends the employment protections currently enjoyed by some employees in the best British companies to workers across the country. By doing so, work will become more secure and predictable while strengthening the foundations that underpin a modern economy. The Bill will back businesses that already do the right thing and give hard-working people the job security and opportunities they deserve. It is in tune with the times and in keeping with how the world of work is changing.
Industrial relations law in this country must move from the 20th century to the 21st. It has to recognise that certainty and security are essential for people at work, that the best relationship between employer and employee is best exemplified by fairness and trust within a framework for recruitment and retention that values both, and that dignity at work is as vital to the effective functioning of modern society as the dignity of work.
Some will seek to use this issue to entrench the idea that employers and employees have opposing interests that must always inevitably result in dispute and strife, and I reject that view. The very best trade unionists know, as do the best employers, that such a view only represents failure. For this Labour Government, success is to be measured not in division, but in the shared economic growth that we achieve, the opportunity and security we build and the prosperity we create, and that is at the heart of the Bill.
Today I ask the House to reaffirm its support for this important legislation as we move through the latest round of parliamentary ping-pong. We have listened carefully to the concerns that have been raised, and in response we are offering, where possible, amendments in lieu that we believe strike a fair and workable compromise with the proposed amendments. Although we appreciate the range of perspectives offered, we will be unable to support certain amendments that conflict with the fundamental principles of the Bill and may compromise its intended impact.
We acknowledge that Lords amendment 1B, which relates to zero-hours contracts, is an amendment in lieu, intended as a compromise. It proposes a shift from a full right-to-request model to one in which employers must notify workers of their right to a guaranteed hours offer, and make a guaranteed hours offer unless the worker declines or opts out. I appreciate the sentiment behind the amendment, but it would undermine the Bill’s core aim of ending exploitative contracts and providing security for the workers who need it most. We therefore cannot accept it.
The Government are committed to ending one-sided flexibility so that workers are not left guessing about their hours or pay. These reforms reward fair employers, modernise the system and come with clear guidance to help everyone prepare. For employers, clear expectations mean better staffing and lower recruitment costs through better retention. We also appreciate that some groups, including younger workers, value the flexibility of zero-hours contracts. That is why workers will be able to decline a guaranteed hours offer and remain on their existing arrangement if that works best for them.
The Government are also committed to supporting young people into work. The youth guarantee will include a targeted backstop under which every eligible and unemployed young person on universal credit for 18 months without earning or learning will be provided guaranteed paid work. The scheme forms part of the Government’s aim to provide targeted support for young people at risk of long-term unemployment. Further details will be confirmed at the autumn Budget, following further engagement, including with employers.
Let me turn to Lords amendment 48B on seasonal work. The Government recognise that work in certain sectors fluctuates seasonally, and that there are ways in which employers may account for that and remain compliant with the legislation. They may, for example, use annualised hours contracts, which offer variable numbers of hours at work at different times of the year. Additionally, the Bill already allows guaranteed hours offers to take the form of limited-term contracts where reasonable—for example, a fruit-picker could be engaged on a contract tied to the end of the picking season. In such cases, after the initial reference period, the employer would be required to guarantee hours only for the duration of that limited-term contract rather than on a permanent basis. The Bill also already provides powers to address seasonal work through regulations, ensuring flexibility as workforce needs evolve. Consultation with employers, trade unions and stakeholders will take place before such regulations are made. We therefore do not support the amendment.
Let me turn to unfair dismissal. Lords amendments 23 and 106 to 120 propose retaining a qualifying period of six months for unfair dismissal. These amendments have returned to this House as the Lords have insisted on them. We remain committed to delivering unfair dismissal protections from day one—not two years, not six months, but day one. That was a clear pledge in our manifesto and it will ensure that about 9 million employees who have worked for their employer for less than two years are protected from being arbitrarily fired. Crucially, day one protection from unfair dismissal will not remove the right of businesses to dismiss people who cannot do their job or do not pass probation, but it will tackle cases of unfair dismissal in which hard-working employees are sacked without good reason. A six-month qualifying threshold still leaves employees exposed to dismissal without good reason in the early months of a new job, which is why the Government cannot accept the Lords amendments on maintaining a qualifying period.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
Does the Minister not listen to the voices of business and business organisations? They say that what the Government propose will make young people—whom it is riskier to take on—less likely to get jobs in the first place. Why does she think she knows better than employers and the people who create jobs in this country?
Kate Dearden
Yesterday, I was with the Hospitality Sector Council. I heard about all the brilliant work it does to provide employment opportunities for young people across the country. Indeed, my first job was in a café. Such opportunities to get on the employment ladder are significant for young people. That is why the Bill will work in alignment with all the other crucial work that the Government are doing through the youth guarantee.
As I have outlined on unfair dismissal, it simply is not fair that hard-working employees who have worked somewhere for 18 months can be unfairly dismissed and have no stability and predictability in their jobs. Protection through day one rights gives financial security to people who do not have it. We are striking a balanced approach by introducing a statutory probation period. As we have mentioned, the Government’s preference is for that to be a period of nine months, but we are engaging in consultation on the next steps for those light-touch standards. The probation period will ensure that in the early months of employment, employers can dismiss employees who might not be performing or might not be suitable. The measures will tackle the causes of unfair dismissal.
Ian Lavery (Blyth and Ashington) (Lab)
Some 73% of employers support giving employees protection from unfair dismissal—the day one rights—according to the Institute for Public Policy Research and TUC research, and 83% of managers agree that improved workers’ rights can and do positively impact on workplace productivity. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should listen to that extremely important research?
Kate Dearden
My hon. Friend raises an excellent point about research. Providing employees with security at work results in a happier workforce, which increases productivity and helps businesses across the country, as well as our economy. The Bill will provide flexibility and security for people in workplaces across the country, which is vital for our productivity. That is our vision for our country and economy.
James Wild
The Minister referred to a nine-month probationary period as opposed to the six-month unfair dismissal period. A report from the Resolution Foundation—which is usually held in high regard on the Treasury Bench—says that this is a “messy compromise” that risks confusing employers and preventing them from taking people on. That is the point that I was making. Some 20% of jobs in my constituency are in the hospitality sector. The sector is not taking people on because of the jobs tax, and it will take on even fewer people because of these increased costs. Does she not realise the confusion that will come from this messy probation period, which is not on the face of the Bill?
Kate Dearden
As we have said from the start, the implementation of day one unfair dismissal rights will be done with a light touch. I am keen to work with employers across the country, including in the hospitality sector, which plays a key role in employing and providing opportunities for young people. I will work with all stakeholders on the next steps and implementation. As the hon. Gentleman knows, and as is the case for lots of employment rights legislation, we are setting the foundation here in this crucial Bill, but there are lots of details to work through in consultation, which I am absolutely committed to doing.
The framework will be founded on the principle of social partnership: consent and consensus must replace dispute and conflict in modern employment relations. That will ensure maximum flexibility, so that the new framework works effectively for employers and employees in each sector of the economy. We will minimise the cost of its implementation and operation.
The Government are committed to ensuring that employers can hire with confidence. As I have said, introducing the statutory probation period enables employers to fairly assess new hires’ performance and suitability for the role that they have been hired for. Most employers already use contractual probation periods of six months or less. The Government have been clear that our preference is for the probationary period to be nine months long. That would allow for a standard six-month term, with the option to extend supporting employee development without compromising operational needs.
We have heard the calls to ensure that the framework reflects real-world realities, and we have tabled an amendment in lieu to address that. Our amendment places a statutory duty on the Government to consult on key aspects of the framework. That would guarantee meaningful input from employers and employees, giving businesses a direct role in shaping the legislation to ensure a practical and fair approach. Additionally, we are tabling a further amendment in lieu, making technical changes to the words restored to the Bill by our rejection of the Lords amendments.
Naushabah Khan (Gillingham and Rainham) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill not only provides vital protections to the workforce, but gives businesses the certainty they need to grow our economy?
Kate Dearden
I completely agree. We are creating security for people across the country. Crucially, we are ensuring that employers do the right thing for their employees and go above and beyond the proposals in the Bill. That ensures a level playing field, which is good for our economy and for businesses that might otherwise be undercut by others that do not play by the rules.
We have also heard concerns about the pressures on the employment tribunal system. We will set up a taskforce to support us in fixing the employment dispute system, so that it works better for workers and businesses. The taskforce will have balanced representation from unions, businesses and other experts, including community organisations.
I turn now to the Lords amendments on heritage rail. The Government agree with the principle of the amendment and have tabled an amendment in lieu that captures the intent, while refining the drafting to provide more clarity and ensure that the legislation works as intended. The Government’s amendment, which has been tabled with the support of sponsoring peers Lord Parkinson and Lord Faulkner, places a statutory duty on the Office of Rail and Road and the Health and Safety Executive to produce guidance supporting 14 to 16-year-olds who volunteer on heritage railways.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I rise as co-chair, alongside Lord Faulkner, of the all-party parliamentary group on heritage rail. I express my thanks to the Government for bringing forward the amendment and recognising that volunteering with heritage railways is an immensely useful experience for young people aged 14 to 16. I am glad that we are now undertaking a 12-month assessment for guidance.
Kate Dearden
I thank the right hon. Member for working with us and for her support throughout the passage of the Bill. I understand her passion and work in this area. As she says, the guidance will offer a clear benchmark for reasonable activities and assist inspectors in important decisions. The Government are committed to the work, as she will know, with publication targeted by 31 March 2026. We believe that this collaborative effort will provide practical guidance that empowers children to engage safely and meaningfully in heritage railway volunteering.
Turning to the issue of political funds, Lords amendments 61 and 72 would remove clause 59 from the Bill. That clause reverses measures in the Trade Union Act 2016, which we have committed to repeal, that require members to opt in to political funds. This therefore reinstates longstanding arrangements where members are automatically included unless they choose to opt out. Removing clause 59 would break that commitment to restore balance and fairness in union operations. The opt-in system, introduced in 2016, added bureaucracy without improving transparency or strengthening members’ choice. To be clear, we are not removing that choice. At the point of joining, every new member will be clearly informed on the application form that they have the right to opt out of contributing to a political fund. The same form will make it plain that opt-out has no negative bearing whatsoever on any other aspect of union membership. That is why the Government cannot support Lords amendments 61 and 72.
We have heard reflections around how opt-out notices would take effect and have tabled an amendment in lieu to refine that process. Under the pre-2016 legislation, an opt-out notice was effective on 1 January following the year in which it was given. Under the Government’s amendment, opt-out notices will now have effect from either 1 January or the following year after it has been provided, or on a date specified or determined in the rules of the union, whichever of those dates comes first. This provides unions with flexibility in the legislation to act more quickly and process the member’s request to opt out, without having to wait until the subsequent 1 January to do so. In practice, unions already do this. We will also commit today to engage with unions directly, to continue to make clear our expectation that opt-out notices can be honoured as swiftly and practically as possible. Our amendment is simply about ensuring that legislation matches what has been the established practice.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I hope that the Minister has not referred to this already, but small businesses in my constituency that do not have human resources departments tell me that they will find it hard to navigate these legislative waters. Although we need strong employment rights and I support the Bill’s objectives, we need to ensure that there is support for employers, so that they know how to implement the measures and how to defend themselves, which they will sometimes need to do, without paying costly solicitors’ bills that are detrimental to their business. Will the Minister reassure me on that matter?
Kate Dearden
I come from a family that has a business in the hospitality sector, which is close to my heart. In the first eight weeks that I have been in this role, I have had the pleasure to meet small and large businesses, and I have made clear our determination to work closely with them on the implementation of this legislation and to ensure that they are prepared for the changes when they come. We published our road map earlier this year and have committed to stick to that, which has been welcomed by businesses small and large.
Finally, turning to the issue of industrial action ballot thresholds, Lords Amendment 62 would remove clause 65(2) from the Bill, which would retain the existing 50% turnout threshold for industrial action ballots. The Government do not support this amendment. Clause 65 removes an unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle and aligns union democracy with other democratic processes, such as parliamentary votes and local elections, which do not typically require turnout thresholds but are still accepted as legitimate. As the period of disruption under the Conservatives’ watch between 2022 and 2024 has shown, bureaucratic hurdles only make it harder for unions to engage in the bargaining and negotiation that settles disputes. This Government’s approach will foster a new partnership of co-operation between trade unions and employers.
James Wild
If this provision is introduced, does the Minister think that there will be more or fewer strikes?
Kate Dearden
Strikes were a failure of the Tory Government who had stopped listening and, to be frank, had stopped working, so I will not be taking any further interventions from the hon. Gentleman.
We want to create a modern and positive framework for trade union legislation that delivers productive and constructive engagement, respects the democratic mandate of unions and works to reset our industrial relations. Nonetheless, we recognise that this issue has generated debate, which is why the Government have tabled an amendment in lieu that will require the Secretary of State to have regard to any effects of the introduction of electronic balloting on the proportion of those entitled to vote in industrial action ballots who actually do so. We have previously committed to aligning the removal of the threshold with the establishment of e-balloting as an option for trade unions. This amendment gives statutory effect to that commitment and makes it explicit in the underlying legislation. In having regard to the effects of e-balloting, the Government will monitor and assess the practical impacts of e-balloting on participant rates and the 50% threshold.
To conclude, I urge hon. Members to support the Government’s motions before the House today, including our amendments in lieu, which are part of a package that strengthens rights and reflects the value we place on fair work. We have listened throughout the Bill’s passage and made meaningful changes where needed, and we will continue to listen to all relevant stakeholders as we move into implementation We are committed to full and comprehensive consultation with employers, workers, trade unions and civil society. As set out in our “Implementing the Employment Rights Bill” road map, we are taking a phased approach to engagement and consultation on these reforms. This will ensure that stakeholders have the time and space to work through the detail of each measure, and will help us to implement each in the interests of all. This is a win-win for employers, employees and a more competitive British economy.
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
Act in haste, repent at leisure: never has that been wiser advice than in respect of this Bill. It is a rushed Bill that was half-baked when it was introduced, and has got worse since. It has failed every test of scrutiny, from the Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee to the Constitution Committee, to its low-balled impact assessment.
On the day that the Mayfield report outlines the scale of the challenge that we face on worklessness, it will create generation jobless. Every family in the country will know a son, daughter, niece or nephew who cannot get work as a result. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) reminds us, every Labour Government leaves unemployment higher than when they started, but only this Government have actually legislated for that.
The Minister asks us to disagree with all the main compromise amendments from the other place. If she wished to listen to stakeholders, now would be a fantastic moment to start. Her motions to disagree reject sensible compromises on qualifying periods, seasonal working, guaranteed hours, strike thresholds and opting in to political funds. Who will be the victims if the motions are carried today? Young people, the neurodiverse, those with a disability, female returners to work, the over 50s and former prisoners—some of the most vulnerable groups in society who deserve their chance in life, their shot at employment and a job.
Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)
Yesterday, the hon. Gentleman said the Conservatives
“will repeal those most damaging elements of the Employment Rights Bill”.—[Official Report, 4 November 2025; Vol. 774, c. 776.]
Could he inform us which elements of the Bill they will retain?
Andrew Griffith
We will have our work cut out, with its 330 pages and 122,000 words—[Interruption.] Labour Members seek to hide behind measures that we support, such as enhanced maternity rights. But will the hon. Member tell me how many times the word “maternity” appears in the Bill, and how many times the word “union”—his paymasters—appears in it?
Laurence Turner
I did not realise that was a genuine offer. I do not have the ctrl+F function in front of me to do a word count, but, again, I would be interested in hearing an answer to the question I posed to the hon. Gentleman. All I will say is that, as his colleague the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) said in Committee, trade union-associated MPs have been assiduous at declaring donations. I think only one Member on the Conservative side has declared an interest throughout all these proceedings; I find that utterly incredible.
Andrew Griffith
I trust that you will want all Members this afternoon to declare any relevant interests, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I have none. To answer the question that the hon. Gentleman did not manage to answer, the word “maternity” appears in this Bill three times; the word “union” appears in this Bill 478 times. Follow the money, Madam Deputy Speaker.
With unemployment higher every month—[Interruption.] Listen and learn. This will be Labour’s legacy: with unemployment higher every month of this Government, it is a bleak time for those trying to find work. The independent Office for National Statistics estimates that vacancies are down by 115,000 since this Government came into office. Some 41% of those graduating in 2023 were not in full-time work 15 months later, and it is estimated that almost half the top 100 UK employers have reduced their graduate intake. In fact, graduates are competing for so few jobs that getting a job is as improbable as spotting a Labour Member who has not received a union donation.
But it is not just graduates: for many, seasonal work is the first opportunity to get a foot on the career ladder yet this Bill in its current form forces hospitality businesses or anyone who relies on seasonal workers into an impossible position. That is why we are supportive of the Lords’ compromise amendment that would allow employers who need flexibility across the calendar year to continue to have it; what could be so objectionable about that?
Liz Twist (Blaydon and Consett) (Lab)
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The hon. Gentleman is talking about seasonal work but has he thought about the impact on young people of so-called zero-hours contracts and the pressure that puts on their being able to live a decent life and plan for the future? I was at a conference last week about mental health in the workplace, which Opposition Members are concerned about. Zero-hours contracts and flexible working are really difficult for young people, and we must address their concerns as well.
Andrew Griffith
Mental health is a huge issue; across the House we would agree on that and the Mayfield report this morning is just one of many contributions to the debate. But for so many—this goes to reform of our welfare system as well—the right answer will be to be in employment, and the Mayfield report talks about creating barriers to employers giving young people a chance. There will of course be some challenges with any form of contracted employment, including zero-hours, which many find a very flexible way of combining work with study and parental or other responsibilities.
The way to try to solve that challenge across this House is not the clunking fist of regulation dictating and providing perverse incentives and maybe unintended consequences, which mean that employers do not take a chance at all on young people and they do not get that first step on the employment ladder. I understand that the hon. Lady’s concerns and contributions are well meant, but that is why it would be so much better if we approached the Bill collectively, after so many hours of debate in Committee in this place and in the other place, and if the Government showed compromise to help mitigate—not shelve the Bill, as I might prefer—some of the worst damage that will manifest itself in fewer jobs, fewer opportunities and some of the most vulnerable finding it very hard to get into work.
Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)
The answer to that question is the Chartered Management Institute.
Andrew Griffith
Well, I am glad we have found one; I have not had any representations from it.
Ian Lavery (Blyth and Ashington) (Lab)
The shadow Secretary of State is showing how much he despises the trade union movement and ordinary working people—[Interruption.]
Ian Lavery
I must declare a financial interest with regard to my connection with the trade union movement: I am a very proud member of a trade union.
In response to what the shadow Secretary of State said about support for the Employment Rights Bill, it was a manifesto pledge and the British public voted in their millions to support the Labour party to put this manifesto pledge through in its entirety. And guess what? That is what we are doing.
Andrew Griffith
I ask the Member strongly to withdraw that: I do not despise trade unions; not a single word I have ever said at the Dispatch Box indicates anything of the sort, and I would ask you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to get the Member to withdraw that comment as it is not worthy of him. I would have hoped for better form in the conduct of this debate.
I support people’s rights to trade unions—well-regulated trade unions. For 30 years, the Labour party accepted a broad consensus on the balance between the rights of workers and the rights of employers. Tony Blair never sought at any point to reopen the consensus on that balance that has served this country well, and it does no one a service to render people unemployed.
Several hon. Members rose—
Andrew Griffith
I should give way to the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders), who did so much service on this Bill.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Bromborough) (Lab)
I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for giving way. I am pleased that he has learned to count now; he must have improved his skills since his time under Liz Truss in the Treasury. He talked about the consensus over 30 years, but was it not his Government who introduced the Trade Union Act 2016, which did so much to damage trade union relations?
Andrew Griffith
I am trying to be generous to the hon. Member, as this Bill was part of his legacy before he was so rudely fired by a bad boss without any notice.
It is not unreasonable to say that a strike must be supported by a mere quarter of workers in order to be valid. I do not think the Labour party would claim the mandate that the hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) was talking about on the votes of merely a quarter.
Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)
The hon. Member is not being very clear. Does he like the pre-2016 trade union regime, which is the one this Bill takes us back to, or does he like the post-2016 trade union regime, which is the one he seems to be advocating except when he talks about the 30 years of settled consensus? Which is it, because it cannot be both?
Andrew Griffith
We on the Conservative Benches seek to respect the role of trade unions, but in a flexible workplace where we see growth in the economy and—unlike what we see today—more people in jobs, rather than fewer people in jobs. That does not help anybody at all, least of all a Government who claim that their No. 1 obsession is growth. That is not an unreasonable position.
Not for the first time, I think Ministers have got themselves in a bind. The Secretary of State for Business and Trade is going around telling business groups that he is listening, but every one of them is against this Bill. From what the Health Secretary has been saying privately, it is clear that he is no fan of giving more power to militant unions to call low turnout strikes. The welfare Secretary has commissioned reports on getting people from welfare into work, and those reports talk about not disincentivising employers from hiring. Are Treasury Ministers really looking forward to the Office for Budget Responsibility next week scoring the impact of this Bill, given the independent estimates that it could shave up to 2.8% off GDP? The Chancellor likes to blame everyone from the dinosaurs onwards for her failure, but this one will definitely be on her.
The looming disaster of this Bill is the truth that dare not speak its name. It may be a triumph for the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), but it is a disaster for Britain. It is bad for business, bad for growth, and bad for jobs. Far from furthering workers’ rights, it punishes those who want a job. We do not protect workers by bankrupting their employers. Even the Government’s allies are warning them against this Bill.
Government Members have a choice. They can stand by and watch as their Government bring into law decades-worth of economic stagnation, or they can be on the side of the young, the vulnerable and the enterprising. History will remember this moment, because when unemployment skyrockets, businesses shut their doors, and young people stop believing and stop hoping, no one on the Government Benches will be able to say that they were not warned.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am proud to declare an interest as a lifelong trade unionist in the labour movement, which has helped me to get where I am today. Let me start by placing on record my thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders) and all those colleagues in the other place who spent so many late nights working on this Bill.
I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Kate Dearden) to the Front Bench. She was among the many trade union leaders who helped to develop this Bill before it came to this place. The shadow Secretary of State thinks that the Bill was cooked up on the back of a fag packet, but it took years and millions of union members and ordinary people in this country, who have faced decimation since the Conservatives’ Bill in 2016. I offer my support to my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax in finishing her job, because the House will know that this Bill is unfinished business.
I started my working life as a carer on casual terms, not knowing if there was going to be a pay cheque from month to month. It was because of a good, unionised job with decent conditions that my life and the lives of the workers I represented changed. As I toured the country in the election campaign, in every community I heard from so many who were in the same position—they wanted change, they wanted fairness and they wanted respect at work. That is why when we promised to deliver the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation, we meant it.
It is very clear from the shadow Secretary of State’s opening remarks, and from what he said as the Bill passed through the House, that the Conservatives do not want to improve working people’s lives. In fact, it is very clear from his submission today—let us face it—that he wants to water the Bill down. When he mentioned the state of tribunals, I nearly fell off my chair. I cannot believe he can say that with a straight face, after the state in which the Conservatives left our justice system. I won’t even talk about the economic mess they left us in.
Despite the fierce criticism from Opposition parties and the relentless lobbying from vested interests, I am proud to speak in this debate as we deliver nothing less than a new deal for working people. Every time we have made progress on employment rights over the last 45 years, it has been resisted. It is always easier to do nothing—to take the path of least resistance—but in each generation, it has been the Labour party that has had the courage and conviction to change lives. Maternity allowance; equal pay for women; health and safety rights; the minimum wage—Labour changed lives, and this generation is no different.
This Bill shows that Labour is on the side of working people. They will know that ordinary people are better off, and it will have an effect on their families—their children, their brothers and their sisters. They will have basic rights from day one, such as protection from unfair dismissal. I cannot believe the Conservative party thinks that in this day and age we should dismiss people unfairly. I do not understand it.
We are going to strengthen sick pay, family rights, bereavement leave and protections from sexual harassment at work. We will have a ban on zero-hours contracts, a historic fair pay agreement in social care, an end to fire and rehire, a genuine living wage and the single biggest boost to rights at work in a generation, creating an economy that works for working people. That was the promise we made to the British public, and I urge the Secretary of State to fight every step of the way to deliver it in full. The public have no patience for the Tory and Lib Dem lords who, cheered on by Reform, are standing in the way of better rights for workers and frustrating what was a clear manifesto promise. Tonight, this House will once again send the message that we will not back down.
I will not go through every Lords amendment, but I will pick out a couple of the most damaging. First, Lords amendment 23 and Lords amendments 106 to 120 would break the pledge that we made to the British people to give them day one rights. The last Conservative Government shamefully doubled the qualification period against unfair dismissal to two years and stripped workers of protections at the stroke of a pen, and now they are at it again. Government Members believe that workers deserve fairness, dignity and respect at work, and they deserve it from day one on the job. Opposition Members say that these rights against unfair dismissal will slow down hiring, so let me be clear that employers can absolutely still have probation periods for their new staff; they just will not be able to fire them unfairly at will, for no good reason.
Secondly, Lords amendment 1B would tear up protections for workers on zero-hours contracts. This Government made a commitment to provide workers with an offer of guaranteed hours, and the Lords amendment would water down that right. We promised to ban zero-hours contracts—no ifs, no buts—and that is exactly what we should do. This Bill is a promise we made to the British public. It is our duty to deliver it, and I say to my Front-Bench colleagues that I will be with them every step of the way as we do just that.
Make no mistake: the Bill is good for workers, and good for business. It is not just the right thing to do; it is the foundation for the high-growth, high-skill economy that the UK needs. Its key measures are backed by many of Britain’s best businesses, including the Co-op, Centrica and Richer Sounds. Those businesses prove that if you treat people well, you get the best out of them. They know that being pro-worker is not a barrier to success, but a launchpad to it. That is why the Bill takes the very best standards from the very best businesses and extends them to millions of workers. It is also why we say proudly that this is a pro-business and pro-worker Bill. Respected business voices, such as the Chartered Management Institute, have indicated their support for the key measures in the Bill. We will continue to consulting businesses and hear their voices, to make sure that we get the detail right.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
It is a real pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) and hear her passionate advocacy for this Bill.
The Liberal Democrats support many of the principles of this Bill. We have long advocated for strengthening employment rights in several ways, including by increasing support for carers, boosting statutory sick pay, and giving people on zero-hours contracts more certainty about their working patterns. There is a lot in the Bill that we support in principle and that moves us in the right direction, but we remain concerned about the specific way in which the Government plan to implement many of its measures. So much of the detail that should have been in the Bill has been left to secondary legislation or future consultations, making it impossible for businesses to plan ahead with certainty.
For that reason, we support amendments that provide clarity for businesses, for example by setting the qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims at six months. Training, hiring and retaining a skilled workforce are issues that affect businesses across the country, and we must ensure that this legislation strikes the right balance for both employees and businesses.
Antonia Bance
Does the hon. Member believe that, in the first six months of employment, it is appropriate for people to be dismissed for unfair reasons and without a fair process?
Sarah Olney
The point has been made on a number of occasions that it is always possible for employers to make mistakes in their hiring—for people to not be the right fit for the job. There should be a straightforward way for those employers to dismiss those people without being challenged on the basis that the dismissal was unfair. The key point is not that employers should be allowed to make unfair dismissals, but if a dismissal has been fair, they should not have to defend it.
Justin Madders
The Liberal Democrat spokesperson has just said that it is not right that employers should pay for a mistake they made in hiring someone. Why should the employee pay for that mistake, if it was not theirs?
Sarah Olney
There is a balance between the employer and the employee. If the fit is not right, it is better for both sides that the employment is brought to an end, and that the employee is free to seek more appropriate employment.
There are very significant concerns. The lack of clarity about probation periods, which the Minister mentioned, and exactly what they mean, risks piling undue worry on to business managers who are struggling to find the right skills. We can compare that with the provisions in the amendment tabled on unfair dismissal.
My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I, both here and in the other place, have been clear in our support for an amendment that would change the obligation to offer guaranteed hours to a right to request guaranteed hours. Amendment 1B would allow an employee to notify their employer if they no longer wished to receive guaranteed hours offers, but they would be able to opt back into receiving guaranteed hours offers at any time. That reasonable and balanced approach would relieve employers from having to issue guaranteed hours offers each reference period to workers who may simply not be interested in them, while ensuring that those who wished to receive such offers could continue to do so.
The Liberal Democrats strongly believe in giving zero-hours workers security about their working patterns, and we are deeply concerned that too many workers are struggling with unstable incomes, job insecurity and difficulties in planning for the future. However, we also recognise that many people value the flexibility that such arrangements provide. Adaptability in shift patterns is often hugely valuable for those balancing caring responsibilities or their studies alongside work. It is therefore important to strike a balance that ensures that workers can have both security and flexibility.
Specifically, small and medium-sized businesses have highlighted that having to offer employees fixed-hours contracts on a rolling basis could impose significant costs and administrative burdens on their limited resources, compounding other challenges, such as the recent increase in employer national insurance contributions and the fallout from the previous Government’s damaging Brexit deal. The Liberal Democrat amendment that was debated in the Lords is in line with our long-standing policy that zero-hours and agency workers should have the right to request fixed-hours contracts—a request that employers could not unreasonably refuse. We believe that measure would maintain valuable flexibility and benefit both parties when the obligation to keep offering guaranteed hours, even to workers who clearly are not interested in them, imposes a significant burden that does not benefit either side.
As with all workplace rights, employees should be supported to exercise a right to request guaranteed hours without fear of any negative consequences in their workplace. The unified fair work agency being set up by the Government, which we welcome, could help ensure that employees received that protection and support. This approach would still give workers the vital security that they deserve, while avoiding unnecessary burdens for employers.
Last time the Bill was debated in the Commons, I spoke in favour of measures that would improve the clarity of the legislation on seasonal work, so I will once again speak in favour of Lords amendment 48B. The sustainability of so many companies, such as farming businesses, depends on getting the right people into the right place at the right time. Any obstacles to actioning that can have a huge impact on company operations, potentially throwing the entire business into jeopardy. Hospitality firms such as pubs, cafés and restaurants also rely on seasonal workers and are particularly vulnerable.
Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)
Can the hon. Lady define what rights somebody working behind a desk in this place should have under amendment 48B that somebody working behind a bar in this place should not?
Sarah Olney
They are different kinds of work with different work patterns, requiring different skills and experience. I am not entirely certain what point the hon. Member wants me to respond to.
If a different regulatory framework is to apply to seasonal work, a clear definition of seasonal work must be created to prevent employers from avoiding their legitimate responsibilities by claiming employees as seasonal workers in inappropriate circumstances. We continue to call for businesses that are especially reliant on seasonal workers to be properly considered when secondary legislation is created, so I urge Members to support amendment 48B.
On trade unions, I again speak in favour of Lords amendment 62B to maintain the status quo, in which a 50% ballot threshold is required for industrial action. The Government’s proposal to remove the threshold entirely means that a trade union could take strike action with only a small minority of eligible members taking part in the vote. That is bound to raise questions among the public about whether the will of workers has been accurately represented, and it risks unnecessarily creating tensions between workers, employees and the general public. That would not be a good outcome for any of the parties involved. We should maintain a robust process for launching industrial action.
Ian Lavery
Will the hon. Lady inform the House of the statistics relating to her election at the general election? She was elected by a minority. If it is good enough for her—she is doing a great job, by the way—why is it not good enough for ordinary working people?
Sarah Olney
The hon. Gentleman will be happy to hear that 53.3% of Richmond Park voters voted for me to be their representative, so I was, in fact, elected by the majority of my constituents. I am delighted to hear that he thinks I am doing a good job for them. I think he was attempting to highlight that many of the people in the Chamber were elected on less than 50%. The first thing I would say to that is that on most ballot papers, there will have been a choice of more than two candidates.
Sarah Olney
May I finish the point? If people are choosing from a list of five people, it is likely, under the first-past-the-post system, that the winning candidate will receive less than 50% of the vote. In a strike ballot, the choice is between two options. That is why there should be more than 50% of all members voting for the option to strike. That is the important point here.
Secondly, the hon. Gentleman has given me an excellent opportunity to point out that the Liberal Democrats have long been advocates of voting reform. Last December, I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill advocating for proportional representation, which was passed. It remains the will of the House, as expressed on that occasion, that we should change the way in which we elect hon. Members.
Maintaining a robust process for launching industrial action is particularly important when we consider the scale of the disruption that the public face when strikes happen. The Liberal Democrats also continue to support measures that would retain the current opt-in system for contribution to trade union political funds. Amendment 72B maximises choice and transparency for individuals about the political funds to which they are contributing.
Most employers are responsible businesses that want to do the right thing by their staff, many of whom support the Bill’s aims, but they have significant concerns about the extent of the Bill, much of which is still undecided on and risks compounding other challenges that they face. Changes in employer national insurance, slow progress on reform of the apprenticeship levy and the absence of any meaningful action to bring down commercial energy prices continue to be extremely damaging to businesses, and to our economy as a whole. We must find a way to support small and medium-sized businesses in particular, and to provide clarity, so that they can plan ahead. If the Government were prepared to make meaningful improvements to the Bill that would make things easier for small businesses—for example, through the amendments suggested by the Liberal Democrats—they might find it easier to make progress with the legislation.
We support many of the aims of the Bill, and the spirit of the measures that strengthen employment rights, but I urge Members to support our amendments, which will help to ensure that this legislation strikes the right balance for both workers and business.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call Justin Madders. After his speech, there will be a five-minute speaking limit for Back Benchers.
Justin Madders
Let me first draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which refers to an election donation from the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, and to my membership of the Unite and GMB trade unions.
It is nearly nine months since the Bill completed its Commons stages and over a year since it was first introduced, so it is disappointing to see yet another delay. I know that many of my constituents would want these vital manifesto commitments to be enacted as soon as possible, but recent proceedings in the other place have demonstrated the intention of the Opposition parties to elongate the process and attempt to water down important protections that the Bill offers to workers. It is as simple as this: Labour Members were elected on a manifesto that committed us to making work pay, and the Employment Rights Bill is central to delivering that. It will be the biggest upgrade of workers’ rights in a generation. It is long overdue, and we will all be unashamed of our commitment to improving the lives of working people.
This Bill will have a transformative impact on the world of work, and particularly on people who lack job security and dignity. Make no mistake: at every single stage the Conservatives and Reform have voted to water the Bill down or weaken its protections, and now it seems that the Liberal Democrats have joined in. Our constituents will no doubt conclude that those on the Opposition Benches are siding with the bad bosses, and I urge them to reconsider and choose the side of working people. That is not an exaggeration, because the Lords amendments under consideration will gut the Bill of important protections for the millions of people currently in insecure work.
We do not have much time, so I will focus on Lords amendments 1B and 62 and Lords reason 120B, which I consider to be the most damaging amendments. Lords amendment 1B represents a continued attempt to undermine our commitment to banning exploitative zero-hours contracts. The Government, and Labour Members, have always been clear that the only way to tackle the most pernicious elements of such contracts is to make the right to guaranteed hours a right that people can genuinely exercise. Workers on zero-hours contracts are some of the least empowered in our economy, and the least able to actively assert their rights. Their working hours are inherently precarious and often depend on the vagaries of their bosses, and they are more likely to be younger and working in the lowest-paid sectors of the economy. Shifting this commitment to a “right to request” model, as the Liberal Democrat amendment suggests, would completely fail to recognise the power imbalance in the working relationship, and the real risk that assertion of rights would have negative consequences for those who just want some basic security and dignity at work. I am therefore pleased that we are rejecting those amendments.
Of course, that is not the only form of insecurity that those on the Opposition Benches want to keep on the table, as they support Lords reason 120B, which seeks to allow workers to be unfairly dismissed in the first six months of their employment. Maybe those in the other place, who have jobs for life, do not understand what it feels like to be tossed aside without any explanation. Maybe they do not appreciate how debilitating it can be for someone to go into work every day with the sword of Damocles hanging over their head, knowing that, if the chop comes, there will be absolutely nothing that they can do about it, but those bills will still need paying and their dependants will still depend on them. We need to drive out the insecurity that eats away at so many hard-working people in this country.
Laurence Turner
Is it not also the case that, within that graph, a number of the nations that the Resolution Foundation says have weaker protections actually have higher unemployment rates than our own? There is clearly not the relationship between the two that some in the Opposition have tried to suggest.
Justin Madders
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Indeed, that is something that the Resolution Foundation said when giving evidence to the Bill Committee. I will quote that directly:
“Internationally, we can draw scatter plots of the employment level in a country and the extent of employment regulation, and basically those lines come out flat. You have some countries with very high employment and very high levels of regulation, and some countries with lower employment and high regulation”––[Official Report, Employment Rights Public Bill Committee, 28 November 2024; c. 116, Q119.]
So there is no clear relationship with the employment levels across countries. That is confirmed by the OECD, which has done lots of detailed work. That is what the Resolution Foundation said in its evidence to the Bill Committee last year.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
Would the hon. Member like to put his money where his mouth is and tell us whether his faith in the Employment Rights Bill is such that he is prepared to make a commitment to his constituents in Ellesmere Port and Bromborough that if, having passed this Bill, unemployment goes up, he will resign his seat?
Justin Madders
I absolutely cannot believe that the Conservative party, which saw massive increases in unemployment in my constituency in the 1980s and 1990s when they were in power, have the cheek to start talking about the effects of unemployment on my constituents now.
The Resolution Foundation has said some things in recent weeks that I do not agree with, but it has said things in the past that are much more in line with what we believe the international evidence shows. So the kindest thing I can say about the Resolution Foundation is that I prefer its earlier work.
I turn to Government amendment (a) in lieu of Lords amendment 62, on repeal of the last remnants of the Trade Union Act 2016 and the removal of thresholds for industrial action ballots. I have always held the view that the introduction of e-balloting, if done properly, will lead to much greater participation in ballots and render arguments about turnout obsolete. The implementation timetable that the Government published indicates that e-balloting will begin next April. I hope that the Minister, when she responds, can provide some reassurance that that is still on track, and that we can therefore expect the end of thresholds to come at the same time, or very shortly thereafter. I would be disappointed if the amendment was an attempt to kick this issue into the long grass. I am not particularly keen on the conditionality in the amendment, which talks about whether to repeal the thresholds. There should be no question of “whether”; it should be about “when”. After all, that is what we promised to do in our manifesto. I urge the Minister to resist any temptation to introduce any conditionality and to deliver the Make Work Pay agenda in full, as we said we would.
I will conclude, because I am conscious that a number of Members wish to speak. I am proud that the Government are continuing to commit to implementing this Bill in full. The policies in the Bill are overwhelmingly popular with the public. They formed a key part of our manifesto and remain central to the Government’s plan for change. We on the Labour Benches proudly stand against those who seek to water down this Bill and hamper its implementation. We are proud to back workers and to deliver meaningful change in their working lives. We stand against maintaining the status quo of low pay, low security and little dignity at work, and we stand for job security and for delivering on our promises.
Antonia Bance
I wish to draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, my proud 23 years in Unite, and the generous support from the millions of ordinary members of the GMB and ASLEF in paying into their political funds to put representatives of the working class here in Parliament.
I am here to deliver a simple but firm message: there will be no concessions on this Bill—not one. Opposition parties in the House of Lords are trying to water down the rights that working people voted for, but we will stand firm. The new deal for working people was a Labour manifesto commitment, and it will be delivered in full.
I want to talk about two sets of amendments, starting with Lords amendments 61 and 72, on political funds. The Lords want to keep the opt-in system, but it is abundantly clear that this is a deliberate attack on the political voice of working people. All this Bill does is restore the long-standing opt-out system that has lasted since 1946. Union members will still have robust rights, and they can opt out easily. Unions are tightly regulated—no other membership organisation has faced these rules. Unions’ political spending is transparent and accountable, with annual returns to the certification officer and the Electoral Commission regulating donations and campaigning. Of course, these political funds support wider campaigning, not just party donations, although I am proud to say that they support party donations too.
I also oppose Lords amendment 62, on keeping the unnecessary and unneeded ballot thresholds, which are designed to stop workers having a voice. The Tory and Lib Dem Lords want to reinstate the 50% turnout threshold that was introduced by the draconian Trade Union Act 2016. I remind Members from the Liberal Democrat party that they opposed that Act in 2016, including the ballot thresholds, and I wonder why they have now reversed their position. Ballot thresholds weaken unions and stall negotiations. Before 2016, ballots triggered talks and resolved disputes early. Now the thresholds delay dialogue and make resolution harder. No other organisations face turnout thresholds; this just singles out unions. Of course, anyone who is familiar with how the trade union movement works knows that no union would call members out on strike if they are not up for it.
With all due thanks and respect to the other place, we will still repeal the Trade Union Act 2016 in full, with no concessions. This Bill is the first step in delivering the new deal for working people—our promise to the working people of this country. This is the change that working people voted for. The Government will not give in to unelected Tory and Lib Dem Lords siding with bad bosses to weaken workers’ rights—not now, not today, not ever.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)
I draw hon. Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in relation to support from trade unions, of which I am most proud.
The past four decades of structural decline in the share of the national income going to employees, decades marked by the erosion of trade union rights, has been exacerbated by 14 years of the Conservative Government forcing down real wages across the United Kingdom, leaving working families still struggling to recover. Against that backdrop, the most urgent task of this Labour Government is to raise living standards. Trade unions are critical to that mission and the Employment Rights Bill will help to deliver that.
The Bill represents a cornerstone of the Government’s new deal for working people, a vote-winning manifesto pledge. I very much welcome evidence of the popularity of these policies in the platform of Zohran Mamdani, New York’s newly elected Democrat mayor. Among other things, he pledged protection for delivery workers, including guaranteed hours. Yet the amendments to this Bill made in the other place would water down that commitment and deny working people the rights they were promised. I therefore must speak in strong opposition to the Lords amendments, which, taken together, would weaken the protections that this House has committed to deliver for working people across the United Kingdom.
Lords amendment 23 and Lords amendments 106 to 120, which concern day one rights, would remove the right not to be unfairly dismissed from the very start of employment. Instead, they would impose a six-month qualifying period and empower Ministers to introduce a further initial period in which only limited protections apply. That is contrary to both the letter and the spirit of the Government’s manifesto. It would leave new employees vulnerable to arbitrary dismissal and recreate the very insecurity that the Bill was designed to end.
James Wild
When the hon. Gentleman has spoken to employers in his constituency about this specific provision—I am sure that he has—what have they said?
Andy McDonald
The concept is pretty simple. Conservative Members are conflating different issues around unfair dismissal and probationary contracts. They are scaremongering. There is nothing in the Bill that prevents the continuation of probation periods. The only thing we are saying is that it would be unfair to dismiss somebody for an unlawful reason. I really wonder why it is so difficult to grasp that concept.
