House of Commons
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Mr Speaker
I remind Members that the private Members’ Bill ballot book is open today in the No Lobby until 6 pm. It will then be taken into the Public Bill Office and remain open for signatures until the rise of the House. The ballot draw will be held at 9 am tomorrow in Committee Room 16.
Oral Answers to Questions
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Douglas McAllister (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab)
Michelle Welsh (Sherwood Forest) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Liz Kendall)
Ensuring that children have healthy and safe lives online is one of my top priorities. From making cyber-flashing and self-harm and suicide content the subject of priority offences under the Online Safety Act 2023 to banning nudification apps and standing up to Grok and X, I will leave no stone unturned to ensure that children are protected. Our consultation on growing up online closes next Tuesday, so there is still time to respond. I will bring forward proposals before the summer, and I intend to pass any legislation required by the end of the year.
Douglas McAllister
Many of my constituents are rightly worried about the harms that children face online, including exposure to self-harm content, online bullying and addictive platform design. Can the Secretary of State reassure the House that the Government’s consultation on banning social media for under-16s will result in decisive action, and ensure that any measures that are introduced are effective, proportionate and capable of keeping pace with rapidly changing technology?
Liz Kendall
Yes, that is absolutely my objective. I remind the House that our consultation is looking at not just whether there should be a ban on social media for under-16s but a whole range of other issues, including whether platforms should be required to switch off addictive features, whether there should be mandatory overnight curfews, whether there should be age or other restrictions on artificial intelligence chatbots, how age verification should be strengthened, and how to help children and parents navigate the online world and thrive. We are determined to act, and we will be prepared to act on all of those issues.
Michelle Welsh
Too often, children are exposed to harmful content online, with material promoting pornography and self-harm pushed towards them. Childhood should not be handed over to algorithms. As a mum, I know that parents are terrified that social media companies are putting profit before protection. Does the Secretary of State agree that not only should social media companies step up, but it is time to legislate to ensure that they take active steps to protect our children online?
Liz Kendall
Yes, I do agree. We have legislated, and we are prepared to go further. I have already made strangulation and suffocation in porn a priority offence under the Online Safety Act. We are determined to ensure that rules about what happens in online pornography are the same as the rules for what happens offline, and we are coming forward with proposals on that. This is something that deeply worries parents across the country. The question is not whether we act but how, and I am determined to use all possible levers to protect children online.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
Big tech is a force for good, but so often it is used for bad. Is there not a fundamental conflict of interest for this Government, and even the previous Government, in that big tech companies are so embedded in Government Departments and agencies that the Government are not prepared to take the tough action necessary to protect children and the most vulnerable? Is it not the case that big tech companies are not paying taxes to this country and are avoiding substantive regulation, and that the Government now believe that big tech is too big to fail?
Liz Kendall
Not for the first time, and not for the last time, the right hon. Gentleman raises an extremely important issue. He may not be aware that we have made the decisive move to back more British tech companies, because we believe that as artificial intelligence and tech become the engine of economic and hard power, we need more sovereign control.
There are many wonderful examples of technology provided by big tech companies. I have seen that in my own constituency, with AI tutors to help poor kids catch up. We want to make sure that the benefits of technology are felt by everybody in this country, not just a powerful few, and that we shape this powerful technology, so that it works for all. I say to the right hon. Gentleman: watch this space, because there will be more to come.
Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)
New polling commissioned by the Online Safety Act Network shows that almost 80% of the public want comprehensive laws regulating social media platforms, because otherwise those platforms will continue to prioritise their business interests over users’ safety. The Government have been weak on that and had no new online safety legislation in the King’s Speech. Will the Secretary of State at least move quickly to adopt the network’s safety by design code, in order to deliver the comprehensive reforms that the public want?
Liz Kendall
I remind the hon. Lady that I have already made it a requirement in law that chatbots must protect users from illegal content. I banned nudification apps, through a new criminal offence. We are requiring platforms to take down non-consensual intimate images within 48 hours, and we are requiring platforms to act faster on all those things. It is not true to say that we have not legislated to go further to protect children online. Is she right that there is more to do? Absolutely, and we will act.
Dame Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)
The original sin underpinning many of today’s digital harms is engagement-driven digital advertising. That is what incentivised the platforms to hook young people on infinite scrolling, as members of FlippGen explained to me when I met them on Monday. It is also what drives the “London is broken” misinformation that Sadiq Khan highlighted, and what rewards the fabricated clickbait AI Auschwitz images called out by the Auschwitz Museum. Will the Secretary of State take steps to regulate digital advertising, as the Committee called for in its report published almost a year ago?
Liz Kendall
My hon. Friend is right: follow the money. I am highly aware of that, and we are determined to act. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Digital Government and Data is chairing the digital advertising taskforce, which is a joint effort between this Department and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to look at precisely these issues, because we want to ensure that illegal and harmful content is not rewarded.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
When a child views an inappropriate image online, they cannot unsee it. I have been horrified recently by the number of parents coming to me about inappropriate ads popping up on kids’ digital games. Some of the images are horrendous, and children are viewing them at a very early age. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss this ongoing issue?
Liz Kendall
I or one of my Ministers will meet the hon. Member. She is right to say that once you have seen something, you cannot unsee it. That is especially true for young minds. We all know that young children will wake up in the night and talk to us about things that they remember seeing, but do not understand because they are too young. Either one of my Ministers or I will be more than happy to meet her, see those images for ourselves, and speak to Ofcom and others about what we can do to try to stop that.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State regret having been forced into a ban on social media for under-16s during proceedings on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026, rather than having committed to a ban the first place, or introducing a Bill in the King’s Speech?
Charlie Dewhirst (Bridlington and The Wolds) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Kanishka Narayan)
Diolch yn fawr, Mr Llywydd. Ministers from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology regularly meet representatives from science and technology communities. The UK has seized the moment on AI, quantum and semiconductors. We will keep building British sovereign strength, and alongside that, we will work with allies across the European Union.
Charlie Dewhirst
European tech leaders in some member states are concerned that the EU’s approach to digital regulation is strangling their ability to compete. Will the Minister rule out binding the UK tech industry to a legal framework that could stifle growth in this vital area of the economy?
Kanishka Narayan
The feedback from UK tech businesses has been clear: Britain’s share of European venture capital investment is at its highest for 16 years. IT and technology are driving productivity upwards, alongside capital from the British Business Bank and Sovereign AI. Of course, we will work on redoing what was done through the botched Brexit deal, but alongside that we will maintain British sovereign strength in technology and AI.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Mr James Frith)
The Labour Government are the first in a decade to publish a digital inclusion action plan, to ensure that everybody benefits from our digital society. Seventy-three per cent of the £11.9 million digital inclusion innovation fund supported charities, many of them grassroots organisations. Through the digital ID work that I lead, we are supporting digital inclusion, and we are engaging expert grassroots organisations directly to ensure that we get this right, and that they are included.
Josh Babarinde
NHS Sussex found that Eastbourne, despite being the sunniest town in the UK, is one of the most digitally excluded patches of Sussex. Great organisations, such as TechResort, run by Liz Crew and Will Callaghan, help bridge the digital divide. However, they will be scuppered by the closing of the digital inclusion innovation fund; its last grant expired last month. Will the Minister commit to reviewing the reopening of that fund, and set out a timeline for that, so that TechResort can benefit?
Mr Frith
The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point; I know that he has an excellent record in this area. The digital inclusion fund was designed as a one-year programme to allow us to understand what works in digital inclusion. I share his concerns. We remain committed to building a digitally inclusive society, and that includes our public services, which we are making more personalised, joined up and digital, so that everybody is included and benefits from them. We all expect our public services to be adequate, and as inclusive as they can be.
Fred Thomas (Plymouth Moor View) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Liz Kendall)
Making it as simple as possible for parents and children to get involved in our consultation is really important to me personally, because I know that this is an issue that so many families grapple with every single day. We have dedicated surveys for parents and young people. Almost 38,000 parents and 12,700 young people have completed the survey so far, and there are also other events that my Ministers and I have taken part in. However, there is a still a week to go, so I say to anybody who is watching questions to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology: please, get involved and answer. We want to know what you think. We want your views, because we have to get this right.
Fred Thomas
I speak to parents in Plymouth on this topic regularly. Ninety-two per cent of parents are concerned about the impact of social media, but many just do not have time to take part in a lengthy consultation. I also note concerns raised about the framing of some of the questions in the consultation, including prompts to consider the benefits of social media. There is also an absence of any clear mechanism for considering evidence from medical experts and frontline professionals separately from submissions from tech companies, which obviously have a commercial interest in opposing any restrictions. There are also concerns about the use of AI to analyse responses. Will the Secretary of State confirm that those concerns will be taken into account when assessing the consultation results, and will she reiterate her commitment to taking bold and decisive action this summer?
Liz Kendall
Let me just reassure my hon. Friend on some of those points. We have had 38,000 parents respond to the surveys, which I think is good, but there is more to be done there. In terms of medical professionals, we have had a response from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, multiple individual medical doctors, Health Professionals for Safer Screens and local providers such as Cardiff children’s services. We also have an expert panel that is chaired by the eminent paediatrician Professor Russell Viner, and there are many psychologists and psychiatrists on that. We are actively seeking the views of medical professionals and parents. There is still a week to go. Many hon. Members have fed in views from their constituencies. I encourage everybody to do that in the remaining six days.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
A considerable number of parents in my constituency have written to me concerned about their children’s safety and online dangers. They welcome the Government’s consultation but are concerned about the timing, and they would like reassurances about how quickly the matter will be dealt with. In the meantime, does the Secretary of State have any advice on how they can help their children deal with the threat?
Liz Kendall
We will come forward with proposals before the summer. We have already taken powers in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 to implement the results of that consultation, which I intend to do by the end of the year. In the meantime, we are not waiting. I have taken a number of steps to amend various Acts to give greater protection, and we also produced really brilliant advice for parents—“You Won’t Know until You Ask”—about how to talk to kids of different ages about social media. It is available for free online, and I have personally found it very helpful.
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Kanishka Narayan)
There are three particular things that this Government are doing to make sure that artificial intelligence is developed responsibly, and developed here: first, we are building deep capability in Government, with the AI Security Institute; secondly, we are developing a wider AI assurance sector, so that Britain is at the frontier in this context; and thirdly, we are ensuring robust regulation at the point of use.
Iqbal Mohamed
Given the growing warnings from leading scientists, industry figures and Nobel laureates that advanced AI systems could pose existential risks on a par with nuclear or biological threats, does the Minister agree that the current reliance on voluntary commitments through the AI Security Institute is insufficient, and will he outline the concrete steps that the Government will now take to move beyond non-binding agreements, and to introduce enforceable, internationally agreed standards?
Kanishka Narayan
First, I would point out to the hon. Member that there is a series of regulations that apply to AI algorithms and systems at the point of use. Secondly, we have taken powers in the Crime and Policing Act 2026 that allow us to bring unregulated chatbots into the scope of that Act and its requirements on illegal content. Thirdly, through the AI Security Institute, Britain has been at the frontier internationally of thinking about policies and the best ways of developing our capability. This is across the mandatory regulatory contexts that I have just mentioned—and of course there are some voluntary requirements on top of that.
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
The AI Security Institute’s pre-release analysis of AI models did not prevent Grok’s production of over 3 million sexualised images. Even Steve Bannon, of all people, is now calling for mandatory pre-release vetting of AI models, so has the time come for the UK to review our voluntary approach?
Kanishka Narayan
I thank my right hon. Friend for raising this topic, and for her deep expertise. On Grok, she will be aware that the regulatory and legal context made a number of those instances illegal. We will continue to enforce the law very robustly, and of course we have ongoing conversations on further policy.
Sir Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)
Given the recent rapid advances of frontier AI models in areas such as identifying software vulnerabilities, and in rapid testing for those vulnerabilities in a very sophisticated way, what engagement do the Government have with those frontier companies, and particularly Anthropic? Are the Government considering making changes to the carried-over Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill to address these very real vulnerabilities?
Kanishka Narayan
On the question of engagement, I must first pay tribute to the AI Security Institute, which is one of the only labs in the world that engaged with all the frontier companies prior to the deployment of models, and in this case with Anthropic’s Mythos model as well. On the broader question of the Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill, a major reason why we brought data centres into scope was that we appreciate the cyber risks that apply to them. We will continue to keep that under review.
Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)
One of the best ways to make sure that any AI developed contributes to innovation and growth is to set very high standards. We are lucky to have the British Standards Institute—the oldest standards institute in the world—and I am very lucky that it is based in Milton Keynes. Will the Minister join me in wishing it a huge happy birthday in this momentous year for it? What kind of engagement has he had with it on its work to set reassuringly high standards for AI’s development?
Kanishka Narayan
My hon. Friend has been a remarkable champion for the BSI, on this and on wider issues as well. I will not sing “Happy Birthday”, but I will certainly wish it a very happy birthday, and I look forward to continuing my conversations with it.
Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)
Having worked across Departments and with my technology counterpart in the Lords, we have published a comprehensive paper on how Britain can thrive in the age of AI. It calls for a digital sovereign strategy and an integrated approach to AI that is bold, responsible, pro-innovation, pro-trust and built alongside industry and civic expertise. I would be happy to discuss this. We see Britain having a leading place in AI services, but we have squandered leads before, and the Government have not offered a coherent, joined-up strategy on how to do this differently, in a way that is centred on trust and standards. Where is the Government’s AI Bill? Can we have guarantees that Labour’s latest internal drama will not cost Britain its most important economic opportunity in a generation?
Kanishka Narayan
Can I gently point out to the hon. Lady that there is a very clear strategy? We set out the AI opportunities action plan early on, and we then built in a public dashboard, so that people right across the country can follow progress on the plan: 75% of it has been delivered, and just this week, we found out that IT and AI have driven productivity revivals for this country. We are firing on all cylinders when it comes to UK AI.
Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Liz Kendall)
This Government believe that Britain’s national interests are strengthened, not diminished, when we work with like-minded countries. That is why next week I will be joining other G7 nations coming together as democracies to discuss how we shape tech and AI to work for all, and why I will be proud to showcase the best of Britain’s AI strengths on the world stage at London Tech Week in June.
Clive Jones
Life science companies such as Becton Dickinson in my constituency play a key role in advancing the research and innovation that will help deliver the national cancer plan and transform cancer care. What is the Minister doing to increase funding on research and development for life science companies such as those in my constituency?
Liz Kendall
I know the hon. Gentleman is a powerful advocate of life sciences nationally and in his constituency. We see them as one of our greatest national assets, not only helping to save lives but drive jobs, growth and innovation. I am proud that this Government have made the largest ever investment in research and development, including in life sciences, and that we are investing £730,000 to support seven projects in Wokingham, because we know that is good for his constituents and the country.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
Liz Kendall
We want to ensure that people from all walks of life and in every part of the country can seize the opportunities that tech and AI bring. That is why we are upskilling 10 million workers—a third of the workforce—in AI skills, why we are investing £170 million in the TechFirst programme to help young people get skills and training, and why we have launched the first ever level 4 apprenticeship in AI, so that young people in Harlow can fulfil their ambitions and we build a better country for all.
Julia Lopez (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)
I was born in Harlow, would you believe it, Mr Speaker?
Can the Secretary of State guarantee that under Labour’s EU reset, Britain will not align with any EU tech rules, including the AI Act?
Liz Kendall
This Government want to ensure that we have a closer relationship with Europe, because we see every day the terrible impacts that the Conservatives’ Brexit deal brings. But I am also clear that we will continue our pragmatic, not dogmatic, approach to regulation, because Britain is the second country in the western world in AI, and we want to retain those benefits to grow the economy and create good jobs throughout the country.
Julia Lopez
There was no clear answer from the Secretary of State. It sounds like Labour is about to trade away our Brexit freedoms on tech regulation, yet tech Ministers have been briefing behind the scenes that we must not lose Britain’s Brexit freedoms on tech when it comes to AI, data and agritech. Will she now publicly admit what her Ministers have been briefing behind closed doors: Brexit was not some exercise in nostalgia pushed on us by uninformed thickos? It has given Britain a competitive advantage in the industries of the future.
Liz Kendall
Perhaps unusually, I do not listen to and never get involved in briefings, but I am very clear about the huge advantages this country has: world-leading talent and some of the most innovative tech start-ups. In the last year alone, we got more venture capital funding for tech and AI in this country than France and Germany combined. We are going to back Britain because we believe in Britain—£500 million in a sovereign AI fund and four AI growth zones in parts of the country that have been levelled up more under this Government than in 14 years under the Conservatives. We will seize this powerful technology to build a future that works for all, and I am proud of our work.
Sarah Smith (Hyndburn) (Lab)
Liz Kendall
We are absolutely focused on precisely those features that so many parents are worried about, including children doomscrolling and being on their phones overnight and the impact that that can have on their anxiety, mental health and sleep. The question is not whether we will act—we will. We will put forward our proposals by the summer and I intend to legislate, if required, by the end of the year.
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Prime Minister (Keir Starmer)
May I extend my deepest condolences, and I am sure the condolences of the House, to the family and colleagues of Lance Bombardier Ciara Sullivan, who lost her life in a tragic incident on Friday? She was an exceptional soldier and will be deeply missed.
