House of Commons
Oral Answers to Questions
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
Aphra Brandreth (Chester South and Eddisbury) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Ed Miliband)
Bills are too high and the cost of living crisis is the biggest issue facing the country. That is why, at the last Budget, we took decisions to raise taxes on the wealthiest, which will enable us to take an average of £150 in costs off household energy bills from April. That builds on the fact that the price cap and average energy bills were lower in real terms in 2025 than in 2024.
Sir Desmond Swayne
We were promised a reduction in bills of £300, but they have actually gone up by just shy of £200. The impact assessment of the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) Order 2026, which we passed last week, states:
“we estimate that cost-pass through for most sectors could feasibly be at 80-90%”.
That is a euphemism for even higher bills, isn’t it?
Ed Miliband
I am afraid that the right hon. Gentleman’s first point is wrong; he is taking one quarter—summer 2024 —and comparing it with today. If we look across 2025, bills are lower than in 2024. Actually, I had hoped that he would support the £150 that we have taken off energy bills, but the Opposition oppose all the measures making that possible.
Claire Young
The Government’s consultation on alternative heating that ends today does not cover installation costs, yet that is what is stopping many of my constituents in off-gas areas from switching away from oil. With National Energy Action warning of an £18 billion funding gap to meet fuel poverty targets, what action will the Government take to ensure that those least able to afford alternative forms of heating are not left dependent on fossil fuels and paying sky-high bills?
Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady is right to draw attention to our consultation. From talking to my ministerial colleagues, I know that we will take into account the points that she has made. We want to allow as many as people as possible across the country to convert to cheap, clean power. That is the point of our warm homes plan, and that is the point of the consultation she mentioned.
Aphra Brandreth
A recent survey conducted by Censuswide shows that two thirds of households with heat pumps say that their heating costs have increased, driven by electricity prices that are four times higher than gas. With energy bills now £190 higher, despite this Government promising to cut them by £300, does the Secretary of State acknowledge that his choices are making it harder for households to make the switch to greener heating options, and that, unlike the Conservatives’ cheap power plan, they are leaving households with higher bills?
Ed Miliband
I congratulate the hon. Lady on reading out the Whips’ handout. No, I do not, and I will tell her why. The Chancellor’s action in the Budget to take the renewables obligation off bills and put it on to public expenditure was the biggest single cut in the cost of electricity that we have seen dating back to even the Conservatives’ time in office.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
The costs of new infrastructure are a pressure on bills, as the Secretary of State knows. He deserves enormous credit for the results of the allocation round 7 auction today, in which the strike price of renewables was less than half what it would have been with new gas. What is the approach to rolling out extra grid—and, indeed, maintaining the existing grid—which is so crucial to the plans, given that there is so much to make up for following the failure to invest over the many years since privatisation?
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to this morning’s auction, which saw record amounts of solar power. It is the cheapest form of power that we could possibly have in this country, and it costs less than half the price of building and operating new gas. On the point about infrastructure, he is right that we inherited a terrible legacy, and we are building the new infrastructure that we need.
Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
My constituents in North West Leicestershire will soon benefit from an average £150 cut per household to energy bills, and a number will be able to access energy efficiency schemes. Can the Secretary of State outline in more detail the expected changes to the fixed elements of our bills, such as the standing charges, which impact those in fuel poverty so much more than the rest of us?
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend draws attention to the really important issue of standing charges. We have been consulting on moving the warm home discount from fixed cost standing charges to unit rates, which has been welcomed by Martin Lewis, among others. We want to bear down on standing charges, and we will announce the results of that consultation soon.
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
Last year, I teamed up with the local Labour council cabinet member for the cost of living and my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) to launch a free local pension advice service, which has delivered over half a million pounds to eligible pensioners in Derby. It has helped with pension credit, home heating tips, fire safety advice and utility deals, and has even provided free draught excluders and radiator insulators. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure people know about the support they can get to reduce household bills?
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to this important issue. As part of our warm homes plan, we are going to set up a warm homes agency to give people proper information, advice and guidance on what they can do to cut their bills. We have made the biggest public investment ever seen in this country to help people cut their bills and upgrade their homes, and we will make sure people know about it.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
Zöe Franklin (Guildford) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Chris McDonald)
We recognise that high energy costs remain a significant pressure on UK businesses. We are acting now through the British industry supercharger and the new British industrial competitiveness scheme to reduce electricity costs for energy-intensive sectors, while delivering our clean power 2030 mission to cut bills for good. We also intend to consult on further options to reduce costs and make low-carbon heat economically competitive.
Lincoln Jopp
Ametek and SSS Gears are two quite rare breeds—they are manufacturing companies in my Spelthorne constituency, inside the M25. One employs 200 people, while the other employs 43, and they seek to export around the world. How does the Minister expect those companies to be competitive in a global market when energy prices in Ashford, Middlesex are four times higher than those in Ashford, Alabama?
Chris McDonald
It is exactly that disparity in international energy prices for industry, which the previous Conservative Government left us with, that we are addressing through our clean power 2030 mission. However, we recognise that as clean power is coming online, industry will need further support. Both Ametek and SSS Gears are exactly the sorts of manufacturing businesses that this Government wish to support through initiatives such as our British industrial competitiveness scheme. The consultation for that scheme has just closed—I do hope both of those businesses responded to that consultation—and we will publish the results shortly.
Dr Pinkerton
Small and large businesses in my constituency of Surrey Heath—everything from small cafés to care providers and large manufacturers—tell me that they are being crushed by high energy costs. Given that the wholesale cost of gas has fallen substantially since its peak in 2022, can the Minister indicate what proportion of a typical business energy bill is driven by wholesale costs, network charges and policy costs, and which one of those is likely to be borne down on over the next year as a direct consequence of Government action?
Chris McDonald
The hon. Gentleman is quite right to point out the impact of energy costs on small businesses. As we have seen, that has been largely driven over many years by the linkage between energy costs and gas prices, which is something that this Government are determined to deal with as we pile on renewable energy as part of our clean power mission. UK gas costs are competitive with Europe after policy costs are included, but of course we want to remove businesses from having to rely on the whims of the fossil fuel market and enable them to rely on low-cost, secure, home-grown energy.
Zöe Franklin
A third-generation advanced manufacturer in my Guildford constituency invested in a solar-covered, energy-efficient factory to cut emissions and expand, yet overall operating costs have risen sharply, including business rates increasing from £130,000 to £570,000. That business is doing everything right, including switching to renewables and working to become more efficient. On top of the crippling hike in business rates, the straw that breaks the camel’s back is energy costs, so what discussions has the Secretary of State had with the Chancellor about reducing industrial energy costs and the associated costs so that firms investing in clean growth are properly supported?
Chris McDonald
Of course, it is central to the Government’s policy that businesses are incentivised to invest in renewable energy and electrification where that is possible, so that they can access the lower-cost electrical energy that is coming on stream as part of our 2030 clean power mission. The hon. Lady mentioned that the business was a manufacturing business, so it is possible that it could qualify for our British industrial competitiveness scheme, which we will bring forward in 2027. The results of the consultation on that scheme will be published shortly.
Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)
In Cornwall, after our groundbreaking critical minerals strategy, there is the possibility that floating offshore wind could power critical minerals processing plants. This is a fantastic opportunity. Will the Minister look closely at the proposals and see how the Department can help something like that to happen?
Chris McDonald
My hon. Friend does a grand job of championing the critical minerals industry in Cornwall and the potential for floating offshore wind in her constituency. She highlights a great opportunity, where investment in energy and industry side by side can reduce the cost of capital for both parts of the supply chain and so create an economic opportunity. I thank her for the representations that she has made to me on behalf of her constituents prior to today. I will continue to work with her in trying to realise this opportunity.
Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)
To transition away from fossil fuels, we need zero emission vehicles on the road. Manufacturers such as Alexander Dennis should be leading that transition, although it currently operates with a gas-intensive production process. To stay competitive against imports, those manufacturers need greater support. The British industrial competitiveness scheme is hugely welcome as it will reduce industrial electricity costs, but will the Minister consider supporting a dual fuel discount that includes the cost of gas to support the automotive advanced manufacturing sector, including Alexander Dennis?
Chris McDonald
I am very concerned about gas-intensive industries, and the Government’s policy is intended to ensure that they are given the support to decarbonise by electrifying, where that is possible, whether that is through confidence in long-term energy prices owing to the delivery of our clean power mission or through support to invest in their business.
Mr Richard Quigley (Isle of Wight West) (Lab)
I know that the Department is working hard with the Department for Transport to decarbonise shipping, but the current system works against businesses. One of our ferry companies is having to pay £12 million up front for a shoreside connection and then wait for up to seven years. Will the Minister commit to reviewing this system to speed up electric shipping for places such as the Isle of Wight?
Chris McDonald
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for engaging with me on this topic in advance of the recent changes to the emissions trading scheme to include maritime emissions. It is incredibly important that domestic maritime emissions are included, so as to incentivise the investment required to decarbonise. I am aware of the issue in the Isle of Wight. On one route, two vessels will be affected. I know that he has invited me to visit the Isle of Wight and meet the businesses concerned, and I am allowed to make the commitment from the Dispatch Box that I will do that.
Graham Leadbitter (Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey) (SNP)
Businesses and public services in the north of Scotland pay among the highest commercial energy prices in the whole UK. The Government have had 18 months to try and fix that. Why do they still think it is okay to discriminate against people in the north of Scotland in that way?
Chris McDonald
In fact, the Government are taking an approach across the whole United Kingdom to deliver the energy infrastructure and energy generation capacity to guarantee low-cost, home-grown, secure energy for the future, ensuring that the jobs and benefits from that are seen across the country. I would have thought that the hon. Member might wish to welcome those jobs in Scotland. There will be 20,000 additional jobs by 2030 in clean energy industries in his community and mine.
Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Time and again, small manufacturing firms in my constituency of Llanelli tell me that high energy costs are making it difficult for them to be competitive, and they feel that they are on the edge. Given the lack of investment by the previous Conservative Government and the fact that this Government are playing catch-up, when does the Minister think that enough new sources of energy will be generated to bring down prices? How soon will interim help arrive?
Chris McDonald
My hon. Friend is right to champion the small manufacturers in her constituency, which I know well from the time that I spent working in south Wales. It is important to note the announcement from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State this morning—it will shortly be the subject of a statement to the House—about allocation round 7. It demonstrates our commitment to putting on new solar farms, new onshore wind and new offshore wind. Every single one of those installations contributes to our energy security and to reducing the cost of energy for domestic consumers and industry alike.
Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
The cost of electricity is still too high, and, as we have heard, businesses are struggling to pay their energy bills. While the Government have offered help to the energy-intensive industries, it is the small and medium-sized businesses in my constituency and around the country that still feel overlooked and forgotten. Liberal Democrat researchers have estimated that 3.1 million SMEs saw a total bill increase of £7.6 billion when the Conservative Government ended the energy bill relief scheme. When will this Government finally help SMEs—the small businesses, the backbone of our economy—to see off their crippling energy bills?
Chris McDonald
The hon. Lady and I agree that more needs to be done to alleviate the high energy costs for small businesses. I used to run an energy-intensive small business myself, and I know how difficult that is. She is also right to point out that this is the legacy that the last Government left us.
We are pushing forward to 2030, when we will have lower energy costs and more secure energy in the UK, but we recognise that more needs to be done to support small businesses—although we are already helping with measures such as our zero carbon services hospitality trial, which is now delivering support for 600 hospitality SMEs across the UK, and the provision of £200,000 to fund improvements in the UK business climate hub and help SMEs with their carbon emissions.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)
As we explained in our solar road map, the Government consider effective community engagement to be crucial as we scale-up solar deployment throughout the country. Developers must consider local community views as part of their applications, and the quality of that community engagement is taken into account by decision makers.
Calum Miller
Just across the border of my constituency lies Southill Solar, a scheme that works with the local community, pays a direct return to residents, funds local projects, and has even won awards for its landscape and environmental design. By contrast, Botley West, one of the largest solar farms ever brought forward in Europe, would have a profound and long-lasting impact on a rural area, but local people feel that the level of developer engagement and transparency, as well as the community benefit on offer, falls far short of the scale of that impact, and the Planning Inspectorate recently described the absence of key information as “very disappointing”. Does the Minister agree that community benefit should be proportionate to the scale and impact of solar development, and will he agree to meet me to discuss how those operating large-scale solar schemes can listen better to rural communities so that clean energy is delivered with, not against, local consent?
Michael Shanks
I have had many productive meetings with the hon. Gentleman, and I shall be happy to meet him again to talk about these issues. The Government absolutely believe that communities that host infrastructure should benefit from doing so. We have consulted on mandatory community benefits and we will respond to the consultation in due course, but today we have published the local power plan: the biggest shift in power and wealth that we have seen in the energy space in British history, which will ensure that the hon. Gentleman’s community and communities throughout the country benefit from the ability to own their energy infrastructure, and that the benefits of that flow into those communities. That is the ambition that we have set out as a Government.
Dr Jeevun Sandher (Loughborough) (Lab)
A solar farm is planned for my constituency, and the developer has engaged well with local residents. Yes, it will power 20,000 homes, and yes, it will get carbon emissions down, but most important of all, it will make our bills more affordable because solar is 50% cheaper than natural gas. Does the Minister agree that when it comes to renewable energy, Members in all parts of the House should say, as I say today, “Yes in my constituency, and yes in my back yard”?
Michael Shanks
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I warmly welcome my hon. Friend’s comments. He takes seriously the issue of how we can build the infrastructure that the country needs for our energy security, but he also rightly draws attention to a fact that Opposition Members seem to ignore completely: the fact that renewables are the cheapest and quickest form of power to get on to the system. Just today, the new auction has resulted in 4.9 GW of capacity. That, taken together with the offshore wind results, makes it the most successful renewables auction in British history. The entire Opposition Front Bench used to agree with this. These renewables are 50% cheaper than the new-build gas that is now championed by the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), which would add money to the bills of people throughout the country. This is the right plan for bringing down bills, for our energy security and for providing jobs throughout the country.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
I do not think the Minister fully appreciates just how much communities threatened by large-scale solar up and down the country feel that they are having things done to them and not with them. The No. 1 complaint that I have heard from campaign groups represented by Stop Oversized Solar up and down the land, including some in my constituency, concerns the threat to food security. When they try to engage, they keep being given this bogus figure of 1%, but if we carry on in the direction the Government are going in, by 2035 an area the size of Greater London will be covered in solar. That is equivalent to nearly 2,000 farms capable of producing 2 billion loaves of bread. When are we going to get the truth about the threat to food security from solar?
Michael Shanks
This is just the most absurd nonsense from the Conservatives, who I see are now crowdsourcing their energy policy on Twitter. It is not surprising that they come up with that sort of nonsense, when that is the information that they use. Even in the most ambitious deployment scenarios, all the statistics suggest that 0.4% of UK land would be occupied by solar. The Conservatives come to this House time and time and time again calling for bills to be brought down, but their policy would put them up and turn away the investment that is driving jobs and opportunities across the country. They had no answers in energy policy for 14 years, and they have learned absolutely nothing in opposition.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Katie White)
This Government are absolutely committed to supporting the NHS to be at the heart of our decarbonisation effort in order that, first, it gets to reduce its emissions and that, secondly, it can reduce its dependence on expensive fossil fuels. That is why Great British Energy has already supported over 260 NHS sites with up to £130 million of funding. GPs are not part of NHS sites but under the boiler upgrade scheme they can access £7,500 towards heat pumps and £5,000 towards biomass boilers.
Helen Maguire
Primary care accounts for around 25% of the NHS’s carbon emissions, with many GPs working in ageing, energy-inefficient buildings with high running costs. Research from the Royal College of General Practitioners reveals that only five GP practices in England and Wales have accessed the boiler upgrade grant scheme since May 2022, and most are unable to access the public sector decarbonisation scheme. GP partners across the UK identify a lack of capital funding as the main barrier to decarbonisation, yet 260 NHS trusts are rightly receiving Government funding for new solar panels. Will the Minister meet me and the Royal College of General Practitioners to discuss how GPs can access decarbonisation schemes, and will she expand GB Energy’s investment model to GPs?
Katie White
I thank the hon. Member for raising this really important issue, and for raising the figures. I think she would agree that we have an ambitious plan. Today’s announcement of the local power plan may well meet some of the needs that she raises. I will take this issue away and have a look at it. We recognise that retrofitting commercial buildings can be costly and complex, and we are looking at other levers to do that, including accessing private finance and exploring novel options such as property-linked finance. Today’s announcement will help, and I am very happy to discuss it further with her.
Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)
It was fantastic to see GB Energy invest in new, clean, bill-saving technology for the Bedford Road health centre in my constituency last week. That comes on top of the investments already seen at Lister hospital and Bedford hospital, which serve my constituency. Solar is good for the NHS and for the planet, so how can we get it on to more public sector rooftops right across the country? Crucially, I have some fantastic examples in Hitchin where we would love to see further action.
Katie White
I applaud my hon. Friend for all his ambition and championing of the opportunities that are presented in our low-carbon transition plan. Today’s announcement of the local power plan is a real opportunity to turn the dial on this issue, for local communities to become involved, and to make the best of the benefits of the low-carbon transition. I look forward to working with him further on it.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Chris McDonald)
The carbon pricing emissions trading scheme is set by the market, rather than the Government. The price is effective at driving investment in carbon abatement measures, but it is for individual operators to decide whether the costs of abatement in a project are effective for them.
Sarah Olney
Last week the Government updated their carbon values to reflect their latest net zero emission target, but the UK emissions trading scheme does not take into account the updated figures. In 2021, it was predicted that carbon abatement for a third runway at Heathrow would cost £100 million, and costs will have only risen since. According to the emissions trading scheme, just 15% of the clean-up costs of expansion will be covered by Heathrow; the rest will fall on the taxpayer. Will the Minister update the UK emissions trading scheme to reflect the carbon abatement costs of major projects such as Heathrow expansion, so that the taxpayer can understand how much they will have to pay for a third runway?
Chris McDonald
The Government do not comment on or interfere with the carbon price. Ultimately, the price is set by the market to ensure that the ETS drives decarbonisation where it is cheapest. In this way, it can act most effectively as a financial incentive to decarbonise, without specifying the particular technology.
Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, and it is great to see you back on your feet.
Last week, the Labour party voted to increase the carbon tax, which increases costs for households and industry, and those costs have already doubled because of its policies. It is absolutely shameful for the Government to say that they have had no impact on the carbon tax whatsoever. It now accounts for over 10% of household electricity bills, and the rise is in effect a £5 billion a year tax on the British economy. Can the Minister explain why the Labour party wants to tax our industrial jobs out of existence, leaving Britain reliant on dirtier imports from abroad?
Chris McDonald
I am not sure if the shadow Secretary of State is conflating the various carbon taxes with the emissions trading scheme, but to be clear: the Government do not set or comment on the value of the carbon in the emissions trading scheme. That is a matter for the market. It is of course a policy on which the previous Government were very keen, because it drives the most efficient forms of decarbonisation. Ultimately, it places a price on carbon emissions that ensures private capital floods into the right places to decarbonise, as we have seen so successfully with the power sector in the UK.
Irene Campbell (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Ed Miliband)
There is huge potential from small modular reactors for both our energy security and jobs. I am proud that the decisions this Government have taken have enabled us to fund the UK’s first SMRs at Wylfa, supporting up to 3,000 jobs on site and thousands more across the supply chain. We want every part of the country to benefit from this potential, including Scotland.
Irene Campbell
An SMR and new nuclear at Hunterston power station would make a huge difference to my constituency, given that nearly 650 people are already employed in highly skilled and well-paid jobs in the civil nuclear sector there. I was concerned to read a BBC article about a Scottish nuclear worker who relocated from Hunterston to Hinkley because there is no new nuclear in Scotland. Does the Secretary of State agree that we are losing talent and investment because of the SNP’s continuous opposition to nuclear?
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks incredibly well on this issue. It is just common sense to have nuclear as part of our energy mix. We know why it is not going to happen in Scotland under the current regime. It is because SNP politicians, for dogmatic reasons, have set their face against it. They are even embarrassed to have this policy. The answer to it is to vote Labour in May.
Mr Speaker
Order. Jim, you were not here—you have just appeared—and the problem is that I think you missed the first part of the question. [Interruption.] Do not worry, Jim—just get on with it!
Jim Shannon
I thank the Secretary of State and I know he is interested in small modular reactor schemes, which we are very interested in having in Northern Ireland. The shadow Secretary of State has also giving a commitment to them. Can I please ask the Secretary of State what discussion he has had with the Northern Ireland Assembly—Gordon Lyons, in particular—to ensure that we can also benefit?
Ed Miliband
Obviously, this is devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive, but I think the hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Throughout the United Kingdom, there is huge potential for SMRs. This is the technology of the future, and it can play a really important role in our energy mix across the UK.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
It is unusual—indeed, unheard of, in recent months anyway—for the Secretary of State and I to agree on anything on energy policy, but it is probably not the first time this week that he secretly agrees with a Scottish politician. I know he agrees that new nuclear, particularly SMRs, offer huge potential for the UK and for Scotland. This week, Trade Unionists for Safe Nuclear Energy launched a petition addressed to the First Minister of Scotland, calling on him to lift the ban on new nuclear development in Scotland. Can that group expect the Department’s support?
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman is right about this. Let me put it this way: given the scale of the climate change challenge, only those who are dug in dogmatically can oppose new nuclear. Given the scale of the challenge we face, we need all the tools at our disposal. It provides good jobs and energy security, so it is only for dogmatic reasons that the SNP Government oppose it. There is one difference between him and me, and that is that he promised SMRs, but we are delivering them.
Andrew Bowie
The difference is that this Secretary of State’s ambition for nuclear pales in comparison with our ambition when we were in government.
When I served as the Minister for nuclear, it was a source of the greatest frustration that, despite the many countless—indeed, huge—strides we took to kick-start the new nuclear age in the UK, none of the investment or the jobs would be seen north of the border. The Scottish National party is most at home refighting the battles of the past—they tend to be the battles of the 14th century—but in this age of nuclear revolution across the world, the aversion to nuclear is inexplicable. It is a luddite approach. The SNP is anti-science, anti-progress and anti-jobs. There can and should be a future for nuclear in Scotland. Does the Secretary State not agree that this is the time for the SNP Government to drag themselves into, and to move Scotland into, the 20th century—let alone the 21st century—change course and lift this ridiculous ban?
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman makes his point in his own way. As I say, I believe the SNP’s position makes no sense. I gently point out to him that although he might have had grand ambitions, with no delivery they are completely worthless—and that was the Conservatives’ record on nuclear.
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Martin McCluskey)
Great British Energy’s mission is to power Britain with clean, secure and home-grown energy. It has already started that work, with Great British Energy and the Government funding around 250 school and 260 hospital solar installations, including at Rakegate primary school and Ormiston NEW Academy in my hon. Friend’s constituency.
Warinder Juss
In my constituency, almost one in five households have been living in fuel poverty, struggling to heat their homes this winter. I welcome the Government’s commitment to lifting 1 million more households out of fuel poverty by 2030, which will have a significant impact on my constituents. Will the Minister please outline what other tangible changes my constituents can expect to see over the next year thanks to GB Energy, so that by the time we come to next winter they can feel comfortable that they can now afford to heat their homes?
Martin McCluskey
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I know that he is focused, as I am, on reducing energy bills for his constituents and people across the country. I have already spoken about the extensive investment in solar not just in his constituency but across the country. People in Wolverhampton and across the country will also be benefiting from our action to reduce energy costs by an average of £150 this April. That is in addition to continuing the warm home discount for nearly 6 million eligible households this year.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
There have been numerous references to the cost of energy and reducing that cost in the United Kingdom. Has any assessment been made by the Minister or the Department of the comments made by the International Energy Agency in the past few days, which seem to indicate we have one of the highest prices in the western world?
Martin McCluskey
I think where the IEA and I would agree is that we need to get off the rollercoaster of fossil fuels and ensure we are investing in clean home-grown energy that people across the country can take advantage of to lower their bills.
Dame Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Katie White)
As set out in the recent northern growth strategy, the north-east is at the forefront of our clean energy revolution. Our industrial strategy’s clean energy industries sector plan sets out measures which will support investment and growth across the UK. Great British Energy has supported grants to mayoral strategic authorities, which will enable locally led energy projects.
Dame Chi Onwurah
I thank the Minister for that response. For 100 years and more, skilled workers in the north-east have relied on high-paid energy jobs, be they in coal, gas or oil in mines, factories, ports and rigs. Labour’s clean power mission can bring new jobs to existing supply chains, but companies and workers need help to transition. Will the Minister tell me how she plans to future-proof the north-east’s energy supply chain and deliver secure, well-paid and unionised jobs?
Katie White
My hon. Friend is absolutely correct to highlight the huge opportunities for the north-east in the energy transition. We estimate an additional 10,000 jobs by 2030, building on those that are already in place in offshore wind in the Port of Tyne and in nuclear Hartlepool. She is right to point out the importance of the transition for both existing workers and the next generation. That is why we have introduced a clean energy jobs plan to ensure that that transition is as successful as possible. I highlight the work of Mayor Kim McGuinness, who held an excellent green jobs fair in the north-east, which has provided a blueprint for the rest of the country, and the importance of our work, hand in hand with the trade unions, to ensure that we deliver the most effective transition possible.
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)
The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)
Great Britain’s electricity distribution network is highly resilient and the Government work closely with industry to maintain that. Energy resilience is a top priority for the Government, which is why my Department will publish an energy resilience plan in 2026.
Mary Kelly Foy
Constituents in areas like Esh Winning, Witton Gilbert, Brandon and Waterhouses and increasingly businesses in Durham city regularly contact me about repairing power outages. They have been told by Northern Powergrid that temporary repairs will be made, but that clearly offers no reassurance to those who are elderly, live alone or rely on their electricity supply for medication or to power medical equipment. Recent storms cannot be blamed, as many of the outages were reported during spells of fine weather. Will the Minister say what work the Government are carrying out to improve the resilience of the electricity distribution network in Durham so that my constituents are not constantly worried about when their power will next go out?
Michael Shanks
My hon. Friend asks an important question. I completely understand the frustrations of people who are without power and the disruption that it has on people’s lives. My Department has had a number of conversations with Northern Powergrid on the particular issues in my hon. Friend’s constituency and I am advised that many of the power outages across Waterhouses, Brandon and Esh Winning were caused by trees contacting overhead lines. This is all feeding into work that is being done to ensure that the resilience of the network allows us to avoid those situations in the future. We are also working on how we can upgrade the network where possible to ensure it is resilient. There is always more that we can do, but the grid does remain hugely resilient across the country, and we will work to support communities such as that of my hon. Friend where, unfortunately, there are power outages.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
There are two things that the Government could do to improve energy resilience, particularly in communities like mine in Cumbria. First, they could support Electricity North West by ensuring that it buries its cables where possible to protect them against wild weather, which, as the Minister knows, we have from time to time. Secondly, they could accelerate local energy markets so that in places like Coniston, which the Minister and I discussed in our meeting yesterday, they are able to provide energy for the community they are embedded within, thereby enhancing the resilience of the network. Will the Minister do those things?
Michael Shanks
I think Electricity North West is considering exactly that question, looking at where the lines can be buried to avoid repetition of the issues that have been caused so far. I will follow up on that point in particular with it. I had a fantastic meeting with the hon. Gentleman yesterday to talk about Coniston and local energy markets. I encourage him and Members across the House to read the local power plan, published this morning, which sets out our ambition to look at innovative ways in which communities can own and invest in their own energy while also having the resilience of local energy networks and smart energy systems that help the grid both nationally and locally.
Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Martin McCluskey)
This Government’s actions mean lower bills for people across Scotland and lower levels of fuel poverty; in April, because of the Government’s actions, households across Scotland will see an average of £150 of costs removed from their energy bills. Just last week, we announced the extension of the warm home discount to 2031, meaning £92 million of support for some of the most vulnerable people across Scotland every year into the next decade.
Dave Doogan
The energy market in Scotland operates in surplus in both generation and transmission, whereas the energy market in England operates in shortage in both generation and transmission. Unfortunately, that means that in a GB energy market, Scotland gets sucked in to subsidising energy costs for English consumers. Over and above that, Energy UK has made it clear that there will be no meaningful reduction in energy bills until some indeterminate point in the 2030s. Will the Minister recommit—just before the Scottish elections—to energy bills in Scotland being £300 lower in 2029 than in 2024?
Martin McCluskey
Bills are coming down, and yes, I will recommit to that. [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman does not want to listen to me about the impact of our policies, he might look at the Scottish Government’s own modelling of the £150 off energy bills, which says that the number of people in fuel poverty in Scotland will reduce by 9% and the number in extreme fuel poverty will reduce by 12.5% this April. That is because of this Government’s actions, not because of anything the hon. Gentleman or his colleagues are doing.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
It was good to see you walking in today, Mr Speaker.
I welcome the publication of the local power plan, which will be keenly read in my constituency—the heart of the Atlantic—where communities are taking their share in the wealth of wind. To renew and expand community energy, we need to get connected to the grid. I welcome what the local power plan has to say about setting up tailored support for communities, but there must be priority support from Ofgem, the grid operators and this Government to ensure that communities benefit from the wealth of wind.
Martin McCluskey
I know that my hon. Friend is a real champion for local community power in Na h-Eileanan an Iar. I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister for Energy will have lots to say on the matter soon on his visit to the Western Isles.
Sir Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Ed Miliband)
The first-of-a-kind clean industry bonus as part of allocation round 7 is set to crowd in up to £3.4 billion of private investment in supply chains and support up to 7,000 jobs across the country. After a legacy of failure under the previous Government, we are determined that the clean energy future is made in Britain.
Sir Mark Hendrick
What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that the jobs generated through the clean industry bonus are directed towards communities formerly dependent on fossil fuel industries and that workers at risk of displacement during the transition are supported into those new opportunities?
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes an important point. One great thing about the clean industry bonus is that it will be focused on the industrial areas of our country, including those that are based on oil and gas. We also have, as part of our North sea future plan, a whole set of plans to help displaced oil and gas workers into these areas. There is huge potential in this innovation, as it rewards companies that invest in our country.
Cat Eccles (Stourbridge) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Martin McCluskey)
One of the best ways to ensure accurate billing is by using a smart meter, which automatically records energy use in every half-hour period, allowing bills based on actual rather than estimated usage. That is why more than two thirds of non-domestic premises are already using a smart meter.
Cat Eccles
Small businesses across my constituency have been mis-sold commercial energy contracts by brokers. A business in Lye was recently locked into a three-year contract in which it found itself paying more than double the market rate. An independent café in the Merry Hill centre recently had to close due to the £1,500 a month in energy bills that it was forced to pay. Will the Government strengthen the law to protect small businesses against unscrupulous energy brokers and consider introducing a cap on business tariffs?
Martin McCluskey
I am sorry to hear about the experience of businesses in my hon. Friend’s constituency. The short answer to her question is yes, we will strengthen the law in this area. Rogue energy brokers have been allowed to use predatory sales tactics for too long to take advantage of customers. That is why, once parliamentary time allows, we will be introducing new measures to stamp out that exploitation.
Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)
The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)
On 4 February, the Government published the advanced nuclear framework, which establishes a pathway to market by introducing the UK advanced nuclear pipeline and clarifying the enabling policy landscape to unlock privately financed advanced nuclear projects in the UK, which is all part of our new golden age of nuclear power.
Mr Brash
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the publication of the advanced nuclear framework. It is an important step forward, providing a clear pathway for credible projects such as the one that X-Energy and Centrica are delivering in my constituency. Will he ensure, though, that the right balance is struck between backing those projects that are most robust and mature and recognising that Government support will be particularly important to unlocking private investment for the first project of its kind in the UK, which will make Hartlepool a trailblazer for our country?
Michael Shanks
Let me pay tribute to my hon. Friend who is an absolute champion for Hartlepool. I was delighted to be at an event recently as part of Nuclear Week in Parliament, where I met some of his constituents who pay tribute to him for the work that he does in this place and outside it to bring nuclear investment to Hartlepool. The framework that we have announced enables credible, mature privately led projects by providing the clarity needed to attract private capital. To join the UK advanced nuclear pipeline, projects must meet the readiness assessment, gaining in principle the endorsement of deliverability. Therefore, his point is hugely important and we look forward to these private-led projects coming forward as part of this huge investment in new nuclear.
Mr Luke Charters (York Outer) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Martin McCluskey)
I am proud that the Government have extended the warm home discount to an extra 2.7 million households, taking the total to around 6 million. Last week, we announced that the scheme would continue supporting households for a further five years to 2031. This will make a vital difference to so many families this winter, including an additional 190,000 households in Yorkshire and the Humber.
Mr Charters
I will never forget my mum renting a house in York with ancient heating, freezing rooms and an evil prepayment meter that drained her finances. In York, over a third of fuel-poor households rent privately. What is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that the warm home discount reaches them and ends the unfair penalty paid by many simply for renting?
Martin McCluskey
The experience that my hon. Friend outlines is still all too common in our country, and I know that he continues to raise this issue on behalf of all his constituents. The warm home discount is available to eligible private renting households on prepayment meters, and through the warm homes plan we are taking significant action to increase the minimum energy efficiency standards for the private rental sector, so that every private renter in my hon. Friend’s constituency and elsewhere benefits from a warm home that is cheaper to heat.
Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Katie White)
This Government take energy security extremely seriously. We run one of the world’s safest, most reliable energy systems, and we are a top destination for investment. Investment in our energy infrastructure undergoes the highest level of national security scrutiny.
Gregory Stafford
Given reports from Norway and Denmark that Chinese-manufactured electric buses contain remote kill switch technology, and that the recent UK-China engagement appears to have delivered an embassy for the Chinese and little more than a Labubu for the United Kingdom, how can the Minister be confident that Chinese-made energy infrastructure does not pose similar national security risks? What steps is she taking to remove our reliance on Chinese-made infrastructure?
Katie White
That is slightly audacious, given that when we left government in 2010 we had, I think, three of the top solar companies in the world, but when we came back into office we had nothing—there was no supply chain. National security is this Government’s No. 1 overriding priority. We are engaging constructively with every opportunity and all actors but at the same time making sure that every single decision takes into account our national security, which comes first above anything else.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
Domestic production of clean energy infrastructure technologies insulates us from Chinese security issues. In Cornwall we are on the cusp of significant geothermal baseload energy production. Geothermal Engineering Ltd in my constituency will imminently open the UK’s first ever geothermal electricity plant, producing energy and lithium from beneath our feet. Will the Minister ensure that there will be ministerial representation at this key milestone in the UK’s clean energy transition?
Katie White
From China to Cornwall, Mr Speaker! I thank my hon. Friend for his continued championing of Cornwall, geothermal energy and critical minerals. This Government support geothermal, and we will engage constructively at any key moment.
Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Ed Miliband)
This morning we have announced a record-breaking auction for solar and onshore wind, and we are launching our local power plan. That follows a month in which we secured the biggest offshore wind auction in Europe’s history and launched our warm homes plan. We are determined to deliver lower bills and good jobs as we take back control of Britain’s energy.
Olivia Blake
I welcome the Secretary of State’s leadership in restoring momentum on net zero. Will he outline how the Government’s energy and climate strategies will be underpinned by clear delivery plans, milestones and transparent reporting to Parliament?
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks with great eloquence on these issues. As she knows, that is the great thing about the Climate Change Act 2008, which was passed with the support of all parties. David Cameron—my nemesis—was a great supporter of that plan. The Act gives us the milestones that my hon. Friend talks about. On top of that, we have our clean power action plan.
Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)
Last year, the Secretary of State signed a secret energy deal with China, which he has refused to publish. This is simply unheard of. We have heard repeatedly from intelligence services that China might seek to disrupt our energy system, so it is crucial that the public get to see what he has signed us up to. Will the Secretary of State commit to publishing the full text of his secret energy deal with China, and if not, will he tell the House what it is that he is trying to hide?
Ed Miliband
May I give the right hon. Lady a piece of advice? Wacky conspiracy theories that she gets on the internet are no substitute for a proper policy.
Claire Coutinho
That is frankly another patronising non-answer from the Secretary of State. I am not sure whether he got the memo, but his party is fed up with the sexist boys club. What is crucial is that the public have lost faith in the Labour party. This is a serious moment. Does he accept that when he stands at the Dispatch Box and tells the public that by his calculation their bills are falling, not rising, they simply do not believe him? Does he also accept that when he does not set out what any of his plans—such as doubling the carbon tax or clean power 2030—will do to bills, he makes a mockery of his party’s pretence that it cares about the cost of living? Does he not reflect on all this—the £300 nonsense pledge, the Great British Energy fig leaf—and realise that when it comes to loss of trust, he is not their salvation but their problem?
Ed Miliband
We will take no lectures from the right hon. Lady on the cost of living crisis, because her Government presided over the worst cost of living crisis in generations. Let me tell her what we are doing: £150 off bills; the warm home discount extended; the warm homes plan. We have done more in 18 months to cut bills for people than they did in 14 years.
Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Chris McDonald)
My hon. Friend does a good job of standing up for workers in his constituency and, following the statement that I made in the House before Christmas, he will know very well the views of the Government on this closure. I was pleased to attend the local taskforce recently with my hon. Friend the Member for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy (Melanie Ward). Along with the investment that the Government are making in Grangemouth and the guarantee of an interview for workers from Mossmorran at Grangemouth, our focus is on supporting the workers and the local community. A significant investment by the Government in the local area stands in stark contrast to the SNP Scottish Government, who have limited their support to £3 million a year.
Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
Trump’s national security report made it clear that he wanted to use America’s gas to project geopolitical power. We must not replace Putin’s gas with a reliance on Trump’s gas. That is why signing the Hamburg declaration was a step in the right direction, strengthening energy co-operation with our European neighbours. We need to go further, and we should host the next North sea summit, demonstrating UK leadership. Has the Secretary of State managed to get the Treasury to see sense and agree to hosting the next summit?
Ed Miliband
Not yet, but the hon. Lady makes a really important point, which is that energy security from home-grown clean energy is important here, but that we should also work with our European allies.
Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) (Lab)
Mr Speaker
Order. Mr Witherden, think about other people, not just yourself, please. We have to get more questions in.
The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)
My hon. Friend was at a Westminster Hall debate on this issue a few months ago, and what I said then remains the Government’s position: we work closely with the Welsh Government on this issue. We are content with the Welsh Government’s position that this area is already regulated and sufficient, but we obviously keep these things under review.
David Chadwick (Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe) (LD)
Michael Shanks
Again, we have had a meeting to discuss that issue. I will not get into Ofgem’s decisions, but any planning applications or further processes will be dealt with by the Government and by Ofgem in the usual manner.
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
As a Labour and Co-operative MP, I am absolutely delighted by the publication of the local power plan. I have seen that work in action through local energy projects such as Bo’ness scout group, which is reducing its bills with 40 solar panels and delivering funding support for young people. What steps will the Government take to increase accessibility and community capacity to deliver local power plans, and will the Secretary of State join me on a visit to Bo’ness scouts?
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I congratulate the scout group. The Minister for Energy promises that he will visit, and that is now on the record in Hansard.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Michael Shanks
The hon. Lady will not be disappointed because, as she said in her question, I will not comment on the application. However, we set out clearly in response to the Finch ruling how scope 3 emissions will be taken into account. That process is now under way, and I cannot comment on those applications.
Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)
The 2025 EU-UK summit set ambitions for the UK to join the single electricity market. Does the Minister agree that close and easier energy interconnection between the EU and the UK constitutes a key strategic component of our continent’s energy security, and reduces costs for UK businesses and customers?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Katie White)
At the recent North sea summit, we committed to a joint ambition of 100 GW of offshore renewable projects with our European neighbours, including through co-ordinated energy infrastructure planning. We are determined to work closer than ever with our European neighbours to maximise our joint clean energy independence. Strategically planned, interconnected and efficient electricity trading is a key element of that plan.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
Ed Miliband
This has happened because of the fossil fuel crisis presided over by the previous Government. All I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that we are doing absolutely everything we can to help his constituents and others. We recognise the scale of the problem and that there is more to do.
Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)
My local workforce desperately needs new nuclear at Dungeness. Does the Secretary of State agree that the way we protect nature and habitats must be reformed in the way recommended by the nuclear regulatory taskforce, so that we better protect nature while also providing the skilled jobs and energy security that my constituents deserve?
Michael Shanks
We want to improve regulations and processes for new nuclear projects while continuing to protect the environment. We will present a full Government response, and an implementation plan, by the end of this month, taking into account our national security and environmental considerations.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Martin McCluskey)
We are working closely with heritage organisations to tackle precisely that problem. The hon. Lady will see in the warm homes plan that there is specific advise about retrofitting historic buildings. [Interruption.] Although they are not in her constituency, I will be visiting some projects soon.
Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) (Lab)
Morwind recently received funding to conduct an important feasibility study for a major offshore wind hub at Portland. If built, the hub would be a key part of the west country’s manufacturing supply chain, and it would create hundreds of well-paid green jobs for local people. Will the Minister work with Morwind and me to deliver the hub at pace, and will he come to Portland to meet the key players and get the ball rolling?
Carla Denyer (Bristol Central) (Green)
Michael Shanks
Of course, all projects that are consented and licensed have to follow the law, and the North Sea Transition Authority as a regulator makes that happen. I will not comment on projects that are currently going through the consenting process.
Chris Webb (Blackpool South) (Lab)
In Blackpool, around 75% of privately rented homes have damp or mould. It is a huge problem in our town, so I was delighted when the Chancellor announced £30 million in the warm homes plan. Can the Secretary of State outline for my residents when Blackpool will receive that money and when this plan will finally get under way?
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. What is really important is not just the funding we are providing but the regulation we are introducing in the warm homes plan—promised by the last Government but never delivered—so that people who are privately renting get the decent, warm, comfortable homes they deserve.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)
I must raise a very important issue with the Secretary of State: there is concern about thermal runaway in batteries, especially those on prime agricultural land. Heavy metals vaporise at 900° and thermal runaway burns at over 1,000°. What research and assessment has been done on the evaporation of these heavy metals, which would poison agricultural land?
Michael Shanks
The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point. All the evidence points to the fact that the fire risk from batteries is less than in residential homes, but we take safety incredibly seriously. I recently convened a roundtable of those involved to look at what more we might do in the regulatory space, and DEFRA is looking at environmental regulations on batteries. We obviously take fire safety incredibly seriously.
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
I welcome the news this morning of Imerys’s success in auction round 7. What steps is the Minister taking as part of the local power plan to ensure that local communities share the spoils of Cornwall’s great renewable energy potential?
Ed Miliband
If my hon. Friend stays tuned, he will be hearing all about it in an hour’s time.
Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)
Many of my constituents are anxious about the consultation process and the environmental impact of the Peak Cluster project in rural Cheshire. Will the Secretary of State commit to meeting me and local representatives to ensure that community concerns are properly addressed before the development consent order is submitted?
Michael Shanks
As I have said repeatedly, any projects that are going through the planning system have to demonstrate community engagement and that they have engaged genuinely with that feedback. That is part of the process, and projects of any kind are assessed against that. I will not comment on individual applications for obvious reasons.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)
What progress is being made on carbon capture, usage and storage and hydrogen projects in the Humber?
Michael Shanks
Given that it is topical questions, I might struggle to say all the progress that is being made, but the Government have committed in our energy strategy and in decisions made by the Chancellor to fund hydrogen and carbon capture, to ensure that those are important parts of our energy mix. I will be visiting projects in the Humber soon, to see exactly what is happening on the ground, but we are committed to carbon capture, usage and storage and the jobs that go with it.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
Rendesco is a brilliant renewable energy business in my constituency. Just before Christmas, it was awarded a £2 million grant from UK Research and Innovation, but since then the phone has not been working at UKRI’s end. Can Ministers have a word to see whether this money can be unlocked, to ensure that Rendesco’s product can be brought to market and that jobs are not lost?
Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
Working with Councillor David Branson, I have been pushing to get more support for our local schools to cut their bills. I am really pleased that Great British Energy funded new solar panels for Sunnyside academy in Coulby Newham last year. Will Ministers meet me to see whether we can get more support so that more of our local schools to cut their bills?
Ed Miliband
I congratulate Sunnyside academy. This Government and GB Energy are delivering a policy opposed by the Conservative party.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
Last week the Government pushed through the imposition of the emissions trading scheme on domestic shipping. That will have a huge impact on Northern Ireland, because so many goods are brought into Northern Ireland from GB, or sent there, on ferries. What assessment has the Minister made of the impact this will have on consumer prices and manufacturing costs in Northern Ireland? Does he recognise that Northern Ireland will face heavy costs because of this net zero policy?
Chris McDonald
The right hon. Member and I debated this at length in the Delegated Legislation Committee last week. On the impact of this measure on Northern Ireland, I am sure he will be pleased to welcome the fact that we are providing a 50% reduction on the carbon tax associated with the extension to domestic maritime for journeys to Northern Ireland, to ensure that they are not disadvantaged when compared with journeys to the Republic of Ireland.
Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)
This year Teddy Grays in Dudley celebrates 200 years in business, with five generations of the same family keeping that local sweetshop and mainstay in Dudley. However, as with many small businesses, energy bills are a constant threat to its success. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to ensure that Teddy Grays can enjoy another 200 years of sweet success, and will he meet me to discuss this further?
Chris McDonald
That was an extremely sweet question, and I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the issue further and outline many of the initiatives that the Government are taking to support small businesses. Perhaps it would be best to do that on site, where I can get my favourite chocolate limes.
Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
“Our Governments seem stricken, almost delusional, in the face of onrushing disaster,”
and we are seeing
“arguably the most destructive industrial calamity in our nation’s history”.
Those are the words of the GMB’s Scotland Secretary about the Government’s determination to tax and regulate the oil and gas sector out of business. Does the Minister agree with the words of his union friend?
Michael Shanks
I recently had a useful meeting in Aberdeen, in which the GMB participated, about building up the future of the North sea. What I never hear from Conservative Members is any support for industries that will invest in the North sea in the future, and in the tens of thousands of jobs that will go with it. Perhaps at some point they should support the future in the North sea.
James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)
As the Secretary of State knows, there is a fantastic site on the edge of the M1 at Ratcliffe-on-Soar—the last of the coal-fired power station sites to be decommissioned—which will make a superb site for clean energy generation. Will he commit to meeting me and Claire Ward, Mayor of the East Midlands, to discuss it further?
Michael Shanks
I visited Ratcliffe-on-Soar for the closure ceremony. It was a good example of a just transition done well, and an historic moment of consensus, delivering the phase-out of coal across our country. I am happy to meet my hon. Friend. I recently met the mayor to talk about the future of that site, which has huge potential.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
Returning to the imminent imposition of the emissions trading scheme on domestic shipping, why will consumers in Northern Ireland face the imposition of a carbon tax, whereas consumers in Scotland who equally depend on ferries for their supplies are obtaining an exemption? Where is the parity?
Chris McDonald
The Government were pleased to provide an exemption for the islands around Scotland for a number of reasons, but particularly because of the small populations on those islands and the non-competitive nature of the ferry services.
Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
(Urgent question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on his Department’s contracts with Palantir.
The Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry (Luke Pollard)
Palantir is a strategic supplier to the Ministry of Defence, providing secure data integration, analytics and AI platforms that help to support operational planning and decision making.
In 2022, the Conservative Government signed a three-year enterprise agreement with Palantir, in light of the growing significance of faster operational decision making, and the impact that that technology has had in operations, including in Ukraine. This Government negotiated a new enterprise agreement to update the one signed in 2022, and that was published in a transparency note in December last year.
As part of the development of the new enterprise agreement, the MOD negotiated a strategic partnership with Palantir last September. The SPA reaffirms the strong relationship developed between UK defence and Palantir over the past decade, and includes new commitments that this Government secured from Palantir, including £1.5 billion investment into the UK, a new UK defence tech SME mentoring scheme to help companies grow and access the US market, and a commitment that London is to be the company’s European defence headquarters.
This Government took over what the Tories started in 2022, but we made it work better for Britain and better for our forces. As the Defence Secretary has said, the contract was his decision, and his alone. Peter Mandelson had no influence on the decision to award this contract. The deal that we struck with Palantir will significantly reinforce the innovation of our forces, and reinforce the safety of this country as we move towards warfighting readiness.
James Cartlidge
Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker. Before I turn to the detail, let me say that the Mandelson scandal is truly shocking. When debating these matters, it is incumbent on all of us to remember the victims of Epstein’s crimes.
Following Peter Mandelson’s sacking as US ambassador, serious questions surrounding his influence on MOD contracts have emerged, to which we have had no meaningful answers. Specifically, the MOD signed a contract with the US firm Palantir in December 2025 worth £240 million. Critically, at a time when UK defence companies are struggling for orders from their own Government, this contract did not involve a competition with British firms, and was granted to a US company by direct award. Why was that?
For the record, this is not about Palantir or any other US company. From my time as the Defence Procurement Minister, I recognise the huge mutual gain to us and to our closest ally that results from our strong defence relationship. It is true that many contracts in the MOD are rightly let on a single-source basis, but this is about transparency. Above all, the question is: to what extent did Peter Mandelson and his firm Global Counsel, in which he was a controlling shareholder at the time, benefit from privileged access not available to potential UK competitors—access that was used to deliver a defence contract of some £250 million to a client of Global Counsel without competition?
Regarding the meeting between the Prime Minister, Peter Mandelson and Palantir in February 2025 in Washington DC, is it true that no minutes were taken? If they were not taken, why not? Crucially, at the time of the meeting, was the Prime Minister aware that Palantir was a client of Mandelson’s firm? The Minister must answer that. In the build-up to the US state visit, we understand that Peter Mandelson lobbied the UK Government for deliverables. Will the Minister commit to publishing what those deliverables were? Did they involve any clients of Global Counsel?
Finally, let me mention the actions to take. Given the public interest in this matter, will Defence Ministers follow the lead of the Health Secretary and publish all their correspondence with Peter Mandelson? In addition, in the spirit of the Humble Address, will the Government publish, as part of the Mandelson files, all relevant material relating to this contract award?
Luke Pollard
As I said in my first answer, Peter Mandelson had no influence on the decision to award this contract; it was a decision made by the Secretary of State, and it was his decision alone.
As the shadow Secretary of State well knows, this enterprise agreement builds on the one that Conservative Ministers signed with Palantir back in 2022, and he knows that the MOD uses Palantir tools and technology on a daily basis to support operations and wider data analytics. I am sure he is not suggesting that we should not be maintaining access to those vital capabilities. Is he saying that his Government were wrong to formalise the relationship with Palantir in their 2022 agreement? I do not think he is.
It is really important that we publish the information. Last time I was in Washington, the then ambassador unfortunately was not available to meet, or was not there, but the Prime Minister has been clear at the Dispatch Box that the public and the House deserve transparency. We intend to publish as much material as we can, as soon as reasonably possible. The Cabinet Office is working with the Met police and Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee to ensure that the release of any documents does not prejudice the Met investigation, or the UK’s national security and international relations. That process is under way, and that is in addition to the other actions that the Prime Minister has already taken.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
In this evolving security environment, it is clear that developments in artificial intelligence and tech are changing the world at a rate of knots. Those things are integral to defence, but that must not come at the cost of transparency, trust and British businesses. Hon. Members who have served in this House for quite some time will know that dealings with Palantir have been the subject of intense scrutiny and speculation for several years. The key question is: why was this particular contract not subject to the usual competitive procurement processes?
Luke Pollard
The Palantir enterprise agreement was a direct award, justified under the Procurement Act 2023. The agreement covers existing services and areas in which there is a robust technical justification for using Palantir products and services for defence outcomes. All procurement procedures were followed, and a transparency notice was published.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
In 2020, Palantir accepted a fee of £1 for trialling its data collection services during covid. Since then, the company has amassed contracts with the NHS and the MOD worth more than £500 million. Given the growing scale of Palantir’s involvement in the UK, transparency around its operations is vital, yet the Government have consistently chosen to obfuscate, rather than clarify. Such transparency is especially important when it comes to technology that may lock the UK into dependency on one supplier. In respect of the recent £240 million contract awarded to Palantir, I ask the Minister one more time: will he tell the House why there was no competitive process? Was the Defence Secretary aware of Peter Mandelson’s commercial links to Palantir when this decision was taken solely by him, as the Minister has said?
Last month, Donald Trump threatened a NATO ally with annexation. Despite that, the Government have chosen to green-light a multimillion-pound defence contract with a company co-founded by Trump’s billionaire backer, Peter Thiel. We must be alert to the genuine risk that data collected by Palantir in the UK could be fed back to the White House. Will the Minister provide firm guarantees that all data collected by Palantir will not be shared beyond our Ministry of Defence?
Luke Pollard
The hon. Gentleman will have heard the answer I just gave to the Chair of the Defence Committee about the procurement process. As I set out, the decision was made by the Secretary of State alone; he has been clear about that. The hon. Gentleman will know that the UK has a strong security and defence partnership with the United States. We are clear that we will continue to invest in that strong security and defence partnership, while we deepen partnerships with our European friends and allies further afield. On data, UK defence data used and developed in Palantir software remains sovereign to the UK and under the control of the MOD, and it resides in the United Kingdom. We have clear, contractual controls in place to ensure that, and we have control of the data system that Palantir software sits on. No change can be made to that without the consent of the MOD.
Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab)
When I was in opposition, I raised concerns about Palantir and the £1 deal that was made. It was always a trap to ensure that Palantir got its foot in where no one else could. The co-founder of Palantir is mentioned in the Epstein files. I think that anyone who is mentioned in the Epstein files should be fully investigated by this House and by the police; the scandal is an absolute disgrace. The Minister must ensure transparency and robust safeguards. Palantir and AI organisations have the ability to bamboozle Ministers, unless we have concrete ways to ensure that they cannot abuse their power.
Luke Pollard
My hon. Friend is right that investigations are under way. As the Government made clear to the House last week, we will co-operate fully with those investigations, and we will ensure that the information that the House requires to be published is published in a way that creates the transparency that we all seek. There are already safeguards in place around the use of artificial intelligence in Ministry of Defence decision making, and we are looking at ways to enable new opportunities, especially for UK firms, given the growing requirement in the Ministry of Defence for faster decision making and better data management. I understand her concerns about AI and safeguards, and I will continue to update the House as the AI strategy that Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has published is rolled out.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Most British scandals are fairly pathetic by international standards—they are about things like serving a piece of cake to the Prime Minister—but this scandal is monumental because it involves somebody in service to the Government using his position for commercial gain. In my long experience of such scandals, what brings down Presidents and Prime Ministers is not the original scandal, but the cover up. My advice to the Minister is to answer the perfectly sensible questions that are being put to him, particularly by the Chair of the Defence Committee about the lack of competitive process, and by the Opposition spokesman about the meeting in Washington. Will the Minister now answer the questions put to him?
Luke Pollard
I have answered those questions. I say politely to the Father of the House that the partygate scandal, which is not the subject of today’s urgent question, is not a trivial scandal, and it is important to put that clearly on the record. It undermined confidence in the Government at a time when we were being asked to do something that the decision makers were not doing themselves. I agree with him that transparency is necessary and important. The MOD publishes its procurement decisions in the usual transparent way, continuing the theme from when his party was in office. We will continue to do that, and I am happy to continue to take questions about the transparency of this contract.
Jon Trickett (Normanton and Hemsworth) (Lab)
Given the scale of the contract—it is for almost a quarter of a billion pounds—and the fact that Mandelson had had a contract with Palantir, and attended a meeting in Washington with the Prime Minister and Palantir after he became the ambassador, questions inevitably arise. May I ask the Minister explicitly whether all the papers relevant to the Prime Minister’s visit and the contract will be made available to the Intelligence and Security Committee, as we believed we decided last Wednesday? I am aware that at least five or six senior civil servants in the Ministry of Defence have gone to work with Palantir. Can we have an assurance that there are proper firewalls in place to protect the interests of the public, as against the private interests of Palantir?
Luke Pollard
My hon. Friend asks valid questions. I say to him clearly that this Government will stand by and honour the agreement on the publication of information that was struck last week during the debate on the Humble Address. If there are documents from the Ministry of Defence that need to be published, we will continue to support the cross-Government effort to do so. On employees, when anyone who has worked in defence moves over to a defence contractor, be it Palantir or any other, we make it clear that they have certain obligations, and there are certain requirements. Palantir employs an awful lot of UK veterans; it has made employing veterans a point of principle. It is a good principle, and that should be done by all defence companies, in my view, but I take his point and I agree with it.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Does the Minister know whether or not minutes were taken at the key Washington meeting in February last year? If they were not taken, why not? Why was Lord Mandelson, a political appointee, not required to sever any links with his former activities and business that could have given rise to a conflict of interest in his role as ambassador?
Luke Pollard
Peter Mandelson has let us all down in this House. The question about the minutes is being looked at by Downing Street, and it will be for Downing Street officials to publish more in due course.
Dr Lauren Sullivan (Gravesham) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for reply to the urgent question, and want to press him on safeguards. On contracts being held to ransom or a lock-in, what safeguards are there to protect our data and its sovereignty? Is there an exit strategy, if the Minister wants to choose a different contract in future?
Luke Pollard
We take vendor lock-in very seriously. We will build a more comprehensive AI framework in the Ministry of Defence; we will be using AI more frequently in more aspects of defence, just as the wider economy is doing. We want to ensure that our data sovereign. Our contract with Palantir retains the sovereignty of that data, and of decision making about the systems that the data sits on. That data resides in the United Kingdom, and no changes can be made by Palantir without the consent of the MOD. It is because we take the data issues so seriously that that is locked into the contract.
Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)
The Select Committee said that DSIT was in the loop when it came to buying things, so I challenge the Minister’s statement that it was purely the Secretary of State who made the decision about the contract. This contract with Palantir is nearly three times the value of the previous contract with it. The MOD transparency notice sets out that “only Palantir” can run the service, and that there would be a “significant cost” to changing all the analytics services, so we are entirely locked into a contract with a company that is now hiking up the price. What is the exit strategy?
Luke Pollard
We signed a contract with a supplier to provide a service for which there is clear military need and clear utility, in order to strengthen our armed forces. We keep all contracts, not just those with Palantir, under constant review to ensure that they are delivering what they were signed up to deliver, and we will continue to do that. We want more companies to provide AI services, so we are looking at how we can support more British AI companies to interact with defence. We recently stood up the Defence Office for Small Business Growth because there are many AI companies that are not yet defence AI companies but could be, and we are trying to make it easier for them to access defence contracts.
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
This deal with Palantir stinks. It stank before Peter Mandelson was involved, and it stank when those now on the Opposition Benches initiated the NHS and defence contracts. Peter Thiel is an oligarch who despises democracy, and the company has had widespread allegations of human rights abuses made against it. Even the Swiss army has rejected Palantir as a platform on national security grounds. Surely, after Greenland, now is an opportunity for our Government to begin to distance themselves and pivot away from companies, such as Palantir, that are so closely connected with Donald Trump. It is time to move away. Will the Government commit to such a pivot?
Luke Pollard
I appreciate my hon. Friend’s passion on this matter but, as I have set out to the House, we will continue to maintain a close defence and security relationship with the United States—it is in our national security interests to do so. In signing any agreement with a US company, just as would be the case with a French, German or Australian company, we ensure that the agreement is in the UK’s national interest, and that controls are in place on the sovereignty of data, particularly with AI contracts. We will continue to ensure that those standards are upheld in all contracts, but we will also continue to work with international partners where no UK provider could deliver that work, or where the services they offer are in excess or deliver a defence capability faster, better or cheaper than one provided elsewhere.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
I want to return to a question that was initially asked by the Opposition spokesperson, my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge). When the Prime Minister met Palantir and Peter Mandelson in February 2025 in Washington DC, was he aware that Palantir was a client of Peter Mandelson’s firm Global Counsel?
Luke Pollard
As I said in reply to the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), that is a matter for Downing Street to publish in due course. I am afraid that I have spent the last three days in Saudia Arabia, so I am just catching up on these events. I have been clear about where that information will come from, and I point my hon. Friend in that direction.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
There is a pattern with Palantir: its £1 covid contract with the NHS expanded to a £330 million contract under the last Government, and its Ministry of Defence contract tripled in size to £240 million, without due process or competition. As we have seen, the links with Global Counsel are now on the record. Will the Minister ensure that all contact with Global Counsel from his Department and across Government—Palantir has a total of 34 contracts with public sector bodies—are published, so that we can understand the revolving doors around Peter Mandelson, Global Counsel and this Government?
Luke Pollard
I appreciate my hon. Friend’s direction of travel and passion. We followed due process, in accordance with the Procurement Act, in awarding those contracts. As I have clearly set out, we will comply with the agreement made last week on publication of data and documents.
Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)
It shows yet more extraordinarily poor judgment on the part of the Prime Minister that he met personally with Palantir—a highly questionable organisation that is complicit in the ruination of Palestine and the devastation wreaked in the US by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Palantir are into the United Kingdom taxpayer for half a billion pounds, half of which was not competed. We should be concerned about Palantir, full stop. We should be concerned, in addition, about a direct award. We should be further concerned by the company being a client of Peter Mandelson and then having a meeting with the Prime Minister—for which there are apparently no minutes. When will Downing Street come up with a confirmed position on whether minutes were or were not taken in that meeting with Mandelson?
Luke Pollard
As I have been clear to the House in a number of answers, we will continue to have a security and defence relationship with the United States, and it is in our national interests to do so. We are a party that takes defence and security very seriously, which is something that I hope the hon. Gentleman’s party would do more of, although I have much respect for him. I will continue to ensure that we get the best services for our armed forces as we move to warfighting readiness. I have answered the question about minutes, and it will be for Downing Street to publish that in due course.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome this Government’s record funding for our defence, and I also recognise that the US is one of our closest allies. In this House we often talk about energy security, but I sometimes think that we do not talk enough about the security of security. What more can this Government do to invest in UK tech firms so that we are less reliant on foreign firms?
Luke Pollard
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we should look at security, data security and the opportunities here. In the strategic defence review, we set out our direction of travel in defence, and investing in new technologies, including artificial intelligence, is key to securing our national security. I want to see the best-in-class products used by our armed forces, and I also want to see more British small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular, being able to access this area. We have set up the Defence Office for Small Business Growth, and we are looking in particular at how we can support small defence AI companies to onboard their software in a whole range of defence utilities. We will continue to do so as we look to spend more of our rising defence budget with UK SMEs.
Sir Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
The Minister and the Secretary of State have said that Peter Mandelson was not involved in the decision on Palantir. However, the issue is not the decision itself but the run-up to it. We know that Peter Mandelson, or executives from Global Counsel, were flown into embassy parties, and we need to understand more about whether Peter Mandelson, in pushing for deliverables for the state visit, was pushing for deliverables with Global Counsel clients. Will the Minister confirm that Peter Mandelson was not involved in any way, at any stage, in the decisions on the contracts given not just to Palantir but to Anduril Industries?
Luke Pollard
I am afraid that looking for deliverables ahead of a state visit is pretty standard practice, and it is something that the right hon. Gentleman’s Government looked at just as much as we do. We will continue to have conversations with our ambassadors in all circumstances, as he would expect. The right hon. Gentleman raises questions that should be answered by the publication of the information. We as a Government have committed to publish the relevant information that the House asked for last week, and we stand by that.
Neil Duncan-Jordan (Poole) (Lab)
The Government’s ongoing relationship with Palantir is deeply concerning, given the company’s involvement in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians. Palantir’s AI technology has been used to destroy entire neighbourhoods, schools and hospitals. If we claim to want an ethical foreign policy and pride ourselves on being a rules-based nation, why are we still signing contracts with such a company?
Luke Pollard
I entirely appreciate my hon. Friend’s position. Palantir provides services to the United Kingdom that keep our troops safe and enhance our national security. We have a range of contracts with US firms in procuring not only services but platforms. All those contracts go through the necessary rigour and assessment before they are signed. Some are subject to competitive tender and some, for other reasons, are subject to direct award. We will continue to work with our US partners.
Dr Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
The co-founder of Palantir, Peter Thiel, maintained a close financial and personal relationship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. There are profound ethical concerns about the web of connections between Thiel, Epstein and Mandelson. The hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) is absolutely right: the MoD’s contract with US-based spy-tech giant Palantir absolutely stinks. Will the MOD now cancel that contract? Will we get a fast and independent inquiry into the Government’s contracts with Palantir, as it currently has several billion pounds-worth of further framework contracts with the UK Government? Will we find out whether Mandelson shared privileged information with Palantir? If it is true that Palantir is hosting a party in Mayfair tomorrow for MOD officials, as The Times has alleged, will the Minister get that stopped?
Luke Pollard
The hon. Lady’s position would be stronger if the Greens were not so soft on defence. We will continue to invest in our national security, and we will invest in the contracts that keep our troops and our country safe. That will involve investing not only in UK firms, but in international partners at the same time. I have been clear at the Dispatch Box that we will comply fully with the agreement made on the Humble Address last week, and we will publish information in the right way in due course. I hope that will be able to provide more of the answers that the hon. Lady is looking for.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Does the Minister appreciate how appallingly bad it looks for the Prime Minister of this country and the then ambassador in Washington, the disgraced Peter Mandelson, to have met Alex Karp, the chief executive of Palantir, in February last year without any written record of the meeting being made? Is he at least able to say which officials—other than, of course, our then ambassador—were present at that meeting?
Luke Pollard
The right hon. Gentleman will have seen the photographs that appeared on No. 10’s Twitter feed, to which I referred in response to the earlier question about the publication of information. He will also recall—perhaps from his time as a Defence Minister—that in 2021 the then Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, also met Alex Karp.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
Does the Minister really understand the depth of anger and feeling across the country when people read and hear about Palantir—the way in which it has wormed its way into Government contracts and the national health service, and its behaviour on behalf of the Israeli Defence Forces in the destruction of Gaza and other places using artificial intelligence technology? Do we really want to be involved with a company like that? Can we not just distance ourselves from Palantir altogether and have an ethical procurement policy across Government—not just in the Ministry of Defence, but in other Departments as well?
Luke Pollard
I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s long-standing position on a number of the items he asks about. I have been clear to the House today that we will continue to work with our US friends—they are our closest defence and security partner. Where appropriate, we will look at working with US technology firms that can provide best-in-class products that deliver increased defence for our armed forces and our nation. We will continue to do that, as well as investing in UK firms.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
I am not qualified to make observations about the enduring value for money or effectiveness of Palantir, but I am concerned that Mandelson’s dynamics with every aspect of this Government have toxified the integrity of their processes. Unless the Minister can make absolutely clear what quiet, unspoken influences Mandelson had on this follow-on order with Palantir, people are bound to question the integrity of the process. To respond to the Minister’s earlier point, if we are to have a viable alternative and meaningful competition in future, he will need to do a little more to advance the case for alternatives, beyond just saying that he has an SME strategy.
Luke Pollard
The right hon. Gentleman is right; it is important that people can have confidence in the system, including the procurement system. As I have set out to the House, the decision to extend the contract with Palantir was originally signed in 2022 by the previous Government, of which I think he was a part at the time. That decision was made by the Secretary of State, and by the Secretary of State alone.
I do want to see more British AI companies working in defence—something we have been very clear about. Indeed, I think even the last Government set out an ambition to do more in that space. We have stepped up to make sure we can grow our own indigenous AI industry, with its software and services able to be onboarded into a more AI-friendly defence environment, because AI provides a decision advantage for our forces that is necessary to keep our country safe. However, I take very seriously the points that the right hon. Gentleman has made, and when we publish the information that we have committed to publish, that will hopefully answer some of his questions.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
Palantir has links to Peter Mandelson, to Peter Thiel and to the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and it is extending its web of influence across multiple parts of our public sector. It is extraordinary that the Government are so reluctant to have this deal properly scrutinised. Does the Minister come to this place today feeling any shred of embarrassment that he cannot tell us why there are no minutes of the February 2025 meeting? We do not know whether a future contract was discussed, or whether the Prime Minister was aware of Mandelson’s links to Palantir.
Luke Pollard
I am absolutely happy that we have signed a contract and conducted that process in the appropriate way. Scrutiny of that process is not something I am afraid of. I actually think it will show that the decision was made by the Secretary of State, and by the Secretary of State alone, and that the extension of the contract—which was originally signed by the Conservative Government in 2022—delivers a benefit to the United Kingdom and secured £1.5 billion of investment in the UK. It also supplies onboarding routes for more SMEs and makes the UK Palantir’s European headquarters, which will help to support our economy and our armed forces in the future. As I have mentioned a few times, publication of the minutes is a matter for Downing Street, but it is pretty standard for Ministers to meet defence suppliers.
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
In a call with investors a couple of weeks ago, Palantir’s chief executive officer Alex Karp said that
“we are super proud of the role we play, especially in places we can’t talk about…Palantir is here to disrupt…and when it’s necessary, to scare our enemies and on occasion kill them.”
Palantir’s share price has almost doubled over the past year, so can the Minister confirm whether Peter Mandelson, the Prime Minister, any Cabinet Minister, any member of this Government or of the Ministry of Defence, or any public official currently has shares in Palantir and will financially benefit from the Government contracts it has been awarded?
Luke Pollard
I am afraid that the role of defence is to disrupt our adversaries and to secure our national security. To do that, we possess capabilities that can disrupt, deter and, if necessary, defeat our adversaries. That includes killing our adversaries at times—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. First, do not walk across the Member who is asking the question. [Interruption.] Just sit down. Secondly, if you have asked a question, please wait for the answer—do not keep interrupting. We have to treat people with respect and tolerance in this House.
Luke Pollard
Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is the role of defence to keep our country safe; as part of that, we do procure lethal capabilities, but not all the capabilities we procure are physical capabilities to secure our national security. AI will continue to be an increasingly large area.
Turning to the hon. Gentleman’s question about the transparency of our shareholdings, Defence Ministers have to publish all of our shareholdings with the relevant standards commissioner. I do not hold shares in Palantir, and no Defence Ministers are allowed to hold any shares in a company that interacts with defence businesses.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
In 2024, Leicestershire police signed a contract with Palantir worth close to £1 million for an intelligence and investigation platform. From what I can deduce through the work I have done, there was absolutely no formal tender process. I raised this concern in the Chamber in June 2025, along with my concerns about Palantir’s racial profiling and civil liberty abuses, which we are seeing in ICE raids now. The written response I received did not address any of my concerns, so will the Government now ensure that all the information about that contract is released immediately? Can the Minister confirm that Peter Mandelson played absolutely no role in unleashing this dystopian contract on the residents of Leicestershire?
Luke Pollard
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s focus on that particular contract. As a Defence Minister, I do not know about Home Office policing contracts that were secured by individual forces, but I can direct him to my colleagues in the Home Office, who might be able to help more.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I have been trying to follow the Secretary of State’s responses regarding relationships with political parties and others. There are issues with regard to some companies. For example, the Quadrature hedge fund has massive investments in Palantir and donates to political parties in this country, including the Labour party, to which it made a £4 million donation in 2024. Will he take away the question of what influence that had on the decision-making processes for the award of contracts?
Luke Pollard
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question, and for the inadvertent promotion he has given me. He is right to talk about the necessity of ensuring that political donations are transparent and in order. That is an area in which the Government have already set out some changes, and I want our politics to learn lessons from the experiences of the past to make sure that donations are clear and transparent, which was not always the case under the last Government. However, I take seriously the issue that he has raised, and if he writes to me with the detail of that particular donation, I would be happy to look into it.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his answers. He is well known for his decency; he is a good Minister, and always tries to answer well. As he knows, I have been a firm supporter of the need to enhance defence—both physically and in the cyber world—so I welcome the defence contract. However, public confidence is at an all-time low due to the Mandelson debacle, and his connection to Palantir naturally raises questions, which is why this UQ has been tabled today. How can the Government assure us that this firm was awarded the contract not due to any connection, but because it can provide the best program and the best defence for our nation?
Luke Pollard
I am a big fan of the hon. Member, too. I have been clear in my answers today that the decision to extend the 2022 contract signed under the previous Government was made by the Secretary of State alone. It was his decision to do so. We are procuring new AI capabilities to speed up our delivery of outcomes within defence. We know that our adversaries are using AI in how they position themselves, and it is necessary that we do so, too. He is right that as we deploy more artificial intelligence, not just in defence, but across our wider economy, we need to secure a level of confidence in the contracts and in the technology itself. That is a bigger debate than this one, but I understand precisely where the hon. Gentleman is coming from.
Court Reporting Data
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if he will make a statement on the implications for open justice of the impending deletion of the Courtsdesk court reporting data archive.
The Minister for Courts and Legal Services (Sarah Sackman)
I am committed, as are this Government, to greater transparency in our justice system. I am also committed to putting the dignity of victims first. As Courts Minister, I have a concern that people should know what goes on in our courts. It is a way of enhancing transparency and of informing and educating the public, and that is why His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service has made and continues to make information available to accredited journalists so that they can keep the public informed about what is taking place in our courts.
In 2020, a company called Courtsdesk entered into an arrangement with His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service to conduct a pilot providing a new service. That agreement, made under the previous Government, was essentially to take some of the data that we routinely provide—and continue to provide—to journalists, and to re-provide it in a more accessible and easier to search form.
HMCTS was working to expand and improve the service by creating a new data licence agreement with Courtsdesk and others to expand access to justice. It was in the course of making that arrangement with Courtsdesk that data protection issues came to light. What has arisen is that this private company has been sharing private, personal and legally sensitive information with a third-party AI company, including potentially the addresses and dates of birth of defendants and victims. That is a direct breach of our agreement with Courtsdesk, which the Conservatives negotiated.
I believe that everybody in this House would agree that that agreement should be upheld. The Government take our data protection responsibilities seriously. It is for that reason that we decided to stop sharing data with Courtsdesk, a company that was prepared to put victims’ personal data at risk. We instructed it to remove that data from its digital platform. This is about preserving dignity for those who are in our justice system, be they those accused of crime or victims going through the court process. I know that the whole House would agree that that is incredibly important.
Let me be clear: the cessation of our agreement with Courtsdesk does not change the information available to the public about what carries on in our courts, nor does it change the information available to journalists. I recognise that the sort of service that Courtsdesk provided was useful for journalists, because it collated the information and presented it neatly. It is for that reason that officials in my Department are continuing to work, as we had always planned to do, on an alternative platform that allows us to make the information available, but to maintain the guardrails on data protection. I hope to update the House on that in coming weeks. As I conclude, this decision—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. The hon. and learned Lady will know that she had three minutes, which she has used. I call the shadow Minister.
Dr Mullan
Here we are again. Not even one week after this Government had to be forced to release the Mandelson files—looking out for themselves and not for victims—we are back with a Government who preach transparency and practise the opposite. The pattern is clear. They will not release migrant crime data. They fought our efforts to institute a grooming gangs inquiry every step of the way. That campaign was fuelled by journalists uncovering what was happening in our courts. What are the Government now intent on doing? Delete, delete, delete. They want to make it harder for journalists to report the truth. What is it that they are worried about? Could it be that they want to hide the fact that thousands of criminals will escape justice under their Sentencing Act 2026? Could it be that when they erode our rights to jury trials, they do not want the public to hear about the results? Can anyone draw any conclusion other than that they are determined to escape accountability for their damaging policies?
The Courtsdesk project has been a huge success. Introduced by the shadow Home Secretary, it has revolutionised the transparency of our courtrooms. Courtsdesk reports that more than 1,500 journalists have used the platform. That is why so many journalists are rallying in support. What of the apparent data breach that the Government are using as an excuse for this? Have they engaged with Courtsdesk? No, they have not. There has been not one single meeting, despite multiple requests to the Minister. It is not just officialdom that is to blame. The Courts Minister has been written to by Courtsdesk and several major media organisations. She has been told directly how important this system is.
This is a Minister who comes to the House and professes how vital magistrates courts are to the Government’s plans to take a sledgehammer to jury trials. She needs to tell us why she and her officials have refused even to meet Courtsdesk. What assessment have they made of the impact of this decision on open justice? Delete, delete, delete; stonewall, ignore and deflect—that is the character of this Government in their operations. We will not stand by and let them do the same in our courts.
Sarah Sackman
I am afraid that the bombast we have just heard is not just inaccurate but dangerous, because it suggests that there is anything like a restriction on open justice. Let me be absolutely clear: there has been no deletion of any court lists. [Interruption.] Excuse me. There has been no deletion of any court lists, which is the nature of the data that has been provided.
Let us be absolutely clear: we had an arrangement with Courtsdesk, which we accept provides a useful service. [Interruption.] What Courtsdesk did, which the shadow Minister does not seem to think is a problem, is to pass that information on in breach of the agreement—no doubt for commercial purposes—to an AI company. That information included defendants’ addresses and dates of birth. I do not think anyone in this House would think that such things should be provided to anybody other than accredited journalists, yet they were provided to an AI company.
We then asked Courtsdesk to delete the information that it held. As of yesterday, I understand that it still has not done so. It accepts that it has acted in breach of its agreement. It threatened the Ministry of Justice with legal action, which it has not chosen to take forward. We are saying that when a company acts in breach of an agreement, putting vulnerable people and parties at risk, it is very serious. I take data protection seriously, but there has been no obstruction to journalists being able to access through the usual channels the lists that we are talking about. That access remains open today, and it remains open to journalists to contact HMCTS.
Indeed, we want to put this system on a securer footing with the necessary guardrails. [Interruption.] I will repeat, because the shadow Minister is muttering through my entire response, that no one has deleted any court records. Everything that he refers to in relation to serious sexual historic crimes remains accessible. Case law remains accessible, and the court lists remain accessible.
Open justice is vital, but I will not have a wild west of private companies acting in breach of agreements with Government and passing sensitive data on to third-party AI companies. That will not do, and the shadow Minister knows that if he were in my position, it would not have been acceptable to him either.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)
It is a pity that the shadow Minister is reducing this issue to one of his conspiracy theories, because I know that the Minister is an advocate of open justice, and the Government are doing a lot on open justice by televising the family courts, publishing transcripts and other means.
Courtsdesk gave evidence to the Select Committee in its 2022 inquiry into open justice, and it is, I think, the only centralised source of information for journalists. It is an important tool, because court reporting and local journalism have suffered greatly over the past years. We do need a service of this kind, so when can the Minister tell us what will replace it? In the meantime, will she continue to talk to Courtsdesk, notwithstanding what she has said today, to ensure that the information can be provided for journalists in a legitimate and legal way?
Sarah Sackman
My hon. Friend has asked a very good question. It is vital for people to know what goes on in our courts, and local reporting of what happens there matters to wider society and, indeed, to our democracy. We recognise that Courtsdesk provided a useful service for journalists in collating information and presenting it in an accessible way, and that is what we want to be able to maintain, while at the same time safeguarding people’s data and putting it on a proper licensing footing.
On the timeline, we aim to initiate that licensing arrangement and make it available to companies more widely so that, next month, there is even more accessibility. We are very close to that, but what I will not abide is a flagrant breach of the agreement that we had with Courtsdesk and the sharing of sensitive data in a way that is irresponsible. I want the data to be available to responsible journalists to use responsibly, and that is exactly what we are getting on with.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
I thank the Minister for setting out the data protection issues that have been identified with Courtsdesk, but can she explain why her Department ignored the 16 letters written by Courtsdesk asking for dialogue before deciding to do away with the system? As was pointed out by the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), it is the only centralised tool for justice reporting. Reporters have described the MOJ’s own data as fragmented, incomplete and impractical to navigate, and according to HM Courts & Tribunals Service, its own records on court listings were accurate just 4% of the time. It is those gaps that Courtsdesk was designed to fill by providing clear and accurate information for reporters.
Doing away with this platform will naturally add to the feeling that the MOJ is avoiding difficult questions and dodging accountability by undermining journalism. Will the Minister suspend the deletion of the archive until the Information Commissioner’s Office has looked into these issues and drawn its own conclusions? If she insists on going ahead with the deletion in the coming days, will she please give an indication of a timeline within which we can expect a platform that will serve the same purpose?
Sarah Sackman
I want to make it absolutely clear that accredited journalists continue—as they have throughout—to have access to court information that they need, directly from individual magistrates courts and tribunal services, via either the court and tribunal hearings service, which is a new digital system, or the gov.uk website. I do recognise the utility of what Courtsdesk provided, but the company was clearly not acting in a responsible way. When we approached its representatives about the breach of its agreement with HMCTS, they accepted that they had breached it and then threatened the MOJ with litigation, which is not an appropriate way to behave if one is trying to co-operate and get things on to a sound and steady footing.
Let me also be absolutely clear about the timeline. All magistrates and court lists, and the accompanying case summarisation data, will be available from the court and tribunal hearings service from the end of March 2026. I want to put this on a stable footing so that journalists have ready access, because I accept that the information must be made easily available to them, in a responsible but properly licensed fashion. As I have said, that work will be made public and the licences made available from March.
We have to do this in a responsible way. We have to balance the very real needs of open justice—which I readily accept, and to which the Government are committed—with data protection, particularly when it comes to the vulnerable victims who are at the heart of this.
Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)
There is an obligation on anyone who is aware of a data breach to report it to the Information Commissioner’s Office no later than 72 hours after becoming aware of it. Can the Minister say when the MOJ was first aware of the issues relating to Courtsdesk, and when the MOJ reported those issues to the ICO?
Sarah Sackman
The answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is that the report to the ICO has not yet been made. I raised the matter with our data officer, and the conclusion—the advice that I was given—was that it did not meet the threshold for an ICO referral. I have asked for that to be looked at again, but what is clear, and Courtsdesk accepted this fact, is that it breached the agreement by passing this material to an AI company. That is not a responsible thing to do with people’s private addresses and other sensitive data relating to individuals through which those individuals can be identified and which are not subject to the same reporting restrictions which, of course, journalists abide by. Let me be absolutely clear with the House: the sort of service that Courtsdesk provides is one that we want to replicate, but we want it to be on a stable footing with the necessary data protection guardrails, and that is what we are putting in place. If Courtsdesk had engaged with the Ministry of Justice and HMCTS in a responsible fashion, we would not be in the position that we are in today.
The fact is that, all along, journalists have retained the ability to obtain information. That is the critical point. This is about court lists, not court records. In respect of court lists, for all courts, journalists throughout have been able to engage with the information in the same way as they were able to do pre-2020, pre-Courtsdesk. They can get that information, and they can continue to report what is happening in our courts.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
It is certainly a cause of great concern if an AI machine now has access to people’s private home addresses. What investigations have the Government carried out to establish how much personal information that should not have been released is now out there for anyone, no matter how ill-intentioned, to dial up at will?
Sarah Sackman
I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman agrees that this is a matter of concern, although it is clearly not a concern that is shared by the Front Benchers in his party. Our understanding is that some 700 individual cases, at least, were shared with the AI company. We have sought to understand what more may have been shared and who else may have been put at risk, but the mere fact that the agreement was breached in that way is incredibly serious. That is why all this needs to be put on a much more licence-secure and regulatorily secure footing.
Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)
My observation is that surely it is for the Information Commissioner’s Office to decide whether the data breach is serious or not, and if the ICO does not have the information it cannot make that judgment. My question is this: when the contract was procured, was there a clause in the specification that prevented the release of personal and sensitive data? If so, is the company in breach of its contract, in which case the aggression should perhaps come from the Government as opposed to their waiting for the company to threaten them with legal action?
Sarah Sackman
The hon. Lady is right, in that the original agreement that was reached between Courtsdesk and the previous Government made it clear that there should not be further sharing of the data with additional parties. It is one thing to share the data with accredited journalists who are subject to their own codes and who are expected to adhere to reporting restrictions, but Courtsdesk breached that agreement by sharing the information with an AI company. That is simply irresponsible, and when it came to light, I took the decision—I did not take it lightly, but I certainly remain confident in that decision—to cease giving Courtsdesk access unless and until it, or any other party, showed that it could use that information responsibly. Open justice is very important, but such information should not be shared with an AI company in breach of the agreement that exists with Government.