Andy McDonald
No, because I am conscious of time.
There is no impact on retaining probationary periods—they remain intact. Having day one rights against unfair dismissal does not prevent an employer vetting and doing recruitment properly, and using probationary periods legitimately.
Turning to Lords amendment 1B, the so-called guaranteed hours opt-out, this provision transforms a clear right into a conditional option. Instead of guaranteeing a contract that reflects the hours a person actually works, it allows employers to invite workers to opt out of that right altogether. Experience with the working time opt-out shows exactly where this leads: it becomes a standard clause, routinely signed away. That is not the end of exploitative zero-hours contracts; it is their re-badging.
Finally, Lords amendment 62, which reintroduces ballot thresholds for industrial action, seeks to restore one of the most restrictive elements of the Trade Union Act 2016. This House has already agreed that those provisions were excessive and undemocratic. No other organisation is bound by such turnout requirements before it may act. Reinstating them would frustrate meaningful negotiation and delay the resolution of disputes, not promote it. Let us drop the thresholds and quickly move to e-balloting, as we promised.
For those reasons, I urge hon. Members to resist the Lords amendments and to insist on the Bill as originally passed by this House. It must be delivered in full, for it represents the baseline of a fair work settlement. However, while defending the Bill, we must also recognise that it is only a starting point. The consultations now under way must ensure that secondary legislation goes further and fulfils the Government’s wider promise to make work pay. I hope we see a robust and enforceable right of access for trade unions to workplaces, both physical and digital, so that unions can reach and represent workers effectively, with penalties that deter obstruction. I hope we will create a process to expand fair pay agreements beyond adult social care and schools, embedding sectoral collective bargaining across the economy to raise pay and standards in every workplace. We must also make progress towards a single status of worker.
The Employment Rights Bill is a landmark measure, but its promise will be realised only if this House defends it against dilution and strengthens it in implementation. I therefore call on all Members to reject the Lords amendments and to stand by our commitment to working people: to deliver the new deal for working people in full and to build from it a fairer, more secure world of work.
Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)
Given that time is short, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will endeavour to keep my remarks brief. I intend to speak to specific amendments today, but I feel compelled to start with a general comment in respect of financial interests. Throughout the stages of the Bill, and again today, it has been suggested by the Opposition that a number of Government Members speak not from genuine and sincere belief, but because of arrangements involving donations to their constituency Labour parties. I say to those on the Opposition Benches that that argument and line of thought betrays a laziness towards this issue that is reflected in their lack of effective scrutiny of the Bill, with the Opposition resorting instead to hackneyed and ancestral stereotypes and lazy assumptions that reflect nothing about the world of unions and the world of work.
James Wild
Members of the public who are watching this debate will not necessarily have ready access to the records of the thousands of pounds that have been taken by each Member referring simply to their financial interests. In the interest of transparency, will the hon. Gentleman therefore say how many thousands of pounds he took from trade unions, if any, to support this Bill?
Laurence Turner
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for proving my point exactly. I will happily tell him that since becoming a Member of this House, I have not received a penny in political donations from trade unions. My constituency Labour party received a donation before the election, but that is an entirely different matter. I have only one matter to draw attention to in my entry on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which is my chairship of the GMB parliamentary group, which is an unpaid role.
We are asked today to consider a number of amendments that directly contradict our manifesto commitments. Lords amendments 61 and 72 on political funds are a case in point. In the other place, the noble Lord Burns gently questioned whether this was a manifesto issue, but the Make Work Pay document, which our manifesto said would be implemented in full, clearly said that the Trade Union Act 2016 would be repealed. That must include this provision.
The amendments before us seek to preserve the punitive restrictions that were originally imposed as retribution in 1927 and repealed in 1946, after which we had 70 years during which arrangements worked effectively. The actual impact of these amendments, were they passed, would be the same as any arrangement that moves from opt-out to opt-in, which is a reduction in the ability of working people to speak with a collective voice.
Let us not forget that trade union political funds do not exclusively fund donations to parties. Look at the campaigns that have been run and the cross-party support they have won, such as GMB and Unison’s “Protect the Protectors” and GMB’s campaigns on domestic defence manufacturing—two campaigns that the Conservatives came to support—as well as USDAW’s “Freedom from Fear”, and the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004, the result of Unite’s campaign in the aftermath of the Morecambe Bay disaster, in which so many cockle pickers tragically and disgracefully lost their lives. Even today, in this place, trade union funding helps to address the abuse that has occurred within the confines of the estate, and which there is a risk will continue in the future.
Trade unions are democratic bodies. Any member of a trade union can demand to see the receipts of political expenditure, and decisions on party donations are taken on a collective basis. When that provision was originally repealed, the Attlee Government’s Attorney General of the day said—I think this bears repeating today—that the Conservatives relied on the
“old delusion that the Labour party was being built upon the hard-earned pennies of honest Conservatives who were too timid to declare their true political colours and were being bullied by horrid, nasty trade unionists into supporting the political funds of a party to which they were so much opposed.”
Anyone who has worked with trade union members will recognise that to be a delusion indeed, and we have heard much of that delusion from the Opposition through the passage of the Bill.
I was going to make similar comments to those my hon. Friend the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance)—who is both honourable and a friend—made in respect of Lords amendment 62, but she covered it expertly. I will finish by talking about Lords amendment 121B on the school support staff negotiating body, which has not been discussed so far today. I recognise that this amendment is substantially different from other amendments that have been sent to us on this matter, but I still believe that it is unnecessary.
First of all, the overwhelming majority of academy employers do subscribe to the National Joint Council terms and conditions for school support staff—terms and conditions which, as has been widely recognised for more than 20 years, are out of date in respect of school support staff. The effect of Lords amendment 121B would to be to create a two-tier arrangement between school support staff in local authority maintained schools and academies. It states that employers could introduce terms and conditions. I am concerned about the potential contradiction with the provisions in the Education (Schools) Act 1992, which that require such changes to be made on a collective and not a unilateral basis. Furthermore, it states that terms and conditions that could be changed should be “in aggregate” an improvement. That clearly leaves room for employers to introduce a weakening to some areas to the detriment of the 1,700 school support staff in my constituency.
I am proud to have had an association with this Bill, and I look forward to rejecting those specific amendments tonight.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
I proudly refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my involvement in the trade union movement throughout my professional career.
The Employment Rights Bill is long overdue, and although others continually seek to wreck it with worker-unfriendly amendments, we will not allow it. We on the Government Benches know that this Bill is about economic growth and security for all workers. It is about banning unfair dismissals, strengthening statutory sick pay, outlawing fire and rehire, and gaining new maternity and paternity leave rights and rights to bereavement leave.
There are so many fantastic measures in this Bill, and as the Minister noted, we are today again presented with a number of amendments that we do not support. I want to speak to just one. Lords amendment 1B is about the Employment Rights Bill’s most vital protection—a manifesto commitment on which I proudly stood in my city to deliver: the statutory entitlement to fixed hours. This is not an abstract legal reform; it is a common-sense protection for people who are often invisible in our labour market and for whom insecurity is the norm, not the exception.
Naushabah Khan
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. Does she agree that exploitative zero-hours contracts are a huge problem for workers and that banning them is a big step, so we should oppose any steps to try to water down the legislation?
Amanda Martin
I absolutely agree; I think the key word there is “exploitative”.
People in Portsmouth North and across the country deserve fairness, dignity and the ability to plan their daily lives and future. In sectors such as retail, hospitality, construction, social care and logistics, many workers are on unpredictable, variable hours,, with shifts cancelled at short notice or only a minimal work week offered in order for employers to control their labour costs. This makes budgeting, second jobs, childcare, healthcare planning and indeed everything in life almost impossible.
Let me give the House a local example. One of my constituents, “Sara”, has worked in a Portsmouth café on a zero-hours contract for four years. She is told at the beginning of each week what hours she might get. One week she might have 25 hours, and the next week she might get eight—and the next she might get nothing. Because she cannot predict her hours, she ends up in debt, skipping medical visits and having to rely on emergency credit to pay her bills. Under the Bill’s intended protection, Sara could request fixed hours and have far greater stability for herself and her family.
Michael Wheeler (Worsley and Eccles) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful point. Does she agree that for Sara and for my constituents who are on short or zero-hours contracts, the meat of the amendment, which would introduce the bureaucratic farce of an offering of an offer, instead of a right, would ruin the meaningful change in the Bill and that the introduction of an ability for workers to opt out would open up a loophole with detrimental effects in the real world, where people could be rewarded with overtime if they agreed to opt out?
Amanda Martin
Absolutely. It would leave workers unable to reject overtime, even if they were knackered, having already done 60 or 70 hours that week.
That brings me to Dave, a plasterer working on one of my local building sites. He is technically self-employed, but in reality he is also on a rolling zero-hours contract. Some weeks he earns enough to keep his mortgage, and some weeks he earns enough to put aside a little bit of money for Christmas; other weeks, he earns nothing at all. He is told to stand down when winter hits and work slows, with no pay, no notice and no safety net. That insecurity is corrosive and affects not just finances, but families, health and morale on jobs.
Let us be clear, the public are firmly with us. According to the TUC’s 2025 mega-poll, support for guaranteed-hours contracts sits at over 70% across the regions and nations of the UK. This is not about denigrating businesses and business owners—many are fantastic and provide great opportunities—but without the bill, unscrupulous employers will continue to sidestep responsibility and run a race to the bottom.
Arguments are made that these measures would impose burdens on business, discourage hiring and risk flooding employment tribunals. Those concerns should not be a pretext for hollowing out protections and should instead ensure that workers know how much they will earn each month so that they can plan and live their lives. Sara and Dave, who I referred to earlier, are just two names; behind them are thousands of lives blighted by unfair employment practices. Sara and Dave will not mind me saying that they are not young. Despite what the Opposition want us to believe, zero-hours contracts are not just exploitative for the young; they are exploitative for many other people in our society.
People deserve the right to security. I urge colleagues to reject these Lords amendments, which would weaken the Bill, because fixed-hours entitlement is not a radical idea but a basic standard of decency in the modern world of work. If we really mean it when we say in this House that we respect working people, we must deliver laws that protect them.
Euan Stainbank
I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a proud, experienced hospitality worker of six years. I have proportionate respect for the work of the other place on the Bill, and am once again bemused and frustrated on behalf of my constituents that this generational, fundamental and basic common sense bit of legislation is once again before us, along with the hill that many in other place seem to want to make a stand on.
It is apparent that after years of stagnating living standards, job No. 1 for the Government was to make work pay again, tipping the scales in favour of working people and, especially for the younger generation who have been discussed today, recapture a work ethic and value of work that I worry had been lost during the years of Tory Government. Why, then, does the other place insist on Lords amendments 23 and 106 to 120, which would remove the day one right on unfair dismissal? That is once again telling young, predominantly lower paid and insecure British workers in hospitality, in factories and on work sites across our constituencies that their continued employment and income is precariously balanced on the benevolence of their employer, not on the value of their labour.
That feeling is real every day that this measure is not on the statute book. Young men and women are being bullied, prodded and pushed out of their jobs by the small minority of bad employers that do exist across our constituencies. I have had kids in their first jobs straight out of school, further education or higher education—this was their first chance—tell me that they were sacked in the weeks prior to two years of service. Looking at Lords amendment 106 from my perspective, I see no reason why that same circumstance would not then occur a few weeks before six months of service.
Tracy Gilbert (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that good employers have nothing to fear from anything in the Bill and that many good employers will embrace these measures, as indeed many do?
Euan Stainbank
When I listen to businesses in my constituency I find, as I am sure every Member of this House does, that they are worried across the piece for a number of reasons and have been for a number of years. Yet many good employers do not rank this in their top five concerns coming forward, and especially not the employers that I worked for in the hospitality and retail sector. Actually, they see the benefits in keeping workers for longer and having more security in knowing who their workforce is. That was a major concern for the hospitality and retail sectors that I worked in, especially on coming out of the pandemic, and not being able to keep staff was also a major cost.
On unfair dismissal, if we accept the amendment, we will leave people without a legal right of action when they are unfairly dismissed. We must reject it; it is an unfair proposal.
Lincoln Jopp
I am grateful to the hon. Member, who I like very much, for giving way on that point. He is clearly a massive fan of the Employment Rights Bill. The people of Falkirk are watching him, so would he like to commit to them that if, having passed the Employment Rights Bill, unemployment goes up and therefore we have fewer workers with fewer rights, he will resign from his seat?
Euan Stainbank
I make the commitment to the people of Falkirk that the quality of their work, especially for younger people, will go massively through the roof. Younger people in my constituency who have been subject to insecure work, low pay and zero hours contracts have seen the quality of their work diminished, so my guarantee to the people of Falkirk is that the quality of work will go up. I think other Members referred to this, but it is a cheek for Tory Members to talk to post-industrial communities such as Falkirk, which were savaged by the Thatcherite Government. They will get absolutely no credence in my constituency.
I say to those on the Opposition Benches that they have time to change their mind. They can back the Government today, get the Bill passed without it being watered down and stop the attempts that are perceived, at least in my constituency, as an attempt to betray young British workers who are doing the right thing, going out and earning their way. For too long under the Tories, those workers have lost the belief in the quality and opportunity that work provided. They will see massive benefits from the Bill. Make work pay and get this done.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
For the final Back-Bench contribution, I call Anneliese Midgley.
Anneliese Midgley (Knowsley) (Lab)
I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests regarding my membership of and financial support from the trade union movement.
I stand here as a proud trade unionist, with a couple of decades of work behind me standing up for the working class. I pay the truest of tributes to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders).
Ian Lavery (Blyth and Ashington) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about some hon. and right hon. Friends and the work that lots of people have done to bring this transformational Bill to the Commons. We also need to mention my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) for his tremendous work at the very beginning of this process. It is transformational and everybody deserves lots of credit.
Anneliese Midgley
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and I absolutely agree with him about the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East has done on this for over a decade.
This Bill brings changes that tip the scale in favour of working people and, taken together with the rest of the new deal for working people, it amounts to the greatest uplift in workers’ rights in our generation. That is down to the friends that I have just mentioned here today. It is their legacy and it is one that will change the lives of millions of working-class people for the better. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Kate Dearden), will do a great job of completing the process.
This is personal for me, because it was my dad’s secure, well-paid, unionised job on the production line in Ford’s Halewood plant that gave me a better life than my mum and dad had. It lifted us out of poverty and provided us with enough money and stability for a decent home, and enough to live a life of dignity on. Everyone should have that, and that is why I will fight for work where people can flourish and thrive and for jobs to take pride in that can provide a good life. No way would I be here in this place, representing the place where I was born and raised, if it was not for my dad’s job.
The Tories, backed by the Lib Dems in the other place, are trying to water down the Bill. They are aided and abetted by Reform, who are never in this place to debate this and have consistently voted against the Bill. Some of the Lords amendments would rip out the heart of the Bill. I am going to speak briefly to amendments 23 and 106 to 120, which would delay protections from unfair dismissal until a worker had been in their job for six months. This would mean that a worker could be dismissed at whim, for no reason. How is this okay? How is it defensible? A day one right not to be unfairly dismissed is good for workers and good for businesses.
My hon. Friend the Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) spoke about the research from the IPPR and the TUC, which found that 73% of employers supported giving employees protection from unfair dismissal from day one of employment. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), dismissed the TUC’s research from the Dispatch Box, but it represents 5 million workers and everyone else at work. Are they not stakeholders who should be listened to as well? We know that good employers up and down the country already live up to the standards that we are setting out in this Bill. Today, we need to stop these attempts to water down the Employment Rights Bill, deliver the protections from unfair dismissal that our constituents voted for and make sure we deliver the new deal for working people in full.
Kate Dearden
I thank all Members for their brilliant contributions today and for their engagement with the Bill throughout the many months we have been debating it. That is incredibly appreciated and valued.
I start by reiterating a quote from Professor Simon Deakin at the Cambridge University centre for business:
“strengthening employment laws in this country in the last 50 years has had pro-employment effects. The consensus on the economic impacts of labour laws is that, far from being harmful to growth, they contribute positively to productivity.”
I remind the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), who made a number of contributions, of my opening remarks. UK employment laws are mostly a product of the 20th century. They have not kept pace with how businesses employ people or with how people experience their working lives today: when, how and where they work. The world of work has fundamentally changed in recent years. It is regrettable that the hon. Gentleman’s party spent 14 years impotently watching the rise of the gig economy and the many changes in our employment landscape but now pretends that the status quo still works for everyone. It simply does not. That is why the Bill is so important: it raises those standards and levels the playing field for businesses, so that they are not undercut by people who do not play by the rules, which negatively impacts their businesses and productivity. The Bill is important for working people so that they get that security and those rights at work, as well as for businesses, including those good businesses that already go above and beyond and do brilliant work supporting our workforce and different economies across the country.
The shadow Minister mentioned seasonal work. The initial reference period will be set out in regulations, as I have already spoken to. I reiterate that we believe that 12 weeks is the right length, balancing the need for qualifying workers to be offered those guaranteed hours reasonably soon after they start a role and the need for a reference period long enough to establish the hours that they regularly work.
I was surprised to hear the remarks from the shadow Minister on employment tribunals. On their watch, average wait times for an employment claimant increased by 60% between 2010 and 2022 due to funding cuts. The previous Government’s introduction of fees had a disproportionate impact on woman and the low-paid. Yet again, we are fixing messes that they left behind. The taskforce I mentioned in my introductory speech for how we can fix our employment tribunal system, and our work under the Fair Work Agency, which will be up and running next year, are incredibly important as part of that wider package.
Amanda Martin
It is good to hear about the taskforce. Could the Minister give us more information about what other things it will look at and investigate that will support employees?
Kate Dearden
The taskforce will bring together different stakeholders so that we can assess the problems within the system and work out the best way to fix them, because at the moment it is not working for employers or workers, who want access to justice and want it quickly.
Andy McDonald
Would the Minister agree that the introduction of these rights and protections is absolutely critical, but equally important is the ability to enforce those rights? The Fair Work Agency has the potential to bring that to fruition and ensure that when people are in those circumstances and are the beneficiaries of an award, they will ultimately receive it, because far too many people take on these cases and do not get any redress.
Kate Dearden
We met Matthew Taylor, the new chair of the Fair Work Agency, this week to discuss the agency’s progress to ensure that it is up and running at speed. As my hon. Friend rightly points out, enforcement is vital, and it is crucial that workers are aware of their rights. That is why the agency is so transformational in our approach and important for our wider agenda.
To respond to the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), I urge her to support the Government as we seek to update and upgrade our employment rights to be fit for the 21st century. She mentioned lots around detail. As I mentioned earlier, as is standard for lots of employment rights legislation, we want to consult extensively with businesses, unions and employers to ensure that we get this right, and I am sure that she agrees with that approach.
The hon. Member mentioned turnout thresholds. As I have mentioned, we want to create an industrial relations framework fit for a modern economy and workforce and that works for everybody. We have been clear that we intend to ensure that trade union legislation is proportionate and effective and does not create unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles. We remain committed to removing the 50% turnout threshold for industrial action ballots through the repeal of the Trade Union Act 2016. We support a strong mandate for strike action, but a threshold set in legislation is not the best way to achieve that.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) talked about our proud Labour legacy of the courage and conviction to change lives, and she is a powerful and inspiring demonstration and testament to that. That is why this legislation is so important, reshaping the world of work and delivering security and dignity that people can feel, as she rightly mentioned. We cannot build a strong economy through employment insecurity. The legal loopholes that exist have contributed to the erosion of living standards and allowed a race to the bottom. I am always grateful for her support and thank her for her offer of support as we proceed to Royal Assent and the implementation stages to ensure that everybody across the country can benefit, workers and business alike, and that is why the Bill is pro-worker, pro-business and pro-growth.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders) made a powerful speech and responded eloquently to lots of points raised by Opposition Members, and I thank him for that. I reassure him that we remain committed to the repeal of the 50% turnout threshold, and we have been clear that it is our intention to align the removal of thresholds with the establishment of e-balloting as an option for unions. The amendment does not change that commitment. We are working at pace to permit electronic balloting by April 2026. He will be pleased to know that we will shortly launch a consultation on an electronic and workplace balloting code of practice, and I encourage all stakeholders to respond to that consultation.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance) for her excellent points on the importance and use of political funds. I reiterate my remarks on the 50% threshold and hope that she is reassured by them. She will have heard the Government’s commitment to delivering the Bill in full from the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State at Labour conference. I hope to have reiterated that commitment at the Dispatch Box today.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) for all his work on this legislation. It has been a pleasure to work with him over a number of years. He mentioned fair pay agreements, which we are introducing for social care, as he rightly said. We will learn from that process before considering their introduction in other sectors, but I appreciate his passion for this area. I am sure that we will be in touch with him to speak about that progress.
Laurence Turner
May I invite the Minister to respond to two things? First, I was asked earlier how many times the word “maternity” appears in the Bill. The word “pregnancy” appears 16 times, “parental” 27 times, and “bereavement” 34 times, but we cannot restrict the debate to individual phrases. Secondly, this is not some abacus exercise; the real impact of the Bill is the change and improvement it will make for millions of working families thanks to day one rights.
Kate Dearden
I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent and well-made point. I am glad that he has managed to find the ctrl+F function with such speed. I always rely on him to provide such efficiency and clarity. The Bill will benefit more than 15 million workers. That is an incredibly powerful statistic to give at the Dispatch Box. More than 2 million people on zero-hours contracts could benefit, as well as the many workers he mentions who will benefit from further protections and rights at work.
Michael Wheeler
I thank my good and hon. Friend for giving way. Millions of workers, including those on zero-hours contracts, stand to benefit from the measures in the Bill. Does she agree that the amendments tabled by Liberal Democrat peers on the right to guaranteed hours are an unworkable bureaucratic mess that opens up scope for abusive practices in the workplace and removes the Bill’s meaningful protections from far too many workers?
Kate Dearden
I thank my good and hon. Friend for his important contribution. Like him, I meet many people in my constituency who do not know day to day whether they will have enough money for food and rent because they do not know how many hours they will work that week. That is why it is so important that we give people basic security by banning exploitative zero-hours contracts. We know that people value the flexibility that those contracts offer, which is why we are tackling the exploitative ones, as he rightly outlines. Those amendments might look for a different route to tackle exploitative zero-hours contracts, but we want to protect working people, because it is so important that they have certainty, week by week, on what they will be paid—that is what they deserve. I thank him for all his work in this area over a number of years. He brings a wealth of experience to this part of the Bill.
The Government are clear that we cannot build a strong economy while people are in insecure work. Employment law has not kept pace with modern working patterns, and that has allowed some employers to exploit gaps in the law, undercut responsible businesses and fuel a race to the bottom. Backed by our new industrial and trade strategies, the Bill will drive productivity, foster innovation and lay the foundations for long-term secure growth. It will level the playing field for good employers and put the UK economy in step with competitors in other advanced economies.
As we have heard today, I stand on the shoulders and build on the incredible hard work of many right hon. and hon. Friends. I pay tribute to them, and put on record my thanks and gratitude for all their work in getting us to where we are today. I hope that all hon. Members support the Government in our determination to get the Bill over the line and update our employment rights legislation in this country, for businesses and for employers, for the future and for growth. I thank hon. Members for their contributions.
Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1B.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, at Prime Minister’s questions earlier today, the Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) no fewer than five times whether he was aware of any prisoner being released early, having claimed asylum. We now know that he had in his possession at that time a folder containing details of the accidental release of Brahim Kaddour-Cherif from Wandsworth prison last week—a man previously convicted of sex offences and who is, as we speak, at large and posing a risk to the public. It has emerged since then that another man, William Smith, was accidentally released on Monday.
The Deputy Prime Minister failed to disclose that relevant information to this House. The House and the public are entitled to be told about such things, but the Deputy Prime Minister withheld that information. The police have subsequently confirmed that they have no objection to that information being released, contrary to briefings from the Government. Will the Justice Secretary come to this House before the close of business and make a statement so that Members can question him? We cannot wait until the House returns on Tuesday for a proper account.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I thank the right hon. Member for his point of order. Whether the Government choose to make a statement is not a matter for the Chair; however, the Treasury Bench will have heard the right hon. Member’s concerns.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, I understand that the Deputy Prime Minister has made it clear that he was held back for operational reasons by the Metropolitan police from answering that question at Prime Minister’s questions. Mr Swinford of The Times has published right now that far from that being the case, there is
“significant frustration in the Met Police”,
as they said that there was clearly “no operational issue” at all with the release of that information. I wonder if you will take that into consideration, Madam Deputy Speaker, because surely this is a process of misleading the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I refer him to my answer to the previous point of order. It is not a point of order and not a matter for the Chair, but it is a matter of debate.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Can you confirm that it is a point of order?
Graham Stuart
It is, Madam Deputy Speaker. You will be aware that a Bill was presented to Parliament only this week that provides for a duty of candour for public servants. It is not enough simply to tell the truth; there has to be a duty of candour. Can you, Madam Deputy Speaker, share with the House whether the sponsoring Minister, the Justice Secretary, has decided to remove himself as the sponsor of that Bill?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order; it is not a point of order, but a point of argument.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I do hope that this is a point of order.
Dr Murrison
It very much is, Madam Deputy Speaker. We have this week had the publication of a very important Bill—so important that the Prime Minister himself came to this House to present it on Second Reading. The sponsor of that Bill is the Justice Secretary. While I have no doubt that the Justice Secretary was being truthful today, there is a question over whether he was being candid, which is a higher test. Can you advise me on how the Justice Secretary might be requested to come to this House to clarify his position?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. However, I repeat that this is not a matter for the Chair. It is not a point of order.
Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill: Programme (No. 2)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7))
That the following provisions shall apply to the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill for the purpose of supplementing the Order of 3 February 2025 (Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery): Programme):
Consideration of Lords Amendments
Proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion two hours after their commencement. The Lords Amendments shall be considered in the following order: 1, 75, 30 and 31, 43, 84, 97, 2 to 29, 32 to 42, 44 to 74, 76 to 83, 85 to 96 and 98 to 121.
Subsequent stages
Any further Message from the Lords may be considered forthwith without any Question being put. Proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.—(Christian Wakeford.)
Question agreed to.
Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
18:48 - The House divided: - Ayes: 268 / Noes: 80 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I can inform the House that nothing in the Lords amendments engages Commons financial privilege.
Clause 2
Interaction with other public authorities etc
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Andrew Western)
I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
With this it will be convenient to discuss:
Lords amendment 1, and Government amendment (a) and (b) in lieu.
Lords amendment 75, and Government amendment (a).
Lords amendments 30 and 31, Government motions to disagree, and Government amendments (a) to (c) in lieu.
Lords amendment 43, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 84, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.
Lords amendment 97, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) to (f) in lieu.
Lords amendments 2 to 29, 32 to 42, 44 to 74, 76 to 83, 85 to 96, and 98 to 121.
Andrew Western
The Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill delivers on this Government’s manifesto commitment to safeguard public money and ensure that every single pound is wisely spent. Fraud against the public sector is not a victimless crime. It takes money away from vital public services, eroding trust and harming innocent people. The Bill introduces new powers to enable the Public Sector Fraud Authority to investigate and deal with public sector fraud outside of the tax and social security system, using its expertise to act on behalf of other parts of Government.
The Bill also contains new powers for the Department for Work and Pensions to tackle fraud and error within the social security system, providing much-needed modernisation for our defences. At the same time, it includes significant safeguards, including new independent oversight to ensure the proportionate and effective use of the powers. As we now reach the final stages of the Bill, I am sure colleagues across the House will agree that it needs to receive Royal Assent as quickly as possible, so that we can realise the delivery of the estimated £1.5 billion of benefits by 2029-30.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for bringing the Bill forward and for all the hard work that the Government have done in relation to this. There is one thing that always concerns me. In my office, nearly every week I have people come to me who have inadvertently made mistakes. They perhaps do not understand how the online system works or how the paperwork has to be filled in, and sometimes they have ticked the wrong box and found themselves in a difficult position. This does not take away from those who deliberately defraud and try to get money that they should not be receiving. How can we be absolutely sure that those who make inadvertent mistakes will not find themselves in a difficult position alongside those who have done wrong? How can we ensure that they get the sympathy they need? I know that the Minister will be of the same opinion as me that we must make sure this is done right.
Andrew Western
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that it is enshrined elsewhere in legislation that claimant error is recoverable as part of universal credit. I can also assure him that, as part of this Bill, the eligibility verification measure will enable us to identify errors that are legitimate as well as illegitimate—deliberate, shall we say—in order to minimise the level of debt for individuals who have, I accept, done this accidentally and ensure that they are caught earlier. Any overpayments will be smaller as a direct consequence. One advantage of the Bill is that it can minimise suffering for people who have inadvertently made a mistake.
Before I turn to the Lords amendments, I thank my noble Friends Baroness Anderson and Baroness Sherlock who expertly guided the Bill through the other place. I share their appreciation for all the peers who contributed to its detailed scrutiny and their invaluable insights that have helped the Government to strengthen the Bill.
The Government made important changes to the Bill in the other place, and I now ask this House to endorse those Government amendments. They were made to ensure that the Bill delivers its aims and to clarify the operation of the powers, as well as to ensure that the safeguards this Government have introduced are strong and effective. More procedural yet still important amendments have been made to part 2 to reflect the Scottish Government’s position on how the powers should be applied to devolved benefits. Across the Bill, we have made amendments that are more technical in nature, including to reflect the recent Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 and to ensure flexibility in the commencement of certain provisions of the Bill across the different nations of the United Kingdom.
In the interests of time, I will focus my update to the House on the most substantial and pertinent areas, on which there has been extensive engagement with external stakeholders and points have been made by peers in the other place. First, the Government tabled a group of amendments to part 1 to enable the Public Sector Fraud Authority to be merged with another statutory body, rather than necessarily being set up as a stand-alone statutory body, although the power to do so remains. That builds flexibility into the legislation, enabling the PSFA to achieve the aim of separation between investigators and Ministers in future, while avoiding the need to set up an entirely new statutory body if it is not considered proportionate to do so.
Linked to that, I would like to speak to a minor and technical amendment that I propose to make to Lords amendment 75 to schedule 2. Amendment (a) simply ensures that authorised investigators are captured within the regulation-making power set out in schedule 2 if or when the powers conferred under part 1 of the Bill are transferred to another public authority, or if the PSFA is set up as its own statutory body. It does not change the use of any powers laid out in the Bill.
The Government also amended parts 1 and 2 to ensure that the Government must disclose relevant information to the PSFA independent reviewer and the eligibility verification notice independent reviewer. Effective oversight is a critical aspect of this Government’s approach. These amendments do not represent a change in that approach; indeed, they further strengthen the commitments this Government have made to support open and transparent use of the powers. I will return to the point about oversight later in relation to Lords amendment 43.
The Government made several amendments to the debt provisions across parts 1 and 2. Those are a consequence of the extensive engagement by the PSFA and the Department for Work and Pensions with the financial sector, and they clarify important aspects of the operation of the powers, including in situations where a liable person might have a legal deputy managing their affairs. They also strengthen the rights of debtors by ensuring that a deduction order cannot be in suspension indefinitely, and that after a two-year period in suspension, it will not be resurrected. The Government have also responded to the continued confusion that seems to have arisen on the DWP debt recovery provisions in part 2 and who those powers apply to.
The Government have made amendments explicitly stating that a direct deduction order, as outlined in schedule 5, and a disqualification from driving order, as outlined in schedule 6, cannot be made where the person is entitled to and in receipt of a benefit from the DWP. That clarifies the existing intent that these powers are only for use with those who are not on benefits where the money cannot be recovered from a payslip and where the person can afford to pay and is refusing to do so. I remind the House that this power addresses an important point of fairness. It cannot be right that those who can pay money back can avoid doing so, and the amendments underline that point.
The Government also acted to strengthen the legislative safeguards around the use of the eligibility verification measure. I remind the House that that measure simply enables the DWP to ask financial institutions for limited data that will help the Department to identify incorrect payments and verify eligibility for specific benefits. The amendments made by the Government in the other place will introduce an explicit, necessary and proportionate test before an eligibility notice can be issued, and clarify the purpose for which an eligibility notice can be issued to only assisting in identifying incorrect payments. That puts the existing policy intent in the Bill. Again, I will return to the eligibility verification measure when I address Lords amendment 84.
I turn to the other amendments made in the other place. We welcome the challenge and scrutiny provided by peers’ contributions, but we cannot accept changes that risk undermining the powers. The Government’s position will continue to reflect that, including in our amendments in lieu. First, Lords amendment 1 would give the Minister for the Cabinet Office the power to initiate an investigation when they consider it necessary in the public interest. [Interruption.] Just so that he is sure of that power, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Josh Simons), has joined me on the Front Bench.
We are proposing technical changes to Lords amendment 1 through amendments (a) and (b) in lieu. Those changes will give the Minister for the Cabinet Office the power to initiate an investigation when they consider it necessary in the public interest. The other place asked us to go further than the original drafting of the Bill allowed, and our amendments show that we have listened. The Government believe that it will almost never be necessary for the Minister to exercise that new power because of the collaborative approach in the normal working of government, but it will be available if there is a genuine need.
Our amendments in lieu also make consequential changes to clause 2 to preserve the intention that the PSFA should not take on matters assigned to the Secretary of State with responsibility for social security or His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. The reason for that is that the DWP and HMRC already have well-established functions and frameworks to tackle social security and tax fraud. Of course, it goes without saying that both Departments may still collaborate with the PSFA if a fraud crosses many departmental boundaries.
I turn now to Lords amendments 30 and 31. The Government wholeheartedly agree that the measures in part 1 of the Bill are powerful and must be used with care. We agree that staff must be appropriately trained before they are able to use these powers, and that robust oversight—both internal and external—is essential. Our amendments (a), (b) and (c) in lieu mandate statutory guidance and a new reporting requirement, and set internal record requirements. The amendments in lieu ensure strong ministerial and parliamentary oversight of the powers, as was called for by the other House, without involving Ministers unnecessarily in operational decisions.
The statutory guidance will detail how the Minister will exercise the function of investigating suspected fraud against public authorities. It will outline structures of internal oversight, the delegation of powers, standards for the training and appointment of all authorised officers and investigators, and the PSFA’s collaboration with an independent reviewer. New reports will be prepared following the end of each financial year and laid in Parliament by the Minister, stating how many times the investigation and enforcement powers in part 1 have been used. There is now a requirement in the Bill for the PSFA to keep internal records of the use of those powers, available for scrutiny by an independent reviewer. Together, those measures ensure that Ministers are accountable for the use of the powers, and show how they are delegated. In places, they build on processes that would already have been in place, but we have put them in the Bill.
Let me move on to part 2 of the Bill, focusing first on Lords amendment 84 on the treatment of information obtained under an eligibility verification notice. Although I understand the intent of the other place, I cannot accept the amendment as drafted, and I urge Members instead to back Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.
Lords amendment 84 risks compromising the weight that the DWP may be able to attribute to information obtained through an eligibility verification notice. The Government have been clear that EVM information on its own has no tag of suspicion attached, and that the DWP must look within its own systems first and check for any inconsistency before taking further action. However, depending on the information held, EVM information may form an important part of any further action. We must not compromise that. The amendment also risks legislating for a person’s state of mind—in this case, that of a DWP-authorised officer. That is something that we should avoid where we can. It is far better to focus legislation on the actions that must or must not take place following receipt of EVM information.
The second part of the amendment, relating to the seniority of staff who must review EVM information, risks undermining the existing public law principle that staff at DWP take decisions on the Secretary of State’s behalf. There is also uncertainty about what would constitute a suitably senior person. In any case, the Secretary of State must be satisfied that officials are suitably trained and experienced to take decisions on their behalf.
Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu of Lords amendment 84 seek to address those risks and build on the amendments that the Government tabled on Report in the Lords. They more accurately reflect the policy intent and focus on the actions that DWP staff must take following receipt of EVM information. The amendments in lieu clarify that where the DWP has received EVM information, it must also have regard to all other relevant information that it holds before taking further actions.
First, the amendments in lieu require an authorised officer to consider all information held that is relevant to the question of whether to issue an information notice, as well as the relevant EVM information, before issuing the notice under the Department’s investigatory powers. Secondly, they require a DWP agent to consider all information held that is relevant to the question of whether to suspend a payment, as well as the relevant EVM information, before suspending that payment. Finally, they require a DWP agent to consider all information held that is relevant to the question of whether to change an earlier benefit decision, as well as the relevant EVM information, before making that change.
I believe that our amendments succeed in offering the necessary reassurances about the way individuals within the DWP will take decisions once EVM information is received by the DWP—namely that no decisions will be made using EVM information in isolation—and I therefore urge hon. Members to back them.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
I am still not exactly clear why the Minister disagrees with Lords amendment 84. I understand that he is saying that DWP agents will look at EVM information and everything else, but what happens in circumstances when they have only EVM and not much else by way of information? Is he unable to agree with Lords amendment 84 because if the DWP has only EVM information, he wants decisions to be taken based only on that and not on anything else?
Andrew Western
There are a couple of issues with Lords amendment 84 as drafted. It could minimise clear evidence from an EVN that has been returned. The point about what information DWP agents would have to consider is pertinent, because it may answer a question about why, for example, someone has more than £100,000 in a bank account. It is about considering all information, not about having no further information on which to act. I am probably not explaining that tremendously well, but I am effectively saying that an EVN could provide information that is sufficient for us to launch a fraud investigation, but we would want to consider all relevant information, including that EVN, to see whether that information is valid or should be discounted for any reason of which we are aware.
I cannot accept Lords amendment 43, which would add three additional requirements to the role that the EVN independent reviewer would be required to undertake. On proposed new paragraph (d) in Lords amendment 43, regarding costs incurred by business, the Government are committed to keeping costs associated with the measure proportionate and to a minimum. Officials have discussed this part of the amendment with the finance industry, which acknowledges that it may place a significant burden on financial institutions if they are asked to report on costs every year. That is something we clearly would want to avoid.
Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)
I begin by echoing the thanks expressed to Members in all parts of the House and in the other place who have contributed to the Bill. In particular, I pay tribute to the excellent work of Baroness Finn, Viscount Younger and Lord Vaux, whose detailed and constructive engagement made the Bill stronger, more balanced and more effective.
This Bill is about protecting taxpayers’ money, ensuring fairness for those who play by the rules, and giving our public bodies the powers that they need to tackle fraud and error wherever they occur. Every pound lost to fraud is a pound taken from taxpayers, public services and the people who rely on them. Tackling fraud and error and sending a clear message to fraudsters that they will not succeed is vital, and this Bill took an important step towards doing that, but there was more to be done, and our colleagues in the other place have done a brilliant job of scrutinising the legislation. I acknowledge that the Government have been incredibly constructive in their approach. Thanks to the determination of Conservative and Cross-Bench peers, a number of important concessions have been made, improving the Bill.
I will touch on several of the Lords amendments. Lords amendment 1 concerns the power of the Public Sector Fraud Authority to conduct proactive investigations. When the Bill was introduced, the PSFA could act only when invited in by another authority. That risked preventing it from acting, even when there was credible intelligence that fraud was taking place. Our Conservative colleagues in the Lords rightly identified that gap, and brought forward an amendment that would empower the PSFA to act proactively where there were reasonable grounds to suspect fraud, without waiting for a formal request. That ability to act swiftly and decisively is essential if we are to stop fraud before more money is lost. The Government’s amendment in lieu reflects the principles in Lords amendment 1, ensuring that the PSFA’s new powers operate in a clear and accountable framework. This is an important issue, so we welcome that concession, which strengthens the PSFA’s ability to intervene early and protect taxpayers’ money.
Lords amendments 30 and 31 relate to oversight and accountability, and would ensure that with new powers came clear lines of ministerial responsibility. Conservative peers raised legitimate questions about how serious investigative powers in the Bill would be authorised, particularly those based on the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. The principle is simple: when Government officials are to exercise significant powers, Ministers must remain accountable to Parliament for how those powers are used. Following discussions, the Government have tabled amendments in lieu of Lords amendments 30 and 31, which we have accepted as a compromise, on the basis that the initial guidance is subject to a “take note” debate in Grand Committee. That would allow Parliament to consider and scrutinise the guidance in full. I would be grateful if the Minister could, in his closing remarks, confirm that this remains the Government’s position. I apologise if he said so already and I did not quite catch it.
Let me turn to Lords amendment 84. Modern fraud prevention increasingly relies on technology, including artificial intelligence and data-driven eligibility checks. Used well, those tools can help to identify patterns and protect public funds, but they must be used responsibly and transparently. Lord Vaux, Viscount Younger and Baroness Finn raised fair concerns; they said that the use of AI or automated eligibility indicators should never amount to reasonable grounds for suspicion on their own. Technology might inform decisions, but it must not replace human judgment, so it is welcome that the Government have listened. Their amendment in lieu makes it explicit that before any intrusive action is taken, such as amending a benefit or launching an investigation, the information must be reviewed by a suitably qualified human officer. We believe that ensures that we get the best of both worlds; we harness innovation to protect the taxpayer, while retaining human judgment to safeguard individuals.
Lords amendment 43 concerns the eligibility verification mechanism and its impact on vulnerable people and financial institutions. The amendment would task the independent reviewer of the mechanism with assessing how the system takes into account the additional needs of vulnerable people, whether it risks benefits claimants being prematurely de-banked, and the cost to banks and financial institutions of complying. Throughout the passage of this Bill, Members—including Conservative Members—have emphasised the need to protect those who may be more vulnerable, including people facing financial hardship and those with disabilities.
We are disappointed that the Government are not backing Lords amendment 43, but it is reassuring that they have committed to ensuring that all the points made in both Houses are fed directly into the work of the independent reviewer. We understand that a meeting will be set up between Members and the independent reviewer after Royal Assent so that these issues can be explored in detail. We will continue to push to ensure that Ministers deliver on those promises, but we hope that this engagement will ensure that the review proceeds with a full understanding of Parliament’s concerns about proportionality, cost and fairness.
As the Minister rightly said, Government amendment (a) to Lords amendment 75 is essentially a technical correction. We have no issue with it, because it tidies up the text but does not alter the substance of the Bill.
Finally, I turn to Lords amendment 97, which concerns the issue of reasonable force by Department for Work and Pensions investigators. We do not believe that it was the Government’s intention that DWP investigators should use force against individuals—that power rightly rests with the police, who are trained in its use and accountable for it. However, that was not clear in the legislation as originally drafted. The explanatory note stated that
“This power will be limited to using reasonable force against things not people”,
but that was not specified in the Bill. After we raised this issue in Committee in the Commons, Lords amendment 97 sought to clarify that DWP officers may use reasonable force only against property, not against people. The Government’s amendments in lieu are a compromise, but the Bill does now distinguish between the use of force against people, and the use of force against property for investigators who are not constables, which was the clarification we were looking for.