It would be remiss of me not to comment on one of Manchester’s great heroes moving on after almost a decade, so let me congratulate Pep Guardiola on all his success at Manchester City. If I could declare an interest, Mr Speaker, I would also like to say congratulations to Arsenal football club on becoming the premier league champions.
This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
Kirsteen Sullivan
May I share the condolences expressed by the Prime Minister?
As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the Iran war, people have struggled with the cost of living. In my constituency in the heart of Scotland, road travel and logistics are key to everyday life and local industry, and the Road Haulage Association is headquartered in Bathgate. What reassurance can the Prime Minister offer my constituents that this Government will tackle household bills and business cost pressures?
The Prime Minister
Families across the United Kingdom are facing the impacts of a war that we did not choose, so it is welcome news today that inflation is falling. There is more that we can do, and I can announce today that we are giving our hauliers a 12-month road tax holiday, helping to keep prices down, and we are backing drivers by extending the freeze in fuel duty for the rest of the year. This is possible because of the decisions taken by the Chancellor, making us the fastest growing economy in the G7, and she will set out further action tomorrow. This is not our war, and although Opposition parties wanted to jump into it, Labour will always protect working people.
Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)
I would like to associate myself with the words of the Prime Minister regarding the tragic death of Lance Bombardier Ciara Sullivan. We send our condolences to her family on this terrible loss.
I welcome some of what the Prime Minister has said about fuel duty. Yes, there is still a freeze, but we asked him about this on 11 March and 25 March and he said he was not going to do it, so I thank him for the U-turn—[Interruption.] Labour Members are shaking their heads—it would make more sense if they just did what we are doing, because they get there in the end anyway.
Yesterday, Labour MPs voted to ban new British oil and gas licences. Why?
The Prime Minister
In relation to fuel duty, under the plans that we inherited, fuel duty was due to go up by 5% in April. We stopped that and the Conservatives voted against it. We are now extending the freeze because of events in the middle east. I know that the Leader of the Opposition likes to claim responsibility for things that have got literally nothing to do with her—in her mind, she won Eurovision on Saturday and scored the winning goal in the FA cup final—but she never takes any responsibility for what the Conservatives did for 14 long years.
Oil and gas is coming out of the North sea 24/7. It will play an important role for many years to come. We are supporting existing oil and gas fields throughout their lifespans and we made changes in November to allow neighbouring fields to be exploited, but families across the UK are fed up with their bills going up and down because of global conflicts. The only way to take control is through renewables. We have now consented to renewables to power 23 million households. The Leader of the Opposition wants to stick with the old Tory energy policy, which is leaving households exposed to higher bills year after year.
Mrs Badenoch
What is causing problems for British consumers is the high energy prices, which were caused by the Prime Minister’s policies. I asked him why Labour Members voted for this, and he had no answer, so let me make clear what is going on: we are losing 1,000 jobs a month in oil and gas. I asked him about new licences, not existing drilling. Then, late last night, the Government snuck out an announcement that they were removing sanctions on Russian oil. Can the Prime Minister explain why oil from Russia is acceptable, but oil from Aberdeen is not?
The Prime Minister
Let me address the sanctions head-on, because we have been united across this House on these issues since the beginning of the conflict. What we announced yesterday was a strong new package of new sanctions, going well beyond existing sanctions. It is a new package. That includes new bans on maritime services on liquefied natural gas and new bans on refined oil products from Russia.
We also issued two targeted short-term licences to phase the new sanctions in and to protect UK consumers. That is standard practice. This Government have phased in sanctions in that way before, and the last Government used exactly the same technique when they introduced sanctions. When they did so, we supported them, because we could see that the sanctions were the right thing to do to bear down on Russia. These are new sanctions being phased in. This is not a question of lifting existing sanctions in any way whatsoever, and we will continue to work with our allies on further sanction packages.
Mrs Badenoch
That was a very weak set of cheers from the MPs who are trying to get rid of the Prime Minister. He does not know what he is talking about. This level of processology is not going to get him out of these difficult answers. Let me tell him what is going on: Labour is giving money to Russia, and Reform is taking money from Russia. There is only one party that is standing up to Russia, and that is the Conservative party. I cannot believe he is actually saying that he is doing something good on the war in Ukraine. What is he talking about? This morning, Ukraine’s sanctions chief disagreed with the Prime Minister’s approach. That is what Ukraine is saying.
In March, when the United States eased sanctions on Russia, the Prime Minister said:
“All partners should maintain pressure on Russia and its war chest”.
The Prime Minister also said:
“Our sanctions remain, and there is no question about that.”
What has changed?
The Prime Minister
I really think that on an issue of this importance, which is about further sanctions on Russia in relation to Ukraine, it is really important that the position is not misrepresented. This is a new package of sanctions. None of the existing sanctions are being lifted in any way, so this is not less pressure on Russia; it is more pressure on Russia. It is more pressure than there was the day before yesterday and more pressure than there was under the last Government.
What is happening is that those sanctions are being phased in, in a way that was used by the last Government when they introduced new sanctions. We bothered to do the processology and work out what we were doing, and we supported them, because we could see that they put more pressure on Russia. Similar methods are used by other countries. They are done because of the impact on the market and to protect UK consumers. These are new sanctions putting more pressure on Russia. If the right hon. Lady had done her homework, she would actually support us on this.
Mrs Badenoch
Being patronising is not a substitute for understanding policy—[Interruption.] I have heard this tone before; this is the same tone that the Prime Minister used during the Mandelson scandal. Labour Members were all cheering, but then it turned out that he was wrong, wrong, wrong. He says that other countries are doing this; the EU is not doing this. Let me make it clear—I know it hurts him to hear it: he is now choosing to buy dirty Russian oil. That money will be used to fund the killing of Ukrainian soldiers. Isn’t he ashamed?
The Prime Minister
I really think that to misunderstand and misrepresent what is happening—this is a very serious issue. We are working—[Interruption.] These are new bans—they are new sanctions. They are new maritime services bans on LNG, as of yesterday. They are new bans on refined oil products from Russia, as of yesterday. They are being phased in, in the same way that previous sanctions regimes have been phased in, exactly as the last Government did and we have done. Other countries do exactly the same. The EU has its own way of doing it. Australia and Canada have their own way of doing it. To play party politics on Ukraine, where we have stood firm! The only person who benefits when we play party politics on Russia and Ukraine is Putin.
Mrs Badenoch
That pompous tone does not cover for the fact that the Prime Minister has got his policy all wrong. I have asked him about oil and gas again and again and again. The last time, he told me that it was the Energy Secretary’s job and it had nothing to do with him. That is what is destroying this country. It is not playing politics; it is speaking up for the people who are out there. The fact is that more people are buying Russian oil because British oil is not being drilled. He is sanctioning British oil but not Russian oil, and he should be ashamed. I cannot believe that this Prime Minister, even when he has nothing to lose, continues to defend banning new British oil and gas licences.
In April, Britain saw the single biggest drop in employment ever since the pandemic—and that is under Labour. Some 210,000 people have lost their jobs in the last year. What the Prime Minister is doing is going to cost thousands more people their jobs, especially in cities such as Aberdeen that rely on oil and gas, so can he tell us why he is doing everything to save his job and doing nothing to save other people’s jobs?
The Prime Minister
There is drilling in the North sea. [Interruption.] She said that there is no drilling in the North sea—she is going to have to refer herself to the Privileges Committee. There is drilling, it is 24/7, and oil and gas are coming out. That will be important for many, many years to come. We are supporting those existing oil and gas fields throughout their lifespan, and we made changes in November to allow neighbouring fields to be exploited, but it is because we are on the international market that our prices for businesses and households go up every time there is an international conflict. We saw it with Ukraine and we saw it with Iran, and people were fed up with the last Government not taking control of their bills. We are taking control of their bills; the way to do that is through renewables, and that is what we are doing.
Mrs Badenoch
It gets worse and worse—the Prime Minister does not understand the policy. I am asking him about new oil and gas licences, which Labour Members voted against yesterday. If they had approved those licences for Jackdaw and Rosebank like we did, we would have that oil in this country now.
Just listening to the Prime Minister, I wonder if he is okay. He is so deep in the bunker. He is importing sanctioned Russian oil, nationalising steel and imposing price controls in the supermarket—it is like the Soviets won. This country needs a Government who have got their act together. Instead, what we have is a Prime Minister hanging by a thread with fake support from his Back Benchers, too scared to take difficult decisions, and losing his moral compass by backsliding on Ukraine. [Interruption.] Yes, he is. The shaking of Labour Members’ heads is so feeble—it is absolutely laughable. Yesterday, we saw them huddled in the corridors, talking about Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting. The fact is that the Prime Minister has a Cabinet fighting to replace him, and the worst part is that they are not getting rid of him over his terrible agenda—no, they actually like it. They just want a better salesman. Is it not the case that it does not matter who replaces him; the real problem is the Labour party? [Hon. Members: “More!”]
The Prime Minister
A lot has been happening in recent days, so the Leader of the Opposition may have overlooked the fact that last week, the Office for National Statistics announced that we have the fastest growing economy in the G7. Last week, we had the biggest fall in NHS waiting lists for 17 years. Today, inflation has come down more than expected. Mr Speaker, if you had offered me that and Arsenal becoming premier league champions, I would take it every day of the week.
Maureen Burke (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the bravery and sacrifice of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. I have had the privilege of meeting Scots serving in our armed forces across the world. They deserve our deepest gratitude. I cannot understand how the SNP and Greens have arrived at this decision, particularly when Glaswegians have contributed so much to the Royal Regiment. It is not too late to do the right thing, and I urge them to reconsider.
Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
I join the Prime Minister in sending our condolences to the family of Lance Bombardier Ciara Sullivan, who died in a tragic accident, and to all her colleagues. I hope the Prime Minister will also join me in sending condolences to the family of Scott Hastings, the former Scottish and Lions rugby player who sadly passed away at the weekend.
In 2025, Donald Trump and Elon Musk abolished America’s international aid programme. At the same time, the Government made huge cuts to the UK’s aid programme. We now see a dangerous outbreak of Ebola in central Africa, which many people fear is going to spread and get much worse, yet there are rumours across Whitehall that the Prime Minister is planning further cuts to Britain’s international aid programme this year. Will he rule that out entirely today?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman raises the important issue of Ebola and Africa, and obviously we are working on it at pace and with others. We took a decision on aid in order to fund defence spending, because we needed to increase defence spending, but we are committed to our overseas aid, and we mitigated that decision with some of the measures put in place.
Ed Davey
I am not sure if the Prime Minister completely ruled out further cuts to the international aid programme. With defence chiefs this week writing to The Times to say that cutting aid for defence is a mistake, I hope that the Prime Minister and his Ministers will rule that out today. If he does not, I hope that Labour party members will ask all the Labour leadership candidates their position on the future of Britain’s aid programme.
In the past few days, two of those Labour leadership candidates—the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) and the Mayor of Greater Manchester—have ruled out any support for Britain joining the EU customs union, despite the fact that it would boost growth and help cut the cost of living. Is the Prime Minister relieved that he finally has something that he can agree with his colleagues on?
The Prime Minister
In the last two years, I have been negotiating serious trade deals that are vital for the most important sectors of our economy. These are trade deals with the EU, but also with India, North Korea and the United States. I remind the right hon. Gentleman of the value of those deals. Before the deal with the United States, I went to Jaguar Land Rover in Solihull and talked to the workforce. They were worried sick about their jobs and communities. When we agreed terms, I went back to JLR—because of the deal we got with the EU, thousands of their jobs were safeguarded. The right hon. Gentleman’s approach would throw all that away. He would have to go and see those workforces and tell them that their jobs are gone. I am not going to do that.
Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes a powerful case. We have already committed to a moratorium on crypto donations to political parties, and the King’s Speech introduces tougher rules to protect our democracy. However, the £5 million question is: why did the Reform leader keep this donation secret? I see that he is not here to answer. What did the billionaire lining his pockets ask for in return? Those questions need to be answered—and that is why he is not here.
Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling me for my first Prime Minister’s question since becoming SNP Westminster leader, following the SNP’s stunning victory in Scotland. I am enjoying the sense of challenge and opportunity a new job can provide—a sense of renewal I am certain the Prime Minister will be enjoying in the weeks ahead.
This week, we saw the latest chapter of Labour infighting, in which Andy “Brexit” Burnham wants the UK to stay out of the EU, but Peter Mandelson’s pal, the former Health Secretary, wants us to go back in. Can the Prime Minister advise us which of his potential successors he agrees with?
The Prime Minister
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his new post and thank him for the calm, reasonable approach I have come to expect. My position is very clear: we have already negotiated a closer relationship with the EU, which we did last year. We will have another negotiation and agreement this year at a summit, where we will get even closer and take a big step forward in our relationship with the EU, which is in our national interest.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Prime Minister
I have very fond memories of visiting Harlow Town with my hon. Friend. The point he makes is an important one: football clubs bring our communities together. They are part of our social fabric and, in some places, they are one of the last places left where members of the community can come together. That is why my Government fought so hard to create the Independent Football Regulator to protect our national game. We should remind everyone—every football fan across the country, from Harlow Town to Wigan Athletic—that it was Labour that was on the side of football fans, while the Tories and Reform opposed us every step of the way.
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
Before I answer that question, I have just been handed a note saying that I inadvertently said that we did a trade deal with North Korea, rather than South Korea. That would be breaking news and not very good. Before I am referred to the Privileges Committee, can I correct the record in that regard? It was a slip of the tongue, but a pretty unfortunate one.
In relation to my hon. Friend’s question, families and farmers are rightly frustrated about being impacted by a war that the UK did not start. Protecting working people is our priority. Today, we are cutting red diesel costs for farmers by a third, delivering the lowest rate for 20 years. That is alongside a record £11.8 billion for the farming budget and a new national programme to redistribute surplus food. We will make sure that no one in this country goes hungry. I can confirm that the Chancellor will make further announcements tomorrow.
Hannah Spencer (Gorton and Denton) (Green)
The Prime Minister
First, can I welcome the hon. Lady to her place, because I think this is her first question in PMQs? There will be different views on whether people should be able to enjoy a drink here or not, but I think we can agree that the majority of people in this country want an economy that works for them, public services that are there when they need them, and every child going as far as their talent or ability will take them. The only way to deliver that is through a Labour Government, as we are doing. The Greens think that their leader walks on water. It turns out that he just lives on water and does not pay his council tax!
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
The story of my hon. Friend’s constituent is deeply concerning, and I thank her for raising it. It underlines why we must and will act. We have already acted by shutting legal loopholes so that AI chatbots must abide by the Online Safety Act 2023, but we obviously have to look at what further measures we can take, including age-related bans, restricting children’s use of chatbots and stronger parental controls. I am meeting parents, teenagers and civil society representatives later this afternoon to discuss further, stronger protections for children. We will make sure that my hon. Friend is updated on those steps.
Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
The Prime Minister
Yes, I will do both those things, and I thank the hon. Lady for raising her own experience here to highlight the issue. The thoughts of the whole House will be with the family and friends of the young person who died. I thank all the public health specialists working in Reading to ensure that those affected are receiving appropriate treatment. The hon. Lady’s question reminds us that vaccines do save lives, and we must do everything we can in relation to that.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue, because the Government are cracking down on disgraceful waste criminals through, for instance, tougher penalties for fly-tippers—including service in clean-up squads, and the potential loss of their driving licences—more powers and funding for the Environment Agency, and stronger checks across the industry to tackle fly-tipping at its source.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
The Prime Minister
Yes, I will, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the issue. I will ensure that the detail is looked at, and that appropriate steps are taken. May I also take this opportunity, through the hon. Gentleman, to mark the tragic anniversary of the devastating fire in his constituency? I know that the thoughts of the whole House remain with the families and colleagues of Martyn, Jennie and Dave, and I know that he has done a lot to support them.
Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)
A stroke happens every five minutes: that is six lives changed in the time that we have been sitting in this Chamber. Two years ago, while I was sitting in the Chamber, my husband suffered a stroke. We know that when it comes to the right care and treatment every single second counts, and we know at first hand why the work of the Stroke Association is so important, ensuring that everyone knows the signs and symptoms, because when a stroke strikes, acting fast matters. Will the Prime Minister join me in marking Stroke Awareness Month, and will he update the House on what he is doing to ensure that every stroke survivor receives the care that he or she needs to recover and to thrive?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend has raised an important issue. The Government are investing in our NHS to make sure that every second counts. I know my hon. Friend’s husband, and I know the impact that this had on him and on her, and on their wider family. I thank her for raising such a personal issue in the Chamber to highlight this point.
Because of the choices that we have made, ambulance response times are at their fastest for five years. We are investing £10 billion to innovate technology and transformation, and the NHS is already using artificial intelligence to cut treatment time for stroke patients by an hour and tripling full recovery rates.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
The Prime Minister
I agree with what we said in our manifesto, which we are implementing. We are closer to the EU as a result of the agreement we reached last year, and we will be closer again as a result of the agreement we reach this year. We are building on the botched Brexit deal that the Conservatives did, which did such damage to our country.
Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)
My community has been left in deep shock and concern following allegations of serious sexual offences, forced marriage and modern slavery against members of the Ahmadi religion of peace and light. Will the Prime Minister join me in thanking Cheshire constabulary, Cheshire East Council and wider agencies for their response to these concerning events? Will he also commit himself to ensuring that we receive the necessary resources to deliver justice when crimes have been committed and to reassure the wider community that this Government are on their side?