Sir Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
I accept what the Minister is saying, but I do not understand why the dispute resolution has not worked and why there is still no opportunity for it to work. I should appreciate it if she could clarify that for the House. May I also ask what will be new and different about the next procurement? What needs to be set up? If there was a breach, will it not be simply a procurement to avoid that happening in future?
Sarah Sackman
The right hon. Gentleman will know that I am all for being pragmatic and having dispute resolution, but, as I have said, in the course of our trying to get to the bottom of what has happened, litigation has been threatened, so it is very difficult to do that. What I want to do is move forward, and potentially with Courtsdesk if it can show that it is a responsible actor, which at present it is not doing.
Two things need to happen. First, we have all the power and all the data in a single company, and I do not think that is healthy. I think that everyone in the House who believes in an open market would favour a tendering process that opens up the potential for different parties to gain licences, and in that way we can make the information accessible to different companies.
Secondly, the licence agreements need to be strengthened so that we do not see a repeat of what we have seen here—a sharing of data where it should not go—and we need to have guardrails in place. The nature of the agreement that was agreed under the previous Government was too informal, too baggy and too loose for my liking. In fact, it is partly what has allowed this situation to happen, which is why I want to put things on a better footing. We will not take ages; I have said that we will do this by March, and we are getting on with it. In the meantime, it is a wild west. We simply cannot have companies acting in breach of the agreement, sticking personal, sensitive information belonging to victims and defendants alike into an AI bot, and passing it on to an AI company that will do who knows what with it.
Rupert Lowe (Great Yarmouth) (Ind)
The Minister will be aware that we have privately crowdfunded a rape gang inquiry, which is ongoing. During the course of the inquiry, we have uncovered vast evil that is happening across the country, as well as systemic state failures. When we release the report, we are intending to pursue private prosecutions against those who failed, so will—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman’s question ought to relate to the urgent question.
Rupert Lowe
Will the Minister give me a copper-bottomed guarantee that the transcripts of previous court cases will not be destroyed?
Sarah Sackman
Let me start by saying that this Government are committed to tackling grooming gangs, punishing offenders and protecting children. The grooming gangs scandal is one of the most heinous crimes of our time, but allow me to repeat this: it is fundamentally incorrect to say that court records are being deleted. Court records remain completely intact, and will only be deleted in line with the general data protection regulation and record retention policies. The data that we are talking about here is data that a private company, Courtsdesk, has been asked to delete because it has failed to demonstrate that it is using that data responsibly. The data includes only magistrates court lists and outcomes, not the transcripts of which the hon. Gentleman speaks—data that Courtsdesk is not entitled to hold. The sort of data that he is concerned about remains, and those who need to access it for investigative purposes or otherwise can do so through the usual channels. Let us not conflate that with the data in question here.
Katie Lam (Weald of Kent) (Con)
For decades, victims, survivors, campaigners, whistleblowers and journalists have fought to force the British state to reveal the whole truth about the rape and grooming scandal. The data held by Courtsdesk could be invaluable in uncovering the truth. The Minister tells us that we can rely on the Government’s own data instead, but just 4.2% of magistrates court cases are listed accurately by the courts themselves, so for every 25 cases listed, 24 are wrong. How can the Minister ask victims, survivors and any of us who care about the truth to rely on that, especially in the context of the most disgusting cover-up in our nation’s history?
Sarah Sackman
I share the hon. Lady’s concern regarding the victims, whom we so often fail to centre in our discussions in this House. Let me be absolutely clear: as a Government, we have demonstrated time and again our commitment to open justice, whether that is through increasing the provision of free transcripts of sentencing remarks to all victims on request, introducing audio recording in magistrates courts, or ensuring that the judiciary allow more judgments and decisions to be published. To be absolutely clear, the data shared with Courtsdesk was listing data and, in some cases, the outcomes of those cases.
Sarah Sackman
Of course listing data is important, and of course it is important that it is accurate. By the way, it is also important that such data is not shared unlawfully with third parties that are not entitled to it. We continue to make that information available to journalists in the same way as before 2020. A journalist working in the field can access that information from HMCTS if they make a request, and it will be passed to them in the usual way. We are seeking to open that up further and to put it on a stable footing, which will remove the wild west that appears to have emerged.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
The Minister complains that it is currently the wild west out there, and hopes that we can somehow regulate it. Well, we do actually have a regulator for incidents such as these. Pursuant to the answer that she gave to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst), she acknowledged that data breaches have to be reported to the ICO within 72 hours. We hear that she was advised that this breach did not hit the threshold, which I find absolutely staggering. Advisers advise, and Ministers decide. Why was the Minister’s judgment not to go away and immediately question the advice that she received from her Department?
Sarah Sackman
I regard the data breach of the agreement as serious, and I referred it to the data officer at the MOJ. That is the conclusion they have reached, and I have accepted their advice. As I said, I have asked them to conduct a further review in the light of further information that has come to light, just as we have asked Courtsdesk for further information. The information came to light because Courtsdesk admitted that it had been inputting and sharing this data with an AI company, in breach of the agreement. We have to get to the bottom of that, but it is so important that we tighten up the licensing agreements and make court lists available to more companies, so that journalists can continue to access the information in a way that is safe for defendants, safe for victims, and safe for anyone who participates in the court process.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for her full answers. The fact that justice should be open and transparent is not negotiable. Anything other than that is not democracy but, by its very nature, despotic. The Minister has provided a justification. However, it is clear that although the system could undoubtedly be tightened up, completely scrapping it without a viable alternative does not provide confidence in the judiciary; it does the opposite. Will the Minister reassure the House and those outside about the decision that has been taken?
Sarah Sackman
I want to be really clear that the data held by Courtsdesk is not an archive of criminal court case files. A number of Members have mentioned the importance of criminal court case records, which are held in a variety of places, not least the National Archives. They continue to remain available. The court lists, which I accept are important, continue to be available to the public—a member of the public can look them up now. Enhanced listing, which has a bit more information, remains open to journalists. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that it is important to have transparency and open justice, and for reporters to have the ability to expose what goes on in our courts. That is why I want to make the data open to more people, but we will put it on a safer footing to ensure that data breaches like this do not occur again in the future.
Dr Mullan
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. We obviously benefit from enormous privilege in this House, because we are able to say things without any worry about what might happen legally. The Minister said several times in her statement that Courtsdesk has admitted that it breached the data-sharing agreement. Courtsdesk has been absolutely clear with me that it has never admitted that it breached the agreement. I wonder if the Minister might want to take the chance at least to caveat what she said in the Chamber.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
The hon. Gentleman will know that that is not a point of order and not a matter for the Chair. I do not intend to continue the debate via points of order.
Local Power Plan
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Ed Miliband)
With permission, I will make a statement about the local power plan and allocation round 7 solar and onshore wind auction results, both of which have been published today.
Britain’s drive for clean energy is about helping to answer the call for a different kind of economy that works for the many, not just the wealthy and powerful in our society. In the last few weeks, our warm homes plan has delivered the biggest public investment in upgrading homes in British history to cut bills for millions of people and to tackle fuel poverty. We have secured the largest offshore wind auction in European history, with a clean industry bonus to drive investment into our industrial communities, and we have agreed a fair work charter with business and trade unions as a first step to improving workers’ rights in renewables.
Today, I can report to the House the results of the AR7 auction for onshore wind and solar. In onshore wind, we secured 1.3 GW of power at a price of £72 per megawatt-hour. In solar, we secured nearly 5 GW at a price of £65 per megawatt-hour. I can inform the House that, together, this onshore wind and solar will provide enough power for the equivalent of more than 3 million homes, further reducing our dependence on international fossil fuel markets. It represents the largest solar and onshore wind auction in UK history.
I have had representations that we should have cancelled the auction and built new gas instead. I can tell the House that the price of this onshore wind and solar is less than half the price of building and operating new gas stations. Indeed, onshore wind and solar are by far the cheapest power sources available to build and operate, so I have rejected those representations. Instead, we have record-breaking results that will cut bills for families across Britain.
As we get off the rollercoaster of fossil fuel markets controlled by petrostates and dictators, we do not want this clean energy simply to be owned by big companies and multinationals. We want every community in this country to have the chance to own our energy future. We know that community ownership is a transformative tool to build the wealth and pride of local areas and give people a stake in the places in which they live. We already see this in pioneering community energy projects across Britain, and I pay tribute to them, including Lawrence Weston in Bristol, where England’s tallest onshore wind turbine, which I have visited, is 100% community-owned and generates tens of thousands of pounds a year to reinvest in the local community; the Geraint Thomas velodrome in Newport, which hosts nearly 2,000 solar panels and is one of the largest rooftop solar projects in Wales, cutting bills in Wales dramatically; and the Huntly Development Trust in Aberdeenshire, where community wind projects generate income that helps fund local charities.
We know that community energy not only spreads wealth and power, but contributes to the resilience of our energy system by generating and storing power closer to where people live, yet despite the individual success stories, Britain has never decisively seized the opportunities of community energy. Around half of wind capacity in Denmark is owned by its citizens, as is almost half of solar in Germany, yet in Britain currently less than 1% of our renewables are community owned. With our local power plan, we will change that.
Today, we announce the biggest public investment in community-owned energy in British history. During the previous Parliament, less than £60 million was spent on Government community energy schemes. Today, we set aside up to £1 billion of funding from Great British Energy to invest. This will offer grants to local authorities and community groups to support projects in their early stages, loans and project finance to support construction and operation, and funding to help communities buy a stake in larger renewable projects in their areas.
This funding will also be targeted at underserved areas of the country where it can make the biggest difference. Great British Energy estimates that this funding will support an initial 1,000 community and local energy projects, but this is just the start. Today, we send out the message to community groups, sports clubs, miners’ welfare institutes and village halls across the country that, in every community of Britain, we want to give people the chance to own their own energy, to transfer money from the pockets of energy companies to their community, and to generate income for the benefit of local people for decades to come. This is a Labour Government enabling every community of our country to own and build wealth for local people.
However, we know that making that happen is not just about providing capital funding, because communities need help to plan and develop their projects. So alongside this funding, Great British Energy will establish a one-stop shop to provide support and advice about local and community energy, with a team of expert advisers to help communities get their projects off the ground. This is Britain’s publicly owned energy company working hand in hand with our brilliant mayors, local authorities and community groups to turn the ambitions of local communities into reality.
Alongside the funding and support, we also know we must confront the reality that for years the rules of our energy system have held back the growth of community energy. Local and community schemes face hurdles that may be straightforward for large developers to overcome, but are too high for voluntary groups with limited time and resources. We are determined to break down these barriers, so we will also work with Ofgem to reform market codes and supply licences to help communities sell the power they generate, and we will ensure community energy projects benefit from our reforms to planning and the grid.
We also want to make it much easier for communities to take a stake in larger projects through shared ownership, building on examples such as the Isle of Skye co-operative in the Hebrides, which owns a share of a local onshore wind farm and has generated over £1.5 million for the local community. We think there is huge potential for many more projects like that, so we will consult on how we could use existing powers in the Infrastructure Act 2015 to mandate an offer of shared ownership. Those powers were passed more than a decade ago, but were never implemented. It would mean that, when companies built big projects, local people and communities would be offered a stake in them. As my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) has said, we need to move from a situation where communities can only aspire to be passive beneficiaries of projects owned by large companies to their being owners themselves with benefits in perpetuity. We are moving from community benefit to community share and community stake.
Taken together, this is the most comprehensive package of support to grow local and community energy that our country has ever seen. It builds on the Pride in Place programme, the community right to buy and our world-leading commitment to double the size of the co-operative sector. We know that the local power plan will be delivered not from Whitehall, but place by place and community by community. Today, I issue an invitation to local and community groups: if they come forward with proposals, we will support those groups to help make them happen. This statement is about a stake for the British people in our energy system, generating returns for local communities and local people, with power, wealth and opportunity in the hands of the many not the few, and I commend it to the House.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for prior sight of his statement.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to tell whether the Secretary of State is at the Dispatch Box as the Energy Secretary or rehearsing for a future move to perhaps No. 11. Once again, he is more distracted by personal ambition than concerned about the bleak reality families are facing across the country with crippling energy bills. Today’s announcement is being sold as a bold shift of power to local communities, but cutting through the fluff, this plan does not make electricity cheaper and it does not offer value for the taxpayer.
This plan does nothing to reduce wholesale prices, nothing to fix the grid connection backlog and nothing to tackle the structural costs. Instead, the Government are asking taxpayers to fund small-scale projects which, optimistically, will provide minor reductions in costs for a few local buildings while leaving families and businesses across this country still paying higher prices. There are no guarantees that the £1 billion committed through the Great British Energy scheme will deliver lower bills, no clear test of value for money and no convincing explanation of why subsidising small, piecemeal projects offers a better return for taxpayers than backing affordable, large-scale nuclear generation that would genuinely move the dial. Spread thinly across the country over several years and funnelled through yet another Whitehall-controlled body, this is not a serious intervention, but a press release masquerading as an energy strategy.
Alongside the local power plan, the results of allocation round 7 this morning raise serious questions that the Secretary of State has yet to answer. In the Government’s own press release, they rely on “internal analysis” to claim that additional solar and onshore wind procured through AR7 could lower bills in the early 2030s, but that analysis has not been published. It looks only at a narrow scenario, excludes wider system costs and does not give a full picture of future bill levels. If Ministers are so confident of their figures, why will they not release the full impact assessment? What exactly is the Secretary of State hiding?
AR7 also underlines the direction of travel under this Government: longer contracts, higher strike prices and greater risk locked in for bill payers. The extension of contracts for difference from 15 years to 20 years means that households will be tied into paying these costs for even longer, regardless of whether circumstances change. At the same time, the Government have relaxed planning requirements so some offshore wind projects can bid before planning consent has even been secured.
All of this points to the root problem, which is that electricity prices are already too high, and the policies pursued by this Government are only pushing them higher. Doubling down on carbon taxes and loading more expensive wind and solar on to a system that is not ready risks driving up costs for both households and industry, making British business less competitive and leaving families to pick up the bill. Families are being asked to pay more, not less. Labour promised to cut energy bills by £300; instead, bills have risen by £190 since Labour came to power. That is the reality behind its rhetoric, and that is the reality every family up and down the land understands as they open their energy bills.
At the centre of all this sits Great British Energy, an £8 billion taxpayer-funded quango that was meant to lower bills for everyone. So far, all we have is the promise of a highly paid chief executive, a new board and more bureaucracy. Why do we need another expensive state body to do what the market and existing institutions should already be delivering? That is the fundamental difference in approach. Our cheap power plan focuses on bringing down the underlying cost of electricity, saving the public sector and everyone else vastly more in the process, and doing so without costing taxpayers a penny. This Government are more focused on their own internal politics than on delivering the one thing people need: energy that is reliable, abundant and, above all, affordable for all our constituents.
Ed Miliband
Well, there were no questions, but I will reply none the less. Let me start with the AR7 auction, because this is very interesting and it will give the House a picture of what has actually changed. What has changed is the Conservative party, not the reality. We had the AR5 auction a couple of years ago, when the Conservatives were in power. In that auction, the price of solar was higher than it was in this auction. The then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) stated:
“our reliance on gas for electricity production today risks making power prices higher than they would be in a system with a greater share of generation from wind and solar…Moving to home-based, clean power mitigates risks to billpayers—now and in the future.”
What has changed? What has changed is that the Conservative party has gone full MAGA. Let us just be honest about this. It has decided to chase Reform into a ludicrous position, doubling down on fossil fuels and rejecting even solar and onshore wind, the cheapest, cleanest form of power you can possibly have. I guess the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) was just reading out the script.
On community energy, I have to congratulate the hon. Gentleman, because he has given a brilliant example of why the previous Government were so hopeless on community energy. He obviously thinks it is a terrible idea. He is very welcome to do so, but he is sending a message to every Member of Parliament and all their constituents that the Conservative party is against community energy projects and against the things that will cut bills for local community groups. To every sports club, community centre and library that will benefit from this funding, there is a very clear answer: the Conservative party says, “No, you don’t deserve it. We don’t want you to have those lower bills. We don’t want you to have that cheap clean power. We don’t want you to have the income and resources to reinvest in our local community.” If the Conservatives want that as a dividing line, bring it on, I say. This Government are on the side of local communities, on the side of cutting bills and on the side of reinvesting money into communities. The Conservative party, in its new incarnation, is against it.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Select Committees look at the evidence. The evidence we have heard is that community energy is a great way of bringing down bills and giving people the confidence to take part in the energy transition. The Secretary of State talked about solar in his statement. We heard that golf courses use 10 times as much land as solar farms. Even if the Committee on Climate Change recommendations are adopted, twice as much land will still be used for golf courses. The Country Land and Business Association told us that concerns about land use are a myth: that the planning system protects the best and most versatile land for crop production, and that the roll-out of solar should be encouraged as a way of diversifying for farmers, delivering cheap electricity for both neighbouring businesses and domestic use. Will the Secretary of State say how he intends to ensure as many people as possible in rural areas understand the benefits of community energy and solar more widely? Will he ensure that those myths are finally busted?
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend did a very good job of busting those myths in his question and he is absolutely right. The truth is that you cannot, at one and the same time, complain about bills being too high and then reject the cheapest cleanest form of power, but I am afraid that that is the position of the Conservative party. There is no hiding the fact. Nobody can disagree—you can disagree about other things—that solar is the cheapest form of power, but the Conservatives are against it.
My hon. Friend makes a really important point about community energy. Let us be honest, we are in the foothills of what we need to achieve as a country. Germany and Denmark are miles ahead of us. This is about a different conception of energy and who owns it: not just big multinational companies, not just the big companies that the Conservatives seem to want to just leave it all to. We want local people to be able to have a stake in the system. That is what this plan is about.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
The Liberal Democrats welcome the Government recognising what communities across the country have been saying for years: community energy is one of the most powerful ways to cut bills, rebuild trust in the energy system, rebuild local resilience and take people with us on the journey to net zero. We campaigned hard to see community energy written into the Great British Energy Act 2025, alongside many people—although not everybody here today it seems—in this House and the other place, and alongside community groups such as the South Cambridgeshire Climate and Nature Group and other community organisations across the country.
We believe in localism, empowerment and giving communities a real stake and ownership in our clean energy future. I thank the Minister for working with us to make sure that we did get that into the 2025 Act. As we rightly move away from volatile fossil fuel costs controlled by foreign powers, we must ensure that our new clean energy system puts communities first. It must mean giving people the power to generate, own, and, crucially, sell their own clean energy locally, with profits reinvested in the places where the energy is produced.
We welcome the local power plan in principle, but the devil is in the detail. First, what happened to the Government’s pledge of £3.3 billion for community-owned energy, when today we are hearing about £1 billion of investment? We do not want to follow the Conservative Government’s retreat from ambition on local clean power. It is not the time to scale back ambition.
Secondly, on the crucial issue of local empowerment, regulation is needed. Organisations such as Power for People constantly told us that there are, as the Secretary of State said, barriers to access fair local markets. They welcome this plan, too, echoing the Minister’s promise that the Government will establish local energy supply models. The local power plan—I have looked through it very quickly—talks about the regulatory changes necessary, but when will they come through? The energy transition has to happen not to communities, but with them—
Ed Miliband
I thank the hon. Lady—I say this genuinely—for her advocacy on this issue ever since we came into government and before. She is a powerful advocate for community energy. I congratulate the group in South Cambridgeshire, too. Let me deal with the points she raised.
On investment, I think that in anyone’s view the scale of the investment we are making is very significant. As I said, it is £1 billion, compared with £60 million in the previous Parliament under the previous Government. This is a massive scaling up and a realist assessment of what can be spent over this Parliament, but obviously this is just the start of our ambitions.
The hon. Lady made a point, I think, on working with local community groups, which is very important. She will know that one of the challenges local groups face is in getting to the stage of having a project that is ready to go. Part of this issue is about working with those groups to make sure that can happen.
On Ofgem and some of the regulatory changes, absolutely we are going to work as quickly as we can to unblock some of the barriers and ensure that can happen as swiftly as possible.
Mike Reader (Northampton South) (Lab)
Northampton is one of the towns across the UK that will benefit from the local power plan. Does the Secretary of State agree that my schools, colleges and universities, the four hospitals in my constituency, and my sports clubs, including the Cobblers—one of the greenest football clubs in the country—will benefit from the plan, and that the wealth generated by local power will be kept in our community?
Ed Miliband
I congratulate the Cobblers and all the organisations in my hon. Friend’s constituency. He is absolutely right. We think there are huge benefits across the country. GB Energy is, I think, now opening its website so that different groups can register an interest and work with it.
Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)
National Grid is one of the large, national, private companies run by the wealthy and powerful in society that the Secretary of State derided in his statement. It is seeking to build, on the edge of an area of scientific interest and a nature reserve, a 90-foot high converter station covering the size of five football pitches. Local people, whom the Secretary of State claims to champion, do not want this. Will the Secretary of State champion the local people and consign this project to the dustbin of history where it belongs?
Ed Miliband
The right hon. Gentleman will know that there is a planning process for all projects. I would gently point out to him—not specifically on his project, because I want to make a more general point—that if we are going to get the benefits of cheap, clean power, we need to build the transmission infrastructure. The biggest threat to the countryside is the climate crisis; it is the single biggest threat to biodiversity and nature. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman feels strongly about the specific issue he talked about, as do his constituents, but I do believe it is right to build the transmission infrastructure we need in order to lower bills for people and tackle the climate crisis.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South and South Bedfordshire) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for his announcement of the £1 billion in funding for community energy projects under Labour’s local power plan. Will he outline the benefits of community energy for constituencies like mine and set out how local communities can get involved and ensure that any profits are reinvested locally?
Ed Miliband
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. Briefly, there are three important aspects to this: first, communities can have lower bills for their community centres and local institutions; secondly, they can generate a stream of income by selling power back to the grid; thirdly, there is something wider, and perhaps more intangible, which is the matter of giving local communities a sense of stake in the system. I think this is really important, because one of the ways that we gain consent from people is through the sense that it is not simply the big multinationals that will own our energy system, but local people themselves.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
I welcome the publication of the local power plan and I honestly recognise the Government’s commitment to community energy. However, I think there is still a piece missing—namely that properties in the vicinity of a community energy generator can ultimately benefit by being directly supplied, rather than being supplied through a third party. Will the Secretary of State look again at how community energy is defined and include households benefiting from the energy generated within that community? We have been struggling with the definition of community energy on the Select Committee. I think it is important that households can benefit from the energy generated within the community.
Ed Miliband
I thank the hon. Lady for her advocacy on this issue. My hon. Friend the Minister for Energy, who is the world expert on these questions—or at least the UK expert; I will not push it too far—assures me that her important question about the statutory definition, which is, I think, on code P441, is being answered in the plan.
Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for his announcement. Community energy is incredibly powerful in rural Britain, particularly in the village of Humshaugh, where Humshaugh Net Zero set up the community-owned solar farm. I restate my invitation to the Secretary of State to join me on a visit to Humshaugh community solar farm, and thank him once again for the statement.
Ed Miliband
I will take up my hon. Friend on his kind offer. I think we will see a powerful example there of community energy in practice, and what is so exciting about today’s announcement is that we can now reproduce that right across the country.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that the Mandelson scandal illustrates the reputational risk and damage that can be done by ignoring aspects of criminal exploitation? Does he know whether there is a difference in the cost of solar panels that are imported from China compared with other possible sources? What sort of safeguards do the Government have to ensure that we are not encouraging people to put on their roofs the products of criminal activity and forced labour exploitation?
Ed Miliband
The right hon. Gentleman and I have had exchanges on this matter before. It is a serious issue, and he is absolutely within his rights to raise it. I would just say two things to him: first, following the Great British Energy Act 2025, GB Energy has pledged to be a leader in this area and has appointed an adviser to work on these issues; secondly, he will know that the industry committed to the solar stewardship initiative as part of the solar road map, which is precisely about having independent monitoring of where solar panels come from. I take this issue seriously and I take his advocacy on it seriously, too. It is a work in progress, but it is really important that we get it right.
Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam) (Lab)
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith), would do well to remember the measly £60 million that the previous Government spent on community projects, and the fact that they were opposed to GB Energy, whereas today’s plan clearly sets out the £1 billion for community projects coming through GB Energy. Community energy can deliver cheaper power, local jobs and, importantly, public support for clean energy and net zero. Will the Secretary of State set out how Great British Energy will remove barriers to community ownership, so that communities can directly share in the benefits of net zero?
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks with great eloquence on these issues. I am very interested in the power, introduced under the Infrastructure Act 2015, to give local community groups the right to buy a share of large-scale projects. That power has never been triggered—I think it may have been the fruit of the coalition negotiations—but we are very interested in making that power a reality. That is just one of the ways that we can break down the barriers that my hon. Friend talks about.
Sir Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
The Secretary of State will be aware that small businesses across the UK are really struggling with energy costs, particularly in communities in rural areas like North Yorkshire. What can small businesses get from this plan to lower their costs as quickly as possible? What role will the plan play in that?
Ed Miliband
This plan is mainly about community groups and non-profit organisations, but the right hon. Gentleman raises a serious issue. It is something that we are talking to the National Wealth Fund and others about, because it emphasises the fact that there is low-hanging fruit here. If we can make it possible for small businesses and others to make these investments, there are ways that they can lower their bills. We might as well use the free resources that are available, such as the free resource of the sun. Obviously, the cost of solar panels has come down a long way. That is something for me to take away and work on.
Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)
I am really excited by this announcement, because I am the chair of trustees of the Samuel Montagu youth club in my constituency, which has a roof that would benefit enormously from solar panels, which could generate income and make us more sustainable at a time when local government funding is drying up. We also have 13 acres of land, and I have always thought that we had the potential for ground source heating; if we could get some money to invest in that, we could provide energy to buildings around us as well. Does my right hon. Friend agree that when we delve into this issue, the scope is boundless? There are many projects that we could look into.
Ed Miliband
The two ideas that my hon. Friend puts forward sound absolutely ideal for this fund to me, but as for the eventual outcome, I must not put my thumb on the scale too much. He is right about this. We are starting something that will grow bigger and bigger over time. This is partly about raising our eyes and thinking, “Well, if it works in Germany and Denmark, why shouldn’t it work here? Why shouldn’t local people get the benefits of this?”. It represents a big, transformative shift in our thinking about what is possible.
Graham Leadbitter (Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey) (SNP)
The SNP has been very committed to community energy projects for a long time; indeed, we have invested more than the previous Government in community energy projects—over £67 million in nearly 1,000 projects. This announcement on community and renewable energy, while belated, is welcome. When the Secretary of State talks about community energy, does he include in that community heat projects that can be combined with community energy projects? A turbine with a community heat network, for example, can drive a huge amount of benefit to the local community.
Ed Miliband
Yes is the answer to that question. Community energy includes all kinds of innovative projects. As we open these funds for bidding—both from local authorities and community groups—we will find local people coming forward with innovative, imaginative ideas for how to drive this scheme forward. I suspect that we will be overwhelmed with the imaginative innovation that we see, and that is what is so exciting about this.
Terry Jermy (South West Norfolk) (Lab)
It is quite clear that communities that host energy projects should in some way benefit from them. I welcome that principle being incorporated into this plan. I particularly welcome the Government’s support for rooftop solar for Swaffham community hospital in South West Norfolk, not just from an environmental point of view, but as a way of reducing the energy cost of public services; that saving can be reinvested in the frontline. Will my right hon. Friend commit to tracking the financial benefit of these proposals, so that we know the true benefit for communities up and down the country?
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes an important point. As a super nerd, I am very interested in that kind of impact analysis. Sometimes Governments do things but do not track their impact, so they cannot prove the difference that a scheme has made. His point is very important, as is the one about Swaffham hospital. The work that GB Energy is already doing on schools and hospitals is making a difference to public services up and down the country.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
The Secretary of State talked about British people having a stake in our energy system, and generating returns for local communities and people. He then went on to say that he was on the side of local communities. I appreciate that he was talking about auction round 7, not nationally significant infrastructure projects, but in my constituency, we have the East Park Energy solar farm proposal. At 1,900 acres, it would have a huge impact on local communities. Residents of Great Staughton and Hail Weston in my constituency are massively opposed to the development. What would he say to my constituents, who feel that he is not on the side of local communities, given that the decision on this project falls squarely to the Secretary of State?
Ed Miliband
I will not go into the details of a planning decision, but areas that host energy infrastructure should see community benefits. What I say to his constituents and others is that there should always be community benefits, but if we want to bring down bills, and if we want energy security, we must build the energy infrastructure that we need. Solar is a really important part of that, because it is the cheapest, cleanest form of power. I am sure that some of his constituents will not like the proposal, but sometimes we have to stand up and say, “We think this is the right thing to do for cheap, clean power.”
Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for announcing a big investment in local energy. He mentioned the fantastic example of the Geraint Thomas national velodrome in Newport, in my neighbouring constituency, with its 2,000 solar panels. This shows the value of community energy projects, which will cut bills, tackle climate change and literally give power to those local people on bikes going around the velodrome. I am delighted that the Welsh and UK Governments have an exciting vision for community energy, and that the Welsh Government created Ynni Cymru in 2023. What can the Secretary of State tell me about the investment in further local energy plans in Wales, and in my constituency of Monmouthshire?
Ed Miliband
I congratulate the Welsh Government on their important initiatives in this area; they are great leaders in it. I was whispering to the Minister for Energy about whether he and I should be cycling in the Geraint Thomas national velodrome, but he thought that was probably a bad idea. From the look on her face, I see that Madam Deputy Speaker seems to agree. I really hope that the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes) benefit from this initiative. They will be able to see, from the velodrome, the benefit that there could be for them. We look forward to working with the Welsh Government on super-charging the benefits of this plan.
Mr Tom Morrison (Cheadle) (LD)
Too often, my constituents, like many in the north of England, have seen such Government schemes ploughing money disproportionately into the south of England. In fact, Government figures show that total investment per job is about £13,000 in London, compared with £9,000 in the north-west. How will the Secretary of State ensure that such regional inequalities are not reinforced by decisions on where projects are funded?
Ed Miliband
As a South Yorkshire MP, I completely agree with the hon. Member on these matters. He makes a really important point, and he has put it on the record. I am sure that GB Energy will be very conscious of the need to ensure a fair balance across the country, when it comes to the allocation of these resources.
Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for explaining very clearly why the local power plan represents the biggest investment in community energy ever. It will help create jobs, develop skills and generate growth. Those are clearly the ambitions behind the redevelopment of New Stanton Park in my constituency. It is creating thousands of jobs and apprenticeships, and is returning industry to Ilkeston. Will the Secretary of State outline how the local power plan, alongside Mayor Claire Ward’s mayoral renewables fund, will support developments such as the New Stanton Park by lowering energy costs, attracting investment and expanding gold-standard apprenticeships?
Ed Miliband
Another really exciting part of this plan is working with local mayors, such as the excellent Claire Ward. There is a real chance here for mayoral vision to combine with the national Government’s vision, and local people’s vision of how they can transform communities and generate resources. I am very happy to endorse the sentiments of my hon. Friend, and I really look forward to working with him and Claire on this plan.
Ann Davies (Caerfyrddin) (PC)
Community energy has an important role to play in Wales. It powers around 17,500 homes, many of which are in my constituency of Caerfyrddin, with Ynni Sir Gâr leading the way. I welcome the local power plan and its funding envelope of £1 billion, and hope that we can rapidly expand on that number. Will the Secretary of State tell me more about how this funding will be fairly distributed across the UK? Will he introduce a ringfence to ensure that Wales and the other devolved nations, Scotland and Northern Ireland, receive, at minimum, their population share?
Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady asks an important question. We will work with the Welsh publicly owned energy company to make sure that Wales benefits from this plan. I made that point about a fair balance of funding across the country to the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison), and I think it is very important. I think we will find that this programme will be highly oversubscribed—that is my prediction—because there is such an appetite for this plan and its potential. I hear that in the House. One thing that we will definitely be doing is working with the Welsh Government.
Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the local power plan, which builds on much clean energy investment in Norfolk, including backing for the Vanguard wind project and £17 million for warm homes in Norwich. I urge the Government to keep backing the east of England as a hub for clean energy. Will the Secretary of State outline in a bit more detail how constituents will be made aware of this project, particularly those who will not hear this statement, or hear about it on the radio, so that the communities that would benefit the most are able to maximise the benefits of this funding?
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. Local Members of Parliament have a massive role to play in, for example, approaching their local community groups and others who have the potential to benefit from the plan. I encourage all Members to do that. One of the most important things about Members of Parliament from all parts of the House is that so many of them have a sense of the groups and areas in their constituency that can benefit from the plan. My hon. Friend the Minister for Energy and I will provide resources for MPs across the House, so that they not only know about the plan, but can draw it to the attention of people and community groups in their constituency, so that they can benefit from it.
Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I have long campaigned for community energy, but it is not enough to have a plan to deliver local power projects in the future, when there are projects around the country ready to go now, but sadly not supported by the national grid. In Wokingham, the Barkham solar farm is ready to go, but the National Grid is not yet ready to hook it up to the grid. It has delayed doing that for far too long, and it recently came up with a reason for another long delay. What is the Minister doing to fix this failure and get the Barkham solar farm hooked up to the grid for the benefit of our local community?
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We have carried out a big overhaul of the grid connections queue, which, as he knows, was sort of like the wild west. There was a chaotic “first come, first served” queuing system. The National Energy System Operator has done a big reordering of the queue, but we still have to put pressure on the transmission operators, to make sure that they deliver. I encourage him to write to my hon. Friend the Minister for Energy about the project, and we will take that up with the National Grid.
John Whitby (Derbyshire Dales) (Lab)
I have spoken to groups across my constituency such as Transition Crich and Derbyshire Dales Community Energy, which are working to create new community-owned energy projects in order to cut bills and drive down emissions. The £1 billion announced today will significantly help with their aims. However, these groups will grow faster if they are able to sell their energy directly to households in their communities. Could the Secretary of State therefore update us on what plans he has to implement local supply rights for community energy schemes?
Ed Miliband
We are right into the nerdery here—and it is really important nerdery. My hon. Friend makes an essential point about the ability to sell this power back into the grid. I assure him that we are working on this with Ofgem to improve the offer to local community groups, because it is an essential part of ensuring that economic value goes to groups, including those in his constituency.
Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)
Rochdale is the birthplace of the co-operative movement, so we know what happens when local people come together to take back control when there has been a clear market failure. That is one of the many reasons I am proud to be the Labour and Co-operative party MP for Rochdale.
The Secretary of State rightly talked about the shift from community benefit, which is crumbs from the table for the big energy companies, to community ownership, and how this shift can sustainably lower bills for community groups and community buildings. Does he agree that the local power plan is all about power to the people—not just in the sense of clean energy, but communities having the power to determine their own bills and future?
Ed Miliband
Power to the people, indeed—it is a great slogan. I really do share my hon. Friend’s sentiments, both about the co-operative movement and Rochdale’s pioneering place in the movement, which is so important in our country, and about the shift in thinking about ownership that this plan represents. We want to move from the idea that this always has to be done by the big multinational companies, which are privately owned, to a different way of thinking. Yes, those bigger companies will continue to play a role, but why shouldn’t local people be able to come together and own their own energy? That whole principle was founded in Rochdale, and this plan will help the doubling of the co-operative movement that this Government are committed to.
Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, the publication of the local power plan and the £1 billion investment that will support community groups to provide green, sustainable energy and help their financial sustainability. We have considerable expertise in Derbyshire when it comes to using water to create power. In fact, the mills that were built on the Derwent valley over 200 years ago were among the first to harness that opportunity, and now we have a number of hydro projects on that stretch of water. Can I encourage the Secretary of State to come to Derbyshire to see some of those projects and look at where we could add more? If he wants help from local people who have expertise in this space, I am more than happy to put him in touch with them.
Ed Miliband
I thank my hon. Friend for his invitation, and I look forward to doing that. He makes the important point that we can look back at our history, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh) also pointed out, and draw inspiration from some of the pioneers who had a vision that is not the same as today’s but that has similar principles. I congratulate his constituents who are working on these issues and look forward to meeting them.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I thank the Secretary of State for making his statement—and for not doing so in Lycra.
Point of Order
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. During Health and Social Care questions on 22 July 2025—over six months ago—the Minister for Secondary Care agreed to meet me to discuss accelerating patient discharges from hospital. I wrote to her on 28 July to arrange that meeting and received no reply. I followed it up with a written parliamentary question on 9 September. I remain still with no reply. Could you please advise me on what further avenues are open to me to secure a reply, given the Minister’s commitment made in the House?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I thank the hon. Member for giving notice of his point of order. It is of course crucial that Members receive timely responses to correspondence with Ministers. As he will know, it is not a matter for the Chair, but I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench will have noted his concerns. If there have been delays to responses to written questions, he can raise that with the Table Office.
Bill presented
Images (Non-consensual Recording and Distribution) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Wera Hobhouse presented a Bill to create offences relating to the non-consensual recording of images of a person and the online distribution of such images for profit with the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification or of causing humiliation or distress to that person; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time Friday 27 February, and to be printed (Bill 381).
Eating Disorders (Training)
Mr Richard Quigley (Isle of Wight West) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish a requirement for persons providing certain public services to undertake training relating to eating disorders and disordered eating; to make provision about the delivery and content of such training; and for connected purposes.
As many colleagues will know, this Bill is deeply personal to me. I have spoken before about how my youngest child’s experience with an eating disorder exposed me to the scale of failings across child and adolescent mental health services, wider mental health services and our in-patient system.
The Bill will not fix every one of those problems, but I do want to place on record my sincere thanks to the Department of Health and Social Care, particularly the Minister for Care and the Minister for Health Innovation and Safety, for their genuine commitment to understanding this crisis and their determination to confront it head-on.
Turning to the Bill itself, I have chosen to focus on training for frontline public service workers, ensuring that they are equipped to recognise and safeguard those experiencing one of the most misunderstood mental health conditions. The evidence is clear: early intervention—spotting the signs quickly and accessing appropriate care—dramatically improves outcomes. It can reduce the need for in-patient or day patient treatment by around 35%, meaning fewer hospital admissions and far less disruption to everyday life.
Yet eating disorders remain profoundly misunderstood. Unlike many other illnesses, the person affected may actively resist help. These conditions often drive secrecy, denial and a determination to mask the harm being done both to the individual and to the people who love them most. As with domestic abuse, it is so often our frontline public service workers who, in those brief moments when a sufferer allows their guard to drop, are best placed to reassure them that recovery is both possible and within reach.
Eating disorders do not only cause physical and mental deterioration; we must not forget that eating disorders carry the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. The most recent confirmed data from the Office for National Statistics recorded 36 deaths for 2019, yet research from the US suggests that the true figure for the UK could be far higher, potentially closer to 1,860 deaths once under-reporting and misclassification are accounted for.
Hospital admissions tell a similar story. Admissions exceeded 30,000 for the first time in 2023-24, which is a 60% rise compared with pre-pandemic levels. I fear that without legislative action we will continue to reach these devastating milestones: more children losing their childhoods, more parents fighting desperately just to have their child heard, and more entirely preventable deaths.
The framework for the training proposed in the Bill already exists. As I have said, it mirrors the approach taken for domestic abuse inquiries, giving frontline professionals the skills to ask sensitive, safe and appropriate questions. I firmly believe that the vast majority of dedicated frontline staff want to help. This Bill simply gives them the tools and confidence to do so.
In 2023, the Royal College of Psychiatrists developed the guidance document “Medical Emergencies in Eating Disorders” to improve the safe management of crises and prevent avoidable complications and deaths. Yet we still do not see consistent implementation across the UK. Far too many people with eating disorders arrive at A&E only to be turned away with no follow-up support. That cannot be right.
Eating disorders rarely appear in isolation. The eating disorders all-party parliamentary group has heard harrowing accounts of people undergoing cancer treatment whose chemotherapy was not adjusted due to a lack of understanding about their eating disorder, leaving those already facing the fear and loneliness of chemotherapy even more vulnerable.
One profession where this training could have a profound impact is teaching. Body dissatisfaction—one of the strongest risk factors—is now being observed in girls as young as six. That is a truly shocking fact, and many teachers feel utterly helpless when they see their students beginning to slip into harmful patterns of thinking or behaviour.
NHS figures show that around 6,000 children under 10 were hospitalised for eating disorders over a five-year period, including more than 1,000 children under five. I do not believe for a minute that the hospitalisation of over 6,000 children suffering from an eating disorder was inevitable. I can only imagine the helplessness felt by parents, carers, teachers and clinicians as they watched those children struggle.
The training in this Bill is designed to change that. It would give teachers and other frontline staff practical, evidence-based tools to recognise early warning signs: noticeable changes in eating behaviours, obsessive thinking about food or exercise, rapid weight fluctuations, withdrawal from friends, or sudden anxiety linked to body image. It would guide staff on how to ask sensitive questions safely, how to communicate without reinforcing harmful thinking and how to signpost families quickly towards appropriate clinical support. Crucially, it would also help staff understand what not to do, avoiding language that might inadvertently validate disordered thoughts, resisting the instinct to offer reassurance that could make things worse and recognising when urgent escalation is required.
As I have set out, eating disorders are complex, often misunderstood conditions that present differently in every individual. Anorexia, binge eating disorder and other illnesses do not look the same from one person to the next, but we know that, in a moment of need, having someone who can recognise the signs and intervene can be the first step towards a meaningful recovery, giving someone the chance to reclaim their life.
As I said at the start of this speech, this Bill is not a silver bullet for the crisis in eating disorder services. I have been candid with Ministers about the breadth of change required across the system, and I suspect that the Department will be delighted to hear that I intend to continue campaigning, but the Bill recognises the deceptive nature of these illnesses and acknowledges the simple truth that families cannot and should not be expected to navigate such complex and deeply confusing conditions on their own, and that frontline staff must have the tools to help where they can.
For those such as Zara Taylor, who tragically passed away due to her eating disorder, we will never know whether the measures in this Bill might have made a difference, but we owe it to her and the many others who are no longer with us to do everything within our power in this place to ensure that those who are struggling can seek and access help wherever they are in their journey.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Mr Richard Quigley, Wera Hobhouse, John Whitby, Llinos Medi, Baggy Shanker, Lee Barron, Siân Berry, Anneliese Dodds, John McDonnell and Josh Newbury present the Bill.
Mr Richard Quigley accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 27 February, and to be printed (Bill 380).
Business of the House (Today)
Pensions and Social Security
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)
I beg to move,
That the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2026, which was laid before this House on 12 January, be approved.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following motion:
That the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2026, which was laid before this House on 12 January, be approved.
Sir Stephen Timms
In my view, the provisions in the instruments are compatible with the European convention on human rights. The draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order will increase relevant state pension rates by 4.8%, in line with the growth in average earnings in the year to May to July 2025. It will increase most other benefit rates by 3.8%, in line with the rise in the consumer prices index in the year to September 2025, so the regular formula has been used.
The order commits the Government to increased expenditure of £9 billion in 2026-27, of which £6 billion will be from state pensions and pensioner benefits, £2 billion from disability and carers benefits, and £1 billion from other working-age benefits. A further £2 billion of expenditure on working-age benefits will be incurred in 2026 as a result of uprating decisions made under separate legal powers in the Universal Credit Act 2025, which will set new rates for universal credit and income-related employment and support allowance.
Let me say a little more about each of the benefits being uprated in turn. First, on pensions, the Government’s commitment to the triple lock means that the basic and full rate of the new state pension will be uprated by the highest of the growth in earnings or prices or 2.5%. That means that the uprating will be by 4.8% for 2026-27. As a result, from April the basic state pension will increase from £176.45 per week to £184.90, and the full rate of the new state pension will increase from £230.25 at the moment to £241.30 per week.
Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)
I suppose I ought to declare an interest, Madam Deputy Speaker. [Laughter.]
The right hon. Gentleman will understand that we welcome the adherence to the triple lock that my party introduced. He will also know that there are tens of thousands of expatriate United Kingdom citizens whose pensions have been, and remain, frozen at the point at which they left the United Kingdom, in spite of the fact that they have paid their full taxes and national insurance contributions throughout their working lives in the UK. The last Government, to our shame, failed to address this issue. Do this Government have any plans to do so?
Sir Stephen Timms
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising this point. It might be of some comfort to him to know that it was not only the last Government who failed to do anything about this, and that previous Governments also failed. Indeed, in my previous tenures of the office of Pensions Minister, this issue was raised with me. However, it was the case that when those people left the UK, the rules were then as they are today. They were quite clear when people left. Of course, it depends on which country they went to, but in the countries where uprating has not been applied, it has always been the case that uprating has not been applied there, so it should not have come as a surprise to those who left that their pensions were not uprated. We are not looking at any proposals to change the situation at the moment, but I know that the right hon. Gentleman has campaigned on this matter consistently over a long period and I pay tribute to him for that.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
We very much welcome the triple lock and the extra moneys coming to our pensioners, but an issue has come to my attention recently. I had an 84-year-old pensioner in my office just last week who said, “Jim, I’ve got a demand from the HMRC for hundreds of pounds, but I’ve never been in debt in all my life.” When it comes to those pensioners who now find themselves being taxed when they were never taxed before, is it not possible to have a different system where the money could be taxed at source, rather than asking pensioners who are financially, mentally and emotionally under pressure to fill in an online form, which they just cannot do? There must be a simpler way of doing it.
Sir Stephen Timms
The question of how the tax system operates is a matter for His Majesty’s Treasury rather than for me. However, the hon. Gentleman might take some comfort from the reassurance provided by the Chancellor that those whose only income is the basic or new state pension, without any increments, will not have to pay any income tax in the course of this Parliament. Of course, those who have additional income beyond the state pension often do have a tax liability. The mechanism for how that is applied is a matter for my hon. Friends in His Majesty’s Treasury rather than for me, but I can certainly ensure that his point is passed on to them.
Other components of state pension awards, such as those previously built up under earnings-related state pension schemes, including the additional state pension, will increase by 3.8%, in line with prices. The Government are committed to supporting pensioners on the lowest incomes, so the safety net provided by the pension credit standard minimum guarantee will increase by 4.8%. That means that it will increase from £227.10 to £238 per week for single pensioners, and from £346.60 to £363.25 per week for couples. The maximum amount of pension credit savings credit will increase by 3.8%, in line with prices.
Graham Leadbitter (Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey) (SNP)
One of the first acts of this Government was to remove the winter fuel payment, before their subsequent partial U-turn. The Prime Minister himself promised assistance for WASPI women, which is manifestly not happening. Both things affect pensioners significantly. When it comes to uprating, the gap between new and old pensions is widening all the time, because although they are going up by the same percentage, they start from different baselines. What are the Government doing to equalise pension levels to prevent that situation from worsening?
Sir Stephen Timms
We are not proposing any change in those arrangements. As the hon. Gentleman will know, those arrangements were introduced by the previous Government. In fact, the coalition Government put in place the current arrangements for the new state pension, which were introduced with commitments to future uprating. We are committed to delivering the triple lock, but we are not planning to change the relativities between those two arrangements.
Most working-age benefits and other benefits for people below state pension age will also increase by 3.8%. They includes statutory payments such as statutory sick pay, statutory maternity pay, the personal allowances of income support, housing benefit, jobseeker’s allowance, and contributory employment and support allowance. The order will also increase by 3.8% the child amounts, the carer amounts, transitional severe disability premiums in universal credit, and pensioner and carer premiums in income-related employment and support allowance.
As I mentioned earlier, the Universal Credit Act 2025 included important changes to rebalance universal credit. For 2026-27, the standard allowance in universal credit will be uprated by September’s consumer prices index plus an additional 2.3%. That represents the first ever permanent above-inflation rise to the universal credit standard allowance, and I believe that it is the first permanent real-terms increase in the headline benefit rate since the 1970s. That is not part of the order that we are debating, but all these increases will apply across Great Britain.
John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
I very much appreciate the action that the Government have taken to uprate UC—for the first time in its history, as the Minister says—but does he accept that it still will not cover the cost of basic essentials such as food, heating and rent for many of our most put-upon constituents?
Sir Stephen Timms
I think perhaps the point that the hon. Gentleman is making is that it does not fulfil the aspirations of the essentials guarantee campaign, with which he and I are familiar, and that is true. However, April’s above-inflation uprating will be the first of four such upratings, so there will be a similar over-inflation uprating in each of the following three Aprils. It will not end up at the level on which the essentials guarantee campaign has focused, but let us see what happens beyond the period for which we have made these announcements. As he said, it is an historic change of direction for public policy.
Benefits for people in England and Wales who have additional costs as a result of disability or ill health will also increase by 3.8%. These include disability living allowance, attendance allowance and personal independence payment. The increase will also apply to carer’s allowance.
The draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2026 sets out the yearly amount by which the guaranteed minimum pension part of an individual’s contracted-out occupational pension, earned between 1988 and April 1997, must be increased when it is being paid. The increase is paid by occupational pension schemes, and helps to provide a measure of inflation protection for people in receipt of contracted-out occupational pensions earned between 1988 and 1997. The law requires that GMPs earned between those two dates must be increased by the percentage increase in the general level of prices measured the previous September, capped at 3%. The September 2025 inflation figure— or CPI—was 3.8%, so the increase for the financial year 2026-27 will be 3%.
The 3% cap provides pension schemes with more certainty, allowing them to forecast their future liabilities more reliably. That is important when they are considering their funding commitments. The measure strikes a balance between, on one hand, protecting members against the effects of inflation, and on the other, not increasing scheme costs beyond what schemes and sponsoring employers can reasonably afford.
The draft Social Security Benefits Uprating Order 2026 will, if Parliament approves it, commit the Government to increased expenditure of £9 billion in the next financial year. Changes will mainly come into effect from 6 April this year and apply for the tax year 2026-27. The order maintains the triple lock—which benefits pensioners in receipt of both the basic and new state pensions—raises the level of the safety net in pension credit beyond the increase in prices, increases the rates of benefit for those in the labour market, and increases the rates of carers benefits and benefits to help with additional costs arising from disability or health impairment.
The draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order requires formally contracted-out occupational pension schemes to pay an increase of 3% on GMPs in pensions earned between April 1988 and April 1997, giving a measure of protection against inflation, paid for by the scheme. I commend the orders to the House.
Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)
I wish to reassure the Minister about something that I said in last week’s debate on the two-child benefit cap. I shared something of my story, and said that we had lost child benefit as a result of the Labour Government coming into office in 1997. I was convinced I had said “family credit”, which was what I was supposed to say. When I read back over Hansard, I realised that, in my haste to get my point across, I had said the wrong thing, which explains why I caught sight of the Minister’s perplexed face from across the Dispatch Box. I have also corrected the record through Hansard.
I can confirm that the Opposition support the usual increase in the guaranteed minimum pension, and the uprating of social security benefits. However, given that this debate is largely a formality and there will be no vote on the motions, it is a good opportunity to take a step back and reflect on the pensions and benefits system more broadly—in the context of the motions before us, of course.
First, let me highlight what I call the “benefits barbell”. At one end is the working-age welfare bill, which keeps getting heavier; at the other is the eye-watering cost of public sector defined-benefit pensions. In the middle of those two heavy weights is the hard-working taxpayer, straining under the load. Welfare and pensions both matter—they are pillars of a decent society—but it is Britain’s taxpayers who do the heavy lifting. They are the ones who get up before dawn, commute in all weathers and keep the economy moving. Without their efforts or even more Government borrowing, there would be no welfare state at all, and we cannot pile more weight on to their shoulders indefinitely.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has already admitted that the long-awaited Timms review will not involve making welfare savings and is not likely to be published before 2027. It seems that this Government are shunning any attempts at reform over the coming year, and yet again, it is taxpayers who bear the cost of this delay. Right now, the UK is on the verge of becoming a welfare state with an economy attached. Over 40,000 people were signed off work every day by GPs over the last year, according to the Centre for Social Justice. Over 5 million people are claiming benefits with no work requirements, which is equivalent to over half of London’s population.
Concerningly, that number includes more than 300,000 people aged 16 to 24—young people with promising lives ahead of them whose ambitions are being stifled by a benefits system that would rather write them off. Labour is presiding over a youth unemployment crisis and seems unable to offer long-term solutions. There are already nearly 1 million young people in the UK who are not in education, employment or training. Over 700,000 university graduates are out of work and on benefits. One and a half years after taking office, this Government are still failing to tame the runaway benefits bill and rising unemployment rates. By contrast, the Conservative plan to get Britain working again will tackle youth unemployment by offering young people a first jobs bonus, which they can use to save for their first home.
Living within our means is one of those sensible, mundane things that gives the Conservative party its reputation as a safe pair of hands for the economy. Of course, making welfare savings is far less likely to grab headlines—scrapping the two-child benefit cap or rolling out more free school meals is a far easier win—but getting the deficit under control is crucial to a healthy economy. When the Conservatives took office in 2010, the Government were running a deficit of 9%. By the time covid struck, we had brought it down to under 1%. That, in turn, enabled us to provide generous support to individuals and businesses during lockdowns.
As I said in the debate on the two-child benefit cap last week, keeping the limit would have saved the taxpayer £2.4 billion in 2026-27, rising to £3.2 billion in 2030-31, yet our current Prime Minister would rather throw some red meat to his Back Benchers than exercise fiscal discipline. He has caved in to their demands, even though scrapping the two-child benefit limit was previously ruled out by the Chancellor and was conspicuously absent from Labour’s manifesto.
Conservatives believe in fairness for the working parents who make difficult choices about whether they can afford another child. Many working families do not have incomes much higher than the threshold for universal credit but are paying for others through their taxes. Why should we make those parents bear the double burden of supporting their own children and subsidising other people’s? A fair system should not simply exempt families on benefits from making tough choices.
Speaking of fairness, the issue of passported benefits desperately needs investigating. Last week, I highlighted the shocking statistic that one in four full-time UK workers would be better off on benefits than in work, but something that often gets overlooked is that people on universal credit also gain access to a raft of discounts and additional benefits such as free prescriptions, discounted broadband, healthy food cards and special savings accounts. There are over 20 of these schemes sprinkled across multiple Government Departments. Taken together, passported benefits give some families who are already on universal credit over £10,000 a year in extra support, costing the taxpayer over £10 billion, according to a new report from the think-tank Onward. These benefits need rationalising and streamlining within universal credit. Otherwise, we will continue to face three serious problems.
First, passported benefits disincentivise people from entering employment. Any sensible person would think twice about starting a job if they faced a cliff-edge denial of additional benefits worth thousands of pounds once their universal credit tapers away. Secondly, we have a two-tier system. As a result of these linked benefits, individuals just outside the universal credit threshold often face greater financial hardship than benefit claimants. Thirdly, for those who really do need these extra schemes, there is a labyrinth of bureaucracy that slows down the process of getting help. These piecemeal entitlements distort the system. From a quantitative perspective, it is harder to see which poverty interventions are actually having a positive effect. It is also incredibly difficult for everyone to see whether this Government are succeeding at reducing poverty.
I welcome the Government’s new emphasis on deep material poverty as a headline poverty metric, which is a far more holistic measure that captures how poverty impacts people’s daily lives and whether they can afford necessities. Last week, we heard endlessly that the Government’s child poverty strategy and the scrapping of the two-child benefit cap will bring half a million children out of poverty, but it is worth noting that we are talking about relative poverty. That can never be eradicated, because it refers to a household income below 60% of the median household income. The only way to reduce relative poverty is to raise the incomes of the poorest faster than the middle or compress the income distribution. An overemphasis on relative poverty has underpinned a misleading left-wing argument that exaggerates the need for income redistribution. I worry that we will end up paying people to be so-called middle-class if we continue as we are.
At the heart of Conservative philosophy is a belief in personal responsibility—taking control of our future through hard work and aspiration. If we are serious about tackling child poverty in the long term, it is vital to deal with the effects of intergenerational worklessness and not just rely on social security. Children in long-term workless households are four times more likely to be materially deprived and 10% more likely to end up workless themselves. For every parent who does not go out to work, there is a child who misses seeing a positive example of work modelled to them—the early alarm clock, the daily routine, the reward for an honest day’s work and the ability to save up to buy important things. That is not to say that there are not those in dire circumstances for a vast number of reasons, but ultimately, when we are looking at people in general, that is the reality we need to deal with. Under our watch, the number of children in workless households fell consistently. Under Labour, the number has reached a nine-year high, with 1.2 million children now living in homes where no parent has worked for over a year.
Turning to the topic of personal independence payments, I would like to ask the Minister about a disabled constituent I caught up with at the weekend. She is a veteran who served in the Royal Navy for 19 years and is now an unpaid carer for her elderly father. She works full time, mainly from home, and commutes to London a few times a month. She had a Motability scooter, which enabled her to get to the office and around London when required, but after her last PIP review, which took place over the phone, she lost her higher rate of PIP and thus her scooter. She then received a puzzling letter from the Department for Work and Pensions, which wrongly claimed that full-time work indicated she had reasonable mobility, despite the fact that her entire home is adapted for her accessibility requirements.
My constituent is a highly capable woman who is skilled at advocating for herself as well as her father and, indeed, her fellow veterans, but she admitted that she felt too stressed to open the letter for a few weeks, meaning that the reconsideration window had timed out by the time she fully processed the DWP’s decision. For context, she has also been diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder following a traumatic experience in the military and is currently on a long waiting list for treatment. Statistically, she is unusual; fewer than one in six PIP claimants are in employment.
It seems bizarre that the DWP assessors are happy to downgrade someone in this situation, who is in work and genuinely needs the higher rate of PIP to help her carry out that work, yet the Department seems reluctant to stem the tide of benefits claims from people with less severe mental health issues. That is why a Conservative Government will end sickness benefits for low-level mental health problems, to ensure that support is targeted at people who need it most. I welcome the Government’s commitment to increase the number of face-to-face PIP assessments to 30%, up from the very low rate of 5% in 2024, but I urge them to be even more ambitious with their target, to ensure that constituents like mine are accurately assessed and receive the help they need.
In conclusion, as I return to the image I began with, the barbell is getting heavier by the year, with welfare on one side and pensions on the other, and still the hard-working taxpayer stands in the middle doing all the heavy lifting. The Government are doing far too little to ease that pressure. Working families are paying the price for a system that grows ever more expensive, while true reform moves at a crawl. It is time for a welfare system that is fair to those who need support and fair to those who pay for it.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
I am pleased to follow the shadow Minister. I would like to challenge several things she said, but I will pick up on just a couple.
First, one of the hon. Lady’s opening statements was that hard-working people who get up at dawn and go out to work do not approve of this increase in support. I gently point out to the hon. Lady that most people in receipt of social security support are working, but they are in the low-paid jobs that were presided over by previous Conservative Administrations.
Secondly, the hon. Lady spoke of her concerns about young people. Yes, absolutely, nearly 1 million young people are not in education, employment or training and that concerns us all, but we must all look at the evidence and at the underlying causes of that. She might not have heard me say last week—I have said it a few times—that evidence from the UK Millenium cohort study suggests that half of that population have experienced childhood poverty and adversity in their young years, under the former Conservative Government, and that is the driver. People are five times more likely not to be in education, employment or training if they have experienced that long childhood of poverty and adversity—I do not think the shadow Minister would claim that that has not happened.
It is also a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Minister. I give the pensions and social security uprating orders my wholehearted support. The uprating is absolutely the right thing to do, and I will expand on exactly why. This year’s uprating, confirmed last November by the Secretary of State, will see inflation-linked benefits and tax credits rise by 3.8% this April, which is the level of inflation as measured by the consumer prices index in September 2025. As a result of the Universal Credit Act 2025—some people did not support that, but I did once we got rid of the bits I had concerns about—we increased the universal credit standard allowance. That is important, as it means an additional 2.3% for the standard allowance, which equates to an increase in the standard allowance for a single claimant over 25 from £400.14 to £424.90 per calendar month.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)
I am sure my hon. Friend will be aware of today’s Resolution Foundation report that shows how increases in income have significantly slowed over the past 20 years, particularly for those on low incomes, as shown by the basic rate of UC, which has fallen by 9% in real terms since 2010. Does she think there is merit in proposals from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for an independent advisory process to inform universal credit rates, ensuring that the standard allowance reflects the real cost of essentials and the inflation experienced by those living on lower incomes?
Debbie Abrahams
My hon. Friend may not know this, but the Minister and I were on the Work and Pensions Committee when the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Trussell Trust presented the case for the essentials. I think there is overwhelming support for such measures, but it is a question of how we do it in a sustainable way. If I may go on and develop my argument a little, he will see that I am moving in his direction.
As we have heard, the new state pension will also increase by 4.8% in April to £241.30 per week, which is in line with the annual increase in the average wage earnings index from last May to September. Briefly, I will explain why it is important that the increase in UC should be above CPI and inflation. Although state support for working-age people and pensioners was fairly similar when annual uprating was first introduced in 1972, the uprating or increase in working-age social security support such as UC in line with inflation has not always happened. In the last 15 years, social security support for working-aged people increased by only 1% between 2013 and 2016, and it was frozen between 2016 and 2020. If anyone wants to look at the changes to inflation over the past 15 years, it makes interesting reading, particularly in 2022-23 and 2023-24, and the increase was far below inflation. As a result, since 2012 benefit levels for working-aged people and their families have lost 8.8% of their value.
The UK’s social protection levels are among the least generous in the OECD. In 2021, the New Economics Foundation estimated that the actual loss in cash terms was equivalent to £14 billion. It also estimated that if spending had been maintained, there would have been 1.5 million fewer people living in poverty. People are often surprised to hear that over the last 20 years or so, the amount of DWP spending as a percentage of GDP—that is acknowledged as the only way we can fairly compare spending—has changed very little: it was 10% in 2005 and 11% in 2025, with the slight increase being accounted for by an increase in spending on pensioners. I think we would all agree that that is the right thing to do. What is alarming is that although poverty levels have been stabilised and will start coming down this year as a result of, for example, the removal of the two-child limit for social security support and the increase in the living wage, the depth of poverty is increasing.
Graham Leadbitter
Many things can be done to tackle child poverty. One thing the Scottish Government have done, which has massive backing from the third sector, is introduce a universal child payment. Does the hon. Lady agree that that is potentially the way forward?
Debbie Abrahams
I am familiar with the child payment, but I need to understand it in the context of what else is happening in Scotland. I am aware of it, and I think it is an interesting way for Scotland to try to address the issue. We had a meeting with the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland and were impressed with what she was doing, but I will reserve judgment until I understand it a little more in the round.
Only last week, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published new analysis:
“In 2021-24, the average person in poverty had an income 29% below the poverty line, with the gap up from 23% in 1994-97”.
If we use equivalised figures, that means that couples without children are living on less than £12,500 a year, and couples with two children under 14 get about £17,500 a year. Social security is complex, but looking at deep poverty, as my right hon. Friend the Minister is doing, is important. If we are to avoid the appalling situation with NEETs that we have inherited, that is what we need to do.
Of the 14.2 million people living in poverty identified in JRF’s most recent poverty analysis, 6 million are in severe and persistent poverty, and more than half are disabled or live in a disabled household. Although I recognise the significant moves that this Government have made to address the inadequacy of working-age social security support to tackle the poverty and cost of living crisis that people are experiencing, I personally think we need to be a bit bolder.
As I said last week, I want to see us be clearer about our vision and values, which define what our social security system is for. It is 80 years since the National Insurance Act 1946, which was introduced in response to the Beveridge report and the outcomes and appalling circumstances after the second world war. I believe we need a new social contract that the British people can buy into and that spells out how all the elements of a comprehensive 21st century welfare state work together to deliver for them.
Our social security system, like our NHS, should be there for all of us in our time of need. It should protect us from poverty if we lose our jobs, are born with or acquire health conditions or disabilities, and when we grow old. It should also be there for us if and when we need extra support, become carers and, sadly, lose a loved one, but it cannot work in isolation; it needs to be considered in conjunction with our health and social care, education and skills, and business and employment systems in particular, but there are more.
Without a fit and healthy working-age population, a skilled workforce and a fair employment system providing quality, well-remunerated jobs, our economic productivity is known to fall, and our welfare system as a whole then comes under threat. As an example, Health Equity North’s “Health for Wealth” report shows that improving the health of the north to the same level as the rest of the country would add an extra £18.4 billion to the economy through enhanced productivity while reducing demand on the NHS.
Last year, the Work and Pensions Committee commissioned Health Equity North to report on what income could be generated through increasing returns to work for people in receipt of universal credit by just 5%. Its estimates show that that would yield an extra £20 billion over the life of this Parliament, with a return on investment of between £5.21 and £6.63 for every £1 of employment support invested. That is the way that we will reduce DWP spending and increase growth.
I look forward to seeing how the “Get Britain Working” and “Keep Britain Working” programmes, such as Connect to Work and the vanguards, are expanded. They are fantastic examples of how we can proceed. I was so impressed when I met organisations delivering Connect to Work. The Work and Pensions Committee had a session last week with Sir Charlie Mayfield and small businesses to see how they could be involved in that, and I hope that we can expand and build on this work.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams). It is almost as if she has been cribbing off my speech—maybe it is because we are both on the Work and Pensions Committee.
The reality is that our welfare state is part of a society that should be at ease with itself. Let me reflect that the old age pension was first introduced by Asquith in 1908 for 70-year-olds. That demonstrates that the Liberals were there at the foundation of our welfare state. If we fast-forward a few decades, we find that Margaret Thatcher broke the link between earnings and pensions, which had a devastating effect on pensioner poverty and increased it significantly over many years.
It is really heartening that when the Liberal Democrats were back in government as part of the coalition, we were part of the Government who introduced the triple lock. We have seen pensioner poverty being driven down, but there is still too much of it. I am concerned that the current Conservative leader, the right hon. Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), has mused about means-testing the triple lock, which is disturbing. Would she put it back to the five shillings a week for those of good character that we had under Asquith? We will look for the white smoke to appear from the Conservative party on that.
Let me reflect on pensioner poverty. As the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth reflected, we have done a lot of work as part of the Work and Pensions Committee around this issue. It has been interesting to hear from people, particularly those who have given us evidence in recent weeks, on how workers—particularly manual workers—find it harder to continue to do the jobs that they are in as they get older, as well as how we need to ensure that there is a whole-system approach.
We need to ensure that employers are more flexible, and the Mayfield report is important in that. Rather than just shuffling people off the books, we need to ensure that employers see what reasonable adaptations they can make to keep them on the books, as our continental friends do.
We need to drive forward with work on pensioner poverty. I reflect on my own constituency, where I have had people heading towards their pension who still want to work but are unable to because they have a dodgy hip and are awaiting an operation. Sadly, improvements at Torbay hospital have been delayed by many years. Again, as the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth alluded to, this is about ensuring that we sort out our national health service across the country as a whole so that people are in a fit state to work. Another thing that causes Liberal Democrats concern is the way in which social care has been kicked down the line and is not being resolved sooner rather than later.
Let me move on to a key element of these proposals. I welcome more generally the uprating that we have heard about from the Minister today, but what about carer’s allowance? The fact is that unpaid carers in the United Kingdom undertake work equivalent to the value of the whole of our NHS, which is absolutely mind-blowing. The Sayce review investigated overpayments to carers, and people needed to earn only £1 or so over the limit in a week for them to lose thousands of pounds from their carer’s allowance and end up having a liability.
Last February, the Sayce review found that nearly 87,000 people had that liability from the overpayment of carer’s allowance. The Government have committed to writing off the debts of 26,000, which means that debts remain outstanding for 61,000. That causes grave concerns for lots of people who have that hanging over them like the sword of Damocles. I would be really grateful if the Minister could reflect on that area in his winding-up speech.
Finally, the last benefit that I will reflect on is what was originally known as DLA but is now known as PIP. At the time when this benefit was a hot potato, some Ministers described it as pocket money for people with disabilities. However, it is there to support people with basic living needs, whether it is being able to get out and about and live a normal life, which many people would take for granted, preparing food or the simple dignity of being clean, able to wash and having help with that. This benefit supports those people, so it is disturbing that last July, the Minister had to almost rip up the speech in front of him and go in to bat with a rubber chicken in his hand, effectively. We welcome the upgrade to these benefits, but does it truly reflect the increase in earnings that we have seen, and give people on the personal independence payment the ability to take people on to support them?
The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth was right to mention the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, because its report, published last week, shows that poverty has flatlined since 2005, and if we look at deprivation and deep poverty, we see that the situation is really disturbing. I hear from church leaders in Torbay that they are seeing much higher levels of destitution than they have done historically, which is shocking. It is disappointing that the Government have not driven hard to make the positive reforms to the welfare state that would tackle the deep poverty suffered by many in our communities. The Government should ensure that we reform the welfare state, with those who use it, so that they can live their best life.
Neil Duncan-Jordan (Poole) (Lab)
Our social security system is the bedrock of our welfare state, but for years, the safety net that it was meant to provide has been developing bigger and bigger holes, through which some of our most vulnerable citizens have fallen.
For our older generation, the state pension is the foundation on which a decent retirement can be built. The restoration of the triple lock has been key to raising the income of some of our poorest pensioners, which is why we need it to continue, but it would be wrong to say that the job has been done when we still have 1.9 million older people living in poverty. The weakness of our means-tested pension credit system is that around 750,000 older people are eligible to claim, but have yet to do so. That is why we need to look again at the advantages of a universal system of income in retirement that reaches everyone.
Even in the current uprating arrangements, there is an unfairness. Some 8.3 million older people are in receipt of the pre-2016 state pension, made up of a basic state pension and a second state pension, which for many would have been SERPS—the state earnings-related pension scheme—introduced by the late, great Barbara Castle. While the triple lock applies to the basic state pension for these people, the lower consumer prices index is used to uprate the second state pension. This year, that will give a difference of 1%, and over time, we have seen the gap between those on the old state pension and the new state pension widen. That is unfair, and we should consider uprating all pensions in the same way.
As hon. Members have said, uprating is a contentious issue when it comes to overseas pensioners. Nearly half a million UK state pensioners do not receive the annual increase because they have moved to a country that does not have a reciprocal agreement with the UK. That means that their state pension is frozen at the value it had when they left the UK. For some, that will mean that their pension is now virtually worthless. Today, we are debating the annual uprating of the state pension, but the process does not include the frozen pensions policy, because that is dealt with through secondary legislation. Despite the serious impact that this issue has on many voters living overseas, there is a lack of scrutiny and opportunity to vote, which means that this House is unable to hold the Government to account on this issue. That needs to change.
Finally, I address an issue that a number of hon. Members have raised: our social security system needs to provide for the essentials for living. This April, for the first time since universal credit was introduced, as the Minister has said, the standard allowance will increase above inflation. That will go some way towards closing the gap between income and the daily cost of living, and it is welcome. However, despite this boost, too many families will continue to face a significant shortfall, caused by the increased cost of essentials.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Trussell estimate that a single adult needs at least £120 a week, and a couple need £205 a week, to afford the essentials. Sadly, universal credit falls short of this. We know that the vast majority of people referred to a food bank were in receipt of a means-tested social security payment, such as universal credit. At the heart of the problem is the fact that there is no evidence-based foundation for setting benefit levels. As a result, updated rates do not properly reflect people’s needs. That is why there is a call for an independent process, which draws on research, including from those with lived experience, for advising Ministers on how much universal credit needs to be, if people are to afford essentials like food, utilities and vital household items.
The protection offered by our social security system should ensure that no one in need falls through the gaps. That is the mark of a compassionate society, and something that we should be proud to advance.
Sir Stephen Timms
I am grateful for the opportunity to wind up this debate. I thank everyone who has taken part for their constructive and helpful contributions, and I want to make a number of points in response.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) for clarifying what happened in 1997—she read my facial expression correctly. I was perplexed when she told us that child benefit had been abolished. I have done a little bit of checking since she made that clarification, and it was in 1999 that family credit was replaced with the much better and stronger tax credit system. I do not know whether her family decided not to apply for that, but the introduction of working tax credits and the wider tax credit system made big progress, particularly in reducing child poverty across the country.
The hon. Lady was absolutely right to draw attention to the scale of the challenge that the country faces in the number of young people not in education, employment or training, as nearly 1 million were left behind by the previous Conservative Government. We are energetically on the case now to address that problem, which should have been addressed long ago. It is encouraging that the proportion of young people out of education, employment or training has fallen over the last year, but we do not want anybody to be left behind.
We are investing £820 million in the youth guarantee over the next three years to ensure that every single young person can access the support that they need to earn or to learn. Nearly 900,000 young people will receive intensive one-to-one support, and we are expanding youth hubs to every area in the country, creating around 300,000 additional opportunities to gain valuable workplace experience and training. Additionally, the youth guarantee will guarantee jobs for some 55,000 young people aged 18 to 21. The hon. Lady is absolutely right that there is a great deal to be done on this issue, and we are finally doing it. I look forward to reporting back to the House on progress as it develops.
The hon. Lady referred to the Conservative party’s reputation for being “a safe pair of hands for the economy.” Well, following the Liz Truss debacle, that reputation has sadly been destroyed, and it will take a long time to rebuild. People have a long memory, and remember the awful turbulence that the country was plunged into during that period, and that alleged reputation is sadly long gone.
The hon. Lady made the point that families have a choice about whether they can afford another child. Of course, one of the points that emerged from our debate on the two-child limit was that most families on universal credit with more than two children were not on universal credit when they had them. That was not an issue in their minds when they made that choice, so the Conservative response in that debate did not reflect the realities of what families are facing.
The hon. Lady made an interesting point about passported benefits, and I have seen the publicity on what the think-tank Onward has said on this matter. It is understandable that service providers use an existing means test to target their provision. That is what the last Government did on the cost of living payment during the pandemic, for example. I notice that the head of Onward is a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, so one would have thought that he would have had a chance to do something about this over his years in office, but it is an interesting topic. I think the arrangements we have for passported benefits make sense, but if there are proposals for alternative arrangements, we will be interested to look at them.
The hon. Lady was critical of the use of the relative poverty measure for assessing the number of children growing up in poverty, as was the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) last week. The relative poverty measure is the international standard measure; it is widely respected, and is used for all international comparisons on this metric. I think the reason why the Conservative party has always been so reluctant to refer to relative poverty is that its performance on that measure in government—I am talking about the Government who left office in 2024, but Governments before that as well—has been so consistently dreadful. During the debate on the two-child limit Bill, the point was rightly made that an important part of David Cameron’s work to bring the Conservative party up to date was embracing relative poverty as a valuable measure that ought to be taken into account. We now seem to have moved back to the pre-Cameron era in the Conservative party, and it may take some time for the party to recognise the scale of the change in its thinking that is needed if it is to reflect the country’s current situation.
I was interested in what the hon. Member for South West Devon said about her constituent who is on PIP. I would very much like to see the letter that she referred to, because she is absolutely right that PIP is an in-work benefit as well as an out-of-work benefit, and I would be extremely concerned if people were being told, “You’re in work, so you can’t have PIP any more.” There are disincentives of that kind in the system that need to be addressed, so I would love to have a look at that letter. As the hon. Lady knows, I am co-chairing a review of PIP that will conclude by the autumn of this year; she said that she did not think that the review would happen until 2027, but it will conclude by the autumn of this year.
The hon. Lady is right that we need to increase the proportion of face-to-face assessments for benefits. Face-to-face assessments are such a small proportion of total assessments at the moment because of the contracts that the Conservative Government entered into towards the end of their term in office, which contained no requirements for an adequate number of face-to-face assessments. Indeed, the Conservative Government sold off most of the premises where those assessments were undertaken, so of course it is taking some time to build up again the capacity to deliver those assessments, but we are doing so. We are putting right the mistakes that the previous Government made, and we are seeing a steady increase in the proportion of both work capability assessments and PIP assessments that are undertaken face-to-face.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
Accuracy and fairness are really important, so I think the face-to-face assessments are vital. There has been talk of a 30% increase, which is a little bit less than what I would like to see. Can the Minister give this House assurances that the increase will not sit at 30%, and that the Government will strive for more face-to-face assessments? Nothing beats seeing the white of a person’s eye.
Sir Stephen Timms
We would certainly like to do so. Let us get up to the level that we have set, which will be a dramatic improvement on the situation we inherited. Once we have done so, we will learn the lessons and see what more we can do.
I very much welcome the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), who chairs the Work and Pensions Committee. I commend her and the Committee for their work. She referred to the research—published, I think, towards the end of last year—showing that children who suffer poverty and adversity in childhood are, as she said, five times more likely to be NEET as young adults. I looked at that interesting paper, and I think I am right in saying that it found that children who had grown up just below the poverty line, but without childhood adversity as well, were three times more likely to be NEET as young adults, so just poverty on its own leads to a big increase in the likelihood of being NEET. In order to tackle this big NEET problem—the shadow Minister was right to say that it needs tackling—we have to tackle child poverty, as we are doing with the scrapping of the two-child limit in universal credit.
Debbie Abrahams
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about those two figures. The fact is that more than half of the current NEET cohort—52.9%—have experienced not just child poverty, but family adversity. That is the five times more likely figure.
Sir Stephen Timms
It is an interesting paper, and I very much welcome research along those lines, as I know my hon. Friend does. She is right to make the point that spending on social security is not rocketing. It is not out of control as one sometimes reads, but is between 10% and 11% of GDP. Working-age benefits are 4% to 5% and pretty consistent. It is not changing rapidly at the moment. She makes an interesting point, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan), about the current depth of poverty. That is an important part of the picture that we need to address in our work.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth that the social security system has an important job to do. We cannot just freeze it for a year and under-uprate it for another year, because that inflicts harm. We have seen that harm inflicted and the consequences of it. She is also right that we need a properly functioning health service again. We also need support for good employment. I was pleased to hear from her and the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) that the Work and Pensions Committee has been listening to Sir Charlie Mayfield and his excellent “Keep Britain Working” review, from which he is continuing to develop work.
The hon. Member for Torbay rightly referred to the practice of shuffling people off the books. Too often, people have run into a health problem in the course of their work, had to take time off and then, by accident really, lost touch with work and the workplace and become unemployed and inactive. If there had just been a bit of flexibility and a bit of continuing communication, that outcome could have been avoided. I welcome the work that Sir Charlie Mayfield is doing with more than 100 vanguard employers looking at how best to put those lessons into practice.
The hon. Member for Torbay also referred to the carer’s allowance overpayments scandal. We appointed Liz Sayce OBE to conduct an independent review of how overpayments occurred, how affected carers could be supported and how to prevent future problems with overpayments arising. The review made 40 recommendations, and the Government have accepted or partially accepted 38 of them. We have taken action to raise the earnings limit in carer’s allowance by the largest amount it has ever increased by. In future, we will uprate the earnings threshold annually in line with the increase in the national living wage, so that accidental exceeding of the earnings threshold will be less common.
The hon. Member for Torbay also drew attention to the difficulties with the current cliff edge arrangements for the carer’s allowance earnings threshold. In the 2024 Budget, the Chancellor announced that we were considering the introduction of an earnings taper to replace that cliff edge, and we may well conclude that that would do a better job.
I do not think I ever expected there to be a Labour Member of Parliament for Poole, but I am delighted that my hon. Friend was successful in being elected to that role, and long may he serve there. He was right to highlight the continuing scale of the challenge of pensioner poverty. If we look at the record of the former Labour Government, we see that there were dramatic reductions in both child poverty and pensioner poverty. In respect of child poverty, those reductions were reversed under the coalition and the Conservative Government, and towards the end of the term of the Conservative Government the number of pensioners in poverty was rising again, but it rose much less dramatically than the number of children growing up below the poverty line. Our priority has therefore been to tackle child poverty, and that is the reason for the strategy that we have published and the changes to universal credit that we debated in the House last week.
However, I recognise that there are continuing challenges for pensioners as well. The Government are increasing the basic state pension and the full rate of the new state pension, in line with earnings growth, by 4.8%, meeting our commitment to the triple lock. We are increasing the pension credit standard minimum guarantee in line with earnings, by 4.8%, to support pensioners on the lowest incomes. We are increasing benefits to meet additional disability needs and carers’ benefits, in line with prices, by 3.8%. We are increasing a number of working-age benefits, statutory payments and disability benefits in line with prices by the same amount, 3.8%. The Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order requires formerly contracted out occupational pension schemes to pay an increase of 3% on GMP—for the reasons I gave earlier—in payment earned between April 1988 and April 1997, to give a measure of protection against inflation for those pensioners which is paid for by their scheme.
I commend both orders to the House.
Question put and agreed to,
Resolved,
That the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2026, which was laid before this House on 12 January, be approved.
Social Security
Resolved,
That the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2026, which was laid before this House on 12 January, be approved. —(Sir Stephen Timms.)
Social Security
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Dan Tomlinson)
I beg to move,
That the draft Child Benefit and Guardian’s Allowance Up-rating Order 2026, which was laid before this House on 12 January, be approved.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following motion:
That the draft Social Security (Contributions) (Rates, Limits and Thresholds Amendments, National Insurance Funds Payments and Extension of Veteran’s Relief) Regulations 2026, which were laid before this House on 12 January, be approved.
Dan Tomlinson
The draft Child Benefit and Guardian’s Allowance Up-rating Order sets the rates for both child benefit and guardian’s allowance, and will ensure that those benefits, for which Treasury Ministers are responsible and which are delivered by His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, are uprated by inflation in April 2026. The draft Social Security (Contributions) (Rates, Limits and Thresholds Amendments, National Insurance Funds Payments and Extension of Veteran’s Relief) Regulations 2026 set the rates of certain national insurance contributions classes, and the level of certain thresholds, for the 2026-27 tax year. The regulations also make provision for a Treasury grant to be paid into the national insurance fund if required for the same tax year, through a transfer of wider Government funds to the NIF, and extend the veterans employer national insurance relief for two years, until April 2028.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I welcome what the Minister is saying, which is positive. This is a good step for guardians, carers and veterans. Sometimes people come to me and ask me questions. They say that they cannot get any help with the changes that have come in and how they are affected. When they are given more money, sometimes they fall into a higher tax bracket. Is help available for those who receive an increase in their guardian’s allowance, carer’s allowance or veteran’s allowance? We need to make sure that somebody can help them through the process. It is almost like walking through a muddy field: they just do not know where to go next.
Dan Tomlinson
The hon. Member is right: a range of reliefs in the national insurance system help particular groups, including young people and those who have served in our military. It is right that those reliefs are there, and I am glad that the Government took the decision to extend them by two years. The Government publish guidance on the way that the reliefs can be used. We aim to ensure that the guidance supports those who seek to employ young people and people who have served in the military, so that they are able to make employment decisions. Through the tax system, we want to support particular groups to be able to be employed. I thank the hon. Member for his question.
I turn to the detail of the Child Benefit and Guardian’s Allowance Up-rating Order 2026. As hon. Members will know, the Government are committed to delivering a welfare system that is fair for taxpayers while providing support for those who need it. These regulations ensure that the benefits for which Treasury Ministers are responsible, and which HMRC delivers, are uprated by inflation in April 2026. Child benefit and guardian’s allowance will increase by 3.8%, in line with the consumer prices index in the year to September 2025. Tax credits awards ended on 5 April 2025, so no changes to rates will be required.
I turn to the second set of regulations before us today. As announced at the Budget, the primary threshold and the lower profits limit threshold will be maintained at their current levels until April 2031. These regulations set the level for the 2026-27 tax year. Employees’ entitlement to contributory benefits, such as the state pension, is determined by their earnings being at or above the lower earnings limit. Self-employed people’s entitlement is determined by their earnings being at or above the small profits threshold.