In summary, thanks to the thorough work of colleagues in both Houses, the Bill today is better than when it was first introduced. It gives the Public Sector Fraud Authority the power to act proactively, embeds ministerial accountability, ensures the responsible use of technology, protects vulnerable people, and provides clarity on how enforcement powers may be used. There remain areas in which we think the Bill could be further strengthened—there is still nothing in it to tackle sickfluencers, nor were amendments requiring the Government to review the whistleblowing procedures in the civil service accepted. It is regrettable that the Minister missed those opportunities, but it is welcome that the Government were at least willing to listen in other areas, and we had some very good debates on the bits that the Government have not accepted.
Although we will not oppose the amendments that the Government have tabled in response to the Lords’ amendments, this Bill must not be the limit of their ambition. It is the latest step in cracking down on fraud and error, but we need to see continued effort, action and enforcement from this Government, because the message must be clear that fraudsters must not, and will not, succeed. Every pound stolen through fraud is a pound lost to the taxpayer, our public services and those who do the right thing. That is why we will keep pressing for vigilance, transparency and fairness as this Bill becomes law.
Neil Duncan-Jordan (Poole) (Ind)
The Minister may remember that on Report, I tabled a number of amendments in the hope of safeguarding the public from seeing their bank become an arm of the state. Today, I will speak about Lords amendment 43, which deals with the scope of the eligibility verification measure. The EVM would give the DWP power to give certain financial organisations an eligibility verification notice. That notice would require the receiver to identify relevant accounts that specified benefits are paid into, assess those accounts against eligibility indicators and, where there is indication that incorrect payments have been or may be made, share specified details of those accounts with the Department.
The Bill includes provision for an independent reviewer to conduct an annual review of the Secretary of State’s powers under the EVM. Lords amendment 43 seeks to expand the scope of that review to ensure that the costs to banks are proportionate, and that any unintended adverse consequences to benefit recipients are identified. At the moment, the independent review of the EVM need only consider the extent to which the Secretary of State and the financial institutions in receipt of a notice have complied with the requirements when exercising the measure, and whether the EVM has been effective in assisting in identifying incorrect benefit payments. It does not require the independent reviewer to also consider whether the EVM is being used proportionately, which is the key to Lords amendment 43. It is essential that any consideration of the proportionality of the EVM takes into account the potential harm to individuals.
In Committee, several witnesses warned that the EVM could result in serious harm to benefit recipients. For example, there is the possibility of an algorithmic error when automated systems are used on a population-wide scale. If the algorithms are scanning the bank accounts of 10 million people, an error rate of just 1% will result in 100,000 cases where innocent people are wrongly investigated.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
I thank the Government for the steps taken to improve the Bill since it was debated in Committee. We as Liberal Democrats still have grave concerns about elements of the Bill, but it is in a much better place, and I thank all colleagues for working together collaboratively to drive for improvements.
Clearly, fraud is wrong. Some people believe that fraud against large organisations such as supermarkets and the Government is a victimless crime, but if we do not have that money, because it has been fraudulently claimed, we have to apply larger taxes or choose not to spend money on things such as tackling climate change. It is therefore important that it is tackled, but we need to ensure that we have two words guiding us: proportionality and fairness. We as Liberal Democrats still have grave concerns that elements of the Bill are not as proportionate as one would wish.
I will focus my remarks on Lords amendment 43. We Liberal Democrats feel that more responsibility should be given to the independent reviewer in relation to proportionality and fairness. We still have concerns about the blanket approach, where mass fishing will effectively occur with the proposals before us. One does not have to look that far back in recent IT history to see where things have gone wrong. I believe it was only last week that child benefit was frozen for 23,500 households across the United Kingdom, because those families left the country and were not accounted for when they returned. That error was made on a computer system, and that affected just a small proportion of those to whom this Bill is set to be applied.
The reasonableness of Ministers was debated repeatedly in Committee. I am not questioning the reasonableness of the current Minister, or multiple Ministers who preceded him, but I question what we are seeing on the other side of the Atlantic and the person who has the levers of power in the Oval Office. What may be seen as “reasonable” in politics in the United Kingdom is sadly a distant memory in the United States of America. We must ensure that we guard against that future in the legislation we are putting forward now.
On the use of force, the Liberal Democrats are pleased that the Government have taken a step in the right direction in their amendment, although we feel that it could be stronger. We would encourage colleagues to vote against the Government’s proposals, because we strongly support Lords amendment 43.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I must say that I do get a bit edgy when Front Benchers agree so much.
In respect of Lords amendment 84, I want to be absolutely clear about what the Minister has said. As far as I am aware, it will now be a human being making the decisions: an authorising officer. The authorising officers will be able to draw upon all other information—that is what the Minister said—but it is still not clear to me whether a decision can be made simply on the basis of the EVM information. It would therefore be useful if the Government’s intention were read into the record more clearly.
As for Lords amendment 43, I want to follow up on what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan). We have received representations with regard to, in particular, people suffering from mental health issues, some of whom would be leading chaotic lives. The Minister is right to say that it is not for Ministers to engage in the process of making individual decisions because that is for the authorising officers to do, but the one occasion on which the Minister can be held to account is when the annual independent review takes place.
According to my understanding, the Minister said that the reviewer would not be prevented from exploring the issue of the exercise of powers and the impact on vulnerable people. May I suggest that that could be strengthened? Perhaps he will tell us when he responds to the debate. It is not just about prevention; it is appropriate for the independent review to consider that issue, largely because of the representations that we have received consistently throughout our debates on the Bill, and from a wide range of organisations that represent people with disabilities and, in particular, mental health challenges. A statement to that effect would be more reassuring than the words that we have heard so far.
I do not really understand why the Government would resist this, because it is just a basic element of accountability in an area that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Poole has said, could affect so many people and could have such a significant adverse effect. I do not want to exaggerate, but I was in the House throughout our discussions of the introduction of the work capability assessment, and, although the last Government refused to accept it, we now know that it resulted in a large number of suicides. In this instance, I would not want us to enter into a reform of the processes specified in the Bill without a regular review of the harms that could be caused, which would enable us subsequently to adjust the legislation if necessary.
I would welcome a clarification from the Minister, or perhaps a strengthening of the words that he has used so far.
John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
Everyone accepts that we need to keep a handle on fraud, but the powers being taken in the Bill, including DWP access to people’s private bank accounts, go much further than anything we have seen in the past. Can we trust the DWP to exercise these sweeping new powers in a fair and responsible way? Unfortunately, past DWP errors have had the most tragic consequences.
Philippa Day was 27 years old when she died. She was found unconscious next to a letter from the DWP refusing her request for an at-home assessment. Philippa had agoraphobia and anxiety, making it impossible for her to attend a personal independence payment assessment in person. Those at the DWP knew that—they were told by her sister, and they would have been told by her mental health team if they had bothered to speak to them, but they did not. The letter by her side was the last of a long back-and-forth exchange with the DWP. During their final conversation about the DWP, Philippa said to her sister, “I’m done trying to fight them.” But why was she having to fight them in the first place? Surely this is a system that was designed to help.
The coroner’s report identified 28 separate failings by the DWP and its private assessor, Capita. Errors were made from the very outset: her PIP claim form was lost, her mental health needs were not logged, and no attempts were made to communicate with her mental health team or her GP to ensure that the very system designed to help her would do just that. It is easy to see, with a system riddled with errors and seemingly devoid of compassion, how someone could be driven to just give up the fight. Philippa wrote:
“I’m not dying because I’m suicidal... I’ve been so trapped for so long, and then comes along the government people, who I had assumed are there to help. Since January the 11th 2019 my benefits have been severely cut”.
I also want to share with the House what happened to Kristie Hunt. Kristie was training to become a nurse. She was 31. She had been on PIP and employment and support allowance until she rejoined the workforce after 13 years—admirable, considering her struggles with mental health. She, like Philippa, was basically a strong person.
Kristie informed the DWP about her return to employment, but staff forgot to log her call, so Kristie was hounded by calls and letters from the counter-fraud team. The DWP even sent incorrect information to her local council, resulting in further letters and threats of losing her home. For months, Kristie was subjected to erroneous accusations of fraud and threats of losing her flat and the life she had fought so hard to build back. On her final call with the DWP, she was noted as being confused and tearful, yet no one even asked whether she was okay. No one flagged concerns for her welfare. All they wanted was the money.
Kristie is an example of a person using the system that was designed to support her back into work, but was instead the victim of mistake after mistake. There are many others I could describe: Karen McBride, Stephen Carré, David Holmes, David Clapson, Errol Graham, Kevin Gale, Jodey Whiting, Roy Curtis and James Oliver. All of them were wrongly hounded by the DWP, which at least contributed to their deaths.
It does not reassure me that part of the name of this Bill starts with “Fraud”, when the biggest cause of overpayment is departmental error. The DWP has a long track record of badly handled mistakes. That is a cultural failing, and it is wildly optimistic to assume that everything is suddenly going to be fine going forward. Do the Government really believe that this Bill has enough checks and balances to protect vulnerable claimants? One thing is for sure: there will be more DWP mistakes.
Going forward, I would ask that the Government commit to making coroners’ reports automatically available to the public in every case where there is a link to the DWP’s actions.
Kirsty Blackman
It is not easy to follow that excellent speech. I really appreciate the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) reading out the names of people who have been failed by the system that was meant to support them—and we should remember that the system is what failed them. As he said, in a number of cases they were incredibly strong people who had fought through adversity but were then failed by the system. A significant number of disabled people have had to fight for so much of what they have. They have had to fight every day just to manage to get to work or get to the shop. They have had to fight for so much, and the system that is meant to support them should not then be another battleground.
I want to talk about a number of different things in the Bill, but I will start with the fact that this is not a happy Bill and the SNP does not support it. We are unhappy with a significant proportion of the Bill’s direction of travel, such as on the eligibility verification, not least because of the potential future risks. I said to the Conservatives when they were in government, and I will say again now that the Labour party is in government, that you will not be in government for ever. At some point, somebody else will be in government, and if it is somebody who shares the authoritarian ideas of some potential future leaders, I am not sure that I want them to have access to everybody’s bank accounts.
We need to look at the proportionality of accessing universal credit claimants’ bank accounts to see if they are committing fraud. I wonder what proportion of universal credit claimants defraud the system, compared with the proportion of billionaires who defraud His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and do not pay the level of tax that they should be paying. I do not think it is proportionate for us to say that universal credit claimants need to have their bank accounts looked at because they are likely to commit fraud, whereas people who earn millions and millions of pounds and store it in offshore trusts do not have exactly the same constraints put on all the many bank accounts that they may have.
It is disproportionate for us to assume that social security claimants are more likely to defraud the system than anyone else, especially given that we have significant levels of proof that other people do defraud the system and that a significant number of the errors made—through overpayments, for example—are made by DWP itself, rather than by the claimants. The hon. Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) talked about elements of Lords amendment 43 and vulnerable individuals who may be disadvantaged. If we could trust that DWP never or very rarely makes mistakes, I could understand the Government putting forward this Bill. From the written-down facts in coroner’s reports, and from all our constituency casework, we know that DWP makes mistakes. I am not blaming individuals at DWP for making those mistakes; there are sometimes systemic failures and sometimes individual failures. Mistakes are made at DWP, and adding both another layer of places where it can make mistakes and a further ability to sanction people—for example, by taking their car away or looking at their bank accounts—will not be proportionate until DWP is much less likely to make mistakes and to greatly overpay carers, for example, and then attempt to claw back the money. The Government need to get the Department in order before taking action against individuals. I understand that there are people who defraud the system—I am not doubting for a second that that is the case—but, as the hon. Member for Horsham said, putting the word “error” first might have been helpful, given that a significant proportion of the money that is overpaid is due to error.
I turn to the costs and savings mentioned in Lords amendment 43, on how much it costs to recoup money and to undertake an investigation in order to see whether somebody is defrauding the system. We know that a school meal debt system was set up, and we have had bailiffs at people’s doors looking for under £10 of school meal debt. Sending a bailiff to somebody’s door for under £10 involves a disproportionate cost, and I hope that everybody in this room thinks that we should not be spending so much money, and upsetting somebody’s life that much, for the sake of £10. If a person cannot afford to pay £10 of school meal debt, they have pretty significant problems, and sending a bailiff to their door is not going to help. We only know about some of these bailiff situations because they have been brought to MPs, or because they have been reported by various organisations. Aberlour Children’s Charity has done a huge amount of amazing work on public sector debt and some of the methods that are used to recoup that money. The Government should have to report whether it costs a disproportionate amount for us to ensure that we are not paying out a very small amount. I think it is completely reasonable for that question to be asked.
I think it is completely reasonable as well—the hon. Member for Poole talked about this—to think about vulnerable groups and whether they are overly disadvantaged by the system being put in place. Will people with learning difficulties, specific mental conditions and physical disabilities, and those from certain minority communities that are already marginalised, for example Gypsy Travellers, be specifically disadvantaged by the changes? All Lords amendment 43 asks is for reporting to ensure that those vulnerabilities, if there is an entrenchment of inequality and an increase in the disadvantage faced by people, are reported on, so we aware of it and there is transparency, and so we can see that it is creating a significant additional disadvantage on an already vulnerable and marginalised community. I would therefore really appreciate it if the Government agreed, rather than disagreed, with Lords amendment 43.
Finally on Lords amendment 43, the amount of money proposed to be saved by the Bill in its entirety—the total amount of savings—is, I understand, £1.5 billion. Governments of all colours are monumentally bad at reporting back on how much savings have been achieved by any of the measures they put in place on just about anything. Unless a tax is hypothecated, for example, we do not see exactly how much money is saved or exactly how much money is spent, and whether it delivered what was promised by the Government. Again, it is Governments of all colours who do not do post-implementation reviews in the right amount of time, and when there is a change of Government they sometimes just forget that post-implementation reviews exist. We will not know with any level of accuracy, unless we get proper reports on costs and savings, exactly how much money is saved and whether the Government have met their target or expected amount of £1.5 billion, so I have significant concerns.
I appreciate the Minister’s answer to me on Lords amendment 84. I had not understood what he had said originally on his position on Lords amendment 84 and the answer he gave me in response did clarify his position. I do not agree with his position, but I now understand why the Government hold that position. I still think it would be important to ensure there are things in place other than the EVM. I understand the Government want a little bit more flexibility and that they are saying they have to look at all the other information they hold. It is possible that the DWP may not hold any more information or may hold very little more information. Therefore, the decision to initiate a fraud investigation could be taken almost entirely, if not completely entirely, on the EVM. That is why I still disagree with the Minister’s position.
I would like a requirement for the DWP to have more than just that one piece of information. My understanding is that that was what Lords amendment 84 intended to do in the first place, but I appreciate that other amendments in lieu have been tabled by the Government to provide a little more clarity on what is expected. I would expect them to look at all the information provided, as the Minister said. I am just concerned that they may not hold lots of information, and a requirement to look at all the information they hold when they only hold one piece of information gets us back to the situation we were in at the beginning, where it could hinge on one thing rather than looking at a wider suite of things.
Generally speaking, Madam Deputy Speaker—I will sit down in just a moment—the SNP is not in favour of the Bill. We have significant concerns. If the Minister, when he responds, confirmed that the Government will do as much as they can on transparency, and that they will report back on the level of costs and savings that are created by the Bill, that would give me a measure of comfort. I still will not support the Bill, and I might still vote against some of the amendments tabled today, but I think it would make Members from across the House a bit more comfortable to have a better understanding of what is happening and whether the Bill is working as the Government intend.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
With the leave of the House, I call the Minister.
Andrew Western
I begin by thanking the Members who have contributed for what were thoughtful contributions, even where we fundamentally disagree on aspects of the Bill.
I have already outlined the benefits of the Government’s proposed approach, but I will respond briefly to some of the specific points made in the debate. First, I thank the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith), for the constructive way that she and colleagues in both Houses have engaged on the Bill. She is correct that we have ended up in a better place, and I thank her and all Members who fed into that process—that is the point of it. I am pleased with where we have ended up.
The hon. Lady asked two specific questions. I can confirm that there will be a take-note debate at Grand Committee, as she referenced, at the point when statutory guidance is laid before Parliament. I can also confirm that Members will be able to meet with the PSFA independent reviewer.
I will briefly touch on some of the points surrounding Lords amendment 43, which has taken up the majority of the debate. I am grateful for the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), as well as the hon. Members for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) and for Horsham (John Milne) and the Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling).
First, I think we need to be clear about where we have already acted in other parts of the Bill or in amendments that have come forward today. On the question of costs, for instance, the independent reviewer already has to look at effectiveness and has already committed to updating the impact assessment within 12 months of the powers coming into force.
I will turn to the question of vulnerable people, which the hon. Member for Horsham in particular illustrated very eloquently indeed, with moving examples. I want to say something specifically on debanking, which is a concern that has been raised multiple times throughout the stages of the Bill. We are very clear that nobody—vulnerable or otherwise—should be debanked as a result of the Bill, as was made clear in the code of practice and in amendments we are considering today. There are many existing layers of protection in our existing processes. On vulnerable people, Lords amendment 82 clarifies that the use of the power must be “necessary and proportionate”, which I believe would cover this.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington made a specific point on whether EVM information alone is enough. We are baking in a human decision maker at all points throughout the process. We cannot take a decision based on EVM information in isolation; we must consider all other relevant information. Practically, that means that we must look at a benefit claim and check for disregards or for any other reason that someone may have capital in excess of £16,000—the limit—before taking any action.
However, as I said earlier, I do think that this Bill is much improved from where we started.
John McDonnell
I just want to clarify one point. For the life of me, I cannot understand why the Government are resisting having contained within the annual review the question of whether harm is being done, because that is, to be fair, the only way we will learn whether the legislation is operating in the way the Government wish it to, and then whether any changes in the system are needed. When we had the work capability assessment, it took us 10 years and more than a thousand suicides before people accepted that there was a problem, because there was no review mechanism publicly available. That is all this amendment is asking for. All I am asking for today is for the Minister to put on the record very clearly that it is perfectly appropriate for the independent reviewer to look at the harms that could have been created by this legislation.
Andrew Western
I appreciate the point my right hon. Friend is making. As I have just said, the question of whether actions taken as part of the eligibility verification measure are necessary and proportionate is baked into the Bill, and I believe that would cover the points he is making. I strongly encourage my right hon. Friend to attend the meeting with the independent reviewer that I referred to earlier to stress that point. I will certainly go along, and I will undertake to press on that, too.
I understand where we are on Lords amendment 43, but with the additional safeguards that will be baked in through the amendments in lieu, I believe we have reached a point where the Bill will achieve what it needs to while being fair and protecting vulnerable people. I urge all colleagues to support the Government proposals today.
Lords amendment 1 disagreed to.
Government amendments (a) and (b) made in lieu of Lords amendment 1.
Government amendment (a) made to Lords amendment 75.
Lords amendment 75, as amended, agreed to.
Lords amendments 30 and 31 disagreed to.
Government amendments (a) to (c) made in lieu of Lords amendments 30 and 31.
Clause 75
Eligibility verification: independent review
Motion made, and Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 43.—(Andrew Western.)
Business without Debate
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
With the leave of the House, I will put motions 5 to 7 together.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
Trade
That the draft Trade Act 2021 (Power to Implement International Trade Agreements) (Extension to Expiry) Regulations 2025, which were laid before this House on 16 September, be approved.
Competition
That the draft Motor Fuel Price (Open Data) Regulations 2025, which were laid before this House on 13 October, be approved.
Consumer Protection
That the draft Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure (Security Requirements for Relevant Connectable Products) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2025, which were laid before this House on 13 October, be approved.—(Deirdre Costigan.)
Question agreed to.
Swimming pool facilities in Falmouth
Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)
I rise to present this petition about Falmouth’s need for a swimming pool, since our pool was shut in 2022. The petitioners
“therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to support the campaign to build a swimming pool in Falmouth, recognising the health and social benefits to the community, particularly as a facility for children growing up in a coastal area learning to swim safely.”
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of the residents of Truro and Falmouth constituency,
Declares that the town of Falmouth, a community with a strong maritime heritage and a large population of children, young people, and older residents, currently has no public swimming pool; further declares that access to swimming facilities is essential for water safety education, physical and mental health, rehabilitation, and community cohesion; and notes that the lack of such infrastructure disproportionately affects those without the means to travel to facilities elsewhere.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to support the campaign to build a swimming pool in Falmouth, recognising the health and social benefits to the community, particularly as a facility for children growing up in a coastal area learning to swim safely.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P003126]
Drug-related Deaths
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)
I extend my thanks to Mr Speaker for providing the opportunity to discuss the crucial matter of drug-related deaths. I declare an interest as the unremunerated chair of the Centre for Evidence Based Drug Policy, a think-tank in this policy space. The Office for National Statistics reported last month that deaths related to drug poisonings have increased for the 12th consecutive year, and have consequently reached an all-time high once again. The ONS reports that in 2024, there were 5,565 deaths related to drug poisoning in England and Wales, with just under half of those confirmed to involve an opiate. Continuity is therefore not a strategy; it is a guarantee of further avoidable loss. Every single one of those lives mattered, and every single one of those deaths was preventable.
Eight months ago, a similar debate was held in Westminster Hall on the topic of preventing drug-related deaths, to which the Minister responded. Though it was a well-attended debate, during which Members from across the House called for the expansion of harm reduction and evidence-based measures, I am afraid to say that, since then, limited progress has been made in advancing drugs policy to limit the unspeakable further loss of life in our constituencies.
Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
Stoke-on-Trent has the highest number of drug-related deaths in north Staffordshire. Synthetic cathinones, colloquially known as monkey dust, are used in Stoke-on-Trent to an extent not seen elsewhere in the country. Does my hon. Friend agree that more needs to be done to battle the scourge of monkey dust in Stoke-on-Trent?
Charlotte Nichols
I absolutely agree. There are huge regional disparities in drug deaths across the country, and a regional approach need to be taken to tackling them.
While I appreciate that drugs policy and legislation do not fall under the Minister’s departmental remit, I am happy to see her here, as the drugs-related deaths crisis is primarily a public health issue, and must be treated as such if we are to avoid repeating the same mistakes of the last 50 years.
Jacob Collier (Burton and Uttoxeter) (Lab)
I am proud to be a patron of Burton addiction centre, a residential rehab centre in my constituency. It is calling for a 2% target across the nation. Does my hon. Friend agree with that target for residential rehab? Perhaps the Minister would like to visit some time, when she is able to.
Charlotte Nichols
I completely agree about the role that rehab facilities can play in supporting people into recovery, and about the need for proper, consistent funding from the Government.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Lady for bringing forward the debate. I congratulate her on the campaign, and on her words to the House on the issue. We all greatly admire what she does, and thank her for it. In Northern Ireland, there were 169 drug-related deaths in 2023. That was an increase of 47% on the decade before, and it proves her point that the issue is not specific to her constituency; unfortunately, this happens everywhere. Does she agree that the tactics we have in place are not addressing the growing prevalence of drug abuse, and that not only this Government but the devolved Governments must work to save the precious souls who are passing away?
Charlotte Nichols
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention; without it, it would not be an Adjournment debate. I completely agree. The deaths that I am talking about today are drug poisonings in England and Wales only, but if we look at drug deaths in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and at deaths related to alcohol and despair, we see that drug poisonings in England and Wales are a very small part of a huge issue in every part of our United Kingdom.
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Scotland has had the highest number of drug deaths in Europe for seven years in a row; there were 1,017 in 2024. Does she agree that cuts to funding for rehabilitation facilities and drug and alcohol support services undermine the holistic, comprehensive approach needed if we are to bring down the number of drug deaths, and to give hope to those living with addiction, and to their families?
Charlotte Nichols
The number of drug deaths in Scotland is stark, and it underlines the fact that the issue affects every part of the UK. We know what we need to do to start addressing it. I welcome the recent Scottish Affairs Committee report, which I will mention later.
I have said before that putting drugs within the Home Office’s ministerial purview is putting the issue in the wrong place, so I am very happy that a Health Minister is here to respond. The current approach is rooted in the belief that we can simply arrest and imprison our way out of this. Despite the death toll rising every year in the six years that I have been doing this job, the Home Office seems to show not just a lack of curiosity but hostility towards harm reduction measures. My overarching question today is: will the Government finally take an evidence-based stance on drugs policy to reduce the immense harm that the status quo causes in our constituencies? Will the Minister work across Government to bring forward necessary changes to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and deliver a fit-for-purpose, public-health-led approach to drugs across the UK, saving thousands of lives?
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate. In the Bradford district, there were 70 drug-related deaths in 2023. I agree with her that we need to take a different approach to tackling the problem, and it must be a public health approach. The UK could learn much from countries like Portugal, which has gone a long way towards adopting such an approach to drugs and drug-related deaths.
Charlotte Nichols
I absolutely agree. Later, I will try to develop my argument for that kind of approach, which we could take here but do not.
As a Parliament and as a society, we may have inadvertently come to accept the yearly statistics, and have perhaps not given them the necessary thought, but I stress that there are cost-effective solutions that could save the taxpayer money and save the lives of our constituents, while taking money out of the pockets of exploitative, organised criminal gangs.
I am afraid to say that the problem may be far worse than is recognised. A recent report by King’s College London indicates that there has been a severe under-reporting of drug-related deaths over the past 15 years. The researchers found that drug-related deaths have been under-reported by 30%, and opioid-related deaths between 2011 and 2022 were found to be 55% higher than recorded, putting the estimated number of opioid-related deaths in that period north of 39,000.
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate. She will be aware that many of those who have died from complications and overdoses related to opioids died on their own. That reflects the social isolation that so many experience when they become addicted to drugs. Does she agree that it is incredibly important that the social isolation of those seeking to move beyond addiction is broken through, and will she join me in thanking organisations like Jungle in my constituency, which seek to provide companionship and support for those who are trying to move beyond addiction?
Charlotte Nichols
My right hon. Friend is exactly right. The clearest way to recovery is with companionship and support—there is no path to recovery without that—and I of course give credit to the organisation she mentioned that is doing such fantastic work in this space, as we were discussing earlier today.
The implications of the under-reporting of drug-related deaths are that the problem is far worse than previously thought and the decision to cut funding to services under the previous Government was based on flawed figures. The National Audit Office reported that between 2014 and 2022 there was a 40% reduction in real-terms spending on adult drug and alcohol services, so I do not think it is a coincidence that the Office for National Statistics has reported a near doubling in drug-related deaths since 2014, and that the number of deaths only rises every year.
It is clear that the problem has been made substantively worse by under-investment by the previous Government. We can all acknowledge that, but acknowledgment without reform is meaningless. Persisting with failed, punitive policies will only deepen a crisis that already ranks among Europe’s worst. Now is the time to show the difference a Labour Government can make by putting in place harm-reduction policies that will start to undo this extensive damage.
As I mentioned previously, and I will repeat again because it is important, near half of all drug-related deaths registered in 2024 were confirmed to involve an opioid. In addition, this year’s ONS report found that the number of deaths involving nitazenes—a group of highly potent synthetic opioids—almost quadrupled from the year before. This marks the beginning of a new stage in the drug-related deaths crisis. As we have seen across the Atlantic, once those synthetic opioids take hold, it becomes all the more difficult to limit their devastation.
I welcome this Government’s changes to the human medicines regulation that further expanded access to naloxone, the lifesaving opioid antidote administered in the event of an overdose. Indeed, naloxone plays a vital role in the fight against drug-related deaths. However, further change is necessary and naloxone should be available rapidly and reliably in every community pharmacy in the UK, so that it can be quickly accessed in the event of an overdose.
It is important to note that naloxone cannot be administered by the person overdosing and must instead be administered by someone else. That necessitates further education on the existence of naloxone, and how and when to use it, with people who may come into contact with people who use opioids, including frontline service workers, such as police officers and transport workers, and the loved ones of those struggling with addiction.
The period immediately after release from prison or discharge from hospital is when risk peaks. Opt-out pathways for naloxone distribution should be the norm. Take-home naloxone on release or discharge, same-day linkage to community treatment and a clear pathway for handover care are essential for people struggling with substance use disorders.
As of December 2021, the Government estimated the annual cost of illegal drug use in England to be £20 billion. Around 48% of that was attributed to drug-related crime, while harms linked to drug-related deaths and homicide accounted for a further 33%. Notably, the majority of those costs are associated with the estimated 300,000 people who use opiates and crack cocaine in England.
Dame Carol Black’s landmark 2021 review of UK drug policy found that for every for every £1 spent on treatment, £4 are saved through reduced demand on the health and justice systems. In the face of rising fatalities and a cost of living crisis, failing to scale treatment and harm-reduction measures is both morally indefensible and financially illiterate. If we want to realise that four-to-one return, we must provide long-term funding for organisations delivering services. Drug treatment services can only deliver if they are able to retain staff, train consistently and scale according to demand.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
I commend my hon. Friend for bringing this important debate to the House. Does she agree that organisations such as Change Grow Live, which I have visited in Rugby, are doing superb work with people as they recover after the problems that they have been facing, and that it is incumbent upon all of us to do everything we can to encourage the Government to ensure that those organisations get the funding and support they need to do that important work?
Charlotte Nichols
My hon. Friend is exactly right: Change Grow Live is a fantastic organisation. Multi-year funding schemes with clear outcome metrics, such as faster time for treatment, improved retention and improved naloxone coverage, will make a difference in bringing down the figures I have talked about. That is the path out of this crisis.
I recently received a letter from my hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Crime stating she could not support overdose prevention centres because of concerns about organised crime supplying the drugs there. Overdose prevention centres are a frontline, evidence-based intervention that save lives and public money, reducing ambulance call-outs and A&E attendances, cutting public injecting and needlestick injuries, and creating a bridge into treatment. I recognise and share the Minister’s concerns about supply but, with or without such centres, people will use the same drugs, either in alleyways and stairwells or in safe hygienic settings where sharps are disposed of, and where staff can intervene and build relationships that can be the foundation for recovery from addiction.
The Scottish Affairs Committee recently published a report into problem drug use in Scotland and Glasgow’s safer drug consumption facility, and it is interesting to note the call for legislative action from the UK Government and Parliament and the fact that they seem to share my frustration with the Home Office’s ideological rather than evidence-based approach on safer drug consumption facilities.
In written correspondence to me, my hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Crime also maintains that supplying essential safer inhalation equipment would contravene current legislation, and that the Government are unable to support such a provision or to provide a legal pathway to address this. Encouraging drug users to change their method of consuming drugs from injecting to inhaling can be an important harm reduction step, yet while supplying clean hypodermic needles is exempt under section 9A of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, the Government continue to support a policy of criminalisation of potential providers and users of safer inhalation equipment.
Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow West) (Lab)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for taking an intervention, and indeed for bringing forward this debate. As she has referenced, the Scottish Affairs Committee has done some work on this issue and has visited the safer drug consumption room in Glasgow, but it has also looked at facilities in Norway and Lisbon. The disappointment we have is that at the moment the Thistle operates under the prosecutorial discretion of the Lord Advocate in Scotland and that could continue indefinitely—she has made that clear—as could her permission for other centres to open. We need a change in the legislation that would allow such centres to be set up across the country if necessary. There is going to be a three-year assessment of the Thistle, and if that assessment comes up with the results that we think it might, then surely that evidence should be used to inform Government policy. Our particular disappointment is that the Government seem not to think that is relevant.
Charlotte Nichols
I absolutely agree and I took a note from that report:
“However, it was clear from the Minister’s evidence that the Home Office will not make legislative changes, even if the evaluation finds that the facility has been effective in meeting its aims.”
That is ideological, not evidence-based, which is why I believe the Home Office is fundamentally incapable of dealing with drug deaths and drug harm in our communities.
Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
I commend my hon. Friend for securing this really important debate. Does she agree that even if the Home Office does not agree with changing legislation, more could be done within existing legislation, for example with drug checking facilities, of which a very small number are already licensed by the Home Office? That would allow those consuming drugs to have clarity about what they are consuming, but it would also provide important intelligence to the authorities about the drugs that are in circulation to inform the response of health and other authorities.
Charlotte Nichols
I absolutely agree that more can be done without the need for a change in legislation, but it is concerning that the Home Office does not look at legislation. Despite everything that was said in the Home Affairs Committee’s inquiry on drugs in the last Parliament, for example, which made very clear how outdated our current legislative framework is, there does not seem to be curiosity about fixing this. I completely agree with what my hon. Friend said about treatment and testing, particularly at large-scale events and festivals, because that can be a lifesaving intervention.
It is both bizarre and frustrating that the Home Office actively chooses not to take some of the measures it could take on safer drug consumption facilities and safer inhalation equipment. That is something that is very much within its gift. We cannot continue to hide behind a 1970s statue, periodically tightened but rarely reviewed, that has too often exacerbated harm. If the House wishes to take money out of criminal markets, I ask the Minister to work across Departments to expand diamorphine-assisted treatment, which is proven to be effective and cost-saving both here and abroad, to provide dignified, supervised care for those with the most entrenched opioid dependence. After all, it was in this country that that type of world-class treatment originated, with the publication of the Rolleston report in 1926.
I have focused much of my remarks on opioids, but in the short time remaining I will touch on some other substances. The first substance is cocaine, with 1,279 deaths involving cocaine registered in 2024, which was 14.4% higher than in the previous year and 11 times higher than in 2011. That is perhaps not surprising, given that the UK is the largest consumer of cocaine per capita in Europe and the second-largest consumer of it in the world, according to the OECD. The National Crime Agency estimates that in 2023, England, Scotland and Wales consumed 117 tonnes of the drug. It is worth mentioning that around 52% of homicides are drug-related, and there is evidence that cocaine use is fuelling domestic violence. In 2023, a pilot scheme found that 59% of domestic abuse offenders arrested in seven police force areas tested positive for cocaine and/or opiates. The status quo is not working.
The second substance is ketamine. While ketamine deaths are relatively low, with 60 deaths, the stats are again trending the wrong way, as is the prevalence of the drug in our communities. I refer Members to the rate of past-year ketamine use among 16 to 24-year-olds, which has doubled since the drug was reclassified from class C to class B in 2014. We need a fit-for-purpose national drug policy, not a platform for point scoring or performative “tough on crime” posturing while harms continue to mount.
There is much talk at the moment about the reclassification of ketamine to a class A drug, as if that is some sort of panacea, despite the fact that deaths from heroin and cocaine—both class A substances—have been increasing year on year. It is as though the Home Office thinks that making something that is already illegal more illegal is somehow worthwhile. In the light of that, I have tabled a number of questions recently on the effectiveness of the reclassification. I am genuinely concerned that no analysis of that move has been made, and the intention is clearly to ramp it up further. Other policy levers are available. In particular, an emphasis should be placed on tackling the mental health crisis among our young people, which can make the dissociative effects of ketamine an appealing proposition.
Throughout this debate, I have sought to lay out the extent of the problem and to offer realistic, cost-effective and constructive measures that could save this country billions of pounds, not to mention thousands of lives. There are solutions to these issues, and the UK has both the expertise and the capacity to lead in this area. We must simply find the political expediency and courage to take bold action and do what is right. We cannot govern as the careful custodians of a failed Conservative settlement; we must replace it.
This is a solvable problem, and it is clear what works. With clear guidance, consistent commissioning and the courage to back frontline services, we can save lives, support families and ease pressure on our NHS. We will not solve this problem overnight, but I hope to come back next year with the figures at least trending in the right direction. No amount of warm words or hand-wringing in this place will absolve us of our collective responsibility if we do not take the steps necessary to do that now. We promised the country change, and it is now time to see it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Ashley Dalton)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) on securing this debate, and I thank all hon. Members from across the House for their wide-ranging interventions. They all raise a number of important points.
The continued rise in drug-related deaths is deeply concerning, and my Department is committed to tackling it. I hope hon. Members will recognise that my presence at the Dispatch Box confirms this Government’s public health approach to drug-related deaths. I continue to work with my colleagues in the Home Office and others to bring forward measures to improve in this space.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North mentioned, the latest Office for National Statistics figures show that more than 3,400 drug misuse deaths were registered in England in 2024, which is a continued increase on 2023 and over the past 12 years. In terms of the work across our four nations, I am proud to regularly attend the UK ministerial drug and alcohol forum, and I work closely with my counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, having recently met them just in September. I will continue to work with them in future.
Many drug deaths are preventable, and this Government are committed, through our health mission, to ensuring that people live longer, healthier lives. Through our safer streets mission, we are also determined to make our communities safer, more secure and free from the violence caused by the illicit drugs market. We know that many people struggling with a drug problem are already at the sharpest end of inequality, often with multiple and complex needs; there are strong links between drug use, prison, deprivation and homelessness. The Government’s work to tackle drug-related deaths and to fund and improve drug treatment and recovery services can therefore also contribute to reducing social inequalities.
We are committed to ensuring that anyone with a drug problem can access the help and support they need, and that they are provided with evidence-based, high-quality treatment. Treatment is protective, and is the safest place to be for anyone with a drug problem. In addition to the public health grant, in 2025-26 the Department of Health and Social Care is providing local authorities with an additional £310 million to improve the quality and capacity of drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services. As a result of increases in funding, there are now nearly 345,000 people in structured treatment in England, which I am pleased to say is the highest number on record.
However, patterns of drug use are always changing, and my Department remains alert to the need to tackle new threats. We recently launched a public awareness campaign informed by new patterns of drug use, focusing on the dangers presented by synthetic opioids, ketamine and THC vapes. That campaign includes online films and targets 16 to 24-year-olds, following a worrying rise in the number of young people being harmed by drugs. It highlights particular risks, including the potentially irreparable damage that ketamine can cause to the bladder; the danger of counterfeit medicines purchased online containing deadly synthetic opioids; and the risk from so-called THC vapes, which often contain dangerous synthetic cannabinoids such as spice rather than THC.
We are distributing resources to local public health teams, drug and alcohol treatment services, youth services, schools and universities, and we remain alert to the wider threat posed by synthetic opioids. We are working with other Government Departments to enhance surveillance and early warning, improving our ability to respond to this threat. We have established new data streams, including collecting information on deaths linked to nitazenes through laboratory testing and ambulance call-outs in which naloxone was administered. As a result, we have a much closer to real-time understanding of current levels of prevalence and harms.
In addition, we have provided data to local areas on factors related to drug and alcohol deaths, and we are developing a self-assessment toolkit that local areas can use to identify where to focus more on these issues and on interventions that are known to reduce the risk of drug-related deaths. The first quarterly report of data from those sources has now been published on the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System’s website, and a weekly report is released to local authorities.
We also know that many people struggling with drug addiction have multiple and complex physical health needs. Together, these issues can be mutually reinforcing, making treatment and support much more complex and often increasing people’s risk of overdose. We are developing plans to improve care pathways between drug treatment and services for physical healthcare needs, such as heart and lung disease, as recommended by Dame Carol Black; and intervening earlier and treating co-occurring physical health conditions to reduce drug-related deaths and improve outcomes.
We are also looking again at naloxone, the opioid reversal medication, which is a key pillar of the Government’s response to drug-related deaths. Last year, this Government made changes to legislation to enable more services and professionals across the UK to supply that medication without a prescription, making it easier for people at risk and their loved ones to access. We intend to consult soon on further steps to expand access to this lifesaving medication.
I once again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North for securing this debate on such a critical issue. The Government are committed to reducing the harms that illicit drugs cause to both individuals and wider society. The Department of Health and Social Care will continue to champion a harm reduction and public health approach to drug-related harms. Many of these deaths are avoidable, and I am confident that the steps we are taking will put us in a stronger position to tackle this complex issue.
Question put and agreed to.
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Financial Transparency: Overseas Territories
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the impact of financial secrecy in the Overseas Territories on UK communities.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. Before being elected to this place, I dedicated almost 15 years of my working life to tackling financial crime at two major UK banks. That work took me across the globe to the USA, the United Arab Emirates and often to India, so I like to think I can speak with some authority about financial secrecy overseas and how it impacts us at home.
For a number of people watching this debate, the contents of my speech will make for uncomfortable viewing, so let me be clear from the outset that my objective is not to criticise the overseas territories writ large—far from it. Some have shown a real commitment to transparency, which I commend them for, and others have a zealous determination to work with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to drive through much-needed reforms, but are hampered by a lack of local expertise. But other overseas territories seem insistent on blocking change at every opportunity, and it is those that I wish to focus on.
Hon. Members might ask, “What connects the sun-kissed beaches of the British Virgin Islands with the rain-soaked streets of Bolton?” What do my constituents care about shell companies, trusts and the veil of financial secrecy that a number of our overseas territories seem quietly content to provide? The purpose of today’s debate is to challenge the notion that what goes on over there has few ramifications for our daily lives over here. Financial secrecy in our overseas territories has real-world consequences for my constituents, businesses and Britain’s standing in the world. Journalists including Nicholas Shaxson and Oliver Bullough have outlined how the UK’s overseas territories have systematically undermined the global economy by creating a shadow banking system—“Moneyland”, to use Oliver Bullough’s parlance.
In a number of our overseas territories, low levels of taxation and substandard levels of transparency have attracted the world’s crooks and kleptocrats like moths to a flame. Money laundering, fraud, bribery, tax evasion: regrettably, many of the scandals we read about are likely to involve a financial structure in the British overseas territories. It is an enduring embarrassment going back many, many years, and it undermines our global reputation.
In 2016, 11.5 million documents detailing financial and attorney-client information relating to 214,488 offshore entities were leaked—the now-infamous Panama papers. More than half the shell companies exposed in that leak from Panamanian offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca were set up in the British Virgin Islands. That leak revealed the sheer scale of the dark economy, which allows the rich and powerful to store their assets offshore, out of sight of the taxman, law enforcement or the press. From the likes of the former Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili to the more than 30 Mossack Fonseca clients blacklisted by the US Treasury, roughly $2 trillion passed through that firm. In 2017 came the Paradise papers, with another 13.4 million documents from firms, including from Bermuda, the BVI and the Cayman Islands, then the 2020 FinCEN files, followed by the 2021 Pandora papers. Each leak tells a story about unfairness, about how those who can afford to find ways to avoid paying their fair share can do so, and about how the world’s crooks and kleptocrats cleaned and stashed their dirty cash. Each leak exposed the role played by the UK’s own overseas territories in enabling assets to be hidden.
So what is the impact on UK communities? I will focus on three areas where there is a direct, tangible impact on the UK: first, inhibiting growth; secondly, threatening national security; and thirdly, damaging our standing in the world. Sustainable economic growth and good-quality public services require the tax that is owed to be collected, whether it is from a small business in Westhoughton in my constituency or from oligarchs who have decided to make London their home—nobody should be above the law. The Chancellor has already made good progress on closing the £44 billion tax gap by hiring 5,500 new compliance staff, incentivising whistleblowers and committing to a 20% increase in the number of tax fraudsters charged each year.