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend, and I am grateful to all the agencies involved in the enforcement action, including Cheshire police. It is vital that local public services get the funding that they need, and that is why we have increased Cheshire’s police budget by over £15 million. We have also recruited 3,000 more neighbourhood police officers while bringing forward wide-ranging reforms to ensure that everyone has access to swift and equal justice.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
The Prime Minister
I am really sorry: the answer is no, and I cannot bring myself to congratulate the councillors. I apologise.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Ind)
From 1997, the Prime Minister campaigned to scrap single-judge trials in Northern Ireland, yet when I opposed his Government’s plan to bring in single-judge trials in England and Wales, I received hostile briefings and smears about my mental health from the lads in No. 10 Downing Street. The Chief Whip is shaking his head, but he knows about it. The Prime Minister knows that my nephew Matty took his own life as a result of work-related stress as a young criminal lawyer. During Mental Health Awareness Week, when Ministers spoke with compassion about health and wellbeing, did the Prime Minister reflect on those hostile, discriminatory briefings, which he knew about and allowed to happen?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman has previously told me about Matty and the impact that that had on him. I totally understand that, and I want to be absolutely clear that nobody should be smeared in relation to mental health—nobody—on any issue, whatever they may argue on any other issue. I will do everything I can to make sure that that is the position.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
In five weeks’ time, the Government will be introducing penal tariffs on steel imports into the UK and, at the same time, massively reducing tariff-free quotas. This will cause enormous damage to the UK’s manufacturing base in the absence of adequate steelmaking capacity in the UK. Furthermore, the way the tariffs are drawn means that Stannah Lifts, a world-beating company based in Andover in my constituency, will face tariffs when importing steel into the UK to manufacture its products, but a competitor’s imported finished product, made from the same steel, will not attract tariffs. This situation cannot be allowed to persist. Will the Prime Minister please arrange for his Secretary of State to focus on this issue and get it sorted out?
The Prime Minister
May I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising this really important issue? I give him an assurance that it is not just the Secretary of State; I am also absolutely focused on this, because we are all very well aware of the consequences that would otherwise follow. I am personally invested in this, as is the entire Cabinet, because it is a very important issue, as the right hon. Gentleman rightly points out.
Processed Russian Oil Products: Sanctions
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade to make a statement regarding the Government’s decision to issue general trade licences for sanctioned processed oil products prohibited under the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.
The Minister for Trade (Chris Bryant)
Putin must never be allowed victory in Ukraine and we will do everything we can as a Government and a country to debilitate and degrade the Russian war machine. That is precisely what our sanctions regime is designed to do. We have sanctioned more than 3,300 individuals and organisations and hundreds of shadow fleet tankers. It is as tough a sanctions regime as any in the world, and we are proud of it.
I want to make it absolutely clear that our sanctions regime today is tougher than it was yesterday or last week. In fact, thanks to the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 statutory instrument, we will from today for the first time—for the first time—ban the import not only of uranium but of Russian oil products processed in a third country. We are not lifting any existing sanctions at all. We are, like other countries, phasing in these sanctions, which is why, in the light of the situation in the middle east, we have issued a targeted temporary licence to allow the continued import of diesel and jet fuel. These licences are temporary and targeted. We will review them regularly and repeatedly, and will suspend them as soon as we possibly can.
As a result of all the measures that we have taken, there will be less Russian oil on the market, not more, Russia will be poorer, not richer, and Putin will be weaker, not stronger.
Andrew Bowie
In their 18th packet of sanctions in January this year, His Majesty’s Government prohibited the import of Russian petroleum products produced in third countries from Russian oil, obliging importers to provide proof of the origin of oil used in petroleum product production. Yet yesterday evening at 7 pm, while we in this very Chamber were debating the future of our own North sea oil and gas industry and Labour MPs were being whipped to vote against new oil and gas licences in the North sea, the Government slipped out an announcement that the general trade licence for sanctioned processed oil products now permits certain activities prohibited under the Russian sanctions regulations 2019, such as the import of diesel and jet fuel to the UK. At the exact same time that this Government have rolled back on their commitments to Ukraine and given the green light to purchase Russian oil from third countries, they were whipping their MPs to vote to shut down our own oil and gas production. It is an absolute disgrace. They should all be utterly ashamed of themselves.
What message does this send to the international community, to the people of Ukraine, and to workers in our North sea oil and gas industry, which is being crushed by the misguided eco-zealotry of the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero? We are not only rewarding the thuggish and criminal behaviour of the Russian state, but punishing ourselves and the skilled workforce in the United Kingdom.
Who loses out while we signal to Russia that we are willing once again to buy its oil? It is the British people. We are seeing 1,000 job losses in oil and gas in the UK every single month, and losing out on £25 billion in tax revenue over the next 10 years, which we could be investing in our public services. Just yesterday I pointed out that Moscow would be celebrating the useful idiots opposite and today the Government have proved my point.
According to the Government website, where the announcement was made yesterday, the Secretary of State has
“the power to vary, revoke or suspend this licence at any time”,
so will he reconsider the decision? Why does the Minister believe that increased reliance on foreign imports improves British energy security? What alternatives did the Government consider? And who on earth is in charge of our energy security? Is it the Energy Secretary, the Prime Minister, or Vladimir Putin?
Chris Bryant
First, I think the hon. Member must have missed the fact that a statutory instrument that, for the first time, implements a ban on refined Russian crude oil products processed in a third country is coming into force today. It did not come into force earlier in the year. Incidentally, it did not come into force when he was in government, because when the Conservatives were in government, they allowed such oil products to come into the UK, and he personally did absolutely nothing about it.
The truth is that both sides of the House agree and, in fact, I think all parties in the House agree—well, we have not heard from Reform yet—that we need to make sure that Putin does not prosper. One of the key ways of doing that is making sure that we tackle the shadow fleet, which we have been doing very successfully. More than 500 tankers have been disrupted, and $1.6 billion less oil will be transported this year than last year because of those sanctions.
To be precise on the hon. Member’s question of whether we will review the licences, I have already said we will review the licences. They are there for a very simple reason, which is that, just as the previous Government nearly always introduced sanctions in a phased way when he was a Minister, that is precisely what we are doing with these sanctions on oil products processed in a third country. We are doing the right thing, and I would have thought that he would want to praise us. Unfortunately, I think he has tried to find a political headline rather than look into the facts.
Alex Sobel (Leeds Central and Headingley) (Lab/Co-op)
This package of sanctions has come to us very quickly, and I am slightly concerned about how it has been communicated today, so a bit of clarity would be really welcome. How long will the regulations made under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 stand prior to completing the phasing in of the new package of sanctions? Will there be a gap, or will we immediately turn to the new sanctions and implementation of the sanctions regime?
Chris Bryant
There are two things here. A set of sanctions comes into force today, including on oil and oil products processed in a third country. It is the first time that the UK has gone down that route. As I say, the previous Government chose not to go down that route, even though people were arguing for it. I think this will be an important new measure in ratcheting up the pressure on the Russian regime.
At the same time, partly in recognition of the instability there may be in the energy markets as a result of the events in the middle east and the war in Iran—obviously, we have chosen not to take part in it—we have decided to implement these sanctions in a phased way, as many other countries have done, including Australia and Canada. That is why we have introduced these licences for diesel and jet fuel. As I have said, I want these licences to last as short a time as is possible and necessary to manage that market instability, and that is why we will review them as much as possible.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend as our trade envoy to Ukraine. We stand 100% beside our friends in Ukraine. Indeed, the package of sanctions we have introduced this time around is the toughest of any, and I know our Ukrainian friends have supported them.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
Inconsistencies and U-turns have become characteristic of this Government, but this is more than just a redirection of policy; this is a betrayal of Ukraine. This Government are abandoning our European ally in its moment of need by putting more money into the pockets of President Putin to fund his war machine.
Last month, the Liberal Democrats urged the Government to implement a bold plan to keep Britain moving, which included a 10p cut to fuel duty, but also featured proposals to boost public transport by slashing bus fares to £1 and cutting rail fares by 10%. This would have taken pressure off our forecourts, but the Government sat on their hands. Instead, the Government believe that our best course of action is to abandon all morality and to indirectly fund Putin’s illegal war. I would like to ask the Minister how much money will be spent on Russian oil products as a result of this decision, and will he admit that lifting these sanctions will indirectly fund Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?
Chris Bryant
I am sorry, but I do just need to explain to the hon. Lady that we are not lifting any sanctions. We are implementing new sanctions, which only come into force today. Up until now, it has been perfectly legal to import Russian oil products processed in a third country into the UK—up until now. It is only now, because of this Government, with the new sanctions that come into force today, that that will not be possible. I really do hope that the hon. Lady will withdraw her comments.
The whole of this House stands 100% beside Ukraine. I myself am probably the longest standing critic of Putin in this House. Back in 2014, when others were in government and not doing anything about the invasion of Crimea, I was saying that we should be tackling Russian aggression, because otherwise, if Putin was allowed to take Crimea with impunity, he would come for the rest. I do recognise that Liberal Democrat Members have been calling in the Business and Trade Committee and elsewhere for us to tackle precisely this issue of Russian crude oil processed in other countries that ends up coming into the UK. Up until now, that has been a source of income for Putin, but we are the Government who are stopping this, not enabling it.
Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)
I am grateful for the clarity my hon. Friend provides for us on this issue, because it has been of extreme concern for a number of colleagues. Does he think that wider global insecurity around energy requires global co-operation and collaboration, and that the UK Government could lead on that? We are hosting the G20 next year. In the process of building up to that, could we consider ensuring that global energy security is the priority for the G20 summit?
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend makes an immensely important point on energy security, which is one reason why we are passionately committed to trying to make sure we are not reliant on oil or oil products from anywhere else in the world, and that we are able to not only meet our net zero targets, but be energy resilient for ourselves. She is also right that we need to work alongside our allies, not only—I would argue—on energy security but in relation to imposing sanctions. We must co-operate with other countries. As I say, our set of processes is remarkably similar to those of Australia, Canada—I think—and several other countries. We need to move forward together if we are to defeat Putin and to ensure we have energy security for our own households and our own businesses.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
I pay tribute to the Minister, who has been tough on Russia for many, many years. He is sanctioned in Russia, as am I, and we have both previously chaired the all-party parliamentary group on Russia, so I know today’s announcement will sit uncomfortably with him. I welcome the new sanctions through third countries, but I am very concerned—there will be more concern in Kyiv, quite frankly—about what he calls temporary licences. How long is “temporary”? Unfortunately, this money, through these imports, will continue to fund Putin’s illegal war machine against Kyiv. It will kill women, children and men. While the Government are denying a licence to drill in the North sea, they are, unfortunately, giving Putin a licence to kill.
Chris Bryant
As it happens I am not on the Russian sanctions list, although when I raised this with the Russian—
Chris Bryant
I think I might be on the right hon. Lady’s sanctions list! But in actual fact, when I raised this with the Russian ambassador—I was a bit upset—he said, “Well, we have many lists, Mr Bryant.” I do not know whether I am on a target list, which is maybe slightly different.
I am not ashamed of what we are doing today. As a very stout defender of Ukraine’s right to defend itself, and as somebody who argued for a very long time that we should be trying to make sure that Russian frozen assets were made available to Ukraine, I am proud of what we are doing, because we are introducing a tougher sanctions regime. The only bit we have had to take cognisance of is the fact that the situation in the middle east means that there was a danger of a sudden spike in prices and we had to address that. I very much hope that this will be a very temporary measure. I will be keeping a very watchful eye to make sure that we are able to suspend the licences as soon as we possibly can.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for coming to the Chamber to answer this really important urgent question. He will know that we must keep at the forefront of our minds our allies in Ukraine who have been fighting this terrible illegal war for many years. I am proud that many of my constituents took in many people from Ukraine at the start of the invasion. Echoing the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel), I am concerned about the communication around this issue. A constituent contacted me and said:
“I am one of your constituents and have never had reason to contact you. However, on awaking this morning I am both angry and ashamed by the announcement, snuck out last night, that your government is (partially) lifting sanctions on the purchase of Russian oil.”
Can the Minister reassure me and my constituents that this will be a temporary measure, similar to the sanctions restrictions put in place by the Americans? My understanding is that they will be there for 30 days.
Chris Bryant
Mr Speaker, you will be aware of the phrase that sometimes it is conspiracy and sometimes it is something else. I just want to say that, in relation to communications, there is no conspiracy. Nobody is trying to undermine our support for Ukraine. The statutory instrument on the tougher measures was always going to come into force today. Up until today it was perfectly legal to import Russian products that had been refined in third party countries into the UK. It will no longer be legal to do so. There are several categories under that which will be banned. For instance, it will tackle carbon fibre used in the production of Russian drones, chemicals used in precision missiles, and goods used in emerging technologies such as quantum computing and AI. I want to ensure that these licences will be as temporary as possible. In 2022, along with the Foreign Affairs Committee, I visited Kyiv and Avdiivka, right at the very edge, roughly a fortnight before the full-scale invasion. We saw Russian troops and snipers pointing at Ukrainians. This battle has gone on since 2014, not just since 2022. I can assure my hon. Friend that the British Government stand 100% beside the Ukrainian people.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
For years, Ministers on the Treasury Bench have told us that oil is traded as a global commodity, so it makes no difference where in the world it is taken out of the ground and that, as a consequence, we can wind down production on the UK continental shelf—availability of supply would continue. Given what the Minister has had to announce today, is he satisfied that that argument still holds water?
Chris Bryant
Well, it has not been an argument that I myself have advanced, although obviously I stand by my Labour colleagues if that is the argument that they have been making—I am part of a team, after all. The point I would make in relation to drilling in the North sea is that I think it is a wrong argument to say that if we were to issue new licences today that would affect the energy prices we are facing because of the situation in the middle east. What we absolutely have to do is make sure that we deal with market instability today. It was not our choice to have this war in Iran. We have not taken part in it. We think it was a mistake to enter into it without a plan. I am very aware, from conversations I have had with many of my counterparts in the Gulf—perhaps there will be more on that later on today—that these issues are at the forefront of their minds.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
Can the Minister assure me that we continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with our Ukrainian friends? Can he particularly reassure my Ukrainian constituents? One of them has written to me to say that
“one of the biggest issues facing civilians in Ukraine is the constant uncertainty—not only physical safety, but the emotional pressure of living with disrupted homes, schools, work, healthcare and family life.”
They are standing firm and I am sure that he can reassure me that we are standing firm by their side.
Chris Bryant
Absolutely. In Kyiv earlier this year, I was really proud to see one of the bridges, which had been blown up when the Russians were advancing in the hope of taking Kyiv immediately, that has been reconstructed with UK Export Finance support and British steel made in Glasgow—it only took five weeks to transport it out there. It was designed by British engineers, working with Turkish counterparts. I am really proud of the work we are doing on reconstruction in Ukraine. I thought it was absolutely despicable when I was there that Putin was deliberately targeting energy supplies in Kyiv, so as to freeze people into submission. That, in my mind, is a war crime.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Before the Minister pointed it out himself, I was going to acknowledge his long and honourable record of opposing the killer in the Kremlin when he was on the Opposition Back Benches. I have no reason to believe that he has changed his mind, but does he agree with me that this complex issue has been handled very, very clumsily, to put it mildly? Would it not have been better to have made a statement, rather than having to respond to an urgent question? Were the Ukrainians given this quite complicated explanation in advance? Will he not concede that if we had not embarked on quite such a doctrinaire journey against further drilling in the North sea, we might not have been put in the position of having to make such an unsavoury and unpalatable decision?
Chris Bryant
The one bit of the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks that I completely agree with is that we have handled this clumsily. That is entirely my fault, and I apologise to all hon. Members, because I think we have ended up giving the wrong impression of what we are trying to do. We are trying to strengthen the regime, not weaken it. We are not waiving any sanction. From today, and for the first time, we have legislation in place that means that it will be illegal to import Russian goods that have been refined in a third country, including India, Turkey and elsewhere. I disagree with the other points he made, but I am grateful for his nice comments about me.
Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)
I listened very carefully to the Minister’s explanation about what exactly we are doing, and I echo the comments from colleagues across the House about the failure to communicate this effectively in the last 24 hours. I have had very upset constituents getting in touch with me about this issue. One report—from Bloomberg—seems to indicate that there is briefing and counter-briefing across Government at the moment and that this move is a departure from our European colleagues. Can the Minister confirm whether we are in fact departing from our European colleagues on these sanctions?
Chris Bryant
It is true that this piece of the jigsaw in relation to sanctions policy lies across two Departments. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is in charge of sanctions policy, and we in the Department for Business and Trade have responsibility for trade and export licences. That is why there has been a bit of a miscommunication between the two Departments. I have to tell the House that that is entirely my fault and nobody else’s, so if anybody wants to have a go at anybody, they can have a go at me.
On the question about Europe, it is true that the European Union introduced its legislation faster than we did. It did it earlier, before the Iranian conflict came into play. That is one of the reasons why there has been some difference between us. Normally, we try to align ourselves all the way with the European Union and others, but I note that the United States has only today extended its waiver for another month, and I think I am right in saying that Australia and Canada have done something very similar to us. It has been standard practice when we have introduced these kind of sectoral sanctions to do so in a phased way because, apart from anything else, that makes it possible for UK businesses to accommodate themselves.
Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)
There is a really unfortunate supply and demand dichotomy here—and I have to remind the Minister that he is bound by collective responsibility, because while it might be a different Department, it is still his Government. On the one hand, the Government are artificially accelerating the decline in production in the North sea with no reference to domestic demand—they are only hellbent on reducing domestic production. Meanwhile, this carve-out allows Russian oil refined as fuel to come into this economy, which will result in a transaction to the place where it was refined, which will then result in a transaction back to Russia. This will allow the funding of Russia’s war process against our friends in Ukraine. The Minister must concede that.
Chris Bryant
I welcome the hon. Member to his new responsibilities, though I must say that I really liked his predecessor—I got into terrible trouble when I tweeted that, so maybe I should not say it in the House either. It is good to see the hon. Member in his place. He makes an interesting argument and one that I would expect him to make. It is true that I am bound by collective responsibility. I am not trying to evade that; it is just that sometimes I do not know the answers to all the questions that apply to somebody else’s portfolio.
I want to make sure that the hon. Member understands that, up until today, it has been perfectly legal for people to bring products that originated from Russian crude oil and that have been refined in a third country into the UK. It is only now that we are changing that.
Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)
As someone who has been sanctioned by the Russian state and worked on tackling financial crime in British business for more than a decade, it was apparent to me after only a cursory review of the gov.uk website that this is a new general licence to allow the roll-out of the new regime that the Minister has mentioned today. I thank him for coming to the House to set the record straight, but can he also assuage my constituents’ fears and say that, although we have heard a lot of rhetoric and bluster in the Chamber today, this really will be a new regime and it will be strengthened?
Chris Bryant
Well, I apologise for the rhetoric and bluster, but it is my general way of doing things, so it seems a particularly cruel attack from my colleague!
The serious point to make is that I am proud of what we are doing today. I am not hiding away from what we are doing, but we could definitely have communicated it better, and that is entirely my fault.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
This is somewhat baffling. I know that the Minister was not here for it, but we had a full day’s debate yesterday on energy supply and no Government Minister mentioned anything to do with this particular issue—hence the need for an urgent question today. The Minister will know that liquid gas, diesel and petroleum are shipped by sea, taking a considerable period of time to get from the port to the UK. Will the Minister set out how the ships—those that have set sail already and those that may be setting off—will be treated once they get to the United Kingdom? That is the important issue that many businesses will want to know about.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point. That is one of the reasons we thought it was important to phase the process. Because of the time lag, we needed to make it possible for businesses not to be caught in legal limbo, as it were, as a result of the sanctions coming into force today. It is probably best if I write to him with the details and put a copy of the letter before the House, because it might be useful to other business folk as well. We are providing additional information on the Government website so that people can understand precisely how all this operates.
Ben Goldsborough (South Norfolk) (Lab)
I do welcome the new sanctions. My concern is over the temporary use of licence agreements, which goes to a bigger issue for the country. We keep talking about the supply side of petroleum instead of the demand side. We need to have a frank and honest conversation with our constituents and the public, as our Australian colleagues did with the Prime Minister down under. Can I encourage the Minister to have honest conversations with the public about the cost of the conflict within the middle east, and about the need to move ourselves further and faster away from petrochemicals to give us the sustainable economy we all need?
Chris Bryant
I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and that is the tenor of the conversation that has been happening. He will know that the Prime Minister has been chairing regular meetings to consider the impact of the situation in the middle east. This is undoubtedly one area where we had to take action to minimise the instability in the market so as to protect British businesses—which are already exposed to energy costs that are high enough, if not too high—and British families. He makes a good point; we should, of course, have these honest conversations with the public.
Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)
Rocketing fuel prices are hitting rural families in constituencies like mine, but the answer can never be to play directly into Putin’s hands by weakening sanctions, just as Ukraine is finally pushing back against Russia’s war machine. Does the Minister agree that we can both stand firmly with our Ukraine allies, maintaining sanctions on Russian jet fuel and diesel that is refined in third countries, while also supporting rural households through a temporary VAT cut on heating oil and a 10p cut to fuel duty, which could be funded through a levy on big banks’ eye-watering profits?
Chris Bryant
I think the hon. Gentleman wrote the first half of that question before he heard what I had to say on the subject. I want to make it absolutely clear, once again, that up until now it has been possible for people to perfectly legally import into the UK refined products that have been processed in third countries but that originated from Russian crude oil. That is changing because of the legislation we have introduced, which applies from today. We are doing this in a phased way, which is why the licences exist.
The hon. Gentleman will know that we are already taking very seriously the issues that affect many, many families, including in my constituency. The number of people who rely on oil to heat their homes is not very large, but we have already taken action, and around 3 million households across the whole UK are benefiting. I know that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is looking at these issues very closely.
Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for clarifying that sanctions on Russia are tougher today than they were yesterday, but fundamentally the furore around licences to phase in the new regulations arises because we have an economy reliant on jet fuel, and as long as that remains the case these issues will continue to arise. What conversations is he having with others across Government to move us faster and even further away from our economy’s reliance on jet fuel?
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend is right that we need to ensure that these sanctions are not only implemented but effective. We need—I think the previous Government felt this as well—a constant ratchet or a whack-a-mole approach to tackling any new diversion there might be that Putin might take advantage of. He talked about jet fuel, and I am feeling a bit guilty because unfortunately last night I had to fly back from Strasbourg—that was just as well, because otherwise I would not have been able to answer the UQ. He made a good point, and we also need to ensure that the aviation industry in its totality is more cognisant of where it needs to get to on net zero.
Esther McVey
Can the Minister explain why the Government see fit to ban new licences to drill for oil and gas in the North sea—which would have provided the UK with energy security, affordability, reliability and tax revenue—while buying oil from Russia, which is a betrayal of UK citizens and Ukrainian citizens, and playing into Putin’s hands?
Chris Bryant
I am terribly sorry; I am so fond of the right hon. Lady that I think of her in a commonplace way, or should I say a common-sense way? She was, of course, the Minister for common sense—although, despite that, she never took any measures to stop the import of Russian oil into the UK when she was a Minister. Oh dear.
Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)
I appreciate the clarity that the Minister has provided, telling us that the overall effect of this country’s package of sanctions will mean that Russia is much more under the screw than it was. One of the effects of Trump’s war in Iran is that the cost of Russian oil has been inflated, and that is perpetuating the war in Ukraine. Does the Minister agree that we need to redouble our efforts to enhance our domestic renewable and new nuclear production of energy so that we are less dependent on fossil fuel markets and less likely to be contributing to perpetuating conflicts around the world?
Chris Bryant
I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s comments. Notwithstanding his point that every time the price of oil around the world goes up, that is a benefit to Putin—that is one of the problems and ironies of the situation in the middle east at the moment—I would also point out that Russia’s economy is stagnating because of the sanctions we have imposed. Growth has slowed to a crawl; this month, Russia slashed its economic growth forecast again, and international sanctions have deprived Russia of at least $450 billion since February 2022, which is the equivalent of four years of funding for Putin’s illegal war. We need to keep that up. It is tough, but we need to do so to ensure that he does not have victory.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
No matter how the Minister tries to confuse the issue by talking about the situation up until now and the new arrangements, which are meant to tighten up sanctions today, the fact remains that we are now granting permits for Russian oil to come into the United Kingdom. He may justify that, as he has done on a number of occasions during this discussion, by saying that this is only for the short term. But does he not recognise that, as long as we stop exploiting our own resources and taxing our own oil refineries, we will be dependent on Russian oil, and we will be financing Putin’s war?
Chris Bryant
I will try again. The point I am making is not the point the right hon. Gentleman thinks I am making. The point I am making is that, up until now, we have been doing precisely what he said. We have been allowing Russian oil processed in other countries to come into the UK without any impediment whatsoever. That is precisely what we are putting an end to. If he had stood up last week, the week before that, the week before that, or the week before that, and called for us to put an end to it, I would have had more time for the comments he just made.
Steve Race (Exeter) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his usual clarity and candour on this issue, and I welcome the new sanctions package. Will he confirm one last time for me, my Ukrainian residents and our friends in Ukraine that this is a new package of sanctions, part of which we are introducing in a phased manner, and that there is no loosening of any sanctions that are already in place?
Chris Bryant
We have not suspended, waived or got rid of any existing sanctions of any kind whatsoever. We are introducing new sanctions. This is our latest set of sanctions. In fact, I have also been keen to try to ensure that when things are exported to a third country legally but we think they might end up in Russia, which would then be a breach of the sanctions, a licence is needed—for the first time. We are introducing new legislation for end-use sanctions controls, and we will be the first country to do so. We are determined to ensure that Putin does not win his war.
John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)
I had constituents in the Gallery today, and they will be aghast to find out that their flight back to Scotland is potentially using Russian fuel. Surely, regardless of whether that was the case before, we need to grip that issue. We also need to grip the reality of the North sea. We keep hearing that North sea oil is a declining asset, but the Norwegians do not see it that way; they are expanding their exploration of the North sea. We have untapped resources, west of Shetland. Surely we need to look again at domestic supply.
Chris Bryant
I am sorry, but up until today it was perfectly legal for people to use Russian crude oil that had been processed in a third country and brought into the UK. The hon. Member is inventing a saga that does not exist.
Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
Ukrainians in our constituencies woke up to headlines about watering down sanctions. Why are the Government not prioritising measures that would permanently cut bills and reduce fossil-fuel dependence, including fully removing the renewables obligation levy and fast-tracking energy market reform?
Chris Bryant
I thought that the Liberal Democrats were in favour of moving towards renewables. Sorry, I may have misunderstood the question; if so, the hon. Member may wish to grab me afterwards. As I said, the problem about the headlines this morning was that some journalists saw half of the story, and not the whole story. That is entirely down to me, and is my fault.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
The sanctions on Russian gas and oil were put in place for good reason, as we know, but I seriously question how environmentally friendly it is to import supplies of gas and oil, when we have one of the largest sources of natural resources just off the coast of Scotland. The Government continue to refuse to allow it to be further explored. The madness of the pursuit of net zero is exposed by the fact that there is more pollution involved in importing these products, instead of drilling for our own, which would also create jobs and revenue for the Exchequer.
Chris Bryant
We are putting an end to the import of these products from Russia. We want to debilitate and degrade the Russian war machine. The point I would make to the hon. Member is that even if we were to grant licences today for further exploration, that would not solve the problem that we have today, arising from the instability in the energy market because of the war in Iran.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
Picking up the theme of mishandled communications, and the anxiety that they caused many of our constituents, the Financial Times is still reporting an easing of sanctions, as is the BBC. Those are not outlets known for hyperbole. Perhaps the Government could issue a correction to major media outlets.
Chris Bryant
I am trying to do that here, now, live. Indeed, I went to see the BBC earlier and gave it a clip. Just to be absolutely clear, we are not suspending any sanctions. The sanctions regime in the UK is tougher today than it was yesterday, a week ago, or a year ago. I am certain that as I in the Department for Business and Trade and my colleagues in the Foreign Office continue to look into the constant diversion and subversion of our sanctions regime, the regime will get even tougher as the months and years proceed.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I would hate to be deprived of a question. I thank the Minister very much for his sincere and helpful answers. May I say this gently to him? Many of us believe that there is a very clear solution to this problem. If this Government want true energy security, then instead of forcing British businesses to navigate complex legal loopholes in order to import foreign energy, and instead of pressing ahead, through the energy independence Bill, with a permanent ban on our using our own resources, they must scrap the ideological roadblocks, approve crucial domestic projects, such as development of the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields, and unleash the full potential of British North sea production. Will the Minister please discuss that with Cabinet members, and demand that common sense and energy security be prioritised over what any single Government Minister says on the subject?
Chris Bryant
All roads lead to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), Mr Speaker; certainly, all urgent questions do. I was not here for the debate yesterday because I was in Strasbourg, but I feel as if I am hearing some of what was rehearsed then, and I do not want to repeat the arguments. I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s comments about my sincerity on this. The only point I would make to him is that I am desperate to make sure that the Ukrainian people are able to assert their freedom and defeat Putin. We will do everything in our power to secure that outcome.
Point of Order
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The west bank village of Khan al-Ahmar is under threat at the moment and is being forcibly evacuated by Israeli forces and illegal settlers. Will you advise me on whether there is some way that we can persuade a Minister from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to come to this House and make a statement about the Foreign Office’s attitude to those illegal forcible evacuations, and of course the continued military support for Israel that is enabling Israel to take those actions?
Mr Speaker
I thank the right hon. Gentleman. I have been expecting a statement today; I am hoping for a statement tomorrow. If that does not happen, I am sure that somebody might be able to ask an urgent question. Who knows what that might bring?
Debate on the Address
Defence Readiness
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
18:44 - The House divided: - Ayes: 104 / Noes: 317 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:58 - The House divided: - Ayes: 78 / Noes: 408 - Question accordingly negatived.
19:13 - The House divided: - Ayes: 104 / Noes: 316 - Question accordingly negatived.
19:26 - The House divided: - Ayes: 307 / Noes: 171 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr Speaker
I inform the House that I have selected the amendment (o) in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, which will be moved at the start of the debate, and amendments (l) in the name of the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), and (p) in the name of the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), which will be moved at the end of the debate.
I call the shadow Secretary of State for Defence.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
I beg to move amendment (o), at the end of the Question to add:
“but respectfully regret the absence of a Defence Readiness Bill from the Gracious Speech, and the 10 month delay to the publication of the Defence Investment Plan; call on the Government to bring forward both as a matter of urgency; further call on the Government to raise defence spending to 3% of GDP by the end of this Parliament; further regret that the Gracious Speech commits to re-starting inquests into Northern Ireland veterans; and also call on the Government not to progress with the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill and the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 (Remedial) Order 2025 to protect veterans and improve the morale of all who serve in the armed forces.”
It is an honour to open the final day of debate on the King’s Speech on behalf of the Opposition. Today’s debate is on defence readiness. May I begin by expressing how saddened I was to hear of the death of Lance Bombardier Ciara Sullivan from the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery? My condolences, and those of the whole Opposition, to her family, both personal and regimental.
Before turning to the defence-related matters that were or were not included in the Government’s programme for the next legislative Session, I pay tribute to the men and women serving in our armed forces right now across the globe, whether they are on board our nuclear submarines, which provide a continuous at-sea deterrent, or deployed in the middle east to defend our overseas bases. I thank them for their service and unwavering professionalism.
I also pay tribute to our brave Ukrainian allies, who continue to defy those original expectations of an early Russian victory. When we take steps to publicly show our sympathy for Ukraine’s heroic struggle—for example, by wearing badges, as I have done every day since the invasion, or by flying the Ukraine flag from local and national Government buildings, we do so not just to show solidarity with a democratic nation under brutal attack by a dictatorship, but because it is firmly in our national interest to assist Ukraine in keeping Putin’s military in check. When newly elected councils make it their first priority, on entering office, to pull down the Ukrainian flag, we are entitled to ask if the party in question cares about the fate of its people, and understands the implications for our national security of Russia triumphing.
Finally, I pay tribute to all those who served our country in the past: our brave veterans. That brings me to Labour’s plans, as set out in the King’s Speech. Of all Britain’s military capabilities, few are more important to our defence or more widely admired, particularly by the United States, than our special forces, yet at a time of war on two fronts, Labour is ploughing on with a Bill that will reopen vexatious legal actions. That not only threatens our veterans, but would undermine the morale of all who serve today, particularly in the special forces. Those special forces include the Special Air Service, and those in the regiment that was on duty in Loughgall in 1987, and who shot IRA terrorists who were driving a digger with a bomb in its bucket towards a police station, and firing machine guns into the building as they approached. I believe that those soldiers were acting to defend our society from terrorists intent on mass murder. Whatever one’s view, surely going back almost 40 years to events that took place in a split second makes no sense.
Crucially, in October 2023, coroner Justice McAlinden declined to list a new inquest into Loughgall precisely because of the cut-off date set by our legacy Act, which therefore did its job of halting such cases and genuinely protecting our veterans from endless litigation. However, in his comments, Justice McAlinden added that preparatory work for the inquest should continue, because there would be a general election the following year, and that might affect how the legislation was implemented. He had a point, did he not?
Fast-forward three years, and with war now facing us, not just in Ukraine but in the middle east, the Government of today remain intent on repealing the protections that we put in place for veterans. It goes without saying that Labour’s plans will harm our veterans, once again keeping them awake at night with the fear that they will be hauled before our courts.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the shadow Minister for bringing this matter forward. He is right to put it on record; it is very much part of this debate. However, this goes further than the veterans who cannot sleep at night, and the families who are worried about what will happen to their father, brother or sister. Does he agree that this is affecting recruitment? Those who want to join the Army are saying, “If we join and get involved in a battle to protect this country, we could find ourselves being persecuted for it, or taken to court.” Does he agree that, for that reason and others, the Government must be fair, when it comes to legislation, and must listen to the points that he put forward?
James Cartlidge
I am always grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his very good interventions. He has hit the nail on the head. This is not just about veterans, as important as they are; it is about the wider impact on recruitment. Indeed, hon. Members do not have to take my word for it, or his. In November last year, nine former four-star generals wrote:
“This lawfare is a direct threat to national security…The Troubles Bill achieves nothing—and ongoing lawfare risks everything.”