These regulations uprate the LEL and the SPT. This is the usual process and maintains the real level of income where someone gains entitlement to contributory benefits. The upper earnings limit for employee NICs and the upper profits limit for self-employed NICs—the points at which the main rate falls to 2%—are aligned with the higher rate threshold for income tax. The thresholds will be maintained at their current levels, and these regulations set the levels for the 2026-27 tax year. As announced at the Budget last year, employer national insurance thresholds, including the secondary threshold, will also be maintained at their current levels.
We have already had a brief discussion about the employer NICs reliefs, including for under-21s, under-25 apprentices, veterans, and new employees in freeport and investment zones. The regulations that we are debating today keep the thresholds for those reliefs at their current levels. The regulations also make provision for the NICs relief for employers of veterans to be extended for two years until April 2028, during which time the Government will continue to consider the most effective way to support veterans into employment as part of the next spending review settlement.
Without these regulations, child benefit and guardian’s allowance would fall in real terms, and HMRC would be unable to collect NICs receipts. I hope that colleagues will join me in supporting them today.
Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to debate these two statutory instruments with the Exchequer Secretary. As he stated, they are made each year, and the precedent is for them to be debated on the Floor of the House. I am glad to see that that practice continues, and I hope that the Government will keep this going for the remainder of the current premiership, however long that may last. I want to make it clear that we will not be voting against the measures before us when the debate concludes. However, I would like to comment on each SI and the wider political discourse around them.
First, the social security regulations set the rates of certain national insurance contribution classes and the level of certain thresholds for the 2026-27 tax year. Specifically, they uprate the lower earnings limit, the small profit threshold and the rates of class 2 and class 3 national insurance contributions. The increase will be 3.8%, which is the consumer prices index figure from September 2025. All other limits and thresholds that these regulations cover will remain frozen at their current level.
This highlights that the increase last year was 1.7% compared with 3.8% this year. Both these percentages represent the rate of inflation that our constituents are suffering, but the 1.7% is of course what we left the Government when they came to power, and 3.8% is the level of inflation they are now delivering for consumers. When we left office, inflation was at 2%. We had managed to get it down following a once-in-a-generation pandemic and Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent energy crisis.
Since Labour has come in, inflation has risen almost every month and is now stuck at about 3.6%. Why is that? It is because the Government are relentlessly pursuing policies instead of making practical solutions—for example, the drive towards net zero. We of course want net zero and to get to the point where we clean up our carbon footprints, but by going too far they have managed to put up energy bills by £300 since they were elected. Is it any wonder that inflation is so high and shows little sign of coming down any time soon? I do not want to press the Minister on too many questions, but could he in due course let us know when the Government expect inflation to return to the target rate of 2%, which everybody agrees is where it should be?
The other point that I want to make about the statutory instrument is that it extends the employer national insurance contributions relief for veterans to 2028, which means businesses will continue to pay no employer NICs on salaries up to the veterans upper secondary threshold of £50,000 or £270 for the first year of their employment, which is a very good thing, as I think the Minister will agree. We introduced this relief in 2022, as we wanted to encourage as many employers as possible to help our veterans. These people have done a huge amount to protect our country, and it is important that we show our gratitude to them.
Mark Garnier
The Minister is nodding, and I am sure he agrees with us on this point. Therefore, we welcome the fact that the Government have committed to extending this relief for the next two years.
However, I point out that the Government said in the Budget document:
“The government will extend the employer NICs relief for employers hiring veterans in their first civilian role to April 2028, from which point support for veterans into employment will be covered through spending review settlements rather than through this tax relief.”
The Government have committed to consult on which way would be best to do that, which is positive, and I hope the Minister is open to considering continuing this relief as an option if a suitable alternative cannot be found. In due course, it would be great if he or the Government could let us know what is being planned and on what timeframe, so we may understand what will be happening for veterans.
The child benefit and guardian’s order will uprate the allowances in line with CPI for the 2026-27 tax year. Again, we welcome the increases as these benefits are an important part of our welfare system. Guardian’s allowance is designed to provide further support to people who care for someone else’s child—for example, if the child’s parents have died. When these people step as guardians, they are incredibly important in the upbringing of young children, and we have a duty to support them so that they can ensure that the children they care for have the best start in life.
Although these state benefits are important, the Government are abandoning their responsibilities to tackle the wider benefits bill. In this debate last year, the former Exchequer Secretary, who is now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said:
“the Government are committed to delivering a welfare system that is fair for taxpayers while providing support to those who need it.”—[Official Report, 4 February 2025; Vol. 761, c. 716.]
When it came down to it, however, this Government did not take the opportunity to make those savings. Instead, it appears that they caved in to their Back Benchers, and we are now in a position where the benefits bill continues to balloon. According to The Times, even the Prime Minister has vetoed plans to reform the welfare system, simply to avoid the embarrassment of yet another U-turn. That is not fair to taxpayers, or to those who need support the most. In due course, I hope the Minister will set out when the needed benefit reforms will be brought forward and what steps he is taking to ensure that taxpayers’ money goes to those who need it most.
The Conservatives will not stand in the way of any of the statutory instruments before us today, but we look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say—not necessarily this afternoon, I stress—on the points I have raised.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
I welcome the proposals on child benefit and guardian’s allowance. When I visit schools in Torbay, it is disturbing to hear how many children are only too alive to the cost of living crisis. They are worried about mum or dad not having enough money to put petrol in the car, and they are concerned about covering the bills. These are not big amounts of money, but we know that it all adds up and that it is helpful to the youngsters in our communities.
However, the continuation of the national insurance hikes is the most significant mis-step the Government have undertaken in this Parliament. They are effectively shooting the goose that lays the golden egg of economic growth. From my conversations with businesses across Torbay and the west of England, whether Paignton Zoo or Splashdown Waterpark, I know that limiting the threshold at which national insurance contributions are paid to £5,000 is crippling lots of seasonal businesses. The seasonality of the work means that they have to trim the opportunities for youngsters to take on summer jobs. I spoke to the owner of Splashdown only a couple of weeks ago. She talks about the people who come back in later years who are now solicitors, airline pilots or doctors, and how they learnt the trade of getting into work on time by working in the waterpark and so on.
I also want to reflect on how the national insurance hikes are hitting the hospitality industry across the west of England. Businesses have already seen massive increases in the cost of fuel. What I hear from them is their uncertainty about the Employment Rights Act 2025. I call on the Minister and the Government to ensure that, as it is rolled out, they reflect on limiting its impact. They must ensure a soft introduction, so it does not have a further devastating impact on employment. Most of all, I reflect on the impact of the national insurance hike. I ask the Minister to reflect on that, too.
Question put and agreed to.
Social Security
Resolved,
That the draft Social Security (Contributions) (Rates, Limits and Thresholds Amendments, National Insurance Funds Payments and Extension of Veteran’s Relief) Regulations 2026, which were laid before this House on 12 January, be approved.—(Dan Tomlinson.)
Standing Orders (Consideration of Estimates)
Ordered,
That Standing Order No. 54 (Consideration of Estimates) shall apply for the remainder of this Session as if, for the word ‘Three’ in line 1, there were substituted the word ‘Four’.—(Gen Kitchen.)
Business without Debate
Urgent care provision in Rugby
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
I welcome the investment that has expanded and improved services at the Hospital of St Cross in Rugby, but my constituents want urgent treatment to improve further and to include more doctor-led services. I have raised this issue with Ministers and in the House. Locally, I have convened roundtables with stakeholders, including community health organisations, councillors and campaigners, to ensure their voices are heard by local health leaders. I have asked these leaders when their review of urgent emergency care will conclude; now I expect local health leaders to take note and, more importantly, to take action.
The petitioners therefore request that:
“the House of Commons urge the Government to work with NHS Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Care Board to ensure that urgent care provision at the Hospital of St Cross…is retained and enhanced, to include a doctor led urgent care service.
And the petitioners remain, etc.”
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of the constituency of Rugby
Declares that the continuing investment in services at the Hospital of St Cross, a much-loved local hospital at the heart of our community is welcome; further declares that, as shown by recent demonstrations, members of the community in Rugby are concerned about ensuring the continued provision of urgent treatment from this site, and that these concerns have been raised at consultation events and meetings with health leaders; and further declares that there is not yet clarity as to how the Integrated Care Board’s review of urgent care will affect the Hospital of St Cross.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to work with NHS Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Care Board to ensure that urgent care provision at the Hospital of St Cross, Rugby is retained and enhanced, to include a doctor led urgent care service.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P003162]
Oak Park Community Clinic
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)
On behalf of Havant residents and NHS patients, I welcome this opportunity to raise urgently in Parliament the sudden and distressing removal of diagnostic services at Oak Park clinic in Havant.
Oak Park is a vital community asset that has long played an important role in local healthcare provision, providing a range of services including therapies, out-patient clinics and diagnostic checks. For residents, the clinic represents local, familiar and accessible care, particularly for sick, elderly and vulnerable people who struggle to travel. Some of the services remain, but the loss of diagnostics is a huge concern for my constituents in Havant, Langstone, Bedhampton, Emsworth, Hayling Island, Leigh Park, Purbrook, Stakes and Widley.
The withdrawal of diagnostic services at Oak Park took place suddenly, immediately before Christmas and came with no warning. In fact, there was no consultation with patients, local GPs, community groups or care providers. The local reaction to this removal of services has been both outrage and fear. This is the time of year when the NHS and its patients feel the most pressure; frankly, the timing of the withdrawal could not have been worse. My thoughts are also with the staff who provided diagnostic services at Oak Park, who, I understand, received only a month’s notice themselves that this work would be ending.
I was not notified before or even immediately after the withdrawal of services by any of the local NHS bodies or service providers. In particular, I heard nothing from the Hampshire and Isle of Wight integrated care board, which commissions and oversees the services at Oak Park. In fact, the first contact I had from the ICB was yesterday morning, once this debate had been confirmed. I now look forward to learning from the ICB how it intends to replace the services lost at Oak Park. I welcome the commitment it gave me yesterday to provide what it calls “a strong neighbourhood model” for delivering diagnostics services to my constituency. I hope it delivers on that commitment, and I would welcome the Minister’s support in holding the ICB accountable for delivering it.
The ICB has told me that the decision to end diagnostic services at Oak Park was taken by the NHS provider; that it was not an ICB decision. The general failure to communicate with people affected by the closure has caused widespread confusion, anger and fear. It is disappointing that, nearly two months on from the removal of diagnostic services at Oak Park, there is still no clear information in the public domain about the background behind the removal, no agreement about a way forward, and no news about whether temporary provision, for example through a mobile diagnostic unit, is feasible.
The importance of diagnostic provision in Havant cannot be overstated. Havant War Memorial hospital closed in September 2011 and, at the time, local people were assured that replacement facilities would maintain accessible healthcare in the community. It was Oak Park Community Clinic that provided the reassurance that healthcare would indeed remain close to home. The message from residents, patients, GPs and the whole community is clear: diagnostic services must be restored locally by the NHS and the ICB to a central location in the Havant constituency—either at Oak Park or at another suitable site. In the meantime, there must be interim provision in the constituency—for example, via a mobile unit or temporary facilities. Local people deserve nothing less, and my campaign to get the Government, the ICB and the NHS to deliver will continue.
As the Minister knows, diagnostics are the gateway to treatment. Oak Park offered X-ray, ultrasound and echocardiogram services. These are basic but vital services that inform clinicians quickly about the health of a patient, and allow them to decide what further tests or treatment are necessary. If these checks are delayed or unavailable, the consequences for patients can be appalling, slowing their access to treatment or even cutting it off altogether. The cumulative effect is to increase referrals into already pressured acute settings, such as the Queen Alexandra hospital in Portsmouth, and to undermine the cohesion of local NHS services.
The alternative to the facilities at Oak Park is to divert my constituents to St Mary’s community health campus in Portsmouth. This is hugely inconvenient for them, because travel into Portsmouth from communities in the Havant constituency is difficult at the best of times. St Mary’s is located on Portsea Island in the city, and there are only three roads on and off the island. The road most likely to be used by people travelling from my constituency—the Eastern Road—has been closed in one direction for several weeks for sewer repair works. It will remain closed until next month at the earliest. Traffic disruption has been appalling for anybody travelling to Portsmouth on any route, and my constituents tell me that they have been affected when travelling to and from St Mary’s
Setting aside the temporary issues caused by the closure of the Eastern Road, St Mary’s is, in any event, poorly served by public transport from any of the communities in the constituency: there is no direct bus link between my constituency and the campus; St Mary’s is more than a mile and a half from the nearest railway station; and there is no bus service from the railway station to the campus.
Residents from Hayling Island in my constituency who have to go to St Mary’s instead of Oak Park face an especially arduous journey, consisting of a minimum of three bus journeys, taking at least an hour and a half in each direction. During peak periods, given the terrible traffic conditions in Portsmouth, this is likely to take much longer and risks appointments being missed.
Madam Deputy Speaker, you will not be surprised to hear that I have been contacted by GP surgeries in my constituency expressing in the strongest terms their dismay at the Oak Park situation. The Elms Practice on Hayling Island has highlighted the length and difficulty of the journey to St Mary’s, as well as the additional cost of the longer journey, which many patients simply cannot absorb. The practice highlights the risk of missed appointments and diagnoses, particularly for patients with chronic conditions. The additional stress of the longer journey for patients with already limited mobility or who are living with disabilities is intolerable.
I have heard similar concerns from the Homewell Curlew GP practice in Havant, close to the Oak Park site, whose patients now face much longer journeys. The problem was also raised with me last week in person by the manager of a care home in Havant. She told me that their patients are having to spend £50 or more on a round trip in a taxi to Portsmouth. This is an unacceptable state of affairs.
This is not just an issue for my constituents; the additional burden of more patients arriving at St Mary’s will affect people living in neighbouring constituencies who would normally use St Mary’s for diagnostic checks. The loss of capacity at Oak Park is having a considerable regional impact, and it appears the sudden withdrawal of services is not an isolated example.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) cannot speak in this debate as she also serves as Deputy Speaker, but we have discussed the loss of phlebotomy services from Romsey hospital because of a decision by the ICB. I understand that my right hon. Friend’s constituents now have to travel to Southampton or even Lymington for appointments. My right hon. Friend has characteristically spoken up for her constituents very effectively, and I know that she will continue to do so.
On wider NHS engagement, I have a good relationship with all my local NHS bodies, and I want to continue that constructive approach to improve patient outcomes. The loss of these services at Oak Park came shortly after I had a positive meeting with the new chair of Portsmouth hospitals university NHS trust, which manages Queen Alexandra hospital in Portsmouth—the general hospital that serves my constituency and people across much of south-east Hampshire. We had a good discussion about the importance of local provision of basic services. While the trust does not manage the Oak Park facility, when things go wrong with diagnosis, it is on Queen Alexandra hospital in Portsmouth that the burden mostly falls.
I successfully lobbied the previous Conservative Government to secure funding for the new emergency department at Queen Alexandra hospital, which serves my constituency. However, it is already clear that even with a new emergency department, the hospital is facing capacity challenges. Anything that gets patients into the right care pathway the first time, at the earliest opportunity, helps to ease that pressure, and diagnostic services play a key part in that. The public see the NHS as a monolithic structure, and when things go wrong in one part, as has happened with Oak Park, constituents can find it confusing and disempowering. The NHS and the ICB must put that right.
Following this debate, I hope that as well as securing the return of diagnostic facilities, we can have a broader conversation about wider health provision for my constituents. An urgent treatment centre in the constituency would further ease the pressure on both QA hospital and St Mary’s hospital.
I have always been clear that empowering patients helps them to lead healthier, longer lives, whether that is through digital transformation or being able to access basic timely care locally and in a convenient way. For that reason, I successfully campaigned for the Emsworth Victoria Cottage hospital’s building to be retained by the NHS, so that it could become the new home for the Emsworth medical practice, which is now a superb resource for all its patients. We all lead busy lives, and proximity to high-quality local healthcare services is vital. I know that the GP practices on Hayling Island need better facilities, and I have been working with them, the ICB and other NHS bodies to bring that about. But first we have to fix the Oak Park issue and bring those diagnostic services back.
In closing, I have three requests for the Minister. First, will he commit the NHS to restoring diagnostic services to a permanent setting as quickly as possible in the Havant constituency, whether at Oak Park or another site? Secondly, while the permanent restoration process continues, will he support the provision of temporary diagnostic services in the Havant constituency, for example through a mobile unit or at a temporary site? Thirdly, will he meet me to discuss how the ICB and NHS bodies can move quickly to restore these diagnostic services in Havant and learn lessons from the Oak Park situation?
I want to thank the hard-working NHS staff who provide such fantastic support for my constituents all year round. I call on the Minister to ensure that my constituents have their access to local diagnostic services in the Havant constituency restored as quickly as possible.
The Minister for Care (Stephen Kinnock)
I note that the policy lead for this area is the Minister for Secondary Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth). She is unable to be here today and sends her apologies, but I will report back to her and am sure that she will be more than happy to accept the request for a meeting to have further discussions.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Havant (Alan Mak) on securing this debate on the provision of diagnostic services in Havant, specifically at Oak Park community clinic. This matter is very important to his constituents, and it resonates more broadly in communities right across our country.
Diagnostic services are a critical part of our NHS. They are crucial for helping patients to get peace of mind about their symptoms or clarity on the next stage of their care. Reducing the waiting times for diagnostic tests is critical to achieving both our elective waiting time and cancer waiting time ambitions. Prior to this debate, the Department has received correspondence from GPs working in the hon. Member’s constituency on this very issue. I therefore completely understand his concerns and those of his constituents, and I hope that I can provide a helpful update on the situation and set out the steps being taken to resolve this issue.
Until recently, a range of diagnostic services were provided at Oak Park community clinic. Services were delivered in partnership between the NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight integrated care board and an independent healthcare provider, Practice Plus Group. As the hon. Member has said, Practice Plus Group took the decision, with limited notice, to move equipment for non-obstetric ultrasound, X-ray and echocardiography away from Oak Park community clinic to St Mary’s community hospital in Portsmouth. With regard to the request to meet to discuss the circumstances of the suspension of these services at Oak Park clinic, I will ensure that a request is passed on to my colleague, the Minister for Secondary Care.
I can inform the hon. Member that the closure took place because Practice Plus Group took the view that the lease no longer represented value for money. I can fully appreciate the disruption that this is causing in the Havant area for patients who now face longer travel times and inconvenience to receive care. I am aware that the ICB has communicated with all the referring organisations affected and is working to mitigate disruption, including reviewing alternative provision to ensure continuity of diagnostic services for patients in the Havant area. In the meantime, patients can be referred to Practice Plus Group services at the St Mary’s community health campus in Portsmouth for those diagnostic tests. The Queen Alexandra hospital in Cosham is also providing diagnostic services and is of course accessible to many patients across Havant. For some, it is likely that this will be more convenient and should be offered as a location for diagnostic tests.
The hon. Member will be aware that the Oak Park community diagnostic centre is also located at the Oak Park community clinic. The non-obstetric ultrasound service at the Oak Park community clinic was, until recently, provided as part of the community diagnostic centre. X-ray and echocardiography, while provided at the same site, are separate from the CDC operations. When the community diagnostic centre was first approved, Portsmouth hospitals university NHS trust commissioned Practice Plus Group to deliver non-obstetric ultrasound activity for the centre. This arrangement would utilise Practice Plus Group’s equipment and rooms, with sonographers employed by the trust delivering the tests.
I can today confirm to the hon. Member and to the House that Portsmouth hospitals university NHS trust is preparing to recommence non-obstetric ultrasound at the Oak Park CDC this month. With financial support from NHS England’s national diagnostic programme, the trust has been able to purchase an additional scanner for this site. In the meantime, the Oak Park CDC continues to provide symptomatic mammography, ophthalmology assessment and peripheral neurophysiology assessments at the Oak Park community clinic site. The hon. Member asked about the possibility of temporary pop-up facilities to restore all services at Oak Park. I am informed that the ICB is working closely with Practice Plus Group to resolve this issue, and is looking for a solution to restore X-ray and echocardiography at the Oak Park community clinic for patients.
Community provision of diagnostic services, such as those at the Oak Park clinic, are a central plank of our plan to make the NHS fit for the future. We are committed to bringing more diagnostic services into community settings and to making healthcare more accessible to patients who might face barriers to hospital access, including those with mobility issues, caring responsibilities or limited transport options. We have committed, as part of our elective reform plan, to build up to five more CDCs as part of our £600 million capital investment for diagnostics in 2025-26.
We are also working to ensure that more CDCs are open 12 hours a day, seven days a week, to deliver more same-day tests and consultations, and an expanded range of tests. Since the Government came into office in July 2024, CDCs have delivered more than 10.9 million tests and scans. CDCs are a vital step in supporting our shift from hospital to community. They provide access to vital tests, scans and checks, closer to home, for patients with busy working lives. We are setting clear diagnostic performance expectations for NHS providers. Our medium-term planning guidance sets out the ambition for improvement in performance against the diagnostic six-week wait constitutional standard, so that, by March 2029, no more than 1% of patients wait more than six weeks from referral for a diagnostic test. We have set the interim milestone that, by March 2027, no more than 20% of patients wait over six weeks.
We recognise that significant improvements will be required in the performance of NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB. Performance is currently at 29.5%, as of November 2025, so there is clearly a long way to go. In 2025-26, NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB was allocated £49.3 million of capital funding from the constitutional standards recovery fund announced by the Chancellor at the spending review, with the aim of supporting NHS performance across secondary and emergency care, including by supporting new capacity and productivity improvements in diagnostic services. It is part of over £6 billion of additional capital investment over five years across new diagnostic, elective and urgent care capacity, to deliver the improvements to the NHS that patients need and deserve, so that the NHS is there for them when they need it.
I thank the hon. Member for securing this important debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Schedule 5) Order 2026
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 14 / Noes: 3 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Chair
Before I call the Minister, it may be helpful to hon. Members to say that this is not a general debate on assisted dying, and I will not allow debate in that context. To be clear, this is a draft order to provide a narrow exception to reserved matters to enable a Bill to confer powers, and so on and so forth. We must stick to this draft statutory instrument. I will not accept a debate widening into the issue of assisted dying.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Kirsty McNeill)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Schedule 5) Order 2026.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. The draft order was laid before the House on 17 December 2025. As with all orders made under the Scotland Act 1998 that we have considered since the start of this Parliament, the order is the result of close collaborative working between the UK and Scottish Governments. The order before us is made under section 30 of the Scotland Act, which provides the power for the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament to be altered. Specifically, it enables modifications to be made to schedules 4 or 5 of the Scotland Act. Orders made under that provision are subject to the affirmative procedure in the UK and Scottish Parliaments. The order was considered by the Scottish Parliament, having been considered by the Health and Social Care Committee, and it will be considered in the other place.
I now turn to the purpose of the draft order. The Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill is a Member’s Bill introduced by Liam McArthur MSP. It is currently before the Scottish Parliament and seeks to create an assisted dying regime in Scotland. I am acutely aware of the sincerely and strongly held views on the topic, and I emphasise that the UK Government are neutral on the matter of assisted dying. It is a matter for MSPs in the Scottish Parliament to determine whether there should be an assisted dying regime in Scotland.
The Scottish Government identified areas of the Bill as being outside legislative competence and, as such, requested a section 30 Scotland Act order from the UK Government in respect of substances and medical devices, as they considered that such provisions are fundamental to the operability of the Bill. The UK Government considered the request carefully and, following engagement with the Scottish Government, concluded that making a narrow, time-limited section 30 order would be the most appropriate action. That approach enables Members of the Scottish Parliament to consider the Bill in the Scottish Parliament with clarity as to how the matter of substances and devices that may be used for an assisted dying regime in Scotland could be dealt with, while protecting reserved matters such as medicines regulation. I emphasise that this is a limited and temporary change to the Scotland Act 1998.
To explain the time-limited nature of the draft order further, this section 30 order is time limited so as to reflect the circumstances of the Scottish Parliament Bill and the upcoming Scottish elections in May. The time-limited nature of the order reflects that, first, this is not a fundamental or permanent alteration to the devolution settlement and, secondly, it would not be appropriate to pre-empt consideration by a future Scottish Parliament. The time limit applies to the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament but will not affect the future exercise of any regulation-making functions conferred by the Bill beyond 7 May 2026, should the Scottish Parliament determine to do so.
The draft order has been designed specifically to ensure that the Scottish Parliament can create an overall framework for medicines and devices to be used in an assisted dying regime, should it decide to do so. In particular, I take this opportunity to thank members of the Scottish Affairs Committee for their carefully considered report on the SI.
On the question of whether the Scottish Parliament would be able to amend or repeal the regulation-making powers under any Act in a future Scottish parliamentary Session—if the Bill is passed and contains regulation-making powers authorised by section 30 order—it would not be possible for the Scottish Parliament to amend or repeal those regulation-making powers in a future Session. The time limits within the section 30 order mean that that would no longer be within the Scottish Parliament’s legislative competence to do. Subject to the Secretary of State’s approval, it would instead be able to revoke or amend the regulations that had been made under those powers.
I am aware that the content of the draft order has prompted queries about the approach that the Government have taken: first, on why the Government have taken forward a section 30 order and not, for example, a section 104 order; secondly, on the scope of the draft order and the matters that are not included; and, thirdly, on the likelihood of other orders being brought forward under the Scotland Act 1998. A Committee scrutinised the draft order and the Scottish Affairs Committee considered it, and they both raised those points. I take this opportunity to thank them for their scrutiny and to provide answers, as follows.
The Government consider all requests for Scotland Act orders carefully. They look at what, if any, provisions made under the Scotland Act 1998 may be appropriate. That includes section 104 of the Act. Section 104 is routinely used to make provision in consequence of an Act of the Scottish Parliament—that is to say, once a Bill has Royal Assent. In this instance, it was not considered an appropriate option due to the limitations of the power. Section 104 cannot be used before a Bill achieves Royal Assent. The request was to take action before, because in the Scottish Government’s view, the provisions were fundamental to the operation of the Bill.
Moreover, section 104 cannot be used to create regulation-making functions. Section 30 was considered appropriate as it enables the Scottish Parliament to introduce regulation-making powers within the narrow scope of the order. In essence, section 30 was in this instance the only means of achieving both of those outcomes. The Government therefore believe that their approach is appropriate in the circumstances.
On the second point, the Government have been asked why the order does not include further subject areas that the Scottish Government have identified as being outside competence. The Government’s view is consistent: it is a matter for the Scottish Parliament to ensure that the legislation is within competence. Although section 30 orders have been used occasionally in the past as Bills have proceeded through the Scottish Parliament, it is not a regular practice nor would be expect it to be. We have agreed to it in those circumstances.
Consequential legislation is, however, routinely taken forward and is rightly considered by this House. Such consequential orders cover matters that cannot be legislated for by the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Government asked the UK Government to consider section 104 orders in relation to professional regulation and opt-in measures, and subsequently, to consider a section 30 order in respect of those provisions.
The UK Government position is that consequential legislation is the appropriate means of addressing or considering reserve provisions. Fundamentally, the Government are not seeking to substantially alter the devolution settlement via this order. Therefore, it is appropriate that the order is narrow and addresses the key questions asked of us. Ministerial correspondence confirms that the Scottish Government were seeking agreement to a section 30 order on the narrow scope of substances and devices, with further consideration to be given to section 104 orders. The UK Government have agreed to further requests and consequential legislation, which is a normal occurrence.
Of course, the order before the Committee is the order the Government have agreed to take forward with the Scottish Government on the matter of substances and devices. That is the matter that the Government is seeking the approval of the Committee on. Both Governments agree that the specification of substances and devices, as well as their associated regulation, is fundamental to the operation of the Bill before the Scottish Parliament and the workability of the assisted dying regime, which the Bill seeks to introduce.
I reiterate that the UK Government maintain their neutral stance on assisted dying and do not endorse any particular outcome of the consideration of the Bill before the Scottish Parliament. I recognise that there is interest in the existence of schemes across the UK in view of the legislation being considered by the Scottish and UK Parliaments. The position is not changed by this order. The order has been specifically designed to ensure that the Scottish Parliament can create an overall framework for medicines and devices to be used in an assisted dying regime, should it choose to do so.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I must start by saying that it is rather odd to rise in a Delegated Legislation Committee pertaining to an order that is significant to the functioning of the devolution settlement and that will affect constituents of mine, as well as those of my hon. Friends the Members for Gordon and Buchan and for Dumfries and Galloway, and to see such a lack of attendance from Scottish Labour MPs, with the notable exceptions of the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire and the hon. Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson), who is here in her capacity as the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee but cannot vote on the order.
I was planning to begin my contribution by asking why the Government had not taken up the advice of the Scottish Affairs Committee to have this debate on the Floor of the House. I wonder whether we can read into the absence of Scottish Labour MPs, and even the Scotland Office Whip, some lack of support for the Government’s decision and a worry from the Government about getting the order through. It speaks to a lack of respect for Scots, who will be affected by this change, that a Government with 37 Members of Parliament representing constituencies north of the border could not muster more than one to sit on this incredibly significant Committee.
Even in the Conservatives’ diminished capacity in the previous Parliament, when we had only six MPs on the Government side from north of the border, we would have been able to muster more than one to sit on the Back Benches of such an important Committee, considering changes to legislation that will have a direct impact on the lives of Scots. I wonder whether the Government might think about what that represents and how it looks to many Scots who will be wondering where their representatives are, given that the draft order pertains directly to their lives and how we move forward on the important issue of legislating for and regulating assisted dying in this United Kingdom. That is a question for the Government to examine their conscience on.
As you said, Mr Twigg, this is not a debate about the merits of the assisted dying Bill being considered by colleagues in the Scottish Parliament, nor indeed of the Bill going through its stages in the other place here in the Palace of Westminster. There will be strong, impassioned views on both sides of the wider debate, but the progress of the Member’s Bill in Holyrood is a matter for our Members of the Scottish Parliament. It is a conscience issue for those in my party and others.
The matter before us is not the political context of the draft instrument, but the modification order itself—its competence, the precedent it establishes and its consequences. I must say that His Majesty’s Opposition have grave concerns about the implications of this instrument. The order invokes the powers granted under section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998 to alter the devolution settlement, granting the Scottish Parliament new powers to legislate on medicines, medical supplies and poisons, which would otherwise be a reserved competence.
Let us be clear: this is a novel and in some ways unprecedented circumstance. Use of that mechanism to amend the devolution settlement is rare. The last application was in 2012, enabling the Scottish Government to hold the 2014 independence referendum. That came about as a result of months of discussion, ending in the Edinburgh agreement signed by both the Scottish and the British Governments. The draft order, however, is unprecedented in so far as it makes provisions to enable the consideration of legislation that is not sponsored by the Scottish Government, but a Member’s Bill.
The assisted dying Bill under consideration in the Scottish Parliament would, under clause 15, give Scottish Ministers the power to specify the drugs or medication to be used to assist a patient to die. As matters stand, that is within the reserved competence of medicines, medical supplies and poisons. The Member’s Bill under discussion in the Scottish Parliament requires clarity on that issue and a raft of other reserved competences, and it is entirely unclear how the Government intend to resolve them, hence the attempt with this modification order to tread a middle ground with a time-limited provision, as the Minister set out.
Clearly, the issue of the regulation of medicines is integral to the MSPs’ consideration of the debate on assisted dying. This draft legislation, however, seems to be a leap ahead into a hypothetical position. It lays the foundations for the implementation of a Bill that the Scottish Government and the UK Government are neutral on. The Member’s Bill is not Government-sponsored legislation and, given that the assisted dying Bill is still under way in the Scottish Parliament and further steps remain required if that Bill is to sit within the Scottish Parliament’s legislative competence, it seems a strange sequencing of events pre-emptively to order the limited devolution of such powers to provide for the circumstances were the Bill to pass in Scotland.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
I always enjoy the hon. Gentleman’s comments, but I thought he was going to offer a solution. If not a section 30 order, in order for the Bill to be considered, what does he propose we do?
Andrew Bowie
We hold issue with the hypothetical nature of the draft order. Were the Bill to pass, it should then be for the UK Government to determine how we facilitate the devolution of such powers, so as to make it legal and competent within the Scottish Government’s purview. I do not think, however, that the right step is pre-emptively to devolve power ahead of a Bill being passed. That, I am afraid, runs the risk of setting a dangerous precedent for other issues and items, which may come about as a result of the Members’ Bill process in the Scottish Parliament—not least, perhaps, around issues pertaining to the constitution, which I am sure the hon. Member was not referring to in any way.
On accountability, proposed new paragraph 4A(1) in article 2 of the draft order outlines the scenario in which powers can be conferred on Scottish Ministers to use subordinate legislation to identify the relevant medicines, medical supplies and poisons, subject to approval by the Secretary of State. Proposed new sub-paragraph (2) provides for the conferral of power to the Secretary of State for the regulation of such medicines. In either case, the Secretary of State retains a veto power over the regulation of medicines. The Scottish Government would not truly be accountable for the implementation, and the Secretary of State does not directly influence Scottish Parliament Bills.
I understand the Minister’s argument regarding the coherent regulation of substances across the United Kingdom, and the implications for the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, but does she foresee any incompatibility between the consistent regulation of substances across the UK and the effective implementation of any assisted dying subordinate legislation that would identify medicines to be used for that purpose?
Section 30 orders have never previously been used to confer powers directly on a British Government Minister. The precedent the order establishes is one of piecemeal devolution and disintegration. Furthermore, the veto power conferred on the Secretary of State, and the resultant confusion in terms of authority and accountability, is an unprecedented power-sharing lay-out, representing a departure from the constitutional norm we have had since 1999.
The Opposition are absolutely not against the sovereign Government of the United Kingdom taking an increasingly active and interested role in the governance of Scotland, but this is not the mechanism nor the way to go about having the conversation. Indeed, it is yet another reason why this debate should be taking place on the Floor of the House and not in a Committee Room at 2.30 pm on a busy afternoon, with no Scottish representation—bar one.
Moreover, the limited approach does not resolve remaining inconsistencies that we would face should the Scottish Parliament’s assisted dying Bill pass—for example, the regulation of medical professions, and employment and industrial relations. There are significant concerns over the mechanisms that might be invoked to remedy the remaining competency challenges, namely through the section 104 order.
The legislation poses a question that goes to the heart of issues surrounding devolution and Scottish Parliament competence. While we have consensus across the House that the issue of conscience regarding assisted dying in Scotland is now one for the MSPs in Holyrood to decide on, I cannot help but reflect on the truly disjointed situation the United Kingdom may land in if the Bill is passed in Scotland while defeated in England and Wales. What will the Minister and his Cabinet colleagues do in that situation?
On that point, how does the Minister intend to preserve unity in the medical profession across the United Kingdom? How does she intend to preserve uniformity for those who conscientiously object within the medical profession more broadly? What was the reasoning behind selecting a section 30 order over a section 63 order? Does she have any concerns regarding the use of a section 104 order to resolve the remaining litany of inconsistencies that are not broached in this modification order?
The Opposition will be voting against this mechanism today for the reasons I have set out. I must once again put on record my dissatisfaction—and that of the official Opposition—that this incredibly sensitive and significant debate is taking place with very little interest or representation from Scottish Labour MPs, and is not being given time on the Floor of the House.
Pete Wishart
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Twigg. I rise of course to support this legislation, and I am grateful that the Scottish Parliament, if it is passed, will now be able to consider the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill without concerns about legislative competence.
I am utterly amazed to hear the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine say that His Majesty’s Opposition are going to vote against the measure without any solution for how the Scottish Bill would be able to progress without the measure being passed. I urge members of the Committee to support the measure to ensure that Scotland gets the opportunity, just like Westminster, to consider with moral conscience the position on assisted dying. I find it astounding that the Conservatives are going to vote against it.
John Cooper
The position the hon. Member is putting forward is that we would somehow stop the assisted dying Bill progressing in Holyrood. That is simply not the case. I believe there is a date set for this to be further discussed in Holyrood. We are putting the cart before the horse here, because we are being asked to make provision for a Bill that may or may not see the light of day. It is a very peculiar situation. There is also the danger of the precedent that is being set; this is a Member’s Bill, and this system has never been used for one before, so a dangerous precedent could be set.
Pete Wishart
I always enjoy the hon. Gentleman’s words of wisdom, so would he attempt to respond if I set out the conditions that are required in order for the Scottish Bill to progress? The Scottish Bill cannot progress unless we have the devolution of poisons. I do not know if he is aware, but as we are talking about assisted dying, there has to be an end product of somebody dying, and the only way that is going to be done is through us having the opportunity to use the poisons that are currently reserved to Westminster. I do not know what proposal he has for that to take place.
How can a Scottish Bill go forward in the Scottish Parliament without the comfort that it will be within devolved responsibility and MSPs will be competent to make a decision? It is an absurd position from the Scottish Conservatives, and I cannot believe that they have come here today with this approach in mind. I ask them to reconsider, because just as this place has the opportunity to consider such a Bill, we need that opportunity in Scotland. This is an important issue, which should not be confined to this House. I hope the Scottish Conservatives think again.
In saying that, I find this a curious and convoluted piece of parliamentary procedure, which seems excessive and unnecessarily cumbersome, given the issues involved. Once again, a section 30 order is being used as the main means to allow the Scottish Parliament to legislate if required. I listened carefully to the Minister’s comments and I think that, if the Bill is passed, it will be accompanied by a section 104 order to devolve further specific identified provisions. I heard the Minister say there would be a section 104 order, and then I heard her say that there would not be one. She has to clarify, for all the other outstanding issues beyond the use and resourcing of poisons and medicines, how the Government intend to afford the comfort that the Scottish Parliament Bill could proceed, and what they would do if that Bill is passed. The section 104 order is an obvious means and mechanism to achieve that, so I hope that is exactly what she will tell me when she responds.
I have been in this place for 25 years. I know you cannot believe it, Mr Twigg, looking at this youthful Member of Parliament. In my time in Parliament, I have seen some 15 or so section 30 orders issued. The most notable, as has been mentioned, was the section 30 order through the Edinburgh agreement to devolve temporarily the right of the Scottish Parliament to hold devolved competence so it could have the referendum on Scottish independence. None has been accompanied by any other associated orders and none, other than the order for the referendum, has been issued with a sunset clause. It is therefore unusual to have a time-limited devolution section 30 order with a sunset clause, which will be on the face of that order.
As the Minister says, three areas have been identified where the proposed legislation of the Scottish Parliament strays into reserved responsibility. The main one, as the Minister outlined, is relevant to provisions that involve medicines, medical supplies and poisons. As I have just said to Conservative friends, those resources would be absolutely necessary if a terminally ill person asked for assistance to die. There will be general mystification in Scotland that, in a fully devolved health service, those vital responsibilities and resources remain with Westminster. The Minister will have to explain to us properly why, given that we are responsible for practically everything else to do with the national health service, as is right and proper in a devolved Scotland, those powers are not properly devolved.
If I was to suggest anything to the Minister, it would be to use this opportunity to make these powers permanent so that we could properly resource and equip our NHS to do its job. [Interruption.] I hear grumbles of complaint from my colleagues across the Floor, but I do not understand for a minute why the Scottish Parliament could not have these powers, just as the NHS in England has. Why is this the state of play just now?
The other issues are less clear, but apparently may stray into the “regulation of health professions” and “employment and industrial relations” reservations. I believe that is mainly to do with matters of conscience. I think we require more clarity; a further explanation of how that affects what are considered to be reserved regulations. There was great confusion in the Scottish Parliament that this would be the case.
It is certainly the case that Liam McArthur and the supporters of his Bill in the Scottish Parliament had absolutely no idea when presenting it that any of it strayed into reserved responsibilities. It came as a great surprise that that was the case. It was only when Scottish Government lawyers had a look at the Bill—as is their right and as they are right to do—that they discovered that there were issues to do with reservations. I am grateful that they had that look, so that we could try to resolve the issue.
As we have heard, the responsibilities will now be devolved under section 30, but only until this Parliament is dissolved. That time window is designed to allow the Scottish Parliament to consider the Bill and pass it, if it is agreed. But why not give the responsibilities to the Scottish Parliament without a time limit? There are only six weeks until the Scottish Parliament is dissolved for the Scottish general election, and there are questions about whether there will be enough time for the Bill to be considered properly. It is likely, or possible at least, that the next Parliament will want to revisit the debate, and I am pretty certain that some private Member will be keen to introduce it if there has been no opportunity to conclude the parliamentary consideration of the assisted dying Bill as it stands.
The second issue that concerns me is that the delegated powers can be exercised only with the agreement of the Secretary of State. Effectively, that gives a veto to the Secretary of State for Scotland over powers that will rightly be devolved, temporarily, to the Scottish Parliament. I have never seen anything quite like that in all the 15 or 16 section 30 orders that have been put through this House. We need a proper explanation of why that is the case.
Regardless of the fact that, for some reason, most Scottish MPs opted to exercise their right to a conscience vote in this House on an England and Wales-only Bill that has absolutely no impact on their constituencies, the Scottish Government rightly have no say on the English Bill. Why should Westminster have the last word on the provisions in the Scottish Bill? We need a proper explanation.
I will support the order; I have encouraged colleagues to do this, and I am utterly flummoxed by the position of the Scottish Conservatives. [Interruption.] I agree with the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine that this debate should have been conducted on the Floor of the House, as it poses massive questions and issues for the devolved settlement. I wish the Minister had decided to do that; I think it was one of the recommendations in the report by the Scottish Affairs Committee, which is chaired by the hon. Member for Glasgow West, and it should have happened. I would be grateful for answers to the questions I have asked the Minister this afternoon.
Susan Murray (Mid Dunbartonshire) (LD)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. For us Liberal Democrats, this is also a conscience vote. Within the limitations and context laid out in the order, we will support it.
Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. Instruments such as this draft order alter Scotland’s devolution settlement and require inter-governmental co-operation: areas that fall squarely within the remit of the Scottish Affairs Committee. For that reason, as members of this Committee will know, the Scottish Affairs Committee has scrutinised the draft order and published a report to aid Parliament’s consideration of the instrument. I should put on record that I am grateful to the Scotland Office for its engagement with us, and that our correspondence is of course published on the Committee’s website.
I wish to make it clear that the Committee remains neutral on the issue of assisted dying. Our report does not comment on the substance of that sensitive matter, but it does draw Parliament’s attention to some unusual features of the draft order. Given the relative rarity of section 30 orders, our interest is in the legal and constitutional implications of the order. I will give an overview of those issues in my remarks, but I will first take the opportunity to express my gratitude to my fellow Committee members, some of whom are here today, for their thoughtful consideration of the issues.
This statutory instrument would use powers under the Scotland Act to extend, in a narrow and time-limited way, the Scottish Parliament’s law-making powers. It would do that to enable the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill to become law if the Scottish Parliament so decides. During the Bill’s scrutiny stages in the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Government identified three areas that relate to reserved matters under the Scotland Act. If the UK Parliament does not take legislative action, the Bill as it currently stands would be outside the Scottish Parliament’s competence.
The specific way in which those issues are being resolved through this order gives rise to three observations that I would like to draw the Committee’s attention to. The Governments have adopted a two-stage, bifurcated approach to address the three competence issues. The draft section 30 order will only resolve the issues related to the “regulation of medicines and medical devices”. The other two outstanding competence issues, relating to the “regulation of medical professions” and “employment and industrial relations”, are expected to be resolved via a section 104 order. A section 104 order would make consequential provision after the Bill receives Royal Assent. That requires the relevant provisions to be removed from the Bill before it is passed by MSPs.
The Scottish Affairs Committee asked the UK Government why they adopted the two-stage approach, rather than addressing all the competence issues in one go. In response, the Government said that their approach would allow the Scottish Parliament to debate “with clarity” how the Bill’s “core” issues will be handled, rather than issues that might arise as a consequence. They also said that section 104 cannot be used to confer powers to make subordinate legislation, which the Bill’s provision on substances and devices for assisted dying would require. That explains why not all issues were dealt with using a section 104 order, but it does not explain why some issues are being dealt with by a section 104 order rather than this section 30 order. Our report highlighted that this approach has implications for effective scrutiny. In particular, it means that while the Scottish Parliament will have clarity over how issues relating to substances and devices will be handled, there will be no such clarity in respect of the other two competence issues.
The Scottish Government have already indicated that some provisions will need to be removed from the Bill before the final stage 3 vote. It would not be possible for MSPs to assess the section 104 order, which will be used to fill the legislative gaps, before the Bill is passed. Our report suggested that any uncertainty could be remedied by the UK Government publishing their section 104 order in draft, before the Scottish Parliament’s stage 3 consideration. Given the draft order’s constitutional significance, we also recommended that the instrument should be debated on the Floor of the House, rather than in a Delegated Legislation Committee; I note that that the approach has been taken in the other place. However, Members will know that this recommendation was not adopted by the Government, which is disappointing. On that point, I will take this opportunity to gently highlight to the Minister that it might have been courteous and helpful for the Department to have written to the Scottish Affairs Committee before this Delegated Legislation Committee was scheduled to respond to that specific and time-sensitive recommendation.
Our report also casts light on the ongoing role retained by UK Ministers within this draft order. The manner in which the draft order confers powers relating to medicines and devices means that these powers are only nominally transferred to the Scottish Parliament. The Secretary of State will retain the ultimate say over how those powers are used. It is clear that the approach has been agreed by both Governments. However, our report highlighted that it is a novel, though perhaps not unprecedented, approach. The default approach is that, when a matter has been devolved, the Scottish Parliament confers powers on Scottish Ministers, who are then answerable to the Scottish Parliament. However, this section 30 order envisages that some regulations resulting from the Act could be made by a UK Government Minister acting alone. Those regulations would not be subject to scrutiny by MSPs. This approach is unusual, as the Scottish Parliament does not normally confer powers on UK Ministers. Will the Minister clarify in her response how the remaining competence issues will be resolved and what consideration the Government have given to implications for effective scrutiny?
Finally, our report draws special attention to the time-limited nature of the draft order. While time limiting a section 30 order is not in itself new, this one is slightly different. The powers that the draft order confers would effectively expire if the current Bill does not complete its final stages before the Scottish Parliament elections this year. When questioned on this approach, the UK Government confirmed that they are willing to devolve competence only in respect to the specific Bill currently under consideration. However, what is less clear is how the time limit would affect subsequent amendments to the primary legislation further down the line—for example, if the Scottish Parliament wish to change the regulation-making powers of the Act. For the benefit of the Committee, I hope that the Minister will outline in her response whether the Scottish Parliament would be able to amend or repeal the Act’s regulation-making powers in a future Scottish parliamentary Session.
The draft order has important constitutional implications. It is right that these issues have been properly scrutinised, and I hope that the Scottish Affairs Committee’s report will be useful to the Committee and to the wider House. The Department has responded to the Committee’s report, and that response will be considered by the Committee at our meeting tomorrow. We will make every effort to ensure that the response is published before the House votes on this instrument.
I look forward to the Minister’s response to the points I have highlighted, particularly regarding the need for clarity on any forthcoming section 104 orders, the novel role for UK Ministers and the implications of the proposed time limit.
Kirsty McNeill
I thank hon. Members for their contributions and consideration—I hope to cover all the points raised in turn. I will begin with reflections from the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, who asked why this debate was not conducted on the Floor of the Commons. As he will know, because we have sat opposite each other in this space many times, Scotland Act 1998 orders are generally considered in Delegated Legislation Committees and subsequently put to the House by a motion, so that is entirely in keeping with normal practice.
The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire asked for clarification of the UK Government’s role in medicines regulation and, indeed, a justification for that. The UK Government’s role in medicines regulation is to set and oversee the UK-wide statutory framework that ensures licensed medicines are safe, effective and of high quality before they can be supplied to patients. In our view, it is critical that regulatory consistency is maintained across the UK. It has been a key priority post the EU exit, and we have prioritised avoiding any divergence between regulatory approaches.
The limited nature of that change will ensure that the overall integrity of the UK-wide medicines regime is retained, whether the Scottish Parliament approves the McArthur Bill or not. Staying with that line of questioning, the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire asked why the Secretary of State will continue to have the final say over how that power is used. The draft order’s change to the legislative competence is specifically designed to allow for that to be retained, because we think that the UK Government have an appropriate role in the overarching regulation of medicines across the UK. That is why it is, and will remain, reserved. However, we do want to enable the Scottish Parliament to introduce provisions that could confer power in that way—in a way that simultaneously maintains the integrity of the UK medicines regime and allows the Scottish Parliament to debate that which is legitimately inside their competence.
Pete Wishart
The Minister is right that the Scotland Office has an appropriate role, but to have the final say is quite different from anything we have considered in section 34. She has not given any explanation of why that is required.
Kirsty McNeill
It is required and desirable because we believe the integrity of the medicines regulatory regime should be maintained across the United Kingdom. We are trying to strike a balance. We want to give the Scottish Parliament the ability to confer the power to Scottish Ministers to identify in this case, and in only this case, that substances and devices that could be used in assisted dying are able to be so used if that is the will of the Scottish Parliament. Of course, that is provided that that is done by way of subordinate legislation made with the agreement of the Secretary of State. The order also provides that the Scottish Parliament may confer powers on the Secretary of State to regulate such substances and devices by subordinate legislation. In our view, they are separate matters and we are trying to find a balance between the two.
Turning to the questions raised by the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee—
Kirsty McNeill
Let me just put on the record my great thanks to the Committee and its Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West, for their scrutiny. I hope I will cover all the points that she raised.
Andrew Bowie
I also put on the record my thanks to the Committee and the role that it played in providing scrutiny to the draft statutory instrument before us today. The Minister has not explained why there are so few Scottish Labour MPs in the room this afternoon—the question I asked at the very beginning and thrice in my comments. It cannot be that, aside from the hon. Member for Glasgow West and the Minister, there is a lack of interest in this SI, given the important implications of the Bill and how law is delivered in Scotland—so might the Minister provide an explanation?
Kirsty McNeill
The provisions in this order are incredibly narrow and time-limited. It is appropriate that it is done in a delegated legislation environment. Members are doing all manner of business of the House and, indeed, the business of their constituents.
Andrew Bowie
The Minister is being very generous with her time. As she referenced, I have been through numerous Committees with Conservative and Labour Ministers. It has never been the case that all but one of the Members on the Government Benches have been from outside Scotland. We are considering amendments to the Scotland Act 1998. Surely she does not expect us to believe that the 35 Scottish Labour MPs are so busy that they could not find time to come along to debate this important issue before us today.
Kirsty McNeill
I am here to lay out the Government’s view on the Scotland Act order. I am not the diary secretary for my colleagues—I do not think the hon. Member would expect me to be. We are here to debate this order.
The Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee and indeed other members of this Committee have raised repeatedly a question that I hope I addressed in my opening remarks. But let me reiterate the view about why a section 30 and not a section 104 order is the appropriate way to get done what we need to get done today. This is for two reasons. A section 104 order cannot be invoked until a Bill has had Royal Assent. Likewise, it cannot be used to confer regulatory powers, which is specifically what the Scottish Government asked for in the intergovernmental conversations that we had. The Scottish Government have noted that the details of what a future section 104 order might contain are still being worked through, so it would not be possible for us to say in advance what our response to a request for a section 104 order would be, because no such request has been forthcoming.
To clarify for the Committee, in correspondence to the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Government have stated:
“'It is likely that some, if not all, of the relevant provisions will need to be handled through a section 104 Order which, as outlined previously, will mean that they need to be removed from the Bill to be dealt with in that way. However, consideration is being given to whether it might, in some cases, be possible to amend the provisions to limit the scope of the powers so that they can be more clearly understood to be for purposes that are within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament.”
Pete Wishart
I cannot see why there could not be a section 30 order for the outstanding provisions beyond the medical resources. The Minister could do that. This is a failsafe. However, there is absolutely nothing wrong with what the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee requested, which is some sort of draft order, so that we could see specifically what would be included. That would at least give some comfort to the MSPs who are considering this Bill.
Kirsty McNeill
Officials of both Governments are working through a range of scenarios, but what we cannot do is table an order about a Bill that has not been passed. There are ongoing discussions, as we would hope and expect, but we cannot use a section 104 order until a Bill has received Royal Assent.
The Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee has asked for clarification on whether the Scottish Parliament would be able to amend or repeal the Act’s regulation-making powers in a future Scottish parliamentary Session. I am pleased to clarify that if the Bill is passed and contains regulatory-making powers authorised by a section 30 order, it would not be possible for the Scottish Parliament to amend or repeal those regulation-making powers in a future Session. The time limits in this section 30 order mean that it would no longer be within the Scottish Parliament’s legislative competence to do so. Instead, subject to the Secretary of State’s approval, they would be able to revoke or amend the regulations that have been made under those powers.
I will take a moment to answer the question that the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee raised about receiving a copy of the response to the report in a timely fashion. We have responded, and I am grateful to the Committee for submitting it, but her points about timeliness and courtesy are well taken. I will make sure that courtesies are observed in future.
The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire asked about whether the UK Government would consent to a future section 104 order request. As per the correspondence between the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government, we understand that the Scottish Government will seek the agreement of the UK Government after the Bill passes. That will ensure that practitioners are protected should they choose to opt out of an assisted dying service. We expect to agree in principle to take forward that order, but it will be considered in the usual way, once we have actual legislation to look at.
The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire also asked whether, in effect, failure to pass this draft order would have the practical effect of stopping legislation progressing in the Scottish Parliament. That is our view. We must pass this today to give practical expression to whatever choice the Scottish Parliament makes. It is their choice to make, but whatever that is, we believe it is our constitutional responsibility to facilitate the progress of legislation through the Scottish Parliament.
A number of questions were asked about the justification for a time limit in the draft order. The time limit reflects two things. First, it reflects that this is not a permanent—perhaps to the displeasure of the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire—alteration to the devolution settlement, and secondly, that it would not be appropriate to pre-empt consideration by any future Scottish Parliament and attempt to bind it in that way. The section 30 order on an independence referendum illustrates that there is a precedent for including a time limit in a section 30 order. We have concluded that it is appropriate to provide for temporary, and temporary only, devolution of legislative competence in a section 30 order, because it is seeking to address a very specific issue.
We are considering a very narrow and technical order that provides the Scottish Parliament with a time-limited ability to include powers in the Bill to identify and regulate substances and devices that could be used in an assisted dying regime. It is important to be clear that the draft order enables the Scottish Parliament to do that, if it chooses—it in no way compels it to. The decision on whether to create an assisted dying regime in Scotland remains, as it should be, a decision for Members of the Scottish Parliament. Although the Government remain neutral on assisted dying, we believe that our approach with this draft order is appropriate.
The Chair
Before I put the Question, for clarity I should mention that the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee does not have a vote on the draft order.
Question put.
Petition
Knaresborough Castle
Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill (Fifth sitting)
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
Good morning, everyone. I remind Members to send their speaking notes via email to Hansard and to switch electronic devices to silent. Beverages are not allowed. I ask people to speak clearly and precisely for the benefit of other colleagues and Hansard. Were they to give an early indication that they wish to speak, that would be much appreciated.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
On a point of order, Dr Murrison. In Thursday’s session, I asked the Minister why pupil data was not within the remit of this Bill. He said:
“On the question of schools, and more broadly the question of public sector authorities, I entirely accept that the handling of pupil data in schools is a critical aspect of our public service operations. The reason why public service authorities have largely been left out of the Bill’s scope is because we do not need to wait for the legislative process to act. We have been working, not least closely with the Government’s cyber-security strategy and the cyber action plan, to ensure that pupil data is kept securely and robustly.” ––[Official Report, Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Public Bill Committee, 5 February 2026; c. 137.]
Since then, I have been researching any action taken in respect of the Government’s cyber-security strategy and the cyber action plan, and can find no record of them dealing with the issue of pupil data. I wonder whether, this morning, the Minister could specify what he meant last Thursday or commit to coming back to the Committee with that detail.
The Chair
I am sure that the Minister will have heard what the hon. Member has said. He may wish to reflect on it, but it is not really a matter for the Chair. Nevertheless, it is on the record.
Lincoln Jopp
On a point of order, Dr Murrison. Yesterday, I spoke in a petition debate in Westminster Hall. The petition was signed by 114,000 members of the public calling for a public inquiry into Russian influence in British democracy. In researching my response on behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition, I came upon the Government’s statement about this Bill, which said that it would
“require organisations in critical sectors to further protect their IT systems”.
The split infinitive notwithstanding, I do not believe that the Bill requires any organisations in critical sectors to further protect their IT systems. If the Minister thinks that the Government are correct in saying that, would he like to direct us to that requirement in the Bill?
The Chair
Once again, if the Minister wishes to respond to that, it is open to him to do so. The hon. Member for Spelthorne, who is very adept at these things, will be able to weave any further comments he might have into his contributions during our proceedings.
Clause 15
Reporting of incidents by regulated persons
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss:
Clause 16 stand part.
New clause 6—Inclusion of ransomware attacks in the NIS Regulations—
“In regulation 1(2) (interpretation) of the NIS Regulations—
(a) in the definition of ‘incident’, after ‘systems’ insert ‘or a ransomware attack which is targeted at the security of network and information systems’;
(b) after the definition of ‘online search engine’ insert—
‘ransomware attack’ means a cyber-attack involving a type of malicious software that infects a victim's computer systems, can prevent the victim from accessing systems or data, impairs the use of systems or data or facilitate theft of data, and in relation to which a ransom is demanded for access to be restored or for data not to be published.”
This new clause would include ransomware attacks in the definition of “incident” in the NIS Regulations.
New clause 7—Impact of reporting requirements on relevant bodies—
“(1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the passing of this Act, publish and lay before Parliament—
(a) a review of the impact, on relevant bodies, of—
(i) the requirements relating to the notification of incidents in Parts 3 and 4 of the NIS Regulations (as amended by this Act); and
(ii) any additional incident notification requirements made by regulations under this Act; and
(b) proposals for the creation of a single cyber incident reporting channel for relevant bodies.
(2) A review under this section must consider –
(a) the costs of requirements on relevant bodies; and
(b) interactions with other incident reporting regimes.
(3) In this section, ‘relevant bodies’ means operators of essential services, critical suppliers or digital service providers, as defined by the NIS Regulations.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to review the impact of incident reporting requirements on relevant bodies, and to set out proposals for a single incident reporting channel.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Kanishka Narayan)
I will begin by discussing clauses 15 and 16. Clause 15 updates the incident reporting provisions in the Network and Information Systems Regulations 2018. Under the current regulations, organisations are required to report incidents only once they have had a significant impact on service continuity. It is widely recognised that this is too narrow, and results in a range of concerning incidents going unreported and a distorted picture of how secure and resilient the UK’s essential services actually are.
To take two examples: a ransomware attack where confidential data has been exfiltrated from an organisation without an immediate impact on service would not be reportable; nor would a pre-positioning attack, where a hostile actor has hacked into a network and is in a position to cause significant disruption down the line, such as to the provision of drinking water. That cannot be right, and does not reflect the cyber-threats that critical services face.
To ensure such incidents are caught, the clause sets a new, wider definition of incidents that must be reported. The focus is now on incidents that have successfully affected the security or operation of an organisation’s network and are likely to have a significant UK impact, which will ensure that regulators and the National Cyber Security Centre are fully aware of the range of cyber-threats affecting the UK’s essential services.
The Bill sets out the factors that should be considered when assessing whether an incident has had, or is likely to have, a significant impact in the UK—including, crucially, whether the confidentiality, authenticity, integrity and availability of data has been compromised. The Government will provide further clarity in secondary legislation, setting out thresholds for each sector for when an incident is considered to have had, or be likely to have, a significant impact. That will be consulted on before it is introduced. Taken together, it means that only meaningful incidents are reported. Over-reporting has been a concern raised by hon. Members throughout the Bill’s progress, so I stress this point: things such as unsuccessful phishing emails will clearly not be reportable, as they would not be likely to have a significant impact.
Given our economy’s systemic dependence on data centre facilities, for that sector alone we will also ensure that Ofcom and the NCSC receive reports on a wider range of potential incidents and near misses. That ensures that not only immediate disruptions but incidents posing future risks are reported.
Clause 15 also streamlines the reporting process for all NIS sectors. It ensures that incident notifications and reports go to the NCSC at the same time as the regulator. It also sets out what those organisations can do with the information they receive, including how the information can be shared to manage the wider impacts of an incident or prevent future incidents. Finally, the clause introduces faster reporting, so that the NCSC and regulators are informed within 24 hours of entities becoming aware that a reportable incident is taking place.
The 24-hour notification will be light touch, but will enable the NCSC and regulators to offer faster support to minimise the negative impacts of the incident. Fuller details will need to be reported within 72 hours of the entity becoming aware that a reportable incident is happening. The changes will protect the UK’s essential services, ensuring that the NCSC and regulators are able to provide the best support that they can.
Clause 16 sets out requirements for managed service providers, relevant digital service providers, and operators of data centres to inform customers who are likely to have been adversely affected by a reportable incident. Under the current regulations, there is no requirement for any regulated entity to inform its customers if it has been impacted by a reportable incident. That may have made sense when the NIS regulations were more heavily focused on operators of essential services and the primary concern was service disruption, but it would be an inexcusable omission now that the Bill is expanding to include managed service providers and operators of data centres, in addition to the digital service providers already in scope.
These are organisations that, if compromised, could leave their customers’ systems, data or services exposed or inaccessible. In such circumstances, it is vital that their customers are notified, so that they can take whatever steps they need to in order to mitigate those risks.
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
I have two points for the Minister to address. First, could he clarify whether an organisation would face repercussions if a regulator believed in retrospect that notification should have been provided sooner? Secondly, on customer notification, can the Minister address the concern around striking the right balance between informing the customer and ensuring that the update that they receive is meaningful and not so vague that it causes further distress or worry?
Kanishka Narayan
I thank the hon. Member for those two thoughtful points. On the first, in terms of retrospective regulatory action on the adequacy of notification, I expect that the regulators will set out—in their guidance and by working closely with the entities in scope—their expectations about the nature and timeliness of the notification. That will be one input into a regulator’s broader assessment of entities’ compliance with the regime. I expect that timely notification will be assessed on an ongoing basis by the regulator, but I would not expect it to be an exclusive or primary aspect.
On the question of customer notifications being proportionate, I share the hon. Member’s concern about ensuring that it is timely and efficient and at the same time meaningful for the relevant customers. I hope that exactly those principles are embodied in the guidance that regulators share about notification requirements.
Customers being notified is all the more important given that in many cases, those customers will themselves be operators of essential services and other critical national infrastructure. The Bill therefore places new transparency requirements on managed service providers, relevant digital service providers and operators of data centres. Similar requirements were introduced under the NIS2 regulations in the European Union.
Clause 16 requires those regulated entities to take steps to establish which of their customers, if any, are likely to be adversely affected by a reported incident. It then sets out the information that the entity must share with those identified customers. These new requirements will support the overall resilience of the UK’s essential services and economy, which depend so heavily on these services, and reduce the overall impact of disruptive cyber-attacks.
Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
New clauses 6 and 7 sit together and are linked by the same practical concern regarding clarity and workability when an incident is unfolding.
I will start with new clause 6. Ransomware is no longer an occasional or unusual cyber-event; it is now one of the most common and disruptive threats facing essential services, digital providers and their supply chains. Written evidence to this Committee was clear that ransomware incidents are now routine, high-impact events, and that uncertainty at the outset of an attack often makes the consequences worse. The Bill rightly broadens the definition of an incident to capture events that are capable of causing harm, not just those that already have. That is the right direction of travel, but when organisations are under pressure, particularly in the first 24 hours of an incident, uncertainty slows action. Time is lost debating definitions rather than focusing on containment, escalation and reporting.
New clause 6 addresses that problem directly. It makes it explicit that a ransomware attack is an incident for the purposes of the NIS regulations, and sets out clearly what is meant by ransomware attack. It would not create a new duty; it would remove doubt from an existing one. Clear definitions support better behaviour when organisations are operating under real pressure.
New clause 7 follows naturally from that point. If we want faster and clearer reporting, the system into which organisations are reporting has to work in practice, not just on paper. The Bill expands reporting requirements and introduces new notification duties. That is understandable, but UK Finance told the Committee that many firms already support cyber-incidents under multiple regulatory regimes and that additional reporting layers risk duplication rather than resilience. When an incident is live, that duplication causes friction, slows the response and increases costs. It can reduce the quality of information being shared because teams are stretched across parallel processes rather than focused on managing the incident itself.
We do not seek in new clause 7 to reopen the policy intent of the Bill; the new clause would require a review, once these changes are in force, of how the reporting requirements are working in practice. That review would consider costs and interactions with other reporting frameworks. The new clause would also require that proposals for a single cyber-incident reporting channel be published. That is not a bureaucratic exercise; it reflects concerns raised in evidence that resilience is undermined, not strengthened, when reporting becomes fragmented at moments of stress.
Taken together, new clauses 6 and 7 are about making the system clearer at the front end and more usable overall. Clear definitions encourage timely reporting and coherent reporting channels make that reporting effective. I hope that the Committee will give serious consideration to both new clauses.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison, and it is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton. I will speak to clauses 15 and 16 and to new clauses 6 and 7, tabled in my name on behalf of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition.
The previous Government stated in their consultation covering the subject of cyber-incident reporting that security breaches that did not result in a successful attack could still leave organisations open to follow-up attacks. It was identified that reporting how the breach took place would also allow regulators and other organisations to prepare for similar attacks in the future. It is therefore a welcome development that clause 15 significantly increases the scope and speed of cyber-incident reporting by regulated entities to competent authorities and the NCSC.
That increase in scope is achieved by broadening the definition of reportable incidents from the current position, where only cyber-attacks having an actual adverse effect are reportable, to a position to where cyber-incidents that are capable of having an adverse effect on the operation or security of network and information systems must also be reported. The Government’s explanatory notes for the Bill state that this change in definition
“is designed to include incidents that have compromised the integrity or security of a system without causing significant disruption yet, but that could have potential significant impacts in the future.”
This has been broadly welcomed by industry stakeholders as a measure that should provide regulators with greater intelligence about emerging threats, leading to improved risk management and hardened resilience in their sectors.
On the importance of intelligence gathering, we heard evidence from David Cook of DLA Piper and Chung Ching Kwong of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, among others, about the increasing use of prepositioning and “live off the land” technologies deployed by malicious actors. Once systems are infiltrated, attackers remain in systems, sometimes harvesting data, waiting for the moment when they can cause maximum harm and disruption. Those serious risks should be flagged to regulators wherever they are identified.
Dr Sanjana Mehta of ISC2 described problems of underreporting in relation to the existing NIS regulations regime, and welcomed the principle of expanding reporting, as did Jill Broom of techUK. However, both cautioned that while some high-level factors have been provided as to the criteria indicating whether an attack should be reported, such as the number of users, impact, duration of interruption and geographical reach, what is not clear at present are the thresholds that are linked to those criteria. Those details are vital if reporting is to be successful in ensuring that regulators are kept appraised of the most serious threats.
Dr Mehta summarised that concern succinctly in her comment:
“In the absence of those thresholds, our concern is that regulated entities may be tempted to over-report rather than under-report, thereby creating more demand on the efforts of the regulators”. ––[Official Report, Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Public Bill Committee, 3 February 2026; c. 16, Q14.]
Likewise, techUK has stated in its written briefings on the Bill that
“technically any phishing email is ‘capable of’ having a significant impact if the organisation lacks adequate detection or response capabilities. This will lead to over-reporting of low-level incidents and potentially overwhelm regulators, thereby distracting attention from genuinely significant threats.”
As in many aspects of the Bill, the problem is not on the principle but in the detail. We heard in oral evidence about the concerns of industry and regulators regarding the availability of suitably qualified personnel to build capacity for effective regulatory oversight. We must be alive to that important consideration in ensuring that thresholds are proportionate and risk-based.
The Government have stated in their factsheets on the Bill that they intend
“to introduce thresholds through secondary legislation before this measure is brought into in force”
and after a period of consultation. They have also said that those thresholds will
“clarify the points at which we would consider the impact of an incident to be ‘significant’, and therefore reportable to regulators”.
What discussions has the Minister had to date with regulated entities and regulators about the approach to consultation on these thresholds? What is the feedback on what those organisations consider to be reporting priorities?
Chris Vince
I thank the shadow Minister for remembering my consistency—I have not mentioned Harlow. How is the new clause helpful, given the potential confusion it causes with listing a specific kind of incident as well as the generic one?
Dr Spencer
The Opposition are trying to make it clear that ransomware needs to be in the scope of the reporting. It is really for the Minister to answer if he thinks there are problems with the new clause, and if so, how the Government will go about taking that forward. The widespread and highly damaging nature of ransomware attacks—which are often perpetrated by criminal groups at scale and speed—means that regulators need to have a detailed oversight of this area to prevent those attacks from being deployed more widely. Therefore, the new clause is intended to ensure that all ransomware attacks on regulated entities are reported, regardless of severity or potential severity, so that the risks are picked up.
In tabling new clause 6, I am acutely aware of the existing reporting burden for regulated entities and regulators. Since tabling it, we have heard impactful evidence from Carla Baker from Palo Alto, who highlighted the number of cyber incidents and false positives that many companies encounter each day. As I said in response to an intervention, in the absence of measures brought forward by the Government to address the widespread and urgent risks presented by ransomware attacks—and as the Government themselves identify as part of the Home Office’s review—it would be proportionate to make specific reference to ransomware in the reporting requirements on regulated entities in the Bill.
New clause 7 reflects the concerns of regulated bodies and industry representatives who have set out many, many times—in oral evidence and beyond—the need to ensure that reporting obligations are clear and, as far as possible, simplified across the many different incident reporting regimes that exist for providers of digital services. The new clause would compel the Secretary of State to publish an assessment of the impact of the new reporting regime on regulated entities in the Bill within 12 months of Royal Assent. Importantly, in line with the clear requests articulated by many stakeholders who gave evidence last Tuesday, it requires the Government to publish proposals for the creation of a single cyber incident reporting channel for relevant bodies.
Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
I worked for the AI and digital regulations service in the NHS. We were linking with all of the regulators to try to have a one stop, one shop door approach to how we do things. It was incredibly difficult, and three years on we were still ironing out all the glitches. New clause 7 is laudable, but because I know how difficult it is, a 12-month proposal is a very tight timeframe in which to try to get this right.
Dr Spencer
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. New clause 7 puts forward an assessment of the impact. It is not intended to make definitive changes, but to give time. I have confidence in the Government and the Minister that within 12 months—it is the kiss of death to say that one has confidence at the minute, is it not? [Laughter.] I apologise to the Minister.
Dr Gardner
I will defend myself: my point was not a criticism of the Government. I just know how hard it is for regulators to work together and iron out cross-working. They were very confident in their information-sharing skills, but it is more difficult than that. It was just a kindly meant reminder that there is not an easy solution, and that 12 months is a bit of a tight timeframe.
Dr Spencer
I very much take the hon. Lady’s point and the constructive spirit in which it was presented. Twelve months is a long time for the operations of Government to function, and I have faith—I will change my words—in the Government and all of their powers if they wanted to put their minds to bringing this forward. If there are concerns about the ability of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to take this forward, those concerns would spill over into all of the consultation requirements that have to be met to make sure that this Bill functions in the correct way. The argument on what we are debating today could swing both ways.
Industry stakeholders have expressed strong concerns regarding the diverse incident reporting requirements that exist in several pieces of legislation, including UK GDPR, sector-specific regulation and the Telecommunications (Security) Act 2021. As we have already discussed, the Home Office may also bring forward guidelines for reporting ransomware incidents in future. Additional reporting requirements and procedures included in the Bill are viewed as adding a further layer of complexity to a legislative environment that is already very challenging to navigate. Stakeholders report that the current approach, with multiple different reporting procedures and platforms, increases regulatory compliance costs on businesses and detracts from the resources available to implement effective improvements in cyber-resilience. In view of that, will the Minister support this urgently needed review clause to assure industries that the Government have heard their serious and vital concerns on the matter?
Bradley Thomas
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison.
When introducing new legislation, it is essential that those who fall under its new regulations be clearly identified and given adequate time to prepare for compliance. However, despite the aims of the Bill and the wish to avoid worsening a cyber-attack incident, the Bill still presents far too much ambiguity. It is right to recognise the cyber landscape as continuously evolving. There is no dispute that this terrain becomes increasingly complex each day, requiring a level of flexibility in legislation to ensure that it keeps pace. However, this desire to safeguard such adaptability, and the goal of future-proofing, must not come at the expense of the effectiveness of legislation in the present day.
The powers afforded to the Secretary of State to change the classification of essential activity, and to bring new sectors into scope of the Bill at any time, undoubtedly create uncertainty for many sectors and cast a shadow over long-term compliance. To be clear, we want organisations to comply with this legislation. We want to improve national cyber-resilience, gather vital intelligence and restore public confidence in our security. Why, then, would there not be a significant effort to make these regulations as easy to apply as possible, rather than leaving thousands of businesses second-guessing whether they fall within scope, with the pressure of large financial penalties hanging over their heads?
In addition, many will know that I am a firm supporter of parliamentary process. I support the notion that all legislation should receive the scrutiny it is due by the democratically elected Members of the House of Commons. That is why I believe the Bill must not only set out clearer guidelines for who is in scope, but require an official amendment, debated in the House, to permanently bring any new sectors into scope after the Bill has been passed.
I understand that, in times of emergency, the longer process of House of Commons scrutiny may not always be possible. That is why the Secretary of State should have powers to bring in sectors necessary in an emergency temporarily into scope, with less imposing of non-compliance penalties until their inclusion is made permanent by the House. Such an approach would not only allow for the quick reactions that cyber-security demands, but respect parliamentary processes and safeguard against organisations’ being unaware that they had suddenly been brought into scope until they received a potentially financially ruinous penalty notice for non-compliance.
Looking at the need for more definitive guidelines on who will be regulated under the Bill, we have already heard from numerous industry stakeholders that are unsure whether they, or other organisations in their sector, will fall within the mandatory scope. In addition, industry experts have publicly shared concerns about how far the net may be cast in some sectors, leading to the unintentional inclusion of organisations that are critical only to a single larger organisation, rather than to our national security, while ignoring other essential sectors altogether. Looking at recent cyber-attacks that have had a significant impact on our country, it is concerning that the definition of essential services may not include them within scope.
While it is predicted that many of Jaguar Land Rover’s supply chains will be in scope, it has been publicly questioned whether it will be included. As the largest car manufacturer in the United Kingdom, it directly employs over 30,000 people across the UK and supports around 100,000 jobs indirectly. It is therefore no surprise that the cyber-attack it endured, estimated to have had a financial impact of over £1 billion, was significant to many, including more than 5,000 organisations impacted and many of my constituents, with JLR being one of the largest direct and indirect employers in the west midlands region. How, then, if a key aim of the Bill is to ensure that all essential services whose disruption would profoundly impact our nation in the event of a cyber-attack report all major incidents, can the vagueness of the definition of essential services be allowed to stand—especially when it creates a situation in which previous key victims are excluded?
Of course, JLR is not the only victim where questions of inclusion remain. Also potentially falling outside the regulatory reach is Marks & Spencer, whose recent cyber-attack was another stark reminder of the rapidly advancing cyber-crimes scene and caused significant disruption, with costs estimated to run into the millions of pounds. Having met with M&S representatives recently, I had the opportunity to discuss their experience of enduring such an attack. Archie Norman, M&S chair, gave evidence to the Business and Trade Sub-Committee on Economic Security, Arms and Export Controls, where he said that “a growth economy” is “a cyber-resilient economy”.
Having a cyber-resilient UK, and making the UK the safest place to do business, is a competitive advantage. I agree with that sentiment and firmly believe that increasing our cyber-resilience can only benefit our economy. It is imperative that we get this right. These cyber-threats are not going away; they are only going to get stronger and more technically advanced. We have seen that in the past year, with the National Cyber Security Centre reporting a 50% increase in British cyber-incidents deemed highly significant. Indeed, representatives of M&S told me that, at times, they found it much easier to get updates and information from the United States FBI than they did from our own authorities. We also know that foreign hostile states are becoming bolder in their actions against us.
A few months ago—as a reason for introducing my ten-minute rule Bill, the Cyber Extortion and Ransomware (Reporting) Bill—I stated that research had revealed that 74% of UK IT leaders cited China and 71% cited Russia as their top cyber-security concerns. It is undisputable that last year’s espionage trials threw a harsh spotlight on the threatening scale of state-sponsored cyber-attacks.
Improving our national cyber-resilience, and safeguarding all our infrastructure and essential services, including in the private sector, is vital in order to secure a prosperous economy and reinforce public confidence in our ability to defend ourselves against such threats.
Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)
I have a few questions for the Minister. I appreciate the clarity that the Bill brings to many of the services in its scope. I would like to understand how the definition of “incidents” will relate to hardware vulnerabilities that are discovered within a company, as we heard from some of the people who gave evidence to the Committee. It is unclear in the Bill. Perhaps it will be further defined in secondary legislation.
I want to understand how an incident in which someone discovers a vulnerability in hardware—such as in a system-in-package—is reported, and how that information is then delivered by the regulator to other companies in the sector that may have similar technology, and to the other regulators, which may also want to flag that technology as a particular vulnerability. Is that defined as an “incident” or is it defined somewhere else in the Bill? I am a bit confused and am looking for some clarity.
Kanishka Narayan
Having been promoted from a position of mere confidence to faith, I will tackle questions from the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge first and foremost. On the question of thresholds of incident, the Bill sets out the severity of the sorts of incidents that we expect reporting obligations to apply to, and at the same time it ensures that it is proportionate in understanding that sector-specific thresholds ought to be precisely that—sector specific, set closely with relevant entities in that sector, and working with the expertise of the relevant regulators. For that reason, it has not been specified more fully on the face of the Bill.
On information sharing, not only is there provision for the specific sets of purposes for which information sharing ought to take place between regulators, but there is a further check on the proportionality of that, through a particular requirement, to ensure that information that is shared in incident contexts is done precisely for the purposes set out in the Bill, and in a way that is proportionate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central raised the question of hardware impacts. While the focus of the Bill is primarily on network and information systems, the test, as I think of it, would look at whether any compromise in network and information systems related to a piece of hardware triggers the severity of the impact, or potential impact, to be reportable. In the event that it is reportable, in its severity and potential impact, it will require notification—to the regulator and, when customers are directly impacted in the way that is set out in the Bill, also to the customers. The test is focused on whether network and information systems are engaged, and whether the impact of any incident is likely to be severe enough, in light of the thresholds set out in the Bill.
Lincoln Jopp
My hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove raised the case of M&S, which would clearly be out of the scope of the Bill. However, it has a managed service provider, so it is a bit like the JLR case. I am still looking for some certainty as to whether JLR and M&S would come within the scope of the Bill by dint of the fact that they have managed service providers, which are within the scope. I am still not 100% clear on the answer to that question. I would be grateful for greater clarity from the Minister.
Kanishka Narayan
I hope this does offer the clarity that the hon. Member seeks. While I will not refer to specific businesses, broadly speaking the sector of food supply is not within the scope of the Bill; the obligations on operators of essential services or direct entities that are within the scope of the Bill will not apply.
However, if—in a hypothetical situation—a managed service provider within the scope of the Bill supplies to that business, the managed service provider would be within the scope of the Bill’s requirements. The customer—in this case, the food supply business—may, if the severity applies, be in receipt of reports from the relevant MSP, in this particular context. They will not be caught up in the full set of obligations in the Bill, but we would expect customers to be notified of incidents where the severity thresholds are met. I hope that gives the hon. Member some clarity.
Lincoln Jopp
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way a second time. I understand his answer, but, to be clear, if an incident that meets the severity threshold is reported to a client who is out of scope, would that bring any obligation to report in the normal way?
Kanishka Narayan
Under the provisions of this Bill alone, only the entities specified as critical suppliers or operators of essential services—the relevant digital providers and so on—would be caught up in obligations if an event occurred. Assuming neither of those is true of a food supply business, the Bill’s provisions would not apply.
At the same time, in the sort of incident that the hon. Member describes, we would expect the NCSC to be deeply engaged, assuming severity thresholds and wider risks are applied. We would work closely on that operationally and I am sure we would look at how that business could be supported more widely. But the Bill’s provisions are really focused on the sectors, and entities within those sectors, that have an immediate threat to day-to-day operations such as a potential threat to life. There are reasons, which we can get into later, as we have done previously, why we set the sectoral scope in that way.
New clause 6 seeks to clarify that a ransomware attack falls under the definition of “incident” within the NIS regulations. I share the concerns of the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton about the significant disruption that ransomware attacks can cause. Indeed, last year we saw the impact of the ransomware attack on Synnovis, a supplier to the NHS, which resulted in the delay of 11,000 out-patient and elective procedure appointments. The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton and the shadow Minister are quite right that this kind of attack should be considered an incident under the NIS regime. Because of the changes to incident reporting introduced by the Bill, I can confirm to the Committee that ransomware attacks will be in scope.
The Bill updates the definition of “incident” so that it applies to any event that has, or is capable of having, an adverse effect on the operation or security of network and information systems. Ransomware attacks already fall well within that definition. Although I welcome the principle and intent behind the new clause, its content is already addressed by the Bill. I hope that assures hon. Members across the Committee.
New clause 7 would require the Government to publish a review of the new incident reporting regime within a year of the Bill’s receiving Royal Assent. It is important that the effectiveness of the NIS regulations, including the reforms to incident reporting introduced by the Bill, should be reviewed periodically. That is why the Bill requires the Government to conduct a review and lay it before Parliament once every five years. That timeframe will enable the new regime to bed in and allow a meaningful period of time to measure change before the Government report on its effectiveness. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South said, notwithstanding her and the shadow Minister’s confidence in me and the Government, to publish a review after only one year would risk giving an incomplete picture, as regulators and regulated entities may still be transitioning to the new processes.
The new clause would also require the Government to publish proposals for a single reporting platform for cyber-incidents, again within a year of the Bill’s passing. We have heard the clear ask from businesses to minimise the time they spend filling in different reporting templates following an attack, to ensure they can prioritise the technical response. I share the concerns of the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, and we are exploring all options to enable a proportionate and efficient reporting system. That said, setting a fixed time limit of one year to develop proposals does not reflect the inherent complexity of the task and the need to get it absolutely right for the businesses in scope of the Bill, not least because the proposals will need to be rigorously evidenced, consulted on and tested. For those reasons, I am unable to accept the new clause.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 15 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 16 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 17
Powers to impose charges
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kanishka Narayan
Clause 17 introduces new charging powers for NIS regulators, enabling them to recover the full costs of their regulatory functions under the NIS regime. This is an important reform that will help to ensure that regulators are effectively funded as they take on their expanded responsibilities under the Bill. It will allow them to move away from a funding model that relies on ad hoc invoicing or Government grants, and to approach their duties with greater confidence and certainty.
The clause sets out detailed procedural requirements that determine how and when the charging powers can be used. These will ensure that regulated organisations know what to expect from regulators; fees will be set proportionately and regulators will provide satisfactory accounting for the sums they have charged.
The first requirement is that regulators consult and publish a charging scheme. It must specify what functions the fees are covering, the amount of fees being charged or how those fees will be calculated, and the charging period they cover. Crucially, regulators will be able to set different levels of fee for different types of organisations—for example, varying charges according to size or turnover, or excluding organisations from the charging scheme if it would be disproportionate or counter-productive to include them.
Bradley Thomas
I have two points for the Minister to address. First, can he address concerns around whether funds raised will be directly reinvested into improving cyber-security, rather than covering administrative overheads? Secondly, there is no specific reference to turnover thresholds, so how can the Minister be sure that a one-size-fits-all approach will not be used, causing many similar organisations to suffer financially?