Those are all noble endeavours, and I applaud them, but financial secrecy continues to erode our tax base, because when money that should be taxed is hidden offshore, it is the honest British taxpayer who ends up footing the bill. It harms His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs’ ability to collect what is owed, it fuels unfairness in our system and it leaves less for our stretched public services. There are too many cases to list, but I will endeavour to go over some, such as brothers Michael and Stephen Hirst, who evaded over £3.2 million in tax by routeing profits through companies they secretly controlled into Gibraltar and the British Virgin Islands.
But it goes deeper than that. Illicit money flowing through opaque companies registered in our overseas territories does not stay offshore; it finds its way into our UK property market. That distorts it, according to the National Crime Agency, and hinders people’s attempts to get on to the housing ladder. Transparency International UK has identified over £11 billion in suspicious wealth invested in British property, more than half of which was routed through shell companies in our overseas territories. Behind those faceless firms are the likes of Bangladeshi businessman Shafiat Sobhan, Pakistani tycoon Malik Riaz Hussain and Azerbaijani banker Jahangir Hajiyev—individuals accused or convicted of grand corruption who saw London as the safest place to stash their gains.
That money even floods our high streets. If we walk down any high street in the UK, we will see a proliferation of vape shops, candy shops, Harry Potter shops and barber shops. Not all of them have unscrupulous owners, but some are used as fronts for money laundering and tax abuse. As London Centric recently reported, these practices are often enabled by opaque corporate structures in offshore jurisdictions.
Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he agree with the National Crime Agency that if it had open and accurate data on who owned and controlled those businesses, its operations would be much more effective? Those businesses are often linked to overseas territories, so the National Crime Agency cannot find their real owners and crack down on them.
Phil Brickell
I thank my hon. Friend for his passionate campaigning on this issue. He is absolutely right that we need more transparency to support our law enforcement agencies to tackle this issue, and I will come on to that now.
I pay tribute to the brilliant enforcement work undertaken by the National Crime Agency through its Operation Machinize. Just last week, police visited a number of addresses in my constituency, seizing £17,000-worth of goods in the process. I applaud the work of our enforcement agencies, but as I will explain, these tireless professionals need more support in their work.
Elsewhere, financial murkiness causes friction for British businesses. When I worked in finance, we would often conduct “know your customer” checks and hit a wall, because a trust or a corporate service provider was incorporated in a secrecy jurisdiction. The beneficial owner was always elsewhere. Every time we spoke to law enforcement, journalists or civil society about dirty money, the same names came up: the BVI, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. It is farcical.
Banks, lawyers and accountants are on the frontline of anti-money laundering checks. Collectively, they spend over £38 billion a year on financial crime prevention—the equivalent of £21,000 every hour. A good-quality public register of beneficial ownership would make their work cheaper, faster and, frankly, more effective, unlocking the growth potential of our world-leading financial services sector.
On national security, since Russia’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine, the UK has quite rightly been at the forefront of the global sanctions regime against Putin. I commend the Minister for his personal leadership in ensuring that it is Putin and his cronies who pay for their unlawful war. The overseas territories have played an important role in enforcing those sanctions, freezing over £7 billion in Russia-linked assets. Indeed, initiatives like the Cayman Islands’ Operation Hektor, which has frozen £6 million of assets, deserve recognition.
Enforcement is only as strong as the weakest link. If opaque corporate structures allow sanctioned individuals to move assets through nominee companies, the whole system is undermined. That is why full beneficial ownership transparency is not a bureaucratic nicety; it is a national security measure. Opponents will say that UK law enforcement agencies have access to this information, but many agencies are critically underfunded and simply do not have the capacity to keep up the bewildering game of whack-a-mole that they play with bad faith actors.
Transparency International UK has identified around £700 million-worth of UK property linked to sanctioned Russian oligarchs that went unflagged in the UK’s register of overseas entities in 2022. Among them is a vast Hampstead estate valued at up to £300 million, reportedly owned by Russian chemicals magnate Andrey Guryev. Reports suggest the property was originally acquired using a company based in—you guessed it—the British Virgin Islands. I asked my friend Yaroslaw Tymchyshyn, chair of the Bolton branch of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain how he felt about this. He said:
“The government needs to seize all Russian assets which should be used to fund the Ukrainian war effort. It irks us that the oligarchs are living the high life in the west, whilst the Russians continue to bomb and use drones to kill civilians, including children.”
What should I say to him?
Elsewhere, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation has reported that since February 2022 more than a quarter of suspected sanctions breaches have involved intermediary jurisdictions, including the BVI and Guernsey. This level of financial secrecy allows sanctioned elites and hostile actors to hide their wealth, undermining Britain’s sanctions regime and weakening our ability to deter aggression. When dirty money flows unchecked through our financial system, it erodes the credibility of our foreign policy, drives up the cost of energy and food, and ultimately fuels Putin’s brutal war in Ukraine.
In addition, criminal gangs involved in drug smuggling, people trafficking or protection rackets need to launder their ill-gotten gains into the regular economy. The financial secrecy afforded by the overseas territories gives the perfect cover to dodgy accountants, lawyers and corporate service providers. Edin “Tito” Gačanin, a Dutch passport holder but a Bosnia and Herzegovina native, was convicted last year of trafficking drugs from South America into Europe. It has been alleged that Gačanin is connected to the infamous Kinahan cartel, one of Europe’s most notorious organised crime gangs. As reported by the BBC, that cartel has flooded UK streets with drugs and guns over two decades. According to an investigation by The Times, in order to avoid US sanctions, the Kinahans recently sought anonymity using jurisdictions such as the Cayman Islands, the BVI and the Isle of Man.
Even organised fraud finds shelter in the overseas territories. Just last month, the Foreign Secretary rightly announced sanctions on a global scam network led by Cambodian citizen Chen Zhi, who allegedly used BVI companies to launder profits. Those profits were reportedly routed into a £12 million mansion in north London, a £100 million City office block and a string of luxury flats, while victims across the world were left penniless. Even when the authorities do catch fraudsters, financial secrecy in our offshore territories inhibits our ability to hold criminals to account.
Covid fraudster Gerald Smith was prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office, but tried to use a BVI company to obstruct the seizure of a flat he owned to avoid paying compensation, resulting in a direct loss to the taxpayer. He still owes £82 million—and he is not alone. Just this summer the SFO told the all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption and responsible tax, which I chair, that 25% of all cases that it is currently investigating have links to the overseas territories.
A final point on national security: I am gravely concerned that secrecy jurisdictions open a back door into our politics. The FinCEN files reveal that in 2016 the husband of Lubov Chernukhin received more than £6 million from Suleiman Kerimov, who was sanctioned in 2022 by the UK for his connections to Putin. Kerimov used a BVI company to conceal that payment. Lubov Chernukhin has donated more than £2 million to the Conservative party since 2012.
I have additional concerns about the Electoral Commission’s capacity to keep up with cryptocurrency donations, which Reform has reportedly already begun accepting. Indeed, the crypto platform Zebec sponsored a panel at Reform’s party conference on “Strengthening the Rule of Law: legislative reform?”. Zebec is, unsurprisingly, ultimately controlled by an entity registered in the British Virgin Islands, as reported by The Observer. Protecting our democracy from foreign interference is made all the more difficult by crypto firms involving themselves in our politics while hiding behind the veil of corporate secrecy, enabled by our overseas territories.
We come on to international leadership. Financial secrecy in jurisdictions under the Union flag does not just damage our economy; it damages our credibility. The UK rightly prides itself on being a global leader in the fight against economic crime. We have made real progress with the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022, the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 and the register of overseas entities, by boosting the powers of Companies House, and with the Treasury’s recent welcome announcement on reforming our anti-money laundering framework.
Next year, when the UK hosts the countering illicit finance summit, the Government will have a chance to show further leadership, but the UK cannot credibly call on others to improve transparency if the jurisdictions flying our flag lag behind on beneficial ownership. Our diplomats work tirelessly to promote British values overseas—the rule of law, fair competition and integrity in public life—yet, when investigative journalists, non-governmental organisations or foreign Governments look into global corruption cases, the trail often runs through a British overseas territory. That damages us and weakens our hand in international negotiations, giving cover to regimes that would keep their elites’ wealth hidden.
What needs to happen? In 2018, MPs led by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell) and the Government’s anti-corruption champion, Baroness Hodge, successfully secured an amendment to the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. I pay tribute to them for their tenacious campaigning over many years. Their amendment required all overseas territories to introduce registers of beneficial ownership by 2020. That deadline slipped to 2023, and then to 2025—another deadline that was largely missed.
The UK’s overseas territories are a valued and integral part of our British family. Their ties to us are deep, and their prosperity is something we rightly cherish. They are our partners in defence, trade and increasingly in tackling the great global challenges of our age: climate change, migration and the rule of law. But being family means being honest, and I am afraid to say that certain jurisdictions have not covered themselves in glory by obfuscating, delaying, ignoring and frustrating the will of this Parliament. It is not acceptable. Missing deadlines sends a “terrible message” to the world, according to the current Deputy Prime Minister, in response to a question I asked him earlier this year when he was before the Foreign Affairs Committee.
This speech is not lazily tarring all overseas territories with the same brush. Far from it: Gibraltar, Montserrat and St Helena have delivered and deserve praise. The Falkland Islands are on track to implement by mid-2026 and are engaging constructively with the UK Government. Bermuda has made positive noises, although there is still room for improvement in its recent statement on next steps under its Beneficial Ownership Act 2025.
Elsewhere progress has been slow and patchy. The British Virgin Islands, in particular, remain a serious concern. Transparency International UK has warned that the British Virgin Islands’ proposed company register framework is not compatible with global transparency standards, with journalists being granted information on only a subset of data, rather than the beneficial ownership that they record, even baking in a tip-off for people being investigated, giving them a chance to object to their information being shared with a journalist. The Cayman Islands have also been slow to move from consultation to implementation. Although some good work has been done, substantial areas remain, including exorbitant costs and an unreasonably high threshold for granting applications from civil society and journalists.
The fact remains that some of the largest financial centres under the British flag are still operating secretive structures that enable tax evasion, sanctions evasion and kleptocracy. Occasionally, capacity restraints are cited. The UK Government rightly have an obligation to step in and provide technical support. There is also a suggestion that some jurisdictions do not want to fulfil their promises, lest they lose their competitive advantage.
To those naysayers, I say that the UK has an obligation to help its overseas territories to diversify their economies. It can be done, as in the case of the Isle of Man, where considerable work is under way to invest in offshore wind. Let me be clear: transparency has not hindered economies elsewhere. The UK has had a fully public register for years, and the sky has not fallen in. Research commissioned by the UK Government estimated that corporate transparency reforms produce data worth up to £3 billion to the public and private sectors. Look at Gibraltar, which has continued to grow, driven by insurance, gaming and fintech, even after introducing full beneficial ownership transparency.
I have a number of asks of the Minister. Last month, the Prime Minister’s anti-corruption champion, Baroness Margaret Hodge, visited the BVI to understand what progress it is making towards fully open registers of beneficial ownership. What update can the Minister give us on that visit? With November’s Joint Ministerial Council rapidly approaching, will he remind those overseas territories that continue to delay the implementation of publicly accessible registers of beneficial ownership, with the maximum possible degree of access and transparency as per last year’s joint communiqué, of their commitment?
Concerningly, the 2024 JMC communiqué contained the following line:
“We note the UK Government’s ambition that Publicly Accessible Registers of Beneficial Ownership (PARBOs) become a global norm and its expectation that Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies implement full PARBOs.”
Will the Minister confirm that the overseas territories and the Crown dependencies are still expected by His Majesty’s Government to implement fully public corporate registers? If legitimate-interest access filters are an interim step, what assurances can he give me that journalists, civil society organisations and others with a genuine interest will have open and repeated access to company data in the overseas territories? Finally, will the Minister meet me and Yaroslaw from the Bolton branch of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain to reassure him that the Government are doing all they can to bring an end to Putin’s barbaric war in Ukraine, including by enforcing economic sanctions in the OTs?
My speech does not seek to undermine the important constitutional relationship between the overseas territories and the UK. I welcome, for example, the £7.5 million recently provided by the UK to Commonwealth member Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa, alongside $1.2 million from the Cayman Islands. But partnership brings mutual obligations, which must include the shared commitment we have all made to openness, integrity and accountability, because every pound laundered through a BVI shell company and every mansion bought with stolen public funds is a stain on our national integrity.
Cleaning up this system is not just an act of international justice; it is a patriotic duty. We cannot build clean foundations for growth while our financial system remains a refuge for dirty money. Public, accessible and verifiable registers of beneficial ownership are not a burden; they are our competitive advantage. They enable cheaper due diligence for firms and cleaner supply chains for investors, they protect small businesses by making procurement fairer and fraud harder, they strengthen our economy by rooting out corruption before it takes hold, and they give the British people confidence that when they pay their taxes, buy a home or open a small shop on the high street, the system is fair and honest.
The autumn Budget is scheduled for 26 November. After her Budget speech, tradition dictates that the Chancellor will go to the Two Chairmen for a well-earned gin and tonic. That pub, which I hasten to add is not accused of any wrongdoing, is owned via the Isle of Man and leased to Greene King, which is itself owned via the Cayman Islands. I think that encapsulates just how out of hand the shadow financial system has become.
Sir Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
As vice-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group, I want to express my appreciation to the chairman, the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell), for the brilliant way he has led the debate. He underlined that there must be an all-party approach, which he expressed with great eloquence and factual back-up. He made the point that we all have a constituency interest in this issue. We certainly recognise that in the royal town of Sutton Coldfield. I also thank his predecessor as chair, the hon. Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell), who I note the Government have now neutered by putting on the payroll. As a former Government Chief Whip, I know exactly how these things work, and it is a recognition of his great abilities that he has now been put on the non-ministerial payroll.
I want to emphasise why this issue matters. We are talking about dirty money—money stolen from Africa and from Africans, money from the sex trade and money from the drug trade. Although Africa is my principal concern, because I believe that development is being held up by the enormous amount of money that is stolen from that continent, the hon. Member for Bolton West also made an extremely important point about tax. After all, in a few days’ time, the Chancellor will be looking for as much tax revenue as she can get. If she follows the hon. Gentleman’s advice, there is no doubt that billions would flow into the Exchequer, for the reasons that he set out.
For many years, we believed that closed registers were doing what was required. Closed registers enabled law enforcement authorities to dip into the details and, in the case of terrorism, get a response within 24 hours, but the publication of the Paradise and Panama papers showed definitively why we must have open registers of beneficial ownership. Without open registers, we cannot join the dots of who is doing what to whom. That is a very important point. The scales fell from our eyes when the Paradise and Panama papers were published—all praise to the BBC and The Guardian for doing so—as they showed precisely why open registers are absolutely essential. That is at the heart of this debate.
Let us be in no doubt, either, that we are talking about the Crown dependencies as well. They may come after the overseas territories in the Government’s enforcement action but, like the overseas territories, they are on the frontline of this issue. As the hon. Gentleman said, we are not talking about all the overseas territories. Many of them have implemented, or are implementing, registers in good faith; it is just a pity that some of them have not.
It is also worth saying that the UK has big questions to answer. From what the National Crime Agency said some years ago, we know that up to 40% of money laundering goes through London, the overseas territories and the Crown dependencies. That is one of the reasons why David Cameron made tackling corruption an important aspect of the G8 in 2016. Britain can be proud of leading that attack on dirty money. We should remember not only Britain’s leadership, but the fact that we have a dog in this fight.
I also want to emphasise how we got here. The hon. Member for Bolton West rightly said that the Government gave way because otherwise they would have been defeated—an embarrassing moment for me, as a former Government Chief Whip, to have led that rebellion with Baroness Hodge. With the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act we made it absolutely clear that, if the overseas territories did not accept the will of Parliament, it would be imposed through the ancient and arcane process of an Order in Council. Baroness Hodge and I took a legal opinion from some of the best lawyers in the country, including one of the most brilliant former Directors of Public Prosecutions, Lord Ken Macdonald. The opinion made it absolutely clear that the Westminster Parliament had the right, indeed the duty, to impose an Order in Council if the will of Parliament was not accepted in the overseas territories.
It so happens that the Foreign Office, with the skill and dexterity for which it is famous, interpreted that measure as meaning not that an Order in Council would be imposed after a year, but that it would be drafted after a year for imposition after another year—thus giving the overseas territories an extra year. That was condemned in the House of Commons by two former International Development Secretaries—myself and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for Leeds South (Hilary Benn)—and by two distinguished former Chairmen of the Public Accounts Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) and Baroness Hodge. It has still not been done. That is where we are now.
I echo the questions that the hon. Member for Bolton West asked the Minister. It is very important that we get a definitive approach from the Government to implementing that measure. The Minister is a good bloke. He and I have been discussing development matters for nearly 20 years, so I know exactly what his view is. I hope very much that he will stiffen up the relevant Foreign Office officials, who like to ensure good and harmonious relations, and who do not like a row. He must remind them that officials advise and Ministers decide. Ministers are the servants of Parliament, and Parliament decided as long as seven years ago why these matters must be brought to a head.
I have recently seen senior representatives from Bermuda and the Cayman Islands who, in my judgment, were truculent and disrespectful of the will of the Westminster Parliament. As the hon. Member for Bolton West rightly said, the BVI is one of the key countries that needs to accept that, if these overseas territories and Crown dependencies want to use the British flag and to have our monarch and our laws, they must also accept our values.
Although the hon. Member has admirably summed up the first of them, I will end my remarks by quoting three points in this excellent brief from the APPG, which I hope will be widely distributed. Backed by Transparency International, Tax Justice Network and others, the report deals with the impact of financial secrecy in the overseas territories on UK communities. The hon. Member spoke about Transparency International UK’s revelation that at least £5.9 billion-worth of suspicious funds have been used to purchase UK properties—an astonishing figure. Secondly, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation found that, since February 2022, over a quarter of all suspected sanctions breaches were made intermediary jurisdictions including the BVI and Guernsey. Finally, Transparency International UK’s research has linked to our overseas territories £250 billion-worth of funds diverted by rigged procurement, bribery and embezzlement in 79 countries, of which the British Virgin Islands accounted for 92%. What is more, Tax Justice Network’s report, “The State of Tax Justice 2024”, shows that countries are losing nearly £375 billion to multinational corporations and wealthy individuals using tax havens to underpay tax, with over £1 trillion in profits being shifted into tax havens.
Those are significant figures; they show why Parliament was absolutely right to vote for and implement the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. They show why today we need to hear the Minister say that his patience is running out, and that he will issue the Order in Council if the overseas territories do not accept the will of the British Parliament.
Several hon. Members rose—
Derek Twigg (in the Chair)
Because of the number of Members who have indicated that they wish to speak in the debate, with the authority of the Chairman of Ways and Means, I am imposing a time limit on Back Benchers’ contributions of two and a half minutes.
Jo Platt (Leigh and Atherton) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I begin by paying tribute to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) for his work in this House and outside it to combat fraud and corruption. His steadfast resolve is to be commended. I have probably wasted half my time saying that, but it needed saying.
As we have heard, financial secrecy in Britain’s overseas territories and Crown dependencies enables tax abuse, fraud and organised crime, draining billions from public coffers and weakening enforcement, but I shall talk about the impact that it has on our towns locally. In Leigh and Atherton and across our country, our high streets are being hollowed out by rogue traders using these opaque corporate structures. Dodgy vape shops, fake candy stores and unlicensed barbers are increasingly used to launder money, sell illicit goods and evade scrutiny. These businesses often phoenix overnight, reopening under new names to dodge enforcement. They damage the reputation of our town centres and erode public confidence.
That is why, like my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West, I want to highlight Operation Machinize, a multi-agency crackdown led by Greater Manchester police, co-ordinated by the NCA and supported by trading standards and our local authority teams. Across Greater Manchester, including Leigh, over 100 premises were targeted. The operation led to arrests, closure orders and the seizure of illegal vapes, illicit cigarettes and counterfeit goods. I thank all those involved.
Despite such action, the activity carries on and the authorities’ hands are tied. My office supported a raid in Leigh. It took over year to build the evidence and it was very clear, yet the business was reopened within an hour. That is why I have joined forces with my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) to launch a national campaign calling for stronger powers, better co-ordination and real accountability. Our communities deserve better.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I thank the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) for leading today’s debate with such a detailed, informative speech. We are all impressed by the way he set the scene.
This United Kingdom is made up of four countries that are directly impacted by public finances in how we can distribute allocated money and what we have the capacity to deal with, so this debate is important. There is already a strain on public finance; we all witness it every day. We see our public Departments struggling, especially health and education. Whether it is here or back home, the issues are the same. We must also note that the Chancellor has not yet ruled out tax rises ahead of the Budget. The public are already taking on the burden of the UK’s debt.
We have seen, and the Government are aware of, countless instances of tax evasion and avoidance by people in the United Kingdom, especially in the jurisdiction of the Cayman Islands. That contributes to lost tax revenues across the country. My issue is the loss of tax revenue—money that should be spent in this country on our own people. The UK Treasury loses billions each year to offshore tax avoidance. Northern Ireland relies on the block grant from Westminster through the Barnett consequentials for our devolved Government, so this tax avoidance and evasion means less funding for crucial sectors in Northern Ireland such as health, education and infrastructure. That is frustrating for people. [Interruption.]
Joe Powell
I thank the hon. Gentleman for joining the last debate we had on this topic in this Chamber seven months ago. Does he agree that the link we are discussing between the overseas territories and the sorts of criminal activity that we all see demonstrates that the British public would be on side with cleaning up this mess?
Jim Shannon
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me the chance to get my cough sorted; I appreciate that very much. I agree with him.
There is obvious unfairness in taxation, especially because citizens face higher scrutiny than wealthy users of offshore arrangements. For example, the average person will at some point in their life be hit with a tax bill—that dreaded letter that comes through saying, “You haven’t paid enough tax.” The same does not go for those who partake in tax avoidance. The Treasury should do more to ensure that such people pay into the system just the same as everybody else.
The UK’s register of overseas entities 2022 revealed that several properties in Northern Ireland were held via entities in secrecy jurisdictions—more evidence of offshore-linked ownership of commercial and residential assets, especially in Belfast. Such investments can inflate property value and cause confusion over true ownership of property. That has a great impact on the ordinary person.
My focus and my responsibility are my constituents and the money that they must lose from their wages each month to increase Government spending. There must be more clarity and better insight. Government must do more to reinstate trust with the public, because there is disillusionment when it comes to finance. The Minister is a good and honest man. I look to him for an acknowledgment that Northern Ireland and the devolved nations suffer as a result of this and that he will endeavour to do more for this country to protect finance and, ultimately, my constituents.
Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) for securing this timely debate. It is timely for two simple reasons. Just yesterday, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism revealed that HMRC is apparently refusing to publish its official estimate of how much tax is currently being lost due to tax dodging facilitated by tax havens. The Public Accounts Committee, on which I sit, found in July that HMRC simply is not able to track down those individuals who stash their fortunes offshore in tax havens including overseas territories. The Committee has pressed for greater transparency concerning tax that is lost offshore. Without that information we will never be able to properly assess whether HMRC’s efforts are effective, or even adequately resourced. Even more crucially, without that estimate our tax authority cannot effectively pursue those who deliberately avoid or evade paying their fair share of tax. It is very simple: we should be able to assess what tax is owed and then go on to collect it. HMRC must be able to get a firmer grip on the scale of wealth that is currently stashed away offshore, and publish its findings openly. We need to bolster its ability to spot and stop tax dodging offshore by the super wealthy.
That leads me to the second simple reason that this debate is timely. With the Budget fast approaching, in a time when the global economy is uncertain and dysfunctional, collecting the right amount of tax is not just a technical matter; it is about ensuring that everyone pays their fair share for the public services that we all rely upon. Holding even one billionaire to account on their tax obligations can influence the wider public purse. Unfortunately, we know that there are many individuals not paying their fair share, such as the sanctioned oligarch Roman Abramovich, who has used a British tax haven—again, the British Virgin Islands—to avoid paying almost £1 billion in tax owed to HMRC.
Alex Sobel (Leeds Central and Headingley) (Lab/Co-op)
This speaks to a wider point about Ukraine. Two years ago Chelsea was sold for £2.35 billion and now a company controlled by Roman Abramovich is demanding a repayment of £1.5 billion. The absolute secrecy and the intricacy of his controlled companies are having a direct effect on humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.
Lloyd Hatton
My hon. Friend speaks the truth. Unfortunately, Roman Abramovich is just one of a great many tax dodgers. The only way to ensure that everyone pays their fair share is to finally throw open the books and end decades of secrecy in every British tax haven. The fact that most overseas territories do not publish information on who owns companies registered on their shores makes them a highly attractive destination for tax dodgers. We all know—it is common knowledge—that those tax havens are a go-to destination for would-be tax dodgers looking to reduce their tax liabilities.
As we approach two critical junctures, the autumn Budget and the Joint Ministerial Council, I hope that Ministers appreciate the cross-party strength of feeling on this matter. There must be consequences for failing to end this kind of financial secrecy offshore. At the moment it enables crime, undermines HMRC and deeply weakens our public services. We cannot fail to act any longer.
Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to work under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) for securing this important debate, and for his excellent introduction to it.
There is one particularly alarming case that we cannot overlook in this debate: that of Roman Abramovich. His activities epitomise how opaque offshore structures undermine UK financial integrity and global trust. In a letter to the Chancellor dated 10 September, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and I, as co-chairs of the APPG on Magnitsky sanctions and reparation, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West, as chair of the APPG on anti-corruption and responsible tax, warned that Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich may owe HMRC up to £1 billion on profits from his multimillion-pound hedge fund investments. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that these hedge funds, although registered offshore, were being run from the UK. Under UK law, they should have been paying UK taxes. This investigation revealed that Abramovich benefited from a fraudulent scheme designed to evade €14 million in VAT due in Cyprus on his fleet of superyachts. Cypriot tax authorities have since filed criminal charges to recover more than €25 million in tax.
As our letter pointed out, HMRC has yet to respond to these findings. Even when journalists offered to brief HMRC’s permanent secretary, their offer went unanswered. That silence has raised serious concerns about the Government’s willingness to act decisively against those who use offshore networks and shield vast sums from scrutiny. The Government’s reply, sent in October, insists that
“everyone should pay the tax that is legally due”,
and highlighted new enforcement measures, including 5,500 extra compliance staff and the creation of a complex cross tax and offshore team. Those steps are welcome, but they do not answer our central question: why is there still no visible enforcement action in this case?
This is not just about one oligarch; it is about ensuring that our own financial system and the jurisdictions linked to it cannot be used to hide wealth, evade tax or escape sanctions. That £1 billion would build the 500 schools so badly needed in our poorest areas.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) on the way he has framed this discussion, because we are debating the impact of these tax arrangements in the overseas territories on UK communities. Every penny being shielded from paying the fair share in these places is a penny that is not getting into our NHS and is not going to support local schools or improve public transport.
Hard-working people in North Norfolk pay their taxes fairly, but thanks to the shady systems of places like the BVI or the Cayman Islands, the multimillionaires and multibillionaires can squirrel their money away and pay very little tax at all. With their shell corporations and subsidiaries, trusts and transfer pricing, the fat cats can get away without paying their fair share. It is a tax system that is “pay to play”, and the billionaires are playing all of us.
The BVI, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda all have something in common: up there, in the top left-hand corner of their flags, is the Union Jack. Many look at this as a legacy of centuries past, but it must actually represent the existing British responsibility for—dare I say, complicity in—tens of billions of pounds of corporate tax avoidance and abuse. We still hold power over many of these places, and we can take steps to force their hand if necessary. Orders in Council have been drafted previously, which can require our overseas territories to take this action. Governments have been understandably reluctant to take this step, not wanting to appear as the colonial hand reaching across the ocean to meddle in the affairs of its territories. But if we are to provide defence and security for them, stand up for their interests internationally and support them in their hours of need, it is not too much to ask that the Governments of those territories play fair.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
The Panama papers, released in 2016, were so-called because the company whose papers were exposed, Mossack Fonseca, was headquartered in Panama. Is my hon. Friend aware that one out of every two companies listed in the Panama papers was incorporated in the British Virgin Islands?
Steff Aquarone
Yes, I am frighteningly aware, because I have tried to access these registers myself, and I have relied upon reports by other organisations to tell me what is really going on. When a country’s wealth in savings is a multi-hundred-times multiple of its GDP, that brings all this into sharp focus.
But to get back to my focus, when people in North Norfolk see their health services closing down, their children’s schools unable to buy glue sticks and the cuts to public services, and then they look at the billionaires and their yachts, mansions, football clubs and private jets, they smell a rat—they know something is not working here. Something has to change. That change is real, and it is possible, if the Government have the will and the guts to stand up for it. I hope the Minister and his Government can finally be the ones to end this scandal, secure money for our public services and stop these tax havens once and for all.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) for securing the debate.
It is a simple principle: profits should be taxed where real economic activity takes place. Yet that simple principle is routinely violated, and multinational corporations move billions through paper subsidiaries, internal loans and royalty payments to places where little or no real business occurs. As we have heard today, the result is devastating. For the United Kingdom alone, it represents tens of billions lost—money that should be funding our hospitals, schools, transport and care.
Sadly, the UK’s current approach is still falling short, so what must we do? First, we need real transparency. Public country-by-country reporting must be mandatory. beneficial ownership registers must be complete, verified and accessible to all, and there must be comprehensive disclosure of cross-border affiliate transactions of intra-group pricing and payments in dividends flowing to low or zero-tax jurisdictions.
Secondly, HMRC must be properly equipped. The Department is dramatically under-resourced, so it needs resources, specialist expertise and the independence to pursue large-scale investigations without political constraint. The diverted profits tax should be strengthened, and penalties must actually bite.
Thirdly, we need structural reform at home. The UK must stop indulging secrecy within its own network of territories. It should require those jurisdictions to meet the same standards of transparency and accountability as the mainland. We must make domestic law fit for purpose by ensuring that multinationals cannot hide behind opaque structures, and that the UK does not act as a facilitator for profit shifting through low-tax dependencies.
Broadly, we must lead reform on the international stage. Britain should champion stronger global agreements—not merely a minimalist 15% tax floor, but a framework that stops profit shifting altogether. That means automatic exchange of tax information, higher global minimum rates, global minimum tax enforcement standards, pressure for jurisdictions that facilitate profit shifting to reform, and co-ordinated sanctions imposed against them if they refuse to co-operate. Fundamentally, this is about fairness, accountability and the very future of democracy itself.
Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) on securing this debate and on his election to the chair of the excellent all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption and responsible tax. I thank other Members here and the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell) for championing this issue.
We last met in this Chamber to debate this issue seven months ago to the day, so it is helpful to have another debate to check on progress and demonstrate to the overseas territories the strength of cross-party feeling about it. Such debates do have an impact. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West and I were featured in a cartoon in a BVI newspaper not long ago for bringing this issue up so frequently in the House—I take that as a badge of honour.
The Government’s commitment to make London the anti-corruption capital of the world, as opposed to a dirty money capital, is extremely welcome. I know the Minister is personally committed to that agenda, and I look forward to the anti-corruption strategy in the next few weeks.
Sir Andrew Mitchell
Although the hon. Gentleman may have been in a cartoon, Baroness Hodge and I were the subject of a demonstration in one of the overseas territories, with placards saying, “Let’s hang Mitchell and Hodge”.
Joe Powell
I am sure we all agree that we would not support that action.
I want to make a serious point about where progress has been made. Some of us recently met the leader of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo. Gibraltar now has an open register, and he told us that it has had no impact on investment there. In fact, it has attracted a different type of investor: those making sustainable, long-term investments into a reliable market where financial secrecy is not undermining the strength of the financial services.
I note that in the Public Gallery there is a representative of St Helena, which has made great progress—as others have said, we are also meeting representatives of the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. Although it is not perfect, there has been political commitment from those leaders to make progress and work together.
But the harms are still severe: serious organised crime, drugs on our streets, the high streets issue that many hon. Members have spoken about, sanctions evasion, tax dodging, environmental crime, destruction of tropical forests and property. I invite Members to join me on our “Kensington Against Dirty Money” walking tour, which Baroness Hodge and I conduct in my constituency. The No. 1 source of foreign ownership of property—my constituency has 6,000 such properties—is the BVI. The question is: why? It is not a victimless crime, and we need to understand why it is happening.
Let me very briefly talk about next steps. I really welcome Baroness Hodge’s trip to the BVI. She is a fearless champion for this issue. It would be good to understand the BVI’s red lines for a legitimate interests test. I think it should be broad, reliable and repeated access for those journalists who have helped to uncover so many issues in the past, while maintaining the Government’s long-term goal of publicly accessible beneficial ownership registers as the gold standard.
The summit on illicit finance next year is a huge opportunity; it was great that the Deputy Prime Minister confirmed that on the world stage at the UN General Assembly this year. The summit will be 10 years on from the 2016 anti-corruption summit, where public registers of beneficial ownership for UK companies were first introduced. Could the summit be the moment when we finally move forward on this issue, too?
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) for securing this debate. I recognise that there are many British overseas territories that are trying to do the right thing, but as we have heard today, some are magnets for dirty money and safe havens for the wealth of autocratic aggressors, laundering billions under the British flag. We must put a stop to that now.
Let us be clear about what the offshoring of dirty means here at home, in my constituency of Bournemouth East. It is money stolen from the public purse. Billions are being siphoned away that could go directly into our hospitals and schools, and into lower tax rates. This is about our housing crisis. When the super-rich pour their ill-gotten gains into luxury property in our towns and cities, homes sit empty while families cannot afford a roof over their heads. Young people tell me all the time that they have to move away to get on in life because they cannot afford a home in Bournemouth.
This is about our high streets, where there are trust-owned properties, hidden behind secrecy, lying empty and untouchable. Enforcement officers cannot act because they cannot trace the owners. Our high streets lie empty, robbed of vitality. Indeed, where there is activity, it is in the form of candy or vape shops that are so brightly lit they can be seen from space, themselves a front for money laundering. This is about money being stolen from workers’ wages and from the Treasuries of the world’s poorest nations. Twenty years ago we said, “Make Poverty History”; let us make dirty money history too.
Where does the trail lead? Time and again to the British Virgin Islands. After investigation, I can share that the total number of properties in Bournemouth East reported as offshore entities stands at 82. These are owned through entities based in the Crown dependencies or the overseas territories, and unsurprisingly the BVI figures prominently. Where entities are required to declare their beneficial owners, the choice of jurisdictions appears to be selected for their secrecy. Fifty-seven have not reported the price paid—just 25 have done so. Even when beneficial ownership is shared, details about the person benefiting from the property are not always available to the public.
Lloyd Hatton
My hon. Friend speaks very eloquently on that point. Living in communities like Bournemouth or my hometown of Weymouth, individuals and businesses seemingly do not have a choice about registering a business and being transparent about who owns a property and what tax they pay. Does he share my concern that unless we see further action here, there will be one rule for the majority of people in our constituencies, and seemingly a whole separate raft of rules for the very wealthiest?
Tom Hayes
I could not agree more. In Dorset, we have constituents who want to play by the rules but are routinely let down by the lack of tax transparency.
For the 25 properties that have reported the price paid, the combined total is £7.2 million. With the 57 shrouded in secrecy, the total sums involved will clearly be significant. The BVI should be supporting action to track down crime. Instead, as we have heard, it is giving criminals a head start, tipping them off when there is an investigation under way. Because half the entities exposed in the Panama papers were linked to the BVI, Parliament acted decisively. A deadline was set and the will was clear. However, here we are years later, and Parliament’s will continues to be flouted by the BVI.
My question to the Minister, who I know is an excellent tax transparency campaigner of many years, is: when the remedy exists, are the Government open to using an Order in Council if progress is not made in the next year? Without transparency, we cannot follow the money, and if we cannot follow the money, we cannot truly fund our public services. Without action to correct tax secrecy, we cannot claim to stand for integrity, and without integrity, we cannot truly say that democracy works in the interests of everyone.
Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)
I thank the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) for securing this debate. I also thank the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell) for all his work on this issue and for his good speech today. Indeed, I have enjoyed the contributions from all hon. Members so far. The common theme has been explaining that what goes on in the overseas territories impoverishes people in the UK and takes money out of their pockets, which we all want to see stopped.
The Government have an opportunity to improve financial transparency by working with the overseas territories so that they adopt the same standards as the UK. The deliberate masking of corporate ownership is used to dodge tax, accountability and responsibility. It inhibits law enforcement and prevents citizens, workers and journalists from holding the powerful to account for their corporate actions.
If Labour wants bad actors to be brought to heel and to stand up for people in our country and globally, this is its chance; it has the power to act. The world’s top three corporate tax havens—the British Virgin Islands, which have been much discussed, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda—are all British overseas territories. Tax Justice Network estimates that, in total, profit-shifting through the UK and its Crown dependencies and overseas territories accounts for nearly a quarter of all lost tax revenues globally—over £80 billion annually. The continued lack of transparency in the overseas tax havens, or overseas territories, including the absence of truly publicly accessible registers of beneficial ownership, poses a real threat to the UK’s reputation and standing in the world.
Steff Aquarone
Does my hon. Friend agree that the documentation often exists to prove ultimate beneficial ownership, where it suits the individuals concerned? In some cases, we have a perverse situation where respectable UK financial institutions obtain that information in confidence when carrying out their required “know your customer” due diligence, without any obligation to pass on the details to UK tax authorities.
Charlie Maynard
I did not know that, so I thank my hon. Friend for informing me.
How can we ask others to get their own house in order when we enable these entities on UK sovereign territory to beggar their neighbour on a global scale? The UK Government bear responsibility for this lack of transparency, as British overseas territories are subject to UK law in certain respects. The Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, or SAMLA, requires the UK to support these territories in implementing public registers of company ownership, which are a crucial tool for combating tax evasion and financial crime. More specifically, section 51 of SAMLA allows the UK Government to make regulations requiring overseas territories to establish publicly accessible registers of the beneficial ownership of companies, and if they do not do so voluntarily, we have the power to enforce them to do so.
Sir Andrew Mitchell
On the point made by the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) about an Order in Council, will the hon. Gentleman confirm that his understanding is the same as mine, namely that an Order in Council is not a discretionary matter for the Government, and that it is there in the legislation that he just referred to? Parliament insists that if these territories do not comply and provide open registers, an Order in Council should be issued.
Charlie Maynard
Yes; I fully agree with the right hon. Gentleman.
Direct legislation should be a last resort, but it is necessary and we need to move quickly. SAMLA came into force in 2018, and we are now nearly in 2026. This is just playing for time, which is bad. Since 2022, the UK’s register of overseas entities regime has required that the details of all corporate trustees in the chain of an overseas entity’s ownership structure are registered and that the ultimate beneficial owners of real estate are identified. Information on the overseas entity and the beneficial owners should be accessible to all, online and for free.
I will review those top three overseas territories. Bermuda and the Cayman Islands now have registers of beneficial interest that are up and running. The BVI is getting there slowly, with existing companies having been given until the end of this year to file their information. However, and importantly, none of these three territories has a publicly open and accessible register. Instead, there is all sorts of obfuscation. I will give some examples.
Some of these registers require inquiries to have “legitimate interest”, whatever that may be. Access is possible only
“at the Commission’s Secretariat’s office by appointment, with no copying or scanning allowed, on written request, payment of a fee, and some limitations, during working hours”.
That is not complying with the spirit of the law—indeed, it is really unhelpful—and we have it in our power as a country to stop it. It leaves a strong impression that all three are doing their damnedest to withhold information on such a scale as to make the existence of the registers completely pointless.
Online, fully accessible and public access for all is not in place in any of the three jurisdictions, so I have two requests. First, can our Government set a deadline beyond which they will not tolerate a failure to provide an open, transparent register? They must use all their powers and leverage to work with these democratically governed British overseas territories to find a way to bring them quickly into line with UK standards of transparency and accessibility regarding these registers.
My second request is about the Crown dependencies—Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. I understand that the Minister is here under the auspices of the FCDO, and they fall under the Ministry of Justice, but I hope that the Labour Government will very quickly look hard at applying the same UK standards to those Crown dependencies.
Mr Andrew Snowden (Fylde) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I thank the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) for securing this debate. Given that he represents the constituency I was born and raised in, I follow his contributions in Parliament more than he probably realises. His contribution today was as knowledgeable and constructive as everybody has come to expect.
I will comment on two points from his contribution. The first point is around the high street shops that we all see being used as a front for moving money, criminal gangs or hiding assets. When I was the Lancashire police and crime commissioner, that was a huge concern not only for the local communities, because of the damage it does to their high streets, but for the police in terms of being able to actually shut down different elements of organised crime gangs. The second point, which is linked to that, is the cryptocurrency element and finding out how the money—the cash—that has been generated in the UK by organised crime gangs disappears. I have sat in the room with the economic crime units of the Lancashire constabulary, looking at the cryptocurrency maps, and I could see where the dead ends suddenly appeared.
I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell) for his long-standing work in this area and his articulation of how there has been a cross-party effort for a considerable time, particularly from the 2016 G8 onwards. It is always daunting to respond from the Dispatch Box with such an esteemed and experienced colleague sitting behind me.
We recognise that financial services are integral to the economies, employment and prosperity of many of our British overseas territories and Crown dependencies, as has been outlined today. The sector underpins livelihoods, sustains local public services and contributes significantly to overall trade within our shared British family, and we want to see it thrive.
From Gibraltar to Bermuda, those jurisdictions have been world-class financial centres. They attract investment, foster innovation and connect our economies to global markets. That success should be celebrated and, of course, accompanied by sound regulation and transparency to ensure that success can continue. Registers of beneficial ownership have been one of the most powerful tools in our fight against economic crime. They have enabled law enforcement here in the UK and in our overseas territories to track and expose those who seek to abuse our financial systems for criminal gain.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, those registers have been vital in tracing hidden assets, enforcing sanctions and going after dirty money, but there is clearly much more work to do on successfully and fully implementing them across all the overseas territories. Gibraltar already leads with a fully public register of beneficial ownership; the Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands have now published legitimate interest registers; and others are due to follow in the next year or two. However, as has been recognised by my right hon. Friend and others, there is a significant delay.
The Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022, the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 and the new illicit finance campaign announced in 2024 all point to one shared goal—a clean, competitive and transparent financial system across the British family. There can be no place for dirty money, either at home or in British territories overseas.