I say this to Labour MPs: when considering the troubles Bill and the issue of lawfare, surely the overriding factor to consider is the threat that we face as a nation, and the impact of the legislation on our ability to defend ourselves. Do they really think, in their heart of hearts, that this is what they should be prioritising, when we need our soldiers more than ever? I put this challenge to all those who intend to stand in Labour’s leadership contest. Will those candidates seeking to become our next Prime Minister recognise that the first duty of any leader is defence of the realm, and that it is therefore in the national interest to scrap the troubles Bill and back our brave veterans?
Claire Hanna (Belfast South and Mid Down) (SDLP)
Will the shadow Minister acknowledge that no party and no victims’ group in Northern Ireland supports the Conservative party’s approach to the past, and that even the Dillon judgment last week did not in any way rule it legal? Would he not agree that soldiers following the rule of law is a matter of recruitment, too? No soldier wants to be painted with the brush of not having followed the rule of law. Would he care to tell the House how many of the 300,000 soldiers who served under Operation Banner in Northern Ireland have faced judicial proceedings? It is in the very low two figures.
James Cartlidge
I respect the hon. Lady, and I respect the strength of her view on this matter, but we have to deal with what is certain. In my view, it is extremely unlikely that any new cases would lead to prosecutions. It is, however, certain that were this process to recommence, it would damage the morale of our armed forces at a time of war on two fronts, and that would not be in the national interest.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Having served in Northern Ireland, I have spoken to many veterans I was there with and others who were there before, and there is a scintilla of a real question mark about how they will be treated. The vexatious nature of these complaints will, of course, eventually drag them back into the courts. That is the fear. They are sure that they are innocent, but by the time the courts have finished with them, innocence would not matter at all, because their life would have been destroyed. Does my hon. Friend not agree?
James Cartlidge
I do not need to add a great deal to that, because my right hon. Friend served in Operation Banner and speaks with great authority. He has always been passionate on this issue, and he hits the nail on the head. As so many veterans have said to me, it is the process of the lawfare itself that is so punishing. It is so damaging, it is not in the national interest and it will damage the British armed forces.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
As my hon. Friend knows, the then Defence Committee did two reports into this question, and in the course of those inquiries, we interviewed four eminent professors of law, including one particularly famous left-wing one. We did not ask them what they wanted to happen; we asked them what could legally be done about a statute of limitation. They all agreed, however reluctantly, that it would be legal to have a statute of limitation provided that it was coupled with a truth recovery process that met the requirement for an investigation to occur. Their other key condition was it should be applied to all people involved in the conflict. The Government could pursue the line that those four professors of law took, but they do not want to do so. They are happy to shelter behind court judgments that they could appeal against but will not.
James Cartlidge
My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and he is absolutely correct. Our legacy Act was based on what happened in South Africa. We may not like it, but if we want peace and reconciliation, any changes in the law that favour those who may have been guilty have to apply to both sides. It is simply a statement of fact. As I think I just showed with Loughgall, our Act of Parliament—the legacy Act—did indeed stop an inquest that would have been damaging to the armed forces but which I do not believe would have led to any prosecutions.
Turning to what was not in the King’s Speech, the strategic defence review promised that:
“A new Defence Readiness Bill should provide the Government with powers in reserve to mobilise Reserves and industry should crisis escalate into conflict.”
With war on two fronts, surely such legislation should be the absolute top priority of this Government, but alas, there is no defence readiness Bill in the King’s Speech. Why not? The defence readiness Bill is not ready. What else is not ready? The defence investment plan is not ready, of course. We know that the Government are working flat out—[Hon. Members: “At pace!”]—and at pace, but the Secretary of State promised from the Dispatch Box almost a year ago that the defence investment plan would be published last autumn. It is now 10 months late, so when the Minister responds, can he tell us exactly when we are going to get the defence investment plan?
Most importantly, we are bound to ask why we still have no defence investment plan. The DIP is meant to set out the detailed procurement decisions intended to implement Labour’s strategic defence review, so what do the authors of Labour’s SDR, appointed by the Prime Minister, think about the failure to publish the DIP and the impact of that on delivering the SDR? Each of the three key authors—Dr Fiona Hill, General Sir Richard Barrons and Lord Robertson—has absolutely slammed the Government for their failure to deliver. Lord Robertson, a former Labour Defence Secretary and former Secretary-General of NATO, stated:
“We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.”
We agree 100%. The fact is, the current Prime Minister bottled it on welfare reform, U-turning repeatedly despite a majority of more than 160, and failing to make even modest changes to working-age benefits while removing the two-child benefit cap.
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
To be charitable to the Government, there is actually £34 billion that could be spent in defence, given that they had another U-turn on the Chagos deal. Maybe there is a delay in the plan because they are trying to decide how to spend that money, or can my hon. Friend think of another reason?
James Cartlidge
My hon. Friend has remarkable foresight, because I will be coming to the Chagos issue.
This is the key point: had the Prime Minister held his nerve and reformed the benefits system, toughening the rules for working-age benefits and keeping the two-child limit, as was his previous position, he could have found the billions to fund defence rather than entrenching welfare dependency even further. Given this total failure of nerve from the Prime Minister, he had some brass neck to use his response to the King’s Speech last Wednesday to accuse us of “defence austerity”. Let me remind the House that last year the Government insisted on £2.6 billion-worth of reductions to the Ministry of Defence budget. This year, they are insisting on a further £3.5 billion of cuts. They will say that they were the last Government to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence, in 2010, but they always omit the caveat that when that same Labour Government came to power in 1997, they inherited defence spending from us at 3%.
Indeed, in talking about so-called austerity, this Government also conveniently forget that the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that, had Labour won the election in 2010, it was planning to cut 25% from the defence budget. At least their Chief Secretary to the Treasury at the time had the good grace to leave a note confessing that there was no money left, once again relying on us to clear up the mess of a Labour Government who had run out of other people’s money, not for the first time in history.
The worst thing about Labour’s resorting to history is that it is completely irrelevant. I have repeatedly accepted that defence spending fell under successive Governments since the end of the cold war. That is irrefutable, but it was because the world we lived in was one where we thought peace would last. Today, however, the threat is completely transformed and, instead of looking back, the public want us to confront the challenges we face right now, to be ready for battle and above all to be honest about the choices needed to find the cash for defence. That is why we have started to set out fully funded steps towards spending 3% of GDP on defence, as was last achieved under a Conservative Government.
Let us take the example of Chagos, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) did in his very good intervention. Labour Members may delude themselves that, like the parrot in the Monty Python sketch, their Chagos deal is merely resting, and pining for the archipelago, but we know that the deal is dead. It is an ex-treaty. Even if they disagree, with no treaty legislation in the King’s Speech, it must be clear even to them that the hundreds of millions of pounds due to be sent to Mauritius during this Parliament, primarily from the Ministry of Defence budget, must now be available to be spent elsewhere.
That is why, earlier this month in Portsmouth, the Leader of the Opposition and I set out that we would use Labour’s Chagos cash for a better purpose: accelerating the construction of the 13 frigates being made in Scotland that we ordered when we were in government. The fact is, there is no other way to address the serious shortage of surface ships in the short term than by accelerating the build of those 13 fantastic new warships. Indeed, just a few days after we set out our policy to do exactly that, lo and behold, HMS Iron Duke was withdrawn from service, confirming the urgent need to act on defence readiness and to be willing to divert cash from elsewhere.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
Does the hon. Member agree that, had his Government not got rid of shipbuilding in my city but instead put some plans into place, we may well have been able to continue to build ships there? Instead, they decimated it and left us with three incompetent Portsmouth Ministers.
James Cartlidge
I think the hon. Lady would be better focusing on the Type 45 destroyers. The former Labour Government were meant to order 12 Type 45s, but they slashed that order in half to just six. Worse than that, in an act of genius they inserted an engine that did not even work and we had to spend years trying to replace it through the power improvement project.
On the issue of welfare and defence funding, we have been the first party to explicitly set out how we would reduce benefit expenditure to increase defence spending, with confirmation that we would restore the two-child benefit cap and use the savings for our military. We have also set out plans to move £2 billion a year of research and development funds from other Government Departments to fund drones and drone tech across the board. However, if we are to become the world leader in uncrewed warfare that I still believe we can be, not least after our extraordinary support for Ukraine, we do not just need our services to have the cash to test and train; we also need to invest billions into transforming our defence industrial base.
James Cartlidge
I give way to my right hon. Friend, who is an expert on the industrial base.
Mark Pritchard
While I welcome the Type 26 global combat ship, as I am sure my hon. Friend does—that is an important naval deal with Norway—will the timeline of its delivery not give the first ships to Norway rather than to the United Kingdom? If I am wrong, that is great, but if that is the case, there must be a discussion in the MOD about extending the life of the existing—
The Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry (Luke Pollard)
indicated dissent.
Mark Pritchard
If I am wrong, great—I am used to being wrong on many occasions, but I am happy to be wrong on something we need to get right.
James Cartlidge
I am aware that timelines are an issue on a couple of dimensions in the Chamber at the moment, so I will come to my conclusion shortly. My right hon. Friend asks a fundamental question about the Royal Navy when we know we have shortages of surface ships. I hope the Minister will set out exactly how many Type 26s we will order irrespective of the Norway deal. I support the Norway export deal. How many will we be ordering in addition to that? The written answer he gave me was very ambiguous. We need to get that extra money into the industrial base, which is why our alternative King’s Speech has a sovereign defence fund Bill.
There is one other important Bill in our alternative King’s Speech: our promise to repeal Labour’s terrible Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. It is not enough to oppose Labour’s lawfare; we would restore full legal protections for our veterans, boosting morale and sending a signal that we will always have the back of those who serve. The public know that it is madness at a time of war for the UK Government to be prioritising putting our soldiers back in the dock for serving their country. That is why our motion today calls on this House to reject Labour’s plans and scrap the troubles Bill. We will always defend those who defended us.
The Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry (Luke Pollard)
I know Members across the House will join me and the Prime Minister, who did so earlier, in sending our condolences to the family and friends of Lance Bombardier Ciara Sullivan, a gifted soldier and horsewoman who died on Friday—a young leader, a young life taken too soon.
His Majesty opened his Gracious Speech with a warning:
“An increasingly dangerous and volatile world threatens the United Kingdom”.
As we debate our response in this Chamber, our armed forces are on missions across the world, facing down those threats, strengthening our alliances, defending our overseas bases and overseas territories, and preparing for missions to the High North, the strait of Hormuz and a post-ceasefire Ukraine. Our armed forces are working around the clock, protecting our homeland, our allies and our interests, equipped with some of the most advanced capabilities in the world.
The effective closure of the strait of Hormuz is hurting all our constituents right across this country. They see it in their newsfeeds, feel it at the petrol pumps and pay for it through rising bills. This Government are determined to do all we can to end that pain as soon as we can. We have stepped up to lead a multinational response. The Prime Minister and the Defence Secretary have built and co-chair a new 40-nation coalition, united in our mission to secure the strait of Hormuz as soon as a lasting ceasefire is in place. The UK’s armed forces are leading the way, deploying advanced autonomous minehunting equipment and new uncrewed boats and drones, and working alongside the heavy metal of HMS Dragon deploying to the middle east with its cutting-edge Sea Viper counter-drone system. That is because innovation, hard power and the ability to sustain it are the currency of our more dangerous and unpredictable age. Hard power is the essential building block of effective deterrence, and our deterrence is our insurance policy against the growing threats we face as a nation. That is why this Government are investing in hard power—investing over £270 billion in defence over this Parliament. Defence innovation is working twice: once for national security and once for British industry. That is the Labour way.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
The Minister makes a strong case for hard power, and we on the Liberal Democrat Benches support the investment in British defence. However, he also knows that generals on both sides of the Atlantic have made the case that investment in development is necessary to prevent conflict. In fact, they say that prevention is better than military intervention. Will the Minister take this opportunity to assure the House that there will be no further cuts to the international development budget in the forthcoming period?
Luke Pollard
The hon. Member knows as well as I do that we have a commitment to get back to 0.7% of GDP on international aid when we can, but I remember his party in government cutting defence spending as well. I appreciate what he is trying to say, but let us unite now in understanding that the threats we face today require investment in defence and an increasing defence budget, and that is what this Government are delivering.
Investing more in our armed forces and those who wield the hard power is this Government’s approach; investing more in our defence industry that develops and sustains it is this Labour Government’s approach; and investing more in our alliances which multiply that hard power is this Labour Government’s approach.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case for how investing in our armed forces and defence, after 14 years of Tory neglect, is imperative to get Britain growing and for our defence preparedness, but does he agree that these capabilities must always be exercised in the right way? Thirty UK arms licences to Israel were suspended in September 2024, but in the light of the Iran war that he mentioned and the fact that 72,000 Palestinians have now been killed in Gaza, could Ministers revisit this? I know that this worsening situation means many constituents want to end all arms sales with the Netanyahu regime.
Luke Pollard
This Government have called for a ceasefire. We have called for increased aid to get to the people who need it. We have introduced arms export controls against those weapon systems that could be used in Gaza. We of course keep all export licences under review, but I think the whole House, whichever party we are in, wants to see a lasting peace and a two-state solution, so that the people of Gaza and Palestine can live side by side with a secure Israel. That is the effort that this Government are making in that respect.
The Conservative equipment plan that we inherited in July 2024 was overcommitted, underfunded and unsuited to the threats we now face. This Labour Government are rearming and renewing our armed forces and ending the Tory hollowing out and underfunding that we inherited. Our strategic defence review and our defence investment plan will put that right. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) was listening to the Defence Secretary’s speech last night, he would have heard him say that it is getting close.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
When is the plan going to happen? I represent the constituency with the highest proportion of veterans in the UK. They take a keen interest in what goes on in our armed forces. We look across Portsmouth harbour to ships that are sat stationary, not going anywhere, and see a defence industry that is being undermined at every step. When will the Government actually put their words into action?
Luke Pollard
The hon. Member, like me, represents an area with a lot of military personnel and a lot of veterans. That is why I know that she will welcome the fact that veterans spending is at a record high under this Labour Government. We are working to deliver the defence investment plan, but that has not stopped us from investing in new capabilities, which I will come to in a moment.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
I follow the Minister’s words, as always, with much interest. Has he had a conversation with the former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), who last Thursday spoke of dither and delay, and does he relate that to the extraordinary delay in the defence investment plan?
Luke Pollard
I always welcome recruits to our armed forces and defence debates, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) is absolutely welcome in our defence debate today. I say politely to the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) that I focus a lot of attention on the hon. Member for South Suffolk, who left an unfunded and hollowed-out armed forces, but he too was a Minister in that Government that hollowed out and underfunded our armed forces. While I welcome his intervention and expertise, he cannot escape his record of underfunding our armed forces. We are now working to deliver that funding to our armed forces.
We are on a path to warfighting readiness by 2030. We must be mission ready by 2030 against a peer adversary. That means investing in our armed forces. That mission is backed by our commitment to the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war, backed by our ambitious programme of defence reform—the most ambitious in 50 years—and by the defence industrial strategy, a funded strategy. That is unlike the document worked on by the hon. Member for South Suffolk, which was unfunded and left on a shelf to gather dust.
We are fuelling defence as an engine for growth, creating good jobs up and down the country. Because we are still getting on with the job of defending our country, this Government have signed more than 1,200 defence contracts since the election, nearly nine in 10 of which have gone to UK-based firms.
Dr Luke Evans
I posed this question to the Minister’s colleague, the Minister for the Armed Forces, when he was last at the Dispatch Box: where is the DIP stuck? He seemed to point the finger at the Treasury, but can I get an update on where the DIP is actually stuck?
Luke Pollard
I am a big fan of Lukes—even Lukes with new beards, as the hon. Gentleman now is—but I am not going to give a running commentary on the DIP. We are working flat out to deliver it and it will be published when it is ready.
Mark Pritchard
The Minister is right to focus on procurement and on defence kit and equipment, but all of that is nothing without defence personnel. I do not know if he is going to come on to personnel in his speech, but may I pivot his thoughts towards that subject? When they are redeployed to different countries, or even when they are moved between different local education authorities in this country, a lot of our armed forces personnel who have children with particular special educational needs and disabilities find it difficult, because there is a patchwork of quality in SEND provision, if I can put it like that. In the national interest, and in the interest of those individual children and families, will the Minister commit to ensuring that there is uniformity in SEND provision and recommendations when our servicemen and women are redeployed with their families?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Before the Minister responds, I can tell that the question is incredibly serious and the right hon. Gentleman needed to give detail, but we are very short on time and over 40 people wish to contribute, so interventions and responses must be short.
Luke Pollard
The right hon. Gentleman was wrong in his first intervention about Type 26 frigates, but he is right in this one. It is important that we do that, and that is why this Government are putting the armed forces covenant fully into law. If it is an issue that he feels passionate about, I can arrange a meeting for him with the Minister for Veterans and People, so he can discuss this important issue further.
Jim Shannon
I welcome everything that the Government are putting forward with the spend in Northern Ireland. The Minister has committed himself to that and there have been lots of visits to Northern Ireland to make it better, but the UK spend per head on the mainland is £400 and the UK spend per head in Northern Ireland is £80, which means there is a big difference in what has to be done. What steps will be taken to improve procurement and defence contracts for businesses in Northern Ireland to ensure that we can have equality?