Kanishka Narayan
I thank the hon. Member for those thoughtful points. On the first question, the charging scheme applies to relevant costs, which are costs that regulators incur precisely when they carry out functions under the NIS regulations relating to cyber-security specifically. Those can include the cost of audits, inspections, handling incident reports or enforcement action, as well as other aspects, such as assessments of cyber-security and the provision of advice. It is important to acknowledge that regulators can decide to recover costs in relation to specific functions or their costs relating in particular to the Bill’s provisions. I hope to have assured the hon. Member that the charging scheme has a clear, tight scope that is related to cyber-security functions.
On the second question, regulators probably ought to look at turnover in a way that is sector-specific, in part because there are already a range of ways in which other regulatory regimes define turnover in particular sectors, so the appropriate definitions for their sectors will be familiar to both regulators and regulated entities. At a later date, secondary legislation may be used if it is found necessary to set out factors that regulators ought to consider in setting up charging schemes, including the possibility of nuanced definitions of turnover. Any future regulations for this purpose will be subject to consultation requirements and the affirmative procedure. I would very much expect, at a sector level, a clear and proportionate definition and charging structure in relation to turnover.
The second requirement is to set out, transparently and clearly, what fees have been paid, what fees are still due, and what costs have been incurred in a given charging period. On Second Reading, many hon. Members discussed the need for properly resourced regulators to successfully implement the Bill. I share that concern, and this clause seeks to achieve exactly that, in a way that is fair and proportionate to regulated organisations.
I commend the clause to the Committee.
Dr Spencer
Clause 17 will amend the NIS regulations to provide a framework for regulators to impose charges on regulated entities to recover the costs incurred by them in carrying out their supervision and enforcement functions. The Government’s explanatory factsheet supporting the Bill suggests that those changes are needed to ensure that regulators are
“better resourced to carry out their responsibilities.”
We have heard at length from witnesses in oral evidence sessions that resourcing is a key consideration for regulators in meeting their new and expanded obligations under the Bill. The concept of our regulators’ being better funded is good. However, as with much of the Bill, the lack of detail around the regulator charging model is causing uncertainty among regulated entities that would be liable to meet the associated costs.
Kanishka Narayan
The shadow Minister raised two main points that I am keen to address. The first was about ensuring that I committed to next steps on potential guidance for the charging scheme. I can confirm that the Government will issue guidance for competent authorities. That will include general directions on how the fee regime ought to be implemented. At the same time, we do not intend to be prescriptive as to how competent authorities should recover costs to benefit from their experience and practice in setting up these regimes. It is important that each regulator is able to tailor their fee regime in a way that is consistent with and complementary to the state of their sector.
Lincoln Jopp
On the subject of charging and money, has the Minister had the opportunity to revisit his own impact assessment on the basis that there might be a glitch in the matrix? It says on multiple occasions that the hourly salary for a contract lawyer is £34 an hour. When we discussed it last week, I contended that this was totally unrealistic, probably to a factor of 10.
Kanishka Narayan
I am reminded of the hon. Member’s point last week. I am happy to write to him on the basis of the precise figure in the impact assessment, which I understand to be based on not just an extensive survey but the application of subsequent uplifts. I am more than happy to continue that conversation in correspondence.
On factors that ought to be considered in setting up charging schemes, I mentioned some, such as size and turnover, but I will flag that those are suggestive and indicative rather than exhaustive factors that regulators may consider. Regulators ought to be able to set different levels of fee for different types of organisations. There is also provision to exclude organisations from a charging scheme altogether if it would be disproportionate or counterproductive to include them. It is appropriate that regulators and competent authorities can vary their charging schemes in the light of that.
On current regulatory performance and its correlation with charging schemes, I have not observed any direct correlation. What I have seen, simply, is that some regulators are clearly doing well. We heard in evidence from a range of participants that in some cases things are working particularly well and that, in others, there is more scope for improvement. That is precisely why the Bill sets no fundamental lowest common denominator for how regulators ought to approach either charging or their enforcement duties; instead, it ensures that we are conducting oversight of each regulator as robustly as possible. I assure hon. Members that the question of regulatory enforcement is central and that the motivation behind the charging scheme is precisely to ensure that regulators are well resourced to implement the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 17 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 18
Sharing and use of information under the NIS regulations etc
Kanishka Narayan
I beg to move amendment 14, in clause 18, page 38, line 31, at end insert—
“(aa) otherwise in connection with—
(i) the security and resilience of network and information systems, or
(ii) any other matter relating to cyber security and resilience,”.
This amendment would allow NIS enforcement authorities to share information with persons listed in regulation 6(2) (inserted by clause 18), and such persons to share information with NIS enforcement authorities, for purposes relating to the security and resilience of network and information systems or cyber security and resilience.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendments 15 to 18
Clause stand part.
Kanishka Narayan
The clause introduces vital reforms to how information can be shared in the context of the NIS framework. Right now, as we have heard again and again from both hon. Members across the Committee and witnesses, the NIS regulations have limitations that restrict how and with whom information can be shared. That has serious implications for the effectiveness and efficiency of the regime including business burdens as well as the ability of the UK’s authorities to act on national security or criminal intelligence.
One important limitation in the current regulations is the inability of regulators to share information with many public authorities in the UK and vice versa. For example, NIS regulators currently cannot share information to support the evaluation of the NIS framework or policy development relating to cyber-resilience and national security. The clause addresses those concerns by enabling information to be shared between NIS regulators and UK public authorities, including the Government. That will be done for the purposes of supporting the NIS regulations as well as wider objectives alike, reducing business burdens and for national security and crime purposes.
The clause also imposes strict requirements and safeguards on how the information can be further shared. The net effect of the changes will be fewer burdens on business, better and more informed regulatory decision making, joined-up incident response and improved security for the United Kingdom.
Government amendment 14 makes targeted but important changes to the clause. It proposes a further ground for sharing information focused on wider cyber-security and resilience outside the context of the NIS regulations and NIS sectors. In practice, it means that NIS regulators will be able to share information with regulators who are responsible for overseeing the cyber-security and resilience of other vital sectors under different regulatory frameworks and vice versa.
The amendment is a crucial addition to the Bill. It means that the UK’s regulators can think holistically about the risks that their sectors are facing, the interventions they propose to take and the obligations they are placing on business. That in turn will mean better outcomes, more effective and informed incident response, more co-ordinated oversight and lower business burdens.
The amendment will be particularly important in supporting co-ordination with the financial regulators responsible for the critical third parties regime, which could be used to designate organisations already in scope of the NIS regulations such as cloud service providers. It also anticipates the need for co-ordination for other sectors, such as civil nuclear and space, in the future. In short, the amendment is necessary to ensure that UK regulators can take a more co-ordinated approach to protecting the UK’s most essential services.
Government amendments 15 to 18 are consequential on amendment 14. I urge the Committee to support the amendments, and I commend clause 18 to the Committee.
Dr Spencer
Clause 18, which the Government seek to modify through amendments 14 to 18, creates new pathways for information sharing between regulators, public authorities and Government Departments. It also creates a power for NIS enforcement authorities to share information with relevant overseas authorities for specified purposes. The new regime is intended to remove gaps and ambiguities in the existing framework governing the sharing of information obtained in the course of competent authorities and the oversight role of NCSC, and to create legal certainty in this domain.
In turn, it is anticipated that greater information sharing will assist with the detection of crime, enforcement activity and awareness of emerging cyber-risks and with ascertaining the effectiveness of the NIS regulations in building UK cyber-resilience. In particular, the Bill creates a new gateway to ensure that NIS regulators can share information with UK public authorities, and vice versa, as well as sharing and receiving information from organisations outside of the NIS framework, for example other regulators or bodies such as Companies House.
The Bill strengthens safeguards on how information can be used once it has been shared under the NIS regulations by restricting onward disclosure. More effective information sharing will be vital for competent authorities to keep up to date with emerging risks and building resilience in their sectors, and the new measures were broadly welcomed by regulators in our oral evidence session.
However, industry bodies such as techUK have called for further detail on the new information-sharing regime. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that regulators share responsibility for protecting sensitive data, and that information-sharing processes are coherent, proportionate and secure? Could the Minister elaborate on the discussions he has had with regulators on those matters, and on how secure information sharing will work in practice?
Finally, on the detail of the text in Government amendment 14, proposed new paragraph (aa)(ii) refers to persons
“otherwise in connection with…any other matter relating to cyber security and resilience,”.
Given that this is an information-sharing power, that seems a remarkably broad “any other matter” provision. What disclosures that are not already covered in the Bill does the Minister conceive will come up in that scope? What guidance or consultation will the Minister produce to make sure that such powers are proportionate and not at risk of abuse?
Emily Darlington
Again, I welcome the Government amendments and clause 18; they are important to enabling us to share our vulnerabilities in an appropriate way with those people who may be involved. However, some of the aspects of those vulnerabilities that security services—GCHQ, His Majesty’s Government Communications Centre and others—raised with us relate particularly to not only foreign interference, but the potential for interference through technology embedded in our networks. How does the Minister see the measures working within our co-operation with different foreign nations, particularly during these volatile times?
Kanishka Narayan
In response to the shadow Minister’s first question about ensuring sensitive handling of shared information and proportionality, all information handled by regulators ought to be treated carefully and with awareness of its importance. The regulators have to act reasonably, and the NIS regulations specifically require information obtained from inspections to be held securely. Of course, data protection laws apply to regulators as well. Alongside that, regulators will be required to consider the relevance and proportionality of sharing their information to the purposes set out in the Bill; as I have mentioned, the Bill includes specific purposes for why information might be shared.
Kanishka Narayan
Clause 19 sets out that regulators must provide guidance on specific issues, including security requirements and incident reporting notifications. Guidance already plays an important role in supporting the implementation of the NIS regime. We have, however, identified some areas where regulated entities would benefit from additional clarity. The clause ensures that every regulated sector has the guidance they need from their sectoral regulators to help them to comply. To ensure consistency across regulators, the clause also requires regulators to co-ordinate with each other when preparing guidance relating to designating critical suppliers. The clause also requires regulators to consider guidance published by the Secretary of State such as the code of practice when preparing guidance on the security and resilience requirements. That will ensure that regulators consider good practice recommendations and take more consistent approaches to preparing guidance.
Dr Spencer
Clause 19 amends the NIS regulations and will require regulators to publish guidance on the security and instant reporting requirements of regulated sectors. In formulating their guidance, regulators are under a duty to co-ordinate and consult with other regulators to ensure consistency as far as is reasonably possible. Relevant provisions in the code of practice, to be issued by the Secretary of State under clause 36, must also be taken into account. Newly regulated entities will, no doubt, welcome proportionate guidance on meeting obligations, and existing regulated entities will appreciate any streamlining that comes from consultation between regulators and their approach. Can the Minister provide further details about whether consultation between regulators and the Secretary of State is under way on a consistent approach to regulation?
Kanishka Narayan
As I have mentioned to the shadow Minister, the Minister for Digital Economy, the Secretary of State and I have engaged with a number of the regulators in scope here. Both those conversations, and the broader framework of this Bill, are intended to drive consistency across sectors through common security requirements, clear guidance and a statement of strategic priorities, which will set objectives that regulators must seek to achieve. I hope that is sufficient assurance not only that those conversations have started, but that they will be a fundamental focus as we ensure consistent regulation across the board.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 19 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 20
Powers to require information
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kanishka Narayan
Clause 20 introduces important updates to the information-gathering powers that regulators have under the NIS regime. It ensures that regulators are able to collect any information that they might reasonably require to exercise, or to decide whether to exercise, their functions under the regulations.
While the clause sets out some of the purposes for which a regulator might particularly wish to collect information—for example, to determine whether an organisation should be designated as a critical supplier—this is an explicitly non-exhaustive list. The clause also allows regulators to collect information through the issuing of an information notice. It sets out the details that must be included in such a notice, and the form that it may take. An information notice must, for example, explain why the information is being sought and the form in which it must be provided.
New regulation 15A, as introduced by the clause, makes clear that an information notice can be given to an organisation based outside the UK and can apply to information held outside the UK. An information notice may require the obtaining, generating, collecting or retaining of information or documents. Those changes are critical in ensuring that regulators can access the information they need properly to enforce the NIS regulations. I commend this clause to the Committee.
Bradley Thomas
Can the Minister elaborate on how he will ensure that regulators have the capacity to cope with large-scale data reports?
Dr Spencer
Clause 20 grants regulators wide-ranging information-gathering powers, in relation both to regulated entities and to organisations currently outside the scope of the regulations. These new powers will be important to competent authorities in gaining access to the information necessary to consider which businesses should be designated as critical suppliers for their sectors. The Minister will remember that we had a very extensive discussion about the allocation, or otherwise, of critical suppliers. What assurance can he give that requests for information under this new clause will be exercised proportionately? That is especially relevant for SMEs, which might struggle administratively to meet broad requests for information within short deadlines.
I know I will be told off by the Chair if I try to rehash the previous debate on clause 12, but one of the points I made during that debate was that the scope of what could fall under the definition of a critical supplier could, in my view, include any supplier to an operator of an essential service. Potentially, therefore, a request for information under this provision could be incredibly broad. Can the Minister give some reassurance about how this will work in practice, relating to the proportionality of data collection? The concern is that this could become a fishing or dredging exercise, rather than something that is proportionate and targeted on the most high-risk suppliers.
Lincoln Jopp
In terms of scope, could the Minister give us some sense, when it comes to managed service providers, whether the purpose behind this clause is to enable regulators to find out their entire client list? I would be grateful for some clarity on that point.
Kanishka Narayan
I will take each of those three questions in order. The hon. Member for Bromsgrove raised a very important point—shared, I think, in sentiment across the House—about ensuring that regulators have the capacity to deal with the volume and quality of information they might receive under the provisions of this clause. Precisely for that reason, we have set out a charging scheme possibility here that allows regulators to equip themselves. Of course, that is initially a question of resourcing, rather than the quality or capability of that resourcing. We will therefore continue to ensure, through our oversight of regulators in appropriate ways, that we are pressing home the importance of enforcement quality and regulatory capability.
To the shadow Minister’s point on proportionality, I share the focus on ensuring that designation and information requirements are proportionate, not least for critical suppliers. Like him, I will avoid repeating the previous debate, but the five-step test for the designation of critical suppliers, combined with the fact that the Bill allows for secondary legislation and guidance to specify more proportionate burdens on them, rather than on key regulated entities, alongside the fact that information notices ought to be proportionate and focus primarily on the purposes of the Bill, gives me—and, I hope, him—assurance about the proportionality embedded in the Bill.
Dr Spencer
Will the Minister talk through what the data exchange flow chart will look like? How will it work in practice? Will the OES proactively contact the regulator and say, “We have all these suppliers—go play”? Will the regulator contact the OES and say, “Give us a list of all your suppliers, and then we are going to start an investigation programme and decide what data we need”? What is the direction of communication in practice? Or—perhaps even worse—will the burden be on suppliers to an OES to contact the regulator and say, “Could we possibly be in scope?” How will it shake out in practice?
Kanishka Narayan
Although I will not specify prescriptively what the activity and flow ought to be, I can share from my experience that many large-scale businesses—and indeed many medium and small-sized businesses—have a very clear business continuity plan mapping their critical suppliers. In this case, I would expect the regulator and the regulated entities to engage. Who sends the email first is an open question, and I would not want to specify it in the Bill, but I would expect each regulator and their regulated entities to work very closely to understand the critical suppliers that meet the tests specified in the Bill, and to engage with those critical suppliers as a consequence.
Dr Spencer
The Minister has mentioned business continuity plans a second time as a justification for not going into detail on this, but the whole reason for the Government bringing in the powers in clause 12, and the designation of critical suppliers, is that there was no business continuity plan in place in the example of Synnovis. I do not see how that argument gets away from the need for clarity, for organisations that could be at risk of being in scope of being assessed and designated as a critical supplier, about what actions they have to take in response to regulation, proactively or otherwise, and the burdens on them. We have just discussed the cost of enforcement, which risks essentially becoming a cyber-security tax.
Kanishka Narayan
I would not want to imply that every organisation has a business continuity plan, but the simple point is that the framework for assessing critical third-party suppliers is established in business and other regulatory regimes, as I have mentioned. The novelty or ambiguity that the shadow Minister suggests simply does not apply. That is not to say that there will not be cases in which new critical third-party suppliers will be designated—that is the point of the provisions of the Bill. The practice will of course need rigour, efficiency and proportionality, but it will be grounded in existing, widely understood frameworks.
I need the hon. Member for Spelthorne to remind me of his question, if I might ask him to do that.
Lincoln Jopp
I might have to remind myself. I asked the Minister whether the purpose of this clause is for a regulator to be able to ask a managed service provider what their entire client list is, in order to make various assessments.
Kanishka Narayan
I thank the hon. Member for asking and repeating the question. The purposes of the provisions on information requirements are focused on ensuring that regulators can conduct their duties as provided by the Bill. I would not expect information notices to require an exhaustive list in every instance, but instead to primarily focus on a more proportionate set of asks relating to risk vectors to the security of the regulated entities and to wider national security and cyber-security.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 20 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 21
Financial penalties
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kanishka Narayan
Clause 21 reforms the enforcement regime for the NIS regulations. It seeks to ensure that providers of the UK’s most essential services are complying with their obligations under those regulations. Where they are not, it will allow for more meaningful penalties that reflect the risks they introduce to our society and economy as a whole. To do that, the clause makes a number of critical changes.
First, the clause introduces a new penalty maximum based on turnover. The current maximum penalty is £17 million, which can appear disproportionately large for smaller organisations, but could also easily be absorbed by larger ones as the “cost of doing business.” The clause therefore increases the penalty limits from £17 million to a maximum of £17 million or 4% of annual turnover, whichever is higher. I am confident that that strikes the right balance within the UK regulatory context. It brings the regime in line with other UK legislation that regulates cyber-security, such as part 1 of the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022, without rushing uncritically to the more severe penalties we see in other CNI regulation.
The second change is to create a simple two-band penalty structure that will provide much-needed clarity to regulators and industry about the penalty tiers for specific acts of non-compliance.
Bradley Thomas
On the point about banding, can the Minister assure us that there will be consistency applied across regulators so that different events are not differentially penalised depending on the regulatory body? On the question of turnover and the financial penalty, can the Minister elaborate on how the figure was derived?
Kanishka Narayan
I thank the hon. Member on both fronts. On the penalty bands, clearly defined parameters are set out in the Bill, and my hope is that that increases the effectiveness, the clarity and—at the heart of it, to his question—the consistency of application we expect across regulatory regimes.
As I mentioned, the 4% figure for the maximum penalty in part referenced existing UK regulatory regimes and legislation that were felt to be the most comparable. In part, it was judged to be an appropriate, proportionate maximum, based on relevant concerns around the appropriate level of deterrent effect, the proportionate level of fine, the regulatory precedent and the broader impact on investment and the economy as a whole, notwithstanding the significant cyber-security costs businesses already experience.
The second change in the clause is intended to eliminate the confusion surrounding the definition of a “material contravention” in the current regulations. Finally, the clause ensures that regulators can consider a wider range of factors when determining what constitutes an appropriate penalty. Where mitigating steps have been taken to address a breach, that should be acknowledged, but so too should the impacts of the breach and any history of compliance or non-compliance.
To conclude, an effective regulatory regime must be backed by fair but effective penalties to ensure that it is followed.
Lincoln Jopp
This is really where the regulatory rubber hits the road. Earlier, we described cases involving a client who is not in the Bill’s scope but who employs a managed service provider that is, and that is therefore vulnerable to these charges. What happens when there is an interface between a client employee operating an IT system and what the managed service provider does? For example, someone could bring in a data stick, shove it in the side of a computer and break the rules, eliciting some form of ransomware. How will it work when the regulator goes to the managed service provider and says, “Here’s your £10 million fine,” and the client says, “That is down to you”? It is going to be a lawyer-fest, isn’t it? Even lawyers who get paid more than £34 an hour are going to make quite a lot of money.
Kanishka Narayan
Just so that I am clear, not least for future records, I think the case described is one where the client is not in the Bill’s scope but is provided to by an MSP that is in the Bill’s scope, and where the relevant responsible individual is in the client business as an employee or agent of that business. The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. Both the obligations and the defined focus of the Bill are on regulated entities. In this instance, if the individual is not in the regulated entity and the regulated entity has complied with the entirety of the wider cyber-security reporting obligations in the Bill, we would look to other venues of legal action against the individual in question. It would be challenging for a Bill that does not regulate the entire economy to ensure that every individual and firm unregulated by it are brought into its scope as well. But that is not to diminish the significance of requiring other pieces of law to act on individuals elsewhere.
Dr Spencer
I will come to my speech, but as we are having a debate on this point, but does the Minister’s answer not risk a gilded defensive posture being set up by MSPs? If they list terms and conditions for the use of their services that essentially bar everything, they can say that any liability—if there is ransomware or they get hacked—is completely on the client, as opposed to themselves. Does the Minister’s explanation not risk MSPs taking a very defensive posture to ensure that the client is liable for any problem? Given that the clients are usually not regulated entities, this provision effectively becomes meaningless.
Kanishka Narayan
I can see the shadow Minister’s hypothetical point, but I assure him that if there is some universal, consistent practice on the part of an MSP to avoid liability, where liability should reside with them, that should be in scope of how the regulator assesses the performance of that MSP. Secondly, I assure him that there remains a degree of competition in the MSP market, given the attractiveness of the UK customer and end user market for MSPs. I would therefore very much expect any MSP that adopts a falsely defensive posture of the sort that the shadow Minister describes not only to be assessed as doing so by the regulator, but to fall foul of the competitive market context that we have and want in the UK.
To conclude, an effective regulatory regime must be backed by fair but effective penalties to ensure that it is followed. The clause ensures that that is the case for NIS regulations, and for that reason I commend it to the Bill.
Dr Spencer
I think I will follow up in writing on my intervention to try to dig down into the explanation of how liability will be laid down when the client is not a regulated entity but is receiving services from regulated entities. That is an important point, because these are quite hefty fines. As my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne pointed out, even with £34 an hour lawyers, there will be a lot of industry activity to try to avoid liability in the context of a substantial cyber breach, which can be significant.
More generally, the clause makes significant changes to enforcement practices under the NIS regulations, including to increase the financial penalties regulators can impose for infringement of the regulations, and to set out a clearer system of tiered penalties, based on the severity of infringements. The Government’s impact assessment states that these changes have been made because of concerns reported by regulators that
“enforcement under the NIS Regulations has been constrained by unclear band structures and a maximum penalty which is insufficient to deter non-compliance across all NIS sectors”,
which goes back to my previous point. Enforcement activity under the NIS regulations has been sparse, inconsistent and insufficiently effective to increase cyber-resilience to the levels necessary to meet the proliferating cyber-security risks to our most critical sectors.
Fundamentally, the existing approach to enforcement has not achieved the necessary change in attitude to cyber-risk at the highest levels of regulated entities. It is concerning that board level responsibility for cyber-security has steadily declined among businesses since 2021, with 38% of businesses having a board member responsible for cyber-security in 2021, compared with 27% in 2025.
The enforcement model clearly needs to be more effective, and increasing fines is only one part of that. Regulatory capacity to undertake supervision and enforcement remains a concern, as does perceived reticence on the part of regulators to impose fines on critical infrastructure providers, due to the risk of destabilising essential services and increasing costs for consumers. In our oral evidence sessions, many witnesses, including Richard Starnes of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, raised the issue of greater responsibility at the highest levels of management for cyber-resilience. What assessment has the Secretary of State undertaken of whether changes to the penalty regime are likely to influence board-level attitudes towards cyber-security?
Kanishka Narayan
The shadow Minister makes a really important point: cyber-security must be taken seriously at the highest level—at board level. It is part of the cyber assessment framework, which the Government have put at the heart of how we think about assessing cyber-security in firms as well as public sector organisations. It is also part of the guidance we are looking at in the cyber action plan and our wider cyber-security strategy. I take those very seriously. In terms of making sure that businesses have a razor sharp focus, the intent of the fine regime is to ensure that there is a deterrent effect and that it is felt at decision-making levels, which must include boards.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 21 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 22
Enforcement and appeals
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendment 19.
Schedule 1.
Kanishka Narayan
Clause 22 sets out, through schedule 1, consequential changes to the regulations in relation to enforcement and appeals. That is to ensure that the regulations work effectively in relation to the new entities brought into scope, such as managed service providers, data centres and large load controllers, so that the enforcement and appeal systems work as intended. Government amendment 19 makes a minor drafting correction. I commend clause 22 and schedule 1 to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 22 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 1
Enforcement and appeals
Amendment made: 19, in schedule 1, page 86, line 33, at end insert—
“(ea) in sub-paragraph (da), after ‘14A;’ insert ‘or’;”.—(Kanishka Narayan.)
This amendment would make a minor drafting correction.
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 23
Minor and consequential amendments etc
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendments 20 to 22.
Schedule 2.
Kanishka Narayan
Clause 23, through schedule 2, introduces a number of minor and consequential amendments to the NIS regulations, necessitated by the more substantive changes introduced by the Bill. Among other technical changes, the schedule revokes assimilated EU legislation, removes the requirement for an NIS national strategy to be published once a statement of strategic priorities has been designed in its place, and updates references in the regulations to reflect the new clause numbering. Government amendments 20 and 21 make minor drafting corrections.
Government amendment 22 aligns the process for issuing documents, notices and directions under the NIS regulations with the Bill. As it stands, regulators will be required to follow two different procedures for issuing documents, notices and directions under the NIS regulations and under the national security powers in part 4 of the Bill, which is unnecessarily confusing for regulators and regulated entities. Amendment 22 resolves the issue by aligning regulation 24 with clause 57, as amended by Government amendments 23 and 24. I commend amendments 20 to 22, clause 23 and schedule 2 to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 23 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 2
Minor and consequential amendments etc
Amendments made: 20, in schedule 2, page 89, line 35, at end insert—
“(ia) omit the ‘and’ at the end of the definition of ‘relevant law-enforcement authority’;”.
This amendment would make a minor drafting correction to regulation 1(2) of the Network and Information Systems Regulations 2018.
Amendment 21, in schedule 2, page 89, line 37, at end insert—
“(iia) omit the ‘and’ at the end of the definition of ‘representative’;”.
This amendment would make a minor drafting correction to regulation 1(2) of the Network and Information Systems Regulations 2018.
Amendment 22, in schedule 2, page 91, line 4, at end insert—
“11A (1) Regulation 24 (service of documents) is amended as follows.
(2) In paragraph (1)—
(a) in the words before sub-paragraph (a)—
(i) for ‘or notice’ substitute ‘, notice or direction’;
(ii) after ‘served on’ insert ‘or given to’;
(iii) after ‘served’, in the second place it occurs, insert ‘or given’;
(b) omit the ‘or’ at the end of sub-paragraph (b);
(c) for sub-paragraph (c) substitute—
‘(c) sending it by post to the person’s proper address or by email to the person’s email address.’
(3) In each of paragraphs (2) and (3)—
(a) after ‘document’ insert ‘, notice or direction’;
(b) after ‘served on’ insert ‘or given to’.
(4) In paragraph (4), for ‘service’ substitute ‘documents, notices and directions’.
(5) For paragraph (5) substitute—
‘(5) For the purposes of this regulation, a person’s “proper address” is—
(a) in a case where the person is a body corporate with a registered office in the United Kingdom, that office;
(b) in a case where paragraph (a) does not apply and the person is a body corporate, partnership or unincorporated body with a principal office in the United Kingdom, that office;
(c) in any other case, an address in the United Kingdom at which the person serving or giving the document, notice or direction believes, on reasonable grounds, that it will come to the attention of the person on whom it is to be served or to whom it is to be given.
(5A) For the purposes of this regulation, a person’s email address is—
(a) an email address provided to a NIS enforcement authority as an address for contacting that person,
(b) an email address published for the time being by that person as an address for contacting that person, or
(c) if no email address has been so provided or published, an email address by means of which the person serving or giving the document, notice or direction believes, on reasonable grounds, that it will come to the attention of that person.’
(6) After paragraph (5A) (inserted by sub-paragraph (5)) insert—
‘(5B) A document, notice or direction sent to a person by email is, unless the contrary is proved, to be treated as having been served or given at 9am on the working day immediately following the day on which it was sent.
(5C) In paragraph (5B) “working day” means a day other than a Saturday, a Sunday, Christmas Day, Good Friday or a bank holiday under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 in any part of the United Kingdom.’”—(Kanishka Narayan.)
This amendment would align regulation 24 of the NIS Regulations with the provisions about giving of directions and notices in clause 57 of the Bill, as amended by Amendments 23 and 24.
Schedule 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 24
Key definitions in Part 3
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: ‘Food supply Food supply chain The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (United Kingdom)’ ‘Local Government Local Government The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government’ ‘Elections Electoral infrastructure The Electoral Commission’ ‘Government Political parties The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government’
New clause 1—Food supply chain to be regulated as an essential service—
“(1) The NIS Regulations are amended as follows.
(2) In the table in Schedule 1 (designated competent authorities), after the entry relating to digital infrastructure insert—
(3) In Schedule 2 (essential services and threshold requirements), after paragraph 10 insert—
‘The food supply chain subsector
11 — (1) This paragraph describes the threshold requirements which apply to essential services in the food supply chain subsector.
(2) For the essential service of the food supply chain in the United Kingdom the threshold requirement is that the person is in the food supply chain and does not qualify as small or a micro-entity (or is excluded) within the meaning of Part 15 of the Companies Act 2006.
(3) after paragraph 10 insert—
(a) a “food supply chain” is a supply chain for providing individuals with items of food or drink for personal consumption, where the items consist of or include, or have been produced to any extent using—
(i) anything grown or otherwise produced in carrying on agriculture, or
(ii) anything taken, grown or otherwise produced in carrying on fishing or aquaculture;
(b) a person is “in” a food supply chain if that person is a producer or an intermediary in a food supply chain.
(4) In paragraph (3)(b)—
(a) “producer” means a person who is carrying on agriculture, fishing or aquaculture;
(b) “intermediary” means a person in the food supply chain between a producer and the individuals referred to in paragraph (3)(a).
(5) In this paragraph—
“agriculture” includes any growing of plants, and any keeping of animals, for the production of food or drink;
“aquaculture” means the breeding, rearing, growing or cultivation of—
(a) any fish or other aquatic animal,
(b) seaweed or any other aquatic plant, or
(c) any other aquatic organism;
“plants” include fungi.
(6) In regulation 8A of the NIS Regulations (nomination by an OES of a person to act on its behalf in the United Kingdom), after paragraph 1(b) insert—
(c) provides an essential service of a kind referred to in paragraph 12 of Schedule 2 (food supply chain sector) within the United Kingdom.’”
This new clause would designate those in the food supply chain that rely on network and information systems as “operators of essential services” within the meaning of the Network and Information Systems Regulations 2018, thereby placing them under duties to manage risks to those systems and to provide notification regarding any incidents that have an impact on the food supply chain.
New clause 8—Local authorities to be regulated as essential services—
“(1) The NIS Regulations are amended as follows.
(2) In table in Schedule 1 (designated competent authorities), after the entry relating to the energy sector, insert—
(3) In Schedule 2 (essential services and threshold requirements), after paragraph 10 insert—
‘The Local Government Sector
11 — (1) This paragraph describes the threshold requirements which apply to specified kinds of essential services in the local government subsector.
(2) For the essential service of the maintenance of electoral registers, the threshold requirement is that the entity is a local authority responsible for the maintenance of an electoral register.
(3) For the essential service of the management of social care records, the threshold requirement is that the entity is a local authority responsible for the management of social care records.
(4) In this paragraph “local authority means”—
(a) in England, a county council, a district council, a London borough council, the Common Council of the City of London or the Council of the Isles of Scilly;
(b) in Wales, a county council or a county borough council;
(c) in Scotland, a council constituted under section 2 of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994;
(d) in Northern Ireland, a district council constituted under section 1 of the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1972.’”
This new clause would bring local authorities within the scope of the NIS Regulations as operators of essential services in relation to their functions managing electoral rolls and social care records. This ensures that public sector bodies holding sensitive data such as electoral rolls and social care records are subject to the same statutory protections as other critical infrastructure.
New clause 9—Critical manufacturing and retail sectors—
“(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the passing of this Act, introduce regulations under section 24(3) to specify the following as essential activities—
(a) the manufacture of critical transport equipment;
(b) the industrial production and processing of food products; and
(c) the retail sale of food and essential goods via large-scale distribution chains.
(2) Regulations made under subsection (1) must designate appropriate regulatory authorities for these sectors.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to designate the manufacturing of critical transport equipment and retail of food and essential goods (when part of a large-scale distribution chain) as essential activities, bringing them within the scope of Part 3 of the Bill.
New clause 11—Electoral infrastructure to be regulated as an essential service—
“(1) The NIS Regulations are amended as follows.
(2) In the table in Schedule 1 (designated competent authorities), after the entry relating to digital infrastructure insert—
(3) In Schedule 2 (essential services and threshold requirements), after paragraph 10 insert—
‘The electoral infrastructure subsector
11 — (1) This paragraph describes the threshold requirements which apply to specified kinds of essential services in the electoral infrastructure subsector.
(2) For the essential service of the administration of an election or the maintenance of an electoral register in the United Kingdom, the threshold requirement is that the service relies on network and information systems to—
(a) maintain a register of electors containing more than 50,000 entries;
(b) issue, receive, or process postal ballots for a parliamentary or local government election; or
(c) count or aggregate votes cast in a parliamentary, mayoral or local government election.
(3) In this paragraph—
“parliamentary election” means an election of a Member to serve in the Parliament of the United Kingdom;
“network and information system” has the meaning given by section 24(1) of the Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Act 2026.
(4) In regulation 8A (nomination by an OES of a person to act on its behalf in the United Kingdom), after paragraph 1(b) insert—
“(c) provides an essential service of a kind referred to in paragraph 11 of Schedule 2 (elections sector) within the United Kingdom.”’”
This new clause would designate the administration of elections and maintenance of voter registers as an “essential service” within the meaning of the NIS Regulations.
New clause 12—Political parties to be regulated as an essential service—
“(1) The NIS Regulations are amended as follows.
(2) In the table in Schedule 1 (designated competent authorities), after the entry relating to digital infrastructure insert—
(3) In Schedule 2 (essential services and threshold requirements), after paragraph 10 insert—
‘The political parties subsector
11 — (1) This paragraph describes the threshold requirements which apply to specified kinds of essential services in the political parties subsector.
(2) For the essential service of the management and operation of a registered political party in the United Kingdom, the threshold requirement is that the political party is represented by at least two Members of the House of Commons
(3) In this paragraph—
“registered political party” means a party registered under Part 2 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.’”
This new clause would designate political parties as providing essential services for the purposes of cyber security.
Kanishka Narayan
Clause 24 defines key terms for this part of the Bill, and in doing so introduces two delegated powers. Those powers enable the Government to bring new sectors into the scope of the NIS regime and to designate regulators to oversee them. The power will be used only in relation to activities that are truly essential to our society and economy—in other words, where disruption could pose risks to life or the economic stability of the UK.
The powers are essential in the rapidly changing world we occupy. As we have seen with data centres and managed service providers, our society and economy can quickly become reliant on new services that are acutely vulnerable to cyber-attacks and system outages. Our legislation must be able to keep up with those changes and protect the services that matter most to our country.
Alison Griffiths
I want to use new clause 1 as a lens to view a wider question that sits underneath clause 24, rather than as a verdict on the clause itself. That question is how we decide, in a disciplined and credible way, which activities are sufficiently critical to be brought into the scope of the regime, and how that judgment is applied consistently over time.
New clause 1 would bring much of the food supply chain directly into scope through primary legislation. I understand the instinct behind that. Food supply is fundamental to public confidence, and disruption would be felt very quickly. However, if the underlying test for inclusion is systemic impact, food is not the only sector that raises these questions. I am vice-Chair of the Business and Trade Committee, and over the past year we have taken evidence on economic security from major UK firms that have experienced serious cyber-incidents. One example everyone here will be familiar with is Jaguar Land Rover. Evidence to our Committee indicated that the cyber-incident there contributed to UK GDP being around 0.1% lower than expected in the third quarter last year, which was not a marginal effect. That reflected disruption to tightly integrated manufacturing systems, with production lines brought to a halt and knock-on impacts across just-in-time supply chains and regional economies.
I make that point to underline something simple: cyber-risk presents simultaneously as operational, financial and reputational risk, and in combination those effects can be felt economy-wide. If that is the rationale for bringing food into scope early, it inevitably raises questions about other high-value sectors where a single incident can have national economic consequences.
That brings us back to clause 24 and the role of the Secretary of State. The Bill is clearly designed to allow scope for provisions to evolve through secondary legislation as risks change. That flexibility is sensible, but flexibility works only if the criteria for widening scope are clear, predictable and capable of being explained to industry, regulators and Parliament. If decisions appear to be reactive or driven by the most recent or most visible incident, confidence in the regime will suffer rather than strengthen.
That concern is reflected in the written evidence we have received. The Association of British Insurers, for example, supports higher standards of cyber-resilience, but it also emphasises the importance of clear definitions and coherence between regimes, particularly where firms are already subject to overlapping regulatory requirements. Its point is not about resisting regulation, but about avoiding uncertainty and duplication, which do not improve resilience.
My questions are ones of principle rather than position. First, what is the settled test that the Secretary of State will apply when deciding to bring a sector into scope under the clause 24 powers, and how will that judgment be made transparent to Parliament? Secondly, if Parliament were to require rapid expansion of scope, how confident are the Government that regulators would have the capacity to supervise a much larger and more diverse population without diluting oversight elsewhere?
I am not seeking to land a conclusion on new clause 1 today—I understand why it has been tabled and I recognise the seriousness of the issues that it highlights—but if we are going to widen scope, to food or otherwise, the Committee is entitled to press the Government on the discipline and guardrails that will sit behind those decisions. This needs to remain a targeted and credible regime, rather than one that expands without a clear and consistent logic.
David Chadwick (Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe) (LD)
New clauses 8 and 9 would close a dangerous gap at the heart of the Government’s cyber-security strategy. Right now, the Bill creates a two-tier system. Private companies running critical national infrastructure face strict legal duties, enforcement and oversight, yet the very public institutions that hold our democracy together and protect our most vulnerable citizens are left outside statutory protection. Nowhere is that more alarming than with our local authorities. Indeed, that is where the Government’s approach diverges from some EU member states. For example, the Netherlands is applying its equivalent legislation to local authorities.
When a council suffers a cyber-attack, it is not just an IT inconvenience; it means real life grinding to halt. Members of the Committee who have served on local authorities will be well aware that a cyber-attack hitting a local authority creates problems with welfare payments, housing services, processing benefits payments, accessing social care for the most vulnerable in our society and collecting bins. Those are crucial activities in the day-to-day life of our society and our democracy. A cyber-attack can leave families without support, vulnerable children without protection and elderly residents without care, yet the Minister has suggested that these services are not necessary to the day-to-day functioning of society. I disagree with that.
We have already seen the consequences at Tewkesbury borough council, where a cyber-attack was so severe that it triggered a major incident and crippled core services. Likewise, the attack on Gloucester city council cost the taxpayer more than £1 million and put at risk some of the most sensitive information held on UK residents, particularly if one considers the nature of employment in Gloucestershire. The reporting from those attacks showed that local authorities, which are cash-strapped and struggling to make do as they are, had to divert staffing resources into addressing those incidents.
Bradley Thomas
I have much sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s arguments about the importance of local government, and I believe that it should be within scope of the Bill. Essential services are provided by councils on a day-to-day basis, but local councils are increasingly cash-strapped. Does he share my concern about the burden of compliance falling on councils, many of which differ in size and scale from their adjacent neighbours? They have differing degrees of IT infrastructure capability. We run the risk of increasing the compliance and regulatory burden on councils at a time when they may already have stretched budgets and lack the resource and capacity in the system to accommodate that additional burden.
David Chadwick
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We cannot allow these services to be interrupted. He will be well aware of the impact that bins not being collected has on our streets.
Councils are being targeted because they hold sensitive personal data and provide much-needed services to the most vulnerable in society, yet they are being left as soft targets, without statutory requirements and the ringfenced resources that accompany them. We cannot claim to be building a cyber-secure Britain while leaving the frontline of public services unprotected. Resilience must extend beyond councils.
Our new clauses also ask that our political parties and electoral infrastructure are properly protected, because we know that hostile states and non-state actors are actively seeking to undermine democratic systems. An attack does not need to change an electoral result to be devastating; it need only cast doubt on the integrity of the count or prevent legitimate voters from casting their ballots. We know that trust, once lost, is extraordinarily hard to rebuild. The security of our elections is too important to be left to secondary legislation made at some future date.
Finally, our new clauses would require the Government to bring critical manufacturing, food production and large-scale retail distribution into scope. When British companies such as JLR lose billions to cyber-incidents, or when national retailers such as Marks & Spencer are paralysed, it is not just a private commercial issue, but a blow to national economic security, and there is no economic security without cyber-security. The Minister will be aware that the ramifications of the JLR attack were felt across south Wales because of the link to the steel industry supply chain. Our neighbours in the European Union already recognise this issue through the NIS2 framework, which covers food production and transport manufacturing as essential sectors. The new clauses simply ask the Government to match that seriousness.
At their heart, our new clauses are about ending the two-tier approach. We seek the Government’s recognition that councils, political parties, electoral infrastructure and core supply chains are just as critical to national resilience as power stations and data centres. A country is not secure if its public services, at any level, are exposed. Its elections are vulnerable, and its economy can be brought to a standstill by a single cyber-attack. These new clauses hope to close those gaps and make Britain safer.
Dr Spencer
Part 3 is a very important part of the Bill. It gives the Secretary of State a range of powers, including ones to bring additional sectors into the scope of regulation, to update the NIS regulations, to publish statements of strategic priorities for regulators and to publish codes of practice that set out cyber-security measures for entities to comply with their regulatory duties.
Clause 24 includes a power enabling the Secretary of State to specify new services that can be brought into the scope of the NIS regulations, and to designate additional regulatory authorities. Those powers are intended to allow the Secretary of State to identify additional critical sectors and respond to emerging threats quickly. That agility introduced by this measure has been broadly welcomed as appropriate, given the fast-evolving nature of malicious cyber-activity.
Given the extent of the Secretary of State’s new powers, however, it is important to put in place guardrails to ensure that the appropriate response to emerging threats is indeed further regulation, rather than market-led or insurance-based mitigations. Can the Minister provide any further information at this stage about the procedure that will be followed in deciding whether to expand the scope of regulation to ensure consistency and transparency?
Hon. Members have tabled several new clauses that would prompt the Secretary of State to use her duties under clause 24. I will speak to new clause 1, tabled by the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western), and new clause 9, tabled by the hon. Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe, together, as they have some thematic overlap. New clause 1 seeks to bring all entities, other than small businesses and microbusinesses, in the food production, distribution and retail supply chain into the scope of regulation as operators of essential services. New clause 9 also touches on the regulation of food supply chains. It would require the Secretary of State to designate retailers of
“food and essential goods (when part of a large-scale distribution chain)”
and manufacturers of “critical transport equipment” as providers of essential services to be brought into the scope of regulation.
Those new clauses reflect concerns about the cyber-attacks targeting the food retailers M&S and Co-op last year. New clause 9 reflects issues raised by the major attack on JLR, which cause such disruption and threatened the stability of regional jobs and supply chains. Those attacks caused significant public concern, but they would all remain out of scope after the Bill comes into effect.
Railways Bill (Thirteenth sitting)
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 4 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 4 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 3 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 4 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 4 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 4 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 4 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 4 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 1 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 1 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 1 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 1 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 1 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 4 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 4 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
We are now sitting in public and the proceedings are being broadcast. Before we begin, I remind Members to please switch electronic devices to silent and that tea and coffee are not allowed during sittings. The selection and grouping document shows the way in which amendments and new clauses have been arranged for debate. Any Divisions on amendments and new clauses will take place in the order that they appear on the amendment paper.
Clause 80
Duty to consult Scottish and Welsh Ministers
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)
I beg to move amendment 103, in clause 80, page 47, line 13, leave out subsection (1) and insert—
“(1) Great British Railways must inform Scottish Ministers before making a decision within subsection (2), and if, in the view of Scottish Ministers, the decision would significantly affect the interests of Scotland’s economy or of persons living in, working in, or visiting Scotland, Great British Railways must consult Scottish Ministers before making that potential decision.”
This amendment would ensure that Scottish Ministers, rather than GBR, decided whether a GBR decision would significantly affect Scotland’s economy or persons living in, working in, or visiting Scotland.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 104, in clause 80, page 47, line 21, leave out subsection (3) and insert—
“(3) Great British Railways must inform Welsh Ministers before making a decision within subsection (4), and if, in the view of Welsh Ministers, the decision would significantly affect the interests of Wales’ economy or of persons living in, working in, or visiting Wales, Great British Railways must consult Scottish Ministers before making that potential decision.”
This amendment would ensure that Welsh Ministers, rather than GBR, decided whether a GBR decision would significantly affect Wales’ economy or persons living in, working in, or visiting Wales.
Clause stand part.
Amendment 105, in clause 81, page 47, line 35, leave out subsection (1) and insert—
“(1) Great British Railways must inform a mayoral combined authority prior to making a decision within subsection (2), and if, in the view of the mayoral combined authority, the decision would significantly affect the economy of the authority’s area or of persons living in, working in, or visiting the area, Great British Railways must consult the mayoral combined authority before making that potential decision.”
This amendment would ensure that mayoral combined authorities, rather than GBR, decided whether a GBR decision would significantly affect the authority’s economy or persons living in, working in, or visiting the authority.
Clause 81 stand part.
Amendment 106, in clause 82, page 48, line 25, leave out subsection (1) and insert—
“(1) Great British Railways must inform Transport for London prior to making a decision within subsection (2), and if, in the view of Transport for London, the decision would significantly affect Greater London’s economy or of persons living in, working in, or visiting Greater London, GBR must consult Transport for London before making that potential decision.”
This amendment would ensure that TfL, rather than GBR, decided whether a GBR decision would significantly affect the Greater London’s economy or persons living in, working in, or visiting Greater London.
Government amendments 158 to 160.
Clause 82 stand part.
New clause 25—Local infrastructure change reporting—
“(1) The Secretary of State must, at least once every five years, publish a report assessing long term-changes needed to local rail-related infrastructure.
(2) The Secretary of State must consult local authorities prior to the publication of any report under subsection (1) and ensure that any such report considers proposals made by local authorities.
(3) A copy of a report published under subsection (1) must be laid before Parliament and sent to—
(a) the Transport Committee of the House of Commons,
(b) the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee of the House of Commons.
(4) Reference in this section to the Transport Committee and Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee of the House of Commons—
(a) if the name of either Committee changes, are references to that Committee by its new name, and
(b) if the functions of either Committee (or substantially corresponding functions) become functions of a different Committee of the House of Commons, are to be treated as references to the Committee by which the functions are exercisable.”
This new clause requires collaborative strategic planning between central government and local authorities.
Jerome Mayhew
That will teach me to go away for a day; the Committee finished off half the Bill without me. Anyway, we will go back to the usual slow progress today!
Clause 80 is pretty straightforward. Great British Railways will have a duty to consult Scottish Ministers before making decisions that relate to cross-border services designated under clause 25, where—this is the important bit—
“the decision will significantly affect…Scotland’s economy or…persons living in, working in or visiting Scotland.”
Similarly, the clause requires GBR to consult Welsh Ministers where its decisions relate to services designated by the Secretary of State that are provided in Wales under a similar process.
Most of the clause is pretty unremarkable, but there is one glaring issue with it: it asserts that GBR will decide for itself when a decision will “significantly affect” the Scottish or Welsh economies. The Minister will recognise that GBR is not an economic forecasting or policymaking body and cannot credibly assess national economic impact internally. The clause therefore makes the duty discretionary and risks major decisions proceeding without any meaningful consultation of either Welsh or Scottish Ministers. How is it sensible for GBR to have the duty to assess whether a proposed action is likely to affect the economies of either Scotland or Wales?
That brings me neatly on to amendments 103 and 104. Amendment 103 would ensure that Scottish Ministers, rather than GBR, decided whether a GBR decision would significantly affect Scotland’s economy or persons living in, working in or visiting Scotland. Surely that is the correct approach. Similarly, amendment 104 would ensure that Welsh Ministers, rather than GBR, took the decision. Effectively, instead of GBR having the responsibility to say, “This affects Scotland and/or Wales, and therefore we should consult,” the amendments would give the power to the Scottish or Welsh Ministers to call in a decision on their assessment of their own economy. Surely that is the better approach. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s rebuttal.
Clause 81, which introduces a duty to consult mayoral combined authorities, is pretty similar to clause 80. In the interest of speed, I will skip straight on to amendment 105, which would ensure that mayoral combined authorities, and not GBR, decided whether a GBR decision would significantly affect the authority’s economy. I am repeating a similar argument, but it is an important one—one of process rather than any political issue. Again, we are talking about a rail body making an assessment of the impact of its activities on an economy that it is not a specialist in.
Clause 82 creates a duty to consult Transport for London. Again, we have the same concerns as we had regarding clauses 80 and 81. Under the franchise system, the Mayor of London, and other mayors for that matter, were able to drag in rail operators to question them about their performance and standards; however, that right of consultation seems to have been removed. Is this a deliberate decision by the Minister to reduce the rights of mayors and mayoral combined authorities in relation to consultation? If it is, I would be grateful if he could explain why he has reduced powers, as opposed to increasing them.
Amendment 106 would ensure that TfL, rather than GBR, decided whether a GBR decision would significantly affect the Greater London economy or persons living in, working in or visiting Greater London. I am sure the Minister will speak to Government amendments 158 to 160 in a moment, but to anticipate his comments, they provide a duty to consult Transport for London to cover designated railway passenger services that operate to, from or within Greater London. The Opposition have no objection to these clarifying amendments.
Finally, I understand that new clause 25, tabled by the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage, is intended to facilitate collaborative strategic planning between central Government and local authorities, and would require the Secretary of State to publish a report every five years assessing the long-term changes needed to local rail-related infrastructure. We support the principle of the new clause, but I recognise that a five-year reporting requirement is an onerous task to impose if no concrete improvements follow. I look forward to hearing what the hon. Member has to say in support of his new clause.
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship once again, Sir Alec. Before I speak to new clause 25, let me make a few comments about the Government and Conservative amendments. I see nothing to object to in the Government amendments, which seem to tidy up some aspects of the Bill surrounding interfaces relating to TfL; I await the Minister’s comments. We support the Conservative amendments, which would strengthen the role of devolved Scottish and Welsh Ministers, mayoral authorities and TfL in relation to GBR’s decisions. That is the right principle because, as I shall argue, for too long decisions about our rail network have been focused on London and the south-east, sometimes to the detriment of regional development.
Our new clause 25 would require the Secretary of State to publish a report at least once every five years on the long-term rail infrastructure changes needed at a local level. It would force the Secretary of State to consult with local authorities and would ensure that those views are properly considered, reported and laid before Parliament. Local authorities understand where infrastructure is holding back growth, connectivity and reliability. Whether it is the need for additional passing loops—were my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset present I am sure that he would talk about the west of England line—station upgrades or better integration with local bus services, such issues are often well known locally but struggle to be given a proper voice under our current arrangements. The new clause would create a formal mechanism to surface those priorities and ensure that they are not overlooked.
The powers in the Bill are not just for this Government and this Parliament, so it is important that appropriate checks and balances are put in place. The new clause would restore balance by embedding local government and parliamentary scrutiny into long-term rail planning, while making sure that local people’s voices are heard by the Government on the changes that they want to see. By requiring reports to be shared with relevant Select Committees, new clause 25 would strengthen accountability and transparency. It would support joined-up, evidence-based planning and help to ensure that Great British Railways delivers the improvements that reflect local need.
To address the shadow Minister’s point, I understand where he is coming from, but were somebody to be punished by being required to tot up the reports that would have to be laid before Parliament under amendments that he and I have tabled, I think it is possible that he might win. In that context, we do not think that this is overly onerous, but we look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments on how the local authority voice can be strengthened.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)
Good morning, Sir Alec; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship once again. I thank the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham for amendments 103 to 106, which would require GBR to inform the relevant devolved Ministers and bodies before taking a decision that affected them, and the relevant Minister or body to decide whether consultation is necessary, if they deemed the decision to be significant. Each of the amendments does the same thing, for Scottish Ministers, Welsh Ministers, mayoral combined authorities and TfL respectively. They would reverse provisions in the Bill as drafted that require GBR to consult the relevant devolved Minister or body if it considers a decision significant.
The Committee has heard that GBR will be the directing mind of the railways. I fully recognise the need for Scottish and Welsh Ministers, mayoral combined authorities and TfL to be suitably informed and consulted on decisions of GBR that relate to them. GBR is already required by the Bill to have regard to the Scottish Ministers’ rail strategy, statement of objectives, and directions and guidance; to the Welsh Ministers’ transport strategy; to the local transport plans of MCAs; and to the Mayor of London’s transport strategy. Furthermore, in the case of Scotland and Wales, the memorandums of understanding required by the Bill will ensure that any significant decision affecting Scotland or Wales is not made without the proper engagement of the relevant Government and transport body. In the case of mayoral combined authorities and TfL, there is a clear intention for GBR to work closely in partnership with mayoral authorities including TfL. An industry-developed practitioner guide on how GBR could work in partnership locally was published on 13 January, and GBR will be a proactive partner with all those bodies.
Clauses 80 to 82 already require consultation on significant decisions. Rather than improving the Bill, amendments 103 to 106 would fundamentally hamstring GBR’s decision-making powers by creating unnecessary additional requirements. Decision making would become inefficient and less responsive to passengers and freight. Consultation will ensure that Scottish and Welsh Ministers can share their views, perspectives and expertise on the economic impact of GBR’s decision making.
Jerome Mayhew
The Minister asserts that the amendments would make the process inefficient. Will he please explain why giving mayoral combined authorities or the Scottish or Welsh Ministers the power to call in consultation would make the process less efficient?
Keir Mather
Enabling mayoral combined authorities to be consulted on GBR’s proposals creates a basis on which MCAs and GBR can engage with each other to explore challenges as could relate to economic impact. The issue with calling in consultation in every instance is that it might not always be appropriate to do so. Where a more iterative process is possible, and Scottish Government and Welsh Government colleagues, for example, are best able to feed in and solve problems through consultation, it is not necessary to layer more formal processes on top.
It is worth restating for the benefit of the Committee that the Welsh and Scottish Governments are pleased with the basis on which the devolved arrangements have proceeded in the creation of the Bill. Clauses 80 to 82 as drafted will ensure that GBR engages on issues of importance, and that it consults Scottish and Welsh Ministers, rather than drowning in irrelevant detail. I urge the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham to withdraw amendment 103 and not to move amendments 104 to 106.
I thank the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage for tabling new clause 25, which would require the Secretary of State to publish a report
“at least once every five years…assessing long term-changes needed to local rail-related infrastructure.”
Across this Parliament, the Government are making a record £120 billion capital investment in long-awaited infrastructure projects—including road, rail and green energy projects—that will generate the jobs of the future and drive growth. The Government also hugely support collaboration to encourage a more locally focused railway. Insights from local communities, who know their areas best, will play a significant part in achieving that.
The Bill requires GBR to consult with mayoral strategic authorities and to have regard to their local transport plans. GBR will agree partnerships with mayoral strategic authorities to enable effective collaboration and local influence. That will mark a change in approach in how the railway engages locally, providing single-point accountability and enabling GBR to better meet the needs of areas and wider communities. Furthermore, all tiers of local government will benefit from empowered local GBR business units that are outward-facing and engage local authorities on their priorities and local transport plans. Such engagement and partnerships will ensure that there is sufficient opportunity for local authorities and mayoral strategic authorities to be collaborative with GBR on their priorities and to consider proposals.
Government amendments 158 to 160, which are a continuation of the technical amendments that we debated when considering the group led by amendment 165 to clause 6, will support more effective co-operation on local railway matters. They clarify the definition of a London passenger railway service to provide consistency in geographical scope with other duties and powers in the Greater London Authority Act 1999. They expand the scope of the duty on GBR to consult with TfL so that it applies to passenger services to, from and within Greater London, and not just those within it.
In summary, clauses 80 to 82 introduce statutory duties on GBR to consult Scottish and Welsh Ministers, MCAs and TfL before it makes a decision about services or infrastructure that would significantly affect the interests of their areas. The rationale for the clauses is compelling. They provide assurance to the relevant people and organisations that they will be properly engaged when GBR makes decisions that significantly impact their areas. By embedding such a broad duty in legislation for the first time, we ensure that engagement is not optional but a requirement. That will lead to better decision making, stronger relationships and outcomes that take account of the needs of communities across Great Britain.
Jerome Mayhew
The Minister has heard my submissions. In the interest of time, I will not press my amendments to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 80 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 81 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 82
Duty to consult Transport for London
Amendments made: 158, in clause 82, page 48, line 30, after “a” insert “London”.
This amendment and amendments 159 and 160 provide for the duty to consult Transport for London to cover designated railway passenger services that operate to, from or within Greater London.
Amendment 159, in clause 82, page 48, line 30, after “service” insert—
“(within the meaning of section 175 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999)”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 158.
Amendment 160, in clause 82, page 48, line 30, leave out
“which is provided in Greater London”.—(Keir Mather.)
See the explanatory statement for amendment 158.
Clause 82, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 83
Advice from relevant local government bodies
Keir Mather
I beg to move amendment 161, in clause 83, page 49, leave out line 11 and insert—
“(a) railways in the body’s area, or
(b) railway services—
(i) between places in the body’s area, or
(ii) between places in the body’s area and places outside that area.”
This amendment provides for advice to be given by local government bodies to GBR about railway services that operate to, from or within their areas.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clause stand part.
Government amendments 184, 162 and 163.
Clause 84 stand part.
Keir Mather
The Government are committed to a more locally focused railway under GBR, and provisions in the Bill, and ongoing engagement with local government partners, demonstrate the strength of that commitment. The amendments are primarily technical in nature, but will support more effective co-operation on local railway matters. I will briefly summarise their purpose and effect.
Amendment 161 widens the scope of services about which relevant local government bodies may be required to provide advice to GBR under clause 83. This is achieved by including reference to services between places in the body’s area and those outside it, rather than only services operating exclusively within the body’s area. Amendment 162 has the same effect in relation to Greater London. All the amendments are consistent with the original policy intent of the Bill and simply clarify the drafting. Amendments 163 and 184 include important and relevant definitions from other primary legislation, namely the Railways Act 1993 and this Bill.
Clause 83 introduces statutory requirements on mayoral combined authorities, mayoral combined county authorities and passenger transport executives to provide advice to the Secretary of State and GBR where they reasonably require it on matters connected with the exercise of their respective railway functions. This duty ensures that GBR and the Secretary of State can have access to advice from local authorities, which have detailed knowledge of their areas, including in relation to local transport. Ultimately, that will support GBR and the Secretary of State in obtaining relevant local insights.
Clause 84 replicates that approach for Transport for London by amending the Greater London Authority Act 1999 to insert a new section 176A after section 176. The new section introduces a statutory requirement on Transport for London to provide advice to the Secretary of State and GBR where they reasonably require it on matters connected with the exercise of their respective railway functions. This change ensures that GBR and the Secretary of State will have access to Transport for London’s expertise and its detailed knowledge of transport in the Greater London area.
Jerome Mayhew
These are two unremarkable clauses. We have no objections to either of them. As for the Government amendments, they are technical in nature and we also support them.
Keir Mather
While I reject the charge that the amendments are unremarkable, I thank the shadow Minister for his support.
Amendment 161 agreed to.
Clause 83, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 84
Advice from Transport for London
Amendments made: 184, in clause 84, page 49, line 30, after “function” insert
“(within the meaning of the Railways Act 2026)”.
This amendment defines GBR’s statutory functions in the new section 176A(3) of the Greater London Authority Act 1999.
Amendment 162, in clause 84, page 49, line 31, leave out
“railways or railway services in”
and insert—
“(a) railways in Greater London, or
(b) railway services—
(i) between places in Greater London, or
(ii) between places in Greater London and places outside”
This amendment and amendment 163 provide for advice to be given by Transport for London to GBR about railway services that operate to, from or within Greater London.
Amendment 163, in clause 84, page 49, line 31, at end insert—
“(4) Expressions used in this section and in Part 1 of the Railways Act 1993 have the same meaning in this section as in that Part.”—(Keir Mather.)
See the explanatory statement for amendment 162.
Clause 84, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 85
Licensing etc of train drivers
Jerome Mayhew
I beg to move amendment 107, in clause 85, page 50, leave out line 3.
This amendment would prevent the Secretary of State from changing the body that gives licences certificates so that it remains the ORR.
Jerome Mayhew
Clause 85 relates to the licensing of train drivers, and other matters relating to them. It gives the Secretary of State the power to amend the Train Driving Licences and Certificates Regulations 2010 and related assimilated law through regulations. The Secretary of State, by interest, has also been empowered to appoint a person or a body to publish and maintain technical standards in a document separate from the regulations.
The regulations set out the requirements that ensure train drivers are competent, medically and psychologically fit, trained on the infrastructure, rolling stock and routes that they are to be deployed on, and generally able to drive trains safely. The power to amend that legislation is required to ensure that the train driver licensing regime can be updated to reflect technological, clinical and medical advancements. The ability to update the legislation on an enduring basis will help to modernise the framework and support health and safety outcomes for train drivers, as well as avoiding operational impacts such as train drivers being unable to be deployed on account of not passing outdated medical tests. The ability to designate a person or body, for example the Office of Rail and Road or GBR, to publish and maintain technical standards will allow the train driving regime to remain adaptable and effective. We are therefore support that.
Subsection (2)(b) does not confirm the ongoing role of the ORR to issue licences or certificates. That is much bigger. Through its omission, it opens the door to the removal of the ORR’s role on this important issue. Unions would clearly fall under the definition in subsection (6)(a), but the drafting effectively ringfences them as the primary consultees while shutting out operators, GBR, passenger groups and safety bodies from the mandatory list. There is a non-mandatory ability to consult, but it seems very odd to identify unions but not any of these other very important organisations as part of a mandatory consultation list. That creates an odd imbalance for regulations that directly affect service delivery and safety, giving one group a guaranteed seat at the table while everyone else is included only at the Secretary of State’s discretion.
Amendment 107 would prevent the Secretary of State from changing the body that gives licences and certificates, so that it remains the Office of Rail and Road, once again restoring power to the independent regulator with experience and expertise in this space. That is a small but important point. It may have been an oversight on the part of the drafters that the ORR is not mentioned. If the intention is to remove that responsibility from the ORR, and that is the Government’s ambition as a result of the clause, perhaps the Minister could make that clear? If not, amendment 107 makes it clear that the ORR is the anticipated body.
Amendment 108 is not part of this group but would affect the clause, and would require the Secretary of State to consult passenger and freight service operators, groups representing passengers and railway rail safety organisations before making regulations about the licensing or certification of train drivers. That would mean that not just Labour’s union colleagues would be consulted. I mention the amendment in passing because it is relevant to the discussion of this clause, and I see the Minister nodding sagely.
I intend to seek a Division on amendment 107 if the Government are not minded to accept it.
Keir Mather
I will begin by attempting to assuage some of the shadow Minister’s concerns in this space as it relates to the ORR and licensing. There are no plans to transfer the train driving licensing and certification functions from the ORR, railway undertakings and infrastructure managers to other bodies. However, while there are no plans to transfer functions at this stage, it is possible that changes may be needed or sought by future Governments to reflect wider changes to the structure, responsibilities and roles in the rail industry—as has happened before. For that reason, these powers are vital to ensure the regime for train driving can function as intended and with the appropriate bodies responsible for issuing licences and certificates.
I thank the shadow Minister for his amendment, and understand the importance of what he is driving at when it comes to the all-important issue of safety. His amendment would ensure that only the ORR may issue train driving licences. It would remove the ability to update the arrangements for issuing train driving licences and certificates in the future, for example, to reflect a change in the name of the issuing authority or a transfer of functions from one body to another. It is important that the licensing and certification regime can be adapted and changed if needed, including who issues that documentation, because it may be needed to reflect future changes to industry structures, roles and responsibilities.
The Government’s position is supported by the ORR, which is the current licensing authority. Removing the power to change the arrangements for issuing licences and certificates could undermine our ability to ensure driver licensing and certification arrangements stay fit for purpose as the industry, technology and ways of working evolve. If such proposals were brought forward, the clause as drafted would ensure that any changes are subject to a full public consultation followed by parliamentary scrutiny under the draft affirmative procedure before becoming law. That process affords multiple opportunities for stakeholders’ views to be considered. I therefore urge the shadow Minister to withdraw the amendment.
Clause 85 allows the Secretary of State to amend the Train Driving Licences and Certificates Regulations 2010 by means of secondary legislation. Those regulations establish the requirements for train drivers in Great Britain, which presently cannot be updated regularly without primary legislation, which is a lengthy and inefficient process. The powers in the clause are critical if the Government are to ensure that the framework for train driving remains robust, responsive and fit for purpose in the years ahead.
The Committee may be aware that legislation is due to be laid today to lower the minimum age for train drivers. However, that is being done using time-limited powers in the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023, which will expire in June 2026. Without this clause, such changes to the law, which will help us to address the shortage in train drivers, will not be possible. The power will allow the regime to evolve in line with best practice, incorporating advances in technology, innovation, operations and safety knowledge, for instance by regularly revising eyesight and hearing requirements to reflect advances in corrective technologies, improved testing methods and emerging medical conditions. Without those powers, the industry will be less effective at integrating new technologies, scientific methods or innovations into the train driving regime as they emerge. I therefore commend clause 85 to the Committee.
Jerome Mayhew
As I mentioned, we support the intention behind these clauses, but I stand firm in defending the need for the ORR to be the issuing body, so I will press my amendment to a Division.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Keir Mather
Amendments 201 and 202 in my name will allow the Government to extend clause 86, on the Cape Town convention and the Luxembourg protocol to the convention as they relate to railway rolling stock, and part 4 of the Bill to the Isle of Man. We have consulted the Isle of Man and the other Crown dependencies on whether they would like us to extend this section of the Bill to them. The Isle of Man alone asked that we extend the protocol and these provisions to it. Given that the Government traditionally agree to such requests, we have tabled these amendments.
Extending this section of the Bill will grant the Isle of Man power to make regulations under clause 86. Alternatively, regulations made by the UK Government can be extended to apply to it with appropriate modifications. That would eliminate the need for the Isle of Man to legislate for itself, but it would still have the benefit of having the convention and protocol applying to it. I therefore urge the Committee to support the Government amendments.
Clause 86 will allow the United Kingdom to implement and ratify the Cape Town convention and the Luxembourg rail protocol, as they relate to railway rolling stock, via secondary legislation. The convention and the protocol aim to provide more security for creditors financing rolling stock by reducing the risk to those involved in such transactions and providing greater security over their interests.
The agreements establish an international legal framework for the creation and registration of international interests in rolling stock and make provision for legal remedies in the event of default or insolvency. Implementing the agreements will therefore make the UK a more attractive place for investors to hold financial interests in rolling stock with UK-based lenders, who will also be able to benefit from the protection of the protocol when they invest in overseas markets.
The UK signed the Luxembourg protocol in 2016. That power allows the UK to meet its international obligations, especially now that the protocol has come into force as a number of states have ratified it. These agreements are supported by the industry and I therefore commend the clause to the Committee.
Jerome Mayhew
As we have just heard, the Luxembourg protocol is designed to provide access to cheaper rolling stock in the UK and overseas, as finance can be secured and/or rolling stock leased from non-UK sources, and UK rolling stock companies can lease abroad at lower risk.
I learned an interesting fact over the weekend. I thought that this proposal would affect only ROSCOs operating in this country, but it actually affects the Government too. I learned that the Government own the freehold of one train in the UK, which is on the Canvey Island miniature railway in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), who was very keen to point out to me that the Government have skin in the game on this clause. I have read that into the record, so I hope she is pleased with that.
We have no objections to the clause. As for Government amendments 201 and 202, which deal with the Isle of Man, I was slightly surprised by them. I am sorry to say that I have never visited the Isle of Man, so I had to do some research on its rail infrastructure, and it turns out that it is entirely heritage in nature, with Victorian rolling stock including a horse-drawn tramway. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister could explain why Victorian rolling stock and horse-drawn tramways need the benefit of the Cape Town convention and the Luxembourg protocol. I am sure that he has that at his fingertips.
Keir Mather
Later in the Bill, we will turn to different forms of traction, but I doubt whether we will cover the horse-drawn variety, so I am glad that the shadow Minister found the opportunity to weave that into our debate. We support the aspiration for every single part of the United Kingdom and Crown dependencies to realise the full benefits of a reformed railway, with regulation that is fit for the future and that allows them to realise their aspirations, however they see fit, to make rail more accessible and more efficient for passengers. That extends to the Isle of Man, so we were pleased to table amendment 201, which will extend those powers to it. I hope that the Isle of Man can benefit in its own way.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 86 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
New Clause 23
Charging for removal etc of road vehicles
“(1) Costs incurred by the operator of a network or station in relation to removing or storing a road vehicle that has been parked or left—
(a) on land or other property comprised in the network or station, and
(b) in contravention of bye-laws having effect in relation to the land,
are recoverable by the operator from the person in charge of the road vehicle, where removal or storage is carried out in accordance with bye-laws having effect in relation to the land.
(2) In this section ‘road vehicle’ means a motor vehicle, bicycle or other conveyance.”—(Keir Mather.)
This new clause provides that, where road vehicles are causing an obstruction on railway land, charges may be imposed for the removal etc of those vehicles.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Keir Mather
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The clause will ensure that network or station operators can recover the costs of removing a road vehicle that is causing disruption or presenting a safety risk on the railway. It applies in situations where a car or bicycle must be removed from an access road, level crossing or any other location that is critical to the safe operation of the railway or the movement of passengers around the network. Any recovery of costs must reflect the actual expenses incurred by the railway operator in resolving the obstruction.
Passengers should be able to use the railway without disruption caused by obstruction on railway land. Network or station operators must be able to ensure that such obstructions are removed promptly, and the cost of doing so should rightly fall on the person in charge of the road vehicle involved. I urge the Committee to support the new clause.
Jerome Mayhew
We have no objection in principle to the new clause, but, as we have learned to our cost as consumers in the similar approach taken to car parking charges and the removal of vehicles badly parked elsewhere, this will all come down to the operators contracted by GBR to undertake that function. It is merely asserted that the costs are related to those incurred in the removal, but we all know that such costs can be inflated by unscrupulous operators. Although we do not object to the new clause in principle, I would be grateful for the Minister’s assurance that reputable companies will be used and that this measure will not be used as a secondary source of income for GBR or its contractors.
Keir Mather
The shadow Minister is right to champion the interests of users of the railway and to ensure that the people who enforce such charges are scrupulous. Network and station operators, including GBR, will be required to use their judgment to determine whether the person responsible for a vehicle should bear the cost of removing the obstruction from railway land in the first place. I am happy to commit that we will engage closely to ensure that is done in a proportionate way that protects the interests of passengers and users of railway services.
By including this provision in the Bill, Parliament will have the opportunity to scrutinise and comment on the proposals. As part of that process, the shadow Minister is welcome to hold my feet to the fire to make sure that the interests of consumers are protected.
Question put and agreed to.
New clause 23 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 61
Transfer schemes made by Secretary of State
“(1) The Secretary of State may, for any purpose connected with railways or the provision of railway services, make one or more schemes for the transfer of property, rights and liabilities—
(a) from the Secretary of State, a government department or a company wholly owned by the Crown, to—
(i) Great British Railways,
(ii) a company wholly owned by Great British Railways,
(iii) a proposed GBR,
(iv) a company wholly owned by a proposed GBR, or
(v) a company jointly owned by two or more of the Secretary of State, the Scottish Ministers, the Welsh Ministers, Great British Railways and a proposed GBR;
(b) from Great British Railways, or a company wholly owned by Great British Railways, to—
(i) the Secretary of State,
(ii) a company wholly owned by the Crown,
(iii) a proposed GBR,
(iv) a company wholly owned by a proposed GBR, or
(v) a company jointly owned by two or more of the Secretary of State, the Scottish Ministers, the Welsh Ministers, Great British Railways and a proposed GBR;
(c) from a former GBR, or a company wholly owned by a former GBR, to—
(i) the Secretary of State,
(ii) a company wholly owned by the Crown,
(iii) Great British Railways,
(iv) a company wholly owned by Great British Railways,
(v) a company jointly owned by two or more of the Secretary of State, the Scottish Ministers, the Welsh Ministers and Great British Railways;
(d) from a company jointly owned by two or more of the Secretary of State, the Scottish Ministers, the Welsh Ministers, Great British Railways and a proposed GBR to—
(i) another such company,
(ii) Great British Railways,
(iii) a company wholly owned by Great British Railways,
(iv) a proposed GBR, or
(v) a company wholly owned by a proposed GBR;
(e) from the Secretary of State or a government department to a company wholly owned by the Crown, or vice versa.
(2) The Secretary of State must obtain the consent—
(a) of the Scottish Ministers before making a scheme that contains provision for the transfer of property, rights and liabilities to or from a company jointly owned by the Scottish Ministers and one or more other persons, and
(b) of the Welsh Ministers before making a scheme that contains provision for the transfer of property, rights and liabilities to or from a company jointly owned by the Welsh Ministers and one or more other persons.”—(Keir Mather.)
This new clause allows the Secretary of State to make schemes transferring property, rights and liabilities in connection with the designation of a body corporate as Great British Railways.
Brought up, and read the First time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government new clause 62—Transfer schemes made by Scottish Ministers.
Government new clause 63—Transfer schemes made by Welsh Ministers.
Government new clause 64—Further provision about transfer schemes.
Government new clause 65—Transfer of staff to the Passengers’ Council.
Government new schedule 1—Transfer scheme.
Government amendment 263.
Keir Mather
All the provisions in this group relate to transfer schemes. New clause 61 sets out the Secretary of State’s powers to make one or more transfer schemes to transfer property, rights and liabilities, including contracted employment between public entities. The new clause is important, as it will enable transfers to and from GBR. Transfer schemes are regularly used for highly complex transfers and can avoid undue delay and costs in getting the right assets into the right place at the right time.
Transfer schemes will provide a framework for the consistent treatment of workers, in line with Cabinet Office Statement of Practice on Staff Transfers in the Public Sector and Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) principles. GBR will bring together activities from more than 17 existing organisations, including Network Rail, the Rail Delivery Group, DfT Operator and 14 separate train operating companies, into a single organisation. It is therefore important that transfers be managed in the simplest, clearest and most efficient way possible to protect the staff involved and the taxpayers’ investment.
New schedule 1 provides further detail on transfer schemes. The schedule is important, as it sets out the scope of what may be included in a transfer scheme. This follows standard drafting practice and will prevent individual or piecemeal issues from slowing down the delivery of an integrated railway that better serves the public as a whole.
New clauses 62 and 63 will enable Scottish and Welsh Ministers to make one or more schemes for the transfers involved to enable GBR to run devolved services on their behalf. The provisions require the consent of the Secretary of State to protect their interests and the transfer of liabilities or assets in or out of GBR that they wholly own. The provisions also provide for Scottish and Welsh Ministers to make transfers between companies that they themselves wholly own. That will enable a smooth transition between delivery models for devolved services by devolved Governments. Such transfers would not require the consent of the Secretary of State, as they only involve companies owned by the Scottish or Welsh Ministers.
We have worked in partnership with the devolved Governments to ensure that they can share in the benefits of an integrated railway and, if they so choose, use GBR for the delivery of devolved railway services. These transfer scheme provisions reflect the approach that we have agreed with Scottish and Welsh Ministers.
New clause 65 will allow for the transfer of employment contracts from the ORR to the new passenger watchdog. The watchdog will take over most current ORR consumer roles, including the setting and oversight of standards. The new clause is important as it allows for the transfer of contracts of employment, provides protection for impacted ORR staff in line with TUPE principles, and will allow the watchdog to have the expertise that it needs to get up and running as soon as possible.
Finally, new clause 64 and amendment 263 make further provision for transfer schemes. New clause 64 introduces new schedule 1 and will allow transfers into GBR to begin before GBR is fully designated to allow for sensible operational preparation ahead of establishment. Amendment 263 is required to ensure consistency of terminology with other railways legislation and to ensure that the definitions of “wholly owned” and other similar wording are accurate and make sense in the context of previous Acts.
Taken together, the provisions are essential to ensure that GBR can be established quickly so that we can bring the benefits that we have promised to the public. They will allow the Government to minimise the cost of the transfer to the taxpayer and ensure that staff are protected. I commend them to the Committee.
Jerome Mayhew
I have nothing to add.
Question put and agreed to.
New clause 61 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 62
Transfer schemes made by Scottish Ministers
“(1) The Scottish Ministers may, for any purpose connected with railways or the provision of railway services, make one or more schemes for the transfer of property, rights and liabilities—
(a) from the Scottish Ministers, or a company wholly owned by the Scottish Ministers, to—
(i) Great British Railways,
(ii) a company wholly owned by Great British Railways,
(iii) a proposed GBR,
(iv) a company wholly owned by a proposed GBR, or
(v) a company jointly owned by two or more of the Scottish Ministers, the Secretary of State, Great British Railways and a proposed GBR;
(b) from Great British Railways, a company wholly owned by Great British Railways or a company jointly owned by the Scottish Ministers and Great British Railways to—
(i) the Scottish Ministers,
(ii) a company wholly owned by the Scottish Ministers,
(iii) a proposed GBR,
(iv) a company wholly owned by a proposed GBR, or
(v) a company jointly owned by the Scottish Ministers and a proposed GBR;
(c) from a former GBR, a company wholly owned by a former GBR or a company jointly owned by the Scottish Ministers and a former GBR, to—
(i) the Scottish Ministers,
(ii) a company wholly owned by the Scottish Ministers,
(iii) Great British Railways,
(iv) a company wholly owned by Great British Railways, or
(v) a company jointly owned by the Scottish Ministers and Great British Railways;
(d) from a company wholly owned by the Scottish Ministers to another company wholly owned by them;
(e) from the Scottish Ministers to a company wholly owned by them, or vice versa.
(2) The Scottish Ministers must obtain the Secretary of State’s consent before making a scheme under subsection (1)(a), (b) or (c).”—(Keir Mather.)
This new clause allows the Scottish Ministers to make schemes transferring property, rights and liabilities in connection with the designation of a body corporate as Great British Railways.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 63
Transfer schemes made by Welsh Ministers
“(1) The Welsh Ministers may, for any purpose connected with railways or the provision of railway services, make one or more schemes for the transfer of property, rights and liabilities—
(a) from the Welsh Ministers, or a company wholly owned by the Welsh Ministers, to—
(i) Great British Railways,
(ii) a company wholly owned by Great British Railways,
(iii) a proposed GBR,
(iv) a company wholly owned by a proposed GBR, or
(v) a company jointly owned by two or more of the Welsh Ministers, the Secretary of State, Great British Railways and a proposed GBR;
(b) from Great British Railways, a company wholly owned by Great British Railways or a company jointly owned by the Welsh Ministers and Great British Railways to—
(i) the Welsh Ministers,
(ii) a company wholly owned by the Welsh Ministers,
(iii) a proposed GBR,
(iv) a company wholly owned by a proposed GBR, or
(v) a company jointly owned by the Welsh Ministers and a proposed GBR;
(c) from a former GBR, or a company wholly owned by a former GBR, to—
(i) the Welsh Ministers,
(ii) a company wholly owned by the Welsh Ministers,
(iii) Great British Railways,
(iv) a company wholly owned by Great British Railways, or
(v) a company jointly owned by the Welsh Ministers and Great British Railways;
(d) from a company wholly owned by the Welsh Ministers to another company wholly owned by them;
(e) from the Welsh Ministers to a company wholly owned by the Welsh Ministers, or vice versa.
(2) The Welsh Ministers must obtain the Secretary of State’s consent before making a scheme under subsection (1)(a), (b) or (c).”—(Keir Mather.)
This new clause allows the Welsh Ministers to make schemes transferring property, rights and liabilities in connection with the designation of a body corporate as Great British Railways.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 64
Further provision about transfer schemes
“(1) Schedule (Transfer schemes) contains further provision about transfer schemes under sections (Transfer schemes made by Secretary of State), (Transfer schemes made by Scottish Ministers) and (Transfer schemes made by Welsh Ministers).
(2) In sections (Transfer schemes made by Secretary of State), (Transfer schemes made by Scottish Ministers) and (Transfer schemes made by Welsh Ministers) and Schedule (Transfer schemes)—
(a) ‘a former GBR’ means a body corporate formerly designated as Great British Railways under section 1;
(b) ‘a proposed GBR’ means a body corporate that the Secretary of State proposes to designate as Great British Railways under that section.”—(Keir Mather.)
This new clause makes supplementary provision about transfer schemes under new clauses NC61, NC62 and NC63.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 65
Transfer of staff to the Passengers’ Council
“(1) The Secretary of State may make one or more schemes under which persons who hold employment in the civil service of the State become employees of the Passengers’ Council (but this is subject to any provision contained in the scheme that allows a person to object to becoming an employee of the Council).
(2) A scheme made under this section—
(a) may make provision for giving full effect to a person’s transfer into the employment of the Passengers’ Council as a result of the scheme, and
(b) may (in particular) include provision that is the same as, or similar to, the provision made by the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (S.I. 2006/246).”—(Keir Mather.)
This new clause makes provision about transfers of staff from the civil service to the Passengers’ Council.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 1
Purpose of Great British Railways
“(1) The purpose of Great British Railways is defined by the following objectives—
(a) prioritising the needs of Great British Railways passengers in decision-making,
(b) delivering reliable, safe and accessible railway passenger services,
(c) providing value for money for passengers and taxpayers, including consideration of the affordability of fare prices,
(d) increasing passenger numbers and growing usage of the network year-on-year,
(e) expanding and improving the network, including services, connectivity, and restoring or adding routes,
(f) modernising working practices and innovating to improve productivity, efficiency, and passenger experience,
(g) supporting economic growth, national productivity and improving connections between towns, cities and employment centres,
(h) improving the experience of disabled and vulnerable passengers and ensuring consistent access to assistance,
(i) ensuring fair and transparent treatment of open access, freight and devolved operators when allocating access and charges,
(j) growing rail freight, including supporting delivery of the national freight growth target,
(k) strengthening the financial sustainability of the railways, reducing reliance on operating subsidy over time,
(l) integrating track and train, simplifying structures, and avoiding duplication, and
(m) supporting multimodal integration with buses, trams and local transport networks.
(2) The Secretary of State and Great British Railways must have regard to the purpose set out in subsection (1) in exercising their functions under this Act.”—(Jerome Mayhew.)
This new clause defines Great British Railways’ purpose.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 48—Train guard patrols: requirements—
“(1) This section applies to passenger train services which operate with the supervision of a train manager or guard.
(2) The train manager or guard has a duty to patrol any train on which they are working at such intervals as are, in the opinion of the train manager or guard, reasonable for the purposes of supporting—
(a) passenger safety;
(b) the accessibility needs of any individual passenger;
(c) detection of incidents including—
(i) possible criminal behaviour;
(ii) possible anti-social behaviour;
(iii) obstruction of doors, or other obstruction to the safe and routine operation of the train,
provided that doing so is practicable for the guard or train manager in question.”