The British family stand united against illicit finance. Together, we can ensure that our financial centres remain engines of good growth, rooted in trust and respected across the world. We want the financial services of our overseas territories and Crown dependencies not merely to survive but to flourish. However, they must be anchored in openness, accountability and the shared values that define our global reputation. I look forward to hearing the Minister answer the questions that have been posed by hon. Members, particularly on the Government’s approach to the countering illicit finance summit. At what point will the Government push harder for further measures?
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)
I thank all right hon. and hon. Members, and particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell), for this well-informed and genuinely passionate debate. I have listened with great interest to a number of the examples that they raised. As he and others acknowledged, this issue is a personal priority for me, the Foreign Secretary, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Government as a whole. We must ensure the greatest standards of transparency, tackle illicit finance and tackle global corruption.
Members referred to our plans for the illicit finance summit next year, which I am working on closely with ministerial colleagues, and the anti-corruption strategy, which I have been working on closely with colleagues in the Home Office, the Treasury and elsewhere. We hope to present that strategy before the end of the year, and I hope that it will allay many of the broad concerns that have been raised by Members. I also pay tribute to Baroness Hodge for her incredible work as our anti-corruption champion. She has worked on these issues for many years, and I had the pleasure of working on them with her, but she is an independent voice, a challenge to the Government and a partner. She genuinely wants to find constructive solutions, and that has very much been the tenor of her work in the role so far.
I acknowledge the nuance in the contributions of right hon. and hon. Members on the subject of our overseas territories family and our wider British family. They recognised that substantial progress has been made in a number of them, that there are challenges in others and that not all overseas territories are heavily involved in financial services—in fact, some are barely involved at all. Some substantial progress has been made by the Government as a result of pressure and questioning not only from Members of this House but from the overseas territories, the wider NGO media and the global community. They want to see transparency and action against corruption and illicit finance for the purposes that were set out clearly by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West, as well as by many other right hon. and hon. Members.
Many Members drew connections between their constituencies, the priorities of the UK Government and the priorities of the Governments in the overseas territories. It is important to remember that lack of transparency, reputational damage, and the activities of very problematic individuals and serious and organised crime gangs, including sanctioned individuals, do damage not only in our constituencies but in the overseas territories. As the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell) pointed out, that also does damage elsewhere in the world, particularly in the global south, Africa and other locations that, as he knows, I share his passion for.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West set out very clearly how this problem impacts growth, housing and property, security and national security, and our national standing. That is why it matters, and that is why I know that this debate will not go away. The elected leaders in the overseas territories and their Governments will have heard clearly the strength of cross-party feeling, although I note with interest the absence of one party in this Chamber. I will leave Members to make their own minds up about that, but those Governments will see the strength of cross-party desire for action.
I am glad to say that we are taking an approach of co-operation and collaboration with our overseas territories. It is important to remind all Members of the constitutional relationship with our overseas territories. The Government and I respect their autonomy, decision making and elected Governments. They have extraordinarily robust debates in their own countries, and it is absolutely right that they should do so. I have set out my respect for them and my principles about working with them in partnership, and that will be reflected in the Joint Ministerial Council. Of course, the nature of the relationship with the Crown dependencies is distinct, and is for colleagues in the Ministry of Justice, Home Office and elsewhere to respond to, although I note the strong comments made on progress in the CDs.
It is also true that with our respect for their rights, the constitutional settlement and their autonomy, which I want to empower and strengthen, come responsibilities for overseas territories as part of the British family—responsibilities not only to the global rules-based order and the highest standards of financial transparency, but to their own populations and citizens. Hon. Members have made that point very clear.
Work in this area is vital. Illicit finance, corruption and kleptocracy are not abstract threats; they are direct challenges to our national security, our economy and the integrity of the global financial system. As has rightly been pointed out, these practices make it easier for criminal gangs to operate, undermine economies, make it easier to break sanctions and weaken the rule of law. The Government are leading the way when it comes to confronting these challenges, safeguarding our security and promoting integrity across the global financial system.
I was glad that hon. Members pointed out the excellent work on sanctions co-operation, including with the Cayman Islands. I had a chance to compliment the Cayman Islands on work on Operation Hektor on a recent visit there. We have also done excellent work with the British Virgin Islands, where our authorities have worked together on sanctions enforcement, and resource has gone into that. For all that to work effectively, of course, there needs to be transparency, because we cannot see what is really happening without understanding who owns what, where and how.
Sir Andrew Mitchell
Of course, the Minister is right about transparency—sunlight is the best disinfectant—but may I just pin him down on one point? He is heavy on collaboration and trying to get agreement, and he is right about that, but let us be absolutely clear that the constitutional relationship with the overseas territories and Crown dependencies is that Britain and Parliament are responsible for security issues and foreign affairs. These are security issues, and they relate directly to foreign matters. If the overseas territories do not agree to accept the will of Parliament, the Minister must make it clear to them that the Westminster Government will act via an Order in Council. That is not a voluntary thing; it is our duty. That is the nature of the constitutional arrangement, and the very clear legal opinion that Baroness Hodge and I secured underlines the point.
Stephen Doughty
The right hon. Gentleman is right about the legal and constitutional position. My position is that I want to work very closely and co-operatively, and that approach has succeeded in producing very welcome progress over the past year and a half. That is the way that I always try to approach our relationship with our friends in the overseas territories and the wider family. However, he is absolutely right, and the strength of feeling today should leave nobody in any doubt about the wider impact of the challenge and the concern, among many right hon. and hon. Members, about its direct impact in their communities. As I said, this is about the direct impact on citizens in the overseas territories themselves, as well as in the wider world.
I do not rule out any option in the future, but I hope that at first we can keep to and deliver on the commitments that were made at the Joint Ministerial Council last year. Some of those have been met; some have not. I have been very candid about that with the current president of the UK Overseas Territories Association, and have had very direct conversations with Premiers and others.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West asked three specific questions. He asked about a visit with Baroness Hodge. I do not want to divulge our personal conversations, but he can be absolutely sure that we have met to discuss her findings, which she shared in great candour, as one would expect. I will take those on board. My expectation is that we will discuss this matter at the Joint Ministerial Council. The Premiers and elected representatives understand our position. Our expectation on fully public registers of beneficial ownership has not changed; nor has our expectation about the functioning of legitimate interest access registers in the meantime. I can assure my hon. Friend and others that we are engaging in forensic detail on how each of those works. For example, I had constructive conversations with the Premier of the Cayman Islands on my recent visit about the progress that it is making, and I expect further improvements in the months to come.
We follow these matters extremely closely and offer technical support and other advice on how we can work together co-operatively to deliver the most effective registers. For a register to be in place, with the necessary legislation, is all well and good, but if it does not function effectively because of fees or other barriers to its usability in practice, that is a serious concern. Obviously, there are territories that are yet to introduce such steps; the BVI, in particular, was mentioned.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West asked whether I would meet his colleague from the AUGB and I would be happy to do that. The links to Ukraine that many right hon. and hon. Members mentioned are examples of why this matters. The Government’s recent action on Cambodian scam centres was mentioned. That was a shocking scam involving fraud against our constituents up and down this country, which involved property in London and involved a UK overseas territory, the BVI. I know the Premier of the BVI shares our concern about tackling that type of activity. It is in all our interests that we have the transparency to enable more of these scams—more of this shocking activity—to be exposed.
Many links were made to property, including by my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell). I have seen examples in my own constituency of Cardiff South and Penarth, where residents faced with issues relating to fire and building safety have been unable to work out the original beneficial owners of large apartment buildings so that they can take appropriate action to ensure the safety of the buildings and their residents. Such issues impact every aspect of all our daily lives, including, as I said, in the overseas territories.
The BVI was mentioned extensively, so I want to be clear that the Government recognise some of the challenges. In August, a vessel owned by a BVI-registered entity transferred 2 million barrels of Iranian oil, which was delivered to China. Also this year, BVI-registered entities were discovered in the corporate chains of at least three sanctioned Russian oligarchs who own £35 million-worth of UK property, undoubtedly some of it in constituencies represented in this room. BVI-registered entities accounted for over 90% of identified suspicious funds invested through OTs into UK property between 2016 and 2024. We also have the challenge of inactive or dissolved BVI companies owning UK property. That creates substantial legal challenges around bona vacantia and ownerless assets, which many of us will have encountered in our constituencies.
As was rightly pointed out, in the three decades to 2018 more than 1,100 BVI-registered companies featured in corruption cases around the world. I know the seriousness with which the Premier and the Government there take these issues. I want to work with them in addressing them, because they impact all of us and they impact the BVI’s reputation, but to do that we need transparency and progress.
Colleagues made many important contributions and I will not be able to respond to them all in the time I have today, but I note the serious concerns about Mr Abramovich raised by my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer). I am not able to comment on individual tax matters at the Dispatch Box, but we remain committed to ensuring that the proceeds of the sale of Chelsea reach humanitarian causes in Ukraine. We are deeply frustrated that it has not yet been possible to reach an agreement with Mr Abramovich and his representatives. The door for negotiations remains open, but we are fully prepared to pursue the matter through the courts if required, as we have said on a number of occasions recently.
Important points were raised, including by my hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey), about HMRC. I am sure she will be able to raise her points with the relevant Ministers, but what she said about why transparency principles matter was very powerful. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) spoke powerfully about the impact on public services, on housing and on the high street, and about the challenges for our constituents. We have touched on all those points of nexus during the debate.
Financial secrecy is the oxygen that allows illicit finance to thrive and sanctions breaches to go undetected; it creates blind spots. It is, of course, a transnational problem. Dirty money pushes up property prices, making it harder for people to buy homes. Overseas corruption and illicit finance undermine economies, prop up kleptocratic regimes and threaten democracy. As the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield made clear, it is estimated that African countries alone lose around $90 billion a year in illicit capital flows. That is more than they receive in development assistance.
Jim Shannon
I thank the Minister for his detailed response to the issues that we raised. I mentioned the properties in Belfast that were allegedly held by certain people. Will he ensure that there is a concerted plan, driven from Westminster, for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, to ensure that those people are held accountable wherever they may be in the United Kingdom?
Stephen Doughty
I absolutely agree. The hon. Member spoke powerfully for his constituency of Strangford, as he always does. The fact that this issue impacts every part of the United Kingdom has been made very clear during the debate.
I want to update the House on where there is progress and where challenges remain. At the last Joint Ministerial Council, overseas territories made important commitments to improve corporate transparency by widening access to their registers of beneficial ownership. As I set out in my written statement to the House on 22 July, all territories are making progress on their commitments to implement the registers, and that progress is welcome, but we need to keep up the pace and to challenge in cases where there has been real back-marking on the issue.
I compliment St Helena, which launched its fully public register on 30 June 2025. The Falklands has shown me its draft legislation and it will have that implemented by next year—there are some capacity constraints for its officials. As has been mentioned, Gibraltar has had a fully publicly register since 2020 without any damage to its economy; the Chief Minister speaks powerfully about that issue. I compliment Montserrat, which has had a public register since 2024. The Caymans launched its legitimate interest access register in February 2025, which allows access by a range of people, including journalists. Turks and Caicos launched an LIA register on 30 June, we understand that Anguilla will implement within the next few months, and we have talked much about Bermuda and the BVI.
I want to reassure all right hon. and hon. Members that this issue remains a major priority for the Government. The overseas territories will have heard this debate, and the strength of feeling. Our commitment on this issue sits alongside our commitments to the relationship with the overseas territories more broadly, and to tackling corruption and illicit finance globally, which will be highlighted by the summits that were mentioned.
Stephen Doughty
I am conscious that I need to leave time for my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West to wind up the debate, so I will not.
I want to reassure Members that this issue remains a major priority for me and other Ministers, and I am very happy to continue to engage with Members on it. I hope that we can celebrate the progress as well as providing resolute challenge.
Phil Brickell
I thank all Members who contributed to this well spirited, genuinely cross-party debate, including my colleagues on the all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption and responsible tax: the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell), my hon. Friends the Members for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton), for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) and for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer), and my predecessor as the chair of the APPG, my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell). I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey) and for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt), the hon. Members for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and, for their thoughtful and impactful cross-party contributions, the hon. Members for Witney (Charlie Maynard) and for Fylde (Mr Snowden).
I especially thank the Minister for responding to the points that were raised. I know that he will continue to be a resolute champion for greater transparency in the overseas territories. I will do everything that I can to support him in that endeavour. I welcome his points that this issue is a personal priority for him; that the anti-corruption strategy on which he is working is genuinely cross-departmental with the Home Office and the Treasury; that elected leaders in the OTs will have heard and seen the cross-party strength of feeling here in Westminster today; that he has met Baroness Hodge on the subject of the British Virgin Islands—I will continue to support him in work in that jurisdiction—that the expectation around fully public registers of beneficial ownership has not changed; and that they have to function effectively. It is not just a case of having them in place; they must be properly implemented.
I acknowledge that the Minister recognised the scale of secrecy, particularly in the BVI, and the impact that has here at home. That is an important issue. As I outlined, financial secrecy in the UK’s overseas territories has real consequences on the streets here in Britain. Ultimately, this debate has been about fairness: fairness for the honest taxpayer, fairness for law-abiding businesses and fairness for every community that wants a level playing field. I look forward to working with colleagues from across the House, with Ministers across Government and with the anti-corruption champion to ensure that we are able to deliver fairness for everyone.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the impact of financial secrecy in the Overseas Territories on UK communities.
Bronze-age Heritage: Cambridgeshire
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Derek Twigg (in the Chair)
I remind Members that they may make a speech only with the prior permission of the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister; I have not been notified of any such. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates. I am keen that all interventions should be kept short.
Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Government support for Bronze Age heritage in Cambridgeshire.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg, and a privilege to speak in this debate on Government support for bronze-age heritage in Cambridgeshire. Before I start, I reiterate on the record, following the terrible attacks in our county this week, that my sympathy and thoughts are with the victims and with the first responders, police and others in Cambridgeshire, including in my constituency, who responded so valiantly and quickly on the night.
Cambridgeshire is home to some our country’s most outstanding bronze-age heritage, with 79 recognised sites of archaeological interest. That history tells us about where we have come from as well as how to protect our future.
Steve Race (Exeter) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Devon also has one of the highest concentrations of bronze-age settlements in the country. The Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter plays host to the Pinhoe and the Dawlish hoards, two fantastic bronze-age treasures for residents and visitors to see. Does my hon. Friend agree that such local museums are a good resource for local people?
Andrew Pakes
I will come on to talk about the importance of local museums. One great privilege of this place is to learn of the rich heritage of so many different parts of Britain and Northern Ireland—
Jim Shannon
I will do what you tell me to, Mr Twigg. This great nation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is something to be incredibly proud of, and it must be protected and treasured for future generations. It is said that we cannot know where we are going if we do not know where we have been. Does the hon. Member agree that sustained funding must be given to celebrate and secure historical relevance in this modern United Kingdom?
Andrew Pakes
It is always a pleasure to take interventions from the hon. Member. I hope he will hear that this is a speech of celebration as well as of questions for the Minister.
Let us come back to Peterborough. Central to Peterborough’s story are the sites of Flag Fen and Must Farm, two of the most archaeologically and internationally significant bronze-age discoveries of our generation. Flag Fen is the only site in Europe where visitors can view a bronze-age causeway and a unique collection of bronze-age log boats, discovered in the lost course of the River Nene close to Must Farm. Peterborough Museum curates and has responsibility for the Must Farm collection. Flag Fen delivers the conservation and presentation of the River Nene bronze-age boat discoveries, and Must Farm is of both national and international significance.
Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery and Flag Fen are held in trust for the benefit of local people and visitors to the city. That model matters, because it embeds civic pride and ownership in protecting our common heritage. However, it does not come without challenges, particularly around local government funding and public service support for archaeology and archaeologists.
Charlotte Cane (Ely and East Cambridgeshire) (LD)
I thank the hon. Member for securing this debate. I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as an affiliate member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists. Cambridgeshire Scouts’ Archaeology Squad in my constituency gives children a chance to get involved in archaeology and holds an archaeology day at Ely Museum. Does he agree that getting young people involved in archaeology in that way is vital for its future?
Andrew Pakes
I wholeheartedly agree. Fundamentally, we are talking about our shared heritage—the heritage not just of Peterborough, but of Cambridgeshire and of Britain and Northern Ireland as a whole. In that light, I want to talk about access, because it matters that young people in our area can access and learn from these sites. In an age where we focus a lot on immigration, Flag Fen and Must Farm are evidence that people have been coming to Peterborough as traders and neighbours for more than 1,000 years.
Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)
Must Farm is just outside my constituency, in the constituency of the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay), who I am very pleased to see here. It provides great support for people in Stanground in my area. Will my hon. Friend join me in welcoming its contribution to the broader area and exploring how we can encourage more people to visit it?
Andrew Pakes
I certainly welcome that, and I also welcome the number of Cambridgeshire MPs who are here to celebrate our county’s rich bronze-age heritage.
Too often, young people are denied the chance to learn about their history because of the lack of public transport linked to places such as Flag Fen, and because of the pressures on school budgets restricting opportunities for visits and learning. We are beginning to turn that around, and I am proud of our record in Government so far, but there is more to do. A rich world on our doorstep is something that all students should be able to learn from, regardless of background or wealth.
Flag Fen’s story began with its discovery in 1971, when excavations ahead of the construction of Peterborough new town revealed an almost intact bronze-age landscape running along the edge of the drained fen. Then, in November 1982, archaeologists surveying the depths of the basin came across the timbers of what proved to be an internationally important site, Flag Fen. The rich archaeological collection and remains there are important in understanding the wider prehistoric landscape of the Flag Fen basin, and what was happening in Britain during the bronze age.
Almost since Flag Fen’s discovery, the management strategy has been to protect these remarkable remains by leaving them buried in the ground that has protected them for nearly 3,500 years. However, even then we knew that the land would not protect the archaeology forever, but that one day the precious vanished world would succumb to climate change and fen drainage, leaving nothing but dust. That goes to the heart of one of the challenges now: new evidence suggests that we have reached the point where, without intervention, we will move from protection to abandonment. We need a new approach to capture the value of places such as Flag Fen, and retain their special place in our community for the benefit of generations to come—a new mission, we might say, to create access on all levels through new interpretations and historical knowledge.
Cambridgeshire is also home to Must Farm; I am delighted that this week Peterborough Museum has been awarded a £250,000 grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to support a two-year initiative centred on the internationally significant bronze-age archaeology at Must Farm in Whittlesey. The discovery in 2015 of the Must Farm settlement, dubbed the “Pompeii of the fens”, provided an extraordinary glimpse into everyday life in the bronze age due to the exceptional preservation of its artefacts. This newly funded project, entitled “My Must Farm”, will encourage communities to bring those discoveries alive in imaginative and exciting ways for visitors from Peterborough, Cambridgeshire and hopefully beyond.
I thank the Government for their commitment to heritage in Peterborough and more widely, but I want to highlight a few threats facing our heritage sector. I have already mentioned accessibility and the rural nature of the sites that I have referred to, but there are also socioeconomic barriers. Deprivation is a huge issue for many places, including Peterborough; families who are worse off could be barred from accessing the heritage right on their doorstep. Improved access will help to develop a stronger pride in place and open opportunities that can seem unattainable to some families nowadays.
The numbers of bronze-age wetland archaeology specialists are in decline, which puts future high-quality management of bronze-age discoveries in Cambridgeshire and elsewhere at risk. That speaks to career paths and pay for archaeologists. Increasingly, those entering the field are forced to make tough decisions about whether they can afford to be archaeologists or need to pursue other paths with better pay.
Finally, there is the issue of heritage crime. Flag Fen has suffered two catastrophic arson events in the last five years. The first destroyed a building used as an education room for visiting schoolchildren, and the second, in July this year, destroyed a replica iron-age roundhouse. The effect of both fires was to remove spaces that are used by schools for learning and “outside the classroom” programmes.
Heritage is our shared inheritance, and it is a privilege to represent a community in a county that has a rich bronze-age heritage.
Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Ind)
I sense the hon. Member is winding up, but before he does, I would like to say that across the border in North Hertfordshire we also have some fantastic bronze-age heritage in places such as Arbury Banks and Therfield Heath, but we have had real difficulties in preserving that heritage because of the sheer number of finds we are getting from development locally. He mentioned the importance of museums; will he join me in asking the Minister to consider what more we can do to fund our local authorities so that they can properly preserve that heritage for our whole community into the future?
Andrew Pakes
Absolutely; that brings me on to some questions I have for the Minister.
Can the Minister set out the ongoing support the Government are providing and their commitment to regional museums and heritage and smaller artefacts in places such as Flag Fen in Cambridgeshire? We have wonderful national institutions, but out in counties such as ours we also have nationally significant places that people can visit, and I am keen to understand the Government’s commitment to those places. What is his thinking on how that funding will develop in future and how the Government will support it? It is really important, not only for the heritage, but to bring people into a city like ours.
There is a lot more going on in Peterborough than meets the eye, from Flag Fen and Must Farm to our majestic 900-year-old cathedral, and from Peterborough Museum, which sold over 17,000 tickets to its recent “Doctor Who” exhibition, to our art deco lido, which celebrates its 90th anniversary next year, and even our very own Oakham Ales, which just this weekend was rated one of the top taprooms in the country by The i Paper. These are all reasons why I love my part of the country, and why I honourably ask the Minister to set out the Government’s ongoing support for them.
We value our heritage locally, but we also know the contribution that Cambridgeshire and bronze-age heritage makes to our national and international reputation as a centre of culture. It is why I am proud to have the privilege of being named chair of the Peterborough tourist board, which has just launched the Discover Peterborough website. Together, we are changing Peterborough for the better and, with Government support, we will succeed.
The Minister for Creative Industries, Media and Arts (Ian Murray)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg—particularly after last night’s result at Anfield, which will make you a happy Chair this morning. I am pleased to respond to this debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) on securing it and on the way in which he delivered his remarks.
It is worth saying that my hon. Friend is an outstanding Member for his constituency. If I had a pound for every time he has mentioned Peterborough in the House of Commons or to Ministers, lobbying on behalf of his constituency, I would almost be able to afford the train fare from Edinburgh to Peterborough to come and visit all the wonderful things he spoke about. He mentioned the “Doctor Who” exhibition there, but the person who is regenerating Peterborough is my hon. Friend himself—if that is not too outlandish a “Doctor Who” pun. Like my hon. Friend, my thoughts are with those affected by the horrific events over the weekend in his county.
I welcome my hon. Friend’s desire for better access to heritage, in particular those close to home: the Flag Fen archaeology park and Must Farm. Flag Fen was discovered during the extensive fenland survey supported by the Government’s arm’s length body Historic England, known as English Heritage at the time. Flag Fen was discovered when lead archaeologist Francis Pryor tripped on a piece of wood lying in a drainage ditch. That would lead to the discovery of more than 60,000 timbers, arranged in five long rows to create a unique historical wooden causeway across the fenland, constructed around 3,500 years ago. It is hard to believe that, without those efforts, the site might never have been discovered—indeed, if most of us had tripped over a piece of wood, it would have led to a few expletives, rather than to such a discovery.
The significance of the Flag Fen site was officially recognised through its designation by Government as a scheduled monument, which recognises the site as nationally important and provides statutory protection. I share my hon. Friend’s horror at the two recent incidents of arson at Flag Fen, but I am pleased that Historic England’s work to tackle heritage crimes continues to go from strength to strength, in partnership with the police, other authorities and a range of other stakeholders, including a growing number of local authorities. I am pleased that Cambridgeshire county council is among the leading local authorities in looking at heritage crime.
It is important that we can all experience and enjoy the heritage that surrounds us, which forms the backbone of our shared national story. One of the priorities of the Secretary of State for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is to create richer lives with choices and opportunities for all, including by increasing access to heritage and culture. My hon. Friend mentioned that in his speech, and I know that learning and educational experience is close to his heart.
I am therefore delighted that Historic England is working in partnership with Flag Fen archaeology park, Peterborough city council and the University of Cambridge on a strategic plan to increase access to and economic development for the site. That plan will include new opportunities for archaeological investigation, engagement with local communities and learning programmes for younger people. It will create an immersive and enjoyable visitor experience for a wider audience, and physically connect more audiences to Flag Fen through improved transport links. Since the discovery of Flag Fen, Historic England has given it more than £530,000 and will continue to work with that important site so that many future generations can benefit from and be custodians of it.
Cambridgeshire is also home of the famous Must Farm site at Whittlesey in East Anglia, in the constituency of the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay). That is of international importance and provides an incredible snapshot in time of sophisticated bronze-age domestic life.
Ian Murray
I do not know whether that is a reference to the site itself or to the right hon. Gentleman—we are about to find out.
Steve Barclay
I pay tribute to my Cambridgeshire colleague, the hon. Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes), for securing this debate. I am grateful that the Minister draws out that distinction. Must Farm, the 3,000-year-old settlement dubbed the “Pompeii of the fens”, is in Fenland in my constituency, yet the funding always seems to go to Peterborough next door. Some of that is logical, but will he clarify what share of this funding will go to Fenland residents so that they can benefit from a discovery in their local authority area?
Ian Murray
I will get back to the right hon. Gentleman with the specifics of the funding. On funding more generally, which my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough raised, we know that these are tough times for local authorities, which have been massively underfunded since 2010. There is a requirement to prioritise heritage, of which we are custodians for today and tomorrow—we want to pass it on to future generations. We need to work with the National Lottery Heritage Fund to make up the difference for local authorities. We should encourage local authorities to work together to ensure that everyone benefits.
The Secretary of State’s commitment to ensuring that there are arts and heritage for all, right across the country, should answer some of those questions, but I will write to the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire on the specific issues he raised. In general terms, we are very much committed to ensuring that all our heritage sites, and the custodians of them, are well funded. He mentioned that there was a sudden fire, earning the site the nickname “Britain’s Pompeii”. It boasts extensive structural remains and a range of material, giving us an insight into the way people lived nearly 3,000 years ago. This is a great advert for it, and people should go and see it: the circle of wooden houses are believed to be the best-preserved bronze-age dwellings ever found in Britain, and a further nine immaculately preserved longboats were discovered and excavated there in 2011. They range from the bronze to the iron age. The site is very much something that people should visit to educate themselves.
The major excavation, which took place almost a decade ago, was funded by Historic England and the landowner, Forterra. It received about £1.42 million of funding. The project won several archaeological awards, including rescue project of the year at the 2017 Current Archaeology awards, and best archaeological discovery at the 2012 British archaeological awards—snappily titled awards for that project.
I recognise the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough about the shortage of archaeological and heritage skills. That is a priority for the Minister for Heritage, Baroness Twycross. Such skills are essential to maintaining the fabric of these important sites. Baroness Twycross held a skills roundtable in July and is working to understand how the sector can benefit from a range of entry routes. My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough raised skills with the Department, and this morning I have asked my officials to look at whether universities are producing enough archaeologists. In the last two days, I was at the informal meeting of EU Culture Ministers in Copenhagen, and the Cypriot Culture Minister raised her concern about the pipeline of British archaeologists. Places such as Cyprus rely on the archaeological expertise of the United Kingdom in preserving their own heritage. I will get back to my hon. Friend with more details as that progresses.
Earlier this month, the Prime Minister announced the 75 recipients of the £20 million museum renewal fund. I was delighted that Peterborough city council was awarded £168,000, part of which will help Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery display the world-famous Must Farm bronze-age collections. Everyone should go and see them when they are displayed.
My Department is responsible for designating heritage assets through listed buildings and scheduling monuments so that they are protected in law for future generations. In total, Cambridgeshire is home to 59 scheduled bronze-age monuments, mostly bronze-age burial mounds. The most recent is the remains of the Money Hill round barrow cemetery, which was scheduled only last month as a monument. I am delighted that the future of Money Hill is now secured through collaboration between Historic England and East West Rail, another stakeholder, demonstrating how effective planning discussions can ensure that development and heritage protections stand side by side. That is something that we are keen to protect.
The neighbouring city of Peterborough is home to a further 23 scheduled bronze-age monuments, including Flag Fen. Preserving and maintaining the rich heritage of Cambridgeshire, or any region across the country, poses challenges, many of which were raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough. In addition to the previously mentioned funding, the Government and their arm’s length bodies, the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Historic England and others, have provided many millions to ensure the safety, maintenance and preservation of not only the region’s bronze-age heritage, but all of Cambridgeshire’s invaluable heritage assets.
Since the founding of the National Lottery Heritage Fund in 1994, it alone has awarded £153 million to 897 projects within the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough combined authority boundaries, which shows the huge importance of that fund. That money has gone towards projects such as Peatland Progress, which received £8.8 million towards uniting the north and south halves of the Great Fen to safeguard biodiversity and support the region’s natural heritage. This Government are committed to ensuring the protection of our wonderful heritage and creating an inclusive national story that reflects the lives of extraordinary people from extraordinary places all over the country.
Local heritage is a powerful storyteller, defining who we are and forming the essential cornerstone of our communities. The Government strongly believe in supporting communities to celebrate and adapt the heritage buildings they value, ensuring that they remain as relevant today as they will be tomorrow. Earlier this year, to mark the 60th anniversary of the first arts White Paper, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport announced a massive £270 million investment to fix the foundations of our arts venues, museums, libraries and heritage sector nationwide.
Chris Hinchliff
While the Minister is talking about the brilliant work that the Government are doing nationally to protect and preserve our heritage, can I encourage him to welcome the fact that the now Labour-run North Herts council is choosing to prioritise investment in our museum storage, so that we can preserve our bronze-age heritage and local heritage more widely?
Ian Murray
I commend the local authority for that investment. Indeed, this subject comes up regularly; we had an Adjournment debate in the Chamber a few weeks ago on heritage in the east of England, and many of the comments were about how we protect those collections and show them to the public. What museums are doing across the country to give access to those collections is something that we should support to ensure that not only are they preserved, but that people can see them, enjoy them and gain education and knowledge from them.
As part of the investment, we announced in August that 37 historic buildings and sites in areas most in need will receive much-needed restoration and repair funding through the heritage at risk capital scheme, including Laurel Court in Peterborough, where funding will secure the building ahead of further renovation. We are also empowering local groups to own the heritage assets they treasure through the heritage revival fund, providing nearly £5 million through the architectural heritage fund to breathe new life into communities by repurposing historic buildings to meet present needs. In that way the past is preserved, and the buildings are used for the future.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough for securing this debate and providing me with the opportunity to discuss the importance of bronze-age heritage, and the Government’s commitment to protecting and enhancing all our shared heritage. Like my hon. Friend, I encourage more people to visit these historic sites and celebrate the history of Cambridgeshire. From the international significance of Must Farm to the local treasure of Flag Fen, it is important not only to honour our bronze-age heritage, but to recognise the positive impact that these sites have on the local and national community in the present. As a Government, and as citizens, we are custodians of our heritage for future generations to enjoy and learn from. We are committed as a Government to making sure that that very heavy responsibility is met fully.
Question put and agreed to.
House Building: London
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Government support for housebuilding in London.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank all hon. Members who enabled me to secure this important debate. It could not be more timely, as house building in London has collapsed. In the first nine months of 2025, construction began on only 3,248 homes. Molior London predicts that just 9,100 homes will be built across 2027 and 2028—that is under 5% of the Government’s target for London. London is supposed to deliver more than a quarter of the Government’s 1.5 million homes target, but given the construction slowdown, that target appears to be dead in the water. That is the inevitable consequence of the Mayor of London’s disastrous London plan and the Labour Government’s anti-growth policies.
Three things have gone wrong. First, Sadiq Khan’s London plan has comprehensively failed to get London building. With more than 500 pages and 123 planning policies, the London plan makes it more complex and expensive to build in London. A 2024 review found that it takes seven weeks longer to determine major planning applications in London than in the next four largest cities. Sadiq Khan’s planning requirements also add to the cost of building in London. For example, the London plan goes beyond the national energy requirements, imposes carbon targets, and has policies on overheating and energy statements. Whatever the merits of those policies, they all add to the cost of building homes. In places, Sadiq Khan’s planning policies actively restrict house building. For example, the London plan effectively bans house building on large swathes of industrial land, often within walking distance of public transport.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
My hon. Friend is painting a really bleak picture for London. Does he agree that to build the homes that we need in this country, we should focus not only on increased density in our city centres, but crucially on brownfield sites? We are not seeing from the Government a determined brownfield-first approach to housing that would protect the green belts surrounding our towns and cities.
Mr French
I agree that we should have a brownfield-first approach, seeking to protect our green belt and countryside wherever possible. I understand my right hon. Friend’s concern and her representations on behalf of her constituents.
The Home Builders Federation warns that the London plan’s net zero requirements are imposing carbon offset payments of £3,000 a home. Even when building on brownfield land is allowed, it is fraught with problems. The mayor requires 50% of homes to be affordable, which, given the remediation costs on those sites, makes development unviable. Altogether, the London plan review in 2024 found that Sadiq Khan’s policies frustrated, rather than facilitated, development on brownfield land. That is why it is so disappointing that the Government stopped the mandated partial review of the London plan a year ago, saving their mayor’s blushes.
Secondly, Sadiq Khan’s affordable homes target has made many housing projects unviable in London. By demanding that 35% of homes built privately are affordable, he has made house building unviable in London.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
The hon. Member is painting a picture that I do not recognise in my London constituency. Is he aware that, as Mayor of London, Sadiq has averaged 10,000 more new homes completed a year than under Boris Johnson’s mayoralty? He has got house building going in a way that the Tory mayor could not.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
My intervention is similar. Under Sadiq Khan’s period in City Hall, there have been 8,236 Greater London Authority-funded affordable starts in my borough of Southwark, including 636 completions in the last year. That somewhat contradicts the hon. Gentleman’s statements. Rather than trying to pin it on the mayor, could it be that the hon. Gentleman’s council is failing on this front? Perhaps we could be working together, rather than trying to pin it on one man.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing the debate; he is absolutely right to underline this issue. Older couples whose families have flown the nest want to downsize but cannot find an affordable house in a suitable area, and that problem is replicated throughout the United Kingdom. Does he agree that that is a critical factor in sorting out affordable housing provision in London or, indeed, anywhere?
Mr French
I absolutely agree, and I appreciate the hon. Gentleman making one of his well-respected interventions in this important debate. We have to make sure that across the country, we are building the homes that people want to live in and that people can afford, including people in older age.
Demanding that 35% of homes built privately are affordable has made house building in London unviable. The higher 50% target for industrial land also applies to public land, which, again, has effectively blocked development in the capital. This policy may seem like a good way to get London building more social housing, but it has hugely backfired. The policy is effectively a tax on house building. It makes some development unviable and deters investment. It ultimately means fewer homes and higher costs. If a developer cannot afford the target, they face six burdensome checks on the project’s viability before, during and after construction.
Wendy Morton
The key thing is that until the Government recognise that they need to put some support into brownfield regeneration, our green belt and our green spaces will always be under threat.
Mr French
I absolutely agree. We need to unlock brownfield sites in the interests of current and future generations that want to own a home.
If there is any surplus profit in the situation I was describing, the developer will lose it, but if they make a loss, the number of affordable homes required will not be reduced. For a decade, London Conservatives have warned that this policy will harm house building. Today, we see the consequences. Sadiq Khan’s failed London plan has created a perfect storm, compounded by failing demand, policy costs and regulatory delays.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr French
I am going to make a bit of progress, because I have been up and down quite a lot, and I am not fit enough to keep doing it.
Under this Labour Government, more and more first-time buyers are unable to afford a home, and they are the primary market for new builds in London. Over 3,700 new homes are sitting unsold. This is not a market where developers will build more. The Labour Government were wrong to slash first-time buyers’ stamp duty relief, costing first-time buyers up to £11,250 more in taxes. That is why the Conservatives’ plan to abolish stamp duty is the right one, and the Labour Government must rule out further market-suppressing tax rises.
Developers also face excessive policy costs—section 106 payments, community infrastructure levy payments, mayoral community infrastructure levy payments, carbon offset levies, biodiversity net gain requirements and the new building safety levy. The collective cost of those demands makes it too expensive to build. To make matters worse, on top of the burdensome London plan, the well-intentioned post-Grenfell Building Safety Regulator is now delaying building in the capital. It has rejected 70% of building safety designs, and some completed projects have had to wait 18 months for approval before people can move in.
Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way. I have listened carefully to his analysis of the problem—I have waited to hear the full analysis—and I would be grateful for some reflection on why the deregulatory proposals he is making were not brought forward under the previous Government when there was clearly an opportunity to do so.
Mr French
I appreciate the argument the hon. Lady is trying to make, and I am about to come on to some suggestions to hopefully help the Government.
The mayor has had strategic planning powers in the capital for nine years, and he was awarded £9 billion of affordable homes money by the previous Government. We have to be clear about where blame in the capital lies.
Rachel Blake
I am listening to the hon. Gentleman’s argument about strategic planning, but I believe every Member present, including myself, has substantial experience in bringing forward new genuinely affordable homes. We all know that it requires finance and real delivery focus, particularly in local authorities. Can the hon. Gentleman reflect on his time in local government and how many genuinely affordable council homes were brought forward in that period? Obviously, the ability to deliver from a council setting is a key part of solving this important challenge for London.
Mr French
Again, I appreciate the point that the hon. Lady is trying to make. I have already outlined the Bexley position in response to the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), so I do not need to go back into that—Bexley has been delivering affordable homes.
What can be done now? I am afraid that the recent measures announced by the Government and the Mayor of London—without consulting London’s 32 boroughs—to unlock house building are too little, and potentially too late. They will give developers only temporary, targeted relief from the community infrastructure levy on brownfield sites, but not from the more expensive mayoral levy. The changes to the affordable homes targets do not go far enough; at 35%, demand is still placed on industrial and public land, acting as a blocker on these sites that could host thousands of homes. While a temporary fast-track route for homes that provide 20% affordable housing is welcome, it is a minor amendment to a system that has ultimately failed.
More concerning are the proposals to give the Mayor of London the power to call-in applications for 50 homes or more and for developments on green belt and metropolitan open land. It is undemocratic to withdraw planning powers from local communities. It will backfire, eroding the little remaining public trust in the Greater London Authority, and it will confirm to outer Londoners that Labour’s plan is not to unlock building on well-connected brownfield sites, but to concrete over our precious remaining countryside.
Andy Slaughter
The problem I have with the hon. Gentleman’s speech is the implication that the Conservatives are in favour of house building, particularly affordable house building. I had the dubious distinction of having a Conservative council for eight years, which typically asked for 0% or 5% of homes to be affordable, and the Conservative Government’s permitted development rights meant that commercial property could be transferred into residential property with no affordable housing at all, even on major and important sites. Is that not the legacy of the hon. Gentleman’s party?
Mr French
I disagree with the hon. Gentleman, but I understand the argument that he is trying to make. Ultimately, my position is that the way to get truly affordable homes is not by setting artificial targets; it is by building more homes across London. That is how we bring prices down and unlock home ownership for more Londoners across the capital.
Why should Sadiq Khan, who has comprehensively failed to get London building, be given more powers? As I have outlined, his London plan has made it too difficult and complicated to build in London, and as a result, Londoners face higher rents and unaffordable housing prices. Now he wants to build on the green belt, while brownfield sites near tube stations sit empty. This is completely unacceptable.
Sadiq Khan and the Labour party may boast about his house building record, but the reality is that four fifths of the homes that were built in London last year received planning permission under Boris Johnson. The same is true of the majority of homes that were started last year—they were approved under Boris Johnson, not Sadiq Khan. We are nine years into Sadiq Khan’s mayoralty, and his predecessor is still building or unlocking more homes than him.
The answer is not to build on the green belt, and it is not to let houses in multiple occupation conversions run wild or to take more powers away from local communities. It is to make it easier and cheaper to build in London again, and that means scrapping Sadiq Khan’s failed planning policies. Home ownership should be a dream that is open to everyone, but in Sadiq Khan’s London it is frankly not. It is a moral imperative that the Government step in to fix his mistakes.
Several hon. Members rose—
David Mundell (in the Chair)
I am going to impose an informal five-minute limit, and we will see how we get on.
Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
Over the past years, I have been working with constituents and campaigners who have long been concerned about ongoing disempowerment in planning and development processes, and deregulation of the building and developer industry. Londoners and my constituents have been priced out, with increasing gentrification and affordable homes that are not only in shortage but all too often just not affordable. That is the legacy of the previous Tory Government and their previous Tory Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.
That is why I warmly welcome the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, a much-needed law to increase tenants’ protections against unscrupulous and rogue landlords. That is also why I am concerned about the announced changes to affordable housing delivery in London, which will mean that developers can get fast-tracked planning permission for developments with just 20% affordable homes, compared with 35%, as had been the case for numerous years. I understand that the policy’s intention is to speed up the delivery of house building in London, but at what cost?
For so many across London, including in my constituency, the 35% requirement was seen to be an injustice, in and of itself, that contributes to sustaining the housing crisis across London, with rising rates of homelessness, insufficient social housing, soaring rents and associated poor-quality housing. The announcement that the requirement will be reduced to 20% therefore feels like adding insult to injury. Constituents see no benefit to them, but more profits for developers, at a time when London is experiencing record levels of homelessness. Shelter has said that more than 97,000 children are homeless in temporary accommodation, as I know acutely from my constituency casework. The demand for social rent homes is at an all-time high.
In asking questions to the Minister, I recognise that all that reflects the legacy and record left by the Tory party in government, but what alternative solutions to delivering social housing have been considered? Will there be any assessment of the impact of the 20% requirement on social housing supply in London? Importantly, how will social housing commitments in existing planning permissions in London be safeguarded and maintained to ensure that there is no reduction in the delivery of the social housing that Londoners need, in particular where developments are already approved? That is especially important in my constituency, where there has been a considerable delay to the Chrisp Street redevelopment plans. I am concerned that targets and previous commitments may not be honoured.
It is my strong view, and the view of constituents who have contacted me over the years, that development should be focused on solving the existing housing crisis and be driven in the interests of local people. Rather than relying on developers and lowering ambitions on social housing, the priority in London ought to be increasing direct investment in social housing, particularly council housing, for the present as well as the future. Housing is a right, and we must all have safe, affordable and secure housing. We need investment and empowerment in our communities, and to resolve the housing crisis we need a mass building programme of social and particularly council housing.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I salute my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) for initiating the debate.
The debate is timely given the decision last week, by the Government and City Hall, to lower targets for affordable housing in developments, in exchange for the granting of supposedly faster planning permission. That is a real concern. The briefing that we have received from Crisis demonstrates that more than 13,231 people were rough sleeping in London during the last year—a record high and a 10% increase on the previous year. Some 70,000 households, including 90,000 children, are in temporary accommodation. Not only is that bad for the families, but it is costing Londoners and the taxpayer something like £5 million a day in London. In particular, money is being spent on bed and breakfast accommodation, which is not only unsuitable for families but expensive for London authorities to bear. There are 336,366 households on social housing waiting lists in London. The crunch is whether this decision is actually going to deliver any improvement in social housing.