Luke Pollard
We have a brilliant defence industry in Northern Ireland. That is why this Labour Government backed it with a £50 million defence growth deal that I announced only a few weeks ago in Belfast. We will continue to support businesses large and small in Northern Ireland.
In the past week alone, this Labour Government have deployed advanced autonomous minehunting equipment, backed by £115 million of new investment for minehunting drones and counter-drone systems for the strait of Hormuz, and signed a £1 billion contract to equip the British Army with new remote controlled artillery. We have equipped our Typhoon jets with the advanced precision kill weapon system, which will make shooting down Iranian drones cheaper and easier for our RAF, and we have announced funding for 13 new defence unicorns. We are a Government that are backing UK jobs as we rebuild our armed forces, and we are also delivering for our people.
Rebecca Smith
I have a simple question for the Minister. He keeps stating that 1,000 or so contracts have been signed, nearly all with companies based in the UK, but what percentage of those companies are small or medium-sized enterprises compared with the primes?
Luke Pollard
I will get the hon. Lady the full details, but we are backing an increase in defence spending for SMEs, with a target of increasing it by 50% in the next two years. It is our mission to do so and that is why we have stood up the new Defence Office for Small Business Growth. I will get the percentages that she asks for, based on the latest figures.
We are backing our people. We have given our armed forces the biggest pay rise in 20 years, we have extended free childcare and we have introduced the first ever independent Armed Forces Commissioner to improve service life. We have ended the Tory privatisation of defence housing, and we have made a £9 billion investment to tackle the scourge of the dreadful military homes that we inherited by refitting or rebuilding nine in 10 military homes. We have turned around the Tory retention and recruitment crisis that we inherited: outflow is now down 8% and inflow is up 13%. That is what a Labour Government are delivering.
As the geopolitics shift, it is important that we, across this House, renew our support for Ukraine. It is important that we all stand together. That is why the Defence Secretary now chairs the Ukraine Defence Contact Group and why the United Kingdom now chairs, with our French allies, the coalition of the willing. Just as it is important to call out those parties that seek to take down Ukrainian flags, it is more important that we challenge them on what they would do to support Ukraine. I ask Reform Members, what will their party do to support Ukraine? Taking down the flags is a backward step, but I am interested in hearing what are the positive steps.
I say to Conservative Members, I am interested in restoring the cross-party unity on Ukraine that we used to have, which seems to be fraying because of the party politics they are playing, so will they say when was the last time the Leader of the Opposition backed the UK’s leadership on the coalition of the willing? I cannot recall one occasion, but I am interested to know when that was. We need to ensure that the message goes out clearly from this House that we back Ukraine and we will continue to back Ukraine for as long as it takes.
Luke Pollard
No, I need to make progress. Madam Deputy Speaker is clear that I have to finish in a moment, but I thank the right hon. Member for his interest.
We know that in a more dangerous world, we need to spend more on defence. Turning to the legislation, I have heard the nonsense about there not being any defence measures in the King’s Speech from the usual armchair generals on social media, so let us look at what is in there. The Armed Forces Bill will further strengthen and improve service life, strengthen our armed forces and strengthen our strategic reserve. A new regulatory Bill, with measures to expand drone testing and use, is good news for our forces and good news for defence tech firms in Swindon, Plymouth, Poole, Portsmouth and across the United Kingdom. The Northern Ireland Troubles Bill will repeal a law that was found to be unlawful and replace it with a new Bill that has new protections for veterans, which we are working closely with veterans and veterans groups to deliver.
I hear the Opposition squealing about the defence readiness Bill—a Bill they never thought of, a Bill that they never implemented and a Bill that they only complain about. The shadow Defence Secretary will know that we are continuing to work on the defence readiness Bill and it will be introduced later in this Parliament, assuming that the usual processes allow. We are consulting with people, but he will know that it is a sequential Bill. We are improving readiness in defence with the Armed Forces Bill and we are working on new measures, but all he has to offer to this debate is complaints—no apology for the underfunding, the cuts or the armed forces housing with black mould that our people are forced to live in. It is not good enough.
This Labour Government are investing in our people, providing the largest pay rise in 20 years and refurbishing or rebuilding nine in 10 defence houses. We are establishing an Armed Forces Commissioner and investing in our infrastructure. Billions of pounds will be spent on new housing and new docks. In our industrial relations, we will deliver five defence growth deals. We will deliver five defence technical excellence colleges in England, hopefully two in Scotland and one in Wales. We announced a £182 million defence skills package and 1,200 contracts have been signed.
In capabilities, we have new artillery, new missiles, new drones and new ships that are being built in Scotland. We have done new deals with Cambridge Aerospace for interceptor missiles and with Norway for new commando insertion craft. We will create new munition factories and 23 new medium helicopters are being built in Yeovil. Proteus, the first autonomous UK helicopter, has made its first flight, and we will have new defence warehouses, homes and facilities.
There will be more exports, a bigger defence industrial base and more alliances. There will be investment in the coalition of the willing and a new Ukraine Defence Contact Group, chaired by the Defence Secretary. We have a new deal with Germany, the Trinity House agreement, a fresh Lancaster House agreement, and a new deal with Norway, the Lunna House agreement. This Labour Government are delivering for defence and delivering for Britain, backing our allies and backing our forces, and I commend His Majesty’s Gracious Speech to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
James MacCleary (Lewes) (LD)
If His Majesty’s most Gracious Speech was meant to show that this Government have grasped the scale of the danger facing Britain, it fell a long way short. We live in a more dangerous world than at any point since the end of the cold war. Vladimir Putin is waging war in Europe, and Ukraine is fighting not just for its very survival, but for the security of our entire continent. Across Europe, we are seeing sabotage, cyber-attacks, disinformation, intimidation and hybrid warfare. Further afield, the world order is being tested by the rise of China, by instability in the middle east and by authoritarian regimes that are watching very carefully to see whether democracies still have the resolve to defend ourselves.
At the same time, we can no longer assume that old certainties will hold. The United States remains a vital ally, but President Trump has shown just how quickly long-standing alliances can be weakened, questioned or taken for granted. That is the reality facing Britain. This should have been a King’s Speech that had national security at its heart. It should have been a moment of seriousness, urgency and ambition. Instead, once again, we got more delay and more warm words that are not backed up by action.
We all know that the Conservatives hollowed out our armed forces, but this Labour Government cannot simply point to the failures of the past and pretend that is enough. They now have the responsibility to act, but so far they are moving far too slowly.
Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is right to point out the devastating record of the Conservatives, but does he share my sadness and frustration at the role played by the Liberal Democrats in hollowing out the size of our armed forces and waving through Budget after Budget that cut defence spending in this country? Will he own up to that sorry record?
James MacCleary
As has been pointed out, defence spending has been reduced by successive Governments over a very long period of time, so focusing on the Liberal Democrats’ record alone is somewhat unfair, to say the least.
Dr Murrison
Will the hon. Gentleman remind the House which party it was that insisted we delay the replacement of the continuous at sea deterrent by two full years as a condition of the coalition?
James MacCleary
The right hon. Member enjoys raising the coalition quite a lot. You are talking about the nuclear submarines, aren’t you? That is what you asked about.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I was not talking about anything. Please do not use the words “you” or “your”.
James MacCleary
The Liberal Democrats have reaffirmed our commitment to our nuclear deterrent repeatedly, and we will continue to do so.
The defence investment plan is still not published. Industry is still waiting for certainty, and our allies are still waiting for clarity. Our armed forces are still waiting for the investment that they need, so it was deeply disappointing that the promised defence readiness Bill was not included in the King’s Speech. It speaks volumes that the Government’s own Bill on readiness is itself delayed. That matters, because defence cannot be switched on overnight. We cannot rebuild capacity in industry at the flick of a switch. We cannot train personnel, repair readiness, modernise equipment, strengthen supply chains and restore deterrents with vague promises or “working at pace”.
Jim Shannon
One thing that the Government need to improve and be better at is drone technology. For every one Ukrainian soldier killed, drones have killed 14 Russians. With that massive move in technology, does the hon. Gentleman feel that it is time for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to have a partnership with Ukraine? The technological advances that it is making could be part of our work.
James MacCleary
Learning from Ukraine has been very important. To be fair, the Government have made some steps in that direction, but we can always do more to learn from our friends who are testing this technology in the field day in, day out.
Defence takes time. Industry needs a demand signal, our allies need confidence and our adversaries need to see resolve. That is why the Liberal Democrats call on the Government to commit to spending 3% of GDP on defence by 2030 at the latest. That is not a slogan or a press release, but a serious plan to make Britain safer.
We must also understand that Britain’s defence does not begin and end at our border. That is why forcing a choice between spending on defence and international development is entirely false. Just yesterday, former senior British officers wrote in The Times about the danger that cuts to development pose to our security and described aid as the “first line of defence” for the UK. The Government must urgently reverse course on the cuts, which only undermine this country’s security and soft power around the world.
Last year’s strategic defence review highlighted the need for an urgent injection of cash into our armed forces. That is why the Liberal Democrats call for the immediate launch of defence bonds, which would raise £20 billion over two years to support immediate, capital-intensive defence investment.
James Cartlidge
The hon. Gentleman is always very generous in giving way. He says that the Liberal Democrats would issue war bonds for the extra defence spending, which is just other borrowing. He has also said that he would maintain aid spending at 0.7%, which is a huge increase in spending. How would that be funded?
James MacCleary
The hon. Gentleman is quite right that defence bonds, as with all bonds, would be borrowing. We have spoken before about the need to increase defence spending through cross-party talks, and a reversal in aid spending would be part of an overall package of how we would budget in the future. One way of doing that, which we have looked at and will propose later today, is rejoining a customs union with the European Union, which would generate increased spending.
Those bonds would help to modernise our armed forces, strengthen our sovereign capabilities and support British defence firms, including the small and medium-sized businesses that are so often at the cutting edge of innovation. That would also give the public a direct stake in the defence and security of our country. This is about spending better, not simply spending more. For too long, defence procurement has been slow, bureaucratic and wasteful. Too many programmes have been delayed and too many costs have spiralled, and too often British industry has been left without the certainty it needs to invest, hire, train and grow.
If we are serious about national security, we must also be serious about industrial security. That means backing British manufacturing, investing in research and development and supporting apprenticeships and skilled jobs. It means ensuring that defence spending strengthens communities across this country, not just the balance sheets of a handful of prime contractors. It means recognising that in the modern world, defence is not just about the number of tanks, ships and aircraft that we possess, important though they are; it is about cyber, space, drones, AI, secure supply chains, energy resilience and the ability to move quickly when threats change.
Climate change is causing global instability. Melting ice opens up new flashpoints in the Arctic, and stress on food and water resources drives displacement and conflict. Our armed forces need the tools to fight the wars of the future, not just to patch up the gaps left by the past, but Britain cannot do this alone. If the last century has taught us anything—and if recent years have taught us anything—it is that our security is bound up with that of our allies. That is why we must be unwavering in our continued support for Ukraine. We must strengthen NATO, deepen co-operation with Commonwealth allies such as Canada and Australia, and rebuild a serious defence relationship with Europe.
The Liberal Democrats have called for a new European rearmament bank and for UK participation in the Security Action for Europe rearmament programme. That would allow Britain and our allies to mobilise investment at the scale required to ensure that our defence industries lead the next generation of technology, while also generating the economies of scale needed to reduce costs over the long term. This is not about choosing between Britain and Europe; it is about recognising the obvious truth that Britain is safer when Europe is stronger, and Europe is stronger when Britain leads.
National security should not be subject to short-term political games. That is why we have called on the Government to urgently convene cross-party talks on how we reach 3% by 2030. Our adversaries are not waiting for us to get our act together, and our armed forces should not have to wait either. Defence requires all of society to be involved. Being ready to defend our nation means also building our national resilience.
The Government must move faster and show far more ambition to involve the public in defence and security. Should the worst ever happen, having 70 million of us ready to come to our nation’s defence would be the most powerful weapon of all, but that requires leadership from Government, which has so far been absent, despite promises of a national conversation. That means learning from our friends in the Baltic and elsewhere about how we can harness the talents of the British people to become a more resilient and prepared country. The best way to prevent a war is to prepare for it.
The choice before us is clear: we can continue with managed decline, delayed plans and underpowered commitments, or we can choose seriousness. We can publish the defence investment plan and the defence readiness Bill, commit to 3% by 2030, launch defence bonds, back British industry, rebuild our armed forces and strengthen our alliances. We can send a clear and unambiguous message to Putin and to every other authoritarian regime watching us that Britain will defend itself, its allies, its values and its way of life. That is the ambition that the King’s Speech should have shown and the action that this country needs, and that is why Liberal Democrats will continue fighting for it.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Chair of the Defence Committee.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
His Majesty the King opened his Speech by noting:
“An increasingly dangerous and volatile world threatens the United Kingdom”.
We have seen unprecedented military action and instability internationally, with the conflict in the middle east being only the most recent example. Closer to home, we have continued concerns about the security of Ukraine, deterring further Russian action on the European continent and creating a resilient society that is ready to support our Government and armed forces if we have to respond.
As I have previously noted in this House, the United States—our once dependable ally—is withdrawing from its historical role as the protector of democracy in Europe. It has become increasingly clear to us on the Defence Committee that there is an overreliance on the USA, both militarily and for access to its defence industrial base. When we see the US delaying deliveries and increasing the cost of Patriot missiles already sold to Switzerland as a result of the Iran war, we must examine our own dependencies, as it is becoming increasingly unclear how far they are sustainable.
In March, I warned that Russia is already operating in the grey zone against the UK, notably in sabotage and cyber-operations against the infrastructure that supports our prosperity. Furthermore, we know that Russia, China and others are arming at pace and increasing their readiness for war, yet many UK capability targets are measured in years and decades, rather than months. Neither the Government, our military, nor our society are yet prepared or resilient enough to cope with a large-scale conflict. As His Majesty warned us a week ago,
“Every element of the nation’s energy, defence and economic security will be tested.”
The UK’s armed forces need to both improve their current readiness and adopt new technologies at pace and at scale. The Government have consistently recognised that our armed forces are hollowed out, and both the strategic defence review and the national security strategy committed the Government to improving the UK’s warfighting readiness. However, our credibility has been harmed in recent months. The lack of available frigates and destroyers to carry out the tasks that we have set ourselves and, often, that we have agreed with NATO, is merely one example of the difficulties faced. The US is carrying out a NATO audit, and it is looking hard at us. Our European partners are questioning whether we can deliver on the commitments we have made to NATO as part of the defence planning process, and whether we continue to deserve our leadership role in NATO.
In the Defence Committee’s report, “The UK contribution to European Security”, we warned that
“Time is short, given the urgency of the threat and the work required to respond appropriately.”
We raised questions about both the sufficiency of the capabilities we provide to NATO and those with which we could protect our homeland. We questioned the Government’s progress on engaging the population about both the threat and how we respond to it. We have also looked at long-term procurement programmes, completing the previous Committee’s work on the global combat air programme and undertaking a new inquiry into AUKUS.
We are well aware that decisions taken today, particularly those that delay programmes or lead to the loss of sovereign capability, have a huge impact on our future ability to defend our nation and deter adversaries, so we await the defence investment plan. We know that the delay is damaging both our domestic industry and our international credibility. We do not have empty factories, spare components or a surplus of welders sitting around, waiting to jump into action once the Government decide what they want. Companies do not have warehouses full of supplies waiting for the Government to put their order in. The defence industry needs to increase capacity, which means building production lines and training people so that they can build the products. That is particularly relevant if allies and partners are buying the same things at the same time, which we have seen as a result of the war in Ukraine.
Most importantly, we do not know at what rate the Government intend to reach the target of 3% of GDP being spent on defence—hopefully in this Parliament—or the NATO target of 3.5% by 2035. All the various defence financing options need to be rapidly considered, with some implemented as soon as possible. I have asked the Prime Minister whether he will publish a timeline, so that industry can plan based on when that additional funding will arrive. He refused to give certainty beyond 2027, and we need that certainty. The US and the EU are looking at our defence industrial base and working out how best they can tempt our companies to move to their countries, so that they can benefit from British innovation, while we fail to provide a reason to stay here. In our European security report, the Defence Committee warned that establishing capacity takes time, and if the Government decide to just turn on the tap at the last minute, a lot of taxpayers’ money will be lost to defence inflation, leaving the MOD with very little to show for it.
Let me now move on to the defence readiness Bill, which should have featured prominently in the King’s Speech, but alas, the Government have not included it. The purpose of the defence readiness Bill is to give the Government
“powers in reserve to respond effectively in the event of escalation towards a war involving the UK or its allies”,
and to “facilitate external scrutiny” of the UK’s ability to defend itself. The Government are determining which additional legal powers they need and looking at
“measures to…better protect our Critical National Infrastructure, provide for the mobilisation of wider Defence capability in crisis, and ensure Parliament’s ability to scrutinise warfighting readiness.”
We were told that this work would include engagement with key stakeholders—including other Government Departments and the Committee—during 2026 as specific measures are developed. Drafting will then
“take place following robust evidence-gathering and policy development.”
All of that is welcome, but we need a timeline.