This new clause would require guards or train managers to routinely patrol trains provided it is practicable for them to do so.
New clause 57—Anti-social noise—
“(1) Within six months of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State must by regulations make provision to—
(a) prohibit any individual on passenger rail services from purposefully playing content with audio from personal electronic devices without the use of headphones in such a way that causes a disturbance to other passengers.
(b) The regulations must ensure that any person that contravenes the prohibition set out under subsection 1(a) is liable to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale set out in Section 122 of the Sentencing Act 2020.
(2) Regulations under this section are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to introduce statutory regulations on the use of electronic audio devices on rail services.
Olly Glover
Before I go into the detail of new clause 10, let me say why we think it is important. Passenger safety on our railway is important not only in absolute terms—it is absolutely right that people who are paying to take the train be safe, have their safety taken seriously and feel safe—but because, as always, public transport is competing with the private motor car, which is often associated, rightly or wrongly, with safety. Many people feel that it is a safer option, particularly late at night.
Our new clause would therefore require the Secretary of State to undertake, within six months of the Act’s passing, a comprehensive review of passenger safety, with a particular focus on the safety of female passengers and passengers with disabilities. It would need to look at staffing levels at stations and on trains, particularly for services that run late at night or that could give rise to a higher risk to passenger safety, such as services around special events. Lighting is a key consideration, as are opening hours and accessibility of health points. CCTV coverage is already significant across our railway, but the processes in place to access it and obtain evidence promptly are not always there.
We want to look at the merits of ideas such as real-time reporting applications for incidents in which a passenger is harassed. There are such initiatives at the moment—I really ought to know the number by now, given the endless announcements: 61016, perhaps—but there is more that can be done. I have just made the point covered in our proposed subsection (3)(f): that public awareness of the methods to report concerns should be promoted. Perhaps they are working better than I thought.
There is a lot to be done on making sure that travel connections from the train for onward journeys are strong, particularly bus waiting points and points to pick up taxis. Staffing is also a key consideration that requires some thought. If the review were to recommend any action to improve safety, it would be down to GBR to make efforts to implement those actions. I look forward to the Minister’s comments.
New clause 48, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler), would mandate some provisions on train guards. It has been tabled because, alas, the current general customer experience of the visibility of guards, conductors, train managers or whatever we want to call them, where they are present, is patchy at best—that is the most polite way I can put it. New clause 48 is a modest, practical proposal that puts passenger safety and accessibility at the heart of our railways.
Guards, train managers, conductors, senior conductors and all the other job titles—including on-board supervisors on Southern; I must not forget those—are uniquely placed to provide reassurance to passengers and to identify problems at an early stage, whether that is vulnerable passengers needing assistance, antisocial behaviour escalating or obstructions that compromise the safe operation of the train.
By placing a clear duty to patrol where practicable, at reasonable intervals, this new clause would support staff in doing what many already strive to do, while giving passengers reassurance that someone is present, visible and responsive. That visible presence offers peace of mind, particularly for those who may feel anxious or unsafe while travelling, and helps to build confidence in the rail network as a public space. The benefit is a safer, more inclusive travelling environment, with early intervention preventing minor issues from becoming serious incidents and providing a safer, more welcoming environment.
New clause 57 would deal with antisocial noise. This is a very grave matter. Passengers are frequently plagued by the imposition of people’s often dubious taste in music or TikTok videos, which may sometimes include the soothing sound of cats miaowing but quite often takes the form of a great deal of other raucous things. It may seem disproportionate to suggest legislation to counter the problem, but sometimes our own human weaknesses let us down. That is why new clause 57 would require regulations to be made to
“prohibit any individual on passenger rail services from purposefully playing content with audio from personal electronic devices without the use of headphones in such a way that causes a disturbance to other passengers.”
I look forward to the Minister’s comments.
Keir Mather
New clause 10 would place a duty on the Secretary of State for Transport to undertake a review of passenger safety within six months of the Act passing and to make all reasonable efforts to implement any actions identified. I appreciate the sentiment behind the new clause—passenger safety is of the utmost importance as we transition the railway into public ownership—but I do not think the new clause necessary, as the Government are taking action even before the Bill is passed.
As the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage will be aware, we already have a range of security measures and guidance in place across the railway and the wider transport network, addressing the issues raised. Those will be maintained under public ownership and are kept under continuous review to ensure that they meet the challenges of the day.
I highlight the recently reviewed and updated long-running public security campaign, “See it. Say it. Sorted”, which increases public awareness and makes clear how to report suspicious activity to the British Transport police via the 61016 text reporting service; I am not sure I need to remind Members of that, as it will probably be seared into every one of our minds from travelling on the railway. I am confident that in giving GBR strategic responsibility for rail workforce planning, we will create more resilient staffing and provide greater visibility and assurance to passengers, both on trains and at stations.
As part of the Government’s safer streets mission, we have already committed to reduce violence against women and girls by half over the next decade. That will be tracked by Government through the violence against women and girls strategy, recently published by the Home Office, which includes ambitious measures to enhance the safety of women and girls on the rail network. That includes improving live access to CCTV images by the British Transport Police, and establishing consistent personal safety criteria across the rail network.
We are also already working to improve Passenger Assist and to support staff with better tools and more consistent training across the network. The ORR also monitors and reports on Passenger Assist and releases statistics quarterly. Finally, the ORR already has general safety duties that include carrying out inspections to ensure that the train and freight operating companies and Network Rail manage passenger and occupational health and safety risks appropriately. Those remain unchanged by the Bill. Given that, a further review of safety requirements would only serve to drive attention and resource away from the action that is already being taken.
Similarly, I fully agree with the principle of new clause 48, which aims further to ensure that passengers experience journeys free from disruption, harassment and criminality. I pay tribute to the train managers and guards across the network who work tirelessly in the interests of passengers to ensure their safety and wellbeing. I know the friendly and reassuring faces of the train manager on my regular trips between Parliament and my constituency. However, as I hope the hon. Member for Wimbledon will appreciate, changing the role of train managers and guards through a legal duty could be a change to the nature of individuals’ contractual terms and conditions of employment. Such matters are for the employer and the employees, through their trade unions, to negotiate under collective bargaining agreements. It would be up to GBR to consider what is appropriate at the time. Consequently, I do not agree with the new clause.
Finally, new clause 57 would require the Secretary of State to make regulations about the use of electronic audio devices on rail services. I cannot begin to express the depths to which I agree with the sentiment behind the new clause. The Government recognise the nuisance that irresponsibly used personal electronic devices can cause to other passengers, and I appreciate the importance of ensuring that passengers are not disturbed by excessive noise while travelling on the railways.
I am pleased, however, to confirm that the matter is already addressed under existing national railway byelaws. Railway byelaw 7 states that people “on the railway” shall not “to the annoyance of” others
“sing; or…use any instrument, article or equipment”
to produce sound without
“written permission from an Operator”.
Any person who breaches that byelaw commits an offence and may be liable to a penalty of up to £1,000.
Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)
I appreciate that the Minister is trying to reassure us that the methods that the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage wants to implement already exist, but I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman would have tabled new clause 57 if those byelaws were being routinely implemented on trains, which is what he seeks. We have all been on trains where no one around is empowered, equipped or minded—because they are not confident enough, or are intimidated by the person—to act in that way. Can the Minister spell out a little more what the statistics are for that byelaw being used, and whether it is utilised to its fullness? Will he commit to see whether it is adequate? Ultimately, if train staff do not feel empowered, we can have all the byelaws in the world that we like—we have them on buses and in the streets, too—but they need people to feel empowered, able and confident to take action under them. I am not convinced that we have that at the moment.
Keir Mather
The hon. Lady is right to raise that challenge. It is important that the byelaws are in place, but we have all experienced them being flagrantly disregarded on the railway network. I believe that the answer is to ensure that the byelaws that exist are regularly and robustly enforced. I do not believe that we need to add more to the statute book to solve the problem, because the principle of making enforcement work is the more important and operationally demanding one. That needs to be done in the shortest order. I am happy to take that away and to engage with officials about how we can more robustly enforce the byelaws.
GBR having a holistic responsibility for the network will grant it the opportunity to think in a more holistic way about how byelaws can be enforced across the piece, I am sure in close collaboration with the British Transport Police. The Government consider that the issue is more appropriately a matter for train operators to manage and enforce at an operational level, rather than through additional Government regulation. As such, it is better dealt with through the existing railway byelaws rather than through regulations.
Rebecca Smith
The point is that responsibility currently sits with train operators to enforce the byelaws. Just yesterday, I was sitting in a quiet carriage, and it did not say anywhere that making noise would break byelaws. If the Minister is suggesting that the operators will maintain that responsibility, I do not see how the status quo will change with the existence of Great British Railways.
Perhaps this is an opportunity to give the responsibility to Great British Railways rather than the transport operators, and to improve signage to ensure that people know that violence against women and girls or adverse noise will not be tolerated. We cannot just have posters; it has to be in places where people can see it and understand it. A simple “Please be quiet” does not seem to be doing the job at the moment.
Keir Mather
The hon. Lady raises another valid point. It is right that train operators manage and enforce the byelaws and that GBR will have the added benefit that I have identified of holistic responsibility across the network, but she is right to point out that there is much further to go. Sometimes, there are complexities around subjectivity, where somebody on the train will have to determine what they believe constitutes an unreasonable level of noise, but that does not stop the fact that there are clear incidents in which the noise is totally unacceptable. We have further to go in this space, and the signage issue that the hon. Lady raises is interesting and something that I will reflect on. With that in mind, I urge the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage to withdraw the new clauses.
Olly Glover
I will press new clause 10 to a vote.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 35—Report on long-term pipeline for works—
“(1) Within 12 months beginning on the day on which this Act is passed, Great British Railways must publish a report containing a long-term pipeline of infrastructure and rolling stock work affecting any line or service operated by Great British Railways (‘the works pipeline’).
(2) Great British Railways must publish further such reports within twelve months of the publication of the last such report under subsection (1).
(3) The Secretary of State must lay a report under this section before Parliament.
(4) Each report laid under this section must provide a works pipeline for the period of the following 15 years.
(5) Each works pipeline must include details of—
(a) infrastructure renewals;
(b) enhancements, including capacity schemes;
(c) digital signalling and technology programmes;
(d) major station works;
(e) rolling stock procurement;
(f) upgrade and refurbishment programmes.
(6) The works pipeline must specify the expected—
(a) timing,
(b) scope, and
(c) sequencing,
of renewal programmes, enhancements, and major technology transitions.
(7) The works pipeline must align with—
(a) The Rail Strategy’s objectives, and
(b) the funding provided for infrastructure and rolling stocks works during each Control Period.
(8) Each report laid under this section must include an assessment of—
(a) how the works pipeline will reduce inefficiencies in delivery of works, specifically in relation to—
(i) irregularity of gaps in funding, and
(ii) unstable or unreliable management of projects and programmes.
(b) how the works pipeline—
(i) has supported, and will support UK supply chain capacity;
(ii) has impacted protection of specialist skills within the rail industry; and
(iii) will support employment and apprenticeships.
(9) Each report must contain an assessment, during the year prior to its publication, of—
(a) progress in delivering any projects or programmes included in the works pipeline,
(b) any changes to projects or programmes included in the works pipeline, and reasons for those changes,
(c) the impact of the works pipeline on—
(i) industry investment,
(ii) inflation of costs in the rail sector, and
(iii) delivery capacity in the rail sector.
(10) Before publishing a report under this section, Great British Railways must consult—
(a) participants in the rail sector supply chain,
(b) rail industry bodies,
(c) the Scottish Ministers,
(d) the Welsh Ministers, and
(e) the Office of Rail and Road.
(11) Great British Railways has a duty to ensure that its integrated business plan and long-term procurement strategies pay due regard to the works pipelines included in the most recent report published under this section.
(12) On the day on which a report is laid before Parliament under this Section, a Minister of the Crown must make a statement to each House about how the works pipeline—
(a) aligns with the long-term rail strategy, and
(b) supports whole-network delivery priorities.”
This new clause would require Great British Railways to create a long-term pipeline of infrastructure works.
New clause 71—Nationally significant infrastructure projects—
“(1) An application for a nationally significant infrastructure project may not be proceeded with unless the Secretary of State has published a report on the impact of the project on rail infrastructure and services.
(2) A report under subsection (1) must consider—
(a) capacity of the rail network,
(b) the potential need for new lines or services,
(c) level crossings, and
(d) the accessibility of the rail network.
(3) The report must be laid before Parliament prior to a decision being made on the application.
(4) In this section, ‘nationally significant infrastructure project’ has the meaning given in section 14 of the Planning Act 2008.”
This new clause requires the Secretary of State to review provision of rail infrastructure and services before an application for a nationally significant infrastructure project can be approved, to ensure the rail network remains able to meet the needs of passengers.
Olly Glover
Our new clause 11 would create a fund for future railway improvement, which would have multiple intentions. First, it would create a stable pipeline of enhancements in infrastructure for the years and perhaps even decades ahead, which the supply chain is so loudly clamouring for, given that the rail networks enhancements pipeline has not been updated for many years. During Transport Committee visits around the country, we talked to supply chain businesses. Many of them reported never feeling quite so despairing about the outlook for their trades given the uncertainty with railway investment and enhancements. The fund would also create hope for communities. It would create a mechanism for them to submit their ideas for consideration, so they form part of the pipeline.
In anticipation of the Government or the Conservatives accusing me of being fiscally reckless, careful observation of the wording highlights that the new clause does not stipulate an amount for what should go into the fund. That is for the Government of the day to decide, but the principle is clear: there should be a longer-term process and mechanism for local authorities and communities to get their ideas on the table.
What would the fund involve? The new clause would require the Secretary of State to create the fund, which could be for new or reopened railways or just stations. We would call it the tomorrow’s railway fund. Local and regional transport authorities would have the right to apply to the Secretary of State to receive a grant of monies from the fund. That could be simply to develop an idea to the next level or to implement construction of something that has already gained support. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments on that.
I would also be inclined to support the Conservatives’ new clause 35, which would explicitly intend to create a long-term pipeline project. As I have alluded, we think that is a good idea for our railway and our supply chain, and it is exactly the sort of thing that the Government should welcome, given their oft-stated but rarely implemented commitment to economic growth and getting our country moving.
Jerome Mayhew
I seek a bit of advice here, Sir Alec: I presume this is the right time to talk about new clause 35 as well.
Jerome Mayhew
Thank you, Sir Alec. On new clause 11, I hear what the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage says about fiscal responsibility, but it seems a bit strange to set up a fund with no funds in it. Although, as Committee members have seen in the new clauses I have tabled, I support the principle of having a long-term approach to infrastructure development and investment in rolling stock and skills in this country, I cannot support the creation of a new fund without fully understanding where that money would come from.
Olly Glover
Given the shadow Minister’s criticism of the new clause, is he willing to condemn the previous Government’s restoring your railway fund for the same reasons?
Jerome Mayhew
The answer is no, because money was involved. A shining example of the restoring your railways project is the Northumberland line, which was created under and funded by the restoring your railways project, and which is now open and a great success.
New clause 35, which is in my name, is relatively long, and would require Great British Railways to create a long-term pipeline of infrastructure works. If our “Certainty of Funding” new clause is added to the Bill, new clause 35 would fit nicely with it. The new clause would provide more certainty to the supply chain, and would make provision for a visible pipeline of works, allowing for long-term investment in UK manufacturing, specialist engineering skills, apprenticeships and workforce development.
That would prevent the loss of specialist skills during funding gaps, which we heard much about in the oral evidence session. Not only that, but I have been lucky enough to be in my role for considerably over a year now, during which I have met many organisations related to the railway supply chain. One overwhelming piece of feedback I get is on the feast and famine we have with the relatively short control periods, and the lack of visibility on what the next control period will have. The new clause seeks to address one of our structural problems, supporting stable employment, rather than cyclical redundancies, and encourages suppliers to invest in new technologies and productivity improvements.
In the recent past, this country has not had a very good reputation for delivering large infrastructure works, and having the ability to carry them out quickly and cheaply. The new clause would help, meaning that when we say we will do something, we have a better chance of it actually happening.
Keir Mather
I thank the hon. Members for Didcot and Wantage and for Broadland and Fakenham for tabling the new clauses, which relate to enhancements on the rail network or the impacts of other projects on rail.
New clause 11 would establish a fund for future railway improvements. Local and regional transport authorities could then bid for funding from the pot for their local areas. I certainly share the support the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage has for improving the railway across the whole country, and I believe that the railway can bring benefits to the places it serves. However, it should be for GBR, as the organisation run by experts and charged with running railways, to maintain close relationships with local and regional authorities, including the local commissioning of infrastructure projects where agreements can be reached.
The fund the hon. Member proposes risks removing GBR’s opportunity to organise, design and implement enhancements, which is a job that it is best placed to do, as the directing mind. Of course, GBR will engage closely with local and regional authorities when planning, and should invest where real benefits would be gained. Enhancements funding should continue to be set at the spending review; that is appropriate where projects are discretionary. GBR’s integrated business plan will ensure that enhancement projects align with operational delivery.
I also expect the publication of GBR’s integrated business plan to provide further transparency on the enhancements GBR plans to undertake, and the associated funding. That should help set the roadmap for the five-year funding period. I hope the hon. Member can agree that such decisions should be made by GBR, working with local authorities and with mind to the long-term rail strategy.
New clause 35 would establish a report on a long-term pipeline of infrastructure and rolling stock work, on a line-by-line or service-by-service basis, and with considerable detail on the specific timing, scope and sequencing of works over a 15-year period. I share the intention of the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham to create transparency around GBR’s spending, and certainty for the railway supply chain. We are already working to develop a long-term strategy for rolling stock and supporting infrastructure, such as electrification, that will provide clear direction for the supply chain. As I am sure he already knows, the Bill contains a duty for GBR to consider certainty for railway service providers. However, I disagree that this needs to be in statute and that a pipeline containing the level of detail proposed in this amendment, over 15 years, would be a good way of achieving the goals of transparency and certainty for GBR.
GBR will have a five-year integrated business plan, backed by five years of funding for infrastructure operations, maintenance and renewals. That has been established as the appropriate balance between long-term planning and the realities of a changing operational environment. Forecasting specific infrastructure works beyond five years becomes increasingly unreliable, potentially leading to instability for the supply chain and for GBR—the exact thing this amendment is trying to avoid. Enhancements funding will continue to be set at the spending review, while GBR’s integrated business plan will ensure that enhancement projects align with operational delivery. That ensures that larger projects have longer term certainty. The current process has resulted in £2 billion being invested in the railway network every year, from 2019 to 2024. I hope that the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham can understand that creating a stable long-term rail strategy and business planning environment will do more to achieve these aims.
Finally, I turn to new clause 71, which raises the importance of understanding rail impact when considering major infrastructure projects. I thank the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) for raising this issue, but I do not agree with it primarily because the matters that the amendment seeks to mandate are already comprehensively addressed in the existing statutory framework. Under the Planning Act 2008 and the National Policy Statements applying to Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects in the transport, energy, waste and water sectors, the Secretary of State will consider requirements to mitigate adverse impacts on transport networks arising from any developments. For transport projects, promoters must provide detailed assessments of the impact of their proposals on transport networks, including rail capacity, demand and operational implications. These assessments are a routine and established part of the development consent order process, which the Secretary of State must consider. This amendment would introduce an entirely new statutory reporting step before an application could be examined, which would go against the Government's reforms to streamline the consenting regime following the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025, which aims to make the system quicker and more efficient. Instead of adding value, this new requirement would instead risk adding delay in introducing uncertainty, which could hinder timely progress on Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects. Having laid out the Government’s arguments to these amendments, I hope that hon. Members will see fit to withdraw them.
Olly Glover
We would like to press new clause 11.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 58—Rails to Trails Programme—
(1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the passing of this Act, establish a programme to facilitate the conversion of disused railway lines, sidings and associated land into active travel routes for—
(a) walkers,
(b) wheelers,
(c) cyclists, and
(d) horse riders.
(2) The programme must include—
(a) a national statutory framework to support community groups and local authorities to acquire and convert the land set out in subsection (1),
(b) a long-term fund to provide financial incentives and resources for local authorities and public bodies to convert the land for such use;
(c) mechanisms to ensure landowners are fairly compensated for any land that is acquired or converted.
(3) The programme under this section is to be referred to as the “Rails to Trails Programme”.”
This new clause would require the Government to turn disused railways into active travel paths.
New clause 60—Safe bicycle storage at railway stations—
(1) Great British Railways and all passenger railway service operators have a duty to provide sufficient safe bicycle storage facilities at all stations that they operate.
(2) In this section “safe bicycle storage” means cycle lockers or cycle hangers.
(3) For the purposes of this section, safe bicycle storage is sufficient if each railway station has—
(a) at least one safe bicycle storage facility on or adjacent to its premises, and
(b) at least one additional safe bicycle storage facility for every 30 vehicle parking spaces at the station.”
This new clause would require every station to have safe bike storage in place for passengers.
New clause 66—Reopening of services to underserved areas—
(1) Great British Railways must establish a department for the purpose of identifying areas underserved and unserved by railway services.
(2) In meetings its purpose, the department must consider—
(a) options to restore and reopen any lines closed after March 1963, and
(b) the potential to add stations onto existing lines.
(3) The department must cooperate with relevant transport authorities.
(4) In subsection (3), relevant travel authorities means—
(a) Scottish Ministers;
(b) Welsh Ministers;
(c) in England—
(i) any—
(a) mayoral strategic authority,
(b) combined authority, or
(c) combined county authority
with responsibility for rail transport or integration of services with rail transport, and
(ii) in relation to Greater London, the Mayor of London.”
This new clause would require GBR to establish a department to look at options to reopen closed lines, or add new stations to existing lines, to increase service to underserved and unserved places.
Olly Glover
I shall be concise because we have perhaps started discussing this new clause unwittingly in the previous segment. New clause 12 would require a review of the previous Government’s restoring your railway fund. Given the comments made by the shadow Minister, I am not sure that the wider populace would be quite so effusive about the success of the program—for £500 million, it delivered just 11 miles of reopened line and two new stations. Having said that, the heart of the idea was positive and that is exactly why we tabled our new clause 11, which we have debated previously. New clause 12 would require the Secretary of State to undertake a review of the now cancelled restoring your railway fund, to understand the pearls of wisdom that could be salvaged from its wider failure, to improve things for the future.
New clause 58 is about our rails to trails programme, which would create the potential for communities to more easily acquire disused railway lines and turn them into walking and cycling routes. Of course, lots of disused railways in the country are no longer owned by railway organisations, but some are. The new clause would facilitate acquisitions so that we can create more spaces on routes that are segregated from traffic for people to enjoy.
Rebecca Smith
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I had not planned to speak to the new clauses, but as they are pertinent to things going on in my constituency, I will make the most of the opportunity to have the floor.
In principle, new clause 12, on the restoring your railway fund, is a good idea. The hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage was cynical about the scheme, but it has had some significant successes. It reallocated money that was being spent exclusively in the north of the country to other parts of the country, such as the south-west.
I believe the Minister will admit that the Dartmoor line has been hugely successful. The latest statistics show that 775,000 journeys were made between its opening and March 2025, so I assume we will have probably hit the magic million mark by now. The line goes from Exeter to Okehampton, which is slap bang in the middle of Dartmoor and not very easy to access by road, and has allowed people who live there to get to work, leisure and whatever else in Exeter.
The Dartmoor line is also why the reopening of Tavistock station was being looked into, as part of the restoring your railway fund, before the new Government scrapped it, with the money being put back into HS2 and the Manchester to Crewe line. The restoring your railway fund was a success, even if it was not as successful as the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage would have liked—but it only existed for a few years. Knowing what we do about the timescales for railway works, it was very good.
Whether we call it restoring your railway or not, I call on the Minister to ensure that we continue to look at branch lines, particularly for Tavistock, which would link Plymouth dockyard, and all the defence work going on there, to the wider population, and enable cars to come off the road. Yesterday, the A386 in my constituency was closed for the majority of the day because of a car that flipped, meaning that commuters, schoolchildren and people going about their daily business were trapped and could not get in or out of Plymouth, which is the 15th or 16th largest city in the country. I do not think that is acceptable. All we need is an additional railway station.
Let me turn to the rails to trails programme, which I did not think would be relevant but unfortunately has become so. Plymouth city council is eager to install a cycle path in my constituency, but because it will use an old railway track, the road will have to be closed for 14 months. I was unable to attend a public meeting in my constituency last night at which more than 50 constituents turned up to say how unimaginative the council is being about the diversion required.
In principle, rails to trails is a good idea, but let us not be naive about the impact on communities where we seek to turn old infrastructure into a path suitable for walkers, wheelers, cyclists and horse riders. There is always a cost to taxpayers and a physical impact on their daily life. Although I am not against rails to trails—indeed, there are similar successful schemes in my constituency—such projects can be deeply inconvenient to develop. I wanted to be able to tell my constituents that I raised that with the Minister.
Keir Mather
I thank the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage for speaking to the new clauses. New clause 12 would require the Secretary of State to publish a report on the restoring your railway fund, which was set up by the previous Government and wound up in July 2024. Unfortunately, I do not believe it would be a good use of time for the Secretary of State to publish reports about the previous Government’s policies instead of getting on with the business of reforming the railway.
Edward Argar (Melton and Syston) (Con)
Will the Minister gently give way on that point?
Edward Argar
I gently take the Minister to task on that. Were not some of the first actions of Secretaries of State of this Government, when they came into office, to publish reports in which they—one can question how accurately—sought to look backwards over what the previous Government had done?
Keir Mather
Now that we have dispensed with that important work, we can get on with the business of running the railway. The Government are doing more to improve things for passengers and freight than any Government have in decades. We are creating GBR to be the directing mind for the railway, cutting out the needless waste and duplication that has characterised the model.
Olly Glover
If the Minister’s Wikipedia profile is correct, he studied history and politics. As an historian, does he not agree that to get the future right, we must learn from the past, and that we should therefore review the activities of past Governments?
Keir Mather
It is continuously important to bear in mind where the last Government may have strayed from the path of productive policymaking, and we have done so robustly in reflecting on the 14 wasted years of the Conservative Government. We must now turn to the future and think about how we can build a railway that serves the interests of passengers now and in the decades to come.
GBR will take robust decisions on the use of the network, leading to better co-ordination of the timetable, which could reduce delays and costs over time and improve reliability. Those decisions could well see the opportunity for new routes or services and, where appropriate, the restoration of railway services that were previously closed. Nothing in the Bill will prevent GBR from doing that; indeed, quite the opposite is true. We have already seen the Government’s commitment to doing just that with the continued support for the reintroduction of passenger services on the Northumberland line and the confirmation of new stations at Haxby, Wellington and Cullompton, without the need for a specific restoring your railway fund. Having a guiding mind for the railway that is properly empowered to make decisions is better for everyone—for passengers, freight and open access operators.
New clause 58 would require the Secretary of State to establish a programme to facilitate the conversion of disused railway land into active travel routes. I know the importance of such conversions, because there is a wonderful converted railway from Selby through to York, on the old rail route for the Selby coalfield. The DFT has already created Active Travel England to co-ordinate cycling, walking and other leisure uses in England. The funding of active travel in Scotland and Wales is, of course, a matter for their devolved Governments.
I agree with the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage that active travel is an important potential reuse of redundant railway land, but other potential options—including regeneration such as housing, along with heritage lines and retaining the land for future use—should be considered in the round. All the options need to be assessed against objective criteria, including considerations such as funding and safety. New clause 58 would unbalance those considerations by making active travel a priority over other potential uses of railway land.
The Government have been clear that they intend to transfer historical railways estates and other former railway properties to GBR, which will absolutely be expected to look for opportunities to reuse redundant railway land. The new clause would take away GBR’s independence to do that and its ability to look at a wide range of alternative uses for former railway property, including its potential reuse for railway, commercial opportunities and regeneration.
New clause 60 would require Great British Railways and all passenger service operators to provide a minimum level of secure bicycle storage facilities at every station they operate. The Government are committed to improving the integration of transport across the network and are already working to improve facilities to support those who cycle to stations. The Government encourage station operators to engage with local stakeholders when considering the provision of facilities to support those who cycle to and from stations. Funding for cycle storage is already available from a range of local transport funds, including the active travel fund.
With the forthcoming establishment of GBR, we want to ensure appropriate bicycle facilities that are suitable for local circumstances and provided where needed, while retaining operational flexibility and minimising unnecessary expenditure. The new clause would impose on GBR and all passenger service operators a rigid requirement that fails to take into consideration local circumstances such as station size, passenger numbers and demand for bicycle spaces, which could result in unnecessary cost. I therefore urge the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage to withdraw the new clause.
Olly Glover
I enjoyed the debate with the Minister, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 13
Report on the potential merits of customer loyalty programmes
“(1) Within twelve months beginning on the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a report on the potential merits of customer loyalty programmes for rail passengers (‘rail miles programmes’).
(2) A review under this section must consider any beneficial effect on the growth of rail passenger numbers of introducing rail miles programmes.”—(Olly Glover.)
This new clause would ensure the Secretary of State conducts a report into potential benefits of a “rail miles” programme for passenger numbers.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 19—Rail climate resilience and decarbonisation framework—
“(1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months beginning on the day on which this Act is passed, publish a framework that seeks to meet the following objectives—
(a) reduce the carbon footprint of the rail network;
(b) identify sections of the network vulnerable to climatic risks including drought, soil moisture deficit, flooding, heat and cold.
(2) The framework must include a schedule of required infrastructure improvements to the sections of network identified under subsection (1)(b).
(3) Great British Railways must publish a report on the progress of the objectives set out in subsection (1) every two years beginning on the date on which the framework is published.
(4) The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament each report as set out in subsection (3).”
This new clause establishes a statutory climate resilience and decarbonisation framework and requires regular reporting on progress made against the objectives set out in the framework.
Olly Glover
New clause 14 would require the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a report on types of traction within a year of the Bill having passed, because the UK seems very committed to pursuing the somewhat anomalous obsession of replacing existing diesel trains with something called discontinuous electrification.
I will try not to bore the Committee too much with the technical detail, but historically the solution to avoiding diesel trains on railways has been to fully electrify them, which brings a huge raft of advantages. Electric trains are significantly more reliable than diesel trains. They are lighter, and therefore easier on the track. They have an impressive power-to-weight ratio, which is of particular benefit to freight trains; the acceleration of electrically hauled freight trains is incomparable with diesel. They also have a lower whole-life cost. Yet, with a couple of noble exceptions, there seems to be a real aversion to full electrification. I can entirely understand that for lightly used branches, where some of the novel solutions, such as battery trains or discontinuous electrification with batteries, would be entirely suitable. However, it currently feels like there is no clear criteria or logic as to which type of traction solution is pursued.
I have attempted to find answers through written questions and other means; I simply seek reassurance that the only consideration is not saving capital costs. I hope the Minister agrees that it is important that we consider whole-life cost as well as capital cost. It therefore ought to be possible to logically define the criteria by which a line will be chosen to be subject to electrification, no electrification or partial electrification. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments on that.
Keir Mather
I thank the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage for tabling the new clauses, which I will address in turn. New clause 14 would require the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a report setting out the implications of diesel, electric, battery and other alternative rolling stock options. The proposed report is unnecessary because the Government are already working to develop a long-term strategy—the first in over 30 years—for rolling stock and related infrastructure. The strategy will pursue modern standards of carbon-friendly traction, passenger comfort and accessibility. We expect to publish it this summer.
In developing the strategy, we are carefully considering the case for different traction types. In particular, we recognise that recent progress with battery technology offers a significant opportunity—along with, I am afraid to say, partial electrification—to reduce the subsidy cost of the railway, improve reliability and comfort for passengers, and deliver on our environmental obligations. We are considering that opportunity carefully and will set out our conclusions as part of the strategy. Once Great British Railways is up and running, we will expect it, not the Secretary of State, to take the lead in maintaining, updating and implementing the strategy.
New clause 19 proposes that the Secretary of State sets out a framework to reduce the carbon footprint of the rail network and to detail infrastructure improvements for climate resilience. As one of the greenest modes of transport, rail is key in helping to reduce emissions. The Climate Change Act 2008 places a duty on the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero to prepare policies and proposals to enable cross-economy carbon budgets to be met, and to lay a plan before Parliament to set out those policies and proposals. The October 2025 plan includes policies to decarbonise transport, including the railways. Given the existing duties, it would be duplicative to place a duty on the Secretary of State for Transport to publish a plan to reduce the carbon footprint of the rail network.
As the directing mind, GBR will identify sections of the network that are vulnerable to climate-related risks and set out how infrastructure improvements will be made. Throughout the business planning process, where infrastructure planning is captured, GBR will have a general duty to make decisions in the public interest, including in respect of environmental considerations. In signing off the business plan, the Secretary of State is under the same shared duty.
When making decisions on infrastructure, GBR will also have regard to the Secretary of State’s long-term rail strategy, which will be framed by a number of strategic objectives, including an environmental sustainability objective that includes delivering rail net zero and protecting transport links by investing in climate adaptation. These mechanisms, alongside wider environmental frameworks, will ensure that the key strategic decisions on infrastructure are made with climate resilience in mind. I urge the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage not to press the new clauses.
Olly Glover
I am content to not to press new clause 14—we will save that battle for another day—but I will move new clause 19 formally when the time comes. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 16
Access for All programme: review
“(1) Within a year of the passing of this Act the Secretary of State must conduct a review of the Access for All programme.
(2) The review as set out in subsection (1) must identify the level of investment required to support accessibility improvements.
(3) Accessibility improvements as set out in subsection (2) include ensuring step-free access to all—
(a) platforms;
(b) entrances to stations;
(c) exits from stations.
(4) The review must identify all stations with fewer than 1,000,000 entries and exits a year, as recorded by the estimates of station usage published by the Office for Rail and Road, that do not have step-free access as set out in subsection (3).
(5) The review must set out an explanation for spending decisions on the Access for All programme between the period 25 October 2022 and 24 May 2024.
(6) The review must set out recommendations with the objective of facilitating the level of investment required to support accessibility improvements.”—(Olly Glover.)
This new clause would mandate a review of the Access for All programme. The review would seek to ensure that step-free access at railway stations is provided under the programme. The review would explain spending decisions on the programme under the previous Government and set out recommendations for future spending.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Olly Glover
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
New clause 21, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr Dillon), would require a review of public road level crossings. It addresses similar themes to those raised by the new clauses in the name of the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge that we have previously discussed.
We are seeking an annual review of high-delay level crossings, such as the one at Thatcham on what is known as the Berks and Hants line between Reading and Westbury and beyond. That is because we need to undertake proper analysis of the local economic cost and social impact caused by congestion, which admittedly is often necessary to facilitate railway services. It is sometimes perceived—whether the perception is accurate is another matter—that level crossing down times can be excessive. There may be opportunities to improve that, although ultimately to alleviate the local impact of the railway going through those communities, the high-delay level crossings would need to be replaced with an alternative means of crossing.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury and other signatories to the new clause are concerned about the wasted time and fuel resulting from long periods of idling traffic while the barriers are down, which can also lead to lost time for commuters, shoppers and business travellers. Road congestion across the UK is estimated to cost the economy tens of billions of pounds a year—some estimates exceed £30 billion—and high-impact level crossings are major contributors to local congestion hotspots, which can result in increased operating costs, particularly for commercial vehicles, such as delivery vans and lorries, and tradespeople. That, in turn, can reduce business productivity, leading to supply chain disruption, and can undermine labour productivity. Of course, there can also be a significant impact on emergency and public services.
The presence of a highly congested level crossing can act as a physical constraint on local planning. Local authorities are often unable to approve major housing or commercial developments that would increase local road traffic, as that would exacerbate the existing gridlock. That therefore stifles economic and housing growth. The Government have been very clear about their commitment to economic growth and highly ambitious housing targets that some consider to be undeliverable, so I hope that argument holds some weight with the Minister if none of the others do.
Let me say a bit more about Thatcham as a case study. Local reports and studies frequently say that the Thatcham level crossing is typically lowered for more than 30 minutes every hour at peak times, leading to significant congestion. The crossing is known as an MCB-CCTV. I have an ongoing commitment to waging war against acronyms, so let me say that that means a manually controlled barrier with CCTV monitoring. It is located on the busy Berks and Hants line, with approximately 133 trains per day passing over it. The line speed is high, at 100 mph—it is definitely an example of a railway that has benefited from full electrification—which requires the barriers to be lowered earlier than on slower lines, to allow sufficient warning time and ensure safe signal clearance.
Thatcham town council and West Berkshire council have formally acknowledged the serious traffic delays at the crossing. These delays have been specifically noted in the development of the local transport plan and the local plan review—the issue of the level crossing delays is identified as a critical factor that must be addressed and mitigated before any major new developments can proceed.
A study assessing the viability of replacing the level crossing with a new road bridge over the railway and canal estimated the cost to be in the region of £16.5 million, with that proposal ultimately declared not financially viable as a stand-alone public project. We do not intend to divide the Committee on the new clause, but we will be interested to hear the Minister’s comments on the issue that it highlights.
Jerome Mayhew
The Conservatives are very supportive of the intention behind the new clause. The replacement for Network Rail within GBR cannot bring the same, frankly uninterested, culture to these assessments that Network Rail is notorious for. I salute the tireless campaigning of my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge, who has tabled a number of new clauses on this issue to highlight the problems that his constituents and, as we have just heard, many others have faced.
The hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage says that he will not press the new clause to a Division. I think that is sensible, given that the requirement for an annual review may well be too onerous, but we look to the Minister to acknowledge the problems faced by those communities that are cut in half by very impactful level crossings, and to provide assurances that the Government will address this significant concern.
Keir Mather
I thank the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage for the new clause, which would require GBR to produce annual reports and technical studies relating to road crossings, with the aim of easing congestion. It is our view that the new clause would add highly disproportionate administrative and reporting burdens on to Great British Railways that we do not believe are necessary to manage level crossings and mitigate any of the impacts on communities that the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage so powerfully described.
The new clause would require GBR to undertake an annual review of every public road level crossing in Britain, assessing the social and economic effects on each area, and would mandate feasibility and engineering studies for any site judged to have high levels of congestion. That would create a substantial and ongoing workload that would divert time, staff and funding away from the core functions of managing the railway, including by requiring GBR to develop proposals for engineering solutions even when there is no clear business case for intervention. That would increase costs, reduce flexibility and limit GBR’s ability to prioritise investment where it delivers the greatest benefits.
Network Rail has a statutory duty to minimise risks to the public and keep level crossings safe. I reassure the hon. Member that GBR will continue to be bound by those duties, while also taking full account of the wider economic and social impacts that level crossing down time can have on local communities. In support of that, as is the case now, GBR will be expected to keep level crossing operations under review, support continuous improvements in safety, and reduce unnecessary disruption so far as is reasonably practicable.
GBR will remain directly accountable to the Secretary of State and the Office of Rail and Road, the independent rail safety regulator on this work. As is the case now, effective consultation, robust evidence gathering and meaningful engagement with communities and local authorities will ensure that decisions are well informed and responsive to local needs. Through that approach, GBR will manage level crossings in a way that maintains high levels of safety for all users, reflects local priorities and is firmly grounded in evidence. I therefore urge the hon. Member to withdraw the motion.
Olly Glover
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 24
Great British Railways Board
“(1) The Secretary of State must appoint a Board to review decisions taken in respect of Great British Railways (“the Board”).
(2) The Secretary of State must appoint to the Board persons who are employees of, or otherwise represent—
(a) Great British Railways,
(b) open access passenger operators,
(c) freight operators,
(d) The Office for Rail and Road,
(e) The Passengers’ Council, and
(f) an organisation or campaign group representing passengers with accessibility requirements.
(3) The Board must comprise at least six members and no more than half of its membership may be employed by, or otherwise represent, Great British Railways.
(4) Great British Railways must determine the frequency of board meetings in any year.
(5) Any—
(a) decision by the Secretary of State concerning, or
(b) direction given by the Secretary of State to,
Great British Railways must be notified to the Board prior to the making of the decision or issuing of the direction, and such decision or direction may only be made if a majority of the Board approves of it being made.
(6) The Board must publish any decision or direction it considers, and whether it has approved any such decision or direction.
(7) Where the Board has not approved a decision taken by, or direction given by, the Secretary of State to Great British Railways—
(a) the Board must notify the Secretary of State that it has not approved the decision or direction, and its reasons for not doing so;
(b) the Secretary of State may proceed to make any such direction or decision provided that, in their opinion, it is necessary to do so.
(8) Where subsection (7)(b) applies, the Secretary of State must publish a statement setting out reasons for proceeding with the direction or decision.”—(Olly Glover.)
This new clause would require the creation of a GBR Board, constituted of relevant internal and external stakeholders and regulatory bodies, which the Secretary of State would have to consult on major decisions and changes.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 32—Working Practices and Productivity Modernisation Framework—
“(1) Within 12 months of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State must publish a Working Practices and Modernisation Framework (“the Framework”).
(2) The Framework must include measures to—
(a) enable all passenger routes to be planned and delivered as a seven-day service, within the pay and conditions for standard working hours;
(b) enable drivers to operate train doors without additional payments in locations where this is not yet standard practice;
(c) require Great British Railways to establish a train driving school with updated training methods, with the purposes of reducing route-knowledge training times and increasing driver availability;
(d) end practices including—
(i) short-notice holiday approvals;
(ii) dependency on overtime to compensate for sickness absence or annual leave;
(iii) the prohibition on driving more than one journey over the same rails;
(e) introduce multi-disciplinary and flexible maintenance teams in GBR;
(f) support the adaptation of drone-based and digital inspection of railway infrastructure;
(g) prohibit unnecessary delays in introducing new rolling stock arising from route-learning requirements or working practices that exceed what is reasonably required for the safe operation of the railway, ensuring new fleets can deploy when manufactured;
(h) permit driver managers to drive trains when required;
(i) require maintenance and operational teams based in a specified areas to assist teams in neighbouring areas;
(j) prevent the Secretary of State from awarding general pay rises to any area of the rail workforce where—
(i) workforce productivity has fallen, or
(ii) where actions required in the Framework have not been implemented.
(3) Great British Railways has a duty to secure compliance with the Framework.
(4) Where the duty on Great British Railways under subsection (3) applies in respect of services which are run by any person other than Great British Railways, Great British Railways must fulfil the duty via access agreements with the person running those services.
(5) Within 12 months of this Act coming into force and within every subsequent 12 months, Great British Railways must publish an annual report on the measures in the Framework.
(6) Any report produced under subsection (5) must include—
(a) a summary of measures taken to reform the rail workforce as a result of provisions of the Framework;
(b) data on—
(i) workforce productivity,
(ii) cost savings,
(iii) changes in overtime expenditure, and
(iv) reasons for any delays in implementation of the provisions of the Framework.
(7) The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a copy of any report produced under subsection (5).
(8) The Secretary of State may issue directions to Great British Railways under section 7 of this Act where, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, it has not met its duty under subsection (3).”
This new clause makes provision for a Working Practices and Productivity Modernisation Framework.
New clause 55—Mutual and co-operative structures—
“(1) Great British Railways must publish a report on the potential benefits to passenger railways services of mutual or co-operative corporate structures.
(2) The report under subsection (1) must consider the impact of mutual and co-operative corporate structures on employee engagement and governance.
(3) The report must be laid before each House of Parliament within six months of this Act being passed.”
This new clause requires GBR to explore and consider mutual and/or cooperative corporate structures with regards to employee engagement and governance.
Jerome Mayhew
New clause 31 seeks to reimpose minimum service levels. It would require the Secretary of State to make regulations to impose minimum service levels on passenger rail services, and for GBR to enforce them. The previous Government passed the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels: Passenger Railway Services) Regulations 2023, and the new clause essentially makes the railways subject to those regulations once more.
The purpose of the new clause is to reduce the impact of rail strike action on the ability of passengers to access their place of work and essential services, and to reduce the negative impacts on the wider economy, by setting minimum service levels—MSLs—for passenger rail during strikes. The intention is that the new clause will lead to an improved and more consistent level of service for passengers during rail strikes, when work notices are issued by employers to secure MSLs.
Public transport is critical for the everyday lives of citizens in Great Britain. The transport system supports all sectors of the economy and is a crucial enabler of economic growth. Rail is an important public transport mode as it enables passengers to make vital journeys, such as commuting to work or accessing essential services. Strike action on the passenger rail network can lead to disproportionate disruption to millions of people who rely on these services. A survey conducted by the Department for Transport in 2022 found that most rail users’ journeys were impacted by strike action, with some passengers reporting an adverse financial impact as a result.
Strike action usually takes place when there is a dispute between the employee and the employer, and the dispute cannot be resolved by other means. It is intended to cause disruption to the employer and, in some cases, the wider economy. Strike action in the rail sector, however, affects ordinary rail users, who are not party to the dispute. In December 2022, a report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research estimated that rail strikes between June ’22 and January ’23 would result in a loss of UK economic output of around £500 million due to people outside the rail sector not being able to work. Several sectors, including hospitality, have reported loss of revenue directly from the impact of rail strike action.
Government intervention is intended to mitigate disproportionate impacts of strike disruption on the railway, rail users and the wider economy. While the rail industry has put in place contingency plans to run a limited number of services during previous strike action, the level of service that it can deliver varies. Setting MSLs for passenger rail services will provide an important tool for employers to be able to deliver an overall improvement on the service levels that are typically seen during strike periods, and provide passengers with more certainty and consistency, which is just as important. This is intended to mitigate the adverse impacts of passenger rail strike action on users’ access to their place of work and to essential services, and the impact on the wider economy, while balancing that with the ability of workers to take strike action.
New clause 32, also in my name, would provide for a working practices and productivity modernisation framework. It would implement a number of provisions to make running GBR easier and more cost-effective for the Government and the taxpayer. Currently, there are a number of historical terms and conditions in train driver contracts that are outdated and allow drivers to hold their employers to ransom over pay. They make the railway inefficient to run and drivers slow to train, and end up costing taxpayers and fare payers more.
Let us look at some examples of improvements—this is a non-exhaustive list. We could get drivers to operate train doors without additional payments, and provide a train driving school with updated training methods to speed up route knowledge and training times. At the moment, it takes a lot less time to train a pilot to fly a jumbo jet from scratch than it takes to train a train driver. We could deal with the prohibition on driving more than one journey over the same rails, and introduce multidisciplinary flexible maintenance teams that support other local teams when needed. We could permit driver managers to drive trains when required, and link general pay rises to productivity gains.
All those examples, which are listed in the new clause, are eminently sensible improvements to the ability of GBR to run an effective, modern railway. Most people agree that having a seven-day timetable with a six-day roster is ridiculous, because it means that the Sunday service is voluntary. As a result, drivers are always paid overtime even though the service is part of the standard schedule. That does not happen anywhere else in the public or private sector. The new clause would mean that GBR could be run more cost-effectively. Many train companies have historical disputes with drivers over this issue, and have been unable to remove it from their trip terms and conditions as the drivers would simply go on strike. Now is a perfect time to change approach, with the full backing of the Government, in primary legislation. This wholesale reform of the railways is an opportunity for the Government to reset the terms and conditions for train operation.
As I have said, it is currently quicker to qualify to fly a commercial jet than to qualify to drive a train, and once a pilot has their licence they can fly almost anywhere in the world, while qualified train drivers are restricted to a specific route. We want to make it quicker and easier to become a train driver so that more people have access to the job. That is why the new clause legislates for GBR to establish a train driving school with updated methods. It would decrease dependency on overtime for sick days and for leave. GBR would be directly accountable to Parliament on the success of the framework, which we believe to be important.
Olly Glover
Let me say a couple of words on the shadow Minister’s new clauses. I entirely understand what he is trying to achieve and he asks some valid questions about the nature of industrial relations in the rail industry and how they are managed. I gently suggest, though, that the complexity of those things is perhaps greater than it might appear. This is not the place for me to share my extensive war stories of negotiating on a whole range of things with ASLEF, RMT and TSSA—the three main railway trade unions—but on that basis, my view is that these are exactly the sorts of things that are best left to GBR, with appropriate support and leadership from the Secretary of State.
Our new clause 55 is a different way of tackling a similar problem. It would require GBR to examine the benefits of mutual and co-operative structures and what they might be able to achieve. It is true that industrial relations in the rail industry are often fraught and subject to frayed tempers. As well as continuing constructive dialogue with the unions, are there other ways of looking at things? Perhaps we could draw on experiences both here and abroad, particularly in Germany, where mutual and co-operative structures, making sure that the worker has a voice on boards, and so on, can create a stronger footing for positive dialogue and secure employee buy-in to the wider objectives of the organisation. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments.
Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill (Sixth sitting)
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
I remind the Committee that with this it will be convenient to discuss the following: ‘Food supply Food supply chain The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (United Kingdom)’ ‘Local Government Local Government The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government’ ‘Elections Electoral infrastructure The Electoral Commission’ ‘Government Political parties The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government’
New clause 1—Food supply chain to be regulated as an essential service—
“(1) The NIS Regulations are amended as follows.
(2) In the table in Schedule 1 (designated competent authorities), after the entry relating to digital infrastructure insert—
(3) In Schedule 2 (essential services and threshold requirements), after paragraph 10 insert—
‘The food supply chain subsector
11 — (1) This paragraph describes the threshold requirements which apply to essential services in the food supply chain subsector.
(2) For the essential service of the food supply chain in the United Kingdom the threshold requirement is that the person is in the food supply chain and does not qualify as small or a micro-entity (or is excluded) within the meaning of Part 15 of the Companies Act 2006.
(3) after paragraph 10 insert—
(a) a “food supply chain” is a supply chain for providing individuals with items of food or drink for personal consumption, where the items consist of or include, or have been produced to any extent using—
(i) anything grown or otherwise produced in carrying on agriculture, or
(ii) anything taken, grown or otherwise produced in carrying on fishing or aquaculture;
(b) a person is “in” a food supply chain if that person is a producer or an intermediary in a food supply chain.
(4) In paragraph (3)(b)—
(a) “producer” means a person who is carrying on agriculture, fishing or aquaculture;
(b) “intermediary” means a person in the food supply chain between a producer and the individuals referred to in paragraph (3)(a).
(5) In this paragraph—
“agriculture” includes any growing of plants, and any keeping of animals, for the production of food or drink;
“aquaculture” means the breeding, rearing, growing or cultivation of—
(a) any fish or other aquatic animal,
(b) seaweed or any other aquatic plant, or
(c) any other aquatic organism;
“plants” include fungi.
(6) In regulation 8A of the NIS Regulations (nomination by an OES of a person to act on its behalf in the United Kingdom), after paragraph 1(b) insert—
(c) provides an essential service of a kind referred to in paragraph 12 of Schedule 2 (food supply chain sector) within the United Kingdom.’”
This new clause would designate those in the food supply chain that rely on network and information systems as “operators of essential services” within the meaning of the Network and Information Systems Regulations 2018, thereby placing them under duties to manage risks to those systems and to provide notification regarding any incidents that have an impact on the food supply chain.
New clause 8—Local authorities to be regulated as essential services—
“(1) The NIS Regulations are amended as follows.
(2) In table in Schedule 1 (designated competent authorities), after the entry relating to the energy sector, insert—
(3) In Schedule 2 (essential services and threshold requirements), after paragraph 10 insert—
‘The Local Government Sector
11 — (1) This paragraph describes the threshold requirements which apply to specified kinds of essential services in the local government subsector.
(2) For the essential service of the maintenance of electoral registers, the threshold requirement is that the entity is a local authority responsible for the maintenance of an electoral register.
(3) For the essential service of the management of social care records, the threshold requirement is that the entity is a local authority responsible for the management of social care records.
(4) In this paragraph “local authority means”—
(a) in England, a county council, a district council, a London borough council, the Common Council of the City of London or the Council of the Isles of Scilly;
(b) in Wales, a county council or a county borough council;
(c) in Scotland, a council constituted under section 2 of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994;
(d) in Northern Ireland, a district council constituted under section 1 of the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1972.’”
This new clause would bring local authorities within the scope of the NIS Regulations as operators of essential services in relation to their functions managing electoral rolls and social care records. This ensures that public sector bodies holding sensitive data such as electoral rolls and social care records are subject to the same statutory protections as other critical infrastructure.
New clause 9—Critical manufacturing and retail sectors—
“(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the passing of this Act, introduce regulations under section 24(3) to specify the following as essential activities—
(a) the manufacture of critical transport equipment;
(b) the industrial production and processing of food products; and
(c) the retail sale of food and essential goods via large-scale distribution chains.
(2) Regulations made under subsection (1) must designate appropriate regulatory authorities for these sectors.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to designate the manufacturing of critical transport equipment and retail of food and essential goods (when part of a large-scale distribution chain) as essential activities, bringing them within the scope of Part 3 of the Bill.
New clause 11—Electoral infrastructure to be regulated as an essential service—
“(1) The NIS Regulations are amended as follows.
(2) In the table in Schedule 1 (designated competent authorities), after the entry relating to digital infrastructure insert—
(3) In Schedule 2 (essential services and threshold requirements), after paragraph 10 insert—
‘The electoral infrastructure subsector
11 — (1) This paragraph describes the threshold requirements which apply to specified kinds of essential services in the electoral infrastructure subsector.
(2) For the essential service of the administration of an election or the maintenance of an electoral register in the United Kingdom, the threshold requirement is that the service relies on network and information systems to—
(a) maintain a register of electors containing more than 50,000 entries;
(b) issue, receive, or process postal ballots for a parliamentary or local government election; or
(c) count or aggregate votes cast in a parliamentary, mayoral or local government election.
(3) In this paragraph—
“parliamentary election” means an election of a Member to serve in the Parliament of the United Kingdom;
“network and information system” has the meaning given by section 24(1) of the Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Act 2026.
(4) In regulation 8A (nomination by an OES of a person to act on its behalf in the United Kingdom), after paragraph 1(b) insert—
“(c) provides an essential service of a kind referred to in paragraph 11 of Schedule 2 (elections sector) within the United Kingdom.”’”
This new clause would designate the administration of elections and maintenance of voter registers as an “essential service” within the meaning of the NIS Regulations.
New clause 12—Political parties to be regulated as an essential service—
“(1) The NIS Regulations are amended as follows.
(2) In the table in Schedule 1 (designated competent authorities), after the entry relating to digital infrastructure insert—
(3) In Schedule 2 (essential services and threshold requirements), after paragraph 10 insert—
‘The political parties subsector
11 — (1) This paragraph describes the threshold requirements which apply to specified kinds of essential services in the political parties subsector.
(2) For the essential service of the management and operation of a registered political party in the United Kingdom, the threshold requirement is that the political party is represented by at least two Members of the House of Commons
(3) In this paragraph—
“registered political party” means a party registered under Part 2 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.’”
This new clause would designate political parties as providing essential services for the purposes of cyber security.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. When we left off, we were considering the powers of the Secretary of State to bring new organisations within scope. I am a Conservative, and my view is that the best form of regulation is usually competition, so I am not actually volunteering these sectors for the guards. However, I want to understand the underlying logic as to why certain things have been included and certain things have not.
We have a fairly good guide as to what is essential. The reason we do is that we went through a global pandemic, and the following groups and organisations were designated as absolutely essential for the running of the state: health and social care, which is included; education and childcare, which is not; anything to do with the justice system; religious staff; public service broadcasters; local and national Government, which again is not in the Bill; food and other goods, which, as we discussed, are also not in the Bill, although they are in the new clauses; public safety and national security; transport; utilities; communications; financial services; and postal services.
That is the analogue I am putting to the Minister: we found out which things we really needed, we designated them as essential and we allowed them to continue during the covid pandemic. None of us particularly relishes being reminded of that time, but we owe it to the people who will be subject to the Bill to ask the Minister exactly what has been argued in and what has been argued out of scope, to understand how vulnerable the blank cheque we are issuing to the Secretary of State is to their including more and more in it, come the day of the races.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Kanishka Narayan)
I will start by addressing the questions raised by hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Spelthorne, who concluded by setting out a general philosophy of how we thought about what is in and out of scope, and then I will address some of the more specific concerns in the new clauses.
The overarching philosophy has not at all been to deny, as the hon. Members for Spelthorne and for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe argued, that there are a series of services that are absolutely essential. There is a category of critical national infrastructure, and there is a category of essential sectors and services that we identified in the pandemic. Although there is some overlap, a distinct segment for the Bill is operators of essential services such as digital services and managed service providers. The assessment there has been more about the immediacy and severity of the impact, and the availability of alternative provision in a very short time, which has meant that those sectors have been ruled in. I will lay out the logic of our position on the new clauses, which might help clarify this question, although I would be happy to engage further with hon. Members on it.
I am conscious that the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton and the shadow Minister raised very appropriate points about robustness and proportionality in relation to the Secretary of State exercising the powers in the Bill, so I will lay out the process and the role of Parliament.
In terms of the process for bringing new sectors or activities in scope, something must meet a specific, rigorous test to be defined as a new essential activity for the purposes of the Bill. The Secretary of State must be satisfied that the activity is essential to our economy or society. As I have mentioned, that is reserved for the most vital activities to our nation and acts as a high bar for inclusion, on the terms I mentioned to the hon. Member for Spelthorne.
In reaching a decision, the relevant Departments will need to carry out risk assessments and impact assessments and consider whether inclusion of those sectors and activities is proportionate. That is part of the normal policy development process. After that, the proposals will be subject to consultations and the affirmative procedure, ensuring the necessary scrutiny. Parliament will have the final say on the use of any expansive powers, as the vast majority of the changes I mentioned will be made through delegated powers and subject to the affirmative procedure. If a new sector is then brought into scope, we will undertake a phased implementation wherever possible, and organisations will be given adequate time to comply. Alongside that, regulations will be made in a controlled way and include consultations with relevant stakeholders before secondary legislation is laid before Parliament.
I make one final observation on the points that have been made, not least about Jaguar Land Rover. The UK Export Finance export development guarantee is not a bailout. UKEF receives payments for providing its guarantees, ensuring that the Government are appropriately compensated for the risk taken. In that context, a different assessment was made, as I hope to come to shortly.
More broadly, the Committee heard from expert witnesses that although the purpose of the Bill is clear, and its impact is a significant help for our national cyber-security and essential services, it or any other singular move is no silver bullet when it comes to our cyber-security. Different levers are effective in different parts of the economy and must be applied appropriately.
The most stringent lever the Government have at their disposal is legislation. As we have discussed in this and prior sittings, proportionality is key to the exercise of that lever. Regulation creates obligations and requires resources, so the pros of regulating must outweigh the costs. In the context of the Bill, that means protecting our society and economy from unacceptable risks with an immediacy of threat to our day-to-day life, not least our national security. That means things like keeping the lights on, the taps running and the NHS going, where there is little or no alterative provision of such services. We must also avoid creating unnecessary burdens where other measures are available.
In that context, I turn first to new clauses 1 and 9. The Government and the National Cyber Security Centre are clear that all organisations, whether a food supplier, an automotive giant, a supermarket or any other business operating in the UK, should take steps to protect their cyber-security and increase their resilience. That is why in October the Government wrote to FTSE 350 companies urging them to take three actions to strengthen their defences. First, they should make cyber-risk a board-level priority, and I know that that sentiment is shared across the Committee. Secondly, they should require suppliers to have baseline cyber-security through Cyber Essentials. Thirdly, they should sign up to the NCSC’s early-warning service.
The response has been encouraging already. A significant proportion of organisations have responded, with many of those responses coming directly from chief executive officers and chairs, showing the seriousness accorded to this by boards. Following the letter, we have seen increased interest in the Cyber Essentials website, uptake in early-warning registrations, and uptake in registrations for the IASME supplier check tool, which organisations can use to identify suppliers with Cyber Essentials certificates.
Beyond that, Departments and the NCSC deliver sector-specific support for key parts of the economy. On food specifically, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the wider Government have worked with the food and retail sector on cyber-resilience for many years, and we always stand ready to protect the UK food supply chain. During last year’s incidents involving Marks & Spencer and the Co-op, the NCSC and DEFRA worked closely with the affected retailers to support their response, to communicate advice and guidance and to assess the risk to food security. Following the attack, DEFRA Ministers wrote to major retailers to invite further collaboration on cyber-matters. Officials from both the NCSC and DEFRA are working with retailers to understand how we can best support them and the resilience of our food supply chain in the future.
Crucially, the food sector is unique among critical sectors for its high levels of industrial and geographic diversity. There are approximately 20,000 small and medium-sized food manufacturers alone spread across the UK, and many more farms, distribution centres, retailers and other types of businesses that form the UK’s food supply chain. As a result, it is a sector with few single points of failure. Its resilience is further strengthened by the steps that individual operators and suppliers are taking.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that the cyber-attack on Marks & Spencer last year, which hon. Members have raised, specifically involved the social engineering of a third party managed service provider. As the Committee is aware, the Bill brings large and medium-sized managed service providers into scope. That important change delivers downstream benefits across the wider economy, including for food retailers.
I will move on to new clause 8. The Government recognise that a step change in cyber and digital resilience is required across the public sector, including in local authorities. The Government’s cyber action plan is the overarching strategy to improve the cyber-resilience of Government. It will hold the public sector, including local government, to equivalent requirements to organisations regulated by the Bill. At the outset, the hon. Member for Spelthorne raised a question about schools and pupil data; where local authorities are the lead affected departments in that context, they would be expected to maintain very close oversight and compliance with the requirements and asks of the cyber plan, including in schools and the maintenance of pupil data.
Local authorities in England are accountable for their own cyber-security and resilience. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, as the lead Government Department, is accountable for the sector-wide resilience of English local government, and is already taking a range of steps to support the sector, strengthen its cyber-resilience and manage its risks more effectively. For example, MHCLG has already provided £23 million of cyber grant funding and technical support to local government. That includes the delivery of clear cyber-security standards through the adoption of the cyber assessment framework—CAF—for local government. It is also aligned with the wider approach taken by organisations already in scope of the network and information systems regulations.
On social care specifically, as the lead Government Department for adult social care, the Department of Health and Social Care is working to ensure that the standards applied by adult social care providers are consistent with those used across Government and the wider public sector. The DHSC is investing a further £21 million over this Parliament to give care providers the support and guidance they need to improve their cyber-resilience and to enhance cyber-security standards to align with the cyber assessment framework. The MHCLG has also launched a local government cyber-incident response service to support English local authorities to respond to severe cyber-incidents, helping to limit the impact these have on data and services.
I now move on to new clauses 11 and 12, tabled by the hon. Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe. The joint election security and preparedness unit—JESP—sits jointly between the MHCLG and the Cabinet Office. It was created by the defending democracy taskforce, a cross-Government unit, and works to protect UK elections and referendums by co-ordinating work across Government to respond to threats, including on cyber-security.
I know that the shadow Minister takes a keen interest in these questions on the run-up to elections, and he raised some important points. JESP works closely with the NCSC, which produces guidance for organisations involved in delivering elections, including local authorities. That includes advice to help IT practitioners implement security measures that will help prevent common cyber-attacks, as well as offers for direct NCSC support, including the NCSC’s active cyber-defence services.
The MHCLG as a whole is responsible for centrally managed digital electoral services covering voter registration, a postal or proxy vote, or a voter authority certificate. All systems and suppliers involved in developing and maintaining digital electoral services must meet strict cyber-security requirements, not least the MHCLG cyber-security assurance framework.
I will move on to political parties. JESP and the NCSC regularly engage with political party representatives to understand their requirements, monitor any cyber-infrastructure vulnerabilities and raise awareness about Government cyber-defence services. The NCSC’s active cyber-defence programme provides free security tools to help UK organisations, including political parties and local authorities, reduce exposure to common cyber- threats. The NCSC encourages all political parties to sign up to these, and offers individual candidate briefings to parties that wish to take them up.
Everything I have said reflects the Government’s current assessment of where regulation is needed to protect the core of our society and economy. Of course, we have seen that what is considered an essential service can change, and we also know that cyber-threats are constantly evolving. That is why the Bill will enable the Government to bring more essential activities and services into scope in future, and to take swift action if UK national security is at risk, in scenarios where the evidence suggests the pros outweigh the costs. However, at this stage we do not think that that is the case for new sectors. I therefore ask hon. Members not to press their new clauses.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 24 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 25
Statement of strategic priorities etc
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kanishka Narayan
Clause 25 introduces a power for the Secretary of State to designate a statement of strategic priorities for the implementation of the NIS regulations. The NIS regulations are enforced by 12 different sectoral regulators. Although that allows each regulator to apply its sectoral expertise, it also means that at times they have taken divergent approaches to their regulatory responsibilities. Clause 25 addresses that by allowing the Secretary of State to set overarching objectives for regulators in the wider context of a statement of strategic priorities. The statement will replace the NIS national strategy, which the Government were previously required to produce under the NIS regulations. It will set out the Government’s priorities for the security and resilience of essential services.
To ensure that the objectives remain stable enough to enable regulators to plan their work, the clause will prevent a statement from being withdrawn or amended within three years of its designation. However, that three-year rule will not apply if there has been a general election, or a significant change in the threat landscape or in Government policy. That will allow for flexibility where appropriate. In sum, clause 25 empowers the Government to drive a more effective and consistent application of the NIS regulations.
Clause 26 establishes the process through which a statement of strategic priorities can be designated. It requires that there must be consultation with regulators, and that the statement be laid before Parliament, where it will be subject to the negative procedure. It establishes that the Government must share a draft of a proposed statement with the NIS regulators, and that the regulators must be given at least 40 days to provide comments to the Government on that draft statement. The Government must consider whether it is appropriate to make any changes to the draft statement in the light of that consultation. Once any changes have been made, they must lay the statement before Parliament, where it will be subject to the negative procedure. Following that, the Secretary of State may designate the statement.
Clause 27 establishes the legal duties that regulators will have in relation to a statement of strategic priorities. It sets out that regulators must
“have regard to the statement”
when carrying out their NIS functions, as introduced by parts 3 and 4 of the Bill. It also introduces a requirement for regulators to “seek to achieve” the objectives included in the statement.
Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
As we heard in written evidence from the ABI, clarity about roles really matters. Can the Minister confirm that the statement of strategic priorities is not intended to operate as indirect instruction, and that regulators will retain clear discretion where sector evidence points in a different direction?
Kanishka Narayan
I thank the hon. Member for her point. Perhaps I can give a flavour of the objectives I might expect in a statement and assure her of the independence of sector regulators. Subject to consultation, which we would expect in the build-up to any such statement, a statement might include objectives such as encouraging regulators to seek to ensure that their sectors have plans in place to increase security, or focusing on regulatory activity in areas of greatest horizontal risk. To the hon. Member’s point about sector-specific expertise and the independence of regulators, the statement is intended to set objectives to be achieved within the parameters of regulators’ existing statutory duties, and what the overarching risks are. Of course, regulators will be free to do that in the ways they think most appropriate for their sectors, in the light of their own expertise and experience. I hope that gives the hon. Member some assurance.
Clause 28 requires the Secretary of State to publish an annual report setting out, in general terms, how NIS regulators have complied with their duties in relation to a statement of strategic priorities over the previous 12 months, and how they intend to meet their duties in the following 12 months.
Alison Griffiths
As the Minister is saying, clause 28 is meant to help Parliament understand how regulators are responding to the statement of strategic priorities. Can he say a little about how substantive that reporting will be, and whether it will genuinely allow Parliament to assess how those duties are being exercised in practice?
Kanishka Narayan
The hon. Member raises a very important point. We want Parliament to play an important role in the scrutiny of the overarching regime as a whole, but particularly in the operation of the statement. Perhaps I can break it into two parts: scrutiny of the statement in the first instance, and scrutiny of regulators’ compliance with the statement. Once a draft statement has been consulted on, the Government will be required to lay it before Parliament, and that will be subject to the negative procedure. Parliament will have 40 days to scrutinise the proposed statement and express disagreement with it, which is very similar to the procedure for statements of strategic priorities in other areas—not least online safety. In terms of confidence in Parliament about actions that regulators have taken, the Secretary of State will be required to publish an annual report setting out, in general terms, the activity undertaken by regulators in the prior 12 months, alongside activity planned for the following 12 months. My expectation is that, very similarly, Parliament will have sight of that, and have the ability to scrutinise it and ask questions of the Secretary of State in the usual way.
Kanishka Narayan
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow for his affirmation of that important point of parliamentary scrutiny.
As I mentioned, the report in question will set out how NIS regulators have sought and will seek to achieve the objectives in the statement through the exercise of their regulatory functions. The clause requires the Secretary of State to lay the annual report before Parliament, as well as to publish it in an appropriate manner. Clause 28 also introduces information-gathering powers for the Secretary of State so that they can collect the necessary information from regulators to draft the report. I commend the clauses to the Committee.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer.
Clause 25 introduces a power for the Secretary of State to issue a statement of the Government’s strategic priorities in relation to the security and resilience of network and information systems with regard to essential activities. The statement will set out the responsibilities of regulators and specify objectives to secure the Government’s priorities. Competent authorities must be consulted in the drafting of the statement, and the Secretary of State must issue a report in every 12-month period on regulators’ compliance with meeting the objectives within it.
The changes aim to address important challenges around consistency in the approach to regulation that were identified by the previous Government’s second post-implementation review of the NIS regulations. Importantly, the measures also provide for a regular review of competent authorities’ approach to discharging their regulatory obligations. That measure is necessary given the inconsistent approach to oversight and enforcement of the NIS regulations so far.
We know that there are existing challenges relating to the capacity of competent authorities and there is the ongoing issue of securing sufficient cyber-security professionals to staff the teams. It is all well and good making statements, but they need to be followed. What strategies does the Minister anticipate will be needed and used to support—and, where necessary, drive up—standards of regulatory oversight when competent authorities fall short of the aims set out in the statement?
Kanishka Narayan
I thank the shadow Minister for raising an important point. His broader question is one of the most important in this context: Bills are only as good as the ultimate enforcement capability, capacity and framework in which regulators enforce them. Particular aspects of the Bill are focused on that question. One ensures that regulators have not just the resource through the cost recovery and charging schemes that the Bill allows for, but the information through the information-gathering powers—and not just the information, but a statement of strategic priorities as new horizontal risks emerge across sectors. So regulators are armed with resource, information and strategic priorities that emerge from time to time.
Alongside all those resources, data and information powers, regulators need also to have accountability, of course. In that context, the statement of strategic priorities is intended to be one vehicle through which regulators’ compliance with overarching objectives of the Bill will be looked at as well, alongside ongoing oversight of each of the regulators through the usual departmental channels.
Alison Griffiths
Having worked in business, I know that the words we use to ensure that the capabilities are there are easy to say but not always easy to deliver. How will the Minister ensure that when we have a multi-sector issue, which could easily come up—particularly, as we have already discussed, around OT and the use of IEDs across multiple sectors—the National Cyber Security Centre and other regulators will have access to the skills, people and resources necessary to manage what could be a catastrophic incident? We already know that cyber-skills are in short supply as it is, even in the commercial sector.
Kanishka Narayan
The hon. Member raises an important point. Two or three things are really important channels of impact when it comes to skills. First, the NCSC as a convening body across regulatory areas will be able to make sure that different regulators come together and learn by being able to share information not just between themselves, but through the NCSC itself as the convening body for sharing good and prompt understanding of emerging risks.
Secondly, on broader skills, the cost recovery schemes allowed under the Bill create a way for regulators to ensure they are resourced up and have the ultimate financial firepower to be able to enforce the requirements of the Bill.
Alison Griffiths
I thank the Minister for his patience. He mentions a specific example of where he will ensure that the NCSC is resourced up. Do we have specific examples that have happened already of those powers having been put in place successfully? From conversations with the NCSC, I understand that it is reliant on its accredited bodies across the country, but we have not yet—I am touching the wood of my desk, as I speak—had to respond to a complex multi-sector issue. I challenge the Minister on whether he is confident about our capability to respond to one.
Kanishka Narayan
I share the hon. Member’s recognition and her gratitude that we have not experienced the sort of incident that she described. The NCSC has told her, me and other Committee members that it brings regulators together and has done so on a number of occasions in the past to share cross-sectorally an understanding of emerging risks as well as incident-specific impacts. I take no sense of complacency from that precedent, but I do take some confidence from it. As the Minister in charge, I will ensure that the Department keeps a close eye on the ongoing implementation of the co-ordination powers under the Bill.
Dr Spencer
The Minister is being generous with his time during this important debate. I was just thinking through his earlier response to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton about using the cost reclaims to employ cyber-security professionals. That goes to the heart of the concerns about the Bill and its approach to regulation.
We have heard that the industry, including regulators, is struggling to recruit cyber-security professionals. What gives the Minister confidence that, just because some money will be sloshing around in the regulators, there will be the ability to recruit cyber-security professionals, who are going to be essential to the implementation of the Bill?
Kanishka Narayan
First, I will provide some context for agreement. We want more people to be trained in cyber-security so that they can serve in the public and private sectors. Through the Bill, as well as a range of other initiatives, we are making sure that at every stage of the pipeline, there is resourcing, confidence and a demand signal that so more people can benefit from cyber-skills and serve in the industry.
There is a clear financing path for regulators to at least start to hire. Earlier in the pipeline, we are looking at a series of cyber-skills programmes all the way from schools through CyberFirst—I think about 415,000 students have gone through that programme. Ultimately, we want to create a long-term pipeline so that regulators and private companies can make the most of those skills.
Chris Vince
I am going to mention Harlow, because Harlow has young people with amazing potential. The point that the shadow Minister and other Opposition Members have made is really important. We need to make sure that this and the next generation of young people are trained up in these skills, because this is an emerging threat. I encourage the Minister to promote the Bill and what the Government are doing in cyber-security, because it is important that the wider public know that these important skills and jobs are available.
Kanishka Narayan
I am, of course, very happy to take on my hon. Friend’s recommendation that I be the promoter and ambassador for the Bill across the country. I am only sad not to have been invited to visit his constituency in the act of promoting said Bill, but I take his point seriously.
On the broader point about skills, I entirely agree with both my hon. Friend and the Opposition in recognising that skills are central to the enforcement of the programme. I hope that the funding and the earlier focus on skills across the life cycle give some assurance that the Government are committed to that.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 25 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 26 to 28 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 29
Regulations relating to security and resilience of network and information systems
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kanishka Narayan
Clause 29 is the key pillar of the Bill’s future-proofing powers. It allows the Secretary of State to update, amend or replace the NIS regulatory framework by creating new regulations. This is a critical provision. Due to the way in which the NIS regulations were transposed into UK law, the Government lack a way of updating the framework other than through primary legislation. As a result, our regulations have remained static amid a rapidly evolving threat landscape, leaving our essential and digital services vulnerable to attack and our resilience falling behind the EU. The clause is an important response to that problem. It will ensure that the Government can take swift action so that our cyber regulations remain relevant. It is a more proportionate and effective approach than always relying on primary legislation.
I know the use of delegated powers can be a source of concern, so I will be clear that the clause is not a carte blanche—or a blank cheque, which the hon. Member for Spelthorne might be worried about—to smuggle in anything and everything under the guise of cyber-security. It is tightly constrained to ensure that any new regulations align with the original purposes of the NIS regulations. New regulations can be made only for the purposes of strengthening the cyber-security and resilience of the UK’s most critical activities, and only where they are genuinely essential to the functioning of the UK’s society and economy. Cyber-criminals will always find ways around regulations, but with this power we can stop them in their tracks.
I have already explained the critical role that clause 29 plays in enabling new regulations to be made for the purposes of cyber-security and resilience. However, I want to be clear about how those regulations will be used and reassure the Committee of their checks and balances. Clauses 30 to 35 set out what the regulations can do.
Clause 30 enables the Secretary of State to use the regulation-making powers to impose requirements on regulated persons. It clarifies who can be made subject to requirements and the types of requirement that can be imposed on them.
Alison Griffiths
My question relates to clause 29 but also clause 30. As the Minister says, the powers are deliberately wide. The Institution of Engineering and Technology noted in evidence that predictability matters more than compliance. Will the Minister explain exactly how the Government will judge when risks require new statutory duties rather than updated guidance, so that businesses are not left guessing?
Kanishka Narayan
Any legislation made under clause 29 will need to align with the Bill’s clearly specified purposes to protect the systems that underpin our vital services. In any case, secondary legislation will require deep consultation to ensure that businesses have the sense of clarity that they require. There is a specific bar to pass for the scope of any further provisions, and it is a high bar given the definition of the sectors and the activities covered in the Bill.
Clause 30 has been designed with some clear use cases in mind. It will enable the security duties on regulated organisations to be updated with appropriate technical details. It will also ensure that more detailed thresholds for incident reporting can be set, and it is the mechanism through which we will set out the regulatory requirements for designated critical suppliers. In other words, the clause will help us to operationalise the provisions of the Bill and update the technical details of regulatory requirements in response to new risks or technology.
Clause 31 enables the Secretary of State to confer functions on regulators through the Bill’s regulation-making powers. These may be existing NIS regulators or newly appointed regulators. The types of functions that can be conferred are those concerned with compliance: monitoring and securing compliance, and investigating and managing non-compliance. To carry out such functions effectively, regulators must be able to impose penalties. Clause 31 also provides for that while putting in place important safeguards so that regulated organisations have a means of appealing penalties. The clause is essential for future-proofing the regulatory regime. It ensures that regulators can be equipped with the functions and powers they need to ensure the compliance and security of the UK’s most essential services.
Clause 32 sets out details and safeguards for how the regulation-making powers can be used when they impose or amend financial penalties. Crucially, it establishes upper limits on what the penalties can be—the greater of £17 million or 10% of turnover for an undertaking, or £17 million for a non-undertaking, or £17 million for an undertaking adjusted as needed to account for inflation. The 10% threshold has been chosen as a defensible outer limit for a regulatory regime concerned with national resilience and security. It aligns with penalties for non-compliance in legislation regulating critical national infrastructure and with the Bill’s own national security powers.
The clause further clarifies that regulations can define “turnover” and “undertaking”, where needed, to calculate a penalty. Together, these provisions create important safeguards and flexibility. They establish proportionate and transparent parameters within which penalty amounts can be set. They also enable the Secretary of State to define and consult on terms that are essential for operationalising the Bill’s new turnover-based penalties.
Like clause 31, clause 33 enables the Secretary of State to make regulations conferring functions on regulators. The functions specified in clause 33 complement the core compliance functions outlined in clause 31. They relate to the disclosure of information, issuing of guidance, record-keeping, preparation of reports, undertaking of reviews, and co-operation. The clause also enables the Secretary of State to impose functions on organisations that are not regulators but that play a public role related to the cyber-security and resilience of essential services. GCHQ, in its capacity as the UK’s computer security incident response team and technical authority, is the most important. Like clause 31, this clause is essential for future-proofing NIS regulations. It allows organisations that oversee and facilitate the cyber-security and resilience of essential services to be equipped with the tools and functions they need.
Clause 34 enables the Secretary of State to make provisions for regulators to recover relevant costs using the powers under clause 29(1). These are the costs incurred through their functions under the NIS regulations or other obligations imposed through parts 3 and 4 of the Bill.
In practice, the clause ensures that the Secretary of State can make changes and updates to the way that regulators carry out their cost recovery function under the NIS regime. It could, for example, be used to specify further factors that regulators need to consider when establishing approaches for charging fees in the charging schemes, in addition to those already set out in clause 17. That might be needed to deliver greater consistency in how the cost recovery measures are being applied and is something that the Government will keep under review.
Alison Griffiths
As the Association of British Insurers has highlighted in its written evidence, the way cost recovery operates will shape behaviour on the ground. Can the Minister reassure the Committee that changes made under clause 34 will be transparent and proportionate and will not inadvertently discourage investment in cyber-resilience, particularly for smaller firms in supply chains?
On a personal point, could I ask him to speak more slowly? I am really struggling to hear him.
Kanishka Narayan
I apologise for the pace of my speech; I will try to make sure I am speaking more slowly.
On the particular point on transparency and ensuring that any amendments to cost recovery are both transparent and grounded in specific provisions, I can set out the sorts of expectations we have had for circumstances in which amendments might be made. In particular, the Bill’s powers will enable regulators to set up charging schemes, but it is not prescriptive—
Kanishka Narayan
The Bill’s new powers enable regulators to set up charging schemes, but it is not prescriptive about how it should do that beyond certain baseline requirements. More specific requirements, as provided for in the Bill, could become clear, such as if cost recovery mechanisms are not working effectively or if regulators are diverging unhelpfully.
All regulators must consult on charging schemes. In doing so, the industry should have ample opportunity to scrutinise the approach that regulators are taking and, importantly, Parliament should be able to add to that scrutiny as well. Like clause 31, clause 34 is essential for the future-proofing of NIS regulations.
Clause 34 enables the Secretary of State to make provisions for regulators to recover relevant costs; I have mentioned examples of the sorts of factors we might specify in that context. Together with clauses 29 to 33, 35 and 41, clause 34 is necessary to ensure that the Secretary of State can update and amend the functions of regulators as needed in the future, and is an integral part of the Bill’s future-proofing powers.
Clause 35 is the final clause that clarifies the limits and prospective uses of the regulation-making power in clause 29. It confirms that the regulations may confer functions and allow certain functions to be delegated to others—for example, it could enable a regulator to delegate functions to inspectors. It also clarifies that regulations can be made to require a person to have regard to guidance or codes of practice, or that make provision by reference to another document or piece of guidance. In short, the clause provides helpful clarity about how the regulations could be applied.
Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Stringer. I am not sure whether this strictly meets the criteria for a point of order, but it is clear that some people in the room cannot hear what is happening. I know the convention is that only the Whips and Ministers sit on the front row, but if those who are struggling to hear wish to sit closer, could we abandon that convention? It would be a reasonable adjustment so that everyone can participate properly, because this is discriminatory.
The Chair
I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. It is a convention, and if the hon. Lady or any other Member wishes to sit on the Front Bench to make life easier, they certainly have my permission to do so.
Alison Griffiths
Further to that point of order, Mr Stringer. Genuinely, I simply need the Minister to speak slowly and clearly. Yes, I am wearing hearing aids; I am sure that others wear them too. I am doing my very best to make sure that I can lip-read, but that is almost impossible given the speed the Minister is speaking at. One cannot lip read when he is looking down all the time either.
The Chair
I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. I know the Minister is trying very hard; his normal rate of speech is much faster, so he is trying. If you catch my eye, I will interrupt the Minister, or anybody else who is speaking, and remind them. It is important that every Member can hear so that they can participate in the debate.
Dr Spencer
I confess, Mr Stringer, that I suspect I am also guilty of speaking a bit fast in our previous debates. I will do my best to slow down and speak in a lower tone, as I know that can also help, particularly with certain types of hearing impairment.
To continue the theme of agile regulation, clause 29 enables the Secretary of State to update the NIS regulations through secondary legislation. Clause 30 enables the Secretary of State to impose requirements on regulated entities, which may include directions to take specific actions to increase cyber-resilience, to report on certain matters and to appoint a UK representative if the entity is based outside the UK.
Furthermore, clause 31 specifies that the Secretary of State may direct competent authorities to undertake certain activities, including mandating functions in connection with monitoring and securing compliance with relevant requirements, investigating suspected non-compliance and mitigating the effects of non-compliance on the part of regulated entities. Clauses 32 to 35 provide for the Secretary of State to issue ancillary directions to facilitate information-gathering, investigation and enforcement activities on the part of regulators.
Taken together, the clauses give the Secretary of State a strong suite of powers to respond to emerging cyber-security risks. Again, I recognise the necessity of being able to respond quickly in fast-changing circumstances. However, the Government should clearly be reporting on the Secretary of State’s exercise of the powers at regular intervals to ensure transparency. We will discuss that in due course when we come to clause 40, on the report on network and information systems legislation.