Before anyone starts talking about the previous Government or the former Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, I remind hon. Members, particularly newly elected Labour Members, that I tried to carry through a Bill on behalf of Boris Johnson to increase house building in London. We were blocked by the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), who is no longer in his place, and the hon. Member for Islington—I am not sure which.
Bob Blackman
No, the other one: the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). That meant that whole sites in London were not developed to provide housing when they should have been.
Clearly we have a serious problem here. In my constituency, there is a planning application that has been outstanding, after having been reviewed at various times, for nearly 10 years. It would provide housing units that we desperately need, but the housing association refuses to develop it. It is now trying to sell the site again to further developers.
Our other problem in London is where developments have taken place. There have been developments such as Battersea power station, around Wembley stadium and other areas where housing has gone up, but that housing has not been sold to local people; it is been sold to developers or owners abroad, then rented out at exorbitant cost to local London people, who then have to apply for housing benefit and depend on welfare payments rather than having a home of their own. We have to conquer this.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Gentleman made a very good point about overseas sales, although I would contest his statement that people are having to receive housing benefit to live in many of those developments because, as he probably knows, they are advertised overseas by yield. We are seeing homes in London as financial investment vehicles for people who have no connection with this country. Many of those landlords have never even visited the property. What would his party’s policy be to tackle this issue?
Bob Blackman
I do not speak on behalf of my party; I speak on my own behalf. As the hon. Lady well knows, I have been promoting building 90,000 socially rented homes a year across the country, and for the past 30 years Governments of all persuasions have failed to build the homes that we need at the prices that people can afford.
The sad reality is that we have to look at how we are going to deal with this. We could deal with the Transport for London land. TfL owns huge amounts of unused land that could be developed for housing, and that could be done in co-operation with City Hall, but the sad fact is—[Interruption.] Government Members need to focus on this: not only was Sadiq Khan as mayor given the money that my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup mentioned, but he returned it to the Treasury; he could not spend it because he could not get development under way.
We have to look at what we are going to do across the House to make sure that houses are being built in London. I hope that we are not going to reduce the safety requirements for these buildings. That would be a disaster—we know of the terrible tragedy that happened in Grenfell. We should not even contemplate moving away from what has been done to protect people. Lessening those protections would be a mistake in many ways.
I have a couple of questions for the Minister. How are the Government going to ensure that the affordable homes that we need in London are provided when the restrictions have been removed and developers are therefore less likely to build affordable housing that we need? Before agreeing to this decision, what assessment has the Minister made of the impact it will have on those on the affordable housing waiting lists in London? That is a real crisis, and London councils right now are in desperate need of more finance to build more housing. There are possibilities to develop the brownfield sites that TfL and the Government own, but that is being restricted. There is a solution that we could advance. We hope the Government and the Minister, who I have a lot of respect for, can influence the Mayor of London to make that happen.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) on getting this slot. As he can see, the subject is close to the hearts of so many of us; more importantly, it is close to the hearts of our constituents.
In Islington, those who want affordable housing have to have social housing. Nothing else works. In Islington, we therefore need to have a policy to maximise social housing. People can rent privately, but the only way they can afford to rent privately is by renting out one room each: that means having a single person sleeping in the sitting room, and other single people sleeping in the bedrooms. We have lots of large, dark, sad tower blocks that were built under the Liberal Democrats, which have been bought for investment purposes and are not used. Their lights are off at night, nobody is on the voter register —they are just there, and they laugh at the 17,000 people on the waiting list in Islington who desperately need social housing. Those are Islington people who want to live in Islington, and there is no space for them.
Frankly, politics in Islington begins and ends with housing. We have some very rich people, some lucky people and some very poor people in Islington, but moving to Islington is impossible for an ordinary person. We have a vibrant community. We are a tiny community—Islington is one of the tiniest boroughs in Britain. Let me give hon. Members some stats about it: Bexley borough is four times bigger and Bromley borough is ten times bigger than Islington. The Minister is likely to say that 20% of something is better than 35% of nothing. I get that, but I do not think that one size fits all, particularly in little brave Islington.
Since the current Chief Secretary to the Treasury was in charge of housing in Islington, we have had a policy that 50% of all new developments need to be affordable. We say to the developer, “Fine. The land is expensive. You’re going to make a killing on the flats that you build. But half of them have to be for local people, which means that they have to be affordable, which means they have to be social, because nothing else is affordable in Islington. We will let you have half, but half of it has to be for us, and that is how it is.”
We have been doing that, and it has not meant that we have got nothing. Since 2020, seven schemes have gone through in Islington, which has resulted in nearly 1,000 affordable homes. That may not seem like a lot, but it is in somewhere as cramped as Islington where the opportunities are as few as we get. I have the least amount of green space of any MP in the whole of Britain. I have 120,000 people crammed into the seventh smallest constituency in the country. We have 15,000 people per kilometre. Our opportunities for development are limited.
I appreciate that it has recently become more difficult for local authorities to build by themselves, but until recently the joke was that if someone left their garage in the morning to drive to work, by the time they came back the local authority would have built a flat there. It is a political and social imperative to build as much housing for our people as we possibly can, and that is what we want to do. Unlike the Bromleys and the other boroughs, we have only little infill sites. We do not have big developments. Please do not give everybody instructions to do exactly the same thing because that is not going to work.
I ask that we look at what can be achieved and allow Islington to continue to insist on 50% so that when we do get our tiny little sites available for development, we can say to a developer, “You are very welcome. Welcome to Islington. We are headbangers. We have 17,000 people on the waiting list. You have to build half of it as affordable housing. You know that because we have been saying it for 15 years and we will continue to do so.” We would rather the Government did not undermine that so that we can continue to do it.
It is more difficult to get those developments, and it may be that those sites will take a bit longer to be developed. However, we would rather such tiny sites as we have be developed for social housing and local people and take a bit longer to develop than yet another great big tower block that is empty, dark and owned by people in China who have decided to build to buy a flat in Islington instead of a gold bar. That is the reality of housing in Islington.
I know that the Minister knows what I am talking about. I know that he is very thoughtful and an absolute expert in housing and wants to do exactly what we want. We know that the housing crisis can be solved only by building more housing. Absolutely—he has my full support on that. But we need to have housing that local people can live in. The reality of the economy in central and inner London is that we must have affordable housing. Otherwise people will continue to come.
Whenever I speak about housing in Islington, I try not to cherry-pick; I just talk about the last time someone spoke to me about housing. Someone spoke to me about housing on Saturday. I knocked on their door and there was a terrible noise. There was a child in the corridor screaming and screaming. Mum had her headphones on because the child is clearly autistic. She came to the door and said, “Emily, I’ve been to see you so many times and you just cannot get me rehoused, can you? There’s five of us in this one-bedroom flat.” That is the reality. That is why we have to build more social housing in Islington. That is how people live, and it is wrong. Our absolute priority must be to build more homes that families like that can live in.
David Mundell (in the Chair)
I call Peter Fortune, who I am sure will stick to the five-minute limit.
Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)
Of course I will, Mr Mundell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) for securing this debate. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for his excellent speech, much of which I agreed with, especially about using the TfL space.
The TfL chairman is Sadiq Khan and, as Mayor of London, he is responsible not only for TfL but for house building in London. If we look at some of his promises in 2016, he said his first priority would be tackling the housing crisis. His first manifesto promised a step change in new housing supply, and that 50% of new homes would be affordable. Here we are nearly a decade later, and he certainly has not delivered that step change. House building has in fact ground to a halt—it is down 73% in London over the past year. The Government have had to step in to water down City Hall’s anti-growth affordability targets, because there is no way of avoiding it: despite Sadiq Khan’s boasts, he has comprehensively failed to build. After nine years at the helm, Sadiq Khan has nothing to show for it. Four fifths of homes built last year, as previously mentioned, were approved under Boris Johnson’s mayoralty. The average home in London cost £483,000 in 2016. Today, it is about £560,000. The average rent cost £1,292 per month in 2016. Today, it is £2,252.
As has been discussed, it is not a question of money: Sadiq Khan has been given nearly £9 billion to deliver on housing in London. It is not a question of powers; he has strategic planning powers in London. Instead, it has been about bad policy. His London plan is onerous and expensive to adhere to, and his affordability targets have acted as a tax on house building. The Government know this. Instead of addressing the problem, they are dancing around the issue. They scrapped a mandated review of the London plan after independent experts found it to “frustrate rather than facilitate” building on the brownfield sites that my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup discussed.
The Government have cut the community infrastructure levy but kept the more expensive mayoral levy. Instead of taking powers away from the failing mayor they are rewarding him, giving him power to call in developments of 50 homes on green-belt sites. Instead of removing the obstacles to building on brownfield sites they are weakening green-belt protections.
Wendy Morton
My hon. Friend speaks passionately about this, but does he not agree that this absolutely shows the problem with centralising not just targets but powers in the hands of one person—the mayor or a combined authority? We need much more involvement of local communities, and we need councils to have a greater say on planning matters.
Peter Fortune
I agree with my right hon. Friend. It is worth re-emphasising that the mayor has had responsibility for delivering housing in London for nine years and has fundamentally failed to deliver on his promises.
On weakening green-belt protections, which matters so much to those of us representing outer London boroughs, it is a bizarre decision to effectively block building on vacant former industrial sites in inner London near tube stations, as was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup, and instead force thousands of homes on to poorly served farmers’ fields in Bromley. If the Government want to meet their housing targets, they need to realise that Sadiq Khan is not a builder—he is a blocker, and the record proves it.
Danny Beales (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) for securing this timely debate about Government support for house building in London.
House building is vital for growth, jobs and many businesses in our communities, big and small. However, it is much more than that, and we have heard from other hon. Members the testimony of constituents struggling with a broken housing system. When one in 50 Londoners is now in temporary accommodation, increasing to one in 21 children, that is a national scandal and requires urgent, emergency action.
I grew up in temporary accommodation—in bed and breakfasts and hotels—and know what that means. It is not just a statistic; it is not just a temporary house. It is a completely different life. The impacts for many can be quite scarring on their future. I welcome the Government’s sense of urgency in tackling this after 14 years of failure in the housing system.
Emily Thornberry
I did not know that about my hon. Friend, and I find it very interesting. Many of us who speak with passion about social housing do so because we grew up in social housing. I was saved because my family were made homeless and we were given a house by the council. My worry is that if a family made homeless come to see me now, their chance of getting a house from the council is vanishingly small.
Danny Beales
I thank my right hon. Friend for that contribution. It is true that many of my constituents tell me the story of turning up at the civic centre with a plastic bag of their belongings to be told there are no homes in Hillingdon. The best they can expect is temporary accommodation, often in communities far away, with no chance of returning.
The implications are significant: missed school opportunities, not being able to get to health appointments, and not keeping a job. Thousands of families are now being affected. There is also a financial impact on the local authorities in our constituencies: £5 million a day spent on temporary accommodation. The London boroughs’ homelessness budget was overspent by £330 million last year—double the previous year.
Let us be honest: the housing system in London isn’t working for anyone, whether a mortgage payer or a leaseholder. We have all heard the horror stories of increased mortgage payments since the Liz Truss mini-Budget, increased service charges and woes, first-time buyers locked out of the housing market, and private renters struggling with exponential rent increases.
I see social cohesion issues increasingly come to the fore in my borough. At the core, people feel that housing is increasingly inaccessible in the communities where they have grown up. That is not because anyone else is getting a council home, because they are not; it is because of a broken housing system that has not been fixed for decades. At the same time as increasing need, the rate of build-out with planning permissions has dropped to 10%. Thousands of homes are stalled; there were only 80 housing starts in Hillingdon in 2024-25. Whether it is the St Andrew’s site in Uxbridge, a concrete shell of a building laid derelict for two years, or the Morrison’s site in Yiewsley, also left derelict for years, with the council not determining the application, there is a need for urgency and action.
To move forward, investment is vital. We often talk about how expensive it is to act on housing. The truth is that we have spent a lot on housing but spent it in the wrong place. We have subsidised private landlords to the tune of many billions of pounds through housing benefit payments for years. It is right that the Government are shifting investment into the delivery of new homes. The record £39 billion investment, including £11 billion for London, is long overdue. When colleagues and I were building council homes, we were desperate to see such investment from the previous Government. Multi-year funding, stability and certainty on rent levels are also important steps forward.
I disagree that the mayor’s having powers on planning, and intervening in the local decision-making system, is wrong and to the detriment of house building. My borough —Tory-run Hillingdon—has one of the lowest levels of approval for housing delivery in the past 10 years: almost 50%, with one in two applications rejected. No wonder we have such a housing crisis in Hillingdon, when the local authority has not only failed to deliver itself but failed to support the private rented sector to deliver, too.
I welcome the Government’s commitment to reform the Building Safety Regulator, which was touched on quickly by Opposition Members. The introduction of the Building Safety Regulator and regime, although good in spirit, has been a disaster in practice. It has overwhelmingly clogged up the system of housing delivery. We had a debate here on that a couple of weeks ago, and I welcome the Government’s acceleration of reforms in that space.
To sum up, I fully support the Government going further and faster in their approach to delivering house building and unblocking the planning system. We need an interventionist approach from the Department where schemes—particularly large ones—are blocked and clogged up in the planning system. I would support the Department’s calling them in; referring them to the mayor or the Department; taking action to de-risk brownfield sites; and supporting developers to unlock blocked or half-delivered schemes. Londoners desperately need more genuinely affordable homes to buy or rent. I support the bold measures that the Minister and the Government have already taken. They have my full support in going further and faster.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) on securing this debate on such a vital issue. I echo many of the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry). Her neighbouring constituency now includes a ward that used to be in my constituency—a ward where house prices are reaching £2.5 million to £3 million in some cases. That is one end of the scale.
At the other end of the scale we have a homelessness situation that is intolerable, with thousands of people on the waiting list. Exactly as my right hon. Friend said, every week I visit people in their homes, which is something that MPs do. We see people where they live, with the problems they have: triple bunk beds with little space for the third child to get into bed; five people in a room; and toddlers with no space to run around. I could give a different example every week, but a real one. This is what we need to resolve, so I welcome the Government’s plan to build more homes.
There are a lot of challenges. The right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) mentioned the “brownfield first” approach as a priority. There are plenty of brownfield sites in my constituency. I say “plenty” but, like the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury, my constituency is very small in relative terms but expensive to build on.
House prices in Hackney are 18.5 times average income, so all the young professionals who might want to get on the housing ladder are stuck in shared accommodation, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury said, and families are stuck in social housing, crowded and unable to go anywhere else because they cannot afford private rent, which gives no security anyway. Homeless families are increasingly in hostels for years. Only six years or so ago it would have been about six months before people had a chance of getting some sort of property, and now people are being moved out of the borough, wrecking their lives and opportunities.
We have 3,400 homeless households in temporary accommodation, which is a big issue for us all and costs the taxpayer a lot of money. It does damage to the families and the children’s opportunities. It breaks our communities, and all taxpayers have to fund that, so we need to resolve it. We have a total of 8,500 households on the council’s housing register, and the notional wait for a three-bedroom property is over a decade—it is a nonsense wait, because by that time the children have grown up. Around 44% of Hackney residents live in social housing. We have more private renters than homeowners and that level of social housing residents. Even though house prices are going up for some, the housing situation is worsening for many others.
Hackney council has been great at delivering properly affordable social housing. Affordable homes, which include both social rented and intermediate, make up 57% of council housing-led delivery. In crude terms, if Hackney council wants to build a home because of the land value, which I will touch on, it has to build one for private sale to pay for the one that is for intermediate or social rent. When I say to people, “We are working hard to get you a house,” they look at the houses I am pointing to on the neighbouring bit of land and say, “Will I get one of those?”, and I cannot, hand on heart, say that they will within any reasonable period of time. The devastation this is having is surely feeding into our special educational needs and health crises. It is just not long-term sustainable.
Since 2022, the current council period since the last council elections and between now and next April, 956 council homes for social rent have been in design, planning or acquisition or under construction. It is cheaper to buy back a leasehold property on a council estate than it is to build new, because it costs £450,000 in Hackney to build a new social rented home. It is no wonder we are having challenges delivering and no wonder that the Government and the Mayor of London are trying to work out a way to get more homes built. If they are all for private rent, we are going to exacerbate the problem, so we need to work that out. Construction costs are now around £5,000 per square metre compared with £1,000 to £1,500 a decade ago. That is being led by a number of issues globally, including Brexit, but this is the reality we are dealing with. When I looked at this in my previous role on the Public Accounts Committee, the Government’s own figures showed—I am sure the Minister is aware—that bricks and mortar subsidies offered the best value for money for the taxpayer to try to resolve the problem.
We need things not just on brownfield but on grey belt. I do think that the green belt has some grey belt —we need to be realistic about this. Bits of old car park that no one is using could be turned into homes. We need to be creative when looking at this.
Wendy Morton
The hon. Member makes a really important point about grey belt. I completely understand her example of a car park, but grey belt needs much clearer definition, because we are seeing cases of development that inspectors are now saying is grey belt when it is actually greenfield, and that is really damaging to our communities.
Dame Meg Hillier
That is a fair challenge, and I am sure that the Minister will pick that up. It is important that we all know where the goal posts are.
I would like to ask the Minister about the release of public land. This is something that I have looked at over the years. Whether it is the Ministry of Defence, Transport for London or the Department of Health and Social Care, the Treasury has, over many Governments, insisted that that money goes back to the Department. On one level, that is completely logical, but looking at hospitals or schools, if that land could be used for housing, it would help teachers, nurses or doctors to live locally.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
I have long campaigned on that issue. I have a disused police station in my constituency, in Teddington, and we want to turn it into a GP surgery and social housing. I tabled an amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to ensure that public sector sites are redeveloped for public good. Unfortunately, I have had no response from the Minister. Does the hon. Lady agree that that would be a good amendment to make?
Dame Meg Hillier
I hear what the hon. Lady says, but I also recognise that there are financial challenges with the Treasury signing a fairly blank cheque to say that all public land could become housing. We need to be creative about this, and that is where we need a mixture of local knowledge and some flexibility from the Treasury. For example, the change of use of school sites was quite gummed up in the Department for Education under the previous Government. We need to make sure that any change of use can be dealt with relatively quickly. It will be better for health and education outcomes if we use that land for other things.
We need a national mission on housing, and I applaud the Minister for leading on that. Does he have any plans to limit further overseas purchasers buying these properties? It is great for developers, because they get that cash in, but we need to prioritise local people, and tax does not seem to be doing it. Does he have any thoughts about restricting Airbnb? I know well the blocks that my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury was talking about, because during covid, people paid rent to go to those places to isolate, but they were not proper homes. That is having a devastating effect on school numbers across London. Could the Minister look at the costs of building? The long-term costs of not doing it will be enormous, and we need to support those families who desperately need social rented housing.
David Mundell (in the Chair)
I ask our last three speakers to stick to their five minutes.
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I thank the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) for securing this important debate. Few issues affect Londoners more directly than the shortage of decent and affordable homes. I want to begin by talking about one of the clearest symptoms of that shortage: the rising cost of temporary accommodation. In Waltham Forest, the net overspend on temporary accommodation this year alone is £14.3 million. In my constituency, 7,300 applicants sit on the housing register, and the average wait for homes is irreconcilable—10 years for a three-bedroom home, and 14 years for a four-bedroom home. In neighbouring Redbridge, 3,000 families sit on the temporary accommodation register, and a wait for a three-bedroom home is 18 years, which is the lifespan of a child.
Behind those numbers are people. One of my constituents, a mother and a nurse, has been without a stable home since she was 13. For 20 years, she has moved between insecure rentals and temporary housing, despite working as a public health worker and a nurse, and caring for a child under treatment at Great Ormond Street. She faces eviction, instability and anxiety, all because of a shortage of social housing. That is what the housing crisis looks like for humans. The slowdown in house building has tightened competition for homes, driven up prices and pushed councils to rely on hotels.
The causes are many: the lingering impact of the pandemic, high interest rates since the 2022 mini-Budget, Brexit-related labour shortages, soaring construction costs, and the new fire safety and building regulation requirements. I therefore welcome the agreement by the Mayor of London and the Government to boost house building, which includes a £322 million injection from City Hall in the form of a developer investment fund, which will leverage private capital, and a wider £11.7 billion from the social and affordable homes programme, with low-cost loans from the national housing bank.
We must face the scale of the problem. London councils are trapped in a vicious cycle of rising costs while funding to cover them stays static. Councils even outbid one another for the same limited supply. Many constituents are now housed far outside their own boroughs—we read about that today in an article about Waltham Forest.
The situation is worsened by competition with the Home Office, which also relies on temporary accommodation for asylum seekers. The bidding war benefits a handful of landlords but leaves councils and communities footing the bill, and people from within our communities are sent outwith them. A constructive answer would be to re-establish co-ordination between the Home Office and London Councils, reinstate a cap on bids or prioritise boroughs with the greatest need. I therefore welcome the Home Office’s commitment to develop a more sustainable model of accommodation, but it must go further by reducing competition and expanding supply to restore fairness and stability to local housing markets.
Councils are not only victims of the crisis, but essential partners in solving it. Redbridge is delivering 600 council homes through its own affordable homes programme, and Waltham Forest has bold regeneration plans, particularly at Avenue Road and Montague Road, which I have spoken to the Minister about previously. At Avenue Road, the council could deliver 617 new homes, including 242 for social rent. Montague Road would add 223 new social homes and about 200 additional properties. That is more than 1,000 new homes in total, which would improve the lives of the wonderful community that lives there at the moment.
But like many London schemes, those have stalled. Across the capital, 111,000 homes are paused, and the rate of converting planning approvals into completions is below 10%. That is why our Government’s intervention is vital. It will not override local councils but empower them. Our Labour councils have a strong record of innovation, using infrastructure, finance and land value capture to support house building as part of the regeneration. With modest, well-targeted funding, Waltham Forest could unlock more than 5,000 new homes through estate renewal and redevelopment in underused sites.
David Mundell (in the Chair)
Order. I have to draw you to a close there, Mr Bailey.
Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I commend the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French). Although we probably disagree on both the analysis and the solutions, I recognise his passion for his constituency and his concern about the issue in London.
In Cities of London and Westminster, which I am proud to represent, we recognise the appalling cost of temporary accommodation. As the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) said, it costs £5 million every day. The eye-watering average price of a home in my area is nearly £1 million. Given the average prices that the hon. Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) spoke about, we are looking at average private monthly rents of £3,221, so the housing crisis is felt acutely right here in the very centre of London.
We have heard powerful contributions about why this issue matters so much, but I want to reflect on the drivers of this debate: the green belt, greenfield land, the brown belt, the grey belt and brownfield land. Only 6.7% of the green belt is in an area that can be developed for housing. In fact, since 2013, just 0.2% of green-belt land has been brought forward. In London, 99.6% of development takes place on brownfield land. That reflects the London that we all know and love, and is one of the real positives of strategic planning in our great city.
However, we face challenging circumstances in converting planning applications into permissions, and permissions into starts on site. We have heard some really compelling contributions about that. We need to focus on stability in the sector, which is critical for ensuring development and delivery. We must recognise the important role of the £39 billion that the Government put into genuinely affordable homes. We need a stable rent-setting system that will enable councils and housing associations to plan, and a stable economy with interest rates going down so that people can have confidence that they will be able to get on to the housing ladder.
I will now focus my remarks on buy-backs. I welcome the contribution from my very respected hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) on how effective buy-backs can be in solving inner London’s very particular housing crisis. I commend Westminster city council for investing £20 million in buying back 45 former council flats earlier this year. This is something that we can do immediately. We have a short, medium and long-term challenge in recognising London’s and the UK’s housing crisis. Ifirmly believe that this Government, together with the Greater London Authority’s right to buy-back programme, can enable 1,200 homes to be brought into council ownership, and that will make a tangible difference to lives this week, this month and in the years going into the future.
The new programme brought forward by the Greater London Authority, the council homes acquisition programme, is aimed at helping local authorities to buy back 10,000 homes within just the next few years, and that can be supplemented with local authority housing funds. It is a really effective and immediate means of providing people with the home that they deserve and bringing down our temporary accommodation costs. I would be grateful if the Minister updated us on the conversations he is having on that very topic, the immediate temporary accommodation crisis that we face in London, and how together we might move forward by investing in current council homes to tackle that issue.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship for the second time today, Mr Mundell. I welcome this important debate and thank the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) for securing it. I declare an interest, as my son is studying construction management at London South Bank University—I hope he will be one of the house builders of the future. I also do so because, like all the other hon. Members in this debate, this is one of the biggest issues for my constituency—for so many people who come to my surgery and whom I see every day when I go out and about in the constituency, but also for my own children. I do not know whether they would ever be able to afford to live in my area, and that is no way to build a community. People need to be able to know that their children and grandchildren will be able to live near them, to have work near them and to live in areas that they can afford. At the moment, we do not have that in London; we have a broken housing situation.
Tackling the housing crisis has always been a top priority for the Mayor of London. Despite some of the claims made today, the facts speak for themselves. Sadiq Khan has started more new council homes in London than has been the case at any time since the 1970s. Before the pandemic, he completed more homes than had been the case at any time since the 1930s. That is not luck; it is Labour leadership in action and working hand in hand with Labour boroughs, such as Wandsworth, to deliver for Londoners. Since 2018, 23,000 council homes have been built or are being built with the help of City Hall funding.
We know that the challenges are real. House building is facing a perfect storm: the legacy of Conservative under-investment and, in Wandsworth, Conservative total pandering to developers; sky-high interest rates; soaring construction costs; and the lasting impact of Brexit. Those pressures demand bold, urgent action. That is why I welcome the emergency, time-limited housing package announced by the Government and the mayor, working together, in October. It is a serious intervention, with £322 million of new investment for a City Hall developer investment fund, which will be used to keep affordable housing rates as high as they can be. Like other hon. Members, I hope that we will not just see more dark houses. It is really important that local people have first dibs on all the new houses being built. We need to have those stalled projects unlocked and getting shovels in the ground.
I will highlight two housing developments in my constituency that I think all hon. Members will be very interested in. This is good news. The first is New Acres, which is a £500 million, purpose-built neighbourhood on a brownfield site that has brought 1,034 new rental homes to Wandsworth; it was completed last year. The original plans were that 23% would be affordable. The mayor called the scheme in, and it is now 35% affordable, with 55% of that built in the first phase. It has not been a case of leaving it all to the next phase and then it perhaps not happening. It is there; it is real. It is in my community in Wandsworth. It is one of the UK’s largest build-to-rent schemes and it is—I underline—35% affordable.
The second development is the Alton estate renewal, which just two weeks ago, in the UK’s largest ever regeneration ballot, was overwhelmingly endorsed by residents—82.4% voted in favour. That is the result of the Labour council coming in and saying that the previous Conservative council’s plans just did not work and were being imposed on the community. The Labour council said, “Let’s start again and work with the community.” The community could see that the plans would provide what they wanted for their area. There will be new GP surgeries; dedicated youth facilities, which I am obsessed with; a family hub; improved shops; green spaces, and up to 650 new homes—the developer is the council, so it will be able to ensure that it has the affordable housing and that the whole development is what the community wants—thanks to £100 million in investment from the council and £16 million in Greater London Authority funding, with a focus on family-sized homes.
We need more affordable homes. I am grateful for the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, and for all the work the Minister did on it. I am also grateful for Awaab’s law and its extension to private renters, because the link between housing and mental health issues is very strong. But I agree with other Members that overseas sales need to be reduced. Buy-backs are very important, as is local government funding for repairs. Too many homes stay empty for too long between periods of use. Councils need more money to repair them along the way.
A Labour mayor with a proven track record of house building, backed by a Labour Government with the ambition to deliver, and a Labour council, as we have in Wandsworth, is how we will solve London’s housing crisis. That is how we will build a fairer, stronger city for future generations.
David Mundell (in the Chair)
I call Luke Taylor on behalf of the Liberal Democrats. You have eight minutes.
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
Thank you, Mr Mundell. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship. I thank the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) for securing this debate. It is extremely timely, because it is less than a fortnight since I was last in this Chamber debating housing policy—it seems that I am the Liberal Democrats’ housing spokesperson for London. Contrary to what some in the Government seem to think, there is no inherent tension between the three most important tasks facing us: to build safe homes, to build green homes and to build affordable homes. The limitations or structural problems with the market are self-imposed by our lack of ambition and our worrying proclivity to shun innovation.
During the debate two weeks ago, the Housing Secretary and the Mayor of London were announcing the raft of measures that triggered this subsequent debate. The measures were announced not at the Dispatch Box, or even in this Chamber in front of what would have been a captive audience, but to the press, giving us no opportunity to scrutinise them and rendering that Westminster Hall debate moot. I invite the Minister to confirm that no subsequent major changes with such a profound impact on the local authorities that everyone in this room works with on a daily basis and on our constituents will be made outside of this place.
Frankly, those measures are not small fry; they hand developers a get-out while Londoners on waiting lists across our city continue to suffer, and they are a threat to the financial stability and forward-planning ability of local authorities across London. The Liberal Democrats are clear: the plans will not solve the housing crisis in London, but make things worse.
Munira Wilson
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that the measures announced by the Mayor of London and the new Housing Secretary actually reward developers and do not incentivise them? Not only will the mayor be funding half of developers’ affordable housing if they meet the new target, but our local authorities will have their community infrastructure levy money slashed. In Richmond, we could lose £21.5 million of CIL money from the Stag brewery site. That comes on top of the Labour Government cutting our core Government funding under their so-called fair funding formula. Our communities are going to be left without the infrastructure they need and deserve alongside new housing developments.
Luke Taylor
I thank my hon. Friend for providing that example of the impact on a specific project, which shows how difficult this will be for our councils.
The announced measures will quietly reduce the requirement for affordable homes from 35% to 20%, forcibly slash the community infrastructure levy money, and barely scratch the surface of the bigger and more profound structural barriers to getting green, affordable and safe housing built. The Government have triggered great uncertainty and more financial instability for local authorities while achieving very little in the shake-up, seemingly because they think that big, decisive action with very little prep work and no consultation is the way to get things done. The Housing Secretary is clearly taking more than just headwear inspiration from a certain world leader—which would make sense if it were not his own zone that he is flooding with a substance that the courtesies of this House do not allow me to name.
In all seriousness, the housing crisis in London deserves more than a knee-jerk reaction. There are 330,000 households stuck on social housing waiting lists—more than the total number of households in our two largest boroughs, Barnet and Croydon, combined. As we have heard, London boroughs are spending £5 million a day on temporary accommodation, although I have heard that figure for about a year, so it must be considerably more by now. According to London Councils, there is a £700 million shortfall in the housing revenue accounts that fund new house building.
The proposed measures will simply make that worse, for two main reasons. First, the Government will facilitate the right kind of house building not by dropping the regulations that developers face, but by amending them and fixing the structural issues within the Building Safety Regulator. Secondly, the measures actively—and inexcusably—disrupt the already stretched financial picture for local authorities. I will take them in turn.
First, granting the right to reduce the level of affordable housing per project fails to recognise that the proliferation of a particular kind of luxury, unaffordable housing in London means that it is unlikely that new building accelerated under the scheme will ease upward pressures on house prices in the capital. Giving the mayor new powers to call in decisions and accelerate them almost on a whim does nothing to address the concerns that local authorities and local residents will have about their ability to object to new housing that will not contribute to solving the crisis. The measures seem to be imposed in an imagined battle against the nimbys, when most in London have lived experience of housing instability—either their own or that of younger family members, co-workers or friends—and, as such, are in favour of the kind of house building that actually addresses the crisis.
Danny Beales
I share the hon. Member’s view of the general public’s opinion on the issue, but as a cabinet member during seven years of planning and redevelopment in Camden, I rarely heard those voices in planning committees. Unfortunately, the voices that are heard are often disproportionately against development and do not represent the people on housing waiting lists. I just challenge the presentation of the public view through the planning system. Is it not true, too, that many local authorities take far too long to determine applications? In my borough—I have just had an email—it has taken six months to draft a section 106 heads of terms document, two years since the planning was approved. Is that not unacceptable?
David Mundell (in the Chair)
Order. Mr Taylor, you have taken two lengthy interventions. I am afraid that they will not be in addition to your time.
Luke Taylor
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, but I will move on swiftly.
In my experience in Sutton we subscribe to the “yify”—“yes, if”—approach that I have spoken about a number of times. We do not need to water down community buy-in. We might need to make it faster and more efficient, but throwing out the baby with the bathwater will only lead to the wrong housing being built in the wrong places and leave us wondering, in 30 years’ time, why the mistake was not glaringly obvious to people today. That is not a new approach that has reared its head in these measures; the decisions to cut the portion of affordable housing expected from developments in the recent “Homes for Londoners” plan, and to set the annual national social house building target at just 20,000 social homes per year, show that the Government simply do not have a credible plan to provide the kind of housing the country needs.
We need an ambitious whole-of-Government approach to build up to 150,000 social homes each year. It can be done, and the Government need look no further than the Liberal Democrats’ plans. We would give local authorities the power to stop Help to Buy in their area and, as a last resort, to stop the right to buy too, and give them the first right to purchase all public land for social housing. We would also fix the Building Safety Regulator by ending the mismatch between fire safety standards and the Building Safety Act 2022, speeding up the backlog of confusion and incomplete assessments for remediation, while ensuring that the building safety levy covers all the costs so that leaseholders are protected from paying. As well as making it more affordable to insulate existing homes, we would ensure that all new homes are zero carbon and provide proper incentives for critical household infrastructure such as heat pumps. That is how we build more affordable homes—not by tearing up regulations with no regard to the impact, but by smartening regulations and intervening with serious, meaningful incentives to build the right kinds of housing.
Secondly, it will be news to nobody that the financial picture for London councils is dire. The city’s 32 boroughs overspent by £330 million on housing and temporary accommodation budgets last year alone—double the previous year’s figure. As London Councils has demonstrated, the cost of the London homelessness crisis is the greatest threat to the financial stability of London boroughs. Watering down the community infrastructure levy—perhaps the most notable way that councils recoup costs and benefits from house building in the short term—is simply another hammer blow in that regard.
David Mundell (in the Chair)
Order. I think this might be the point at which you need to conclude.
Luke Taylor
Skipping ahead, I invite the Minister to tell us why anyone who cares about solving the housing crisis and protecting local councils in London should vote Labour at the local elections in May, particularly when the only party consistently standing up for those hit hardest by the housing crisis, and for our cash-strapped local councils, is the London Liberal Democrats.
Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, and to take part in this debate about Government support for house building in London. As is the case for all hon. Members here today, this issue is of great importance to my constituents and to me, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) for securing this important debate. I also thank all hon. Members for their contributions.
London is Europe’s wealthiest city, one of the world’s most desirable destinations and the capital of our great country. I am deeply proud to have represented part of it for the past 28 years, having previously served for 23 years as a local councillor in a London borough—a period that overlapped with my 13 years as a London Assembly member—and been the Member of Parliament for the wonderful people of Orpington since 2019.
What we have seen in recent years in Greater London is a constantly worsening housing shortage, and a mayor seemingly completely incapable of tackling a problem that is spiralling out of control. Sir Sadiq Khan has been mayor for nearly 10 years, and continues to oversee one of the greatest housing failures this country has ever seen. I can remember sitting in the chamber at City Hall in his first year as mayor when he boasted about having negotiated the highest housing funding settlement in the history of the mayoralty. He was awarded £4.82 billion to deliver 116,000 affordable homes between 2016 and 2021, and a further £4 billion to deliver 35,000 affordable homes between 2021 and 2026. That is a total of £8.82 billion to deliver 151,000 homes in a decade between 2016 and 2026. Naturally, he gave no credit at all to the Conservative Government who gave him that money, but let us gloss over that.
Instead, let us focus on Sadiq Khan’s record. To date, 77,622 affordable homes have been completed from the two programmes—barely half of what was envisaged, with only six months to go. Including those programmes and other house building, in his almost decade-long tenure at City Hall, he has averaged 8,240 affordable homes per year. That compares with an average of 11,750 per year between 2008 and 2016 under his predecessor Boris Johnson. That is a 30% decrease under Sadiq Khan, despite what he boasted at the outset was the highest housing funding settlement in history.
The fact is that development has become so costly and over-regulated on Sadiq Khan’s watch that, incredibly, as my hon. Friends the Members for Old Bexley and Sidcup and for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) pointed out, 80% of housing developments finished in London last year received planning permission under the London plan set out by Boris Johnson before he left office as Mayor of London in 2016, rather than under Sadiq Khan’s London plan.
Gareth Bacon
I am afraid I cannot, because we are under time pressure.
A report recently released by the Centre for Policy Studies described London as
“The City That Doesn’t Build”.
It is impossible not to agree with that when the mayor’s record is put under scrutiny. Under Sadiq Khan, housing starts have collapsed in London, with the number of private homes under construction set to slump to only 15,000 in 2027—a mere a quarter of what should be expected.
Analysis from the Centre for Policy Studies has shown that, over the last financial year, only 4,170 homes have been started in London, amounting to less than 5% of London’s 88,000 home target. In the first half of this year, that has hardly been improved on, with just 2,158 private housing starts, again versus a target of 88,000 per year. Those totals are disastrous. The mayor, the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister should be reversing those figures, not indulging or excusing them.
The picture becomes even worse when we look at affordable housing. Affordable homes had just 347 starts between April and June, which is around 15% of the total starts for 2023-24, and just 9% of the total starts in 2024-25. Prior to the general election last year, the Mayor of London was telling anyone who would listen that he needed £4.9 billion per year for the next 10 years to build affordable homes. The Government elected last July did not accede to his request. Given his appalling record over the past decade, I cannot say I entirely blame them for not trusting his ability to deliver.
At the last spending review in June, as has been mentioned, £11.7 billion was awarded for the next affordable housing programme, which will run from 2026 to 2036. At the last round of Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government questions, when I asked the Secretary of State what he was doing to hold the Mayor of London to account for his lamentable record of failure, he alluded to a pending announcement. As the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) noted, a written ministerial statement was snuck out without fanfare a couple of weeks ago that announced temporary reforms to London house building to try to cover the mayor’s decade of failure.
Some of those proposals are welcome, including the sensible removal of elements that can constrain density, such as dual aspect and units around the core of a building, as well as some of the changes to the insistence on arbitrary and unviable affordable housing targets. However, it is deeply concerning that the Government are proposing to reward the mayor’s decade of failure by giving him more power to intervene on democratically elected local councils and take planning powers away from them.
Most worryingly, that gives the mayor considerable additional powers to concrete over the green belt. There is nothing in the statement about facilitating brownfield development, despite the CPRE report published last month that shows that Greater London has the capacity to deliver in excess of 462,000 new dwellings on brownfield land. The Minister is a very decent man; he is respected across the House, including by me. When we hear him speak in a few moments, I am sure he will give us invaluable insight into how the Government justify these shocking figures. However, to me, they are simply not doing enough to build or to hold the mayor to account for his failures.
The Home Builders Federation has written to the independent Office for Budget Responsibility to say that, without changes to boost affordability for first-time buyers and tax cuts, the Government will miss their national housing target. Another study by the planning and environmental consultancy Lanpro suggested that, at the present of rate of building, the Government would fall 860,000 homes short of their national target—that amounts to missing the target by 57%. Together, the Mayor of London and, more recently, the Government have shown that they are anti-business and anti-growth, with spending and borrowing rising, and with inflation at almost twice the target level, as well as anaemic growth, over-regulation and rising taxation curbing any chance of a housing recovery at every turn.
As I have outlined, this is being felt most in our capital city. I am deeply proud to be a Greater London MP, to have been the London Assembly member for Bexley and Bromley, to have been the Conservative leader at City Hall, to have been a London borough councillor, and to live and work in this great city. That is why I care so much about holding this Government—and specifically their shambolic colleague, the Mayor of London—to account for their abject failures to get house building in London to flourish. Action is sorely needed and desperately wanted. The Government need to do a lot more, and they need to do it now.
David Mundell (in the Chair)
I call the Minister to respond to the debate, and perhaps he can give Mr French a minute at the end to wind up.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Mundell. I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) on securing this important debate, and I thank other hon. Members who have spoken for their passionate and—with some notable exceptions—thoughtful contributions. It has been a good debate. I also welcome the shadow Housing Minister, the hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon), to his place. It is a pleasure to debate opposite him, and I thank him for the kind words he said about me in particular.
It is not in dispute that house building in London is in crisis. The causes of that crisis are multifaceted. London has faced development challenges common to all parts England over recent years, including a significant increase in the price of building materials, a rise in financing costs, and planning capacity and capability pressures. However, it is important to recognise that the capital also faces a number of distinct challenges unique to its housing market that differ in important ways from the rest of the country.
Those challenges include the fact that London is overwhelmingly reliant on flatted developments that have become more challenging to deliver over recent years. It has depended over recent years on demand for international buyers and investors, whose appetite to purchase private market homes has diminished. It also has a higher proportion of landowners, and traders acting on their behalf, who are global investors allocating development funding based on competing returns globally and across asset classes. The combination of those and other factors has resulted in a perfect storm for house building in our capital. That perfect storm has real-world implications for Londoners in housing need.
As you will know, Mr Mundell, as part of our overhaul of the national planning policy framework in December last year, we addressed the fantastical housing target of over 100,000 given to London by the previous Government. That target was based on the punitive application of the now-abolished urban uplift, and it bore no relation whatsoever to addressed housing need in our capital. However, London is still falling far short of the more appropriate target of 87,992 homes per year, which results from the new standard method that we put in place.
We have heard the statistics cited by many hon. Members. Overall home starts in London in 2024-25 totalled just 3,990. In the first quarter of this year, more than a third of London boroughs recorded zero housing starts. I do not mean to single out the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup—this applies across the board—but in the borough of Bexley, construction was started on just 160 homes, and completions numbered just 210, in the whole of 2024. Those numbers are far too low. In short, London housing delivery is on life support, as is broadly recognised across the Chamber.
In the first 15 months of this Government’s life, we took steps to support the mayor and the GLA in addressing the house building challenges facing the capital. We withdrew the previous Government’s direction of March 2024, which required the GLA to complete an unhelpful, partial review of the London plan, and we have provided the GLA with certainty on grant by making it clear that up to 30% of our new £39 billion social and affordable homes programme will be allocated to London.
However, although those and other vital interventions were beneficial, the Government concluded over the summer that we had no choice but to take further decisive action. That is why, on 23 October, via a written ministerial statement, as is often the case—it was not snuck out; it was published on the Government website for all to see—the Secretary of State and the Mayor of London announced new emergency measures designed to arrest and reverse the collapse in house building in London by lowering development costs and improving scheme viability. The time-limited emergency measures, which I should stress to hon. Members are subject to consultation, are as follows.