It has now been more than two years since the end of the last Parliament. The Government have demonstrated again and again that they understand the problems; what they have failed to do is implement a transformative solution. We need to fund defence properly, with a timetable showing precisely how and when we will reach the agreed 3.5% NATO target. We urgently need a defence investment plan, published before the summer recess, that shows what is being invested where and, crucially, where the disinvestments are, and what the subsequent changes to the structure of the UK’s armed forces will be. We need a defence readiness Bill to be published in this Session, and we need a commitment that it will undergo pre-legislative scrutiny. As the Prime Minister has talked about, we need to engage the public in a national conversation about spending more on defence and what the public’s role in our nation’s security is. The Government are rightly wary of panicking the public, but the best way to avoid that is to ensure that the public understand what is required of them as individuals and communities, and to ensure that our brave armed forces have the necessary capabilities to defend us.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi). He will recall that I voted for him to hold his position, and I will come for payback later on. It is also very good to see my area neighbour, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), in the Chamber. I will listen with great interest to what he has to say, and I hope that the Labour party finds another use for him through its talent spotting, if I can put it like that.
Before coming to the topic of defence in this debate on the Address, I want to touch on another issue that has arisen. My brilliant assistant, Alice Stuttaford, spotted yesterday something that tells me that we have a slight problem with the Government’s commitment to the legal position on the use of slave-made products by Great British Energy. In answer to a question from Politico about whether they were implementing what, thanks to many Labour Back Benchers and many Opposition Members, is the law—my amendment passed and became law—and applying it to the producers as well, a spokesman for the Government said:
“We have strict procurement controls in place to ensure that any solar panels”—
it is not just solar panels, but all elements to do with net zero—
“are free from forced labour, as far as possible”.
That is not the law. There is no caveat to the law. Everybody rebelled on the Labour Benches, and Opposition Members also voted for it, and we implemented an absolute, which is that it is not for Great British Energy to use any products that have been produced using any kind of forced labour. I know that this is not the speciality of the Ministers present, but I ask them to raise it, because I also saw that the Gracious Speech contained very peculiar commitments to using immigration as a way of tackling forced labour. That is not good enough.
We need to reinforce the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and make it an offence for any company to import or use any items or goods that were made using forced or slave labour. That should be a unifying factor across this House, and I do not know why the Government have now watered down their intention. Madam Deputy Speaker will know this full well as she has been party to it: this cause goes to the root of one of the issues I will come on to, which is the threat that we face from places such as China. If we go on strengthening such places by buying their slave-made goods, then we do our own defence no good at all. What is needed is a wide-ranging commitment through the Modern Slavery Act to ban all products made by slave labour.
This debate is on defence, and we are now facing the greatest threat to our freedom across the western world since the 1930s. I do not believe that the threat is less than it was during the cold war; in a way, it is a greater threat, because at least during the cold war we already knew and recognised what war was about, why we had to be prepared for it, and what we were defending. We have lost lots of that. Many people out there do not fully understand how the threat has changed and grown.
The reality today is that one shipyard in China makes more naval ships than the whole of the United States in one year. China has over 130 times the capacity to build naval ships than Europe and America have at the moment. I say to people who do not think that this is a threat: do not necessarily listen to what those totalitarian states say; go and have a look at what they are doing. They are producing and preparing for war. I am not, I hope, scaremongering, as I believe this to be a reality.
China is reinforcing and supporting Russia in its brutal invasion of Ukraine. Without China, Russia could not have continued this war. Russia was running out of ammunition, but China brokered an arrangement with North Korea, which now produces millions of rounds of ammunition for Russia, and even provides soldiers who, once used, abused and wounded on the battlefield, are then assassinated so that they are not a source of shame when they go back.
This is about totalitarian states. The Government should not use the phrase authoritarian states. They are totalitarian states, and there is a difference. Authoritarian states are about dictators and others who have risen to power and at some stage have to be brought down. Totalitarian states are ones where every element of how people live their lives is controlled, run and spied on—with people arrested as a result—by the state organs, regardless of who is in charge. Communism is the key here; those states are communist.
There are other extremist versions of such states. Iran is part of that alliance. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is an extremist organisation, and I do not understand why the Government have failed to proscribe it. It really is high time, as it is present in our country stirring up violence and hatred. We should deal with that and say it is a criminal act for the IRGC to be here.
To that extent, how the Government respond to this challenge in defence terms is critical. I am one of those people who has argued since the end of the cold war that we made a mistake in reducing defence. Nobody listened to me then, and there is no reason why they should listen to me today, but I tell the Minister that I am going to keep on saying it. I hope Members on the Government Benches and others will ask that question.
I know what the restrictions are, and that the Treasury dictates to Departments and says, “We can’t afford this. We won’t do it.” People at the Treasury are the last people in the world to ever recognise a threat to anybody, at any time, from anything. The Treasury continues as if all was sweetness and light because it does not want to make any changes. It is for Defence Ministers to make the point about the threat.
Why in heaven’s name have we not published the defence readiness Bill? It is the Ministry of Defence’s greatest weapon in the fight with the Treasury. Every other Department—Health or whatever—know what I am talking about. It is always a fight, but it has to be, because we are facing what is likely to be our greatest threat since the 1930s. To face that threat, Ministers need to make it clear to the Treasury that we cannot skirt around this any longer; we have to spend that money and commit.
The Government have talked about being committed to 3% in due course, but that will not be enough. When I was serving, we were committed to 5% of GDP to face down the Soviet Union. We will need the same again, because I believe we are about to face an even greater threat. Ministers will know that the Conservatives will give them our full support if they are prepared to fight for that.
Let us get the defence investment plan published right away—that is really important. Those totalitarian states do not face the restrictions that we do. We have those restrictions for a good reason: we believe in democracy. But freedom is the most expensive thing that we will ever try to own, and it can be taken away with just a wish. The Government’s job is to stand firm and say that the No. 1 priority is to defend the realm from threats, internal and external. If we do not do that, we will have failed in our obligations, failed the British people, and failed our allies and friends, who look to us for leadership.
We can only lead, however, if we have the equipment to show our allies that we have the endeavour. When we took the Falkland Islands, we had 53 frigates and destroyers available to us. We could not do that today. That is the measure of how far we have gone under both Labour and Conservative Governments. The Ministry of Defence must tell the Government, “Enough is enough. We are going to publish this Bill and the defence investment plan—and, by the way, where is the China audit? Let’s publish that too”.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
I begin by joining others in expressing my condolences to the family of Lance Bombardier Ciara Sullivan. It is a pleasure to follow my parliamentary neighbour, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), despite our best efforts to retire him at the last general election.
The test of any of us in politics is: did we leave things in a better place than we found them? Thanks to the choices made by this Labour Government, the NHS is on the road to recovery. Waiting lists fell by 110,000 in March—the biggest fall in a single month outside of the pandemic for 17 years. Ambulance response times for heart attacks and strokes are now the fastest in five years, patient satisfaction with access to general practice has gone from 60% to 75%, and at a time when public trust in politicians is low, we hit our target of recruiting 8,500 more mental health workers three years early.
On social care, I am proud that we are investing an extra £4 billion; that we have delivered the biggest expansion of carer’s allowance since the 1970s; that the extra £150 million in the disabled facilities grant is providing more dignity, freedom and independence to thousands more disabled people; and that the first ever fair pay agreements will be delivered in social care, because the people who care for our loved ones should never care for their own. That was all made possible thanks to the efforts of the entire NHS and social care team.
In the four and half years that I have led for Labour on health and social care, I have met the best of them: the ones who ran towards danger in Southport and fought to save those children; the ones who scrubbed up and went to work during the pandemic, while the rest of us retreated to safety; the ones who bring new life into the world; and the ones who hold our hands at the end. Leading that team has been the greatest joy of my life.
The depth of love and gratitude I have for the people I have worked with is beyond words—the brilliant team of Ministers and officials at the Department of Health and Social Care, particularly my private office, NHS England, the best team of special advisers in Government, and the leaders and frontline staff across this remarkable system. I am rooting for all of them, as well as for my successor as Health Secretary as he takes on the best job in Government.
I will not pretend that leaving Government has not been an emotional wrench. The scars that I bear on my abdomen from my cancer treatment are a daily reminder to me of a time in my life, not so long ago, when I was thinking not about politics, but only about survival—and the NHS was there for me when I needed it. Walking through the doors of my Department every day as the person entrusted with protecting the very service that saved my life has been a massive responsibility and the most enormous privilege, and not one that I gave up lightly or hastily.
I left the Government because we are in the fight of our lives against nationalism, and it is a fight that we are currently losing. Unless we change course, we risk handing the keys of No. 10 to Reform, and I do not want that on our consciences. For the first time in our history, nationalists are in power in every corner of the United Kingdom. Scottish and Welsh nationalism represents an existential threat to the future integrity of the United Kingdom. Reform UK represents a threat to the values and ideals that have made this country great—values and ideals that are written into the DNA of the national health service that it would dismantle, given the chance, and whose very existence is an act of courage as well as conviction: that healthcare should be provided based on what each of us needs, not on what any of us can afford. It is a reminder that, even in our darkest hours, this country is capable of doing big things. It is our responsibility to defend that promise and the values that it represents, not just for the NHS or even for the survival of this Government, but to win the battles that we thought were long since won: of progressives against reactionaries, of patriots versus nationalists, of hope over hate. That is our fight. It is Andy Burnham’s fight in Makerfield, and it is Labour’s fight for the soul of our country.
For too long and too often, patriotism in Britain has been left to the loudest voices and the narrowest arguments, as though love of country belongs to one tribe, one party or one point of view, but the Britain that I believe in is bigger than that. Patriotism is not about who you exclude; it is about who you stand beside. It is not rooted in fear of change or suspicion of difference; it is rooted in solidarity—in the belief that we rise or fall together. That is the best of our country’s story: a Britain where people from different backgrounds, different faiths, and different nations and regions, still see themselves in one another; a country where the son of Indian pharmacists can become our first Hindu Prime Minister without having his Englishness questioned; a patriotism built not on blood and soil but on shared values, shared institutions and shared responsibilities.
I understand that SNP and Plaid Cymru Members will not see themselves in the English nationalist politics of the party whose Members sit on the Bench behind them. But nationalism is not progressive, and nationalism and patriotism are not the same things. Nationalism says, “Look inward. Protect your own. Turn away from the others.” Patriotism says, “This country is strongest when we are confident enough to be outward looking, generous and united”—united, but not always the same. On the Labour Benches, we believe in a stronger Scotland and a stronger Wales as part of a fairer United Kingdom.
Twenty-eight years ago this week, the people of Northern Ireland took a leap of faith and voted to endorse the Good Friday agreement—the triumph of hope over bitter enmity, and a reminder that a bigger and better politics is possible when people have courage. That is why we must reject the politics that tries to divide us—whether that is dividing the countries of the United Kingdom or the people who call Britain their home. The nurse from Nigeria is not the enemy of the factory worker in Newcastle. The family fleeing war is not responsible for the cost of living crisis. Division is the oldest trick in politics, and Britain deserves better than that.
The future of this country will not be built by setting neighbour against neighbour; it will be built by renewing the bonds between us, with decent jobs, strong public services, safe communities, a place we can call home and a sense that everyone has a stake in Britain’s success. That is the patriotism we need today—not a brittle nationalism built on grievance, but a confident British patriotism: decent, fair-minded and internationalist, bound together in common endeavour with the conviction that our greatest strength has always been one another. We need to mobilise that spirit as we face the gathering storm.
The war in Iran may be over for now, but this fragile peace has not resolved the crisis in the strait of Hormuz. Even if it were resolved tomorrow, the long-tail consequences for the global economy and the British people will be stark. The tragedy for this Government is that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has been delivering the fastest growing economy in the G7, falling inflation and lower interest rates, but her hard work has been undermined by the consequences of a war we did not choose. I pay tribute to the Prime Minister for keeping us out of it. It will be painful for the British people, who have weathered crisis after crisis: some imposed on us, like the wars in Iran and Ukraine and the pandemic; and others, like austerity, Brexit and Liz Truss’s joyride with the British economy, the result of poor political leadership.
When I gave my maiden speech 11 years ago, I argued that none of the problems facing our country would be solved by leaving the European Union. Today, in the dangerous and volatile world we find ourselves in, dominated by an unpredictable superpower in the USA, a rising superpower in China and a failed superpower in Russia, it is even more clear that we would have been better off leading Europe than leaving the European Union—not despite our sovereignty and the need to control our borders, but to enable those things. That is why I argue for a new special relationship. It is also why I welcome the assurances that the Government are strengthening sanctions on Russia to underline the rock-solid support that we have given President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people. The frontline in Ukraine is the frontline for our freedom and democracy. We are meant to be the party of internationalism and solidarity. It is only too disappointing to see Reform councillors taking down the Ukraine flag when the British people want to fly it in solidarity. It is truly, truly shameful.
NATO’s Secretary-General is right to warn today that our alliance has an “unhealthy” reliance on one ally. We need to invest more heavily in our defence, and more rapidly. I know that my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary and his team do not need persuading on this—nor do they need lectures from Conservatives, who ran down our capability and now have the audacity to heckle from the sidelines like the arsonist complaining that the fire brigade has not turned up fast enough. I am with the Secretary of State and his team all the way.
Wes Streeting
The shadow Secretary of State mentions “bankrupting the country.” I think he is thinking about Liz Truss and the joyride that he was no doubt cheering on. A period of silence, or at least an apology, might be welcome from those on the Conservative Front Bench.
We need to recognise that a nation draws its strength from the condition of its people. A recent survey of 16 to 29-year-olds suggested that around half of all young people in this country would not be prepared to fight for it. I am not so sure about that; I think they would be every bit as brave and self-sacrificing as their grandparents and great-grandparents were, or as their contemporaries holding back the Russians in Ukraine have been. When the cause is just and the need is urgent, they will step up, regardless of what they might have told opinion pollsters.
I know that because, when this country was facing a dire threat—from covid—young people did step up. The generation least at risk gave up the most to help the rest of us keep safe. And how did Britain repay them? By short-changing them on their education, layering on debt, making it harder to get on the housing ladder, and failing to protect them from the AI jobs apocalypse. This generation is the first left totally exposed to the time-sucking algorithms and perils of social media. The Education Secretary and I have raised our concerns about the impact of this on their learning and their wellbeing, but I also wonder what it is doing to their sense of connection with community and country.
But patriotism is not a lecture that the old deliver to the young; it is a relationship. For generations, Britain understood that relationship as a social contract: you work hard, you play by the rules, you contribute to society, and in return you can build a decent life, a secure job, a home of your own and a family if you want one, with the hope and conviction that your children will do better than you did. A generation ago, the average home cost around four times average earnings. In many parts of Britain today, it is eight, 10 or even 12 times average earnings. Private rents consume vast proportions of household income. Millions of young people who work hard and do the right thing cannot see a path to home ownership or security. Today, nearly a million young people are not in education, employment or training. Many are trapped in insecure work, unable to move out, delaying starting their families and postponing adulthood itself.
Layered on top of this economic insecurity is a new technological anxiety. For generations, people believed that there was a ladder of advancement, with an entry-level job, skills acquired over time, promotion, security and progress. Now, many young people fear that artificial intelligence may remove the lower rungs of that ladder altogether. They ask what skills will still matter. Will there still be routes into stable, middle-class lives for kids from working-class families like mine? Will deindustrialisation be replaced with reindustrialisation and the jobs of the future? Will opportunities extend to our towns, rural and coastal communities, or will inequality become entrenched? Those are not irrational fears; they are rooted in real economic change. Unless mainstream democratic politics can answer those questions, others will exploit that vacuum—they already are.
Defence is about hard power and capabilities, but it is underpinned by the soft power that binds a country together: pride, belonging, shared activities and institutions, and hope. We need to rebuild those things for modern times. This is the calling of the Labour party, which was brought into existence to champion the interests of the working man and woman—for the many, not just the privileged few. It gave me—this kid from a council estate in Stepney in east London—the chance to realise my potential, to go to a great university, and to spend my career tackling the injustices that hold back other kids from backgrounds like mine.
The greatest tragedy of Britain today is that the next generation, for the first time in our modern history, faces worse prospects than the last. The question is not whether young people would fight for their country, but when their country is going to fight for them. This is our generational challenge: not only to deal with the immediate issues of affordability, small boats and NHS waiting lists, but to face up to a turbulent world being remade by climate change and the biggest and fastest industrial revolution in the history of the world; to make sure that no one is left behind and no one is held back—that is our job now, as the old economy of the 20th century finally gives way to the AI revolution of the 21st; and to tackle the crisis facing the next generation as an emergency, with the urgency that the moment requires.
Never waste a minute: that has been my mantra in government, and it is why I do not believe our party has time to waste treading water. The thing about emergencies is that they make the impossible possible. Look back at the crises we have confronted: we could not vaccinate against the deadly virus—until we could; we could not nationalise the banking system—until we could; we could not reorient our entire manufacturing base towards building aircraft—until we could; we could not build hundreds of thousands of homes fit for heroes—until we could.
In times of greatest peril, our country has been capable of doing big things. We still can. Britain used to punch above its weight in the world. We still can. Each generation used to provide a better future for the next. We still can. Another member of the cancer club, the late, great Bowelbabe, Dame Deborah James, famously said:
“take risks; love deeply; have no regrets; and always, always have rebellious hope.”