Kanishka Narayan
No.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 29 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 30 to 35 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 36
Code of practice
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kanishka Narayan
Clause 36 sets out that the Secretary of State may issue a code of practice for regulated entities. The code will describe recommended steps to help these entities to comply with their duties and requirements under the NIS regulations and any new regulations made under the Bill. This will make it simpler for regulated persons to understand what is expected of them, thereby driving consistency and complementing sector-specific guidance from regulators.
The clause will also make enforcement clearer and more effective, as regulators must take the code into account when they assess compliance. The code is designed to be flexible: it can be updated as threats and technology change, and can be tailored to different types of organisations, ensuring that guidance is current, relevant and practical for all.
Given the importance of the measure in providing practical recommendations to regulated entities, it must be consulted on before it is prepared or revised, and this process is set out in clause 37. Before the code can be brought into force, a draft must be laid before Parliament, providing ample opportunity to scrutinise and, if necessary, reject it within a 40 day period. If either House objects, the Secretary of State cannot proceed with that version and may prepare a new draft. If the draft is approved by Parliament, the Secretary of State may issue it and must publish it, and it then comes into effect immediately, unless otherwise specified. The clause also clarifies how the 40-day period is calculated, to ensure consistency and transparency in the process.
As we know too well, cyber-threats continue to evolve as new tactics and technologies are deployed, which is why the clause includes a power for the Secretary of State to amend the procedure for issuing the code. The Secretary of State may, for example, wish to add or amend consultation requirements or extend the 40-day period.
Clause 38 establishes how the code of practice will be used and treated in legal and regulatory settings, to ensure it has the intended effect. For regulated persons, the code of practice is intended to be formal guidance, with recommendations on how to comply with their duties, but not to be legally binding itself.
As we know, there can be more than one way for businesses to meet their obligations and ensure that they have in place appropriate and proportionate security and resilience measures. It is therefore important that there is a degree of flexibility in how they do this, to accommodate sector-specific nuances and business needs. None the less, it is crucial that the code has sufficient legal status and that the good practice it contains is not simply ignored. That is why the code can be admissible as evidence in court when deciding whether legal obligations have been met, and why the courts and regulators must consider it as evidence when assessing compliance.
Clause 39 establishes a formal process for the withdrawal of the code of practice, in case that is ever needed.
Dr Spencer
Clause 36 provides that the Secretary of State may issue a code of practice for regulated entities to set out measures that they should take to demonstrate compliance with their duties under the NIS regulations, or any requirements imposed by the Secretary of State under clause 29. If done well, the code could be a repository of best practice, setting proportionate, consistent and effective standards for regulated industries. That will require constructive and open consultation with regulated sectors to identify the challenges facing those sectors and how best to address them.
One issue that came up in oral evidence was the question of the lag between regulation making and industry adoption. David Cook of DLA Piper commented that, after laws come into effect, the process of businesses understanding where they need to get to
“often requires a multi-year programme of reform.”––[Official Report, Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Public Bill Committee, 3 February 2026; c. 5, Q1.]
The code of practice is not envisaged to be legally binding, in the sense that a failure to comply is not of itself evidence of a failure to meet obligations under the NIS regulations or the Bill. However, clause 38 states that it would be admissible as evidence in legal proceedings so, in that sense, the code is binding in all but name. In view of that, and the fact that codes can be revoked and reissued, can the Minister provide reassurance to regulated industries that a lead-in time will be built into any requirements to allow businesses to prepare to achieve full compliance?
Kanishka Narayan
First, to ensure that the shadow Minister and I are representing the intent behind the code clearly, in legal terms it is not the case that an organisation that fails to follow the code of practice is automatically a regulated organisation that has broken the law. Clause 38 makes it clear that not following the code does not by itself constitute a breach of duty or mean that an organisation is automatically liable to legal action. Organisations can take different approaches to complying with security duties, but if they adopt an approach that is not within the code, they may need to explain why their approach still meets the required standards set out in the regulations, and regulators will be required to take the code into account when preparing guidance.
On the shadow Minister’s question about ensuring appropriate timing and preparation for companies, I would very much expect that the regulators in question would be closely regulated entities to ensure the proportionate implementation of codes.
Alison Griffiths
We heard from the Information Systems Audit and Control Association that codes work best when they reflect operational reality. Given their evidential status, can the Minister reassure the Committee that codes will remain practical and iterative and not quietly harden into rigid compliance rules?
Kanishka Narayan
I am very happy to give the broad assurance that we will keep codes under review from time to time, and that any changes to the code will require deep consultation with regulators and businesses to ensure that the codes keep in touch with moving technology.
Dr Spencer
For the sake of clarity on the legal status of the codes, I entirely agree with the Minister that it is important to get this right, and my understanding of codes of practice in a different area—statutory codes of practice relating to the Mental Health Act—is that case law says that deviation from the code of practice should be done only for cogent reasons. That is a pretty high bar to pass in terms of deviations. I should declare an interest as a former consultant psychiatrist and someone who operated subject to that particular code of practice.
For absolute certainty, will the Minister write to the Committee and make the status very clear, along with reference to relevant case law in terms of other codes of practice? Does the clause override that jurisprudence or not? That would settle the question as the Bill goes through Parliament.
The Chair
Order. Interventions are getting a bit out of control again. I remind hon. Members that they should be brief.
Kanishka Narayan
I agree with the shadow Minister. The Bill’s focus is on the assessment of compliance with ultimate security duties. The codes of practice will set out approaches to do so, but they will not be the only approaches. I would be happy to write to the shadow Minister and the Committee on the particular legal interpretation, and any relevant case law that might apply.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 36 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 37 to 39 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 40
Report on network and information systems legislation
David Chadwick (Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe) (LD)
I beg to move amendment 26, in clause 40, page 63, line 7, leave out “5” and insert “3”.
This amendment would increase the frequency of the reports that must be published under Clause 40, from every five years to every three years.
David Chadwick
Amendment 26, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley and Thame, seeks to ensure that the Bill keeps pace with the reality that it seeks to regulate. In the world of cyber-security, five years is a lifetime. In the past five years, the size and scale of cyber-attacks has continued to advance at pace, and we can expect the next five years to be the same. In that context, waiting five years for the first formal parliamentary review of the Bill seems dangerous. It risks leaving us with a regulatory framework designed for the threats of yesterday and not tomorrow. The cyber-threat is real, evolving and urgent.
The NCSC has reported that nationally significant cyber-incidents more than doubled in 2025 alone. That is why the amendment would change the reporting cycle to once every three years. That is a pragmatic timeline, which allows the Government to identify gaps and close them before they are exploited. The EU’s NIS2 directive explicitly mandates a review by the Commission every three years, and it is not clear why the Government have decided to diverge from that standard. Is it because they believe that the cyber-threat here is considerably less than the one facing European member states? It is simply not clear, which adds to the general sense of bewilderment about this provision. If our European neighbours are reviewing their cyber-security approach every three years, why are the UK Government content to wait for five?
Dr Spencer
Clause 40 requires the Secretary of State to publish a report every five years on the operation of the NIS regulations and parts 3 and 4 of the Bill. Reports should include a review of any exercise of powers under parts 3 and 4 by the Secretary of State. Given the wide-ranging powers granted to the Secretary of State under those parts, I have some sympathy for amendment 26, tabled by the hon. Member for Henley and Thame, which seeks to reduce reporting intervals from five years to three.
The shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez), raised this issue on Second Reading. She suggested that annual or biannual reviews might allow for effective parliamentary scrutiny of the NIS regulations and of the Secretary of State’s exercise of powers to respond to emerging threats. In view of the concerns voiced by the hon. Members for Henley and Thame and for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe, and by the shadow ministerial team, will the Minister explain why five-year intervals have been selected and whether the Government will look at this important issue again?
Kanishka Narayan
I thank the hon. Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe for moving amendment 26, in the name of the hon. Member for Henley and Thame. It seeks to reduce the period for publishing a report on the operation of the legislation from at least every five years to at least every three. I reassure him that the Government recognise the importance of regular assessments of the regime to ensure that it is as effective as possible. The legislation sets five years as the minimum period. That is an appropriate and proportionate timeframe in which to meaningfully assess the progress, at a regular frequency, of the entire regime set out in the Bill, following the approach set by existing legislation such as the Online Safety Act 2023.
David Chadwick
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 40 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 41
Regulations under section 24 or Chapter 3
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kanishka Narayan
Clause 41 gives further detail on the sorts of provisions that can be included in regulations made under clause 24 and chapter 3 as a whole. It confirms that regulations can make different provisions for different purposes, different categories of person or different areas; can make provisions for how those regulations apply to the Crown or UK territorial waters; and can include consequential, supplementary, incidental, transitional or saving provisions. The clause also defines how certain terms used in regulations should be interpreted, such as “relevant UK waters” or “primary legislation”. In summary, the clause provides important points of clarification about how the regulation-making powers in the Bill can operate. I propose that clause 41 stand part of the Bill.
Clause 42 sets out the consultation requirements and parliamentary procedure that apply where regulations are used to designate new essential services or regulators, to impose regulatory requirements or change regulator functions, or to amend requirements for the five-yearly legislative review.
Alison Griffiths
These procedures are standard, but the powers they apply to are significant. Where regulations under part 3 would materially expand duties or bring new actors into scope, have the Government considered whether those should receive deeper scrutiny in practice, even if the formal procedure remains the usual one?
Kanishka Narayan
I thank the hon. Member for that important point. The expectation is that the powers used here are scrutinised appropriately. If it helps, I can set out which uses of the power, particularly under clause 42, will trigger consultation requirements and the affirmative procedure, which will perhaps give her the assurance she seeks.
In essence, all changes that may have considerable impact on how the NIS regime operates will be subject to consultation and the affirmative procedure. In practice, this means that regulations concerning the designation of essential services, as well as changes to the duties of regulated entities and functions of regulators, will be subject to both consultation and affirmative procedure requirements.
In each of the cases I mentioned, clause 42 requires the Secretary of State to undertake consultation with appropriate persons before any regulations can be made. It also specifies that regulations of this kind can be approved only through the affirmative parliamentary procedure. These provisions ensure that any substantive regulations made through the Bill’s future-proofing powers will be properly tested. They provide the necessary checks and balances that such wide-ranging powers require, and they will ensure the credibility and legitimacy of future regulations made using these powers. For those reasons, I propose that clause 42 stand part of the Bill.
Dr Spencer
I have two questions for the Minister. Given the impact on devolved legislation, can he confirm that the consultation will extend to devolved authorities should it impact on them? My second question is more generally on the theme of devolved authorities. Can he confirm that, as part of the publicised “reset” negotiations with the European Union, bringing Northern Ireland into scope of NIS2 regulations is totally off the table?
Kanishka Narayan
On the broader point about application to the devolved Administrations, changes in UK legislation may indeed need to be reflected in devolved legislation, such as where it refers to and references the name of UK legislation. In those contexts, it is important that consequential provision can be made to ensure coherence. We will continue to engage with our devolved colleagues on the implementation. I am very happy to write to the hon. Gentleman and the Committee, particularly on the Northern Ireland point.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 41 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 42 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 43
Directions to regulated persons
David Chadwick
I beg to move amendment 27, in clause 43, page 66, line 11, at end insert—
“(fa) a requirement to remove, disable or modify hardware, software or other facilities;”
This amendment would enable the Secretary of State to issue directions to remove, disable or modify hardware, software or other facilities for national security purposes.
David Chadwick
Amendment 27, which I move on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Henley and Thame, would give the Government the ability to remove, disable or modify hardware and software that could be used to infiltrate British national infrastructure, such as the cables underneath the now approved Chinese mega-embassy in Tower Hamlets.
The Prime Minister’s greenlighting of the Chinese super-embassy in the heart of London is a grave mistake that presents an open door for the ramping up of Chinese espionage in our country. It sends a regrettable and shameful message to Hongkongers—many of whom have already been targeted, intimidated and coerced by the Chinese Communist party—that trade deals are being prioritised over their safety. The Government must take a robust stance with hostile states such as China.
Dr Spencer
Clause 43 grants the Secretary of State powers to issue directions to regulate entities where there is a risk to national security, or where an action must be taken in the interests of national security. Directions can include requirements relating to the management of systems, the yielding of information and the removal or modification of goods and services. The Secretary of State may also require a regulated entity to engage the services of a skilled person to comply with directions issued. The Secretary of State has wide discretion to dispense with providing reasons for directions or consulting with the affected parties on the basis of national security considerations.
Clause 44 clarifies that the Secretary of State’s directions under part 4 prevail if there is a conflict between those directions and another statutory requirement. The exercise of these powers by the Secretary of State could have far-reaching consequences for businesses, which may experience interruption to their commercial activities, as well as the potentially considerable time and expense in adhering to a request made on national security grounds.
I have spoken on several occasions in the House and in this Committee about the critical risks posed to our cyber-security and national security by hostile state actors and their affiliates. It is, of course, right that the Secretary of State should have this power, but it should be used only in extremis. Like other extensive powers granted to the Secretary of State under part 3, it must be subject to oversight and guardrails. A report to Parliament, which may well be redacted, on the exercise of functions under part 4 will not be sufficient to ensure that this power is used proportionately. Has the Department considered introducing an obligation for the Secretary of State to report to the Intelligence and Security Committee when she exercises powers under part 4?
We discussed the Chinese super-embassy earlier. Later in the Committee’s proceedings, I will talk about an Opposition new clause that would deal with that problem effectively.
Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)
As the Minister will be aware, I have spoken consistently of my concern about our reliance on hardware and tech that comes from potentially non-favourable state actors abroad. That also relates to Government procurement, which I have raised before, as the Minister will know.
The Committee has already discussed how local government and Government Departments are not covered by this legislation, and how there is a separate strategy and document. Can the Minister expand on how protections against a reliance on foreign tech within critical infrastructure, in either the private or the public sector, are being dealt with in the Bill or in the strategy that has been published for the public sector? How will that be continually reviewed as our global geopolitical situation remains unstable?
Kanishka Narayan
I will start by addressing amendment 27, moved by the hon. Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe, which would add to the non-exhaustive list of requirements that could be included in a national security direction. It specifies that a direction could include requirements to
“remove, disable or modify hardware, software or other facilities”.
I reassure him that the Bill, as currently drafted, allows the Secretary of State to impose those types of requirements. Clause 43(3)(f) specifies that a direction may include
“a requirement relating to removing, disabling or modifying goods or facilities or modifying services”.
That already encompasses the types of requirements specified in amendment 27.
Furthermore, clause 43(3) lists the requirements that may “in particular” be included in a direction. The list is therefore not exhaustive, and for good reason. It is not possible or desirable to specify every action that might be needed to address a national security risk. That would restrict the Government’s potential avenues to address urgent national security threats, and would risk the legislation being too narrow to address novel threats to the UK’s national security.
Dr Spencer
I really do not understand the Minister’s answer. If it has not been published on national security grounds, how will we know that it has been laid? The whole thing could be entirely secret. Surely it has to go to the ISC as an accountability mechanism.
Kanishka Narayan
The Bill currently provides for clear parliamentary scrutiny. The Secretary of State is responsible for coming to Parliament, although some information may not be able to be presented in public. I am happy to write to the shadow Minister about the mechanisms that other similar regimes have used to ensure that Parliament’s scrutiny is informed in those cases, whether in Committee or otherwise. The primary mechanism is the one we use for constant parliamentary scrutiny, and it would be unfair for any of us to suggest that most of those channels would not be appropriate for the sort of scrutiny we are looking at.
Dr Spencer
I think the Minister is saying that there will be a parliamentary scrutiny mechanism under these powers. Is that what he is saying?
Kanishka Narayan
To repeat, exactly as I said: once a direction is issued, it will be laid before Parliament for scrutiny. If there is any misunderstanding, I am happy for the shadow Minister to write to me so that I can confirm it.
Dr Spencer
I really think we should be very critical about this. What we are doing now is parliamentary scrutiny. There will be directions in future, which we expect to be laid, and they will also be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. Even where they are redacted because of national security concerns, somebody, or some mechanism of Parliament, will be able to scrutinise them. Can the Minister confirm that?
Kanishka Narayan
To return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central about the Bill’s provisions, the Bill looks at particular risks posed by hostile states, related actors and a wide range of other actors. Network and information systems for essential services and the identity of risk sources may be one consideration for organisations and regulators as well as the NCSC. The Bill does not look at specific actors but the outcome of the risk. Of course, hostile actors are an important part of that. I am happy to write to my hon. Friend about wider initiatives outside the Bill, particularly in the public sector, which I know is an important concern for her in relation to hostile state actors. There are a range of initiatives that the Government are taking forward in that context.
Clause 43 grants the Secretary of State the power to direct an NIS-regulated entity to take necessary and proportionate actions in response to national security threats. The power can be used where the entity’s network and information systems have been compromised or there is a threat of such compromise. The clause sets out the sorts of action that a direction could require. A direction could, for example, require an energy provider to take action to remove a hostile actor’s presence from their networks, in response to intelligence that a hostile state actor was pre-positioned for an attack.
Cyber-attacks on NIS sectors represent a serious and growing threat to the UK’s national security. High-capability actors and hostile states can mount increasingly targeted and sophisticated attacks. At present, however, the Government lack powers to require regulated entities to take necessary action in response. That gap could be exploited with increasing frequency and impact. The clause will remedy that, ensuring that the Government have the necessary powers to act quickly to protect our national security.
Lincoln Jopp
To take this a little bit beyond the theoretical, is the Minister suggesting that, where it is discovered that, for example, a major offshore wind power generation facility was fitted with remotely triggerable kill switches, triggerable by a foreign state or sub-state actor, the Secretary of State could require that energy company to remove whatever piece of hardware or software was producing that threat?
Kanishka Narayan
I could not judge a specific situation but, broadly speaking, that is the sort of situation, especially if it is an NIS-regulated entity, and in particular where the exercise of the power is focused on the entity’s network and information systems, that I would expect to come in scope of the powers specified here.
Under clause 44, a direction can be issued only when necessary for national security. It is possible that, in some circumstances, what is needed to protect UK national security could conflict with standard regulatory duties. For example, a direction might relate to a particularly sensitive national security risk, where only those involved in addressing the risk should be aware of it. That is to minimise the risk of hostile actors becoming aware of a vulnerability. A direction could therefore require an entity not to report that national security risk for the period in which the risk was being remedied. They may ordinarily have had to report that national security risk to comply with standard reporting requirements. The clause will resolve that conflict and provide certainty to recipients of directions about what they must do to ensure that the national security risks in a direction are addressed.
David Chadwick
Given the reassurances from the Minister, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 43 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 44 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 45
Monitoring by regulatory authorities
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kanishka Narayan
This group of clauses concerns how compliance with national security directions will be monitored. Clause 45 enables the Secretary of State to delegate the task of monitoring compliance with the direction issued under clause 43 to a NIS regulator. Regulators have valuable sectoral expertise and existing relationships with the entities they regulate. As such, it may be effective to delegate monitoring of compliance to the relevant regulator. The Secretary of State will retain the sole ability to make judgments about whether non-compliance has occurred, or if any penalty is appropriate. The regulator would be required to obtain information relating to compliance, to be shared with the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State would then determine how they would like to receive this information—for example, in reports or at regular intervals.
Clause 46 grants information-gathering powers to the Secretary of State and to regulators that are subject to a monitoring direction or request. In order to determine whether an incident or threat meets the bar for issuing a direction, or whether a regulated entity is complying with the direction, the Secretary of State will need information from that entity and potentially other parties. The clause establishes the power for the Secretary of State to request that information. As the monitoring of compliance with the direction may be delegated to NIS regulators, the clause also equips those regulators with the power to request information needed for their monitoring functions.
Clause 47 grants the Secretary of State the power to carry out or delegate inspections needed to assess compliance with a direction, or with a confirmation decision specifying actions to be taken in the event of non-compliance. The Secretary of State is responsible for judging whether a regulated entity is complying with a direction, and therefore needs access to relevant information that the regulated entity holds. In some cases, this may not be possible to verify without physical attendance. To ensure the effective use of time and resources, the Secretary of State will have the power to appoint a person to carry out an inspection on their behalf, or to direct the recipient of a direction to appoint an approved inspector. The clause also grants these powers to regulators, where the regulator has been directed or requested to monitor compliance on behalf of the Secretary of State. This will ensure that they can provide the Secretary of State with the most accurate information. I commend the clauses to the Committee.
Dr Spencer
Clause 45 gives the Secretary of State powers to require regulatory authorities to monitor and report on regulated entities’ compliance with directions given under clause 43 for reasons of national security. Clause 46 provides the Secretary of State with extensive information-gathering powers through the use of information notices to facilitate the giving of directions and monitoring of compliance with directions under clause 45(4). Clause 47 empowers the Secretary of State to conduct inspections to assess whether a regulated entity is complying with directions issued under clause 45(4). The Secretary of State may appoint a third party to conduct the inspection, and require the regulated entity to meet the costs associated with this.
I reiterate the point that these powers are necessary; however, given the potential for significant cost and administrative burden for businesses, they should be subject to contemporaneous or near-contemporaneous oversight by parliamentary authorities, observing the necessary confidentiality protocols. I also make the point that these information-gathering powers apply extraterritorially and may lead to conflict with regulated entities’ data privacy obligations in other jurisdictions. What discussions has the Secretary of State conducted with industry and law enforcement counterparts in other countries about the approach to information sharing for this purpose, and the implications for companies operating services on a cross-border basis?
Kanishka Narayan
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his points about proportionality and scrutiny. I want to give him assurances about that, as I did in our earlier conversation.
On cross-border compliance, the hon. Gentleman rightly points out that relevant information can be requested, regardless of whether it is held the UK. I am very happy to write to him with further detail on our ongoing engagement with counterparts elsewhere. During this process, we have engaged more broadly to understand other regulatory regimes and ensure compliance with them.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 45 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 46 and 47 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 48
Notification of contravention
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kanishka Narayan
This group of clauses concerns the enforcement of directions issued by the Secretary of State. I shall speak to them in turn.
Clause 48 grants the Secretary of State the power to issue a notice of contravention where they believe an entity is failing or has failed to comply with requirements relating to a direction. A regulator that has been tasked with monitoring a regulated entity’s compliance with a direction will also be able to issue a notification of contravention relating to an information notice or inspection issued by the regulator. It would not be appropriate for a regulator to judge compliance with a direction issued under clause 43 or any other requirement imposed by the Secretary of State.
Lincoln Jopp
What happens when the Secretary of State, via his various proxies—the regulator or whomsoever—gives a direction to a company to do something in the interests of national security, and the entity disagrees and says, “That simply won’t work, and it won’t solve the problem that you are seeking to address”?
Kanishka Narayan
I am reluctant to engage in the specifics of incidents without knowing the full range, but I would expect there to be an initial period of engagement to get to a position of agreement. Where the Secretary of State’s directions are not complied with in the context of a disagreement of the sort that the hon. Gentleman points out, penalties for non-compliance will be available to the Secretary of State. They will have to be justified both in the moment and subsequently, in the light of the particular provisions of the Bill.
The clause sets out the circumstances in which the Secretary of State and relevant regulators can issue a notice of contravention and the details that such a notice should contain, including the steps that an entity should take to rectify or remedy an act of non-compliance and the penalties that are being considered. The ability to issue a notice of contravention is an important procedural mechanism. It gives directed entities the opportunity to address non-compliance before penalties are imposed through a final confirmation decision, and increases the likelihood that the requirements of a direction will be met. That is vital, given the national security risks that a direction is intended to address.
Clause 49 empowers the Secretary of State to determine appropriate and proportionate penalties for non-compliance with a direction. It sets an upper threshold on what the penalties can be. For non-compliance with a direction, penalties are fixed at the greater of £17 million or 10% of turnover for undertakings, subject to turnover and undertaking being defined in regulations, and £17 million for non-undertakings. For requirements concerning the provision of information or inspections, the maximum penalty for non-compliance is set at £10 million.
Clause 49 also provides for daily penalties to be issued. These are set at £100,000 a day for non-compliance with a direction and £50,000 a day for related requirements. They will continue in force until the entity has complied with the relevant requirement. A regulator that has been tasked with monitoring a regulated entity’s compliance with a direction will be able to issue penalties for non-compliance with an information notice or inspection issued by the regulator.
These provisions have been designed to reflect the gravity of non-compliance with a national security direction and the necessity of ensuring that directed entities comply with the requirements that directions impose. It is also why the maximum penalties have been set at a significantly higher level than they have for the updated NIS enforcement regulations in clause 21. The better comparison in that context is the penalty threshold for national security powers in the Telecommunications (Security) Act 2021, which align with the provisions in clause 49.
Clause 50 grants the Secretary of State and, where relevant, regulators the power to issue a final confirmation notice for non-compliance with a direction or related requirements. The clause specifies that the Secretary of State or regulator can issue a confirmation notice where they have previously notified an entity of suspected non-compliance, and where they are now satisfied that non-compliance has occurred. The notice of confirmation is the mechanism through which the Secretary of State or regulator can issue their final determination about the actions an entity needs to undertake to correct or remedy a contravention, and the penalties it will need to pay, in accordance with the provisions in clause 49.
A confirmation decision can be issued only after a directed entity has had the opportunity to make representations about an earlier notice of contravention. Once it has been issued, the directed entity must comply with it, and this duty can be enforced through civil proceedings. In short, clause 50 ensures that a direction can be enforced effectively and appropriate action taken to penalise non-compliance.
Clause 51 sets out how penalties will be recoverable across the nations of the UK in the event of non-payment. Clause 52 grants the Secretary of State the power to enforce non-disclosure requirements imposed in relation to the issuing of a direction, notice of contravention or final confirmation notice. Failure to respect these requirements could harm national security, for example by exposing vulnerabilities in the UK’s essential services or the security mitigations being put in place to protect their network and information systems. As a result, it is crucial that the Secretary of State has adequate powers to enforce non-disclosure requirements. Clause 52 largely replicates the enforcement process for non-compliance with other requirements of directions issued by the Secretary of State. The maximum penalties will be £10 million or £50,000 per day.
I ask the Committee to support the clauses in order to enable the effective enforcement of directions issued by the Secretary of State to protect the UK’s national security.
Dr Spencer
Clauses 48 to 52 deal with notifications and financial penalties where a regulated entity is deemed not to be compliant with directions issued by the Secretary of State under part 4. In particular, clause 48 would grant enforcement authorities powers to issue a contravention notice if they believe a person has failed to comply with a requirement under part 4. The notice must set out details of remedial steps to address the failure, as well as the financial penalty that the enforcement authority intends to impose.
Clause 49 would require penalties to be set at a level that is appropriate and proportionate, with the maximum penalty being £17 million or 10% of turnover. A maximum daily penalty of £100,000 applies to ongoing breaches. The maximum fines for failing to comply with an information notice or an inspection would be set at £10 million.
Kanishka Narayan
I have two points to make to the shadow Minister on defining turnover. As he will be well aware, “turnover” is a technical term that is best defined in secondary legislation, to keep up to date with accounting principles that at times vary from sector to sector. He asked for factors that might contribute to definitions. The specific determination of turnover will be set out secondary legislation, but we intend to establish a presumption that only the turnover of the regulated entity that breaches the direction will be considered for determining penalties on this point.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 48 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 49 to 52 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 53
Power to direct regulatory authorities
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider the following:
Clauses 54 to 56 stand part.
Government amendments 23 and 24.
Clauses 57 and 58 stand part.
Kanishka Narayan
This group concerns the power for the Secretary of State to issue directions to the NIS regulators, as well as general provisions relating to the power and the power to direct regulated entities. That includes the procedure for reviewing, varying or revoking directions, the procedure whereby Parliament can scrutinise these directions, how information concerning directions can be shared, the means by which directions can be issued and the clarifications of key terms concerning part 4 of the Bill. I shall speak to each clause in turn.
Clause 53 grants the Secretary of State the power to direct NIS regulators in the exercise of their NIS functions, where it is necessary and proportionate in the interests of national security. The current system requires regulated entities to undertake “appropriate and proportionate” measures to secure themselves against cyber-threats. Regulators issue guidance to their sectors to help them to interpret that duty. However, geopolitical or technological developments could lead to rapid, unexpected increases in the cyber-threat that quickly leave whole sectors vulnerable and create a national security risk.
In such circumstances, it is essential that the Secretary of State can leverage the expertise and powers of NIS regulators to drive the implementation of enhanced security procedures and practices. For example, they may need to direct a regulator to issue an urgent advisory to its sector regarding new cyber-threats or to update guidance on what measures are “appropriate and proportionate” for them to take. This power will not extend to other Government Departments or devolved Governments, for which any actions to mitigate significant national security threats will be agreed through engagement.
Given the changing nature of national security threats, there may be times at which a national security direction needs to be varied or revoked. Clause 54 introduces powers for the Secretary of State to change the content of a direction, or revoke it altogether, where it is necessary and proportionate to do so in the interests of national security. The Secretary of State will be able to vary a direction to add new requirements, or to simplify directions by removing requirements that are no longer needed. To ensure that regulated entities are able to make representations, the Secretary of State is required to consult them before a direction is varied, where practicable. This requirement does not apply if consultation would be detrimental to the interests of national security.
Dr Spencer
Clause 53 would grant the Secretary of State powers to issue directions to regulators where this is necessary for national security reasons, and to allow a reasonable period for the regulator to comply with that direction. Clause 54 provides that directions may be amended or revoked by the Secretary of State. Under clause 55, directions to regulated entities or regulators must be laid before Parliament unless that
“would be contrary to the interests of national security.”
I repeat my earlier question about the ISC’s role regarding scrutiny. Clause 56 would permit the Secretary of State and regulatory authorities to share any information obtained under part 4 with each other and the NCSC. The provision also allows for the sharing of information with other UK or overseas public authorities with equivalent cyber-security or national security functions. Government amendments 23 and 24 seek to amend that clause to provide for directions and notices issued under this part to be sent by email to relevant persons who provided those contact details to regulatory authorities.
Some reassurance on the extent of information sharing for businesses is delivered through provisions specifying that disclosures of information should be limited to that which is relevant and proportionate. However, those are high-level and subjective terms, open to interpretation by the authority sharing the information. Can the Minister provide any update on the development of protocols between authorities to ensure that information shared is limited to that which is necessary for effective oversight and enforcement in relation to national security risks?
Kanishka Narayan
On the shadow Minister’s first point, I repeat what I said earlier and, of course, acknowledge his concern. I assure him that, while a direction can only be issued out of necessity for national security, it does not follow that public knowledge of that direction or its contents would compromise national security. I would expect a pretty extensive scope of such directions and, therefore, an appropriate channel of scrutiny in Parliament.
On his question of protocols to ensure information shared is not just proportionate in general, but specific to the purpose of national security specified, I am happy to give him the assurance that the Bill contains it and that, in the process of working out implementation, we will make sure that regulators are focused on developing those protocols.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 53 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 54 to 56 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 57
Means of giving directions and notices
Amendments made: 23, in clause 57, page 83, line 8, at end insert—
“(za) an email address provided to a regulatory authority as an address for contacting that person,”
This amendment would ensure that a direction or notice can be given to a person using an email address which has been provided to a regulatory authority as a contact email address.
Amendment 24, in clause 57, page 83, line 11, leave out
“there is no such published address”
and insert—
“no email address has been so provided or published”.—(Kanishka Narayan.)
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 23.
Clause 57, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 58 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 59
Extent
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kanishka Narayan
I will speak to clauses 59, 60 and 61 in turn. Clause 59 clarifies that the Bill’s provisions apply to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. That is consistent with the Network and Information Systems Regulations 2018.
Effective implementation is key to a successful regime. Clause 60 outlines the phased commencement timings of the provisions, ensuring that they commence at an appropriate time. Some of the provisions will commence upon Royal Assent, or two months after Royal Assent, allowing the Government to begin implementing the regime without delay. That includes powers for the Secretary of State to lay important secondary legislation required to operationalise some measures in the Bill upon Royal Assent, and the power to publish a statement of strategic priorities at month two. All remaining measures will be brought into force via regulations, allowing the Secretary of State to sequence implementation in a way that is practical and proportionate, allowing for transitional arrangements and business adjustments. That also allows sufficient time for the implementing regulations to be made and scrutinised, and is required to make operational and implement the new, stronger framework.
Clause 61 clarifies that the Bill can be referred to as the Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Act 2026 once passed.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 59 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 60 and 61 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
New Clause 2
Register of foreign powers for the purposes of Part 4
“(1) For the purposes of informing action taken under Part 4 of this Act, the Secretary of State must, by regulations, establish and maintain a register of foreign powers that the Secretary of State believes present a risk to the United Kingdom’s critical network and information systems within six months of the passing of this Act.
(2) Foreign powers designated by the Secretary of State under subsection (1) must include states –
(a) which have been confirmed by GCHQ as having—
(i) perpetrated, or attempted to perpetrate, a cyber-attack in the UK in the preceding seven years,
(ii) targeted, or intended to target, that attack at the network or information systems of one or more operators of an essential service or critical suppliers, or
(iii) carried out, or intended to carry out, that attack through a state department, agency or affiliate group,
(b) which GCHQ has warned pose a risk to the security or resilience of the network or information systems of one or more operators of an essential service or critical suppliers.
(3) Regulations under this section are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.
(4) In this section, “foreign power" means–
(a) the sovereign or other head of a foreign state in their public capacity;
(b) a foreign government, or part of a foreign government;
(c) an agency or authority of a foreign government, or of part of a foreign government;
(d) an authority responsible for administering the affairs of an area within a foreign country or territory, or persons exercising the functions of such an authority; or
(e) a political party which is a governing political party of a foreign government. A political party is a governing political party of a foreign government if persons holding political or official posts in the foreign government or part of the foreign government—
(i) hold those posts as a result of, or in the course of, their membership of the party, or
(ii) in exercising the functions of those posts, are subject to the direction or control of, or significantly influenced by, the party.”
This new clause would require the Government to maintain a register of state actors posing a threat to UK cyber security for the purposes of exercising the Secretary of State’s powers under Part 4 of the Act, which enable the giving of directions in the interests of national security.—(Dr Spencer.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 3—Register of foreign powers for the purposes of Part 4: review of nature of risk—
“(1) For each foreign power added to the register established under section [Register of foreign powers for the purposes of Part 4], the Secretary of State must review the extent and nature of the risk posed to the network and information systems of operators of essential services and critical suppliers, including whether the risk arises –
(a) from activities undertaken outside of the UK, or
(b) from foreign owned or controlled infrastructure or locations within the UK.
(2) Within six months of the establishment of the register under section [Register of foreign powers for the purposes of Part 4(1)], the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a report containing –
(a) the findings and conclusions of the review conducted under subsection (1), and
(b) the Government’s plan for addressing the risks identified.
(3) If the Secretary of State considers that laying a report, or any portion of a report, under subsection (2) would be contrary to the interests of national security, the Secretary of State must make a statement to Parliament confirming that –
(a) a review has been conducted under subsection (1), and
(b) that the report, or a portion of the report, cannot be laid before Parliament for reasons of national security.”
This new clause would require the Government to report on the risk to relevant network and information systems posed by foreign powers appearing on the register established by NC2 considering whether such risks arise from extra-territorial activities and infrastructure or premises owned or controlled by foreign powers.
New clause 13—Statement on risks posed to systems by foreign interference—
“(1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the passing of this Act, publish a statement of the Government’s plans in relation to risks to the security and resilience of network and information systems arising from foreign interference.
(2) Any statement under this section must—
(a) set out the Government’s intentions to assess, manage and mitigate the risks posed, or which could potentially be posed, to the security and resilience of network and information systems by foreign interference in such systems;
(b) include risks associated with—
(i) hardware,
(ii) software,
(iii) supply chains,
(iv) procurement processes, and
(v) the use of, or reliance on, foreign technologies or systems;
(c) include a specific focus on government digital procurement processes.
(d) where risks are identified under (2)(b)(v), state whether the Government intends to address these risks by encouraging or supporting the use of domestic technologies or systems.”
This new clause would require the Government to publish a statement of how it intends to address and mitigate any risks to network and information systems posed by foreign interference.
New clause 15—Review of high-risk bodies—
“(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the passing of this Act, publish and lay before Parliament a review of the national security risks posed to relevant network and information systems by foreign state ownership or control of relevant bodies.
(2) A review under this section must assess—
(a) the number of relevant bodies which are owned, in whole or in part, by a foreign state or a foreign state-owned enterprise;
(b) the risk of such bodies being compelled to facilitate unauthorised access to, or surveillance of, network and information systems in the United Kingdom; and
(c) the adequacy of current powers under Part 4 (Directions for national security purposes) to mitigate such risks posed to the security and resilience of essential activities.
(3) In this section—
“relevant body” means—
(a) an operator of an essential service,
(b) a relevant digital service provider,
(c) a relevant managed service provider, or
(d) a critical supplier
within the meaning of the NIS Regulations.
“foreign state-owned enterprise” means a body corporate in which a foreign state has a controlling interest;
“network and information systems” has the meaning given by section 24(1).”
This new clause would require the Government to review the security risks posed by critical suppliers and essential service providers linked to foreign states and evaluate whether current powers are sufficient to address these threats.
Dr Spencer
New clause 2 contains an obligation for the Secretary of State to establish and maintain by regulation a list of foreign powers presenting a significant cyber-security risk to the UK. The list must include states that have been confirmed by GCHQ as having perpetrated a cyber-attack, whether by a state department, agency or affiliate, on the UK in the preceding seven years. It must also include foreign powers that GCHQ has warned pose a risk to the security or resilience of the network or information systems of one or more operators of an essential service or critical suppliers.
New clause 3 would compel the Secretary of State to review and report to Parliament on the risk to networks and information systems posed by foreign powers appearing on the register under new clause 2, with specific regard to activities undertaken from abroad and the risk posed by locations or premises controlled by those states in the United Kingdom. New clauses 13 and 15, in the name of the hon. Member for Henley and Thame, look as if they have been tabled in the same spirit of genuine concern about the risk of foreign hostile state interference and control in critical systems and supply chains.
There is an established precedent in UK legislation for maintaining registers or lists of hostile state actors and other entities presenting a threat to our national security for use by Government. That includes the foreign influence registration scheme under the National Security Act 2023, which came into effect last year. Russia and Iran were placed on an enhanced tier of the scheme, which applies to foreign powers considered to pose a risk to the UK’s safety or interests. The Government said that that was in response to those countries being identified as presenting an elevated national security risk. China was conspicuous by its absence, despite the director of GCHQ having confirmed in 2024 that her organisation devotes more resource to China than to any other single mission.
Chris Vince
The shadow Minister will forgive me for taking the opportunity to defend the Government and the Prime Minister; I was not expecting to do that in this Committee this week. I reassure Members across the House that this Prime Minister and Government put national security first. The shadow Minister will know that intelligence agencies have been consulted about the relocation of the Chinese embassy. He will also be aware that the proposed new site at Royal Mint Court is actually further away from this place than the current site.
Dr Spencer
Frankly, I find it astounding that, according to my understanding, in response to the planning decision being granted our security services said that they would take measures to start moving sensitive digital cables. It strikes me that a decision about sensitive digital cables should have been pertinent to the planning application in the first place.
The Government remain reluctant to name China as a threat to UK national security, despite the overwhelming and growing portfolio of evidence. In case the Government are still in any doubt, we need look only at the oral testimony given to this Committee by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China for a clear picture of the role of China and its state affiliates at the forefront of the cyber-security threats to our critical sectors.
Given that established and growing threat, new clause 3 would compel the Secretary of State to review, among other matters, the cyber-security risk to surrounding critical networks in the vicinity of the super-embassy site in the City of London. In the Commons debate on the embassy application in June last year, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) reminded the Minister for Housing and Planning that the Government’s own cyber-security experts, Innovate UK, have warned about the threat to the City of London from the embassy. My hon. Friend made specific reference to the Wapping telephone and internet exchange that would be surrounded on three sides by this new embassy—not to mention the fibre cables I referred to earlier, which carry highly sensitive information and run beneath this site.
Chris Vince
I recognise that the shadow Minister cares passionately about the security of this country—as do I, which is why we are discussing the Bill. But does he not recognise that the site was purchased by the Chinese Government in 2018? There is a potential threat whether or not the new embassy is built there.
Dr Spencer
I do not want to repeat the discussion that we had a moment ago. I think it is complete lunacy to permit the building of a super-embassy—one of the biggest in the region—next to highly critical data transmission. I am also concerned by media reports that the Prime Minister’s recent visit to China was greenlighted only following the final approval of the embassy. I am deeply depressed that, following the visit, Jimmy Lai has been effectively sentenced for life. I respect the tone and constructive way in which the hon. Member for Harlow approaches this debate, but it is fair to say that the Government are sadly weak on standing up to hostile state actors such as the Chinese Communist party.
As I said at the start, there is simply no point in granting the Secretary of State powers to issue directions on the basis of national security if the Government are not willing to be clear-eyed about the most critical cyber-security risks to the nation. I therefore submit that the new clauses are a vital addition to the Bill to focus the attentions of the Secretary of State to ensure that her functions under part 4 are carried out in the best interests of our national security. No responsible Government would or should vote against such provisions. Parliament should make it crystal clear that the Chinese Communist party is a threat to the United Kingdom. We must support new clauses 2 and 3.
Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.— (Taiwo Owatemi.)
Railways Bill (Fourteenth sitting)
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 0 / Noes: 0 - Smith, Sarah
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 0 / Noes: 0 - Smith, Sarah
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 0 / Noes: 0 - Smith, Sarah
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 0 / Noes: 0 - Smith, Sarah
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 0 / Noes: 0 - Smith, Sarah
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 0 / Noes: 0 - Smith, Sarah
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 0 / Noes: 0 - Smith, Sarah
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 0 / Noes: 0 - Smith, Sarah
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 1 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendments 187 to 199.
Schedule 3.
Clause 88 stand part.
Keir Mather
Clause 87 points towards schedule 3, which contains minor and consequential amendments arising from the Bill. The Bill has broadened its scope, and much of the related previous legislation will need altering slightly. These minor and consequential amendments allow for the necessary changes and updates to be made, and will help propel the Bill forward. I therefore commend the clause and schedule 3 to the Committee.
Amendments 188, 191 to 193 and 196 to 199 in my name are consequential amendments to the Railways Act 1993, the Railways Act 2005 and the Greater London Authority Act 1999 that reflect the removal of franchising. The new provisions about railway passenger services and the creation of GBR. For example, it was necessary to make some amendments to the closures regime in the 2005 Act as it was aligned with the franchising system in the 1993 Act, whereas we now need it to align with the Bill. Importantly, there is no change to the outcome to the closures process, and the role of the ORR and Ministers is not changing.
Amendment 190 ensures that documents sent in accordance with the Railways Act 1993 and the Bill can be sent electronically. It is a common and standard amendment to reflect technological developments. Amendments 187, 189, 194 and 195 remove provisions that are no longer necessary.
The last thing I will address in this group is clause 88, which I commend to the Committee. It will give the Secretary of State powers to make amendments that are consequential to the Bill. That will ensure that the statute book is tidy and appropriately reflects the changes the Bill makes. I stress that this power cannot be used to make policy changes and is intended only to ensure that the outcomes of the Bill are not hindered or confused by existing legislation that should have been consequentially amended.
Keir Mather
I thank the shadow Minister for that.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 87 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 3
Minor and consequential amendments
Amendments made: 186, in schedule 3, page 70, line 27, at end insert—
“7A In section 18, omit subsection (6A).”
This amendment removes provision about franchised and operator of last resort services, which will no longer be necessary.
Amendment 187, in schedule 3, page 70, line 28, at end insert—
“8A In section 22(1), omit ‘or Schedule 4A to this Act’.
8B In section 22C(2), for ‘, subsection (1) above or Schedule 4A to this Act’ substitute ‘or subsection (1) above’.”
This amendment removes provision referring to Schedule 4A to the Railways Act 1993, in consequence of the repeal of that Schedule by the Bill.
Amendment188, in schedule 3, page 72, line 28, at end insert—
22A “(1) Section 130 is amended as follows.
(2) In subsections (1ZA) and (1ZB), omit ‘under Welsh franchise agreements’.
(3) In subsection (1ZC)(a)(ii), omit ‘under a Welsh franchise agreement’.
(4) In subsection (1A), for paragraphs (a) and (b) substitute—
‘(a) a Scotland-only service; or
(b) any other railway passenger service provided or secured to any extent by the Scottish Ministers.’.”
This amendment makes changes to the penalty fare provisions of the Railways Act 1993 that reflect the way passenger services will be provided under Part 2 of the Bill.
Amendment 189, in schedule 3, page 72, line 34, at end insert—“23A Omit section 136.”
This amendment repeals section 136 of the Railways Act 1993, which is no longer necessary.
Amendment 190, in schedule 3, page 73, line 12, at end insert—
“24A (1) Section 149 is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1)—
(a) after ‘this Act’ insert ‘or the Railways Act 2026’,
(b) after paragraph (a) insert—
‘(aa) by sending it to the person by agreed electronic means (for example, by email to an agreed address); or’, and
(c) in paragraphs (b) and (c), after ‘paragraph (a)’ insert ‘or (aa)’.
(3) After that subsection insert—
‘(1A) Subsection (1)(aa) does not apply in relation to a document required or authorised by virtue of sections 118 to 120 or 149A to be given or served by the Secretary of State to or on any person.’
(4) After subsection (3) insert—
‘(3A) A notice sent to a person by electronic means is, unless the contrary is proved, to be treated as having been given on the working day immediately following the day on which it was sent.’
(5) At the end of subsection (5) insert—
‘“working day” means any day other than—
(a) a Saturday or a Sunday,
(b) Christmas Day or Good Friday; or
(c) a day which is a bank holiday under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 in any part of the United Kingdom.’”
This amendment allows for the electronic service of documents under the Railways Act 1993 and the Bill.
Amendment 191, in schedule 3, page 73, line 13, at end insert—
“25A (1) Schedule 6 is amended as follows.
(2) Omit paragraph 1(aa).
(3) In paragraphs 3, 7(2) and (4), 8, 9 and 10(5), for ‘appropriate national authority’, in each place it occurs, substitute ‘Secretary of State’.
25B In paragraph 1(1) of Schedule 11, in the definition of ‘eligible person’, in paragraph (a)(ii) for the words from ‘or a body’ to ‘agreement’ substitute ‘, Great British Railways or a subsidiary of Great British Railways’.”
This amendment makes consequential amendments of the provision about railway administration orders and provides for employees of Great British Railways and its subsidiaries to be eligible persons for the purposes of pension schemes.
Amendment 192, in schedule 3, page 73, line 34, at end insert—
“27A (1) Section 163 is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (4A)—
(a) for ‘Network Rail Limited’, in each place it occurs, substitute ‘Great British Railways’;
(b) for ‘Network Rail’, in both places it occurs, substitute ‘Great British Railways’.
(3) In subsection (8)—
(a) in the definition of ‘land used by Network Rail’, for ‘Network Rail’, in each place it occurs, substitute ‘Great British Railways’;
(b) omit the definition of ‘Network Rail’.”
This amendment amends provisions of the Greater London Authority Act 1999 to reflect the new role of GBR.
Amendment 193, in schedule 3, page 73, line 36, leave out from “(1)(a)(ii)” to the end and insert
“for ‘franchise agreements,’ substitute ‘a public service contract awarded as mentioned in section 31(2) of the Railways Act 2026,’”.
This amendment provides for the duty to co-operate for the purpose of co-ordinating public transport for travel to and in Greater London to apply in relation to services provided under a public service contract awarded under clause 31(2).
Amendment 194, in schedule 3, page 74, line 2, at end insert—“29A Omit section 205.”
This amendment repeals a spent provision of the Greater London Authority Act 1999 relating to franchise agreements.
Amendment 195, in schedule 3, page 74, line 8, at end insert—
“32A Omit sections 3 and 4.”
This amendment repeals provisions of the Railways Act 2005, which are no longer required due to the provision made by this Bill.
Amendment 196, in schedule 3, page 74, line 11, at end insert—
“33A In section 6, omit subsections (5), (6) and (8).
33B (1) Section 8 is amended as follows.
(2) Omit subsections (1), (7) and (8).
(3) In subsection (2) omit—
(a) ‘also’; and
(b) ‘otherwise than under franchise agreements’.
(4) In subsection (5), omit ‘(1) or’.
(5) In the heading, omit ‘Franchising and’.
33C (1) Section 10 is amended as follows.
(2) Omit subsections (1), (3), (6), (10) and (11).
(3) In subsection (4) omit—
(a) ‘also’; and
(b) ‘otherwise than under franchise agreements’.
(4) In subsection (8), omit ‘(3) or’.
(5) In the heading, omit ‘Franchising and’.”
This amendment and amendments 197 and 198 amend provisions of the Railways Act 2005 to account for changes made by this Bill, in particular the ending of the franchise system.
Amendment 197, in schedule 3, page 74, line 12, at end insert—
“34A Omit section 16.
34B Omit section 18.
34C Omit section 20.
34D (1) Section 22 is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1)(a), for the words from ‘in’ to the end substitute ‘under section 31 of the Railways Act 2026;’.
(3) Omit subsection (10).
(4) In the heading, omit ‘non-franchised’.
34E (1) Section 23 is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1)(a), for the words from ‘in’ to the end substitute ‘under section 31 of the Railways Act 2026;’.
(3) Omit subsection (8).
(4) In the heading, omit ‘non-franchised’.
34F (1) Section 24 is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (2)(a), for ‘a franchised service’, substitute ‘a service provided under section 31 of the Railways Act 2026’.
(3) In subsection (7), omit ‘franchise agreement or any other’.
(4) For subsection (9) substitute—
‘(9) The duty of the national authority under subsection (8) is discharged without its taking further steps so long as the provisions of any arrangements, in force at the time of the proposal, so far as they require the provision of the services, continue in force without modification.’
(5) In the heading, omit ‘franchised or’.
34G In section 32(12)—
(a) omit ‘franchise agreement or other’;
(b) in paragraph (a), omit ‘franchised service or’;
(c) in the words after paragraph (b), omit ‘agreement or’.
34H In section 34(2B), omit ‘under a Welsh franchise agreement’.
34I In section 35(6C), omit ‘under a Welsh franchise agreement’.
34J For section 36(7) substitute—
‘(7) Where a service is designated as experimental or its designation is extended, the person designating must give notice of the designation or extension to the person who is to provide the service.’
34K (1) Section 37 is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1)(a), for ‘a franchise agreement under which’ substitute ‘arrangements under which it is required that’.
(3) In subsection (2)(a), for ‘a franchise agreement’ substitute ‘arrangements of the type mentioned in subsection (1)(a)’.
34L In section 38(2A), omit ‘under a Welsh franchise agreement’.
34M In section 39, omit subsections (1) to (3).
34N (1) Section 40 is amended as follows.
(2) For subsections (4) and (5) substitute—
‘(4) For the purposes of this section the appropriate national authority is—
(a) in a case where the railway passenger service that is interrupted or discontinued is a service which may be designated under section 25 of the Railways Act 2026, the Secretary of State;
(b) in a case where the railway passenger service that is interrupted or discontinued is a service which may be designated under section 26 of that Act, the Scottish Ministers;
(c) in a case where the railway passenger service that is interrupted or discontinued is a service which may be designated under section 27 of that Act, the Welsh Ministers,
and where in any case there is more than one appropriate national authority they shall each have the powers conferred by this section.’
34P (1) Section 41 is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (2), after ‘Passenger Transport Executive,’ insert ‘a mayoral combined authority, a mayoral combined county authority,’.
(3) In subsection (4), in both places it occurs, after ‘Passenger Transport Executive’, insert ‘, mayoral combined authority or mayoral combined county authority’.
34Q In section 42(1B), omit ‘under a Welsh franchise agreement’.
34R (1) Section 45 is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1)—
(a) at the appropriate place, insert—
‘“mayoral combined authority” and “mayoral combined county authority” have the same meanings as in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026;’
(b) in the definition of ‘railway funding authority’, after paragraph (d) insert—
‘(da) a mayoral combined authority;
(db) a mayoral combined county authority;’;
(c) in the definition of ‘secured service’ omit paragraph (a).
(3) In subsection (5A) omit ‘under a Welsh franchise agreement’.
(4) In subsection (8), at the end insert ‘or in an Act or a Measure of Senedd Cymru’.”
See the explanatory statement for amendment 196.
Amendment 198, in schedule 3, page 74, line 13, at end insert—
“35A For section 48(4) substitute—
‘(4) In this section “relevant Scottish service” means—
(a) a Scotland-only service;
(b) a railway passenger service that is provided to any extent under section 31(3) of the Railways Act 2026; or
(c) a station service provided in relation to a station in Scotland at which services falling within paragraph (a) or (b) make a scheduled call.’
35B For section 48A(4) substitute—
‘(4) In this section “relevant Welsh service” means—
(a) a railway passenger service that is provided to any extent under section 31(4) of the Railways Act 2026; or
(b) a station service provided in relation to a station at which only services falling within paragraph (a) make a scheduled call.’”
See the explanatory statement for amendment 196.
Amendment 199, in schedule 3, page 74, line 14, at end insert—
“36A Omit Schedule 4.
36B In paragraph 3(2) of Schedule 7, after paragraph (e) insert—
‘(ea) if the proposal affects its area, a mayoral combined authority;
(eb) if the proposal affects its area, a mayoral combined county authority;’”—(Keir Mather.)
This amendment amends the Railways Act 2005 to make consequential provision related to the functioning of GBR.
Schedule 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 88 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 89
Regulations
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendment 200.
Clauses 90 to 93 stand part.
Keir Mather
Clause 89 provides clarity on the regulations that may be made under the powers granted by this Bill by listing the procedures that will apply to them.
Amendment 200, in my name, provides a definition of passenger transport executive for an integrated transport area. This is required in the Bill, as provisions elsewhere repeal a definition included in the 1993 Act that could otherwise have been relied on.
Passenger transport executives were established by the Transport Act 1968 to provide and coordinate public transport across modes in major urban areas. The evolving landscape of devolution has seen some authorities choose to absorb passenger transport executive functions into their mayoral combined authorities. However, the Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region and North East combined authorities have chosen to retain separate passenger transport executives to deliver transport functions. This is a technical amendment, consistent with existing policy. It provides certainty for areas in England that still operate passenger transport executives, and supports wider Government commitments to close collaboration with local partners. I encourage Members to support it.
I will now address clauses 90, 91, 92 and 93. Clause 90 provides definitions and explanations of the words and phrases used in the Bill. Clause 91 sets out that the Bill extends to England, Wales and Scotland, and that clause 86, on the Luxembourg protocol, also extends to Northern Ireland. Clause 92 sets out the details of when a number of clauses will come into effect; clauses 85, 86, 88 to 91, 92 and 93 will all come into force on the day that the Bill receives Royal Assent, while the remaining provisions will come into force on the day, or days, set by the Secretary of State in regulations. Clause 93 sets out that this Bill, once it has become an Act, can be known as the Railways Act 2026.
For the very final time, I commend the clauses to the Committee.
Jerome Mayhew
Before I respond to that, Mr Western, is this my last opportunity to speak in the Committee?
Jerome Mayhew
In that case, these are all straightforward ancillary parts to the Bill, and I have no comments to make.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 89 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 90
General interpretation
Amendments made: 200, in clause 90, page 53, line 12, at end insert—
“‘Passenger Transport Executive for an integrated transport area’ means a body which is the Passenger Transport Executive for an integrated transport area for the purposes of Part 2 of the Transport Act 1968;”
This amendment defines Passenger transport executive for an integrated transport area for the purposes of the Bill.
Amendment 263, in clause 90, page 53, line 31, at end insert
“, except in relation to the expression ‘wholly owned by the Crown’ (as to which see section 151(2) of the Railways Act 1993)”.—(Keir Mather.)
This amendment provides for the meaning in the Bill of “wholly owned by the Crown” to be that given by section 151(2) of the Railways Act 1993.
Clause 90, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 91
Extent
Amendments made: 201, in clause 91, page 53, line 32, at end insert—
“(A1) This Act extends to England and Wales and Scotland only, subject to subsections (A2) to (1).
(A2) Section 86 and this Part extend also to Northern Ireland.
(A3) His Majesty may by Order in Council provide for any of the provisions of section 86 and this Part, or any regulations under that section (whether made before or after the making of the Order in Council), to extend with or without modifications to the Isle of Man.
(A4) The power under subsection (A3), so far as relating to regulations, includes power to provide for the regulations as amended from time to time to extend as mentioned in that subsection.”
This amendment allows clause 86 and regulations under it to be extended to the Isle of Man by Order in Council.
Amendment 202, in clause 91, page 53, line 35, leave out subsection (2).—(Keir Mather.)
This amendment is consequential on amendment 201.
Clause 91, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 92 and 93 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill, as amended, to the House.
Jerome Mayhew
I am not going to suggest that we do not progress the Bill to its next stage, because I am not sure I would win that vote, but I want to take this opportunity to thank the Minister for the constructive approach that he has taken to addressing the various amendments and new clauses that the Opposition and the Liberal Democrats—I hope I can speak for them, too—have tabled. I am surprised that he did not adopt a single one of them, but he dealt with them in an unfailingly courteous and thoughtful manner, and I am very grateful to him.
I am also grateful to the Chairs—including you, Mr Western—for agreeing to hold the ring, and to the Clerks, who have done an excellent job helping us to navigate a process that, for me, anyway, is just as complex and confusing at the end of the Committee’s proceedings as it was at the beginning. That must make me a very slow learner.
Finally, I am grateful to all the Committee members, particularly those on the Government Benches. Having sat there myself for what felt like years, I know that it is deeply frustrating to be told by the Whips not even to intervene, let alone make a speech, while the shadow Minister expands at length. There are reasons why we do it, and I hope that those Government Members who have been on this side of Committees will remember them, but I am very grateful for the patience that they have shown me and for the work that they have done with the Committee as a whole.
With that, I am happy for the Bill to progress to the next stage.
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western, during the final hour of this Bill Committee. May I briefly associate myself with the remarks of the shadow Minister? I thank everybody for their courteous and warm-spirited approach to proceedings, and I thank all the Chairs and the Public Bill Office for all their assistance.
Keir Mather
May I begin by thanking everyone personally for the way that they have conducted themselves and approached the Bill? As a relatively new Minister taking on my first major piece of legislation, I have appreciated enormously the constructive approach of Members across the Committee. I want to read into the record my personal thanks, in particular, to those on the Government Benches: my hon. Friends the Members for Beckenham and Penge, for Bexleyheath and Crayford, for South Dorset, for Truro and Falmouth, for Wrexham, for Derby South, for Hyndburn and for Birmingham Northfield, as well as the Comptroller of His Majesty’s Household, my hon. Friend the Member for Barking, and the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South.
I extend my thanks to the shadow Minister, who has worked assiduously to bring forward a number of constructive proposals, which, by virtue of us having had the opportunity debate them at length, I think have teased out interesting questions about how the Bill will progress, provided an important buttress against pre-conceived notions and allowed us to explore some of the issues in depth. I thank him for the constructive way in which he has engaged in the process.
Although he is not in his place, I thank the right hon. Member for Melton and Syston, who approached the Committee in his good-natured way, and I thank the hon. Member for South West Devon, who made many valid and respected contributions. The hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage certainly kept me on my toes on all aspects of railway nerdery—buttressed by his hon. Friend the hon. Member for West Dorset—and I thank him for it. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight East was characteristically forensic in his scrutiny of specific aspects of the Bill, and I thank him for his hard work.
May I also thank my Bill team, who have done an incredible amount of hard work over many months, predating my occupancy of this role, to make this piece of legislation possible? It is enormously appreciated. I thank all the Doorkeepers for facilitating our Divisions and keeping us safe; the Clerks for their assiduous work; and all the Chairs who have been in charge of our proceedings.
It falls to me finally to say that regardless of individual Members’ perspectives on the merits and demerits of certain aspects of the Bill, it is one of the most consequential pieces of railways legislation that have come before this House in the last century. I am very proud to have been a part of it, and I have enjoyed it very much because of the contributions of everyone in this room. Thank you, all.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill, as amended, accordingly to be reported.
Westminster Hall
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Independent Water Commission: Final Report
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Independent Water Commission Final Report.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate, and my co-sponsors across the House and the all-party parliamentary group on water pollution, of which I am an officer, for their support in securing this important debate. West Dorset is home to the world-famous Jurassic coast, a UNESCO world heritage site, as well as three of Britain’s unique chalk streams. Few issues matter more to me or the people of West Dorset than the state of our water.
This debate was originally intended to take place before the publication of the Government’s water White Paper, so that Parliament could scrutinise the findings of the Independent Water Commission and assess what steps the Government intended to take in response. Instead, we find ourselves in a position where we are able to examine the commission’s final report and the White Paper together to see where they align, diverge and, most importantly, fall short of what the public expect, and to see the scale of the crisis that the response demands.
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
If people in Torbay check the Surfers Against Sewage app today as I did, they will see that eight sites are monitored where there could be overflows of sewage. Six overflows have occurred so far this year at six of those sites, with two ongoing. We have also suffered a cryptosporidium outbreak in the past 18 months. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to stop tinkering with the system and have systemic reform to tackle such challenges?
Edward Morello
During my speech, I will outline some such recommendations. This is a good opportunity to thank Surfers Against Sewage for all its hard work. Like my hon. Friend, I use the app regularly before deciding whether to swim at my favourite beaches.
It is an understatement to say that the public’s confidence in the water sector has been damaged; it has been eroded by years of sewage pollution, repeated flooding, poor decision making, too little regulation, scattered legislation and a business model that has too often rewarded failure. This debate is more important than ever in the light of recent flooding, not just in West Dorset but across the south-west and the country as a whole.
Following Storm Chandra, communities again saw the devastating consequence of a system that has reached breaking point and that can react only after failure, rather than preventing it in the first place. Emergency services, whom I pay tribute to, have done an outstanding job, but residents were left dealing with sewage in their homes, damaged property and uncertainty about when it will happen again. In West Dorset alone, 84 homes in Yetminster experienced raw sewage flooding their properties. In Maiden Newton, one family has been flooded repeatedly since 2024, including just days after finally returning home following 15 months of repairs after the previous flood.
As the climate continues to change and extreme weather events become more frequent, that will only become a more common occurrence. Our infrastructure must become more resilient to deal with today’s problems and tomorrow’s.
Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)
As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am chair of the APPG for sustainable flood and drought management, and of the all-party parliamentary water group. On the White Paper, there is 25-year strategic planning, which is absolutely brilliant; regional knowledge and tactical interventions, which are absolutely brilliant; putting engineering capability at the heart of that strategic decision making; and a regulator that brings the economy and the environment together as one for the first time, which I think is important. Does he agree, however, that this is an opportunity to ensure that we do not miss out the maintenance of existing assets, as well as putting new ones in the ground with the extreme amount of investment that will go in over the next five, 10, 15 or 20 years? Does he also agree that we therefore need some sort of resilience standards to provide knowledge for the people applying such investment in the future?
Edward Morello
We as the Liberal Democrats always try to be a constructive Opposition, so I absolutely will identify where the White Paper makes steps in the right direction. I hope that the hon. Member will agree with some of our recommendations for where it can be improved.
The Independent Water Commission’s final report was a major and long-awaited milestone. It reflected unprecedented public engagement with more than 30,000 submissions from a public who are angry, frustrated and rightly demanding change. The report contains important proposals embedding public health into law, improving regional planning, strengthening monitoring, and replacing Ofwat with a new, integrated regulator. Those are steps in the right direction.
I want to put on record my thanks to the commissioners and the countless campaigners and volunteers, such as the River Lim Action group, Surfers Against Sewage and River Action, who have fought for cleaner rivers and seas for years. The report exists because of their continued pressure.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
My hon. Friend mentions the River Lim Action group that works on the boundary between his West Dorset constituency and mine. The group has identified that the sewage treatment works at Uplyme cannot cope with the amount of sewage that occurs during high rainfall. Does he agree that South West Water needs to put in more storage for sewage during periods of heavy rain?
Edward Morello
My hon. Friend works tirelessly on River Lim issues. I agree there are essential works throughout the system that need to be done if we are to reduce sewage release, but we need to do them in a way that does not pass the cost on to residents and consumers.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Member on securing the debate. He itemised those that do an excellent job, such as Surfers Against Sewage and others, and there is also Feargal Sharkey from my city of Londonderry who has campaigned on and championed these issues for many years. All these people are doing a magnificent job, but we need to see a strategic response from the Government to deliver what we all want to see.
Edward Morello
The hon. Member is right to highlight the work of Feargal Sharkey and the many campaigners around the UK who give up their free time to raise awareness of the issues in their local areas.
The central question for this House is whether the commission’s recommendations and the White Paper that followed go far enough to meet the scale of the challenge we face.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Member for his perseverance and dedication to the subject matter. I also pay tribute to his party’s members who always turn up and do their bit. The Independent Water Commission’s final report refers to a “fundamental reset” to address failing regulations that have negatively affected customers and the environment. Does the hon. Member agree that Government, and particularly the Minister, must be prepared to take the helm to ensure that the reset actually takes place and is not simply a change in name?
Edward Morello
The hon. Member is absolutely right. I shall come on to some of the recommendations that we believe are necessary to make it more than just a reset in name only.
Let me start with the reality in my constituency. In 2024, West Dorset recorded 4,200 sewage spills and the discharging of raw sewage for nearly 49,000 hours from 90 storm overflows. I have no doubt that other Members can cite similar, if not worse, statistics for their constituency. Only 11% of our monitored river sites reach “good” ecological status. The River Lim is categorised as ecologically dead. Rare chalk streams such as the River Frome, Wraxall brook and West Compton stream are under severe pressure, as are Atlantic salmon populations.
Tourism in West Dorset, worth over £322 million a year and supporting more than 5,000 jobs, is threatened by our poor water quality. My constituents, their children, the visitors who support our communities, and families, including my own, love our beautiful world-famous waterways, but no one should have to check an app on their phone to see whether it is safe to swim that day. The final report continually underlines the lack of public trust. To change this, reforms must be visible, transparent and public facing. If people are to believe that things are changing, they need to see progress, understand the standards and know that failure has consequences.
We need blue flag-style standards for rivers and chalk streams. Clear standards, mandatory testing and visible ratings would help rebuild trust. Where standards are met, confidence grows. Where they are not, communities can hold companies and regulators to account. Recommendation 3 of the report proposes a comprehensive systems planning framework, with regional water authorities responsible for integrated planning, funding, setting objectives, monitoring and convening stakeholders. That approach recognises that water does not respect administrative boundaries and neither should planning. Housing growth, agriculture, flood risk, river health and water supply must be considered together across Government Departments. The bodies must be statutory, democratically accountable and empowered to make binding decisions. Without that authority, we would risk repeating the mistakes of the past: endless consultation without delivery.
When I have previously argued that water companies should be made statutory consultees in the planning system, the Government have resisted that change. The water White Paper now states that Ministers
“will also consider the role of water and sewerage companies in relation to planning applications”
as part of the reforms to statutory consultees. That is a welcome change, but simply considering it is no longer enough. Making water companies and national landscapes statutory consultees for major developments would be a preventive, low-cost reform that aligns planning decisions with environmental reality, reducing flood risk.
The commission is also right to highlight the importance of pre-pipe solutions. Recommendation 10 calls for legislative changes to expand pre-pipe solutions, so that we can stop pollutants and rainwater entering the system in the first place. In too many places, combined sewers are overwhelmed by rainfall that mixes with raw sewage and triggers spills. That is not sustainable in a changing climate.
We need a long-term national rainwater management strategy, with sustainable drainage systems being mandatory in all new developments, and a serious programme of retrofitting in existing communities. Rainwater harvesting should become the norm. We must bring ourselves in line with modern housing standards and our European neighbours, just as minimum solar requirements are being made mandatory, thanks to the private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson). Those are low-carbon, cost-effective and resilient solutions. They would reduce pressure on sewers, lower flood risk and protect rivers, but the White Paper only gestures vaguely in that direction. Without clear, consistent standards and funding, progress will remain slow.
On regulation, the commission calls to replace Ofwat with a new integrated regulator, which is welcome and overdue. The Liberal Democrats have called for exactly that since 2022. Ofwat’s primary duty to ensure reasonable returns has shaped a culture that has tolerated pollution, debt loading and under-investment. A regulator with explicit duties to protect public health and the environment is a step forward.
I am glad that the White Paper has stated that the Government will commit to a new regulator by abolishing Ofwat and bringing together the relevant water system functions from existing regulators—Ofwat, the Drinking Water Inspectorate, the Environment Agency and Natural England—into one new body. But again, that alone is not enough. That body must have teeth: it must be properly resourced, independent and willing to enforce the law.
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
The Public Accounts Committee recently had a hearing on environmental regulation with the Environment Agency and Natural England. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that the transition to a new regulator is a huge undertaking and that there is a risk while it is being set up? We must not take our eyes off the enforcement and regulation of water companies to ensure that we reduce the amount of their pollution in the meantime.
Edward Morello
I 100% share the hon. Lady’s concerns that water companies will exploit this moment in time. The public are calling out for firmer action, so the speed of the transition is vital.
Existing legislation already requires sewage to be treated effectively, and allows storm overflows only in exceptional circumstances, but the Government have admitted that overflows are being used far beyond their original purpose. Investigations have shown illegal discharge even on dry days. The Office for Environmental Protection has concluded that regulators have failed to comply with existing environmental law. The first task of the new regulator must be to enforce what is already on the statute book and to review permits across the system.
The commission also highlights the need for stronger customer protection. Recommendation 41 proposes strengthening the C-MeX—customer measure of experience—incentive and moving to a supervisory approach. That reflects the reality that customer experience has not improved, despite financial incentives. People paying their bills expect reliable service, timely responses and basic competence—not call centres that do not answer and complaints that disappear into the void.
That brings me to the question of accountability and ownership. The White Paper recognises the unsustainable debt levels created by the current model, and talks about attracting long-term, low-risk investors. It also introduces new performance improvement regimes. But there is a real risk of tinkering around the edges while leaving a fundamentally broken model intact. As long as water companies exist primarily to generate profit, decisions will be shaped by that motive alone.
Alternative models across Europe deliver lower bills, higher investment relative to debt, and fewer discharges. Both the commission and the White Paper fail to engage seriously with those models. In West Dorset, we are served by Wessex Water and in a small part by South West Water. My constituents see a pattern of rewarding failure across the water system that is impossible to justify during a cost of living crisis.
Adam Dance (Yeovil) (LD)
Last year, bosses of Wessex Water received £50,000 in extra pay—more than many people in Yeovil earn in a year—from the parent company, while constituents in Ilminster report that they cannot swim in their rivers without risking getting sick. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government must now ensure that sewage dumping at bathing sites ends by 2030 and that water bosses get no extra pay until sewage spills stop?
Edward Morello
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the issues in his constituency. At a time when people are paying higher and higher water bills, there is understandably a sense of frustration with the outlandish bonuses being paid to executive bosses overseeing this failure.
Between 2020 and 2021, water company executives paid themselves £51 million in remuneration, including £30.6 million in bonuses. I am glad that the Government have started to take action on this behaviour in the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, but it is not enough. In 2022 alone, water and sewage companies paid out £1.4 billion in dividends, nearly three times as much as the year before, while household bills rose and families were forced to make difficult decisions. All the time, sewage continued to be pumped into our rivers and beaches.
We need a proactive, evidence-based assessment of alternative ownership models before the water reform Bill is finalised. Water companies should be redesigned with public benefit and environmental protection as their core purpose. The Liberal Democrats are calling for a new ownership model, with water companies mutually owned by customers and professionally managed. The special administration regime exists to protect customers and the environment when companies fail. Thames Water is the clearest example of a company that has failed financially, operationally and environmentally. We need transparent criteria for when the SAR will be triggered and a clear plan for using it to transition companies to public benefit models where necessary.
Affordability must also be central to reform. It was not mentioned enough in the final commission report. Families are already under intense pressure from the cost of living crisis. Environmental improvement cannot be paid for on the backs of those least able to afford it. It must be paid for by those who caused the problem. Bills must be fair, and investment must be efficient, long-term and low-risk. Financial penalties must be ringfenced for infrastructure upgrades and nature-based solutions, not absorbed as a cost of doing business.
The commission’s call to end operator self-monitoring is welcome, as is the move towards open monitoring and near-real-time data. The speeding ticket-style fines previously introduced by this Government should also be welcomed. However, credibility depends on independent testing, frequent inspections and proper funding for regulators. Data must be accessible, understandable and trusted by the public.
We cannot clean up our rivers by focusing on sewage alone. Agriculture accounts for pollution in about 40% of water bodies. Farmers are essential partners, but are struggling in our current system of underfunding. The system must support prevention at source by supporting our farmers and helping them to tackle water pollution through better funding and guidance.
This is a huge opportunity for cross-party consensus, legislative reform and long-term thinking and change. The support across the House for it is a testament to the scale of the problem, but also to people’s willingness to collaborate on the future. The Independent Water Commission has laid important foundations, and the White Paper moves the conversation forward, but neither goes far enough on its own. Change must be public-facing, rooted in public benefit and focused on prevention rather than clean-up. It must restore trust—trust that politics can deliver change, that regulators will enforce the law, that legislation passed in this House will make a difference and can change the sector, and that water companies will finally put people and the environment before profit.
Communities such as mine in West Dorset cannot afford another decade of half-measures. Our rivers, our coastlines, our communities, our health and our homes are at risk. I hope we can seize this moment to deliver the transformational reform that the public rightly want.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)
Order. I remind all Members who wish to speak that they need to continue to bob throughout the debate, so that we know. If everyone sticks to about five minutes, we should get everybody in comfortably.
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) on securing this important debate.
My constituents in Shipley, with the lovely River Wharfe and River Aire flowing through, have been outraged at the levels of water pollution in them. They face high bills, while leaking infrastructure causes damage to roads and homes. Companies such as Yorkshire Water have been failing us for years now. We suffered last year from a failure to invest in new reservoirs, with an almost year-long drought starting in the spring.
I very much welcome the fact that this Labour Government have come in with a determination to tackle those issues. I was pleased to vote for and support the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, which made sure we took immediate action to clamp down on the obscene bosses’ bonuses, including those that the chief exec of Yorkshire Water was receiving. Very sadly, the Kelda holdings company, which owns Yorkshire Water, also paid her a sort of behind-the-scenes £1.3 million extra payment, which I and others have been urging her to donate or give back. I hope that in future the companies meet the spirit of the legislation.
I welcome the work of Sir Jon Cunliffe in bringing forward the Independent Water Commission. I put in a submission to the review, setting out some actions that I felt were necessary for fundamental reform of the water industry, so that it works better in the interests of customers and the public by clamping down on the illegal discharges of sewage, which are all too frequent. I am pleased to see that the Government have addressed quite a number of those issues in the water White Paper. I put on record my thanks to the People’s Water Commission, a group of campaigners, researchers and experts who came together to engage the public on their views about water. I particularly thank Becky Malby, a local resident who is involved in the Ilkley Clean River Group.
I sit on the Public Accounts Committee; I do not know whether that is part of my entry on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The Committee has recently undertaken two reports, the first on water regulation and the second, not yet published, on environmental regulation. I will briefly quote findings from the first report:
“Ofwat has failed to prevent companies taking excessive dividends, increasing levels of debt and setting up complex company structures, all of which have reduced their financial resilience. The sector’s risk profile has risen and customers must now pay investors higher returns as a result.”
To illustrate the point, my own Yorkshire Water bill shows that 23% is just to finance debt, while 17% is spent on infrastructure investment. How can that be? Unfortunately, there is no end in sight for the bill payers being made to pay that debt. I urge the Minister to say how she will change the gearing of those companies that are so indebted. Despite the figures of £104 billion in investment and, for Yorkshire Water, £8.3 billion, it does not seem as if the shareholders are actually putting their hands in their pocket. It is the customers who will have to pay for the infrastructure upgrade and for the past failure of companies to invest.
I would like to draw attention to a couple of other points on which I would welcome the Minister’s reassurance. I warmly welcome the creation of a new regulator, as the Public Accounts Committee has recommended. How will we ensure that it has the right skills and resources? The previous Government cut funding to the Environment Agency, which meant that it failed to do its job of prosecuting some incidents; I am pleased that under this Government we now have many cases in hand. The regulator needs skills to take action on the finances, given the complex structures.
How will we ensure that customers’ money is going where they want? How will the regulator take action on pollution and work with the Environment Agency on how farmers, who face many regulations, can play their part in cleaning up our rivers and seas? I urge the Minister to take all the actions in the water White Paper to make sure that companies such as Yorkshire Water are properly held to account in future.
Dr Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I thank the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) for securing this debate. He shares my passion for tackling water pollution, which is why we work together on the all-party parliamentary group on water pollution, which I set up when I joined this place to represent the interests of my constituents and citizens across the country who are passionate about the issue. I did so in recognition of the fact that, unfortunately, the all-party parliamentary water group has a secretariat run by the water industry. It was therefore vital to get citizens’ voices into Parliament on this issue.
Lee Pitcher
I am chair of the all-party parliamentary water group. It is managed in-house; it was all brought in-house, so there is absolutely no external body. That is why we did it: because we wanted the APPG to be totally independent.
Dr Chowns
I thank the hon. Member for that clarification, and I am delighted to hear that in this Parliament that has been changed. Historically, it was run by the water industry, which is why it was necessary to set up a new group.
I will confine my comments today to the two elephants in the room: ownership and agriculture. They are effectively missing from the Independent Water Commission. They are effectively missing from the water White Paper. That is frankly extraordinary. Why did the Government prevent the Cunliffe commission from looking at those two crucial issues? Without addressing them, we cannot tackle the problems in the water sector.
Privatisation of water has comprehensively failed. Privatised water companies have paid £85 billion in dividends to shareholders since privatisation, and they have racked up debts of £65 billion. All the while, leaks have been proliferating, infrastructure has been crumbling, there has been a failure to build reservoirs, and customers have been paying hand over fist for poorer and poorer service. It is completely unacceptable.
Nearly every river in England is polluted. England’s bathing water quality is the fifth worst in Europe. England’s surface water quality is the seventh worst in Europe. Over 1 trillion litres of water were leaked in 2024. I have already mentioned the £85 billion paid to shareholders and the £65 billion of debt. Privatisation will cost customers a further £22 billion over the next five years, because that is the return on capital that has been set by Ofwat. Around a third of customer bills now service corporate debt, and Ofwat allowed bills to go up by 26% this financial year alone—an average of £123 per household.
That is a failing water system. No other country in the democratic world has privatised its water system to the degree that we have in this country. It is clear that a market-based approach to the water sector simply does not work. Water is a natural monopoly. Customers have absolutely zero choice. Water is a public good and should be in public hands, so that it works for public benefit. Why did the Government prevent the Independent Water Commission from even looking at that question?
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
The Rye brook in Ashtead, which runs past local schools, has suffered loads of raw sewage leaks. It feeds into the River Mole, which has seen 3,000 hours of storm overflows in January 2026. The run-off pollutes local chalk streams as well. The hon. Lady might be interested to know that, while the report also ignored reforming water companies, it mentioned chalk streams only twice. Does she agree that privatisation is not working and that we need to bring water companies into mutually owned public benefit companies and end the sewage scandal for good?
Dr Chowns
We need to bring water companies into public ownership, because only by running water for public good will we tackle the scandal that has been caused by privatisation in recent decades. Some 82% of the British public want water to be in public ownership. That is more than the percentage who want the railways to be in public ownership, so why are the Government so opposed to it? They are very fond of citing completely imaginary figures about the supposed cost of doing so, but Thames Water, for example, apparently has a market value of £4 billion, judging by the last market offer, and faces a repair bill of £23 billion, so in effect its value is nil. We could take it into public ownership at zero cost and run water for public benefit.
The second lacuna in the work of the Independent Water Commission and the water White Paper is agriculture. Why did the Government prevent the Independent Water Commission from looking at agricultural pollution? We know that diffuse agricultural pollution is half the problem, so we cannot ignore it. It is another elephant in the room, and we have to focus on addressing it, together with farmers, who are crying out for support to do that.
To give the Independent Water Commission some credit, it did actually look at the issue and mentioned it in its conclusions. It says on page 20 of the final report that
“agriculture has the most significant environmental impact on water bodies in England and Wales.”
In fact, almost the very next sentence cited the River Wye in my North Herefordshire constituency, where problems relating to diffuse agricultural pollution have led to huge economic, social and environmental problems.
A few pages later, the Independent Water Commission said that the Government’s water strategy
“should be cross-sectoral, setting out in one place the requirements on all the sectors impacting on or interacting with the water environment…including agriculture”.
Yet on only one of its 50 pages did the Government’s White Paper talk about agriculture. That is not a comprehensive, joined-up strategy.
As the Independent Water Commission pointed out,
“achieving a future environmental target for water…will depend more and more upon reducing the contribution of agricultural pollution.”
We must work with our farmers—the stewards of our land—to tackle this problem. It is more than half the issue, and the Government can no longer ignore it. I beg the Minister to please give it the same attention that we rightly give to the water and sewage companies. Without a comprehensive approach, we will simply fail to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)
Order. I gently remind Members that if they cannot stick to five minutes or less, those at the end of the list will get a lot less.
Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate with you in the Chair, Sir Jeremy.
I thank the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) for securing this important and timely debate on the Independent Water Commission’s final report and the Government’s White Paper, which will move forward with many of the commission’s recommendations. I put on the record my thanks to and respect for the Minister for setting up the commission. I also thank Sir Jon Cunliffe and his team for their forensic assessment of our water industry—many recognise its fundamentally flawed, if not completely broken, state.
Since being elected, I have heard from constituents about flooding, sewage discharges and water infrastructure failures. I have heard from families worried about river pollution, from businesses concerned about the resilience of supply, and from residents frustrated that the problems they see locally are addressed so slowly. For too long, the sector has been characterised by fragmented planning, overlapping regulation and ageing infrastructure, so the proposal to establish a single integrated regulator, alongside setting out a clearer long-term strategic vision for the sector, is an important step forward in restoring public trust and delivering the resilient water system our country desperately needs.
As a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, I am particularly conscious that reform has to be judged not only on its intent but on delivery. As Sir Jon did, the White Paper is right to identify the historical lack of joined-up, long-term planning as a central weakness. About 60% of water mains were built before 1981, and a significant proportion are now more than a century old. I have seen the effects of that in my village of Norton Canes, and in Rugeley, where water companies have struggled even to work out who owns the broken pipes.
Public confidence in the sector continues to be shaped by the visible impact of pollution and sewage discharge. My constituency is served by Severn Trent and South Staffs Water, and performance across the sector demonstrates both areas of progress and ongoing public concern. Although Severn Trent has achieved long-term strong performance ratings in some operational areas, data shows that in 2024 there were more than 450,000 hours of discharge in its area alone. That contrast illustrates why stronger transparency, oversight and accountability are essential if reforms are to rebuild public confidence. I therefore welcome proposals to move towards open monitoring, to ensure that companies are no longer effectively marking their own homework.
As has been said, agricultural run-off contributes significantly to water pollution in some catchments. That has to be part of any long-term strategy if we are serious about improving river health and water quality, but it needs to be tackled in partnership with farmers, rather than characterising them as wilful polluters of the waterways that they rely on. The move towards integrated regional water planning could be a significant step forward in that respect. In constituencies like mine, effective co-ordination when it comes to flood prevention, agricultural practice, environmental regulation, planning and economic growth is essential. Regional planning could deliver more preventive and nature-based solutions, but it will require clarity about governance, accountability and its relationship with water company investment decisions.