First, we will introduce mandatory partial relief from borough-level community infrastructure levy charges for qualifying brownfield residential schemes that start construction before the end of 2028. As hon. Members will be aware, CIL funds strategic infrastructure, such as schools and health facilities, but if no development is taking place, boroughs do not benefit from CIL payments. The more schemes we can get moving, the more CIL funds flow into borough coffers. The reliefs we have announced will cover 50% of the CIL charges for schemes with at least 20% affordable housing, with greater relief for higher proportions of affordable homes, to incentivise house builders to deliver more.
Secondly, we will remove elements of planning guidance that can constrain density. The mayor, supported by Government, will consult on revising guidance in respect of dual aspect requirements, the number of dwellings per core and cycle storage standards. Looking ahead, the next London plan will streamline requirements to reduce duplication and complexity, making it easier to build homes quickly, without compromising quality.
Bob Blackman
Do the new standards apply to new planning applications that are being considered or to ones, already in the pipeline, in which developers have proposed developments with less affordable housing?
Matthew Pennycook
As I have said, there will be consultation on the specifics of many parts of this package, but I will address his particular point about the new time-limited planning route. This route, which will be open for two years, will allow schemes on private land in London to proceed without a viability assessment, provided that they deliver at least 20% affordable housing—importantly, with a minimum of 60% social rent. To incentivise schemes to come forward on this basis, grant funding will be made available for homes above the first 10%, which will remain nil grant.
Crucially, a gainshare mechanism on schemes or phases of schemes not commenced by 31 March 2030 will ensure that, if market conditions improve, communities benefit too. In our view, that is a pragmatic, temporary measure to unlock delivery now, while maintaining our commitment to affordable housing in the long term. It will sit alongside the GLA’s existing fast-track route, which retains its 35% affordable housing threshold.
Matthew Pennycook
I will give way in one second, because I am addressing my right hon. Friend’s point. She got to the nub of the issue, and she said that she recognises that 20% of something is better than 35% of nothing. There is obviously a judgment to be made about what the appropriate package is. We think we have come upon the right package, but it is important to say—again, I do not single her out in saying this—that Islington borough started 20 homes in 2024-25. It is not okay to say that we can wait for these schemes to come forward in the years to come and we can go slow. Such is the crisis that we do need to respond, and the guardrails we have put in place around this package will deliver, get those homes started and make sure that we see more social and affordable homes come forward.
Emily Thornberry
The Minister may know about the Barnsbury estate, which was due to be rebuilt but the building had to be stopped because suddenly we had to build a second staircase. If that had not happened, there would be many more starts in Islington. The biggest site coming is Moorfields, and our concern is that, if only a tiny proportion of that is social housing and the CIL money is cut, it will be a huge opportunity lost to Islington—the best opportunity that we have had for housing local people.
Matthew Pennycook
I recognise my right hon. Friend’s point. I cannot comment on specific applications, but it is important that I emphasise that applicants will be expected in the first instance to seek grant to maintain or increase the level of affordable housing in existing section 106 agreements. Only where that has been fully explored with the GLA, and has been demonstrated not to be possible, can schemes be renegotiated via a deed of variation with the aim of delivering at least the relevant level of affordable housing established in the new planning route, and on the same terms.
We are providing the mayor with new planning powers that expand his ability to intervene directly in applications of potential strategic importance in order to support housing delivery and maximise densities. Those powers are set out the policy statement that we published on 23 October. In response to the concerns raised around those specific powers, I think Londoners would expect, with the scale and severity of the housing crisis we have in our capital, the mayor to do everything he possibly can to ensure homes are not being ruled out without good reason on sites, and to ensure that sites are coming forward with appropriate density.
Matthew Pennycook
I will give way briefly, but it will be the final intervention that I accept.
Munira Wilson
Does the Minister accept that sometimes the mayor’s intervening slows down development? Earlier, I cited the example of Stag brewery in Mortlake. That development of 1,000 units would have started years ago, but thanks to the mayor calling it in, it was slowed down and it has still not been built.
Matthew Pennycook
I am not going to comment on the use of the mayor’s planning powers in specific instances. We think these additional expanded powers are a sensible response to the crisis in house building that London faces.
Finally, we are providing £322 million of funding to establish a City Hall developer investment fund. Building on the success of the mayor’s land fund, which has already delivered 8,000 homes five years ahead of schedule, this new fund will allow the mayor to take a direct, interventionist role in unlocking thousands of homes, driving regeneration and creating thriving communities.
It is also worth noting that alongside the implementation of this package of support, the Government intend to clarify the use of section 73 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 so that an application under the section to vary a condition of a planning permission should no longer be used as an alternative means of reconsidering fundamental questions of scheme viability or planning obligations.
In the time available to me I am not going to be able to respond to all the points that have been raised. There have been a number of very good points. I could speak, for example, about what more can be done on TfL land. I think it is worth noting that Places for London is on site, constructing nearly 5,000 homes, 56% of which are affordable. It has already delivered 1,600, but there is definitely more we can do on TfL land around train stations. There is more that the Government are doing on the release of public sector land. I am happy to write to my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) about that in particular. I can assure hon. Members that our new social and affordable housing fund will leave a role for acquisitions to be funded.
We know that there is no single simple solution to the development crisis that London is facing. Action to address the acute viability challenges facing residential development in the capital is a necessary intervention, but it is not sufficient. We know that a revival of house building in the capital is dependent on other factors, including increased demand for private for-sale homes, but taken alongside the reforms we are making to the Building Safety Regulator and the significant grant funding we are allocating to London for land, infrastructure and affordable housing, this time-limited package will give house building in London a shot in the arm, and the Government look forward to working with the mayor and the GLA to implement the package and kick-start house building in our capital.
David Mundell (in the Chair)
Mr French, you have 30 seconds to conclude the debate.
Mr French
This has been a healthy cross-party debate, even if we have disagreed on some of the diagnosis. I thank the Minister for his response. I hope he will take away some of the points that have been raised on a constructive basis. I think we all agree that we have to get London building on brownfield again. People have a right to somewhere they can call home. I thank hon. Members for their contributions.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered Government support for housebuilding in London.
Emily Thornberry
On a point of order, Mr Mundell. I should have drawn the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I rent out my late mother’s flat. We bought it for her so that she could release our council house back to the council.
Fresh and Nutritious Food: Inequality of Access
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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David Mundell (in the Chair)
I will call Gordon McKee to move the motion. I will then call the Minister to respond. Two other Members have indicated that they may wish to speak, but they can make a speech only with the approval of both the Member in charge and the Minister. I proceed on the basis that those two Members have that permission. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention in 30-minute debates.
Gordon McKee (Glasgow South) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered inequality of access to fresh and nutritious food.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell, and I thank the Minister for being here today. Castlemilk is a proud and resilient community, built in the ashes of the second world war. It was first built to combat inner-city housing pressures in Glasgow. The development offered indoor plumbing, heating and what was then a vastly improved standard of living. The people who lived there built something that bricks and mortar could not: a community—a place where neighbours looked after each other’s weans, as we say in Glasgow, took in messages for grannies and coached football for the teenagers. That community spirit has built local organisations, rebuilt social housing and renovated a football stadium.
However, there is one challenge that Castlemilk has not yet overcome: the lack of a supermarket. That might sound like a simple ask, but to understand why Castlemilk does not have a supermarket, we have to take a step back. Let me paint a picture of what life is like for the 15,000 people who live in Castlemilk. It is one of the most isolated areas in Glasgow. Despite being just five miles from the city centre, there is no train station, just unreliable buses, and the nearest supermarket is three miles away. In an area where most people do not have a car, the options are a £6 return bus fare, if the bus turns up, and as a regular user of Glasgow’s buses, I can assure hon. Members that it often does not; a six-mile walk with heavy bags in the wind and rain, which I can also assure hon. Members there is lots of in Glasgow; or spending £20 on a return taxi journey.
For many people, that £20 is the choice between accessing healthy food and turning the heating on. For old people, young parents or people with disabilities, that journey can be impossible—imagine having a pram, a toddler and three shopping bags and having to get two different buses just to get fresh food.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I am sorry to hear the story that is unfolding in the hon. Gentleman’s speech. In the area he is referring to, which I do not know, are there church groups or people of faith—whatever faith that might be—who would be willing to help? Has he been able to ascertain whether they could do something for the area?
Gordon McKee
There are many community groups in Castlemilk that are helping, including faith groups, and I will come to that later in my speech.
There is no supermarket, but there is an Iceland and a B&M and there are countless off-licences. If someone wants a bottle of vodka or a frozen pizza, there are plenty of options. If instead they fancy an apple or a banana, it is a six-mile round trip.
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
Does my hon. Friend agree that community gardens, such as the Whitburn community garden, which provides fresh fruit and vegetables to the local community fridge, as well as West Lothian food bank’s garden, can sometimes be the only way some people are able to access nutritious, fresh food?
Gordon McKee
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am pleased to hear about those organisations in West Lothian. There are many similar ones in Castlemilk, and I will talk about that in a bit. But it is key that communities are not reliant on charity for access to fresh food—that is a very important point.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend is making a really passionate speech and is clearly a strong advocate for his local community. In my local community, we have areas that are very much isolated, in the way he describes. I pay tribute to the Uttlesford mobile food bank, but he is right to say it cannot just be about charity. Does he think that the community ownership model championed by the Co-op party—I should declare an interest, Mr Mundell, as a member of it—is one of the potential solutions?
Gordon McKee
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Community ownership and co-operatives are an important part of how we fix a lot of problems in this country, not least this one.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Highgate) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing this debate to the House, and he is being very generous with his interventions. He mentioned co-ops, so I want to mention Cooperation Town in my constituency. It distributes two tonnes of food to our community every week, and local members save up to 40% on their food costs, as well as benefiting from healthier, fresh food—I could not help but notice that my hon. Friend has a banana next to him. My constituents tell me that this is an extremely cost-effective way to transfer power and wealth from supermarkets to residents. Does he agree that co-ops play a vital role in making healthy food more affordable? Will he ask the Minister whether we should bring this model to more neighbourhoods across the country, including the one he is speaking about?
David Mundell (in the Chair)
I sense that a large number of people want to make an intervention, but they must keep them short; otherwise, Mr McKee will not get to deliver his speech.
Gordon McKee
Thank you, Mr Mundell. I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She made a number of powerful points, and I am sure the Minister will come to them in her closing contribution.
Castlemilk is what is described as a food desert—a place with no access to healthy food—and it is not unique: 1.2 million people in the UK live in an area like it. People might think we are talking about rural areas cut off by their geography, but these areas are often in towns and cities across the country. They are isolated because they lack basic services that every other community takes for granted.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is painting a fascinating pen portrait of his area. Is he aware that, for people with coeliac disease, the weekly shop is 35% more expensive? Even the cheapest loaf of bread is six times more than a standard loaf. Does he agree—and maybe the Minister is listening—that people should not be penalised for their health conditions?
Gordon McKee
I agree with my hon. Friend; she makes a very important point.
If we look at a map of the areas with a lack of access to healthy food and a map of the poorest areas in Britain, we will more or less be looking at the same map. In those areas, rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease are much higher. Adults in the poorest areas eat almost 40% less fruit and veg than those in the richest areas. In Scotland, the poorest adults are 10% more likely to be overweight than the richest adults. So nobody will be shocked that life expectancy in Castlemilk is eight years lower than the national average. When the only option is ultra-processed foods, maintaining a healthy diet becomes not just difficult but financially impossible.
Perran Moon
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. As he suggests, those in the most deprived communities often face the highest obesity rates, and that is closely linked to limited access to fresh fruit and nutritious food. It may surprise some to know that coastal communities experience higher obesity rates on average than non-coastal communities. In my constituency, childhood obesity rates at reception and year 6 are significantly higher than the averages in Cornwall and the rest of the country. Without detracting from the challenges elsewhere, does my hon. Friend agree that entrenched inequalities in access to healthy food are particularly difficult to address in remote coastal areas?
David Mundell (in the Chair)
I am going to take it that that was your speech, Mr Moon. I will not call you subsequently.
Gordon McKee
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention.
It is a problem across the country that frozen food and processed food are cheaper than fresh food. But the problem in Castlemilk is that people cannot even get access to fresh food, let alone that it is more expensive. Despite that, local people have a community spirit and a fighting spirit—they do not give up. Nobody shows that better than the Castlemilk Housing and Human Rights Lived Experience Board. Led by Anna Stuart, it has been campaigning for a supermarket for years. It even went all the way to the UN in Geneva to raise the issue. It told the world of the injustice that, in one of the world’s richest countries, millions are denied the basic dignity of nutritious and affordable food. A group of local residents should not have to go to the UN to ask for access to healthy food.
Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Ind)
Does the hon. Member agree that one solution to the problem of access to sustainable and nutritious food would be the right to grow food on public land, as campaigned for by Incredible Edible, forming part of the wider campaign for community rights that is coming to this Parliament?
Gordon McKee
The hon. Member makes an interesting point, which I am sure the Minister will address.
It is not just Anna helping the community, but many others. In particular, I would like to mention Maureen Cope, the long-standing chair of Castlemilk community council, who has worked tirelessly for almost 40 years to try to get a supermarket in Castlemilk. Despite “retiring” last year, she continues to fight for access to good food every single day. She is a real community champion. Others include local councillor Johnny Carson, who is in the Public Gallery today, along with councillor Catherine Vallis. They are both fighting incredibly hard for Castlemilk, and have been for a long time.
It is not just adults doing that; it is kids too. The kids at Castleton primary school won an award for their film about the campaign for a supermarket, titled “It’s Just Not Fair.” In it, we follow Annas, a kid at the school who walks to the closest supermarket. In between, there are clips of the kids and parents reading out their biggest challenges: expensive bus tickets, having to eat unhealthy food and being unable to get nappies for babies. Annas finally arrives at the closest supermarket, an Asda, one hour and 15 minutes after leaving his home.
Despite all the hard work by volunteers, as is so often the case, politicians have let the people down. In 2022, the SNP-run council said that a supermarket was “imminent”. It has not been delivered. While SNP councillors were patting themselves on the back for something that would not happen, they were simultaneously cutting the opening hours for the swimming pool, refusing to reopen the indoor bowling club and watching on as the SNP Government closed the police station.
That neglect has consequences. When basic services are stripped away one by one and Governments do not deliver, communities suffer. I am pleased that the Labour Government actually want to fix the problem. There are innovative new solutions, such as tools to direct greengrocers to the worst-affected areas of food deprivation.
Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a passionate speech. In a past life, as a cabinet member for health in a local authority, I was active in promoting a voucher scheme run by the Alexandra Rose charity and the Beacon Project, which offered families in need vouchers they could redeem for fresh fruit and veg at the local market. Does my hon. Friend agree that targeted schemes such as that could make a real impact in increasing access to fresh fruit and veg for families who need it?
Gordon McKee
I agree with my hon. Friend’s point. The Government have done a good bit of work in looking at ways to support community food markets that provide affordable fresh food to communities. I ask the Minister, when she responds, to commit to visiting Castlemilk with me to meet those on the frontline of the fight against food poverty.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is rightly talking about access to proper food. In my constituency, FareShare helps to redistribute more than 325,000 meals a year to 11 local charities. That is a lifeline for families struggling to afford fresh food. Nationally, however, hundreds of thousands of tonnes of edible food still go to waste. Will my hon. Friend ask the Minister to commit to supporting food redistribution as part of a fairer food system?
Gordon McKee
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.
Institutions and Governments have failed Castlemilk for far too long. The Labour Government can help change that, and I am determined to play my part. I will always stand by the people of Castlemilk in their fight for a supermarket, and with all those across the UK fighting for access to good food. I have met supermarket operators and landowners to find a solution. Unlike the many politicians who have come before me, I will not promise something that it is not directly in my gift to deliver, but I can promise that I will not stop fighting until the community I represent has the supermarket it deserves. The people of Castlemilk and 1.2 million others across the UK deserve better. They deserve the same access to fresh, nutritious and affordable food that the rest of us enjoy and take for granted. I am determined to make that a reality, and I will not stop fighting until it is.
David Mundell (in the Chair)
I call Ben Coleman, who has up to five minutes.
Ben Coleman (Chelsea and Fulham) (Lab)
Just yesterday, the Government came out with new figures showing that the prevalence of childhood obesity in the most deprived areas is more than double the prevalence in the least deprived. It may surprise many hon. Members to hear that it is a significant problem in my constituency. Although Chelsea and Fulham is among the most affluent constituencies in the country, it has huge pockets of deprivation and poverty, as do many parts of London. Just last week, the English indices of deprivation ranked the World’s End estate in Chelsea in the bottom decile for deprivation and in the second lowest decile for health outcomes. The fabulous residents of the World’s End estate live on one side of King’s Road, and literally just across the road, the equally fabulous residents of some wonderful, beautiful houses are in the top decile for income and health. I find it hard to understand, as I am sure everyone here does, why the children on the World’s End estate should be condemned to worse health outcomes than those living just across the road.
Sadly, the reason, simply put—as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Gordon McKee) said—is access. He talked about transport access, but there is simply too little access to affordable healthy food. Healthy diets are simply out of reach for too many. Healthy foods are often twice as expensive per calorie as unhealthy foods, which manufacturers shove full of fat, sugar and salt. It is cheap, and it is poisoning people, leading to the obesity epidemic.
Of course, people do not make decisions in a void. It is not just about money; they are under huge marketing pressure to buy unhealthy food. The Health and Social Care Committee, of which I am a member, is conducting an inquiry into food and obesity, and I was told just this morning that the advertising budget of KitKat alone exceeds the entire UK Government budget for promoting healthy eating. Witnesses told the Committee that food manufacturers and supermarkets must do much more to be part of the solution, not just the problem. To do that, we need mandatory Government action. That would mean strengthening the Healthy Start scheme, supporting charities such as Alexandra Rose, which does wonderful work in my constituency, enforcing ambitious school food standards and building on the soft drinks levy.
Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
Earlier this year, in my capacity as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for food and drink, I hosted a roundtable on increasing access to healthy fruit and vegetables. Innocent Drinks has led a sector response on that inequality and has proposed a focus on access around schools. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government must work alongside schools, particularly in disadvantaged areas, to reduce inequality in food access?
Ben Coleman
That is a very important point. The availability of fast food right outside schools needs to be looked at and curtailed. The food is cheap, but it is incredibly low quality, and it is not doing our children any good. And school food standards are not properly enforced. There is a lot of cheap school food, but in some of the schools I visit, it is just orange—it is not healthy. The Government need to do a lot more to provide resources to local authorities so that they can properly enforce food standards.
We also need to do other things. We need to extend the sugar tax and the soft drinks levy, and have a general levy on unhealthy foods. At the same time, healthy food must not go up in price. As we make unhealthy food more expensive, we should bring the price of healthy food down. That is a huge challenge for any Government. We have lots of creative people in supermarkets, who come up with wonderful ideas for pumping our food full of unnutritious substances, but I would love to see them take the same effort to bringing healthy food to the population at a price that can be afforded.
Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)
I wonder whether the root of the solution is for local authorities and schools to have mandatory minimum purchases from local producers, thereby giving local farmers a supply chain into the local area and providing fresh food for children.
David Mundell (in the Chair)
Can the hon. Member respond and also conclude, so that the Minister may respond to the numerous points that have been made in the debate?
Ben Coleman
I am grateful, Mr Mundell—I will conclude. The hon. Member makes a very helpful point, particularly for constituencies that are more rural than mine of Chelsea and Fulham—what he says certainly has validity in many parts of the country. My final point is very simple: families do not need lectures. They need a Government who are prepared to do a lot more to ensure fair access to healthy, affordable food.
The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Dame Angela Eagle)
It is a great pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Mundell. I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Gordon McKee) on securing this debate, and I thank all those who have made relevant, if somewhat fast, contributions. It demonstrates how important these issues are, and how much more awareness has recently been raised about them.
We know that many households are struggling to afford food, particularly fresh and nutritious food, with some disproportionately affected, including low-income families and those with disabilities. We also know that our food environment is dominated by products high in saturated fat, sugar and salt, which are highly addictive, heavily promoted and readily available, as well as cheap, making it harder for people to make healthy choices.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South gave us a vivid example from his area of Castlemilk that shows how, even if people wish to make those choices, they cannot practically do it. The idea of having to make a six-mile round trip to buy a banana says it all, when other ways of getting to the nearest supermarket are so impossible for those on low incomes.
David Chadwick (Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe) (LD)
Will the Minister give way?
Dame Angela Eagle
Of course, but I have very little time to answer some of these points.
David Chadwick
Apples and pears provide essential nutrients, such as vitamin C and folate, and they count as one of our five a day, as recognised by the NHS Eatwell guide. Does the Minister agree that any attempt to include fruit juice in the HFSS category risks sending the wrong messages to families at a time when fruit and vegetable consumption is already falling, especially among children and those on lower incomes, as she mentioned?
Dame Angela Eagle
Today’s debate is about those who do not have practical access to any such choice, because there simply is nowhere for them to go and buy it. The national child measurement programme’s annual report demonstrated the consequences of the inequality of diet. For reception and year 6 children, obesity prevalence was more than double in the most deprived areas, compared with the least. These trends have been allowed to increase over the last 14 years, and there is now a positive correlation between obesity and poverty, which we must break. That is why it is so important that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South has brought forward this small but perfectly formed debate on a really serious issue.
How can we bring to bear really creative solutions to these problems, such as the food deserts that my hon. Friend talked about? The Government have done some things. We have a food strategy that talks about how we can improve food price affordability and access to highly nutritious food. We are committed to making the healthy choice the easier choice, which is certainly not the case in Castlemilk in his area.
We know that the cost of a nutritious diet is currently too high, and we know, for example, that we can do some work on that through the Healthy Start scheme, which supports people to buy fresh or frozen fruit, vegetables, pulses, milk and infant formula, if they have children under four. Healthy Start makes a valuable difference to families’ ability to purchase healthy foods for their young children. The nursery milk scheme provides reimbursement to childcare providers for giving a daily portion of milk to children and babies.
We are taking action in schools, including by trying to improve the nutritional aspects of free school meals. We are reviewing the school food standards to ensure that schools provide healthy food and drink options and restrict foods high in saturated fat, salt or sugar, to reflect the most recent Government dietary recommendations. We have extended free school meals to all children from households on universal credit, lifting 100,000 children out of poverty and putting £500 back into families’ pockets ahead of the child poverty strategy later this year. Some 90,000 disadvantaged students in further education now receive a free meal on the basis of low income and an additional 1.3 million infants enjoy a free lunch-time meal. Our new free breakfast clubs will help around 180,000 children in the first 750 schools, around 80,000 of whom are in deprived areas. A free, nutritious meal every school day helps our children and young people to access healthy food and supports their education and chances to succeed in work and life. That is soon to be extended to 2,000 schools, with 500,000 more pupils being involved.
On the questions about food redistribution, we are looking at that in the circular economy strategy to see how we can make the best use of surplus food. On the point about KitKat’s marketing budget, you learn something every day—it is a bit worrying to contemplate that. There is new mandatory healthy food sales reporting for large food businesses. That will start to encourage the recalibration of food and its contents, which I hope will begin to make a difference.
We are restricting volume price promotions on unhealthy food—buy one, get one free promotions—which encourage less nutritious food to be even more available. We expect that to make a difference. We have given local authorities stronger powers to block fast food outlets near schools, and I want such powers to be used proactively. We are also consulting on a ban on the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to children under 16, which tend to be bought by children who live in more deprived, low-income households and make it very difficult for them to concentrate. This is not just about policy generally but what we can do across the system to reduce food inequality and improve access to healthy, affordable food.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South talked about the really difficult choices that his constituents face. I am more than happy to meet him to talk about what might happen there. Many hon. Members have talked about the Alexandra Rose charity. There is an interesting thing going on across the river in Merseyside, in Liverpool, where a mobile greengrocer called the Queen of Greens takes food to places where there is no supermarket. It may be that in the interim, before he and his community in Castlemilk get the chance to have a new supermarket built, there are some creative solutions for taking nutritious choices to the community. That is why I agree so much with some of the points made about how local communities, community action and perhaps even co-ops might be able to make a difference in areas such as that. The more creative we can be in having faster solutions, the more we can ensure that the current generation get the nutritional support that they deserve, rather than having to wait perhaps years for a supermarket to be built.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South for raising this really important issue.
Dame Angela Eagle
There is no time.
I am sure that together we can come up with some really creative solutions to assist in ensuring that we have a better future for those now suffering from a lack of access to free and nutritious food, and that we can finally start to address the terrible link between poverty and obesity, which has become such a feature of our society in recent years.
Question put and agreed to.
Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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David Mundell (in the Chair)
Before we start proceedings, I want to say two things. First, this debate is oversubscribed, so not everyone will get to speak. I hope to call 10 Back- Bench Members to contribute for three minutes each. If Members take interventions, they will not get extra time because this is an hour-long debate. Secondly, we expect Divisions in the House shortly. The procedure will be to suspend the debate for 15 minutes for the first Division and approximately 10 minutes for each subsequent Division.
Cat Eccles (Stourbridge) (Lab) [R]
I beg to move,
That this House has considered UK participation in the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. Yesterday marked 75 years since the United Kingdom, a founding member of the Council of Europe, was one of 12 states to ratify the European convention on human rights. At the time, the world was emerging from the ruin of war and the defeat of Nazism, but new threats were emerging: a belligerent and confident Russia under the rule of a bloody dictator with his eyes on the west; proxy wars in south-east Asia; and mass population movements in the aftermath of war. The idea was to prevent these atrocities and abuses from ever being repeated.
Is the convention really so out of date and out of time, as its critics argue? Over the following 75 years, the Council of Europe and the ECHR have grown to encompass 46 member states in Europe, with only Belarus and Russia excluded. The Council of Europe has succeeded in bringing together a universal understanding of human rights, namely that human rights belong to everyone by virtue of their inherent dignity and worth as human beings. As we head into Remembrance Week, it is important to note that the convention is a cornerstone of why we say, “Lest we forget.”
I am proud to be a delegate to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, or PACE. The UK is represented by a formidable team of cross-party MPs and peers. I was inspired to run for the Council of Europe by former Stourbridge Labour party member, and former MP for Bromsgrove and later Birmingham Hodge Hill, the right hon. Terry Davis. In 2004, he was elected secretary-general of the Council of Europe and served until 2009.
The UK delegation in Strasbourg is incredibly active, and several Members have acted as rapporteurs, presenting reports and recommendations for adoption by all member states. In the most recent plenary session, in September, Lord German led an urgent debate calling for an end to the devastating humanitarian catastrophe and the killing of journalists in Gaza. Lord Keen of Elie presented a draft convention to establish an international claims commission for Ukraine, and to create a compensation mechanism, with a damage register and claims body, to fund the reconstruction following Russian aggression.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I do not often have a different opinion from the hon. Lady, but I do here. Our party, the Democratic Unionist party, is very much opposed to the European convention on human rights, and our opposition is primarily based on arguments about national sovereignty and the need for the UK to have full control of its borders and immigration policies, which is central to us. I may be at odds with the hon. Lady, but it is important that we recognise that people have different opinions on this issue.
Cat Eccles
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution.
Earlier this year, my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton and Winchmore Hill (Kate Osamor) reported on Europe’s demographic ageing and the decline in youth and working-age populations, highlighting the impact on the elderly, public services, labour markets and pensions. PACE adopted a resolution urging greater support for older people and called on member states to develop effective policies to ensure their wellbeing and quality of life. It also recommended improving policies to promote migrant integration and social cohesion.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)
We are also celebrating another event: the 25th anniversary of the coming into force of the Human Rights Act 1998. Like the European convention, it is about the rights of the individual against the state, and it gives individuals in this country the right to enforce those rights. Those are both things that we should be celebrating.
Cat Eccles
My hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow and Gateshead East (Kate Osborne) is one of the longest-serving delegates. She sits on the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination, fighting for gender equality, combating violence against women and girls and defending the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. She is a rapporteur for the committee and has overseen a report on the ban of so-called conversion practices, which will hopefully be passed at the next plenary in January. That report will provide model legislation for all 46 member states to pass and end that awful practice. Let us hope that this House is ready to enact those recommendations, as promised in our manifesto and the King’s Speech. As a member of the Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media, I have worked with colleagues on youth democracy, artificial intelligence, ethics in sport and media freedom.
The Council of Europe develops recommendations on issues affecting all member states, including the UK. We may be an island, but sharing best practice and developing common conventions strengthens rights, freedoms and democratic values across the continent. The Council of Europe continues to lead globally, abolishing the death penalty in Europe, supporting democratic transitions and exposing human rights abuses. It expelled Russia from the Council, declaring it a terrorist state, and Belarus for its support for Russian aggression. This summer, I witnessed history being made in Strasbourg as President Zelensky signed a bilateral agreement with the Council of Europe to bring a trial against Russia for crimes of aggression against Ukraine.
But what has the ECHR ever done for us? Well, it has ensured that the Good Friday agreement has lasted this long. The incorporation of the ECHR into Northern Irish law means that the people of Northern Ireland have an independent arbiter to trust in disputes over fault during the troubles, and that is no small thing. It is vital to peace, societal rebuilding and the end of sectarianism. Maintained rights can create faith in people and shine light out of darkness.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. The European convention gives us the right not to be tortured, not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law, to have a fair trial, to have privacy and to have freedom of expression. I ask all the people who are against it: what rights do they think the British people should not have?
Cat Eccles
My hon. Friend is absolutely right; it is difficult to see which of those rights needs to be updated, replaced or taken away.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The UK was instrumental in the creation of the ECHR. The Council of Europe now says that it is ready for reform. Is it not time for us to shape the future of human rights legislation in Europe, and absolutely the wrong time to abandon our place at the table?
Cat Eccles
The hon. Lady is absolutely right—we need to be around that table. We were there at the start, and we need to see it through and ensure that we maintain our place in that conversation.
Why not replace the ECHR with a British Bill of Rights? Well, we have one—the Human Rights Act 1998. The ECHR was drafted by British lawyers based on Britain’s common law and Magna Carta. In fact, during the negotiations on the Good Friday agreement, a British Bill of Rights was drafted and later rejected by right-wing politicians, to prevent a difference of rights across the Irish border.
It is because of the ECHR that a ban on gay people serving in the armed forces could be challenged and overturned by a young barrister whom we now know as the Prime Minister. A memorial was unveiled this week to commemorate those who served during that historical ban from 1967 to 2000. It is because of the ECHR that we got justice for the Hillsborough victims and were able to present the Hillsborough law, the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill, in Parliament this week.
The ECHR allows us to hold Governments to account and seek justice when those in power try to cover things up or overstep their remit. We must ask ourselves, “Why would anyone want to remove a mechanism to prevent those in power from abusing that power?” How dark our future could be if that were allowed to happen.
Linsey Farnsworth (Amber Valley) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech. I was looking at some of the examples of how this mechanism protects people in the UK. For example, the injunction served on The Sunday Times preventing it from reporting on thalidomide was overturned by the European convention on human rights. Such cases show how important it is for checks and balances on our own Government. God only knows what the future will look like if we come out of the ECHR.
Cat Eccles
My hon. Friend has made a really important point. The convention covers so many parts of our life and we must maintain it.
Currently, our politics is consumed by the issue of small boats. Despite representing less than 2% of all immigration into the UK, the boats are suddenly the reason why we must abandon the convention and place our collective human rights at the mercy of Government. In many ways, the attempted attacks on our freedoms under the guise of liberation remind me of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”. They say that truth is stranger than fiction, but I do not want to find myself looking from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again, and finding that I cannot tell which is which.
Of course, even the conflation of small boat arrivals with the ECHR is a lie. Mr Mundell, did you know that the ECHR has nothing written down relating to immigration or asylum? There is no right to asylum in the ECHR. Did you also know that, since the Human Rights Act 1998, the European Court’s rulings against the UK have fallen dramatically? It used to average 17 a year; now it is fewer than four. Indeed, it ruled against the UK only once in 2024—when, in a very nice piece of irony, the ECHR protected the rights of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday to freedom of expression. Even the convention’s harshest critics come running to it for protection when they are under threat from big government.
The University of Oxford recently published a Bonavero report titled “The European Convention on Human Rights and Immigration Control in the UK: Informing the Public Debate”, which centres on misinformation, over-reporting and outright lies in the press that poison the debate around the ECHR. I highly recommend it to all Members who are wavering on whether the UK should stay in the convention or leave it because of immigration.
There are two articles of the ECHR that have been tied to immigration. Article 3 is applied so that we do not send individuals back to torture or death—I would like to believe that we can all agree on that. Article 8, the right to family life, is projected by the ECHR’s critics as the real villain of the piece. They argue that it stops deportations of foreign criminals, sex offenders and individuals who arrived in the UK via small boats. There really is a lot of rubbish written in the papers and online relating to article 8, using examples of how the ECHR is being used to stop deportations and erode national security and identity.
The most notorious example was in February this year, when an Albanian criminal was apparently granted appeal to deportation because his son would not eat foreign chicken nuggets. The ruling was made because the criminal’s younger child had sensory issues, food sensitivities and emotional difficulties, but the upper tribunal rejected the appeal as not strong enough to be considered unduly harsh, and the case is still under review. For the record, article 8 is primarily used for reunification of British citizens with family members who are foreign nationals.
Let us step away from that story and look at some statistics. From 2015 to 2021, the Home Office removed 31,400 foreign national offenders from the UK, and in that period 1,000 foreign criminals managed to halt deportation on ECHR grounds, roughly 3% of the overall figure. Less than 1% of those cases were ultimately successful, so the ECHR is hardly the immovable object blocking the UK’s will in removing offenders from its shores.
Furthermore, the Court has ruled only three times that the UK’s immigration rules have violated the ECHR in the past 45 years, but political and media pressure appears to be bearing down on our relationship with the ECHR. There have been noises about tweaking the convention and about opening discussions, the thought of which fills me with dread.
Why concede the argument that the ECHR is to blame for our impotence, when that squarely does not match the reality? Why put the EHCR directly in the limelight of the political will of the day? Why cost businesses an estimated £1.6 billion at a time when they are already struggling? Why abandon the soft power that our place in the convention and institution affords us?
If I may say so, this reminds me of David Cameron’s renegotiation with the EU prior to the referendum. He put Britain’s relationship with the EU at the forefront of the agenda and worked tirelessly to get a better deal for Britain, believing that if he could show that Britain can renegotiate, the crocodiles in his party and on the fringes would let up—but in the end he lost it all. I make a plea to the Minister and to the Government: “Let’s draw a line in the sand. Stand up and fight for the convention and our place in it. Do not concede. Do not think that you can find a middle course that will satisfy all parties and stem the anti-politics sentiment that is so prevalent in the UK today. Let’s be bold and argue for the UK’s role in the Council of Europe and the ECHR.”
Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) on securing this debate.
I am pleased to speak about the ECHR and the UK’s membership of the Council of Europe. Across the political spectrum, parties are flirting with withdrawal. It feels like Brexit déjà vu, with the same hollow promises of taking back control, the same disregard for facts and the same blindness to consequence. The siren voices who said leaving the EU would be easy are now saying the same about leaving the ECHR, and thereby the Council of Europe.
Lord Wolfson’s recent report to the Conservative leader, for example, offers a threadbare fig leaf, based on an extremely narrow reading of the law that downplays the legal obstacles and, by his own admission, ignores the political ones. As Lord Wolfson knows, withdrawal would not be a technical exercise in legislative drafting, but a rupture in the constitutional fabric that binds these islands together. Reform, not rupture, should be our guiding principle; the convention can be updated to serve a modern democracy without sacrificing its founding principles.
Two practical measures would command broad support. First, the UK could lead efforts to clarify the scope of key provisions, particularly article 8, so that domestic courts can apply them with greater predictability and closer regard to parliamentary intent. Secondly, rather than withdrawing, we could work with other Council of Europe members to update the living instrument doctrine, ensuring that the Court’s interpretation better reflects democratic consent and contemporary realities. Those would be acts not of retreat, but leadership, strengthening Britain’s international role as a principled champion of the rule of law.
Despite what Lord Wolfson says, there are serious legal barriers to withdrawal. As the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on Northern Ireland, I must warn of the profound risks to peace at home. The ECHR is embedded in the Scotland Act 1998, the Wales Act 2017, the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and the Good Friday agreement. Removing it would require overhauling devolution and entail legislative chaos. Turning to Northern Ireland, withdrawal would breach our international commitments, destabilise all communities, betray those who built peace and force renegotiation of the UK-EU trade and co-operation agreement.
I say this to the Tories, Reform and the Labour leadership: flirting with populism for political convenience endangers both our unity at home and our reputation abroad. As Brexit has shown, dismantling international commitments might sound easy and liberating—but, as we know to our cost, it is neither. It is a hugely damaging, expensive diversion that will only make our problems worse.
Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) for securing this important debate. The ECHR has delivered extraordinary victories for British people. When Jeanette Smith and Graeme Grady were discharged from the armed forces simply for being gay, the English courts rejected their challenge, but the Strasbourg Court unanimously upheld their rights. Today the armed forces welcome all people regardless of sexual orientation.
The ECHR has protected children wrongfully taken into care; workers have won the right to express their faith and mental health patients have gained proper legal safeguards. Those are not abstract legal victories—they are real, and have changed people’s lives for the better. Yet many voices, including that of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is no longer in his place, paint the ECHR as our enemy and as a barrier to border control. They could not be more wrong. The truth is that we need the ECHR to manage our borders.
A common rights framework means that our European partners will work with us to tackle organised people smuggling and to protect our national security. We had the UK-France deal this summer, Bulgaria is intercepting smuggling boats at the EU border, and Germany is reforming its criminal laws to confront these shared challenges. Even Rwanda said that it will not work with us unless we observe human rights. Let us not forget that it was the failed Brexit project that destroyed the Dublin regulation, leaving us without any EU returns agreement. We then saw the number of dangerous crossings soar.
The ECHR did not stop the UK from removing 34,000 people with no right to be here in 2024, which was the highest number since 2017. Under 1% of foreign national offenders successfully appeal deportation on human rights grounds; since 1980, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge said, the Strasbourg Court found against the UK on deportation cases just a handful of times, only four of which concerned family life. The Reform and Tory policy of ECHR withdrawal is simply Brexit 2.0 and isolationism. It will not secure our borders. It will not solve anything.
James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)
My hon. and learned Friend has listed a number of very good examples of what has been achieved as a result of the ECHR. Does he agree that we need to work together to highlight its benefits, as opposed to seeking to tear it down or tear it apart?
David Mundell (in the Chair)
Can the hon. and learned Gentleman conclude in 30 seconds, because there is no additional time for interventions?
Tony Vaughan
I will conclude by saying that, on this 75th anniversary, 300 organisations—from Liberty to Mind, Shelter to Amnesty—rightly defend the convention. It is up to this Government to demonstrate to the public that we can have both border control and compassion. Let us celebrate 75 years of freedom, and 75 more.
Rupert Lowe (Great Yarmouth) (Ind)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. What does the ECHR actually mean for British people? Let us go through a few examples. A convicted Sri Lankan sex offender was allowed to stay in Britain because he is gay and would be at risk of persecution if he was returned to his home country. I do not care. A Jamaican drug dealer was jailed twice but allowed to stay in Britain after claiming that his removal would breach his right to family life. I do not care.
David Mundell (in the Chair)
The hon. Gentleman is not taking that intervention, so let us continue.
Rupert Lowe
No. A Zimbabwean was jailed for killing a man in a car crash but allowed to stay in Britain after it was discovered that he had an illicit love child. I do not care. A convicted Indian paedophile was allowed to stay in Britain by claiming that the move would harm his children. I do not care. An Albanian criminal was allowed to stay in Britain partly because his son will not eat foreign chicken nuggets. I definitely do not care. We hear so much about the human rights of foreign paedophiles, sex pests and murderers—
Several hon. Members rose—
David Mundell (in the Chair)
The hon. Gentleman is not giving way. Members may disagree with what he is saying, but we will conduct this debate in an orderly way.
Rupert Lowe
What about the human rights of the British people? They have the right not to be raped, stabbed and killed by foreigners who should never have been in our country to begin with. Please spare me the continued moral outrage.
Yasmin Qureshi
On a point of order, Mr Mundell. The hon. Gentleman just mentioned that—
David Mundell (in the Chair)
I already know that is not a point of order in relation to the content of the hon. Gentleman’s speech.
Rupert Lowe
Please spare me the continued moral outrage. I am bored of it. The British people are bored of it. It is not cruel to deport criminals, and it is not inhumane to defend our own citizens. What is cruel and inhumane is allowing foreign killers and sex offenders to walk among us in the name of the human rights they should have forfeited the moment they committed their crimes. Hon. Members can sit here and persuade themselves otherwise, but one simple fact remains: the British people want those people gone—not some of them, not most of them, but all of them. What happens on their return to their own country is quite simply not our problem.
The solution is to take three straightforward steps. Step one: we should leave the ECHR and remove all other legal obstacles to mass deportation—Restore Britain’s new 100-plus page policy document proves it can be done. Step two—
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) on securing this important debate. As a fellow delegate to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, I can personally attest to her dedication in this area.
I want to bring a Cornish perspective to the importance of the Council of Europe and the European convention on human rights—one that shines a light on our membership. First, the framework convention for the protection of national minorities, although less well known than the European convention on human rights, is one of the most comprehensive treaties to protect the rights of national minorities, including the Cornish people. Leaving the European convention on human rights would call into question our membership of the Council of Europe. Those who wish for that departure either have not considered the implications for Cornish national minority status, or they have considered those implications and do not care about the Cornish.
There is also the European charter for regional or minority languages, which protects, supports and encourages minority languages such as Cornish, or Kernewek. These are important commitments to which the UK is a signatory. They are too often considered secondary, but they bring tangible social and cultural benefits to the people of Cornwall. If we lived in a world governed by the parties that wish to leave the European convention on human rights, we would risk leaving the Council of Europe altogether. Any move to withdraw from the European convention on human rights would likely cause us to leave the Council of Europe, putting at risk the protections and benefits on which Cornish people rely under those other conventions.
In his ten-minute rule Bill last week, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), who is regrettably not here today—I notified him that I was going to raise this—described leaving the European convention on human rights as “unfinished business.” Having played a key role in the economic damage caused by Brexit, it seems that he is back for more, determined to sever another vital limb of our international partnerships as he attempts to steer the country on to the rocks of isolationism.