On accountability, as a member of the Co-operative party I was glad that the Government make powerful customer panels a key plank of last year’s reforms. For too long, customers have felt completely disempowered, but with the incredible work of citizen scientists, and the action taken by the Government, that is starting to change. I note that the commission’s final report was lukewarm about the mutual model for water companies, because of a perceived risk to customers, but I hope the Minister will continue to look at ways we could incorporate co-operative principles into reforms to the sector, up to and including mutual ownership if that would resolve some of the issues.
Before I conclude, I cannot speak on this topic without referring to executive bonuses, given the galling payments we have seen for senior figures in failing water companies, despite the action taken by the Government in the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025. It is shameful that we have got to a point with the water industry where the Government cannot trust bosses to follow the spirit of the law, and instead have to take further action because bosses who would not earn performance-related bonuses would rather spend their time cooking up creative ways of re-labelling bonuses with their legal teams, or re-routing bonuses with their accountants, than spend their time cleaning up the filth that our constituents are paying through the nose for. If they will flout the spirit of the law, the letter of the law will have to change. I am glad we have a Government who are decisive about the need to do that.
The Independent Water Commission has provided a clear diagnosis of the challenges facing our water system. The Government’s White Paper sets out an ambitious pathway for reform in many areas, and I welcome its focus on long-term planning, stronger regulation and improved environmental outcomes. Clearly, the task ahead is to ensure that reforms translate into real-world improvements that our constituents can see and feel.
Lee Pitcher
It is important to put on the record that lots of the people who work for the water companies and lots of farmers out there are feeling the reputational hit from what is going on. Accountability needs to be held at the decision-making level. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to recognise the people who are out there on the frontline day in, day out, and in the offices, making sure that pollution incidents do not occur and that leaks are fixed, and that it is not their fault at all? They are working really hard, including by leaving their families late at night, to try to make things better.
Josh Newbury
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has often heard from water company bosses that the criticisms of their companies are impacting morale on the frontline, but we point out that if any bonuses are available to people on the frontline, they are certainly not of the order of those the bosses are receiving. I absolutely agree that we need to respect those people and make sure their voices are heard as we reform the sector.
As I was saying, we need to see safer waterways, more reliable infrastructure and a water system that is fit for the future. I am grateful for the opportunity to have spoken in the debate.
Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) for securing the debate. I also thank my many constituents who, quite rightly, have grave concerns about this matter and have written to me about it.
My party has made its dissatisfaction with the White Paper clear, and my colleagues are making the case strongly again today. We have been leading the charge in calling for a comprehensive approach to tackling what is nothing short of a crisis in the water sector. The Government made tackling this crisis an important pillar of their election campaign, so it is deeply disappointing that the reforms set out in the water White Paper fall far short of what the situation demands. The system is in dire straits and requires a complete overhaul, but instead the Government offer only the lightest of plans that fail to beef up regulations in a meaningful manner or provide funding provision for enforcement. Although the abolition of Ofwat is welcome, the uncertainty around its replacement is unhelpful.
Farmers need proper support to tackle agricultural run-off, which accounts for around 40% of water pollution. As stewards of the land, they are inevitably stewards of our water as well. How can it be that we have allowed corporate greed to run rampant, and allowed these companies to have presided over the routine pumping of filth into the waterways of this land? It is quite remarkable. All the while, the good people of the west country have seen their bills soar, some by as much as threefold. The Government offer only the lightest of plans: weak regulation, no meaningful enforcement and no funding to ensure compliance.
As my constituency straddles the Somerset-Devon border, we are in the unenviable position of having two water companies: Wessex Water and South West Water. I think it is fair to say that I have made my views on South West Water clear before, and I will once again direct my ire at South West Water, because its behaviour, inertia and refusal to acknowledge the gravity of situations of its own making has been pitiful. Just a week ago, I raised the matter of my poor constituents at Bawdens bakery in Bampton, who have been forced to close and sell up because their property has flooded so many times. I had a most unhelpful meeting with the director of South West Water, who showed only his complete complacence and, I have to say, arrogance, to such an extent that I had to ask him and his staff to leave.
The public health implications are grave. I have heard horror stories from constituents whose children have fallen seriously ill after swimming in local rivers. The beaches at Dunster and Blue Anchor now carry the dreaded brown flag status. It is a shameful state of affairs. Is it really too much for the British public to expect clean water as a basic right?
At the risk of being blunt and somewhat crude, suffice it to say that the Tiverton sewage works absolutely reek every time it rains—and anyone familiar with the west country will know how often that is. It is inexcusable and utterly foul. It is a stench and a situation more in character with the 12th century, certainly not the 21st. I could be more colourful with my description, but I will spare colleagues and preserve my own sanity.
Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)
With noble exception of the hon. Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour), we have not been entirely successful at sticking to five minutes. I must ask those remaining to keep to below four minutes so that we can try to get everybody in.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) on securing the debate. We inherited the most dysfunctional water system imaginable. The governance was not there and there was no accountability in the system. Labour came in to put that right. Although we have gone so far on that journey, and I congratulate the Minister on the legislation we have passed and the legislation to come, there is clearly so much to do.
My city of York is based on two rivers that flood and, with all the pollutants in the water, it is a crisis when that occurs. In 2023, there were 16,357 hours of sewage releases on the River Ouse and another 3,254 hours on the Foss. We now know that the Foss has the worst levels of pharmaceutical pollutants—which we have not heard about in this debate—of any river in Europe. I draw the Minister’s attention to the work being undertaken by the University of York in its Ecomix project, which is looking at 1,000 different chemicals—whether from agriculture, pharmaceuticals, cleaning products, personal care products or things like tyre additives—in order to raise standards. We have to know what is in our rivers so that we can address the issues.
Although we have come so far with the excellent report by Sir Jon Cunliffe, there is clearly more to do. I again draw the Minister’s attention to the work of the University of York—it is such a leader in the field—and its action for quality aquatic environments project, which is drawing citizens into the science project to detect chemical and biological pollutants in order to put things right in the future. That mass community research enables communities not only to own their rivers but to press for change. They pressed me to take part in this debate, and I am grateful for that.
We must move forward. This country had the reputation of being the “dirty man of Europe”. That changed, particularly under the last Labour Government, and yet standards have slipped back so much over the last 14 years that we are getting that reputation again. It is important that we maintain those standards, and we should be adopting the principles of European legislation—the urban wastewater treatment directive—into our legislation, ensuring that we close that gap on pollutants and move forward so our water can be safe again. We must also move to ban the dangerous forever chemicals that are finding their way into our waterways. There is too much flexibility about the chemicals that people have been using, and keeping our waterways safe is really important.
I want to raise the issue of our infrastructure and modernising our sewerage system, which is predominantly still based on the Victorian infrastructure of the past and does not segregate rainwater from sewage. That is causing so many problems. We need those investments to come at pace. We need to ensure that, locally, we are measuring and reporting the scourge of what is happening in our waterways.
As has already been mentioned, Yorkshire Water has failed. Bills have gone up and accountability has gone down, and the chief executive is taking eye-watering sums of funding. We need better governance and, with all these failing contracts, we need to move water into public ownership again.
Dr Roz Savage (South Cotswolds) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) for introducing this important debate—I have to say, it feels like the nth debate that we have had on this issue. I am getting a very strong sense of déjà vu from standing here and in the Chamber and speaking about water. Sadly, I suspect I will stand here and speak on this subject many more times over the coming years.
I know the Minister is passionate about this subject. There are some aspects of the White Paper that I welcome, but I feel that it does not go far enough. I will come on to specifics in a moment, but right now I want to share a mental image. In my constituency, at least 16 sewage outflows are spewing sewage into our rivers—just picture that. With the current stuck weather system and more rain expected, that is set to continue. I find that really distressing and I am sure that everybody here does too.
The central problem is that the water system is now built around profit. The privatised model has failed. That is a serious market failure, and it needs to be remedied. I am not here to defend Margaret Thatcher’s vision—far from it—which was that we would go from being a nation of shopkeepers to a country of shareholders. The somewhat foreseeable consequence of that was that people—individuals and private share owners—would sell their shares, and so we have ended up with big institutions owning our water companies and exploiting them as vehicles purely for profit. That profit motive does not sit well with a vital public utility.
I will point out four recurring failures in the Government’s approach, on this issue and possibly on others: they lack the courage to truly grasp the nettle on failing systems; they are overlooking nature-based solutions, despite strong evidence that they work; they are misunderstanding farming, as the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Dr Chowns) referenced, and ignoring the dual role that farmers play as part of the problem and as a big part of the solution; and they are failing to unleash people power.
Nature-based solutions are still being treated as an afterthought, despite evidence that constructed wetlands can remove 60% to 90% of nitrates and phosphates. Nature can be a great ally in this, and there is no downside to using nature-based solutions. The approach on agriculture is piecemeal and inadequate. Agriculture accounts for about 40% of water pollution in English rivers, but the proposed action is seriously underpowered. We need environmental land management funding to be better targeted at water outcomes, and we need to include farmers to unleash what they know about their land. To restore faith in the water industry we need transparency and accountability. We could unleash the power of citizen science to monitor water, as residents are the people most motivated to track water quality.
Finally, I return to the fundamental issue of water company ownership. The Liberal Democrats are calling for Thames Water to be converted into a public benefit company, or possibly a mutual company owned by its customers. Changing ownership of Thames Water is the only way to solve this problem for the long term. I thank the Government for where they have gone, but I beg them to go so much further.
Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy, and I thank the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) for giving us this opportunity to speak about water today.
My constituents have written to me pretty consistently since I came to this place about the water industry with concerns about sewage discharges, bonuses paid to water bosses, flooding and their bills. I do feel that their concerns—in emails and conversations through casework, surgeries and a specific roundtable—have been heard and fed into this this consultation. Our White Paper, published as a response to the Independent Water Commission’s final report, will tackle some of these issues head-on, by bringing forward, strengthening and streamlining regulation.
I will focus my speech on sewage discharges and flooding, and the impact they have on my constituency. Leicestershire has again had significant rainfall, and a flood warning is still in place today on the northern edge of my constituency. Coupled with that, sewage has poured into our waterways in North West Leicestershire for 15,000 hours. That is not just physically, but mentally challenging for my constituents.
I have spoken about residents in Whitwick before, but today I will speak about another set of residents who were flooded just before Christmas. The desperation that people experience when sewage water enters their property is really difficult for them to bear; indeed, it is visible on their faces. We must do better for them, and the water industry really needs to clean up its act. I visited Mary, who has a smallholding in Donington le Heath. She became so frustrated by the outflow release on her smallholding that she collected a bag of sewer debris from a recent release and popped it on the table during a meeting we had with representatives from Severn Trent Water. They were left with no doubt about her feeling that the company consistently drops sewage on to her land. Such is the frustration of local people.
Sir Jon Cunliffe’s report recommends a review into key legislation about urban waste water treatment, reducing pollutants and tackling sewage releases that went unaddressed for 15 long years under the previous Government. My constituents will be reassured that our White Paper will set out ambitions to tackle sewage misuse, prevent sewer blockages, help maximise sewer capacity, and reduce pollution incidents and therefore sewage flooding. That is a core example of constituents raising concerns, a direct report being commissioned to find solutions, and a Government listening to people.
On a separate note, it is encouraging to see water companies finally investing in ageing infrastructure. However, constituents are often frustrated by their water bills going up and about how, for example, the long-awaited improvements in Coalville, which could address the issue in Donington le Heath, are still four years away. I would welcome the Minister firmly reassuring my constituents that they will see improvements, and the necessary re-establishing of trust between consumers and water companies off the back of the final report.
Since being elected, I have engaged whenever and wherever possible with efforts to strengthen the water sector, and I was proud to sit on the Water (Special Measures) Bill Committee. Building on our work here in Parliament, I was pleased to see the Environment Secretary confirm that the water White Paper will be followed by a transition plan and a water reform Bill, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s remarks on that.
I also thank Sir Jon Cunliffe. I do not think anybody could be as passionate about the water sector as he is. It is quite clear from the things he has said, and from the way that he has addressed this real problem for the UK, that he has a passion and indeed a vision for change, which matches our Government’s ambition. I will just take this opportunity to thank Sir Jon for his work.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
I congratulate the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) on securing this debate, which is timely and very important. The Cunliffe report is seriously flawed, in that it did not consider public ownership of the industry or agriculture, which is a major polluter, as other colleagues have already pointed out.
Privatisation of water has been an absolute disaster from the very beginning, when many of us at the time warned against it. It has resulted in £72 billion being taken out of the industry in dividends and profits, and fantastic levels of executive pay. It has left behind pollution and flooding, with the cost of the pollution, flooding and foul water being borne by the public—our constituents—who are increasingly angry about it.
By any standard, river quality is appalling right across the country and is one of the worst anywhere in Europe. That is caused by the mixing of rainwater with sewage waste, and by agricultural run-offs that have a devastating effect. The River Wye is just one example of how awful the rivers can become, because of agricultural waste run-offs—hon. Members who drew attention to that are absolutely right. The waste of water from leaks is a huge problem, and I think I am right that the totality of leaks across the whole country would fill the whole of Loch Ness every year.
Therefore, instead of calling for new reservoirs to be built, should we not look at much better water management, rainwater retention and water distribution across the country? In England, the biggest water consumers are in London and the south-east, which is, broadly speaking, the driest part of the country. The wettest part of the country is the midlands and the north-west. Clearly, moving water from one part to the other makes a lot of sense. Can we not have some sense surrounding the organisation of water distribution?
Anna Dixon
Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that under the previous Government, light-touch regulation left our infrastructure crumbling? It is right that there will be asset mapping under the new proposals, so that we can finally know the state of the infrastructure and whether these investments are actually fixing the leaks.
Jeremy Corbyn
Absolutely. The state of the infrastructure does need to be examined. Like many Members, my constituents have endless complaints about that. Thames Water is one of the most frequent visitors to my constituency; it digs up the roads frequently. With the resulting road closures—which are absurd—Thames Water is much better at traffic management than Transport for London, actually.
I would also ask that we look much more seriously at river basin management. I remember visiting York with the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) during the flooding at that time. We had a long discussion with the Environment Agency about planning for flooding, which would involve restoring peatlands, upland planting, reintroducing beavers and others into rivers—that has an effect on a small scale, with lots of rivers and streams—and restoring floodplains. Those sorts of things are some of the most important things we can do.
Water should be taken back into public ownership—not old-style public ownership, with a board of governors or directors appointed by the Government, but a popular form of public ownership that would involve the brilliant workforce in all those companies, and their knowledge. The directors would come from them, and from local communities, businesses, local authorities and unions, so we would have a locally and popular-based water industry in our society. We could do it. Why don’t we try that?
Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)
I call Charlie Maynard, but the bad news is that I can only give him three minutes.
Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello).
I am going to move very quickly. I thank Sir Jon Cunliffe and all the campaigners in my constituency. I note that Blake primary school had to close on Friday because of sewage—the fourth time in the last two and a half months. Bills have gone up: we are paying 9.75% interest with Thames Water. I thank Alex Lipp and Jonny Dawe for putting together sewagemap.co.uk—a fantastic website that tracks what is going on and where.
The “ultimate controller” definition is mentioned 16 times in the Independent Water Commission’s final report. I welcome the proposal in paragraph 700, which would allow an enforceable undertaking against ultimate controllers. However, that will work only if Ofwat is doing its job properly and recognising companies as ultimate controllers. As the Minister knows, the equity of Thames Water is now zero, with most of the investors having written down their equity investment in full, and some having taken away their board representation nearly two years ago. That leaves the debt holders—the class A creditors—holding the majority of the company’s debt. They have now set up the London & Valley Water consortium to co-ordinate their interests.
The water sector is a regulated sector, with the ultimate controller designation being critical. To meet that definition, an entity only has to
“materially influence the policy or affairs”
of Thames Water. There is no limit on how many entities meet that criterion or whether there are equity or debt holders. Clearly, the consortium more than meets that definition as it is, in effect, the only significant party left standing across either Thames Water’s debt or equity structure.
As per the regulation, Thames Water must inform Ofwat even of potential changes in its ultimate controllers. Ofwat then requires water companies to obtain legally enforceable undertakings from each of their ultimate controllers. That has not happened in the case of the class A creditors, and I believe this is a rig-up between the Treasury, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Ofwat, Thames Water and the class A creditors. That is not good enough. It is in contravention of our regulations.
I have repeatedly asked Ministers to explain, in the main Chamber, in the Business and Trade Committee, in this Chamber and in the press, why they believe that the class A creditor consortium does not meet the ultimate controller test. I have received either no answer— most recently from the Minister three weeks ago, when she refused point-blank to give me an answer in the main Chamber—or obfuscation. Please, will the Minister now answer the question? Does she consider the London & Valley Water consortium to meet the ultimate controller test with regard to its material influence over Thames Water, and if not, why not?
Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and to all Back-Bench colleagues for their co-operation. We now come to the Front-Bench speeches, beginning with that of the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance, Sir Jeremy. I thank everyone who has taken part in this debate so far, which has been interesting and thoughtful, but especially my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) for securing another really important debate on this broad issue.
As a party, we made this issue the centrepiece of our campaign in the 2024 general election, so all of us on the Liberal Democrat Benches feel that we are here with a mandate to fight for change. It is a joy and a pleasure to work alongside others from all parties in trying to achieve that. It was an honour to meet and present evidence to Sir Jon Cunliffe as he put together his report, and to work with the Minister and others, whom I enjoyed spending time with on the Water (Special Measures) Bill Committee—I suspect a sequel to come, and we all look forward to it.
We all agree that—as the Independent Water Commission’s final report correctly identifies—the system is very badly broken, not only in the performance of water companies but in the basic, deep injustice of a water industry that seems to be self-serving, not serving the community. In 2024, 3.6 million hours of sewage dumping took place in our lakes, rivers and seas. At the same time, Ofwat failed to enforce a single fine over a four-year period.
Water companies are getting collective bonuses worth £20 million in the last full year of data, and yet those are not rewards for success, because only 14% of our rivers are meeting a healthy standard, with more than half a million sewage spills into our waterways just last year. Bills are rising and yet, as we have heard from others, in so many cases a massive chunk of those bills—11% if people live in the United Utilities area in the north-west of England, in my constituency—is going to pay off service debt. In the Thames region, people pay more than 30% of their bill just to service the debt.
While the Government have often taken action to try to ban bonuses, the water companies shamelessly shimmy their way around that. We have heard a couple of examples today already: Southern Water’s chief executive had his pay double to £1.4 million, largely through a two-year, long-term incentive plan; and we heard the outrageous story of the chief executive of Yorkshire Water, paid £1.3 million through the company’s holding company. That is breaking the ban in spirit, and surely in reality, too—certainly in the eyes of our constituents.
In my communities of Westmorland, water matters massively. We are home to Windermere, Ullswater, Coniston, Grasmere and Rydal Water, and to many rivers, but from the Eea to the Eden, from the Crake to the Kent, last year alone we had 5,000 sewage discharge incidents and 55,000 hours of raw sewage pumped into our rivers, lakes and coastal areas. The commission has mostly been on the money, so to speak, when it has assessed the problem. This is an industry that performs appallingly on the pollution of our waterways, and it behaves appallingly in response to its own failure.
We agree with much of what is in the final report. We agree with having a single regulator, for which the Liberal Democrats have been calling for years. We should merge Ofwat, the regulatory parts of the Environment Agency, and others to create a powerful regulator that the water companies will actually be afraid of, and that the public respect. We would call it the clean water authority. We hope that the Government will copy our homework further.
Some failures and submissions, however, we are deeply concerned about. The Government fail to grasp that while stronger regulation is really important, ownership is also important. The failure of Thames Water, a cause which my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard) champions—as do many others—is an outrage, but it is also a massive opportunity for the Government to use the special administration regime and move that company into a mutual form of ownership, so that it is owned by its customers. That could create a new model of ownership for the whole industry—one that leverages capital investment to ensure that environmental and social concerns, and clean water, are absolutely at the pinnacle of the purpose of those companies, not rapacious profiteering.
Such a model would provide the opportunity for water campaigners and environmental groups to find their way on to those boards. In my community, there is the Save Windermere campaign, the Clean River Kent campaign, the Eden Rivers Trust and the South Cumbria Rivers Trust, but citizens, societies and volunteers across all of our constituencies would have a part to play in those new, mutually-owned water companies. That would make a difference.
The Government have made no attempt, either in the White Paper or through the report, to look at the problem with volume that we are all concerned about. We often talk about the number of hours of discharge into our lakes, rivers and seas, and that is an important measurement, but the reason we mention that and not volume is because we are not allowed to know the volume. The Liberal Democrats believe passionately that volume should also be measured, but the water companies do not want that, which is a reason to ensure that we force it to happen.
On bathing waters, the Government should have a mandate to end the sewage dumping in bathing sites by 2030, and we should be testing them throughout the year and more regularly—not just the often inaccurate snapshots that we have at the moment. On bonuses, we call for the law to be strengthened further, so that water company bosses cannot carry on dodging losing their bonuses via the back door.
The commission’s final report rightly identifies many of the problems that our constituents believe are serious and need to be addressed. However, while it contains many worthwhile proposals, such as a united regulator, it does not face up to the desperate and obvious need for a transformation of the ownership model, for deeper and stronger regulations, and for a bonus ban that actually bans bonuses.
When Water UK, the industry body that represents the water companies, comes out as it did to endorse the Government’s approach to water reform, that is all the proof we need that this Government’s approach continues to be, I am afraid, a bit wet. We need a plan for a radical transformation of the water industry, but so far, I am sad to say, this is not it.
Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy, on my first outing on behalf of His Majesty’s official Opposition. I congratulate the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) on securing this important debate, and I join Members who have welcomed the work of Sir Jon Cunliffe. I thank local action groups across England that are campaigning hard and cleaning up our waterways, and the employees in our water industry working hard, day in, day out, to make a difference within the framework that they operate in.
I took note of the rivers that were mentioned during the debate: the River Lim in West Dorset, plus two chalk streams that I am afraid I missed; the Rivers Wharfe and Aire in Shipley; the River Wye in North Herefordshire; and the Rivers Ouse and Foss in York. We are all agreed that they need to be cleaned up. Ensuring that we have a plentiful supply of clean water and waterways across England matters to us all, including my constituents in Mid Bedfordshire. Like many places across England, Mid Bedfordshire is having to adapt to a growing population, dry summers and increasingly wet winters, all with ageing infrastructure.
Having grown up spending many an hour playing in my local river, a tributary of the River Test in Hampshire, I enjoyed a childhood that many simply cannot enjoy today, with the latest assessments showing that no rivers in England are in good or high overall health. Nature is also in grave danger. Freshwater habitats cover less than 1% of the earth’s surface but support more than 10% of global species. Since the 1970s, freshwater species have declined by 85%, far outpacing declines in terrestrial and marine systems.
England’s globally significant chalk streams, which make up 85% of the world’s total, are among the habitats most affected by pollution and abstraction, and I was pleased to hear many passionate advocates for our chalk streams in this debate. But what did this Government do when Opposition Members tabled amendments to the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 to restore and protect those habitats? The amendments were ignored, citing care for our environment and countryside as blockers against so-called progressive builders. That all illustrates, in the first 18 months in government, a level of arrogance that will do absolutely nothing to secure our future and clean up our waterways.
The problems with the water sector have been known for a long time and are well reported. The Environmental Audit Committee’s report, “Water quality in rivers” dating back to January 2022 provides a clear picture of the concerns, and the previous Government went on to help to identify the scale of the problem. When Labour left power in 2010, only 7% of storm overflows were being monitored; by 2023 it was 100%. That unveiled the severity of the situation facing the water industry, with water company storm overflows spilling into England’s rivers, lakes and seas for a record 3.61 million hours in 2024—although I take the point made by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) about us needing to understand the volume, not just the hours. There is much more to do.
The previous Government’s plan for water introduced the water restoration fund, which channelled environmental fines and penalties into projects that improve the water environment. Ministers in the previous Government also took action to ban water company bosses’ bonuses for illegal action. Sir Jon Cunliffe’s independent review was a serious undertaking, running to 460 pages and 88 recommendations, much of which His Majesty’s official Opposition have cautiously welcomed. For example, we know that, as it stands, the regulators are not working as they should, and that creating a single joined-up regulator is a sensible recommendation. However, I am concerned at both the speed at which the Government are moving and some of the proposals in their White Paper, which may see bills rise for families. Can the Minister confirm how many of Sir Jon’s 88 recommendations were accepted by the Government and included in the water White Paper?
On water bills, what assessment has the Minister made of how smart metering may impact the average family’s water bills? Secondly, after the benefits of water metering, what additional hit to disposable income does the Minister expect that increasing bills will have on families, coming, as it will, on the back of record tax rises by this Government? Thirdly, can the Minister tell us how much taxpayer and bill-payer money has been allocated to their White Paper, and over what timeframe those taxes and bills will be used to pay for the work in it?
To reduce the root causes of pollution, the Government have announced that they intend to implement pre-pipe solutions—which have been discussed in this debate—but have not yet provided any examples of how those will be implemented. Can the Minister provide further details on the implementation, and particularly how it will be integrated into the planning system? The Minister knows that since being elected, I have been calling for schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 to be enacted, first in my Adjournment debate on flooding in Bedfordshire, and also through the Environmental Audit Committee, which recently recommended doing so. The Minister at first seemed sympathetic to the arguments, but now seems to consider that there are other ways to achieve the same outcome. Could the Minister highlight what those other ways are?
Our infrastructure is ageing and needs investment. That is abundantly clear to communities in the south-east now suffering repeated and unacceptable supply disruptions. How will the Minister make sure that the infrastructure is upgraded to ensure that those catastrophic failures, such as those seen under South East Water in the last two months, do not happen again? A glaring gap in the Government’s rhetoric on water is conserving and ensuring water security. That means improving supply. How and when will the Government improve water security?
It is important that in the efforts to reform the water sector, all stakeholders are engaged in the process. That includes farmers, and I was pleased to hear hon. Members today talk about the importance of engaging with farmers. Early last year those farmers had the rug pulled from under their feet when the Government suddenly halted applications to the sustainable farming incentive scheme. The SFI scheme rewarded farmers for adapting land management practices to reduce pollution, manage water flow and improve water quality. We are almost a year on from the closure of the SFI, and the Government—despite promising details on a new scheme last summer—only announced in January this year that a new scheme would open in June. Does the Minister not appreciate that farming is an occupation that requires long-term planning and certainty, particularly when so many other aspects, such as the weather, are left to chance?
In another potential blow to farmers, the Government have confirmed that they are considering whether environmental permitting should be extended to cattle farming, when this was not included as a direct recommendation in the independent review. As National Farmers Union vice-president Rachel Hallos said:
“Such a change would have a direct impact on farm business growth”.
The beef sector is already struggling with increasing costs and higher taxes imposed on them by the Chancellor, so how does the Minister intend to ensure that it does not face another new cost pressure? Is she engaging with it to listen to its concerns?
Many of my constituents care deeply about water quality and security. They are quite simply fed up that their water bills are increasing while water companies are failing to clear up their waterways. Given the Government’s habit of missing their own deadlines in the first 18 months of this Parliament, will the Minister give an iron-clad commitment that the transition plan will be published in parliamentary time this year? Will she clarify how long the transition will take? As she knows, and may well repeat to me, people voted for change and expect it, especially in our water sector. They demand that the Government move faster.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Emma Hardy)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I thank the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) for securing this debate, and I am grateful to everybody who has spoken in it. I welcome the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) to his place. I enjoyed listening to his first contribution from the Front Bench.
Before I get into the debate about water, I want to say a few words about flooding. There is obviously still a major incident classification in Somerset—I am going there after this debate—and that remains a concern. There are reports of flooding to about 300 properties, mostly in Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall. The Environment Agency flood defences have helped to protect about 16,200 properties from flooding, but it is still a difficult situation. There is still heavy rain across England, and it has continued in the south and south-west. I want to put on the record my thanks to the Environment Agency, the emergency services and everybody else, and I give my absolute sympathy and support to anybody impacted by the flooding.
As a trade unionist, I echo the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher). The anger that the public feel towards water companies must never be directed at the people working for those companies, who are often the ones out there fixing the broken pipes and dealing with the sewer overflow. I remain concerned by reports from the unions about how they have been treated by some. Anger at the industry should never be directed at the people working for it.
I am delighted to say that we have set out our vision for water through the White Paper, which was published last month. It outlines how we will work together with water companies, communities and the environment to transform our water sector and ensure a sustainable water system for future generations. It will drive forward the transformatory change that we need.
I pay tribute to the passion of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon) on this topic. She lobbies me not only publicly, but over coffee in the Tea Room and in the corridors, too. She is genuinely committed to this, and I thank her for her work. She is right to say that we have banned £4 million of bonuses, and she spoke about the Public Accounts Committee’s report, which highlighted regulatory failure. The White Paper mentions sustainable debt and what that might mean. The regulator is bringing the economic environment together. My hon. Friend rightly highlighted the need for skills; we are looking at how to appoint the people we need. She is right that statutorily those organisations need to continue to do their job and hold companies to account, but we need to create a shadow organisation working at the same time. Until we actually change the law, those organisations will still have all the powers.
I look forward to meeting the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Dr Chowns) to talk about the River Wye. I will come on to talk a little more about the environment.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) for his work on the EFRA Committee. He is right that we need more of a joined-up approach. Asset health is a massive issue, as people in Tunbridge Wells know only too well. I was shocked when I came into this role and was told that companies do not even know where some of their assets are. That is absolutely basic.
The right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase talked about environmental pollution, which is a huge issue. On 27 January, I met members of DEFRA’s Addressing Pollution from Agriculture programme, which I have mentioned in this Chamber before. They include representatives from farming, environmental groups and water companies. My idea was to bring everybody together so that they could hear from one another—the environmentalists from the farmers, and the farmers from the water companies—on the question of how we are going to address the challenge of environmental pollution.
For some farmers, I think there is a question around education and understanding the right way to do things. I do not think they go out there to cause pollution deliberately. The question is, how do we work with them to solve this issue? On 27 January, I met them side by side with the Farming Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle), to talk to them about this issue. Every four weeks until the summer, they will meet to say, “What can we do about agricultural pollution as one of the main sources of pollution?” Rather than me talking to the environmentalists and the Farming Minister talking to the farmers, we prefer the collaborative approach of having everyone talking to one another about how we solve the problem. That is the approach we have taken. When there is more to say on the outcomes of the group, I will report that back to the House.
I know that my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) is passionate about this issue. In fact, my very first visit as Minister was to see the River Foss barrier. I am so pleased that she mentioned the issues around chemicals and the increasing awareness of PFAS—per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances—what is happening with chemicals and the need to look at the thresholds for levels of chemicals in the water. I will definitely ask the University of York to send me information on its Ecomix work and its AQuA project to see how it is doing that.
My hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack) brought to life horrific experiences of flooding and how devastating flooding is for people’s mental health. We need to look at what can be improved. Obviously, if there are any concerns about water companies not giving her the information on what will be improved in her area and where, I am more than willing to follow up on that.
People who know me know that I get very excited about regional planning, and this Chamber is the place to be excited about regional planning. The White Paper talks a bit about what we are going to do, but I will give Members a heads up on what I am doing tomorrow: I have the first meeting of the steering group looking at regional planning. The group comprises catchment partnerships, the Environment Agency, local authorities, Ofwat, National Highways—of course, one of the concerns with water pollution is run-off from our highways—the NFU, Wildlife and Countryside Link, water companies, the Rivers Trust, Blueprint for Water and internal drainage boards. I have probably missed one.
We are bringing everybody together to determine where around the country we will have the early roll-out of out some of these measures. We want to determine how Sir Jon Cunliffe’s regional planning model will apply to different catchments, depending on whether they are coastal and whether they include rivers, and how this will work in practice. I cannot remember which Member it was, but someone said that we do not seem to be in favour of nature-based solutions. Clearly, they have never heard me talk about my passion for nature-based solutions, because that is simply not true. The idea is that we are looking at the pre-pipe stuff—the nature-based solutions—in regional areas. In different areas around the country, those boards will have slightly different compositions, depending on the type of catchment.
Anna Dixon
Will the Minister assure the House that the regional planning for water catchments will have a strong citizen voice embedded in it, as well as drawing on evidence and expertise?
Emma Hardy
Absolutely—evidence and expertise. We are yet to work this out. As I said, the composition will depend on the catchment. In the White Paper, we referred to “community voices”, which we want to represent.
Emma Hardy
With respect to the hon. Lady, I do not believe that she was in this debate from the start.
Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)
I am grateful to the Minister. It is of course up to the Minister to give way to whoever she wishes to, but she is perfectly right. The hon. Member was not here for the vast majority of the debate, and it is not courteous to the House, to this Chamber or to those who have participated in the entirety of the debate for her to seek to intervene at this late stage.
Emma Hardy
I turn now to regulation and the case for establishing a new single water regulator. As mentioned, that has to go alongside continuing what we have at the moment. Fundamental reform of water regulation is required, bringing together the economic and environmental planning, and looking at a singular accountable improvement body and enabling a whole-firm view of water company performance. The Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), called it phase 2 or round 2 —I am not sure what the right phrase is, but we will be back with further legislation. This is absolutely what we need. We are looking at a chief engineer being embedded in the new regulator, ensuring companies focus on fixing crumbling pipes, treatment works and on engineering expertise—it is shocking that we have not had engineering expertise. We are looking at greater stability, transparency and protection for customers.
Until then, existing regulators must retain their full legal powers and responsibility. However, the Government are determined to ensure that the future regulator does not inherit the problems of the past. Leadership appointments for the new regulator, including a chair designate, will therefore be made at the earliest opportunity, and they will drive the design and direction of the new regulator to support a smooth transition. Before that, early steps are now being taken to look at joining up regulatory activity, particularly between Ofwat and the Environment Agency, until the new regulator is established.
Charlie Maynard
We have four minutes to go, including a wind-up speech. I wonder whether the Minister is going to get to my point.
Emma Hardy
I will, but I would like to say— I hope this is felt by all Members across the House—that I am extremely accessible as a Minister and always willing to meet people, so I do not like having my integrity questioned. The hon. Gentleman should know that I responded to a letter from him on that very issue on 12 January. If he has not received it, he is welcome to come and see me, but to imply that I have ignored his request is false.
Emma Hardy
Thank you. Where was I? We are putting customers first. We want to end the steep, huge hikes that we have seen in bills and make sure that that never happens again. We have introduced our customer panels. We have just seen the first of those happening in South West Water, and they are being run by the Consumer Council for Water. We are listening to customer voices and making sure that they are at the heart of water companies. We need to do more. The water ombudsman will help to restore the balance, but fundamentally, we want customers to feel that they are listened to, are at the heart of this and are important. Having the customer panels and strengthening the ombudsman will make the processes around customers’ experiences much better.
On bills, we are about to respond to our consultation on WaterSure. How do we make water more affordable for people with disabilities, with large families, and for people who have a health need and therefore need to use more water? We are doubling the social tariff support and holding companies to the commitment to end water poverty by 2030.
Water meters were mentioned, and they can help huge numbers of people save money. I encourage everybody to talk to their constituents about that. I remember speaking to an elderly lady who was on her own, and she told me that she was really worried that her bill would go up with a water meter. I said, “How many bedrooms do you have?” She said, “Three. It is a family home, but the kids have moved out.” I told her that her bill would be less if she got a water meter. The great thing about water meters is that they can not only save money, but help us think about our water use, and they can support the environment.
There is a section in the White Paper on water security—it is an important issue for us—that looks at making sure we deal with the growing demands being placed on our system. How much water do we need for the homes that we want to build and for businesses and growth? How much water do we have? How do we address the gap? There are exciting things around thinking about sustainable urban drainage, water use, building regulations and how we use grey water harvesting. All these things must inform our thinking. In fact, tomorrow I am talking to the Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee about drought, and water management is one thing that is related.
This Government are committed to delivering lasting change, restoring confidence and ensuring resilient, sustainable water systems that work for customers, the environment and future generations.
Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)
I call Edward Morello, who has less than one minute.
Edward Morello
Thank you, Sir Jeremy, for your excellent chairing of this debate. I thank all hon. Members who have spoken today—too many to name in the time that I have. It is clear that everybody is echoing the same thoughts: the public anger at the dividends and bonuses, anger at the lack of investment and anger at the high water bills. Everybody has raised the ownership structure, which needs reform, and additional support for farmers. I thank the Minister for her response and for going straight from here to Somerset. I again extend an offer for her to visit West Dorset at her earliest convenience.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the Independent Water Commission Final Report.
Young Children’s Screen Time
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)
I will call Luke Charters to move the motion and then the Minister to respond. I remind other hon. Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge and the Minister; they may, of course, intervene, if either is prepared to take an intervention. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for these shorter debates.
Mr Luke Charters (York Outer) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the impact of screen time on young children.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy; thank you for your time this morning.
I have always said that I am a dad first and an MP second. My son Robin is three; he is kind, and he is happiest when he is outside playing. I am proud of him every single day. My youngest, Louis, is seven months old, and he is already curious about the world, watching and taking everything in. When this job takes me away from them, it hurts. One thing is very clear: when I am at home, I need to be a properly present dad.
I want to be honest with the House: there were weeks when my phone told me I was spending more than six hours a day on it. Even on weekends, when family time should be protected, it was four or five hours. When kids are young, we never get that time back, and every hour counts. Smartphones, though, are a feat of human engineering and have been deliberately designed to take our attention, quiet and relentlessly. I had to make a deliberate change for my two boys: cutting my screen time down, choosing to be on the floor building Brio—even making a Duplo Parliament—rather than being half present and half scrolling. Present fatherhood starts with all of us putting the phone down.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing the debate. From the persona that he presents in the Chamber, I have no doubt that he is a good dad, and very responsive to his children. What is undoubted is that, when used correctly, digital technology has positive effects, but use near bedtime or overuse is leading teachers to highlight that pupils are coming to school “wrecked” or tired, and excessive use is linked to lower academic performance. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we must help parents and carers find a balance in the use of screen time? I made that very request in the press today.
Mr Charters
Parents do need a bit of support when it comes to guidance and advice around what is excessive, particularly when it comes to unsupervised screen time.
Lola McEvoy (Darlington) (Lab)
My hon. Friend—my actual friend—is giving a brilliant speech. I pay tribute to him: he is a brilliant advocate for our generation of parents and also a wonderful dad. Does he agree that parents today are in desperate need of such guidance? I recently met Jonathan Haidt, the author of “The Anxious Generation”, and I asked him straight out, “What do we do about screens?”. He told me that watching long-form narrative content with our children is fine, but that letting them watch short-form content by themselves is a problem. We need a kind of five-a-day public health campaign from the Government. I hope that the Minister will address that.
Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)
Before the hon. Gentleman replies, the hon. Lady is perfectly right that long-form content is better in some contexts, but not here.
Mr Charters
Thank you, Sir Jeremy. Briefly, my hon. Friend is a fantastic mum herself and an advocate for the great parents of Britain. Parents need advice about unsupervised screen time, particularly on smartphones, which is totally different from sitting down at a laptop doing homework. I will touch on adaptive technologies later.
Every time a child looks up and finds a parent looking down at a phone, a lesson is quietly taught about what deserves their attention. That truth was reinforced when I spoke to Zack George, known to many as Steel from “Gladiators” and now an ambassador for Smartphone Free Childhood. Zack’s message to young people is stark and powerful:
“Don’t let your phone steal your power.”
He has dedicated his life to inspiring kids and talked with thousands of schoolchildren in more than 400 school visits. Through his brand, Zactiv, he is sending a clear message to children: if you want to grow up happy and healthy, stop scrolling and keep it IRL.
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
I draw my hon. Friend’s attention to Born in Bradford, an internationally recognised research cohort study. It has just launched the “In Real Life” trial with children in Bradford aged 12 to 15 to test whether reducing their social media use will reduce anxiety and improve their sleep and their relationship with their parents. Does my hon. Friend agree that such research and evidence will be essential to understanding the harmful impacts of social media on our young people?
Mr Charters
I thank my hon. Friend for citing that study. We can draw real lessons from what is happening in Australia. Hon. Members may not be aware that some bookshops in Australia are seeing a resurgence from new young readers who are putting their phones down in favour of novels.
I have recently watched content from Dr Rangan Chatterjee, who has consistently warned about the dangers of excessive screen time, and in preparation for this speech I also gathered insights from the Youth Sport Trust and BookTrust. Each of those voices highlights similar concerns. Staying with voices from the education sector, I spoke with teacher Lee Parkinson, aka Mr P—my wife, a primary school teacher herself, can often be seen scrolling through his content on Instagram. He made a really important point that I would like all hon. Members to take away: not all screen time is created equal. Used well and supervised, technology can support learning—for a child with dyslexia, speech-to-text software can remove barriers and build confidence—but unsupervised access to personal smartphones and tablets is entirely different.
Adam Dance (Yeovil) (LD)
As someone who is dyslexic and has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, I used my phone quite a lot at school. I was also bullied quite badly, and my phone was a release. Unfortunately, the Conservatives cut the youth services in Somerset that saved my life by 100%. Does the hon. Member agree that the Government should invest more in youth services in rural communities to help young people to thrive?
Mr Charters
I thank the hon. Member for sharing his personal experience with us. I completely agree that young people need support in their real life, whether through youth services or physical activity.
Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend not just for securing this debate, but for speaking powerfully as a parent about why this is so important. We must be honest: guidance is great, but it can often miss the mark when it comes to answering the questions that parents are actually asking. I am holding a forum later in February to speak to local parents about exactly what they are looking for from the guidance. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that the guidance, when we deliver it, is not only evidence-based, but grounded in the questions and experiences of parents right across Britain today?
Mr Charters
I thank my hon. Friend for all the work he is doing through the Labour group for men and boys. It is refreshing that this Government, and particularly the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, are carefully considering this with a lot of deep thought. The consultation will not look just for one silver bullet; it will look at a variety of options.
Children are spending hours a day on platforms designed to maximise engagement and deliver constant dopamine hits through short-form video content and infinite scroll loops. The evidence increasingly shows that that is affecting attention, behaviour in schools, sleep and emotional regulation.
Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)
I am at the other end of my parenting journey—my little girl is 24 today. She is a paediatric nurse and has drawn my attention to the “Cocomelon” channel on YouTube, which is a sensory overload. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is about not just the length of time, but the content—and sometimes the garish audio and colour of that content?
Mr Charters
I wish my hon. Friend’s daughter a happy birthday and thank her for the work she is doing as a paediatric nurse. “Cocomelon” has been described as “visual fentanyl” for young children. What is much more appropriate, particularly at a younger age, is more hand-drawn types of content, like “Peppa Pig”. Perhaps we all ought to go for a bit more Peppa and a bit less JJ.
You need not take my word for it, Sir Jeremy: research published by the Department for Education showed that nearly 98% of children under the age of two engage with screens every day. A University College London study in 2026 has found that toddlers now average about two hours of screen time daily—far more than my little lad is allowed. Analysis from the Centre for Social Justice estimates that, very sadly, nearly 800,000 under-fives are now using social media. Ofcom data from 2024 reveals that one third of five to seven-year-olds are using social media without any supervision. That scares the living daylights out of me as a parent.
Such data is stark, but it is just part of the story. Somewhat ironically, I turned to social media to ask my constituents about their own experiences with their young children, and they expressed concern about more than the quantity of screen time that children have. Parents responded that they were even more worried about the type of content to which children are exposed. One teacher shared with me feedback from NASUWT’s “Better Deal on Behaviour” report, with a year 1 teacher describing how children were beginning to mimic inappropriate behaviour that they had seen online, despite being far too young to understand it. Another raised the idea of digital diets. They made the point that screen time can range from something as harmless as using Google Maps to find the local library, to accessing inappropriate material. To go back to the words of Mr P, not all screen time is created equal.
On this point, it feels timely to mention that I am pleased the Government have this week launched a new campaign, “You Won’t Know until You Ask”, to address harmful content. That follows the finding from YouGov that half of British parents admit to never speaking to their children about toxic content. Encouraging parents to sit down with their children and talk about online harms helps to break down barriers. It is a healthy step in the right direction.
Lola McEvoy
As I said, my hon. Friend is giving a brilliant speech. Does he share my concern that relying solely on parental intervention in relation to this huge swathe of technological advances is not enough? We do not want children to start hiding things from their parents; we want to ensure that they are not exposed to it in the first place.
Mr Charters
I think, particularly when it comes to things like YouTube shorts, that Members of this House would never want to see a ban on YouTube, but when it comes to the user experience on those platforms, there should be things like firebreaks or rest breaks—akin to when we drive—to try to give children a pause so that they do not end up in an infinite scroll loop.
Actually, I think we should view screen time as a public health issue, not just a parenting dilemma. Health visitors meet parents at a very early stage in a child’s life. I think they should be able to talk explicitly about screen time to parents from the very start. Early guidance at that point is critical, as habits form early. As children grow older, they absorb the behaviours they see all around them, and if adults are constantly on their phones, children will almost absorb that by osmosis. The more parents are aware of that from the start, the better the outcomes can be.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
The hon. Member is giving a brilliant speech, and I am so pleased that he opened his remarks with, and spoke again just now about, the role of parents and parents’ use of mobile phones. I have recently met paediatricians, GPs and headteachers, who all say that they are observing bad use of phones in parents, which then impacts the children. Does the hon. Member agree that it has a detrimental consequence for children when parents are on screens too much?
Mr Charters
I thank the hon. Member for making that eloquent point. I would say that we should learn the lessons from Australia. Back in 2015, it established the eSafety Commissioner, whose work on screen time was all about linking parents and children together as part of a collective dialogue. I think we must keep young people safe by looking at age-appropriate digital spaces. So often the debate is focused on banning social media, but we would never talk about banning young people from driving; we talk about an age-appropriate limit, so that they can start driving at the age of 17.
Will Stone (Swindon North) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for his fantastic speech so far. He has talked about banning social media, and I completely agree with him. Does he agree with me that we are seeing a correlation between excessive screen time and poor mental health, and that social media companies need to be more accountable for what they are allowing the next generation to see, because there are some horrific things out there on social media?
Mr Charters
I thank my hon. Friend for making that excellent point. I have spoken openly in this House about my own mental health struggles in the past. When it comes to AI tools in particular, we must ensure that they point people to the right and proper advice that is specific to the UK and the NHS, and to charities such as Samaritans.
I also believe that schools should be transparent with parents about the nature of screen use in the classroom. It is a welcome move that, thanks to the Government, Ofsted will check schools’ mobile phone policies during every inspection, with schools expected to be phone-free by default. Many schools already have thoughtful policies on tablet and laptop use, too. Although technology can absolutely be a force for good, transparency is essential so that parents can be clear about how screens are being used in school and can reinforce consistent habits at home. We cannot have a situation where the approach to screens at school is different from at home. When schools and families are aligned, children will develop clearer boundaries and healthier habits online.
The reality is that we cannot simply say, “Less smartphone screen time” and leave it at that; we also have to create positive and fulfilling alternatives. My son Robin loves charging through what we call the swamp on his balance bike, usually straight through the muddiest bit and always at maximum speed. As a parent, those magical moments with muddy knees, fresh air and real laughter are more precious than an hour in front of the telly.
We should all make better use of the things that are set by schools and already out there. Events such as sports days and World Book Days are perfect opportunities to get kids outdoors, active and reading together. That all fits with the sentiment of Zack George, aka Steel, that I referred to earlier: the less time scrolling and more time socialising, the better. In Australia, as I touched on earlier, bookshops are welcoming more young readers, libraries are seeing a renewed interest and community sports clubs are attracting younger members in record numbers. These are the positive alternatives that we must build.
Of course, none of this is as simple or straightforward as it might seem, but I am very glad that we are having a conversation about it. I like to think of myself as one of the most pro-tech MPs in this place, given my previous career. However, as the youngest parent in Parliament and a proud dad, I believe that we owe it to families to take the more harmful types of screen time seriously. After all, childhood only happens once, and if we are honest with ourselves, too much of it is now unfolding behind a screen.
At the heart of the issue is balance, because not all screen time is created equal. There is nothing wrong with children using BBC Bitesize on an iPad, learning a language on Duolingo, or even watching an episode of “Bluey”, which, as some Members will know, has an incredibly catchy theme tune. There is, of course, a balance to be struck—and if we are honest, this epidemic is affecting not just children, but adults.
To conclude, I am deeply concerned about children becoming trapped in a system that they did not design. Children did not build this digital world—it was created by forces far beyond their control—yet they are being drawn deliberately and persistently into addictive digital environments long before they have the tools to recognise or resist them. If we fail to act, it will be children who live with the consequences, not those who designed the system.
Yesterday, I met the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology to talk about the Government’s forthcoming consultation. I really welcomed her saying that many of the issues I have raised today, regarding how we prevent excessive and unsupervised screen time harming young children, will be considered. I know that she cares deeply about this matter and is considering it carefully. I thank hon. Members for joining this debate today and I hope that their points will also be considered in the consultation.
The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Mr Charters) for his really powerful and heartfelt speech.
So much of what my hon. Friend set out today really resonated with me as the mum of a two-year-old. It can be a struggle to stay off the phone, and I would not really like to consider my own screen time, so it was brave of him to do so. He also spoke about the need to be present, the importance of messy outdoor play and the need for children to have protected childhoods, as well as how difficult it is to navigate this whole new world and, as a parent, to find the best advice and the right thing to do for our children. That is why debates such as this are so important, and why his leadership as a parent in this place is so critical. As he said, we want to harness the benefits of technology for education, but we want to protect children from harm.
Before I go into questions on screen time, I want to reflect on what my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) said about opportunities in childhood—the need to have good youth services and opportunities for children to play, to be in sports activities and to perform. That is why, as the Minister for School Standards, I am focused on the enrichment opportunities around school, such as outdoor learning, music performance, the opportunity to be in a sports team—those are the things that give joy to the school experience and to young people’s childhoods.
Anna Dixon
I am sure that the Minister is aware that it is the National Year of Reading. On the wider opportunities to get our kids off their screens, would she commend the work of the National Literacy Trust in trying to restore the joy of reading, and perhaps share her favourite childhood book with us? Mine was “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”.
Georgia Gould
My next sentence was going to be about the National Year of Reading. I have been travelling around the country visiting schools and it has been wonderful to see how they are embracing it. I have been hearing about schools putting on pyjama parties for parents and children to read together, and I have been at schools when parents have come in to read with children. That brings the joy of reading to life, and I hope that we will see a similar experience to Australia with bookshops full of children embracing reading. At the moment, my son is obsessed with the “Mog” series, so all we do in my house is talk about Mog.
I recognise the concerns that my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer raised about the impact of screen time on young children. Early childhood is developmentally critical and screen time can displace healthy behaviours such as physical activity and adequate sleep, which have complex interactions with mental health and wellbeing.
Alex Mayer (Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard) (Lab)
I recently did a survey with local schools. Perhaps the children were more willing to put on the survey how much screen time they had when they were not supervised by their parents, but I was enthused about the things that they said they would do if they were not on social media, including spending far more time outdoors and reading, as has already been mentioned. Does the Minister agree that we need evidence, so we are not doing just what is simple but what is right?
Georgia Gould
Absolutely. Evidence is so important because this is a struggle. It is not about judging parents, but about giving them the best evidence and the tools that they need to make decisions to support their children.
Adam Dance
I thank the Minister, as always, for replying to me. Only 18% of dyslexics have access to assistive technology. I know that she is passionate about getting that changed, so are we on the right road to get more assistive technology into our education system for dyslexics?
Georgia Gould
Absolutely. We are really committed to supporting assistive technology. We have introduced new lending libraries, as the hon. Member is aware, and we recently announced a £200 million investment into teacher training. As part of that training, we want to look at how we can best use assistive technology in the classroom, as well as what we are doing around edtech and how we are growing its use in the classroom. That shows that technology can be helpful when it is supporting learning, and it is important to take a nuanced approach.
From recent Government research, we know that the children with the highest screen use—of around five hours daily—at age two can say significantly fewer words than those with lower use. My hon. Friend the Member for York Outer referred to research that said that 98% of two-year-olds watch a screen daily. As my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy) set out, it is critical that parents have the right information to be able to support their children.
That is why we announced in January the first ever Government guidance for parents on screen use for under-fives, which aims to provide practical, non-judgmental advice to help parents balance screen use with activities that support children’s development such as playing, speaking and reading. Parents want that guidance. Parents in this Chamber want it, and polling from Kindred shows that 40% of parents say that reducing screen time would help ensure their child is ready for reception, underlining the demand for practical, trusted guidance in the early years.
I, therefore, recognise the significance of the issue and the responsibility to get it right. For that reason, we have set up the early years screen time advisory group, a new expert panel chaired by Professor Russell Viner—former chief scientific adviser to the Department for Education, leading paediatrician and expert in children’s health—and Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner for England.
The early years screen time advisory group will review the current evidence and existing advice on early years screen use to help inform the new guidance for parents. That group is holding its second meeting as we speak, which shows the urgency and seriousness with which the work is being taken forward. We want to hear directly from those with relevant knowledge and experience. We launched a two-week call for evidence on 2 February to ensure that the guidance is firmly grounded in evidence and expertise. I encourage hon. Members to share their evidence. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon) mentioned work being done in Bradford, which I encourage her to share.
Lola McEvoy
The Minister is giving a brilliant speech to sum up this important debate. Will the work she mentions consider the link between the need for more speech and language therapy for early years and screen time pre-school?
Georgia Gould
We want to look at the evidence, including any impact on speech and language. We are seeing a far greater need for speech and language support, which is why we are investing in new early years support around speech and language. That is surely one of the areas that the evidence will address.
Engagement sessions with parents, children, early years practitioners and stakeholders are taking place across England, allowing them to share what works in real family life, and what support they need from guidance. The guidance will be published in April and made available to parents through the Best Start in Life website, giving the clarity and support they are asking for to navigate screen time with their youngest children.
More broadly, my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon North (Will Stone) raised the issue of protecting children from harmful content. The Online Safety Act 2023 requires providers specifically to consider, as part of their risk assessment, how algorithms could impact children’s exposure to illegal content and content that is harmful to children on their service. Services that are assessed as easily accessed by children must put in place measures to prevent algorithms from pushing harmful content to children.
As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer, there is a wider consultation—a national conversation—that will look at some of the broader issues. The Department for Education is committed to strengthening the evidence base on the impact of screen use and screen time on child development. Our set of longitudinal studies already gathers data on children’s screen and social media use, and will interrogate their relationship with mental health and cognitive development. We are funding a programme of research to better understand the impact of digital technologies on children.
We are in strong agreement with the overwhelming message from today: we cannot wait to act in this space. We have to look to protect and enhance our children’s lives online. It is right to continue to look at further action that could be taken, so I welcome today’s important debate. We will set out guidance, but it is important to have the national conversation, without blaming parents, to make sure that they have the information they need. When they want to get out and enjoy time with their children, we should provide the right activities and support to enable them to do so.
Question put and agreed to.
Inner-London Local Authorities: Funding
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered funding for local authorities in inner London.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Dr Murrison. My constituency includes part of the London borough of Lambeth and part of the London borough of Southwark. Before I was elected to this House, I spent five years as a local ward councillor in Southwark. I just managed not to overlap with the Minister, who was also a councillor on Southwark council and stepped down in 2010 as I was being elected.
Being a councillor is deeply rewarding, with a responsibility for delivering services in a way that makes a direct difference to people’s daily lives. From recycling to street cleaning, adult services, children’s social care, roads, parks, playgrounds and council housing, our councils are responsible for important aspects of the fabric of everyday life. They affect people’s quality of life and, in doing so, play a vital role in building trust and confidence in politics, the Government and public services.
I am proud that, as a councillor, I helped turn around a local primary school in a deprived area of my ward from being one of the worst in the borough to one of the best. I am proud that we delivered road safety improvements at a number of dangerous junctions in the ward. I am proud of the work that we did through tenants and residents associations and local community organisations to bring people together and build community. I am also proud that, despite more than a decade of Conservative and Lib Dem austerity, Southwark continued to keep the borough clean and open new libraries. It was one of the first councils to fund universal free school meals for primary-age children and it is a borough of sanctuary that supports the refugees and asylum seekers who are part of our diverse community.
I remember very clearly the Labour group meeting in 2010 in which we were briefed on the coalition Government’s local government funding settlement for Southwark. There was a stony silence in the room as the newly elected cabinet member for finance told us how big the cuts were and the services and investment that the council would no longer be able to deliver as a result.
We had no idea how much worse the cuts would get over the coming years such that, a decade on from the 2010 election, our councils were receiving 60% less in grant funding from central Government, and the capital grant for new council homes had been decimated. That marked a huge shift in local authority funding away from the certainty of grant funding and towards retained business rates, the new homes bonus and endless small, short-term pots of funding, often requiring resourcing for a bidding process.
At the same time, our councils saw rising need. Our ageing population has meant an increasing need for adult social care, and the erosion of support for families has resulted in more children being taken into care and the cost of expensive placements increasing. The rising numbers of children with special educational needs and disabilities has increased the costs of school placements and home-to-school transport.
That is all before we get to housing. Inner-London boroughs are at the epicentre of our national housing crisis. Spiralling rents and a lack of security in the private rented sector mean that more and more families have turned to their council for support with housing, while the lack of investment in new social housing and the loss of council homes under the right to buy has meant that they have had to be housed in temporary accommodation, which is very expensive and often the worst-quality accommodation. London councils are currently spending £5 million a day on temporary accommodation—that is £5 million a day into the pockets of some of the worst landlords, and at times paying for damp, mouldy, overcrowded homes, often far from a family’s home, neighbourhood, community and their children’s school.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I always try to be helpful to the hon. Lady and all hon. Members. We have many brownfield sites in my constituency and there are many in London where the hon. Lady refers to there being a housing crisis. Does she feel that there should be a focus on trying to use those sites for social housing and improve the housing problems that London clearly has?
Helen Hayes
I am grateful to the hon. Member for his intervention. I will come on to talk about those sites in my constituency that have planning permission but currently are not funded to build the social homes that could be on those sites. I think that is an important part of how we solve these challenges.
The Conservatives’ interventions to reduce social housing rents have also been disastrous for the ability of our councils to fund the maintenance of social housing and to fund new social homes. Southwark council calculated that Conservative-imposed rent cuts and freezes will cost the council’s housing revenue account £1 billion over 30 years. What is a very small saving for tenants has had a really big impact on the ability of councils to keep up with the maintenance needs of their social housing stock.
The Conservatives were happy to cut our councils’ budgets to the core and did not worry about the erosion of services that inevitably followed. Reform imagined that our councils were full of waste and profligacy, only to find that they are lean organisations that have constantly innovated in the face of austerity but that, over time, have become stretched, sometimes to breaking point.
A budget settlement based on a definition of deprivation that did not include housing costs, as was originally proposed, would have had absolutely dire consequences for inner-London councils. The reality is this: if rent eats up so much of someone’s income every month that they cannot afford the bare essentials, or if the only property they can afford to rent is so bad that it causes them and their family to become ill, then they are deprived and they face exactly the same consequences of that deprivation as anyone else anywhere in the country who simply does not have enough money to get by.
Helen Hayes
I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.
Florence Eshalomi
I thank my hon. Friend, my constituency neighbour, for making such an impassioned and powerful speech. I declare an interest in that my constituency also covers both Lambeth and Southwark. She is talking about housing costs, which we know are so expensive in London. We have seen housing costs rise over 15 years, pushing more people into homelessness and temporary accommodation. Does she agree that the Government should look at the subsidy paid for temporary accommodation, which has been frozen since 2011? In real terms, rents have continued to go up in our constituencies.
Helen Hayes
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The maths on temporary accommodation costs simply does not add up at the moment. I have more to say on that a bit later in my speech.
Dawn Butler
I thank my hon. Friend for her important speech today. Brent council, which covers my constituency, spends £100,000 a day on temporary housing. We have around 40,000 people on the housing waiting list. It is impossible to match that need, but it is also important to understand that councils, as my hon. Friend has said, are trying to innovate. Housing costs in inner London need to be taken into consideration with any calculations.
Helen Hayes
My hon. Friend makes the point very well. It is the reality of people’s lives. People come to all of us who represent constituencies at the heart of the housing crisis in the most desperate of circumstances—in circumstances that everybody would agree are completely unacceptable—and there is no relief for them, because the options that are on the table are simply unaffordable, and what is affordable is unacceptable.
I am grateful to the Government for listening and for changing the deprivation criteria to include housing costs. I also completely recognise the very deep poverty and deprivation that affect other parts of the country. I grew up in the north-west and before I was elected to Parliament, I worked with communities all over the country. This should be about not pitting different areas of our country against each other, but resourcing and empowering local authorities right across our country to meet the needs of their communities. Some of those needs are universal, and some are specific.
While I welcome the changes made to the formulae in recent weeks, inner-London councils will still remain in a very difficult financial situation as a consequence of the settlement that was finalised yesterday.
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
I welcome the tone of the hon. Member’s comment at the end there. I will use the examples of Lambeth and Southwark. When we pull out the contributions from council tax and look only at the money that is coming from central Government, over the next three years, Lambeth residents will have £75 per capita removed from their support from central Government, and Southwark residents will have £75 per resident removed. Does she agree that that is not good enough from a Labour Government?
Helen Hayes
There are different ways of looking at the analysis and I am sure that the Minister will speak in detail on the way that the Government have apportioned funding based on the formula. The reality of the settlement as finalised yesterday is undoubtedly that our councils are in a very stretching situation indeed, and that could lead to difficult situations ahead. One of the areas where the Government could really help our councils is by looking at the costs that they have to bear as well as the resources that they have to meet those costs. I will come on to make some of those points in a moment.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)
My hon. Friend and constituency neighbour in Lambeth is making an excellent speech. The arbitrary cap, which I believe was initially created in the fair funding review, created the unintended consequence of leaving Lambeth missing out on the funding that it would have otherwise received. That means that Lambeth has lost out on £47.5 million over three years. As she knows, that money is urgently needed to protect our local services. Although, like me, I am sure that she welcomes the uplift to the recovery grant that was announced yesterday, does she agree that it is not enough to meet the needs of our constituents and our local authority with its ever-growing costs?
Helen Hayes
My hon. Friend makes the point about the recovery grant very well. I will come on to some practical suggestions for what the Government could do to alleviate that situation in the short term.
Council tax equalisation, such that the grant is now based on each area’s share of the national tax base and not actual local tax levels, penalises low tax base, high-needs areas like Lambeth and Southwark. The business rates reset will wipe out historical strong growth in some inner-London boroughs, and falling numbers of children will also have an impact through the children’s formula, even though need is growing and increasingly complex.
The risk is that our councils are left in an increasingly precarious situation and are forced to make impossibly hard choices about local services in the face of increasing need. Having agreed the final funding settlement—it is welcome that it is for three years, which gives our councils more certainty—there is more for the Government to do to help councils bring down their costs and reduce need, so that service delivery is manageable within the resources that are available.
On behalf of my councils of Lambeth and Southwark, I have a number of asks of the Minister. Our councils desperately need help with the costs of temporary accommodation. The average cost of temporary accommodation in London has risen by 75% over the last five years, and the number of people seeking help with their housing has also increased dramatically, yet the amount that the Government pay councils to subsidise temporary accommodation has been frozen since 2011. Will the Government work towards increasing the subsidy so that it is closer to the actual housing costs that our councils face?
Temporary accommodation is the least stable form of housing and it has terrible consequences for residents. I have known many constituents to get up at 5 am to travel long distances by bus to keep their children in the same school and give them some stability. Those costs could be saved if more residents could afford to rent privately, yet the freezing of the local housing allowance has made that increasingly impossible. Will the Minister work with her counterparts in the Department for Work and Pensions and the Treasury to increase the rate of local housing allowance to stop private renters from needing temporary accommodation? Some of the £5 million that is spent every day by London local authorities on temporary accommodation would be much better deployed keeping residents in stable homes through the local housing allowance than propping up the most awful situations in temporary accommodation.
With the application of the £35 million cap, councils in receipt of the recovery grant currently face a cliff edge. For Lambeth council that will mean, as my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) said, a loss of £47.5 million over the next three years. If the cap was removed for just next year, it would give the council an additional £11 million to reduce the savings that it is currently having to plan for. Will the Minister consider that?
Councils have expressed concern to me about the Government’s assumptions about the level of council tax receipts. Will the Minister work with councils to ensure that the assumed level of council tax receipts closely matches actual council tax collections? The social housing crisis requires that new social homes are delivered at pace. In my constituency, we have council and housing association-owned sites with planning permission that are not currently being delivered because the soaring inflation caused by the Liz Truss mini-budget priced them out of viability.
The Government’s commitment to invest £39 billion in social housing is very welcome, but will the Minister ensure some of that funding is urgently made available to London boroughs that have sites that are ready to build? We urgently need that.
The overnight accommodation levy is very good news for London but it must be apportioned to where it is most needed. Will the Government mandate that at least 50% of the funds raised by the levy are retained locally by London boroughs to cover the costs incurred by services affected by tourism and to support local growth?
Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)
The Government are looking at how the overnight stay levy might be used, and there is some really welcome potential, for example where major events in London happen in one local authority but impact many. I completely agree with my hon. Friend on the 50:50 split. Does she agree that that could help to smooth out some of the longer-term funding issues coming out of the settlement, by providing additional capital that councils could use, for example, on public realm and public safety works?
Helen Hayes
I agree completely. The levy is a really important source of additional revenue into London, and it is so important that it is spent where it is needed. That does mean allowing councils to retain some of the receipts—I would say 50%, as London Councils is calling for—in order for them to do exactly that.
Exceptional financial support was designed to be a temporary intervention to support councils with acute financial pressures, but the consequence has been a growing number of councils running structural deficits. Will the Minister set out in greater detail how the Government intend to support councils to exit EFS so they are not held back by growing deficits?
Finally, the announcement yesterday on SEND deficits is very welcome. It is a clear recognition that the current costs of SEND provision are totally unsustainable. Writing off 90% of SEND deficits will only help if the forthcoming SEND reforms are properly funded and designed such that they are financially sustainable. What is the Minister doing with the Department for Education and the Treasury to make sure that councils’ statutory SEND responsibilities are properly funded when the schools White Paper is published?
Our councils and councillors are a crucial part of the bond of trust between local residents and the politicians and governments that serve them. We cannot leave our councils in the position in which the Conservatives were happy to leave them, with no answer to the needs of their local populations because they do not have the resources to deliver. Our local residents need and deserve clean streets, well-kept parks and open spaces, good-quality road services, good adult social care and effective children’s services, good-quality homes in the social rented sector, and proper support for children with SEND. They deserve nothing less, so that they can trust that government is there to deliver for them. We owe it to our dedicated, hard-working colleagues in local government to support them.
Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing this important debate.
Let me start by expressing my agreement with colleagues from outer London. Local authorities are in a perilous position, and have been for some time, due to Governments of all stripes. As a former council deputy leader and cabinet member for children’s services, I really do understand. I also believe that Members from inner London will benefit from an enhanced appreciation of the specific struggles those of us in outer London face.
I want especially to raise the devastating impact of unfair funding on my borough of Bromley. Bromley has the third lowest settlement funding per head among London boroughs. As a result of the Government’s provisional settlement, Bromley will see funding reductions of £6.5 million in 2026-27, rising to £22.2 million per annum by 2028-29. That equates to over £30 million per year in real-terms funding reductions by 2028-29. If the Government’s funding were fair, Bromley would instead be receiving a funding increase. Indeed, if Bromley received the average London core grant funding in 2026-27, it would gain about £112 million extra—an enormous figure.
Any cuts to our funding are felt more keenly than by other councils, too. Bromley maintains the lowest net expenditure per head in London while delivering efficient services for its residents, limiting our ability to realise significant savings compared with other, high-cost authorities. Effectively, the Government are punishing Bromley for being an efficient, well-run council, while Government after Government bail out failing councils. Bromley deserves better.
Bromley is no stranger to being targeted. The mayor’s precept currently stands at just over £490 for a band D property—a more than 77% increase since Sadiq Khan became Mayor of London. Before anybody highlights inflation, a rise in line with inflation would have brought the precept to just over £380, an increase of 39% rather than the 77% that has been inflicted on us.
What do people in the inner-London boroughs get? A regular and extensive bus service and a tube network to their doorstep. What do the people of Bromley get? Poor transport infrastructure and a mayor who keeps coming back to siphon more and more money from our borough, close our 24-hour police desk and fleece motorists with increased congestion charges and an expanded ultra low emission zone charge. Outer London is subsidising inner London’s transport network, while Bromley is served by only two direct bus routes into central London, both of which only run after midnight.
If we are going to have to continue to pay into the mayor’s coffers, will he or she at least ensure that the Superloop is extended a mere 2 miles to run from Bromley North via Plaistow Green, and can we please keep our 24-hour police desk? The situation in which Bromley and the rest of outer London is simply ignored by the Government and this mayor cannot continue. We deserve fairer funding. Bromley council wants to work with the Government, but the Government need to listen so that we see a truly fair and sustainable settlement that does not punish boroughs like Bromley.
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I thank the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) for securing this important debate at an opportune time.
“The streets of London are paved with gold”—or so the saying from the tale of Dick Whittington goes. But of course the point of that saying was to remind us that he did not, in fact, encounter riches and utopia when he got to London. That has been inner London’s story for centuries: portrayed as pampered by the rest of the nation while its people grapple with some of the biggest challenges imaginable.
I am a proud Londoner, I am an MP and a still councillor in London, I am my party’s spokesperson for London, and I know vividly how drastic the challenge is across London. I have knocked on doors across the city and heard directly from residents about their challenges, their fury at the last Conservative Government and now their disappointment with the Labour Government. London is a city where 2.3 million people—that is twice the population of Birmingham, and one in four people in the city—live in poverty. According to data from the Trust for London, that figure rises to 38% for non-white households and 53% for single-parent households. It is a city where SEND deficits and adult social care deficits have thrown council finances into uncertainty for more than a decade. It is a city where, perhaps most shockingly of all, a teacher in every school can walk into their classroom in the morning knowing that, on average, at least one of their pupils at any given time is likely to be living in temporary accommodation.
Year after year councils in London have been asked to do more with less. Reform of the system is long overdue, with the current formula not having been properly updated in more than a decade—not to mention the fundamental unfairness of the council tax system to raise money for local services. We were told by the Government that there would not be a return to austerity on their watch. It was a claim that most of us could believe, not just because they are a Labour Government with a social democratic tradition, but because they are a Government full of former councillors and council leaders who have seen at first hand that the reality of austerity is often most severe in local government. It is therefore outrageous that they have presented a funding review that simply doubles down on the disastrous cuts.
Over the next three years, per capita funding, when council tax contributions are removed, will reduce by £109 in Camden, by £79 in Lambeth, by £75 in Southwark, by £37 in Lewisham, by £180 in Wandsworth, by £54 in Greenwich, by £220 in Hammersmith and Fulham, by £86 in Islington, and by £247 in Westminster and in Kensington and Chelsea. What is that if not Labour austerity?
The current formula makes use of the index of multiple deprivation as the central measure of poverty but, as has been said many times, the IMD as currently designed does not properly reflect housing costs, housing poverty and what it means to be poor in a city where rent alone can swallow well over a half of a working person’s income. If we build a funding formula that ignores housing costs, we build one that blatantly ignores inner London.
I am an engineer and know bad maths when I see it, and the proof that the Government’s latest announcements, published just this week, are smoke and mirrors is right there in the forecasted effects. Two thirds of the purported increase in total funding in London comes from the assumed council tax increases. When we account for that fact, we see that over the three-year settlement period, only two of the 12 inner-London boroughs—Hackney and Tower Hamlets—receive a real-terms funding increase per capita from the Government. Government Members like to talk about the austerity during the coalition period, but perhaps they would like to reflect on those figures for per-capita funding when council tax contributions are removed, which are a result of this Labour Government, and the effect on their inner-London residents.
I have lots of data, which I am sure the Government know to be true, but a person does not have to be expert to know that the Government’s numbers do not add up—they just have to walk a few miles away from this place. I thought Labour Members were supposed to be in tune with and sensitive to inequality, yet here we are in a palace that is increasingly a boundary to their views while just a few minutes away, in Lambeth, Southwark, north Kensington and Chelsea Riverside, people are suffering because their councils are choked of the funds that they need to protect them. The support that this Government promised to deliver never materialised. Those working people have already been hit by inflation, the cost of living and rising transport fares. They now face not just lesser services but the prospect of huge council tax hikes because of this mess, which Labour might not have made but is doubling down on.
Londoners are sick of being utterly let down while being told that they have never had it so good, or that they have a Government and a mayor who are on their side. I do not doubt that Labour Members’ intentions are good, that they got into politics for the right reasons, or that they have had incredible achievements as councillors—I am proud to have done that myself—but I sincerely ask them to please get their house in order and provide what London needs. With the devil in the detail of their unfair funding review, they are proposing the exact opposite. They have just a couple of months to get their act together before the local elections, but I suspect that for most Londoners the die is already cast against Labour because of its lack of care.
This is not a sustainable foundation for any public service system. It is not fair funding; it is the accelerated starvation of a vital part of the public realm, masked by cosmetic changes. The Minister has heard it from around the Chamber; it is not just me ploughing a single furrow. If the Government are casting about trying to understand why people are not warming to their efforts—perhaps more so this week than ever before—they should remember that although they can mask an unfair funding formula under snappy headlines and public relations gloss, they cannot make it function as a good policy just by wishing it so. That is government by magical thinking.
I am racking my brain trying to imagine why Members on the Government Benches cannot see the wood for the trees on this topic. I can only guess that they simply do not grasp the true value of well-funded, well-functioning and truly independent local government. I know that that is not true for some of the Members in this Chamber, who have come from local councils in inner and outer London. However, they are unwilling to challenge the dangerous idea that local government is a derivative of central Government, and the fact that the mayor’s powers are being used as a convenient shield by a Labour Government who are quietly keeping London in their back pocket for whenever they need someone else to carry the pain—because that is what the fairer funding review amounts to. It is hard to see it as anything other than a plan for managed decline of our cities, with inner-London boroughs first in the firing line.
This can only be justified by misunderstanding the aphorism that I began with and not grasping that London’s streets are considered to be paved with gold only when it suits those who wish to ignore its many challenges. I invite the Minister to explain more clearly how a reduction in per-capita funding over the next three years for residents in 10 of the 12 inner-London boroughs that are the subject of this debate will result in better services for those residents.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I draw hon. Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a parliamentary vice-president of London Councils and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I would like to thank those organisations for the excellent research that they have supplied to Members to help us prepare for today’s debate.
While I congratulate the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing the debate, listening to her story of being a councillor—one that is reflected, I think, by a good number of Members who were present this afternoon—made me think about where it sits in the context of what is happening with the local government funding formula overall and the particular impact that it is having on our inner-London boroughs.
We know that London’s funding formula has always, to an extent, created a city of two halves. There are the inner-London boroughs, with a relatively generous settlement from that funding formula and, historically, generally lower council taxes. Then there is a doughnut of outer-London boroughs, in which my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) are found, with a funding level broadly in line with the surrounding county and district authorities.
For a long time, it has been a source of concern among London authorities that there needs to be some levelling out to ensure consistency across council tax and funding. To address the longer-term funding issues, however, the Government clearly need to address the nature, scope and purpose of many of the statutory duties that exist across all those authorities, in order to enable us all to live within our means and to set levels of taxation that are reasonable for our constituents to pay.
Sadly, we are not seeing that happening. Instead, as the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) described, we have a Government who came to office saying that they were the cavalry coming over the hill, and that they could be trusted to inject additional resources into inner London, outer London and other parts of the country that were concerned about funding. In their first Budget, however, local government was left £1.5 billion net worse off through the jobs tax—the national insurance rise—alone.
The consistent feedback from councillors across London is that they feel a sense of shock and surprise at just how fast things have got so much worse. There are also particular significant dynamics in inner London. As several hon. Members have said, in the local government finance settlement, more than two thirds of the additional resources announced by the Government would come from the maximum possible council tax rise being imposed across the board. That is not additional Government funding, it is simply councils being required, as a minimum, to use their maximum possible tax-raising powers on the household budgets of all their local residents.
We also see the impacts of exceptional financial support, a policy that has existed under Governments of all stripes under different names for a long time. It is essentially a measure to allow a council to borrow to get it through temporary financial difficulties. It is a way of avoiding the issuance of a section 114 notice, which is the equivalent of a bankruptcy notice, by the statutory finance officers in that local authority. On an almost weekly basis, this Government make written ministerial statements on local government best value interventions, and on agreeing exceptional financial support to the extent that it is no longer exceptional. It is clearly simply a method of sustaining local authorities to avoid bad headlines, rather than addressing the nature, scope and purpose of statutory duties, which need to be addressed to get budgets back into balance.
Acute pressure has been created by an explosion in rough sleeping and homelessness in inner London since this Government took office. We need to be clear: London has always had a challenge around rough sleeping. Although my constituency does not cover Heathrow, it is a significant factor in my local authority’s activities. The number of people who find their way to an airport that is open 24/7, with showers, toilets and security, means that there are a disproportionately large number of rough sleepers in my local authority’s area.
As we heard, there has been a 27% increase in street homelessness since this Government took office. That contributes to the sharply rising pressure on temporary accommodation that London Councils, on behalf of the capital’s local authorities, has highlighted as the biggest single factor driving inner-London councils to seek exceptional financial support and to look at significant reductions across the capital in the services that our constituents expect local authorities to provide, such as libraries, parks and clean streets. At the same time, according to a recent report by Savills, two thirds of London boroughs report reaching net zero: not net zero in the traditional sense of an environmental target, but net zero new housing starts. In two thirds of our capital’s boroughs, no new homes are being added to the housing stock at a time when the Government have an increasingly unattainable target of 1.5 million new homes. To hear hon. Members from throughout the Chamber talk about the acute pressure from housing need, at a time when housing delivery in the capital has absolutely collapsed, demonstrates that things are not going in the right direction.
We are due to consider the local government finance settlement in the main Chamber tomorrow. More two thirds of local authorities have reported, having crunched the numbers on that funding formula, that they will be left worse off under it. Two thirds of councils in the country are worse off under the funding settlement being introduced by this Labour Government.
There is another significant factor. This week we heard that the SEND White Paper is to be delayed further. It will address the significant long-term structural and demographic concern driven by the increasing numbers of children with more acute needs for whom local authorities have a statutory duty—another duty over which they have no discretion. Although the statutory accounting override—to which Ministers have referred in the past—goes some way to avoiding that becoming an acute problem, we see acute pressure building up across the country, not just in inner London.
All that amounts to a situation where residents in inner London face extraordinarily significant increases in their taxes. The royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea has reported potential increases of council tax of up to £500 a year. Earlier, I met with one of the Conservative councillors from the London borough of Barnet, traditionally one of the less affected outer London boroughs, who reported that a £200 million funding gap is opening up as a result of the changes that this Government are making. Even for those of us in outer London boroughs, where council tax rates are broadly similar to those in the surrounding county and district areas, the combination of the rises in the mayoral precept, referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill, and those acute pressures, mean that in many cases council tax will already be at or well in excess of the £2,000 benchmark that Ministers have set out for council tax across the country.
In conclusion, we see a consistent message from across the sector. The leaders of inner-London boroughs—Labour and Conservative—talk of acute pressures getting much worse much faster than they had expected, and shortfalls in this funding settlement so excessive that no level of cuts could lead to boroughs achieving them and meeting their statutory duties. When she speaks on the local government finance settlement tomorrow, will the Minister announce a more fundamental rethink? Local authorities have a huge range of statutory duties, with more than 800 different services delivered by a typical local authority. The rise in national insurance alone has significantly driven up the cost of those activities.
We do not simply need more sticking plasters. Our residents, hearing a message from the Labour Government that there is more money in the system, find that money is coming straight out of their pockets and wallets, through massive increases in council tax. We need a fundamental rethink about how we deliver local government in the capital, so that it is affordable, deliverable and sustainable for the future.
The Minister for Local Government and Homelessness (Alison McGovern)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) for securing the debate, in which hon. Members have raised some important issues. She posed some questions that I will come to in my response. She mentioned that I served on the London borough of Southwark just before she was first elected to the best borough in London. She is right that a bit of my heart will be forever in Camberwell.
I learned a lot during those years, but local government has changed in the 20 years since I was first elected. Poverty in London has also changed, along with the services that boroughs try to provide. In a moment of shock and surprise, I find myself in agreement with the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds). He rightly characterises a situation faced by councils where costs are spiking, often because of policy failure not of their making, whether those are the costs of homelessness, mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood, or the costs associated with SEND mentioned by many hon. Members, to which I would add adult and children’s care.
We have fundamental issues to tackle and many of the policy levers lie in this place, not in town halls. We all need to own our responsibilities on that front. We continually need to rethink how we approach this issue. It is a shame in many ways that I could not introduce some of my colleagues in other parts of the country to this discussion. Hon. Members will have seen in the press that I have been variously accused of robbing the north to send money to the south, and now robbing London to send money somewhere else—the north or the midlands, I do not know.
In fact, the consistent theme in the funding settlement is the Government’s attempt to reconnect council funding with deprivation. I will come to the detail of that, because we are committed to making long-overdue changes to council funding. This is the first multi-year local government finance settlement in a decade, which, as Members have mentioned, will make a huge difference.
Alison McGovern
I will make some progress. Yesterday’s announcement keeps our promise of a multi-year settlement, because local communities in London and elsewhere deserved better than the out-of-date funding allocations not aligned with need, which meant poorer public services and slower growth, particularly for those dealing with the consequences of poverty.
We are making changes to how councils are funded. Many of these are changes that the public, local government partners and Parliament have long called for. We consulted four times on these changes, and we are grateful for the engagement from all corners, including from hon. Members in this debate. The engagement has informed our approach at every stage. The settlement confirms multi-year funding, our pledge to realign funding with need, and our commitment to end wasteful competitive bidding and to simplify funding.
The Government have an important role as an equaliser for local government income, and we are directing funding towards the places that are less able to meet their needs through locally raised income, which will enable all local authorities to provide similar levels of services to their residents. However, that is true notwithstanding the major differences in spiking demands around the country.
Following the provisional settlement consultation, the Government have announced an additional £740 million in grant funding as part of the final settlement, including a £440 million uplift to the recovery grant, bringing total investment over the multi-year settlement to £2.6 billion. Of that £2.6 billion, £400 million is supporting places in London that suffered the most from historical funding cuts, and there is an additional £272 million to bring the total investment in homelessness and rough sleeping services over the next three years to £3.5 billion—including over £800 million in London as part of our national plan to end homelessness.
That is a significant investment in the capital’s homelessness services, which is much needed, as has been mentioned by Members from across the House. It takes the total new grant funding delivered through the annual settlements for 2026-27 to 2028-29 to over £4 billion. Since coming to power, we have pledged a 24.2% increase in core spending power by 2028-29 when compared with 2024-25, worth over £16.6 billion. It is a significant uplift in the spending power of councils.
According to analysis by the Department, as a result of our reforms, nine in 10 councils will receive funding that broadly matches their assessed need by the end of the multi-year settlement, up from around one third before our reforms. In 2028-29, the most deprived places will receive 45% more funding per head than the least deprived.
Alison McGovern
I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) first.
Joe Powell
As the Minister knows, where we have pockets of high deprivation in London, one concern is protecting those communities. When the settlement was announced, it was very clear that the Government’s expectation was that things like council tax support should not be the first thing that councils looked to. Does the Minister agree that the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea cutting £441,000 of council tax support to our lowest income families as its first decision is not the right way to go about building a sustainable budget for the future?
Alison McGovern
I agree, and my hon. Friend makes that case very well. I imagine that his local authority could have made other choices than that one.
Peter Fortune
I thank the Minister for the objective way that she is tackling this debate, but the reality for the London borough of Bromley is a £22 million cut over the next three-year period. Thinking about the deprivation and the challenges that we have, including the second-highest number of education, health and care plans in London, the cut will have a significant impact on our residents, despite pushing council tax as high as we can.
Alison McGovern
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. Our challenge is to understand how we can best use our resources to support all our children. We could try to increase funding again and again, without any changes to the system, but we would not necessarily get better outcomes, and costs would keep going up, not least because councils have issues with how they are able to provide some of the support that children need. We need to get to a more stable financial position and take responsibility in this place to change the policy failures that caused the cost spikes that the hon. Gentleman mentioned.
Compared with 2024-25, by 2028-29 London will see an increase in core spending power of more than £3 billion. The vast majority of councils in London will see a real-terms increase between 2024-25 and 2028-29 and a fairer system that addresses issues that matter in London—and across England—including recognising the additional strain that commuters and tourists can place on service provision, taking into account need in specific high-demand service areas such as temporary accommodation and crucially, using the most up-to-date data, including the 2025 indices of multiple deprivation. That has been the subject of some feedback to the Department. It is a statement of the obvious that we would use the most up-to-date data, and it so happens that that data can better account for the impact of housing costs on poverty. That was always the intention, and we would always have done that, whatever noise I have picked up on this topic.
Dr Andrew Murrison (in the Chair)
I will allow Munira Wilson to intervene—at a stretch, because she arrived late to the debate.
Munira Wilson
I apologise, Dr Murrison. The debate moved more quickly than I had anticipated. I thank the Minister for giving way despite my late arrival. I have a lot of sympathy with the Government’s aims; we all want to tackle deprivation and poverty. In my borough, the London borough of Richmond, we are going to see £29 million of cuts over the next three years, which will stretch to £46 million by year 4. That means a huge cliff edge, and at the moment the Government are refusing to provide any transitional protection. I recognise that Richmond is largely a wealthy borough, but we have significant pockets of deprivation and very needy residents, particularly young and older vulnerable residents. Despite a maximum council tax hike and efficiency savings, we will see cuts to the most vulnerable.
Will the Minister finally agree to meet with me, my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) and the leader of our council to talk about how we can put transitional provisions in place? She has refused to do that so far. [Interruption.] She seems perplexed, but her latest letter refused a meeting with us, so I am asking her again, in the spirit of cross-party working, if she will meet us to discuss this.
Alison McGovern
The reason for my perplexed state is that during the period of consultation with Members of this House, I met 140 Members of Parliament on the settlement. I am sorry if the hon. Member has had the message that I will not meet her, because my office door has literally been open to Members over the recent period. We can discuss this at any point. The fact is that the London borough of Richmond is in the least deprived decile. While she rightly stands up for her borough, when I look at some parts of the country that have been forgotten for far too long, I feel that it is right that we have taken the decision through the settlement to reconnect funding with deprivation. But I can discuss that with her in detail in the future.
I want to make some points about cost. Local governments are still under pressure, and despite the increase of nearly 25% that I mentioned, that pressure will remain because of the costs that they are facing. That is why we are taking action now to support local authorities as we move towards a reformed special educational needs and disabilities system. The first phase of support will address historic deficits accrued, as was mentioned by the shadow Minister. All local authorities will receive a grant covering 90% of their high needs dedicated schools grant deficit, subject to the approval of a local change plan.
We are also fixing social care services, on which many people, including in London, rely. We are changing children’s social care in a generation by rolling out the Families First Partnership programme, backed by more than £2.4 billion of investment across this multi-year settlement. We are providing about £4.6 billion of additional funding, available for adult social care, by 2028-29, compared with ’25-26. When it comes to children’s care, the issue is not only that the costs are unsustainable, but that we are failing in our duty to so many children, and that is why we must change.
It is important to recognise that some places, including some inner-London boroughs, benefited disproportionately from the old system. However, we are supporting those places to plan for changes with transitional arrangements, including by protecting their income and providing additional flexibilities. For London, we are providing more than £550 million for income protection over the multi-year settlement.
Luke Taylor
The Minister mentions additional flexibility. Within that does she include allowing what I think are five inner-London boroughs, including Wandsworth, to increase their council tax by up to 10% without a referendum? Is that the additional flexibility that she mentions?
Alison McGovern
We set out that flexibility when we made the provisional statement, and there will be more details of that in the Chamber tomorrow. I am at the slight disadvantage of speaking between the publication of the settlement and the full debate in the House of Commons tomorrow. There will be more detail tomorrow for the hon. Gentleman.
The council tax bill for a house worth £5 million in central London can be less than the bill for an ordinary family home in places such as Blackpool and Darlington. It is not fair that properties worth so much more pay less council tax and receive comparatively better services than elsewhere, because of Government subsidy. Removing referendum principles for the six councils, as we have said, will allocate more than £250 million more funding for places with higher need, instead of subsidising very low bills for 500,000 households under those councils.
I want to turn to the direct questions from my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood, who led the debate. She raised the issue of the costs of temporary accommodation, and she was absolutely correct to do so. I refer her to the homelessness strategy, which I published just before Christmas. The problems in temporary accommodation are very geographically concentrated. I am anxious to work with London councils, including her councils, to get children and families out of poor-quality, expensive temporary accommodation and into better-quality temporary accommodation that will be more reasonably priced for local authorities—even if it is still temporary, because some of what we are paying for is very poor value.
My hon. Friend mentioned LHA rates and asked whether I will work with the DWP and Treasury. I can tell her that I am doing so. The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), also raised that with me in another setting. I will happily update the House as we go. My hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood mentioned a stalled site in her borough, which sounds like a dreadful waste. I will alert the Housing Minister and the Secretary of State to that. They were anxious to bring forward their plan for London with the Mayor of London for this very reason, but I will refer them to this debate. She asked about a visitor levy, which other Members mentioned too. I will take those comments as input to the consultation on a visitor levy.
My hon. Friend and the shadow Minister mentioned EFS. Again, shockingly, I found myself agreeing with the shadow Minister: that system should have been used sparingly and for exceptional circumstances. It is becoming less exceptional, and we have to get to the heart of why councils are in this position. Some of that is about costs, as we have said, but there are also other things, like reintroducing local audit, that I believe will help to defend the system and make it more sustainable as we go. My hon. Friend also asked about SEND deficits, which I have mentioned.
We are making changes that we believe are necessary to change public services and get local government back on its feet. By realigning funding with need and reforming services that put pressure on local government, we will empower local leaders to deliver for communities in London and across the country. Unlike many people, I firmly believe that it does not matter whether someone lives in a northern town or city, in the midlands, the south-west, Scotland, Wales or London—poverty is poverty, and we should respond to it all.
Helen Hayes
I am grateful to all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate today, particularly the hon. Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune), who is a great champion for his constituents and his borough of Bromley, and to my hon. Friends the Members for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) and for Brent East (Dawn Butler) for their interventions and for speaking up for their boroughs. I am grateful to the Minister for her response.
I believe I am 10 years older than the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor), so I would say very gently to him that perhaps my memory goes back a bit further. When I was elected to Southwark council, it coincided with the arrival of the coalition Government and the beginning, presided over by the Liberal Democrats in government, of some of the deepest cuts to local government funding that we have ever seen.
Helen Hayes
I am not going to give way during this very short summing-up. [Interruption.] I would say to him that listening to his impassioned pleas on behalf of inner-London boroughs does sound a little bit like the arsonist complaining that the fire brigade is not putting out the fire quickly enough. [Interruption.]
Helen Hayes
I urge the hon. Member to reflect with a bit of humility on what his party did to local government funding when it was in power.
Helen Hayes
I am not taking an intervention; I have been really clear about that.
I am grateful to the Minister for her response. I fully appreciate the challenging situation that she is in, the complexity of her brief and the pressures that she is facing from colleagues and from councils all across the country. I appreciate deeply her commitment to local government, and her deep understanding of its workings and the challenges that our council colleagues face. I am encouraged by her assurances on local housing allowance in particular, and on the costs of temporary accommodation. I look forward to seeing progress on those points and will certainly remain engaged on those issues. I would be hugely grateful for anything that the Minister can do to unlock the stalled sites. We have three in my constituency—two of them are council-owned and one is owned by a housing association. Between them, they have the capacity to deliver quite a good number of council and social homes. We would really like to see those come forward quickly.
I believe that the Minister has good intentions in the settlement that has been announced today. I support her in her aim of reconnecting local government funding with deprivation and ensuring that funding is fairly distributed, but the challenges that our councils face will remain. There is further work to do, and I hope to be able to engage with her further on behalf of my boroughs as we seek to repair the damage that has been done over a long period of time, and get things back on a better footing so that our councils can deliver for our communities.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered funding for local authorities in inner London.
Sherwood Forest: Tourism
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Michelle Welsh (Sherwood Forest) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered tourism in Sherwood Forest.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. It is an absolute honour to represent the constituency of Sherwood Forest, the home of beautiful countryside, communities, villages, towns and farms. No matter where in the world we go, people know about the wonder of Sherwood Forest. It is one of the most recognisable places in the world. Sherwood Forest has often been associated with Robin Hood, a legendary heroic outlaw known for his highly skilled archery.
Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)
On Robin Hood, would my hon. Friend join me in celebrating the legacy of former Mansfield Woodhouse resident Major Hayman Rooke, who discovered and is associated with the Major Oak tree in Sherwood Forest? I am sure my hon. Friend is also aware that the tree, which was named in Major Hayman Rooke’s honour, is believed to have been the legendary hiding place of Robin Hood and his merry men.
Michelle Welsh
I welcome my hon. Friend’s contribution. I know he will be involved in Sherwood Forest Day on 20 February, which, actually, is on that day exactly because of that. Without showing my age too much, I remember a time when we could climb on the Major Oak—now you cannot get within 20 feet of it.
The magic of Sherwood Forest is not lost on Hollywood. From Disney to Kevin Costner, many blockbuster films have been made about the legendary figure of Robin Hood and the historic forest he lives in. Yet this magic has been lost somehow in Nottinghamshire, or at least partly forgotten.
Children growing up in Nottinghamshire are surrounded by the magic, the tales and the powerful stories of courage, fairness and community that have been growing there for centuries. I remember distinctively going as a family, on school trips and with youth clubs to areas across Nottinghamshire, including Sherwood Forest. From Robin Hood to today’s volunteers, Sherwood Forest has always stood up for what is right, yet I fear we are beginning to lose exactly what it is we stand for. Over the last 14 years, communities in Sherwood Forest have been left behind. Communities that once served their country and contributed to the industrial strength of the UK have been left with deteriorating health and economic outcomes. It is time to say: no more.
In just over a week’s time, on 20 February, we will celebrate the second truly special Sherwood Forest Day. This is a day to honour our world-famous historic forest, its ancient oaks and the legacy of courage, fairness and community. Across Nottinghamshire, a number of events will take place to celebrate the day, including a business breakfast in the heart of Sherwood Forest to bring together the fantastic businesses across Sherwood Forest, numerous plaque unveilings to mark key areas, and tree planting to continue the legacy of the ancient forest.
This is an opportunity to celebrate our great history and local culture. It is about taking pride in our communities and working together to build a better future. I have heard that some of the trees being planted are even descended from ancient oaks themselves.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I am probably the oldest person in this Chamber; I can well remember seeing “The Adventures of Robin Hood” on TV in black and white—that was not yesterday. I am impressed by the hon. Lady’s discussion of her beautiful constituency; I hail from Strangford, which I think has unparalleled beauty. Does the hon. Lady agree that for tourism to take off, funding is needed for promotion? The Minister—who is a very sympathetic Minister, by the way—and the Government can and must do more to put money into getting visitors across the threshold of the United Kingdom, knowing that if they come once, they will come back again. Surely that has to be a good policy to follow.
Michelle Welsh
I thank the hon. Member for his contribution.
Sherwood Forest Day is an opportunity for communities across Nottinghamshire to reflect on our heritage and celebrate what brings us together. I want to give a huge thank you to the Sherwood Forest Trust and Richard Townsley, the medieval sheriff of Nottingham, for all the work they are doing for Sherwood Forest Day and for our community as a whole. At the heart of all we are doing for Sherwood Forest Day are communities such as Ollerton, Edwinstowe, Blidworth, Rainworth and Clipstone—putting them back on the map and encouraging those from all over the world to visit and marvel at what we have to offer. We cannot do it alone, however. Celebrating our culture and history should not be left to only one day of the year; they should be honoured every single day.
James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. As she knows, the Mayor of the East Midlands, Claire Ward, has put the visitor economy at the heart of her vision for the east midlands region. My hon. Friend may be aware that the Centre of it All marketing campaign was launched last week. Does she agree that Sherwood Forest and the Trent sports quarter, which would be based in my constituency of Rushcliffe, have the opportunity to grow our visitor economy to the £1 billion target that Claire Ward has set?
Michelle Welsh
My hon. Friend is right: the Mayor of the East Midlands, Claire Ward, is forever supportive of our tourism. Like us, she knows that there is still a lot more work to be done.
Many factors contribute to supporting a thriving tourism economy. Most notable for rural areas such as Sherwood Forest are adequate transport, support for business and community investment. Transport in rural areas such as parts of Sherwood Forest, including the more historic parts, is inadequate. Often, public transport is inconsistent: buses do not run in the evening or sometimes not at all. There is even a railway line named after Robin Hood that does not serve the majority of historic Sherwood Forest. How can we expect people to visit that historic land if they cannot access it—not only people coming from far and wide, but those who have it on their doorstep?
Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
Our green space is vital, not just for our environment and mental health but for the economic benefits that it brings to our communities. Having rail access to our communities is very important.
My constituency of North West Leicestershire is not far away from Sherwood Forest. It is home to the national forest. It is easily accessible, like Sherwood, to about 10 million people. Does my hon. Friend agree that the east midlands must capitalise on the tourism potential of all its forests, including in Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire?
Michelle Welsh
Yes, exactly. I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution. That is, of course, very important, and it is important that as MPs across the east midlands, we continue to work together on that. I am interested in hearing from the Minister what work has been done in partnership with the Department for Transport and the East Midlands combined authority to ensure that places of heritage and importance are connected and accessible.
When talking about the community of Sherwood Forest, it is important to mention the bond of coalmining that for so long was the lifeblood of our economy. From Hucknall colliery in the south to Ollerton colliery in the north, the roots of mining are deep in Sherwood Forest. That is why I am so proud that this Government stuck to their promise to release funds from the mineworkers’ pension scheme to its members, and that they went further and did the same for the British Coal staff superannuation scheme. That rightful release of funds means a combined additional £11 million a year that is being spent in our towns and villages, in our local shops and pubs.
The current magic of Sherwood Forest is being wielded by local businesses such as Robin’s Den in Edwinstowe, which fight day in, day out to keep the stories alive while facing the challenges of being a small business. I believe that if we can shine a light on the history of Sherwood Forest and encourage more young people to learn about the stories, they will be inspired to add their own twists. If we invest in our local businesses for tourism, young people across Sherwood Forest will benefit by believing in the magic and having access to more work opportunities in their own communities.
Finally, with regard to community investment, I am proud that the Government are investing in communities that were neglected by the previous Conservative Government. We are making real changes to people’s lives by funding more breakfast clubs and new schools, and expanding healthcare into communities. The Government, in partnership with the Labour mayor, Claire Ward, have provided more than £31 million to fund the A614 improvements project, to create a corridor of hope where our past meets our future. That is as well as £30 million for the regeneration of Ollerton town centre, which has been achieved through working with Labour councillors and the Labour-run Newark and Sherwood district council.
Pride in where people live is not always guaranteed; it comes when everyone is investing their time and money into improving their community. I hope that what we do on Sherwood Forest Day will be an opportunity for people in Nottinghamshire to be really proud. I would also like to see more investment into the parts of communities that are often seen as a nice to have, and not as key infrastructure or central to people living happy lives. Sherwood Forest would not be what it is today if it were not for our local small businesses—the village pubs and farms that are a key part of our rural economy, providing opportunities and enjoyment to our people.
Sherwood Forest is the home not only of Robin Hood but of numerous historic sites such as Whyburn farm, which once inspired Lord Byron’s work; Thoresby park, a beautiful country estate; and Rufford abbey country park, which recently reopened following a conservation project. I was honoured to visit the site on Saturday and learn more about the work to preserve that park, which was so important to me growing up in Nottinghamshire.
Investment into landmarks such as those is an investment into the whole community, as it creates more job opportunities, supports local shops and restaurants, and helps us to conserve our heritage assets. With cultural heritage sites such as Newstead abbey and Clumber park, and modern attractions such as Center Parcs, Sherwood Pines and—who could forget my son’s favourite place to go—Wheelgate and White Post farm, Sherwood Forest really is the place to visit.
I know that I do not have to tell the Minister about the importance of culture and heritage to communities, but could she expand on what the Government are doing to protect and invest in our cultural assets, particularly in Sherwood Forest? As we approach Sherwood Forest Day, I would like to take this opportunity to urge everyone, whether they live locally or are visiting for the first time, to join us in Nottinghamshire—a jewel in our nation’s crown—to celebrate our history, help us to protect our future and be part of Sherwood Forest Day or every day after. The people of Sherwood Forest have a proud history of standing up for what is right and for each other. Despite the attempts of some to divide us, it is truer now than it has ever been: we have more in common than what divides us.
Michael Payne (Gedling) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) on securing this important debate and the phenomenal leadership that she has shown in establishing Sherwood Forest Day. It is a brilliant initiative that celebrates not just a place but a shared history that continues to shape our communities.
Sherwood Forest is rightly famous around the world but it is sometimes forgotten how many of our towns and villages once formed part of the great forest. In Gedling, communities such as Arnold and Carlton, and those beyond, were historically within the bounds of Sherwood Forest. They are places with deep roots in that story, and places where history is not locked in the past but woven into everyday life. From medieval woodland rights to the enduring legend of Robin Hood, such communities help to shape the folklore and identity of our great county of Nottinghamshire.
The tales of Robin Hood and his band are not just stories for tourists; they speak to ideas of fairness, justice and standing up for the common good. Those are values that still resonate strongly with the people who I represent in Gedling. That is why I am delighted that on Sherwood Forest Day I will join the Mayor of Gedling—my husband, Councillor Kyle Robinson-Payne—to unveil plaques to recognise the communities that were once part of the historic forest.
I am especially pleased that two such plaques will be erected on excellent local pubs owned by the Lincoln Green brewery: the Brickyard in Carlton and one of my own locals, the much loved and aptly named Robin Hood and Little John, which is in Arnold. I place on record my thanks to Anthony Hughes, the founder and owner of Lincoln Green brewery—which is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest—for his generous support of the Sherwood Forest Day initiative, and his commitment to celebrating local heritage.
Remembering and preserving our local history and heritage is vital. In Gedling, we are blessed to have brilliant local history groups that do just that. My thanks go to the Lambley historical society, the Burton Joyce and Bulcote local history society, the Gedling Village local history and preservation society, and the Arnold local history group for their outstanding work in preserving our rich and interesting local history. I give a special thanks to my good friend Bob Massey for all he does to champion and celebrate our proud history in and around Arnold.
Tourism rooted in history and heritage strengthens local pride, supports local businesses and tells the world that Gedling’s story is inseparable from the story of Sherwood Forest. I look forward to seeing Sherwood Forest Day go from strength to strength and to playing my part in ensuring that Gedling’s place in that story is rightly recognised.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Stephanie Peacock)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) on securing this debate and on the powerful way in which she spoke about her constituency, its history and its people.
The fact that this debate has been so well attended by local Members shows what strong representation the area is blessed with. My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) mentioned the well-known Major Oak, which my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North and Kimberley (Alex Norris) mentioned to me on the way to the debate. We have also had contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Rushcliffe (James Naish) and for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack) and from my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Michael Payne), who mentioned so many of his outstanding local groups. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is no longer in his place, made a good point about attracting more international visitors, a subject that I will touch on.
Before I come to the substance of the debate, I want to acknowledge the comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest about the mineworkers’ pension scheme and the British Coal staff superannuation scheme. As the MP for Barnsley East and then for Barnsley South, I was proud to lead that campaign in Parliament over a number of years. It means that our constituents are between £30 and £100 a week better off, thanks to this Labour Government. It is not just a transformational figure for local areas; it is absolutely the right thing to do. It means that many of our constituents can spend money in the local economy, taking part in day trips and so on.
The debate has underlined a point that the Government are very clear about: tourism is not a peripheral issue. It is a major economic sector, a significant employer and a powerful driver of growth across every nation and region of the UK. Nationally, tourism supports 1.3 million jobs and contributes more than £64 billion in gross value added to the economy. Beyond the numbers, the visitor economy plays a vital role in shaping how the UK is seen around the world, through our landscapes, our heritage, our creativity and our culture. It supports town centres, sustains rural economies, creates opportunities for young people and builds pride in place.
My hon. Friend asked what the Government are doing to protect cultural assets. The Government have announced a £1.5 billion package to restore national pride, investing in cultural organisations over a five-year period and turning the corner on a decade of underfunding. That long-term commitment recognises that culture and heritage are not simply nice to have; they are essential infrastructure for thriving communities and a strong visitor economy. That is why the Government are committed to providing long-term strategic support for the visitor economy.
Our ambition is for the UK to remain a world-class destination, attracting 50 million international visitors annually by 2030. Crucially, we are encouraging those visitors to travel more widely, stay longer and contribute to local economies across the country. That ambition will be set out in our forthcoming visitor economy growth strategy, which will focus on unlocking investment, supporting jobs and ensuring that tourism growth is competitive, sustainable and inclusive.
I turn to the regional picture. The east midlands is a strong example of how tourism is being placed at the heart of growth and regeneration. The visitor economy is recognised as a core growth sector within the east midlands local growth plan. This reflects robust regional evidence showing that the visitor economy has the potential to generate at least £1 billion in additional economic growth. To drive delivery, partners across the region have established Visit East Midlands, providing strategic leadership and co-ordination across the local visitor economy partnerships and destination management organisations.
I recognise the leadership of Mayor Claire Ward, who is championing the visitor economy as a central pillar of the region’s growth ambitions and ensuring that it receives the focus and visibility it deserves, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe rightly outlined. That regional leadership is already translating into action. The East Midlands combined county authority recently launched the Centre of it All campaign, showcasing the region’s diverse visitor offer and reinforcing its position at the heart of the country. The campaign is being delivered in close co-operation with local visitor economy partnerships and destination organisations, ensuring a coherent and compelling offer to both domestic and international audiences. Those regional connections and that work, which my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire spoke about, are so important.
The region is also strengthening its position through major events and sports tourism. Nottingham will host the European archery championships in 2028, an event that will not only bring significant economic benefits but connect powerfully to the Robin Hood story that defines Sherwood Forest. Through that work, the region is realising the full potential of the Robin Hood brand, developing regional and pan-regional itineraries and targeting key international markets, particularly the United States.
Against that backdrop, Sherwood Forest stands out as a place of extraordinary national and international significance. Centuries in the making, the legend of Sherwood Forest continues to grow, with every generation adding to its legacy. Today, it is a remarkable destination, home to ancient woodland, rich biodiversity and one of the most enduring cultural narratives in the world.
Some 350,000 people visit Sherwood Forest each year, drawn by its natural beauty, heritage and cultural power. Within the national nature reserve, 375 hectares of ancient woodland support hundreds of species—birds, insects, mammals and plants. Protecting this precious environment while ensuring it is accessible is exactly the balance that this Government want to support.
I pay tribute to the Sherwood Forest Trust for its stewardship of this unique landscape, demonstrating how conservation, community engagement and tourism can reinforce one another. Its work closely aligns with VisitEngland’s regenerative tourism framework, which focuses on protecting natural assets while delivering lasting benefits for local communities.
I am also very pleased to recognise Sherwood Forest Day on 20 February, which celebrates this world-famous historic forest and its global cultural significance. Moments like this strengthen local pride while shining a light on places of international importance, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest outlined, particularly with the business breakfast and the events on 20 February. I wish those involved the very best of luck.
As my hon. Friend highlighted, Sherwood’s story also contributes to the UK’s soft power. The legend of Robin Hood remains one of our most recognisable cultural exports, resonating through literature, film and television. Through VisitBritain’s “Starring GREAT Britain” campaign, we are using screen tourism to encourage visitors to explore more of the UK, and Sherwood Forest is a natural fit for that approach.
My hon. Friend rightly raised the practical challenges facing the area and made a particular point about connectivity. Access matters for visitors, local residents and businesses. On her point about transport, the Government are introducing our integrated national transport strategy, which will place strong emphasis on connecting people to places of opportunity, heritage and culture, ensuring that transport investment supports regional growth, rural access and the visitor economy alongside commuting needs.
We are working closely with the Department for Transport, the East Midlands combined authority and local partners to improve connectivity so that destinations such as Sherwood Forest are accessible both for those travelling further afield and for the communities on its doorstep. Supporting local businesses is equally critical. Tourism works best when it creates opportunities for people to live, work and build futures in their own communities. That is why we are addressing skills shortages, promoting apprenticeships and improving recruitment and retention across the sector, ensuring that young people can see tourism as a viable and rewarding career.
Sherwood Forest is not just a place of extraordinary heritage. It is a living, evolving destination that contributes to regional growth, national identity and Britain’s global story. With continued partnership, investment and strategic support, it can continue to thrive for generations to come.
Question put and agreed to.
Place-based Employment Support Programmes
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered place-based employment support programmes.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I am very pleased to have secured this debate. Discussions of employment policy can sometimes feel very abstract in this place; we talk about things like rates, targets and programmes, but for the people we represent, employment can be intensely personal. It is about confidence, dignity, routine and feeling that they have something to contribute.
I know all that from personal experience. The depression that I fell into in the mid-’90s, at the end of the Tories’ previous disastrous spell in government when I could not get a job, had a long-lasting effect on my life. Growing up in what was then and by many measures still is one of the poorest boroughs in the country, the pressure to find a job—any job, to be honest—was immense, but the availability of jobs did not match that pressure. The local factory had closed down in 1991. My home town had barely any industry left to speak of, and most of the low-paid, temporary jobs I could find were in the next town along. It was almost a two-hour walk away for a lad who wanted to work but could not afford the bus fare to get to the factory. That is why I want to make the case today for place-based employment support—support that is rooted in communities, shaped by local need and delivered by people who understand the realities of the lives that they are working with.
In my Southport constituency, I see it time and again: the people furthest from the labour market are not those who do not want to work, but people with caring responsibilities, health issues or gaps in their work history, or people who, for whatever reason, just cannot get a break. In my local authority area alone, that equates to over 26,000 people. What they need is not another box-ticking exercise, but someone who knows their area and knows what the local jobs are, and has the time to treat them as a person.
I want to put on the record my thanks for the work of several place-based employment support programmes across the north of England. The Big Onion in Southport does things differently, and that is precisely why it is effective. Its work is rooted in trust. It helps people to rebuild confidence, develop skills and, in many cases, explore things such as self-employment or community enterprise as a route back into work. It does not rush people. Its approach recognises that, for many people, the first step towards employment is simply believing that they have something to offer. That kind of progress does not always show up immediately in headline figures, but it is essential if we want to make sustainable outcomes for the long term.
Zink is a charity based in Buxton that started out as a food bank but, once it investigated the drivers of local food bank demand, soon branched out into offering employment support and debt advice. Its most innovative programme, microjobs, offers small, paid roles tailored to people who are far from the jobs market—often people who have been affected by homelessness or past substance abuse. Three quarters of those with a microjob subsequently move into part-time or full-time work within six months.
Alex Easton (North Down) (Ind)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that place-based employment schemes are a vital way of converting local strengths into local jobs, and that sector-specific initiatives can and should be tailored to the circumstances of individual constituencies? In North Down, there is particular potential in tourism, hospitality and the wider marine and coastal economy.
Patrick Hurley
That is one in a long line of things that place-based employment initiatives can do well, so I thank the hon. Member for his intervention.
The Recruitment Junction, which works up in the north-east, mainly in Newcastle, places people with criminal convictions into paid work. It works with local employers to identify skills shortages and then identifies suitable candidates, meets them and helps them to renew their qualifications, write their CVs and prepare for interviews. So far, it has placed almost 900 people with criminal convictions into paid work, with a 66% retention rate. Fewer than 5% of those that it places reoffend, compared with around 24% nationally.
I also want to commend the work of Transform Lives Company. Its model deliberately breaks away from what many people expect employment support to look like. It is welcoming, informal and feels safe, and for many participants in its schemes, that alone is transformative. People who go to Transform Lives Company are supported not just with job search, but with things like confidence, wellbeing and life skills. They are listened to, rather than lectured at. As a result, people who would never normally engage with employment services do so willingly. I think that should make us stop and think about how our national system is experienced on the ground.
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
I am reminded of the JobsPlus scheme that is being run on one of our council estates in Leyton, where L&Q has been going out and actively knocking on doors. We have seen not only the young people who were the target of the scheme coming back into the work environment, but their parents. Does my hon. Friend agree that that type of scheme needs to continue to be funded, and to be extended, so that other people can be brought back into the working environment?
Patrick Hurley
Indeed. I promise Members that I did not give my hon. Friend advance sight of my speech, but I will be talking about JobsPlus in due course. It is an amazing system and an amazing scheme.
I have touched on some of my own experiences as a young man, but it is worth going back to them, because I want to put Members in the shoes of someone who would have really benefited from one of these schemes, had they been running back when I was in my late teens and early 20s. Many families have funny anecdotes about things that children have said, and mine is no different. Perhaps unwisely, I am going to share the funny anecdote that my family tell about something that they say I said back in around 1982, when I was four or five years old—of course, they teased me about it for years afterwards.
Apparently, I asked my parents one day why they watched the news on the telly. In my childhood brain, this made no sense at all. My mum was a dinner lady and my dad worked nights in the local car factory 6 or 7 miles away. I had got it into my head as a little kid that the TV news was only for people who did not have jobs, but my mum and dad had jobs, so what were they doing watching the TV news? It was only about 20 years later that it dawned on me that it was not that TV news in the early 1980s was not for people who did not have jobs, but that it felt like it was only about people who did not have jobs.
Every night on the 6 o’clock news, the headlines were about the unemployment figures—the latest round of lay-offs in some critical industry or other, the factory closures, the countless thousands being put on the sick as a way of keeping the official number of jobseekers off the balance sheet. I grew up in that context in Knowsley, a local authority area that had been drawn up a decade earlier in such a way as to exclude all sixth-form provision. This was an area that was being written off. I was a poorly qualified, unskilled lad in his late teens, living in a town with few opportunities, and suffering with my mental health because I could not see a way out.
By way of contrast, these days my city region is benefiting from the award-winning Cradle to Career scheme, which provides holistic mental health and wellbeing support and focuses on the underlying causes of youth crime and antisocial behaviour. Just as important as the metrics of success that make the headlines in the press are the testimonies of the people whose lives have been turned around.
To return to my broader point, many of the approaches that I have described echo the work done in recent years on fundamentally rethinking employment support. That work has made a compelling case for a more wraparound employment service that links employment with skills, health, housing and local economic conditions, and gives frontline staff the flexibility to respond to individual circumstances.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) said, we have seen that in things such as JobsPlus, which has demonstrated that embedding employment support directly in social housing communities can reach people who have been economically inactive for years. Early evidence shows people do not just move into work, but gain improvements in their confidence, wellbeing, readiness and resilience—the things that actually make employment sustainable for people.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman is making a very sincere speech, and I am listening to it with great interest. He talks about youngsters’ confidence. One of the great industries that was run down during the Conservatives’ years of rule was the nuclear industry, but I believe it will be great again one day. Dounreay in my constituency still has an apprenticeship scheme, which gives youngsters great confidence. I hope it will be carbon copied by many industries as we revive the fortunes of what we are good at in this country.
Patrick Hurley
That pinpoints exactly why place-based schemes are so important. What is useful and necessary for my part of the country will not be useful elsewhere. That difference can have a positive impact on local people’s lives.
I have talked about the good things that JobsPlus can do, but despite that evidence, too many of the programmes that I have mentioned today exist in a state of uncertainty. Short-term funding and delayed decisions are forcing providers to plan for winding down even when their outcomes are improving. That is not a sensible way to run employment policy, and we risk losing exactly the sort of expertise and relationships that we should be encouraging and building on.
If we are serious about increasing employment and tackling inactivity, we also need to be serious about how the support that is needed is delivered. Central systems have their place, but they cannot do everything; we also need long-term backing for place-based approaches and proper partnership with community organisations. Collectively, we need the confidence to move away from one-size-fits-all solutions.
More than 9 million working-age people in the UK are economically inactive, and long-term sickness is the single largest driver of inactivity among 16 to 64-year-olds. In Southport and across the country, organisations such as The Big Onion and Transform Lives Company, and schemes such as Cradle to Career, are already doing the work that we say we want to see. The question is whether national policy is willing to learn from them and support them properly.
Mr Calvin Bailey
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point about place-based intervention. Last week, I welcomed the Minister for Industry, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald), to Build Academy in Wanstead, an incredible scheme that is providing accessible training in construction skills to local people. My hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) was making the point that we need to focus on these fantastic young learners to ensure that they are site ready and capable of going directly into full-time local employment or apprenticeships. Does he agree that such learning programmes need to be shared, so that they can permanently address the issues that he raises and be scaled up and rolled out around the country?
Patrick Hurley
I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. Not only can we scale and roll out those programmes, but we can do peer-to-peer learning, so that the best of what works in one part of the country might be applied elsewhere.
I hope the Minister will reflect on some of what I have mentioned this afternoon and on how future employment policy can better embed place-based delivery of these schemes, giving local providers the certainty they need and ensuring that employment support is something people feel genuinely helped by, not just processed through.
Several hon. Members rose—
Dr Andrew Murrison (in the Chair)
Order. I am going to begin calling the Front Benchers at 5.08 pm—do the maths.
Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank the hon. Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) for securing this important debate.
In my constituency, the scale of youth unemployment is stark and deeply concerning. We are among the worst-affected areas in the country, with one in every six eligible adults—16.1%—currently not working. Those are not just statistics; they represent thousands of young people whose talents are being wasted and whose futures are being put on hold. Across the west midlands, around 29,000 young people are classed as unemployed, with youth unemployment rates in parts of Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Walsall running at double the national average. The sheer scale of the challenge facing our region underlines the urgent need for growth and genuine job creation.
Young people are not short of ambition or willingness to work; what they are short of is real opportunities, secure jobs, quality training, and pathways into employment that offer dignity and progression. Too many are stuck in a cycle of rejection or short-term work, or being shut out altogether. I hope the Minister will detail how young people are being actively supported into large infrastructure projects such as HS2 and the large housing programmes. As the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), said:
“To get Britain growing, we need to get Britain working again.”
I wholly agree with that sentiment, but I cannot agree with the Government’s approach of removing universal credit from young people if they do not take up a job—there could be a whole host of reasons why they cannot do so. Punitive policies do not create jobs or address the structural barriers that young people face, and they risk pushing already vulnerable people into further hardship.
Young people are struggling to get jobs, a struggle intensified by wider changes in the economy. New research suggests that the UK is now losing more jobs than it is creating because of artificial intelligence, and that Britain is being hit harder than any other major economy. According to a recent study by Morgan Stanley, British companies reported that AI had resulted in net job losses over the past 12 months, with employment down by 8%—the worst performance among comparable economies, including the United States, Japan, Germany and Australia. That performance matters, because it means that young people are entering a labour market that is shrinking, not expanding. Getting Britain working again does not require sanctions; we need investment, collaboration with local employers, properly funded skills programmes and an economy that works for every region, not just a few.
I commend the excellent work of the West Midlands combined authority under Mayor Richard Parker, which is building up skills and training our young people in areas such as construction, the arts, tech, life sciences and clean energy. However, I urge more support from central Government to ensure this is happening across the midlands and the wider economy. If we are truly serious about growth, we must be serious about our young people. That means backing them, not blaming them; it means opportunity, not punishment; and it means ensuring that places such as Birmingham Perry Barr are not left behind, but are at the heart of our national recovery.
Leigh Ingham (Stafford) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) for bringing forward what I consider to be a truly vital discussion. Colleagues will not be surprised to hear me talk about towns today—I am the proud product of one, and I proudly represent two towns, Stafford and Eccleshall. It is important to be in this Chamber today discussing them, because I want to use this debate to make a simple but important point about place.
Far too often, towns such as Stafford are described in relation to somewhere else. We are labelled a commuter town because we have excellent rail connections—and we do: a person can get to London, Birmingham or Manchester really quickly from Stafford, but Stafford should not be defined by its neighbouring cities, and a child growing up in Stafford should not be told, “Just go to a city to access better employment opportunities.” If our policy only sees us as part of someone else’s labour market, it will misunderstand us and the brilliant talent that we have in my constituency.
Our young people deserve to build happy, successful lives in the town they call home, and there is so much potential for that. We are home to GE Vernova, whose Stafford site produces the only high-voltage direct current transformers manufactured in this country, which are absolutely key to our national energy security. We have Bostik’s UK headquarters, where world-leading adhesives are made. We have Arco Professional Safety Services keeping those working in risky roles safe, including on Big Ben—or the Elizabeth Tower, I should say—and we have so many wonderful small and medium enterprises. We are supported by Stafford college, widely acknowledged to be the best college in the country, with back-to-back outstanding Ofsted ratings, which works closely with local employers to build the technical and vocational skills that our industries require.
Stafford is a county town where people are proud to live, but people feel its potential is not yet being fulfilled. Research from the University of Southampton shows that that is a pattern repeated across the country, and a pattern that we must address as a Government. We must provide the tools for every community to ensure that their town flourishes. Let us be frank: there is no one-size-fits-all approach to this. When we talk about designing employment programmes around place, we are talking about a massive opportunity for promoting our towns, and building secure jobs and futures for residents that cater to our national diversity.
The economy of places including Stafford should not be trickle-down cities. We must recognise the strengths of towns such as Stafford, particularly in manufacturing and energy infrastructure. We must directly align skills provision with local employer demand, rather than assume that opportunity sits elsewhere. It is also time that we stop telling our talented young people to move away to London or Manchester, and start recognising the potential that our towns have as economic engines in their own right.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Lady. In Northern Ireland, we are doing a collaborative, localised model through the Ards community network. We have done there what the hon. Lady is referring to in Stafford: identifying job opportunities. HGV training is one—it costs about £3,500 to do that—and there is also security training. The local Ards community network, the Government in the Northern Ireland Assembly and others have come together to ensure that those job opportunities are available for people in my constituency. Many of those people are now driving HGV lorries, and lots of them are in security jobs and training. That inspires people from deprived areas, and I think that is what she was talking about in Stafford.
Leigh Ingham
I completely agree with the hon. Member. Recognising the talent that we have in our towns, and making sure that all our Government programmes are working to support that, is integral. I welcome the Government’s investment in growth and opportunity, and we are seeing a revised investment in towns. Pride in Place and town of culture are really good examples; those are not necessarily employment programmes, but they lay the foundations of our commitment to regeneration across the country. The upcoming high street strategy also has a lot of potential to help with that investment.
Although investment into UK cities is undoubtedly important, it is vital to remember that most of our population live in towns, and many of those people are feeling left behind, frustrated by the decline on their high streets under the Conservative Government and sceptical that politicians in Westminster understand them or the places that they call home. This is a chance to show that we do, and that is exactly what Labour Governments do better than anyone else. Time and again, we see that working with communities and using their local knowledge and experience is how we can best regenerate our areas.
I ask the Minister what conversations she is having with colleagues to ensure that towns have a voice in designing their local employment strategies, and what steps the Government are taking to ensure that young people who grow up in towns including Stafford can secure well paid jobs in the towns they call home. Towns such as Stafford are central to our Government’s plan for growth, and I welcome employment programmes that recognise that reality.
Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) for giving us the opportunity to speak in this debate. In my career before being elected, I was involved in a number of successful place-based employment schemes, including having direct responsibility for delivering some of this work within a housing association. I am therefore a strong advocate for the approach, and I will come on to that later in my speech.
As a member of the Work and Pensions Committee, I visited Durham last week to speak to participants and employers on the Connect to Work programme run by DurhamEnable and Triage. It offers voluntary supported employment initiatives designed to help people with learning disabilities, autism, health conditions and complex barriers to employment to find and sustain meaningful work. Such programmes offer a great example of why and how place-based employment really works.
Durham uses the supported employment model, “place, train, maintain”, which focuses on finding the right job first, and then offering training and ongoing support, and I will break that down a little further. Stage one is place: finding the right job for an individual and emphasising that employers are key to delivery and engaging with future employees. Working with the person, as well as the local job market, to discover who they are is a key principle.
Stage two is training. DurhamEnable ensures that future employees are benefiting from the right support. It was also clear that that support inspired confidence. One person we spoke to had recently been made redundant from a long-term job. DurhamEnable had helped them to navigate the more complicated process nowadays of job applications that they had never needed to do before. Stage three is maintain, which includes offering ongoing support to participants and employers to navigate reasonable adjustments in the workplace while applying for such things as Access to Work.
I will briefly mention JobsPlus, which has already been mentioned, and information from the Learning and Work Institute. The latter found that in 2003, social housing tenants were nearly twice as likely to be out of work and more than twice as likely to be disabled. When in work, social housing tenants are twice as likely to be in lower skilled work on average and are paid a third less than people who live in other housing tenures.
JobsPlus, which is being piloted in 10 sites across England, is a key initiative. It brings together tenants, landlords and key agencies to provide targeted support to those who need it. It works because of that joint commitment and the targeted support that is provided. In fact, it is the simplicity of the scheme that works overall. The non-reliance on system-based referrals sets JobsPlus apart from most other employment programmes. All the programme needs to know is where somebody lives, and then it simply helps them.
It will be no surprise to Members that as a long-standing housing professional, I advocate the work done by housing associations. East Midlands Housing, based in North West Leicestershire, is not only a great local employer, but part of the Placeshapers initiative, which is about creating place. That is another important part of employer-based support, because it means putting support right at the centre of the community. Above all, it is the community that knows how best to boost engagement and to support one another.
I conclude by emphasising that the key point to take away from today is that we do not need to reinvent the wheel to be successful; we just need to look at what is being done already. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Southport about limited contracting. My experience over two decades is that we have great schemes, but they are often reinvented, which means we then lack consistency. Consistency develops our communities and the long-term commitment from employers that we need to see real change in place-based support. When schemes come and go, momentum is lost. Can the Minister tell us how we will breed that consistency to ensure that place-based schemes have a seat at the employment support table for the long term, and not just the short term?
Sureena Brackenridge (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) for securing this important debate on place-based employment schemes. Local jobs, local skills and local employment support, rooted in communities, will change individuals’ lives as well as boosting local economies. My residents in Wolverhampton North East will understand that deeply.
In previous debates on young people not in education, employment or training, I have said that the challenge cannot be solved by a single national programme or by one-size-fits-all policies from Whitehall. Instead, we need local solutions, rooted in local labour markets and built around developing and building people, skills and aspirations. That is the approach that I am calling for and I welcome the Labour Government to continue to work closely with our Mayor, Richard Parker, and also with local councils. In Wolverhampton, through the Wolves at Work employment hub at the i10, residents are not handed generic advice; instead, time is invested in individuals to support them as needed. More than 1,800 residents have had employment advice and successful job matching, with more than 40% of those supported aged under 25. That is place-based employment support that is rooted in local partnerships and focused on real outcomes.
The open door programme does literally that. It opens up opportunities by giving paid work experience to those who might otherwise never get that first chance. Labour’s support for sector-based work academy programmes, a practical route into work, and for the youth guarantee trailblazer, part of the Get Britain Working plan, shows how this Government are focused on tailored, targeted support that will meet local needs. The major funding package for youth employment, benefiting about a million young people, is a sign of Labour’s commitment to tackling the long-term issue of young people not in education, employment or training.
Behind every statistic on NEETs is a young person who needs a guided pathway, with support for their specific needs. In Wolverhampton, we know that 2.6% of young people aged 16 to 17 were NEET in 2025. Although I appreciate that is lower than the national average, it is still hundreds of young people who deserve the opportunity to see themselves in a good quality job and a career suited to them.
For too long under previous Governments, employment support, skills funding and local growth strategies have operated in silos and we have seen inconsistencies, but this Labour Government are doing things differently. We are aligning skills with jobs, investing in local employment hubs for the long term, and backing councils and mayoral combined authorities to shape programmes that work for their places.
How will the Minister address the challenge of scaling up that success, so that where someone grows up no longer determines whether they can get on in life? I call on the Minister to fully back place-based employment schemes to connect people to jobs for hope, ambition and action.
John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I also thank the hon. Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) for shining a light on this important issue.
The Liberal Democrats strongly support the principles of devolution and localism so we welcome the Government’s stated ambition to expand place-based employment support. Employment conditions vary so much across the country that a purely national strategy could never work. However, local delivery is only half the story. A succession of Governments have been adept at passing on new responsibilities to local government but not necessarily the budget to match. The Liberal Democrats will not support reforms that simply shift costs and risks on to councils without the funding systems and accountability to make them work. What extra powers or funding flexibility will the Government give local and combined authorities so that they can design and deliver place-based employment strategies that genuinely reflect their local labour markets?
Improving employment prospects is also about removing barriers. Estimates suggest that hundreds of thousands of people are economically inactive due to long-term sickness linked to NHS waiting lists. More than 600,000 people have reduced their working hours while waiting for treatment. Too much existing work support consists of generic help with CV writing and basic qualifications such as maths and English. Although important, that does not go far enough to answer individual needs, especially for people with specific health conditions. The current system seems to work best when providing adjustments for people already in work, who then become disabled, but fails those who are trying to get a job in the first place. The practical adjustments through Access to Work are frequently agreed only after the job offer and that is too late in the process.
The case of one of my constituents from Horsham, Amanda, illustrates what can go wrong when systems do not join up. Amanda is deaf; she got a job and needed an interpreter funded through Access to Work, but a basic administrative breakdown between her employer and the Department for Work and Pensions resulted in her support being refused. Long delays in making awards are causing real trouble; I believe the waiting list has increased by four times in just a few years. The current system seems unable to respond to individual circumstances.
The Liberal Democrats argue that devolution must be matched with stable funding and enough resources to support implementation. There is a journey to go on and, as we embark on it, we need to be honest about a legacy of negative culture in the system. According to a 2025 survey by Turn2Us, 64% of claimants say that the system is trying to “catch them out.” Only 15% said support from work coaches is useful, while 55% of universal credit claimants say that claiming benefits has “worsened their health.” That sounds less like an employment system and more like a deterrence system.
That tactic has backfired. Job hunting is a tough process; morale matters. Totally undermining unemployed jobseekers by treating them like benefit scroungers has only ended up making sure that is exactly how they remain: stuck on benefits. The pressure on jobseekers to demonstrate industrial quantities of applications every week has destroyed trust on both sides. I have seen how local employers in my constituency have disengaged with the jobcentre. They feel that the applicants they are being sent are not interested and are just trying to meet their weekly quota of applications. The Liberal Democrats welcome the trial of place-based approaches, such as JobsPlus. It is too soon to judge, but the early signs suggest higher engagement and improved confidence and wellbeing. We need to get both jobseekers and employers believing and trusting in the system again.
We need clarity on funding. Council budgets are already under severe strain and rural areas, such as mine in west Sussex, face some of the greatest barriers to employment support, yet also face some of the stiffest demands and the tighter settlement under the new local government finance settlement. Councils are concerned that JobsPlus funding ends in March 2026, yet the full evaluation has not yet been completed. What long-term funding certainty will be provided to ensure that community-based employment support is not cut off just as it starts to deliver results?
Finally, on national oversight, it is vital that we ensure that place-based employment support is properly integrated with jobcentres and national programmes such as restart to avoid duplication and confusion. Will the Government commit to clear outcome measurement and regular, public reporting so that Parliament can hold the DWP to account for what those programmes actually deliver? Alongside that, what are the Government doing to properly integrate local employment schemes with national programmes, such as restart and jobcentre services, to make everything work together effectively?
To conclude, the Liberal Democrats believe that place-based employment support can reduce inequality, improve outcomes and help people into sustainable work, but it must be backed by long-term funding, a competent Administration and clear, national accountability. Otherwise, localism will end up as a slogan, not a solution.
Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank the hon. Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) and congratulate him on securing this important debate.
Getting people into work should be a core priority for any Government and I know Members across the House share that view. I, and the Conservative party, wholly believe that work is the best route out of poverty. Work brings independence, dignity, opportunity and the ability for people across the country to provide for themselves and their families. It gives meaning and purpose, and has real, proven mental health benefits. That is why successive Conservative Governments have put in place a lot of employment support schemes. The restart scheme was one example. Launched in 2020, it gave tailored, intensive support to jobseekers who were often in need of more support.
I appreciate that the current Government recognise the challenges of joblessness and that there is a genuine desire to tackle the problem. Whether through local authorities or the private sector, there are many ways of attempting to improve employment outcomes and get people into work. There is a clear difference between broader national schemes and localised place-based approaches. It is clear that employment challenges in Carlisle, for example, are very different from those in Cardiff and that tailored, localised support can be a more effective way of helping people in those areas to gain meaningful, lasting employment.
The JobsPlus scheme—started by the previous Conservative Government—is an example of that, and has been mentioned a few times already this afternoon. The scheme was inspired by the response to problems in the United States, and has been carried out in the UK through social landlords, and convened and organised by Communities that Work. These pilots were carried out in a diverse range of areas, such as Swale in Kent and Toxteth in Liverpool, as a useful road test for a scheme that would show how it would work in different parts of the country. The evaluation last autumn, written by the Institute for Employment Studies and Learning to Work, said that there had been
“positive early indications that the JobsPlus model could be implemented effectively in the UK”.
There is, of course, a long way to go. We hope for the success of place-based employment schemes and for each area to see an uptick in employment. There are hard-working and committed people in communities across the country who are doing their utmost to improve the life chances of others. Effective wraparound support is essential in tackling those complex barriers to work that so many of our constituents are facing in their own communities.
We certainly know that a one-size-fits-all approach from Whitehall is often not the answer, and that devolving power down to local people and local decision makers can be the best way to achieve real, tangible progress and outcomes. However, we recognise that core principles apply to helping people throughout the country when they are trying to get a job. We must also guard against a postcode lottery, where some areas have a good level of support and others are, quite frankly, left behind. There is a clear balance to be struck, and I would like the Minister to explain how she will make sure that it happens.
I would also be interested to hear the Minister’s view on private sector involvement. From my perspective, relying on state interventions alone does not work, and we will need to unleash private enterprise, particularly small and medium sized enterprises. One of the current problems in the British economy, and, indeed, in our jobs market, is that businesses of all sizes and in all communities do not have the confidence to hire in the current economic and regulatory environment. The Minister does not need me to repeat the impact on jobs of the Government’s decisions on things such as hiking national insurance or the Employment Rights Act 2025. I hear the impact from my constituents, and I do not believe that the Minister and others on the Government benches do not hear the same things too.
A thriving economy and business confidence really is the best way to boost employment across the UK. That simply is not the case at the moment, with job vacancies down and unemployment up from 4.2% when the Government came to power in July 2024 to 5.1% today. There are 700,000 university graduates who are out of work and on benefits, and nearly 1 million NEET young people. These are sobering numbers and will impact on the constituencies and constituents of every Member in this room, across the length and breadth of the country. They impact people now, but also into their futures. Those numbers put a huge pressure on employment support programmes, and often overwhelm them. We want employers to feel comfortable in hiring people, not to impose hiring freezes because they are concerned about the state of the economy.
I will briefly focus on my constituency, as others have today. I often talk in this place about the oil and gas sector and the impact that policies are having on jobs. Employment, particularly locally in north-east Scotland, is wholly reliant on the oil and gas sector. Every other sector and industry is related to it: hospitality, taxis, shops, and the housing market. Regardless of whether people support oil and gas or whether people believe in the energy transition, policies in this sector are having an impact on jobs.
No other constituency in the country is seeing as many job losses in a single sector as we are across north-east Scotland. If this were happening in any other Member’s constituency, they would not be sitting silent; they would be fighting for the employment and future of their constituents. That is what I am doing, and it is what must be done if we are to ensure that place-based employment support is not needed in Aberdeenshire to the extent that it would be if the oil and gas sector were allowed to collapse.
I certainly welcome robust place-based employment support, but I call on the Government to link it with broader economic changes that allow businesses to flourish and encourage them to take a chance on younger people and those currently out of work. I thank the Minister in advance for her response and the hon. Member for Southport again for securing this debate.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Dame Diana Johnson)
It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Dr Murrison.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) on securing this debate. As he rightly pointed out, employment can often get bound up in numbers, targets and rates. What we all know is that this is fundamentally about people, families, communities and the world of work. Work is a huge part of people’s lives, and we should never underestimate how much it matters that we support people into work and help them succeed in their careers. I thank all hon. Members who have spoken this afternoon, in what I think has been an excellent debate, about the support that their constituents are already receiving in many cases.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham) talked about her local employers, as well as the vital role of towns in economic growth and regeneration. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack), who brings great knowledge to her role on the Work and Pensions Committee, as well as her experience prior to entering Parliament. She spoke about the Connect to Work programme, which I will say a little more about.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Sureena Brackenridge) spoke about NEETs and about the excellent work, rooted in partnerships, that is already going on in her area to support individuals. At the end of her contribution, she talked about hope, ambition and action, which I thought was a very powerful message. I would gently remind the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) that over 500,000 people entered employment over the last year.
I pay tribute to what my hon. Friend the Member for Southport said, and to his commitment to helping his constituents into good work. It was great to hear him champion some of the excellent work of The Big Onion in Southport, the Cradle to Career scheme in the Liverpool city region more widely, and the various place-based employment support providers across the north of England. I was particularly interested in Zink and its microjobs, and in how it helps people move into part-time and then full-time work.
My hon. Friend also spoke with great eloquence about the challenges he faced growing up in an area where the local factory had closed and work was really hard to come by. It underlines the fact that where someone lives is often a significant factor in the challenges they face and the chances before them in life. Those who live in communities like the ones that he represents, or that I represent in Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham, will always know best what the barriers and opportunities are in their local area. That is why I am committed to working closely with mayoral strategic authorities, local government, the voluntary and community sector, and others to ensure that employment support works for people, no matter where they live.
I regularly meet with mayors and leaders in local government, as do my officials, to ensure that we are designing employment support that meets the needs of those local communities. In December, I met the mayoral council. Last week, the Minister for Skills, Baroness Smith of Malvern, and I met the Local Government Association’s inclusive growth committee to hear from local leaders working across England, including those representing towns, on youth employment and the jobs and careers service. Earlier today, I met the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham. We will continue to listen to and engage with local leaders as we reform employment support.
A core strength of the Department is our network of jobcentres and work coaches on high streets all around the country, with staff who are knowledgeable and passionate about the communities they serve. We have to make the most of that, which is why we are building a new jobs and careers service that moves away from the one-size-fits-all approach that has been mentioned several times this afternoon. We are instead building a locally responsive service designed to meet the different needs of local labour markets, local people and local employers. We are already testing new elements of this service through our pathfinder in Wakefield, which I went to see before Christmas. We have also matched up Jobcentre Plus boundaries with mayoral strategic authorities to strengthen partnerships between jobcentres, local government and other local stakeholders.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southport mentioned the efforts to make jobcentres more human. I have to say, this is not the first time that effort has been put into that. I read that, in the 1940s, as part of his drive to humanise the employment exchanges that existed then, Ernest Bevin felt it necessary to issue an instruction that staff should say “good morning” to members of the public when they came into the employment exchange looking for help.
Fortunately, I think we are starting from a better position than that today, but we want to make sure that jobcentres are places that people want to go to for support, not places that they shy away from. We are making sure that the new jobs and careers service is less about benefit administration and box ticking, and that it better uses technology so we can free up our work coaches’ time to focus on giving people support that is tailored to their needs. In the English devolution White Paper, we again set out the important role of mayors in driving local growth and supporting labour market and skills needs.
I will turn to some of the locally led employment support that we are investing in already, including £1 billion through our Connect to Work programme. I recently saw that support in action in Lewisham, where a neurodiverse young man told me how the personalised support that he was receiving from the team was helping him in his work as a swimming teacher. Across England and Wales, he is one of 300,000 disabled people, or people with health conditions and other complex barriers, who we will be supporting through Connect to Work by the end of the decade.
Mayors and local authorities are being funded via grants to enable delivery of local Connect to Work programmes. Over two fifths of delivery areas are now up and running, and we have given areas considerable flexibility in how they deliver the service to reflect the local priorities and other support available in the area.
We are also expanding WorkWell across the whole of England over the next three years to support up to 250,000 people. I visited WorkWell in Cambridge a few months ago and saw the brilliant way that it is working together with local authorities, integrated care boards and Jobcentre Plus to provide a single route to personalised, integrated work and health support. This recognises that local areas are well placed to knit together local services. For that reason, we have also commissioned local Get Britain Working plans in all areas of England.
The Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne), raised the issue of Access to Work, and I heard what he said. He will know that a National Audit Office report was produced at the end of last week. Demand has soared for Access to Work; we are already putting in additional staff and we are looking at what more can be done because we recognise how important it is.
I want to mention the voluntary and community sector, which was raised by a number of Members this afternoon, and how important its role is in employment support. With the mayoral strategic authorities, we are working closely with the sector to deliver 17 economic inactivity and youth guarantee trailblazers to test new, innovative ways of delivering that support, delivered by local partners. The partnership is about engaging with communities at that grassroots level to help them access holistic support to move towards work. I heard the calls this afternoon for the funding to be made available to that sector on a sustainable basis with multi year settlements.
There was mention of local authority funding. The local government finance settlement is the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s most significant move yet to make English local government more sustainable. The Government are making good on long overdue promises to fundamentally update the way we fund local authorities. We are delivering fairer funding and targeting money where it is needed most through the first multi-year settlement in decades.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southport spoke about the long-lasting effect on his life when he could not get a job as a young man. For so many, the consequences of what happens at the start of their working life can cascade down the years. That is why we are putting a real focus on supporting young people, not least through our youth guarantee.
At the Budget, we announced the expansion of the youth guarantee, backed by £820 million of investment, which answers the question asked by the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) about supporting young people into infrastructure projects. That investment will create around 300,000 more opportunities to gain workplace experience and training for young people. I take issue with his comments, however, because he failed to acknowledge that if support and help are offered to a young person, as they will be through the youth guarantee, there is a responsibility on them to take up that offer of assistance and support. That is part of the social contract in this country.
I have already mentioned the locally led trailblazers, but we are also expanding youth hub provision to more than 360 areas across Great Britain. That is important because those hubs are helping us to reach young people where they are—in places such as football clubs and other sports facilities. My hon. Friend the Member for Southport mentioned the importance of delivering support in familiar settings, and I am glad that he and several other Members highlighted JobsPlus as an example of that. It delivers community-based employment support through the social housing sector and is being piloted in 10 sites across England.
I want to mention the Milburn review, which is looking at why nearly 1 million young people are not in education, employment or training. It is due to report in the summer. We cannot allow the talents of nearly 1 million young people to be wasted. It is not good for those young people, and it is not good for our economy or the taxpayer either.
Whether it is our trailblazers, youth hubs, Jobcentre reform or programmes such as Connect to Work and WorkWell, we are determined that people should get the support that suits them, regardless of where they live or what their circumstances are. People’s lives are complex and people can face all sorts of barriers to work, whether it is health, skills, transport, housing or any other factor. That is why we must take a joined-up approach to deliver a locally tailored ecosystem of support to ensure that no one is left behind.
We must ensure that people can access offers of support from sources that they trust and that treat them as an individual and as a whole person. That is why the Government have committed to learn from place-based support, such as the economic inactivity and youth guarantee trailblazers and Connect to Work, and it is why we are committed to truly embedding and tailoring our new jobs and careers service to meet the needs of local people and employers.
As we develop our jobs and careers service, our youth guarantee and Pathways to Work, we will be working closely with local government, including mayoral strategic authorities, to ensure that they reflect the communities that they serve. Ensuring that employment support is integrated in, and meets the needs of, local communities will help people to benefit from the purpose, pride and independence of good work and to fulfil their potential.
Patrick Hurley
I thank you, Dr Murrison, for your exemplary chairing of the debate. I also thank hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. What has come through really clearly is that employment policy works when it starts with the reality of people’s lives and that, for people furthest from the labour market, progress works best when the support that they are given is human and rooted in place.
The message that I hope the Minister will take away is simple: the systems that we have in place centrally matter, but they cannot do all of this alone. Place-based delivery, person-centred support and genuine partnership are all essential if we are serious about tackling the scourge of inactivity. Crucially, funding, and the certainty of funding, is also massively important. I know that the Government will reflect on how future policy can embed the approaches we have talked about this afternoon. I thank everybody for their contributions to the debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered place-based employment support programmes.
Written Corrections
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Ministerial Corrections
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Cabinet Office
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Darren Jones
On the Bill, as I informed the House last week, the Government’s preference is to bring forward legislation that could be applied to any peer who has breached the rules and brought the other place into disrepute. We have begun the work of looking at the scope and ability for such a Bill to be introduced. I have been informed that a Bill of that nature has not been brought before Parliament since 1425—[Interruption.] No, the 1917 Bill was about a collective group of peers who had been, I think, collaborating with the Nazis around the second world war.
[Official Report, 9 February 2026; Vol. 780, c. 573.]
Written correction submitted by the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones):
Darren Jones
… I have been informed that a Bill of that nature has not been brought before Parliament since 1478—[Interruption.] No, the 1917 Bill was about a collective group of peers who had been, I think, collaborating with the Germans around the first world war.
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
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Seema Malhotra
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is also in close contact with Mr Lai’s international legal team at Doughty Street Chambers, and with his son and daughter, Sebastien and Claire, whom the Foreign Secretary last met on 8 January.
[Official Report, 9 February 2026; Vol. 780, c. 556.]
Written correction submitted by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra):
Seema Malhotra
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is also in close contact with Mr Lai’s international legal team at Doughty Street Chambers, and with his son and daughter, Sebastien and Claire, whom the Foreign Secretary last met on 9 January.
Written Statements
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Integrated Security Fund
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The Minister for Security (Dan Jarvis)
I wish to update the House on the Government’s plans for the integrated security fund and how funding will be allocated over the next three years—2026-27, 2027-28 and 2028-29—to support delivery of the UK’s national security priorities. 2026/27 2027/28 2028/29 Non-ODA (£m) ODA (£m) Total (£m) Non-ODA (£m) ODA (£m) Total (£m) Non-ODA (£m) ODA (£m) Total (£m) Strategy Boards Asia Pacific 21.5 6.0 27.5 24.0 6.0 30.0 27.0 6.0 33.0 Russia 59.5 75.0 134.5 49.1 76.7 125.8 46.7 79.4 126.1 Middle East and North Africa 37.5 32.0 69.5 30.0 32.0 62.0 25.0 32.0 57.0 Counter-Terrorism 40.0 18.0 58.0 33.0 18.0 51.0 28.0 18.0 46.0 Serious Organised Crime, including Organised Immigration Crime 15.0 17.5 32.5 15.0 19.0 34.0 12.5 19.0 31.5 Biosecurity 15.0 0.0 15.0 15.0 0.0 15.0 15.0 0.0 15.0 Counter-State and Hybrid Threats 20.0 0.0 20.0 20.0 0.0 20.0 18.0 0.0 18.0 Economic Security 12.0 0.0 12.0 10.0 0.0 10.0 8.0 0.0 8.0 Cyber and Tech 113.3 5.2 118.5 102.0 5.5 107.5 95.0 5.5 100.5 Additional Costs Central Capabilities 3.4 0.2 3.6 2.6 0.2 2.8 2.3 0.2 2.5 Exit Costs 2.0 0.0 2.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Central Administration 1.0 0.0 1.0 1.0 0.0 1.0 1.0 0.0 1.0
As the 2025 national security strategy made clear, threats to British national security and interests are proliferating. Foreign powers plot espionage, sabotage and cyber-attacks on British soil, colluding with criminal groups to achieve their aims. The threat posed by terrorism continues to persist and diversify. Hostile actors seek to undermine and destabilise the international order not only through conflict and aggression, but through hybrid tactics aimed at sowing and exploiting divisions within our societies.
In this increasingly complex and interconnected national security landscape, it is more important than ever that we take an integrated approach to protecting the UK and its people. This year, the ISF has already demonstrated its value in co-ordinating whole-of-Government responses to key threats, providing vital support for the Government of Ukraine’s efforts to oppose Russian aggression and investing in the UK’s own resilience to threats.
Over the next three years, the Government will continue to invest in the ISF as a cross-Government mechanism that can complement the work of individual Departments, while embarking on ambitious reforms to improve its efficiency and to directly align the fund’s work with the Government’s wider national security response and the national security strategy. This will support the ISF to deliver on its core purpose: protecting the UK’s national security domestically and overseas.
Reform
For 2025-26, the ISF delivered a series of structural changes, closing some ISF portfolios and consolidating others to streamline and focus the fund’s efforts. This was part of a phased transition towards a reformed ISF governance structure that will take effect from 2026-27. The second phase of ISF transformation will:
Deliver a more focused ISF strategic framework, concentrating ISF programming on tackling five key areas: Russia; Iran and its proxies; threats emanating from the Asia Pacific region; serious and organised crime, including organised immigration crime; and terrorism. The ISF will also focus on building sovereign capabilities in four areas: cyber and tech; biosecurity; counter state and hybrid threats; and economic security.
From 2026-27 onwards, funding will be allocated and programming overseen by cross-Government boards responsible for delivering the UK’s strategies related to each of the ISF’s nine strategic priorities. This will see an end to bespoke ISF governance arrangements, leading to greater accountability for spending through the ISF and reduced bureaucracy.
Set multi-year allocations to enable more efficient, longer-term programming. To preserve the ISF’s flexibility to respond to a crisis or a change in security priorities, this will be balanced by holding 20% of the allocations in 2027-28 and 2028-29 “at risk” and available for reprioritisation if necessary.
Transfer responsibility for funding the UK’s contributions to UN peacekeeping missions and other multilateral commitments to the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office and the Ministry of Defence. This is in line with the ISF’s sharper strategic focus on UK national security. The ISF will continue to fund wider programming to prevent and/or resolve conflict and instability where there is a direct link to UK national security.
Spending review 2025 allocations
These reforms will enable the ISF to maximise the national security impact of its budget over the SR25 period. This budget totals circa £820 million per year, of which circa £200 million per year is official development assistance. The ISF will transfer circa £250 million per year to the FCDO and the MOD to enable those departments to manage UN peacekeeping and multilateral commitments currently funded by the ISF. The ISF will also transfer a further £30 million, £70 million, and £100 million non-ODA to the Home Office over the three years of SR25 to support national security priorities and safeguard the UK’s homeland security. The ISF’s budget for national security programming will therefore total £545 million, £499 million and £471 million in 2026-27, 2027-28 and 2028-29 respectively.
The ISF will focus programming funding towards the most acute threats to UK national security. This includes increasing the ISF’s investment in its two largest areas of spend: countering Russian aggression, including in Ukraine; and strengthening the cyber and tech capabilities of the UK and our allies. Together, these areas make up 46% of the ISF’s budget in 2026-27. By 2028-29 the ISF will also increase funding by 33% to enable the UK to counter threats emanating from the Asia Pacific region, including engaging safely and securely with China while protecting UK interests, and supporting our partners around the world to do the same. The ISF will also invest in new cross-cutting, domestic counter-state threats programming, which will complement actor-specific international activity to counter Russia and other states.
The ISF’s counter-terrorism allocation will increase from £31 million this year to £58 million in 2026-27, before declining to £46 million by 2028-29. This front-loaded allocation will establish new domestic counter-terrorism capabilities from next year, while providing sufficient funding to maintain existing counter-terrorism activity in Africa and the middle east. In 2026-27, ISF funding on serious organised crime will also rise by circa £10 million from 2025-26 levels, to fund new activity disrupting and dismantling criminal groups facilitating illegal migration to the UK.
Prioritising funding in these areas means that greater fiscal discipline is required elsewhere in the fund. Programming in the middle east will narrow its focus to countering the highest priority threats in the region and to support work to secure a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict through a negotiated two state solution. The ISF allocation will therefore reduce by 20% by the end of the SR25 period. Following the ISF’s successful maturation of UK sanctions capabilities, which will be funded by Departments’ core budgets from next financial year, the ISF’s allocation to economic security will also reduce from £12 million in 2026-27 to £8 million in 2028-29. The ISF will maintain funding for strengthening UK resilience and preparedness in relation to biosecurity threats at £15 million per year through the SR25 period.
These allocations closely align ISF funding with the priorities of the national security strategy. They balance investment in capabilities to bolster domestic resilience and make the UK a harder target for hostile actors, with overseas activity to promote stability and help allies and friends bolster their own resilience. Together with the reforms to the ISF’s structure and operating model, they will ensure that the ISF is not only more efficient but more impactful in protecting the UK and our partners globally.
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Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Josh MacAlister)
I am today announcing that the adoption and special guardianship support fund will be extended until March 2028—the end of the current spending review period—and that the budget will be increased by 10% to £55 million for 2026-27. I recognise the importance of setting out a holistic, evidence-based vision for long-term adoption support. That is why I am also launching a consultation on the future reform of adoption and kinship support, including the ASGSF.
This work builds on significant reform across children’s social care already under way that benefits adopted and kinship children and their families. These include the £2.4 billion Families First Partnership programme over the next three years—funding that is equally available to adoptive and kinship families—and wider reforms to children’s social care and mental health services that aim to improve early intervention and strengthen joint working across systems.
This statement outlines the context for that consultation, together with the funding we are providing while it is under way.
The current system
Many adopted and kinship children thrive thanks to the love and care they receive, and a great number do so without any additional support. However, when additional need occurs, because of those difficult childhood experiences, help is often fragmented across services and access to support varies significantly between local areas. For too long support for adoptive and kinship families has been inconsistent, difficult to navigate, and not always aligned with the evidence on what delivers the best outcomes for children.
We know that children’s needs change over time, yet current arrangements do not always provide timely, co-ordinated help at key stages. We also know when children are most likely to present additional needs—namely, when transitioning to secondary school and when entering adolescence. These challenges underline the need for a more coherent, sustainable, and evidence-based framework for adoption and kinship support—one that ensures families receive the right support, at the right time, wherever they live.
Innovation and improving our understanding of what works
Where we think there is a strong case for intervention now, we must make changes to improve support offered to children as soon as possible. That is why from summer 2026, we will introduce a new parent support offer, delivered through Adoption England, for adoptive parents and special guardians whose children are entering secondary school.
This programme will provide practical support while laying the groundwork for wider systemic reform to adoption and special guardianship support. It addresses the well-evidenced challenges children face during the transition from year 6 to year 7, and will include universal, targeted and peer-led help.
The aim is to provide early support to provide consistent support to strengthen families, and prevent escalation into absence, exclusion or placement strain. This forms the initial step in a broader, long-term model of support. Further information will be available in due course.
In 2026-27, we will invest to strengthen regional adoption agency multidisciplinary teams. Regional adoption agencies will strengthen multidisciplinary teams in 2026-27 to provide co-ordinated, holistic support for adopted children and families. Bringing social care, health, and education professionals together will streamline decisions and ensure timely, evidence-based help.
Additionally, the Department of Health and Social Care has launched a three-year pilot to enhance mental health support for children in care and their families. The Department for Education will collaborate to ensure adoptive families are included, starting with one geographic area. This pilot will test a fully integrated mental health support model to ensure children and families receive co-ordinated, accessible help when and where it is needed most.
Consultation
The “Adoption support that works for all” consultation will run for 12 weeks and is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/adoption-support-that-works-for-all The consultation sets out a bold and ambitious vision for adoption and (eligible) kinship support. Rather than continuing with a predominantly reactive and centrally administered fund, we propose moving towards a more integrated, evidence-based, and locally led system. This model would place stronger emphasis on early help, consistent and holistic needs assessments, support at key stages, and closer integration between children’s social care, health services, and education.
Taken together, these initiatives deliver practical, immediate action, while laying the foundations for wider systemic reform within a new model of adoption and special guardianship support that prioritises early help and evidence-based intervention.
As we take forward this work, our ambition is clear: every adopted and eligible kinship child should receive the right support at the right time, delivered through a system that is coherent, compassionate and responsive to their needs. The voices of families and experts will be central in shaping this future. I urge all those with experience and expertise to respond to the consultation and help us build a stronger, more integrated support system—one that gives every child the stability, opportunity and security they deserve.
I will deposit a copy of the consultation document and equalities impact assessment in the Libraries of both Houses.
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Contracts for Difference: AR7 Solar and Onshore Wind Results
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The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)
The seventh contracts for difference auction results for onshore wind, solar and tidal stream have been published today—with a record number of projects, 189, totalling 6.2 GW.
Along with offshore wind results published in January, this makes allocation round 7 the largest round ever delivered, securing an unprecedented 14.7 GW of new clean energy capacity across Great Britain. This marks a major step forward in accelerating our clean power mission with successful onshore wind and solar AR7 capacity estimated to support up to 10,000 direct and indirect jobs at its peak.
Today’s announcement will support enough clean electricity to power the equivalent of over 3 million homes, helping to shield the UK from volatile global fossil fuel markets and deliver long-term affordability for consumers.
We have secured a record number of projects across the lowest cost energy sources to build and operate. Once built and generating, the new clean, home-grown power secured today will reduce household bills. New onshore wind cleared at £72.24 per MWh, and new solar at £65.23 per MWh, both under half the £147 per MWh cost of building and operating new gas power stations.
Today 4.9 GW of solar has been procured, which is the largest ever procurement of solar projects in the UK, at a clearing price that is lower than the previous round and a 13% discount to the auction ceiling price.
Some 1.3 GW of onshore wind contracts have been awarded, including the largest onshore project to be successful in England in over a decade and over 1 GW in Scotland. Through Government action to provide dedicated budget for onshore wind for the first time, we have achieved significant new capacity at a competitive price, with a discount of over 20% against the auction ceiling price.
The CfD scheme continues to support innovation in marine energy with four new tidal stream projects totalling 20.9 MW. This brings total CfD backed tidal stream capacity to 140 MW, maintaining the UK’s world leading position in this emerging technology. Tidal stream provides predictable, reliable power that complements intermittent generation from wind and solar. Around half of the world’s operational deployment of this cutting-edge innovation is situated in UK waters.
By supporting a diverse mix of offshore wind, onshore wind, solar and tidal stream projects, the AR7 package strengthens the UK’s ability to keep energy secure, affordable and resilient year-round—while delivering on clean power ambitions. This protects households from global energy price shocks, which have contributed to half of all recessions since the 1970s. In 2025 alone, global gas prices spiked more than 15% in a single week due to instability in the middle east, demonstrating the need to build a more secure and sovereign energy system.
The results of the solar and onshore wind auction announced today, along with the offshore wind result last month, are together a significant step forward for the clean power mission. Securing record capacity across Britain of the cheapest power sources and supporting thousands of new jobs—this Government are taking back control of our energy system and helping bring down bills for good.
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Local Power Plan
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The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)
Britain’s drive for clean, home-grown energy is central to our mission to build an economy that works for the many. Today, jointly with Great British Energy, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has published the local power plan, which presents a new vision for community and local power.
We are sending the clearest signal yet that local and community energy is a priority and that it is central to the clean energy transition we must deliver. The local power plan is the most significant expansion of support for community energy in our country’s history. Backed by up to £1 billion from Great British Energy, it will support at least 1,000 community and local energy projects by 2030, helping communities generate clean power and keep more of the value locally.
Community ownership is a proven tool for building local wealth, pride and participation, from community-owned pubs and leisure centres to pioneering energy schemes across the highlands, Wales and Bristol. This plan is about putting communities in the driving seat of the energy transition, ensuring clean energy is done with communities, not to them, and enabling them to share directly in the rewards. It represents a historic shift in how Government thinks about ownership in our energy system.
The plan brings together four strands of support delivered jointly by Great British Energy and Government:
Direct funding and finance: For too long, community groups with ambitious ideas have relied on small, short-term grants and have struggled to access finance. Great British Energy will provide targeted grants and loans from feasibility to construction. A blended local investment fund will help crowd in private capital and ensure viable projects can scale.
Capacity and capability: Many communities have the ambition but lack the technical or commercial support required. We are therefore creating a new advisory service and a “Community Energy in a Box’’ toolkit—offering templates, guidance and expert help for groups and local authorities to turn ideas into investable schemes.
Business model development: We will work with industry to establish repeatable, bankable models—shared ownership, joint ventures and smart local energy systems—so that projects can grow without long-term dependence on grants. These models will work in rural villages, coastal towns, city neighbourhoods and island communities.
Policy and regulatory reform: We will work with Ofgem, the National Energy System Operator and network operators to look to improve grid access, simplify routes to market and support shared ownership. Community schemes have faced barriers too high for volunteers but trivial for developers. We are working to remove those barriers in all four nations of the UK.
Since coming into power, we have already kicked off £280 million of funding, backing projects across all four nations—from schools in Oldham to community facilities in Blaenavon and Glasgow.
This additional £1 billion of funding from Great British Energy over the spending review period will help communities develop new projects, access early-stage grants and secure loans or project finance. This includes support for shared ownership so local people can buy a meaningful stake in renewable developments in their area. This funding will help power community pubs, sports clubs, miners’ welfare organisations and village halls across the country. This marks the beginning of a long-term effort to remove obstacles to growing community and local power.
The local power plan is the most comprehensive package to grow community energy our country has ever seen—building on our Pride in Place programme, the community right to buy, and our commitment to double the size of the co-operative sector. It follows the ambitious steps Great British Energy is already taking: cutting bills for schools and hospitals through new solar installations, building Britain’s clean-energy supply chains through the £1 billion “Energy, Engineered in the UK” programme, and investing in its first commercial project to put the UK at the cutting edge of floating offshore wind.
But this future will not be delivered from Whitehall alone. It will be built place by place, community by community. So today we are issuing an invitation to communities across the country: come forward with proposals for your area, and we will support you to help make them happen.
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Local Government Best Value: Bedford and Spelthorne Borough Councils
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The Minister for Local Government and Homelessness (Alison McGovern)
This Government are committed to taking the action necessary to fix the foundations of local government. Today, I am updating the House on the steps we are taking to support two councils to recover and reform: Bedford borough council and Spelthorne borough council.
Bedford borough council
Today I have exercised powers under section 10 of the Local Government Act 1999 to carry out a best value inspection of Bedford borough council’s compliance with the best value duty. Given the economic importance of Bedford, I am committed to ensuring strong oversight to safeguard investment and support regional growth.
I have appointed Paul Najsarek as the inspector and, on his request, Margaret Lee and Parveen Akhtar as assistant inspectors.
Given our concerns relate to broad decision making, and whether the standards expected for effective and convenient local government are being upheld, the inspection will consider decision making in relation to those functions, encompassing leadership, governance, organisational culture, use of resources, partnerships and community engagement, and impact on service delivery. It will also consider the authority’s capacity to address the recommendations made by the Local Government Association corporate peer challenge team and progress review, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy review and the external auditor’s (KPMG) update report to Bedford borough council’s audit committee meeting on 27 November 2025.
I look forward to receiving the inspector’s report in June and will carefully consider this before determining the next steps for Bedford borough council. If it shows that the council is in breach of its best value duty, we will then consider whether to exercise powers under section 15 of the 1999 Local Government Act.
Spelthorne borough council
Today, I am publishing the commissioners at Spelthorne borough council’s first report, received in December 2025, which sets out early progress, including the adoption of an improvement and recovery plan, restructuring of debt and the implementation of a new minimum revenue provision policy. These steps are critical to improving the council’s financial sustainability ahead of Surrey’s planned local government reorganisation in April 2027.
While I welcome the progress to date, significant challenges remain. Delivering these improvements will be essential to ensuring stability and readiness for the changes ahead, and I look forward to the council and commissioners working together to take forward the strategy they have outlined to address these issues.
To support continued progress at the council, the Secretary of State has confirmed the reappointments of Lesley Seary as lead commissioner and Deborah McLaughlin, Peter Robinson and Mervyn Greer as commissioners, until the expiry of the directions on 31 May 2030 as a backstop. In practice, their appointments will cease when Spelthorne borough council is dissolved as part of the planned local government reorganisation in Surrey.
I recognise that local government reorganisation in Surrey brings added urgency and complexity to Spelthorne’s improvement journey. I have therefore asked commissioners to include in their next report reflections on the reorganisation process, including how Government can best support new councils in meeting their best value duty from day one, and any urgent issues that fall outside their current remit. I look forward to receiving their progress report later this summer.
I am committed to working with these councils to ensure their compliance with the best value duty and the high standards of governance that local residents expect. My Department will take action to support improvement where needed.
I will deposit in the Library copies of the documents referred to, which are being published on www.gov.uk today. I will update the House in due course.
[HCWS1323]
Legal Services Board Review
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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The Minister for Courts and Legal Services (Sarah Sackman)
I am pleased to announce the review of the Legal Services Board. It is best practice for Departments to regularly review their public bodies to provide assurance to both Government and the public that these bodies are operating effectively, and that their functions remain useful and necessary. In the case of legal services, this assurance is especially significant because the sector’s regulatory framework must remain demonstrably independent of Government, a key pillar of the rule of law, and of public confidence in our justice system.
The Government are committed to reducing regulatory burdens that may stifle innovation and growth across various sectors, including the legal sector. However, the legal services regulatory framework is complex, encompassing a broad range of professions and regulatory bodies, each with their own scope, governance and approach.
Within this landscape, the LSB provides oversight of the approved regulators responsible for the direct regulation of legal services providers. We must ensure that the current regulatory oversight arrangements are effective and do not duplicate frontline regulators’ work and initiatives. Robust and proportionate oversight is also crucial in ensuring that the sector continues to uphold the highest professional standards and safeguard public trust.
It has been several years since the last review of the LSB in 2017 and, since then, there have been significant developments in the legal services sector. These include the introduction of a new regulatory objective, concerns around professional ethics within the sector, as well as market developments—most notably, the rapid increase in the use of lawtech. Given these changes, it is timely and appropriate to review how the work of the LSB is delivered.
This review provides an opportunity to consider the LSB’s statutory remit, its strategic clarity, governance and accountability arrangements, and the LSB’s current capabilities. The review will assess how the LSB and the Ministry of Justice should work together to deliver value for money and ensure sufficient focus is maintained on the evolving priorities of legal services consumers and the wider sector.
This review will also ensure that current arrangements actively support the essential work undertaken by the approved regulators and legal services providers. It will support the effective delivery of the Department’s priorities for delivering accessible and timely justice, for upholding the rule of law, and in promoting our world-leading legal services.
I have appointed Richard Lloyd to lead on the review. Richard is the chair of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. He is an experienced senior executive and non-executive director, with a strong track record of chairing high-profile regulatory bodies and committees and a reputation for integrity and commitment to public service. Richard has substantial experience of transforming the effectiveness of a wide range of organisations, improving operational delivery in public and private sector services. He is independent from the Ministry of Justice and will provide objective analysis of the LSB and the Department.
As part of this review, a call for evidence will be issued to gather feedback and views. This will take place alongside targeted engagement with stakeholders to inform the review’s findings. A link to the call for evidence can be found below.
https://consult.justice.gov.uk/digital-communications/legal-services-board-public-bodies-review/
I will make a further announcement on completion of the review in summer 2026. Following this, I will set out the Government’s response.
[HCWS1319]