Some voices on the right argue that basic human rights hold us back. I believe they do quite the opposite. The hon. Member for Clacton will not talk about the other guarantees under the European convention on human rights: the right to life, the right to be free from torture and the right to liberty. As has been mentioned, bodies such as the Bonavero Institute at Oxford University have rightly said that some of the commentary on the European convention on human rights is misleading, often based on incendiary anecdotes involving chicken nuggets and pet cats. In reality, court rulings are far more complicated.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) on securing this debate.
When politicians such as the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), Conservative Members or, indeed, the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe) want us to leave the European convention on human rights, it tells us something quite reassuring, which is that the ECHR is doing precisely the job it was designed to do to protect all of us from the whims of tinpot populists like the hon. Member for Clacton. When parties such as Reform, and indeed the Conservative party, rail against the ECHR, it tells us everything we need to know about why it is so desperately required.
Those politicians want to remove our basic rights in order to leave the disadvantaged unprotected and their authoritarian tendencies unchallenged. It is in situations like this, when our human rights are most under attack, that we must redouble our efforts to ensure that they are preserved. Let us remind ourselves of the company that the hon. Member for Clacton wants to keep: Russia and Belarus—perhaps that should not surprise us either. He spends half his time as an apologist for the Kremlin, and he has the slight inconvenience of his party’s treasurer in Wales having been found guilty of taking bribes from Russian interests.
Let us remind ourselves what this is all about. The ECHR was created from the ashes of the second world war. It was designed to ensure that the atrocities of that dark time could never be repeated. It enshrines our freedoms of speech, to assemble, to worship, to protest and to live our private lives free from interference, and it is a living instrument that evolves as our society evolves. It is everything that the populists despise. Most of the time, we are not aware of the ECHR—most of our constituents probably do not know what is actually in the document—but it is always there, guaranteeing our freedoms and our rights. It does not seek attention; it simply ensures that the Government—any Government—act in a way that respects our rights. It is our silent guardian.
Leaving the ECHR will not stop the boats or allow the Government to deport masses of our fellow citizens, but it will tear holes in our domestic law. Since 1980, the European Court of Human Rights has found against the UK in just 13 cases, only four of them concerning family life. But those politicians do not just want to leave the ECHR; they want to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 as well. They would seek to abolish its 16 core protections, leaving the UK as about the only country with no chapter on human rights.
I say this to Labour Members: instead of fully defending the ECHR, the Government accept the premise that there is something wrong with it—that it needs to be amended and made compliant with Government interests. They talk about article 8 as being redefined—
Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles).
Let me begin by reaffirming my strong support for the United Kingdom’s continued commitment to the European convention on human rights. For more than 70 years, the ECHR has been a cornerstone of liberty and justice across Europe, defending free speech, safeguarding human rights and upholding the dignity of every individual. Those principles are as vital today as they have ever been, but supporting the ECHR does not mean turning a blind eye to where its application may have become unbalanced or detached from public understanding or support. I believe that the time has come for taking a serious and constructive view on its reform, not to weaken human rights, but to strengthen credibility and public confidence in the convention.
In particular, I believe that the interpretation of articles 3 and 8 has in a very small number of cases prevented the removal of foreign nationals with serious criminal convictions, even where their presence poses a clear risk to public safety. I hear that frustration again and again from my constituents in Mansfield. People who play by the rules expect those who break them to face the consequences, and when that does not happen, faith in the law and our institutions is undermined.
The status quo cannot remain, and my constituents in Mansfield are demanding action. That is why reform is needed—not to abandon our commitments, but to ensure that they reflect common sense, justice and the values of the British people in 2025. I welcome the recent comments by the president of the European Court of Human Rights suggesting that the Court is open to discussion and reform. That openness offers the UK a chance to engage and lead constructively, to modernise the convention, to clarify its boundaries, and to ensure that human rights protections continue to serve individual dignity, public safety, and what is more, public confidence. Let the UK remain a proud and leading member of the Council of Europe and the convention. That is the right and responsible way forward.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Ind)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Mundell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) on her outstanding speech, and other colleagues too.
I represent the city of York, which is England’s only UN human rights city, and our University of York hosts the Centre for Applied Human Rights. Human rights matter to my constituents, and human rights defenders from across the world come to our city. They come to our country because they recognise our strong framework around human rights. Human rights are in our DNA.
The Council of Europe’s work 75 years ago in establishing the European convention on human rights as the first instrument to crystallise and, through the Strasbourg Court, legally enforce the rights set out in the universal declaration of human rights, provided a vital route to justice—justice that must be upheld. We in our city have therefore developed our own framework around human rights, based on those established elsewhere, and we have called to account the institutions in our city on the issues of freedom, dignity and honest resolve.
The accountability of Governments, systems and actors is absolutely crucial. That is the role of the courts, and that is the role that the convention upholds. I have to ask why somebody would want to take away those rights or water them down. Is it because they want to subjugate? Is it because they want to violate? Is it because their interest is a world order where some should have fewer rights than others and where they have a God-given right to suppress the life of another and determine that their own flawed judgments should prevail?
I warn this Government, and all Governments in the future, not to mess with human rights. We need to uphold the dignity of all. We should never, never water down or undermine the frameworks that have served us so well for 75 years, and which must serve us well for 75 more.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) for securing this important debate.
George Orwell said:
“There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”
I am not mad when I say that the debate on leaving the ECHR is nothing to do with immigration; I am telling the truth, which is something I hope the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe) will finally come to realise. The convention is not designed to interfere with immigration policy; it says nothing about immigration, and the Court has long acknowledged the right of states to control their borders. That is why Oxford University data shows that only 3.5% of deportations of foreign criminals were successfully appealed on human rights grounds. That is the truth.
The fundamental purpose of the ECHR is to protect people from Governments of all colours. It stopped the Georgian Government arbitrarily detaining people. The Polish state has had to compensate thousands of citizens who had property taken away. Children in the Czech Republic were given rights to school. The failures of the French Government to tackle modern slavery were addressed. That is why apologists for authoritarian Governments such as the Russians hate it, and why they use immigration as a cover for their attacks. Now people want us to make the same mistake again—of walking away, not being in the room and isolating ourselves, as we did in Europe through Brexit—by walking away from the protection the ECHR offers our citizens: the protection that helped the Hillsborough families get justice, the protection that helped the victims of the black-cab rapist John Worboys, the protection that secured human rights and abortion access in Northern Ireland.
Even if people do not care about victims of crime or of miscarriages of justice, or about those who have been forced out of our armed forces for being gay, they might care about taxes. In February this year, the Court forced the Italians to stop a series of tax raids on companies because it was against their human rights. All of that—those basic rights—are at stake. And that is before we even get to the fact that it is the foundation of our trade agreements, and why other countries want to do business with us, that we follow the rule of law and hold ourselves accountable to a shared standard. That is why the ECHR is the foundation of the Good Friday agreement and is written into the EU trade and co-operation agreement, especially the deals on crime and policing.
Ms Creasy
My apologies, but I will not.
The Court also recognises the jurisdiction of nations. I reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) that if he has problems with how the ECHR is interpreted, we can pass domestic laws to address that. I know that some in this room want the Court to be a bogeyman, but the truth is that it actually respects our rights, including democracy. That is why we were able to vote on the issue of prisoner voting.
What is not true is that any Government writing their own Bill of Rights would offer the same protection to our constituents. Any fool can see that a Government who set out what rights we have one day can take them away the next. A Bill of Rights without someone external to ensure that it is enforced is not worth the paper it is written on. That is why the international rule of law matters. Leaving the ECHR would give a future Government the power to weaken the rights of our constituents. It would bring us back to the chaos of Brexit. It would be an attack on our freedoms, not an advance of them. The truth may hurt, but it also sets you free.
David Mundell (in the Chair)
Sincere apologies to everyone I was not able to call. We now come to the Lib Dem spokesman, who has five minutes.
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
Thank you, Mr Mundell. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I thank the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) for securing this important debate, and other Members—most of them, at least—for their contributions.
The Council of Europe is one of the post-war generation’s quiet triumphs. It was Winston Churchill, speaking in Zurich in 1946, who called for the creation of a Council of Europe to safeguard peace and freedom across our continent. Just three years later, the UK became one of its 10 founding members, and from the outset it represented something profoundly British: a belief that democracy, human rights and the rule of law should not stop at our own shores; they are international values.
Of course, the Council’s crowning achievement is the European convention on human rights. For decades, the convention and the European Court of Human Rights, which enforces it, have protected the rights of millions, including our own citizens—defending free speech and fair trials, advancing equality for women, securing justice for our military veterans, the LGBT community and those with disabilities, and holding Governments of every colour to account.
Today, the Council of Europe, membership of which is predicated on ECHR adherence, helps us to combat terrorism, cyber-crime, corruption and money laundering, as well as human trafficking and other forms of organised crime, yet there are some in this House who would turn their back on that legacy and those instruments. They would align us with Russia, a nation expelled from the Council of Europe in 2022 after its unlawful invasion of our close ally Ukraine. Russia, our clearest adversary—that is the company that some would have us keep.
Sarah Russell
The only other country that has willingly left the ECHR is Greece, under the fascist military dictatorship in 1969. Of course, once the dictatorship was overthrown, it rejoined. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is not company that we wish to be in?
Dr Pinkerton
It is truly shameful company for us to maintain, and there is nothing virtuous or patriotic about calling for our withdrawal.
Indeed, those calling for withdrawal, in pursuit of a single policy objective—ending illegal migration—should heed a deeper warning. In “A Man for All Seasons”, the playwright Robert Bolt, through the character of Sir Thomas More, observes of England:
“This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down…do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”
If we cut down the laws that shield even the unpopular or the accused, we will soon find that there is no shelter left for any of us.
As authoritarianism rises and war returns to our continent, the Council’s role has never been more vital. Its expulsion of Russia was an act not of punishment, but of principle—a reminder that tyranny cannot co-exist with liberty. What becomes of Britain’s claim to moral leadership if we abandon the very human rights system we helped to build? What becomes of the rule of law, at home and abroad, if the United Kingdom decides that it no longer needs to be bound by it? Our rights—our particular British rights—have been formed over a millennium of conflict, struggle and reform. We surrender them at our peril.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) for securing this important debate, which is extremely topical, because this matter is being debated across the United Kingdom at the moment.
There is no doubt that the intentions behind the creation of the Council of Europe and the European convention on human rights were noble. In the aftermath of the second world war, Europe lay traumatised by tyranny. It was with the backing of the then Opposition leader—indeed, one of the greatest figures in British and world history—Sir Winston Churchill that the United Kingdom took a leading role in constructing a system intended to ensure that totalitarianism could never happen again.
Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)
Will the hon. Member give way?
Andrew Rosindell
I will not, because time is very limited.
Yet Churchill had the foresight to say, on Europe:
“We help, we dedicate, we play a part, but we are not merged with and do not forfeit our insular or Commonwealth character…we are a separate—and specially-related ally and friend.”
I agree with Churchill. I believe in a Britain that co-operates, not a Britain that is subordinate to foreign judges and international bodies with no democratic accountability.
Those who claim that by leaving the ECHR we are somehow rolling back on human rights do a disservice to their ancestors, for Britain’s commitment to human liberty did not begin in 1950. It began centuries earlier—800 years before the convention was drafted, there was the principle of habeas corpus. Two decades before common-law courts were housed in the very hall in which we are having this debate today, Magna Carta of 1215 reaffirmed:
“No free man shall be…imprisoned…except by the lawful judgement of his peers and the law of the land.”
We produced, in succession, the Petition of Right in 1628, the Habeas Corpus Act in 1679 and the Bill of Rights in 1689, among a long list of other achievements.
We were the first nation in history that not only abolished slavery at home but dedicated the full force of our political, military and economic might to its global abolition. The crowning achievement was the island nation’s establishment of the premise of parliamentary sovereignty under a constitutional monarchy, which has been the envy of nations around the world.
Those achievements were not bestowed upon us by foreign courts or organisations. On the contrary, it was because of these British achievements that the ECHR came into existence, to instil in the nations of Europe that lacked such traditions the same freedoms that Britons had been enjoying for centuries. Last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) introduced a Bill proposing our withdrawal from the European convention on human rights, which I was proud to sponsor.
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition asked Lord Wolfson to conduct a thorough legal analysis of whether the United Kingdom can properly govern itself while remaining in the ECHR, with five core tests. It clearly indicated that the ability of the Government to control borders, to protect veterans from vexatious pursuit, to ensure that British citizens have priority in public services and to uphold Parliament’s decisions on sentencing and other matters without endless legal obstruction is significantly constrained by our ECHR membership. So a future Conservative Government will withdraw from the ECHR and repeal the Human Rights Act, so that the elected Government of the day can implement policies supported by the British people in a democratic election and uphold and strengthen human rights protections through our common law tradition, just as sovereign democracies such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand do, based on institutions and principles that originate from this very nation.
This is about democracy. It is this Parliament that should decide, not international bureaucrats or international judges—it is the British people, via a sovereign Parliament. That is the entire history of this country, and to jettison and give away that power is a shameful negation of the democratic birthright of the United Kingdom.
David Mundell (in the Chair)
Minister, the proceedings are due to conclude at 6.30 pm. You may wish to give Ms Eccles a few moments to wind up the debate.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)
Thank you, Mr Mundell. It is a genuine pleasure to see you in the Chair today.
I thank all hon. Members who have taken part in this lively and passionate debate. I particularly thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) for securing it, and for her powerful list of the work done by the Council of Europe on everything from Ukraine to the death penalty. She mentioned the role of the ECHR, giving examples from Hillsborough to the Good Friday agreement. I thank her and other Members here today who are delegates to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe; it is a pleasure to engage with them regularly, and their work is crucial to our national interests.
In stark contrast to the polemical nonsense that we have just heard from the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend made a fundamental point, which is that fundamentally the ECHR and indeed the Council of Europe are British projects. It is the treaty of London that established them. I was very proud to see the treaty of London on display at the European Political Community summit two weeks after we came to power last year—and to see it at Blenheim Palace, with its strong historical associations to the man the shadow Minister was praising. I think he would have turned in his grave at some of the things that the shadow Minister was saying.
I also want to issue a general challenge: things cannot be set in aspic; they must evolve and maintain the confidence of all the British people and respond to the challenges and genuine issues that we face today. The point many colleagues made about the company that we keep is very important. It is not surprising to me at all to see Reform on the side of the likes of Russia and Belarus. It was very sad to hear some of the comments the shadow Minister made and that he was proud to support the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage). Perhaps, like so many Tories, he is simply preparing himself for a rebrand under a new banner.
There were some strong speeches about the perils of leaving the ECHR and challenging the many myths and fake news, some of which we sadly heard in this debate. One of those is about the democratic nature of the Council of Europe, which is one of the most democratic bodies in Europe. The European Court of Human Rights is elected by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, including the UK judge, which flies in the face of what we heard from the shadow Minister and some others.
Other important points were made which have not previously had an adequate airing in debates on this subject. The arguments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) about the impact on national minorities were particularly strong. The ECHR ensures that all convention rights are enjoyed without discrimination, including on grounds such as race, language, religion or association with a national minority. Those crucial protections for national minorities could be lost if we left the ECHR. That is hugely important to Cornish and Welsh people and to those who speak our minority languages in the UK, including Cornish, Welsh, Gaelic and others. That is often forgotten.
Britain had a crucial and foundational role in establishing these institutions. Our pioneering Labour Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, was a strong advocate for the body; Sir Winston Churchill was another leading proponent of the Council, while the British lawyer Sir David Maxwell Fyfe played a central role in drafting the text of the convention. The UK was among the first states to ratify the convention. We are proud of the moral, political and legal leadership that Britain showed in creating the organisation and drafting a convention that was designed to help Europe recover from the horrors of the second world war. I know that there is controversy today, but the Government fundamentally believe that since their creation both the Council of Europe and the ECHR have delivered significant benefits to British citizens, and continue to do so. We are not afraid to say that.
The Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton), spoke powerfully about the wider work of the Council of Europe and the ECHR. There are more than 200 conventions under the Council of Europe, tackling terrorism, cyber-crime and corruption, countering money laundering, protecting children from sexual exploitation, confronting violence against women and girls and combating human trafficking and organised crime. It ensures that medicines are safe and effective, encourages economic growth, good governance and the rule of law, and supports freedom of expression and ethical media.
Linsey Farnsworth
On the subject of criminal co-operation, before I came into Parliament I was an international liaison prosecutor. My job was to get evidence from overseas and help to get people overseas in Europe extradited to the UK for prosecution. That work relies on the ECHR, which underpins that legislation. Does the Minister share my concern about what some Members in this Chamber are proposing? Does he agree that they should be the ones who talk to a victim of rape about why her case cannot go forward because we cannot get the evidence from a European country, or tell a mother that we cannot get the murderer of her son back because we have left the ECHR?
Stephen Doughty
My hon. Friend makes some incredibly powerful and strong points, with which I concur. She highlights the very serious consequences that could come were we to leave the ECHR.
Before I turn to some of the other specific points, I want to compliment the wider work of the Council of Europe and the Parliamentary Assembly in expelling Russia following the illegal invasion of Ukraine, supporting Ukraine and seeking to hold Russia to account for the atrocities it has committed. I also compliment its work on the register of damage, the international claims commissions and the special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine established under the auspices of the Council. Those, along with the activities that my hon. Friend just raised, all matter to the British public and to British public life.
Of course, the ECHR plays a crucial role in our constitutional framework. It is an important pillar of the devolution settlements, it underpins the guarantees in the Good Friday agreement, and it supports the safety and security of British citizens by facilitating cross-border law enforcement and judicial co-operation. The ECHR is often presented as some sort of foreign imposition that does nothing to help British people. That literally could not be further from the truth. It has contributed significantly to the protection and enforcement of human rights and equality standards in the UK. We are very proud that a Labour Government incorporated the ECHR into domestic law—that was, of course, a decision of Westminster—by introducing the Human Rights Act 1998, which came into force 25 years ago last month.
The ECHR has had a massive impact. ECHR rulings in 1982 led to the end of corporal punishment in schools in the UK and to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Northern Ireland. As has been referenced, in 1999, following a landmark case brought by two British servicepeople dismissed from the armed forces simply for being gay, an ECHR ruling led to the law being changed to allow members of the armed forces to be open about their sexuality. Another very powerful example concerns the impact of the Hillsborough disaster, which the Prime Minister has done much to lead on in recent months. The families of the 97 who lost their lives relied on the ECHR’s right to life provision when they campaigned for the truth. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) spoke powerfully in this debate, including about the case of John Warboys. The benefits are not just historical; they affect live and significant cases that affect British people today.
Last, I turn to the question of reform. The strength of the convention is that, while the ECHR explicitly safeguards those at risk of harm, exclusion or discrimination, helps ordinary people to challenge unfair laws, and pushes Governments to respect rights, it is also entirely reasonable and appropriate for Governments consistently to consider whether the law, including the ECHR, is evolving to meet modern-day challenges, including on irregular migration, asylum and criminal justice. The ECHR was never designed to be set in stone and frozen forever in the time that it was created. That is why we are working with and engaging with European partners to look at ways in which reform can go forward, and why we are reviewing the way in which the ECHR is interpreted in UK domestic law.
Stephen Doughty
I will not, because I want to give time for my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge to wind up.
We need to ensure that we retain public confidence in our policies related to the ECHR, so we must look at where we can reform and evolve. Last week, the secretary-general of the Council of Europe was clear that he was open to discuss potential changes or adaptations—my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) raised that important point. Other Council of Europe member states share the UK’s view that the ECHR needs to evolve. We are talking to them about what might be possible, but we will not leave the ECHR. We recognise the hugely important role that it plays, and the hugely important role that the Council of Europe plays for people in this country. This is something that Britain was involved in at the start. It is not a foreign imposition; it plays an important role in the life of the British people. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions to this debate.
Cat Eccles
I thank all hon. Members who have participated in this interesting and lively debate. I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan), the hon. Members for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe) and for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart), and my hon. Friends the Members for Mansfield (Steve Yemm), for York Central (Rachael Maskell), for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon), and for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) for their contributions. I am sure that my hon. Friends who have not been able to contribute to the debate also had excellent points to make. It is clear that this discussion must continue.
In marking the 75th anniversary of the ECHR, we are reminded of its founding purpose: to safeguard dignity, freedom and justice. That remains as vital today as it was at the start. Far from being outdated, the ECHR has evolved into a cornerstone of European democracy, promoting equality, accountability and the rule of law across all 46 member states. Yet misinformation, false narratives and political opportunism now threaten to erode that legacy. Sovereignty gives us the right to be party to international treaties. The facts are clear: the ECHR does not hinder deportation or weaken our sovereignty. If we were to leave, it would be short-term gain for long-term pain. As pressures mount to dilute or abandon our commitments, we must stand firm. Britain helped to build the ECHR, and we must continue to defend it.
Financial Inclusion Strategy
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Lucy Rigby)
Today, I have laid the financial inclusion strategy—Command Paper 1424. Financial inclusion means that people can access the financial products and services they need. When people are financially excluded, every day is harder, plans are precarious, and a financial setback can snowball into a crisis. But when people are included, a potential shock can become a manageable obstacle, and aspirations can become achievements. These benefits have knock-on effects for our wider society, making financial inclusion a bridge to opportunity and an engine for growth.
I want to see a financial services system that works for everyone, where people can access the products and services they need to build their financial resilience and achieve their goals. The strategy sets out our approach to improving financial inclusion and, in turn, ensuring that everyone can access the financial products they need to participate fully in the economy, manage their money well, and plan for the future.
The strategy brings together a package of initiatives to improve access to financial services and strengthen financial resilience across the UK. This builds on the Government’s existing progress, such as the ongoing roll-out of 350 banking hubs, and looks to future opportunities, such as the development of a new digital pass which can help people prove their identity. It is structured around six key pillars: banking and digital inclusion; savings; insurance; credit; problem debt; and financial education and capability. Three themes of mental health, accessibility, and economic abuse have been considered throughout to ensure that interventions address the specific barriers consumers affected by those issues can face. Through these areas of focus, the strategy also supports wider Government priorities, including building household financial resilience and driving sustainable economic growth. Its measures include:
Action to tackle the impact of economic abuse on victim-survivors’ credit scores, enabling people to regain their financial independence following the devastating impact of abuse;
A new pilot taken forward by the largest banks to open bank accounts for people who struggle to access mainstream banking, such as people experiencing homelessness;
A new national coalition of employers to support organisations to help their employees save for unforeseen circumstances;
Action to drive greater accessibility of products for people who can face challenges in using essential financial services, such as people with disabilities and mental health conditions.
The strategy has been developed with the support of a financial inclusion committee of consumer and industry representatives. It has also been informed by extensive engagement with wider stakeholders across Government, regulators, civil society, and the financial services sector. I would like to thank all those who have contributed their time and expertise to the development of this important work.
This strategy will be delivered in partnership across Government, regulators, civil society, and the financial services sector. The UK Government will also continue to engage closely with the devolved Governments on areas of shared and devolved responsibility. Together, we will work to support consumers to build financial confidence, resilience, and wellbeing.
This strategy will guide Government and industry activity to promote financial inclusion, and it will be reviewed in two years’ time to ensure that progress is made.
The financial inclusion strategy is available on gov.uk: www.gov.uk/government/publications/financial-inclusion-strategy
[HCWS1019]
Independent Review of Social Work Regulation: England
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Josh MacAlister)
The Government are taking a step today to ensure that social workers can continue to support and protect the most vulnerable and marginalised members of our society by announcing an independent review of Social Work England. This statement to the House sets out the scope of the review and the timeline for delivery.
Under section 64 of the Children and Social Work Act 2017, the Secretary of State for Education is required to commission an independent person to undertake a review of the operation of part 2 of the Act. The review will cover the period from December 2019 to September 2025.
The Secretary of State for Education has appointed Dame Annie Hudson to conduct a review to ensure the regulation of social work is fit for purpose and continues to benefit both the professionals it oversees and the individuals it aims to protect.
Dame Annie was appointed for the wealth of experience and knowledge she has of social work, both as a former social worker and her roles as former strategic director of children’s services for Lambeth London borough council and former director of children’s services for Bristol city council. She was also chief executive of the college of social work and more recently chair of the child safeguarding practice panel.
The primary focus of the review will be to assess how effectively Social Work England is discharging its statutory functions and delivering against the objectives set out in the Act, which are:
To protect, promote and maintain the health, safety and well-being of the public;
To promote and maintain public confidence in social workers in England;
And to promote and maintain proper professional standards for social workers in England.
The review will engage in a call for evidence, review the evidence available and consult representatives and those with expertise or experience of social work as required by the Act.
Through this statement we are committing to assessing:
The establishment of SWE and the transfer of powers from the health and care professions council to SWE.
The regulatory mandate of SWE as set out by the 2017 Act, and to reviewing the Social Workers Regulations 2018, to understand how SWE is delivering against the legislation in co-ordination with other bodies concerned with the delivery of social care functions in England and the devolved Administrations.
SWE’s governance and accountability mechanisms, including reporting on activities and providing information and advice.
The effectiveness and efficiency of SWE’s core regulatory functions: registration, professional standards, education and training standards, and approval, including for approved mental health professionals and best interests assessors, and fitness to practise.
The delivery of the Secretary of State’s powers as set out in the 2017 Act in relation to SWE’s fees income; grants; oversight of SWE’s transparency and performance; the use of improvement standards as set out in the 2017 Act for social workers; and to ensure adequate provision of social work training.
How SWE’s functions relate to the wider social work landscape, with particular reference to how initial education and training standards and professional standards align with others, including those from Government.
In addition, the review will consider the current model of professional regulation for social workers and make recommendations on whether any changes to SWE’s delivery of its functions are needed to enable more efficient and effective regulation and/or to improve the standards of social work practice.
The review will commence from today, 5 November 2025, and is expected to conclude by spring 2026. The report and a Government response will be laid before Parliament.
[HCWS1025]
Down Syndrome Act 2022: Draft Statutory Guidance Consultation
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Dr Zubir Ahmed)
People with Down syndrome have the right to make informed decisions about their future. This Government recognise our duty to support them in achieving their goals and aspirations in life.
There is estimated to be around 47,000 people in the UK with Down syndrome who, despite existing legal duties and frameworks, often face real challenges accessing services and the right support due to a lack of understanding of their needs and how to meet them.
We are determined to set this right. That is why we are breaking down barriers to opportunity for disabled people through our 10-year health plan, and today we are launching a consultation on draft statutory guidance under the Down Syndrome Act 2022.
I strongly encourage everyone with an interest to respond to the consultation and share their views.
The guidance supports the Government’s aims to ensure disabled people’s access to, and experience of, services is fair and effective. It does this by raising awareness and bringing together in one place the practical steps that organisations should take to meet the needs of people with Down syndrome. It also helps to clarify the support and services people with Down syndrome can expect to receive.
During the passage of the Down Syndrome Act, it was clear there were concerns about ensuring that the guidance could have the widest possible benefit for people with other chromosomal conditions, genetic conditions and/or a learning disability who have similar needs, and we have sought to address areas where there are overlaps.
We expect the guidance to improve support for people with Down syndrome and also for those with other conditions and/or a learning disability who have similar needs. An equalities impact assessment has been published alongside the consultation.
In March 2024, the previous Government formally commenced the Down Syndrome Act, bringing into force the duty for the Secretary of State to consult on and publish guidance. On 21 October 2025, we laid amendment regulations to ensure the Act reflects current NHS structures.
I am grateful to Sir Liam Fox for introducing his private Members’ Bill, now the Down Syndrome Act. I fully recognise that quite some time has passed since the Act received Royal Assent in April 2022. Following close engagement with our partners, this Government are now in a position to publish the draft guidance for public consultation, with today’s announcement taking us a step closer to the final guidance being published.
The consultation will run for 12 weeks, and easy read versions of the draft guidance and the consultation questions have been made available, so everyone is able to make their voice heard.
I am proud to say that people with lived experience, and the organisations who support them, have been at the heart of the work to develop this guidance.
I would like to thank all those people with lived experience, their families and carers, and partner organisations who have worked tirelessly to help us produce the draft guidance for consultation, and to all colleagues who supported us to get this over the line.
I look forward to receiving responses to this consultation to help us to develop guidance that has a real and lasting impact on people’s lives.
[HCWS1026]
Telecoms Fraud Charter
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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The Minister for Security (Dan Jarvis)
My noble Friend the Minister of State, Home Office, Lord Hanson of Flint, has today made the following written ministerial statement:
Today, I am pleased to inform the House that we are publishing the second Telecoms Fraud Charter.
The Telecoms Fraud Charter sets out a series of ambitious fraud prevention commitments from major consumer and business telecommunications providers operating across the UK.
These commitments represent a significant step forward in further strengthening the telecommunications sector’s response to fraud, addressing some of the most prevalent and harmful scams perpetrated via voice and text channels. Measures include enhanced protections against the spoofing of legitimate network numbers, improved filtering to block scam calls and messages before they reach consumers, and the introduction of new rules to ensure quicker resolution of fraud cases by telecoms providers.
Further detail will be published online, but the charter will contain actions focusing on:
Cross-industry data sharing to improve the detection and disruption of fraud;
Strengthening SMS protections to block scam texts and reduce abuse of messaging platforms;
Preventing scam calls and spoofing through technical upgrades to the network;
Improving customer awareness through clearer guidance and public education campaigns;
Better support for victims, including new fraud resolution deadlines;
Improved collaboration with industry and law enforcement to drive intelligence sharing and co-ordinated enforcement.
Telecoms providers have made notable strides in recent years in addressing fraud, supported by technological innovation and strengthened collaboration with Government and law enforcement agencies. However, those signing this charter have shown a clear commitment to go further and faster to prevent fraud, acting with urgency and ambition.
I welcome their proactive approach and commend their dedication to safeguarding consumers from fraudulent activity. Government stand firmly alongside the sector in this fight. We will continue to convene, support, and challenge all partners to go further and faster, holding them to account for the commitments they make in this charter. Together, we can make the UK a hostile environment for fraudsters and a safer place for everyone.
The Telecoms Fraud Charter will be published on www.gov.uk on 5 November.
[HCWS1022]
Independent Monitoring Panel Report: January to June 2025
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Hilary Benn)
On 24 February 2025, I informed the House that an Independent Monitoring Panel would scrutinise the operation of the internal market guarantee set out in the “Safeguarding the Union” Command Paper. The first monitoring period for the guarantee ran from 1 January through to 30 June 2025 and I can confirm that the panel has today published its report for that period. I have deposited a copy in the Library of the House for the record.
Under the guarantee, the Government undertook that 80% of all freight movements from Great Britain to Northern Ireland would be treated as not at risk of moving onwards to the EU, and therefore moving within the UK internal market system. It is the role of the panel’s expert appointees to monitor that commitment on the basis of data, provide recommendations to the Government to support the good functioning of the UK’s internal market and ensure that the facilitations within the Windsor framework are fully used.
The panel’s report today has confirmed that over the first six-month monitoring period, 96% of the value of goods moved by freight met the guarantee. The report also contains an important set of recommendations to the Government. I have informed the panel that the Government are grateful for those recommendations, which will now be considered as part of our response to the independent review of the Windsor framework. I will update the House on the Government’s response to that review in due course.
[HCWS1021]
Rail Reform
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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The Secretary of State for Transport (Heidi Alexander)
Today I have published our consultation response, “A railway fit for Britain’s future”, and introduced the Railways Bill to Parliament.
Up and down the country and across all political parties, the consensus is clear: our railways need urgent reform. Passengers feel abandoned—forced to treat delays, cancellations, and poor value for money as unavoidable facts of daily life. Meanwhile, a broken, outdated model is holding the railway back, stopping it from unlocking the growth our country needs and delivering the efficiency taxpayers rightly expect.
The need for change was laid bare in the thousands of responses to our recent consultation. The British public were unequivocal: we need an affordable, reliable railway that passengers can count on and that makes the most of every taxpayer pound invested. One that makes education, healthcare, public services, and even just the support of family and friends more accessible to those who need them. A railway that backs our businesses and helps our communities thrive. A railway fit for Britain’s future.
So today I am bringing forward legislation that will pave the way for the biggest transformation of Britain’s railways in 30 years. Informed by the consultation feedback, the Railways Bill will give us the tools we need to create Great British Railways—a new, publicly owned company to oversee the management of track and train.
Today’s passengers are at the mercy of a complex system of poorly co-ordinated organisations, all incentivised to look inward and outsource blame. GBR will put an end to this by bringing together the work of 17 different organisations—from train operators to public bodies, Government, and the regulator—eliminating unnecessary duplication and creating a single organisation responsible for operating, maintaining, and improving our railways.
Unencumbered by the bureaucracy and perverse incentives of the old system, GBR will have the tools and authority it needs to make the railway deliver for passengers, freight, and taxpayers—and to be held unambiguously accountable for doing so. It will be the “directing mind” for the network, responsible for improving performance and taking long-term decisions across the whole system to unlock growth, decarbonise transport, enable the construction of new homes and support a thriving supply chain. GBR will be underpinned by a clear set of statutory duties—including those relating to passengers and accessibility, rail freight, and social and economic benefits—as well as an overarching strategic direction set by the Government. This approach will enable GBR to make decisions with a whole-system view, optimising network use and utilising opportunities such as open access to make the most of constrained capacity.
GBR will create a new culture that prioritises passengers and their experience. It will simplify fares and ticketing, setting more transparent fares in line with parameters set by Ministers. It will consolidate the ticket retailing operations of 14 separate train companies—each with their own websites and apps—into a single, straightforward GBR ticketing platform. A new GBR app and website will make it easy to purchase tickets, check train times, and access a range of support all in one place. Together, this will make it easier for passengers to understand the fares system, to know they are buying the right ticket, and to be confident they are getting the best value.
The Bill will pave the way for creating a powerful voice for passengers, with a passenger watchdog responsible for setting tough standards and, where these are not met, investigating issues and resolving disputes. It will protect and advocate for all passengers’ interests and rights, offer advice, and independently monitor passenger experience, reporting on its findings publicly and transparently.
GBR will work in partnership with devolved leaders to create a national railway that serves local needs. Through a new statutory role for devolved leaders, national and local strategies will be factored into GBR decision-making ensuring communities across Britain feel the benefits of our reforms. England’s mayors will have a greater say in how the railways will run, enabling genuine local influence and laying the foundations for integrated public transport that meets the needs of the communities it serves.
Devolved Ministers in Scotland and Wales will also have an enhanced role, with bespoke arrangements to ensure GBR is able to deliver an integrated national network across Great Britain. I will publish a joint memorandum of understanding with Welsh Ministers setting out how our continued collaboration will drive improvements to our railways across the Wales and borders area. Scottish Ministers have a similarly strong settlement reflecting their role as funder of the railway, including powers of direction and guidance over GBR. This will be set out in a joint memorandum of understanding that will outline how GBR will work with Scottish Ministers to maximise local opportunities and deliver for communities.
While this Bill will unlock the most significant set of reforms our railway has seen in a generation, we are not waiting for the creation of GBR to drive improvements across the rail network. We have accelerated the roll-out of pay-as-you-go and we are ushering in a new era of transparency with latest performance data now available at over 1,700 stations. We recognise that disabled passengers’ experience on today’s railway too often falls short. That is why today I have also published an accessibility road map: a transitional plan focused on delivering immediate improvements while laying the foundations for longer term transformation led by GBR.
This Bill enters Parliament 200 years on from the birth of the modem railway. The first passenger train between Shildon, Darlington, and Stockton in 1825 marked the start of a technological revolution that would change the course of world history and trigger an explosion of growth and prosperity across the country. As this Government continue their mission to deliver a decade of national renewal, the plans I am setting out today will ensure the railway is fit to drive economic growth in the 21st century as it has done in the past.
[HCWS1024]
Rail Reform: Wales and Borders
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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The Secretary of State for Transport (Heidi Alexander)
Today we have introduced the Railways Bill to Parliament. This landmark legislation is a significant milestone in our journey to modernise and improve rail services across the United Kingdom, delivering a more integrated, accountable, and passenger-focused railway.
Throughout the development of this Bill, I have greatly valued the positive and constructive engagement between UK Government, Welsh Government, and Transport for Wales officials, which has been supported by the strong inter-ministerial relationship between UK and Welsh Ministers. Our ministerial discussions have been both productive and forward-looking. We are committed to the UK and Welsh Governments’ shared ambition to establish a clear set of joint objectives, understanding of the governance and management roles of UK and Welsh Ministers in relation to railways and railway activities for the Wales and borders area.
A key outcome of this collaboration is the inclusion of a specific clause in the Bill, which provides for the development of a memorandum of understanding between the Secretary of State for Transport and Welsh Ministers, represented by Ken Skates as Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales. This clause recognises the shared ambition to codify devolved responsibilities, funding arrangements, and joint governance mechanisms, thereby strengthening accountability in the delivery of rail services across the Wales and borders area. In parallel, UK and Welsh Government officials have jointly undertaken the drafting of the heads of terms for this memorandum, which has been a positive and collaborative process.
The heads of terms will provide a basis for the development of the memorandum. It will provide clarity on the expectations of how UK and Welsh Ministers and delivery agencies such as GBR and Transport for Wales will work together to deliver a more integrated railway in the Wales and borders area. This agreement will form the foundation for the MOU and reflects our shared priorities and principles for working together.
The heads of terms includes our shared ministerial intention for:
Shared objectives and control period/funding period planning for the Wales and borders area—An outline of jointly agreed and published objectives and business plans that are shaped by both Governments.
Track and train integration—Agreed principles to deliver a more responsive and resilient railway by delivering a simpler, better, integrated railway for the users of the Wales and borders network.
A GBR Wales and borders business unit—To provide the Wales and borders area with a dedicated, empowered business unit within GBR that will deliver against the shared objectives set by both Governments.
England and Wales cross-border services—An aligned framework between the Welsh Ministers and the Secretary of State for joint governance and transparent funding arrangements concerning cross-border rail services, reflecting the vital importance these services have on the connectivity, wellbeing and economic development of communities in both Wales and England.
Access and use—Principles to enable GBR and TfW to work together to simplify access contracts and charging framework and ensure GBR’s capacity allocation decisions and infrastructure capacity plan development are consistent with the joint objectives established for the Wales and borders area.
Core valley lines—To support TfW to integrate track and train, reduce internal regulatory complexity, and jointly develop an interface framework with GBR for service continuity across both networks.
Wales rail board and enhancements—A formally recognised and renewed Wales rail board as a strategic body within the governance framework. The evolved Wales rail board will review funding allocations, business plans, and performance of enhancement schemes across the Wales and borders area.
Governance—Governance principles to ensure adequate accountability channels to UK and Welsh Ministers by GBR and TfW.
Appointments and Representation—Welsh Ministers role in shaping the overall recruitment strategy for the GBR board, and consultation from the GBR CEO during the recruitment of senior executives within the Wales and borders business unit.
The publication, review and amendment process for the MOU.
The heads of terms will enable us to move forward with the full development of the MOU, which we aim to publish and share publicly in spring of 2026. This will provide clarity and transparency on how our respective Governments will work together to deliver better rail outcomes in the Wales and borders area.
Alongside and supported by the development of the MOU, a partnership agreement will be developed between Great British Railways and Transport for Wales for the Wales and borders area. This agreement will support operational alignment and ensure that both organisations can work effectively together to deliver high-quality rail services for passengers in the Wales and borders area.
This statement marks a significant step forward in our collaborative approach to rail reform, and I am confident that our continued joint working with the Welsh Government will support the delivery of a modern, integrated railway that works for passengers across the United Kingdom.
[HCWS1023]
Keep Britain Working Review: Government Response
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Pat McFadden)
I am pleased to make a statement today, jointly with the Business and Trade Secretary, on Sir Charlie Mayfield’s Keep Britain Working review, which he has submitted to the Government.
As ill health is one of the biggest drivers of economic inactivity in the UK—800,000 more people are out of work now than in 2019 due to health problems—the Government commissioned Sir Charlie to investigate the factors behind that and look at how Government and businesses can work together to turn it around.
As well as delivering our plan to get Britain working, we need to help people to stay in work and prevent them from falling out of work in the first place due to ill health. With a further 600,000 people set to leave the workforce by 2030 if current trends continue, we need to keep Britain working.
Sir Charlie has engaged extensively with business, disabled people, health professionals and other key voices across the UK, ensuring that a wide range of voices and experience have shaped his recommendations. I would like to thank Sir Charlie, for his excellent work and collaborative approach, as well as everyone who has contributed.
As well as setting out the scale, nature and cost of inactivity on individuals, employers and the state, the review identifies three problems: first, a culture of fear felt by both employees and employers; secondly, a lack of an effective or consistent support system for employers and their employees in managing health and tackling barriers faced by disabled people; and thirdly, structural challenges for disabled people, creating barriers to starting and staying in work.
In response to these problems, the review sets out a fundamental shift from a model where health at work is largely left to the individual and the NHS, to one where it becomes a shared responsibility between employers, employees and health services.
To keep the momentum from employers, we are today announcing that we will be taking forward the recommendation to set up a vanguard phase. We will work with the businesses who have already stepped up to become a vanguard to test different approaches and build evidence for a better workplace. All employers taking part in this phase will be doing so voluntarily.
The vanguard phase needs to continue the spirit of collaboration with business and disabled people. We are pleased to announce that we will be appointing Sir Charlie Mayfield to co-chair a vanguard taskforce, alongside myself and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, to lead this vanguard phase in partnership with Government.
The taskforce will also bring together representatives from business, disabled people, workers representatives and health experts to shape and deliver this work. We will bring forward more detail in due course.
The review rightly sets out that data, evidence and insight will be central to the success of the vanguard phase. We are today asking Sir Charlie and the taskforce to oversee the rapid set-up of a workplace health intelligence unit to work closely with business to systematically provide the data and insight that both businesses and Government need to support the vanguard and inform wider reform. Through the vanguard, we intend to work with businesses and disabled people to pilot and develop improvements and reform.
We agree with Sir Charlie’s diagnosis that the fit note system is not working as intended. It is currently a missed opportunity to get people the help they need to get in and get on in work. We are already piloting innovative approaches to the fit note and we are committed to further reform so that it works better for patients, employers and the health system. We will bring forward further detail in due course.
We agree that access to work needs improving. This is why, through the “Pathways to Work” Green Paper, we consulted on the future of the scheme. We are working with disabled people and people with health conditions, in addition to their representative organisations and people that support them, on a plan for reform.
We also recognise that Disability Confident needs to deliver more for disabled people and employers. The vanguard phase will test stronger standards and practical support, helping employers recruit, retain and develop disabled staff, making Disability Confident a mark of genuine inclusion.
This review gives us a clear roadmap for reform. We look forward to working with Sir Charlie Mayfield, with business, and with disabled people and people with health conditions to keep Britain working.
I will update the House on progress as this critical work moves forward.
[HCWS1020]