It is with that in mind—and with the belief that we can and must do better, with deep love for my party and my country, with no regrets, and with rebellious hope—that I have left the Government. The Labour party was elected to deliver real change. We still can.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
After the next speaker, we will go to a speaking limit of seven minutes.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
May I genuinely congratulate the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) on a remarkable speech and wish him well in his future ambitions? His speech and its content were, I am afraid, not as germane as the contribution of the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), who chairs the Defence Committee. I agree with everything that he had to say; I only regret that I could not put it as elegantly as him.
The resignation letter of the right hon. Member for Ilford North is worth reading, and I am sure that Members on the Treasury Bench will have read it closely. He wrote on Thursday that
“where we need vision, we have a vacuum. Where we need direction, we have drift”,
and that should worry the Government. I agree with him, and I am thinking in particular of the defence investment plan, which we have not seen. I am conscious that the defence readiness Bill, which we were expecting in this King’s Speech, has yet to materialise, and that is of deep and profound concern.
In the 1930s, we arguably faced a similar situation to what we are up against now, and the Government of the day decided about five years in advance of the outbreak of the second world war that they must gear up our defence industrial base for the future. They created things such as shadow factories, initially with opposition from industry. Those were centred largely, at least initially, on the automotive industry and the production of aircraft, but went on to extend much further than that. It was a truly co-operative venture that led eventually to this country being able to turn out more aircraft in those early years than Germany could.
I would have thought that this Government would have learned those lessons and now be bringing forward, as a matter of urgency, its own defence readiness Bill. The Government have missed an opportunity, and I am sorry about that, because there is no shadow of a doubt that industry is being held back, as has already been mentioned this afternoon, in its ambition to partner with the Ministry of Defence and with Ministers to get things going, whether that is reprovisioning what we have rightly sent to Ukraine or fitting our armed forces for the future.
Some have already mentioned hollowing out. It is worth saying that in 1989, every country in the western world was taking a peace dividend. It would have been extraordinary had they not, and they would have been punished by the voters, but that was then. The big lesson I have learned from what has happened in the years since 1989 is that Governments can afford to titrate what they provide in order to defend this country against the threats facing it—although that is never popular electorally—but they must do nothing to reduce the armed forces below an irreducible minimum, so that armed forces can regrow rapidly, as happened in the years immediately preceding 1914 and 1939.
Governments must also do nothing that will damage long-term projects, because procurement is not something that can be turned on and off like a tap—procurement takes decades. I think we have learned from that mistake. One of the mistakes that the previous Government made was delaying the Dreadnought class. That was because, as I referred to in the intervention that the hon. Member for Lewes (James MacCleary) generously allowed me to make, of pressure from our then partner in the coalition Government.
Right now we are facing the prospect of our principal ally, the United States, backing off in terms of its support for us and our European allies. We can no longer entirely rely on that on which we previously relied heavily. If, as seems likely, the United States proceeds with this particular course of action, we will be the only provider of a nuclear deterrent declared to NATO, and it is therefore important that in the defence readiness Bill—when we see it—we have a reaffirmed commitment to reprovisioning the continuous at-sea deterrent apace. Much work has been done in respect of infrastructure and at the Atomic Weapons Establishment, but we are still facing a rundown Vanguard class that is obliged to go on patrol for upwards of 200 days, with a consequent impact on the men and, now, women who man the submarine service. Of all the pinch point trades in our armed forces, it is those in the submarine service that should keep us awake at night. It is imperative that we accelerate that programme.
I also ask Ministers to look at the F-35A provision, and to agree with me that providing 12 airframes is hardly sufficient given the threat that we now face. I need to know, I should like to know, and I am sure the whole House would like to know when the F-35As will be operational, as opposed to the provision of training airframes. Is it the intention of the Government to expedite that programme? Is it the intention of the Government to exploit the option that they have kept open to have more than 12 of those airframes, and will Ministers confirm that they will be nuclear-enabled?
I strongly urge Ministers to consider the sovereign defence fund Bill in the alternative King’s Speech, which would repurpose the National Wealth Fund to overhaul our vital defence industrial base. Governing is about difficult decisions, and it seems to me that defence is a more urgent priority right now than using the fund—in the words of the Government—to help tackle climate change, and, indeed, a more urgent priority than ramping up welfare, as Lord Robertson has made very clear. The defence industrial base will be pretty useless if it is not populated by men and women with the skills that are necessary to deliver what is needed in order to keep this country safe.
The youth opportunity Bill, which also features in the alternative King’s Speech, has the kind of imaginative content that I would have expected from an incoming Government who had 14 years to think about these matters. Unfortunately not: all that we had from the Prime Minister on young people on Wednesday was a load of waffle. Time and again, it is as if he is a passive observer rather than an active participant. The youth opportunity Bill explains how genuine investment in our young people will power and grow the economy, delivering a virtuous circle from which everyone benefits. It will cap state funding for pointless, work-irrelevant, badly taught degrees from third-rate institutions that are perpetrating a fraud on a generation, and will grow well-focused apprenticeships such as those offered by Wiltshire College in my constituency.
Let me now say a few words about special forces. We must approach these issues with a great deal of care. I am extremely concerned by the messaging that has gone out from this Government in relation to the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill—not so much the case that has been put before the House by the Northern Ireland Office and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland as the way in which it has been received. The Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), who is sitting next to the Secretary of State for Defence, will know very well—because his contacts are probably better than mine—that this messaging has caused a degree of disquiet, particularly among units that are crucial to this country’s defence and security. They will perceive that, in years to come, a future Government may decide that what is happening now, and what is acceptable now, is no longer acceptable.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
This business with what is going on over Northern Ireland is not alone, because it builds on a perception and on the gratuitous pursuit of soldiers involved in Afghanistan and Iraq—partly by the Prime Minister in a previous life, but certainly by lawyers knowing full well that what they were pursuing were in fact complete untruths. That has made those former soldiers wonder what is the point. If politicians will not stand up for them, who will?
Dr Murrison
My right hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that I absolutely agree with him. This is about more than Northern Ireland, because Northern Ireland has a read-across to a number of theatres where our men and women are actively engaged or could be in the future. The exodus from some of these units will cause irretrievable and irrecoverable damage to our ability to protect the men and women of this country.
I have no doubt that Ministers are acting with the best of intentions, but I urge them to look at the messaging that is being given to the men and women of our armed forces, many of whom I have the honour and privilege to represent, and to decide what they can do to address this legislation. I would say “Scrap it and start again”, but if they cannot do that, I ask them to consider what they can do to prevent the idea from gaining penetrance among those units that the Government are simply not on their side, and in any event even if they were, that Governments in the future might, by the standards of the day, decide that what is being done at the moment in the name of the state and in the King’s name was no longer acceptable. Lawfare is a real and present danger to the men and women of our armed forces, and, knowing him as I do, I feel certain that the Secretary of State is cognisant of the threat that it poses.
Conscious of the frog in your throat, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall end my remarks there.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
It is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison). It is clear that when it comes to defence readiness, there is much on which we can all agree. Let me also—before he leaves the Chamber—pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting). The former set out in powerful terms the challenges that we face as a country, but it was the latter who set out, also in powerful terms, the hope and the determination that we must show in government in order to meet those challenges in a way that the country deserves. As ever, my right hon. Friend showed great courage and strength in leading from the front.
Today’s debate rightly focuses on defence and national security, and it could not be more timely given the challenges that we face. However, that sense of security comes not just from investment in defence, although that is clearly important and I will say more about it shortly, but from investment in the broadest sense—investment in our people, in the creation of strong, resilient, enterprising and cohesive communities. That is what will ultimately keep us safe.
The Armed Forces Bill and the national security Bill are important steps forward, and, given the disgusting and horrifying extremism and antisemitism that we have seen rising here in Britain, the tackling state threats Bill will also be a welcome response to the threats that we face on our own soil, including those from Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Having called for it, I welcome the legislation that is coming, and will be following developments very closely.
However, we cannot make meaningful progress on defence without the defence investment plan. While I know that the Secretary of State and his team are working incredibly hard on producing the plan, the delay in its production is having real-world consequences, and we need it to maintain our international credibility. In my role as the UK’s trade envoy to Italy, I know how important collaboration is for the global combat air programme, which will unleash opportunities and defence investment.
In my region, the north-east, our defence sector is a major employer, supporting thousands of jobs and a wide network of small and medium-sized enterprises. We could do even more, but we need certainty and security about what is coming down the track in order to protect our supply chains and the big contractors that we know are still waiting. Without the investment plan, we risk undermining defence manufacturing and sovereign capabilities, both in my region and across the country, and domestic production is not something that we can gamble with.
We have such a strong story to tell in Newcastle. The opening of the North East Space Skills and Technology Centre at Northumbria University has added a new dimension to our regional capabilities by supporting apprenticeships and graduate programmes, helping to build the next generation of skilled workers. We know that defence investment does not just impact one industry; it boosts skills, innovation and opportunities across our whole economy. We need to know the details of the plan so that businesses can provide real, tangible support for our young people, and so that those young people can access high-quality training and employment.
As a northerner, I am pleased to see the northern powerhouse Bill included in the King’s Speech, but it must be backed by genuine investment. The north cannot possibly endure yet another round of broken promises, especially after the catastrophic management of High Speed 2 by the previous Government.
The small business protections Bill will offer long-overdue protection for sole traders, freelancers and family-run businesses, which we know have been ignored by large companies for far too long. I know that many small businesses will welcome the Bill, as it could genuinely save livelihoods, particularly in retail and hospitality.
On the subject of retail and hospitality, the north-east is home to some of the best—Newcastle upon Tyne North is the home of the Greggs sausage roll, after all—but many in the sector are concerned about the impact of the overnight visitor levy Bill. I urge Ministers to keep an open mind as evidence emerges, because we need to ensure that our hospitality industry thrives. For many businesses, it is too often a question of whether they will survive. I urge the Chancellor to do everything possible to support our businesses, especially in retail, leisure and hospitality, because those are the sectors that give so many of our young people their first foot on the career ladder. Without them, we know that the costs to the state and to those individuals would be so much higher.
Too often businesses feel like the odds are stacking up against them, so we as a Government need to all pull in one direction. It is in all our interests to make sure that opportunities for jobs, investment and community cohesion reach far and wide, because they do as much for our national security as investment in rotary blades and electronics. I will continue to monitor this issue in my role as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for youth employment.
Finally, the energy independence Bill and the nuclear regulation Bill are both welcome. They will strengthen our energy security and our national security, and they will accelerate home-grown renewable energy. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on warm homes, I want to see really ambitious energy production, and I will continue to monitor the progress made on warm homes and on the retrofitting of homes, because that is how we will help households to manage the rising cost of living.
So much in this King’s Speech will be welcomed by my constituents in Newcastle upon Tyne North, from the commonhold and leasehold reform Bill to the social housing renewal Bill, but we have to ensure that they feel it, that they understand it, that they come with us and that they see the vision, so that we can help people to build better lives and stronger communities right across the UK.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) has such a sunny personality that I always feel cheered up after listening to her contributions, even when she is the bearer of somewhat disappointing news about the economy. I was also impressed by the speech of the former Secretary of State for Health, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), who is just about to escape from the Chamber. However, it did leave me wondering what my headline would be if I were a parliamentary sketch writer. I think it would be, “Why on earth did he resign?” It sounded much more like a manifesto in a leadership campaign than a trigger for calling one, but there we are—we all have our own motives.
The right hon. Gentleman made a point that is of great relevance to this debate, which I promise I had already written down before I heard him make it: the comparison between the terrible experience of the pandemic and the terrible experience of a country involved in a full-scale war. There were, of course, casualties during the pandemic, and there was the determination to learn from it. The outcome is that we are a lot better prepared for the future, should another deadly virus attack us. As a result of the lessons learned during the pandemic, we will be in a much better position to develop effective vaccines far more quickly.
However, I am afraid the real parallel is not a very happy one. It is a fact that if someone had said before we knew we were going to have the pandemic, “You need to invest a considerable sum of money in developing a system that enables you to develop vaccines quickly in response to the emergence of a new deadly virus,” we probably would not have done it. That is where the parallel lies with wartime situations, because for many years, defence-minded Members on both sides of the House have been urging successive Governments to spend a lot more on defence.
If those warnings go unheeded and this country ends up in a full-scale armed conflict with a peer adversary, we will not be talking about spending 3% or 4% of GDP on defence; we will have to spend 30% or 40% of GDP on defence. We do not wish to get to that situation, because it would lead to not only economic loss—think of the human cost. If, by investing in defence in peacetime, we can deter a potential enemy from starting a war, we not only save the treasure; we save the blood that is otherwise shed so copiously.
As we know, Russia is spending something of the order of between a third and a half of its gross domestic product on military power. In the past, the Defence Committee has looked at the question of what this country has spent historically. In a report entitled “Shifting the goalposts?”, and a second report entitled “Shifting the goalposts: an update”, the figures show that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) was completely correct. He said that in the mid-1980s, when he was serving, we were spending something of the order of 5% of GDP on defence. In fact, the figure given in 1983-84 was 4.4%, and in 1984-85 the figure was 4.5%. In reality, however, that was because we had higher criteria than the other NATO powers for what counted as defence expenditure, and we adopted their lower standards later. Looking back, we can see that the figures were actually 5.3% in 1983-84 and 5.5% in 1984-85. Those are very big figures.
People talk about the way in which the peace dividend was taken, but as the shadow Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), pointed out, 1996-97—the year in which Tony Blair took over from the Conservative Government—was already at least half a dozen years after the end of the cold war, if we understand that to have taken place in 1991 rather than in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin wall. At that time, we were still spending 3%.
That was the figure then, so as the current Chair of the Defence Committee, the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), rightly said in an admirably objective speech, given that Russia is preparing for conflict now, we are responding too slowly and “time is short”, given the urgency of the situation. When we talk about achieving figures of 3% in a few years’ time and 5% in a few more years’ time, I would ask the House: does the killer in the Kremlin intend to give us that time? If we want to deter him from taking a step that would be to the detriment of the world, we need to invest now and, as in the case of the pandemic, find the money now. If a war broke out tomorrow, we would find the money at once, so let us find it today and diminish the chance of that terrible conflict happening the day after.
Ian Byrne (Liverpool West Derby) (Lab)
I welcome any debate that has the collective security of the British people at its heart, because I believe one of the greatest threats to our security is the economic system governing this country, which has consistently failed working-class people and communities, and which will undoubtedly be made worse still by the illegal and ill-planned war in Iran. Now more than ever, we need a radical restructuring of priorities and policies: more council housing, a total end to right to buy, and the nationalisation of our industries that were sold off and gutted by Thatcher, including water and energy.
In 2026, no one in Britain should be going hungry, so I welcome the Government’s recognition in the King’s Speech that there is a food poverty crisis in the UK. However, the redistribution of surplus food will not begin to end the food insecurity faced by over 14 million people in this country. It is a sticking-plaster over a gaping wound. We need a solution that acknowledges the sheer scale of hunger across the UK.
Over the last five months the Right to Food UK Commission, which I am proud to be part of, has travelled across these islands from Liverpool and Knowsley to Newcastle and Northumberland, and from Cardiff and Aberdare to Belfast, with Glasgow and London to come next month. It has listened to the people this country too often ignores—not economists in boardrooms, not corporate lobbyists, but working-class people in working-class communities. They understand better than anyone the scale of food insecurity in this country, and how it is impacting the lives and health of people who are living with hunger every single day—and living with its consequences.
The commission has gathered evidence for what I believe will be the defining report of our generation—a road map to finally making the right to food the law of the land. In one of the richest countries on Earth, millions of our people are going hungry, and that should shame every single one of us in this place.
I say this truthfully because what I have heard over the last few months has left me absolutely devastated. I have sat with parents who skip meals so their kids can eat. I have listened to disabled people tell us that they are sitting in freezing homes, deciding whether to put the heating on or to buy food—let alone a treat, a day trip or, God forbid, a holiday. I have met workers in full-time jobs relying on food banks to survive. That is the scandal of modern Britain, because these people are not failing: Britain is failing them.
We heard evidence from Public and Commercial Services Union members that civil servants are using food banks because of low pay. The Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union reports that the very workers who make our food cannot afford to put it on their own tables. We should think about how obscene that is, and about how flawed our economic system must be if that is the result.
We must stop pretending that this happens by accident; it does not. This is the result of political decisions: 40 years of neoliberal economics have seen people and communities disempowered and left behind, industries destroyed, trade union power weakened, public services hollowed out, and wages and incomes driven down while wealth has flowed upwards—and after all that, people are told to be grateful for charity.
Food banks were never supposed to be part of British life. They are the clearest sign that our economy and society are broken, but an entire generation of children are growing up believing that they are normal. That is not normal or acceptable, and it is not inevitable, because hunger in Britain is not caused by a lack of food; it is caused by poverty. That is the truth at the heart of this debate: it is not about scarcity, but poverty—low wages, insecure work, sky-high rents, a broken security system, and an economic system that protects wealth while punishing the poor.
That is why I say gently to Ministers that surplus food redistribution is not a solution to hunger. Yes, any support for struggling families matters—of course it does—but we cannot build a just society on leftovers. We cannot normalise emergency charity as permanent public policy, and we cannot allow food banks to become the fourth emergency service of the British state. Because if we do, we are accepting managed poverty instead of ending it, and I reject that completely.
Earlier this week the Mayor of Greater Manchester spoke about the damage done by 40 years of neoliberal economics, and he was spot-on because everywhere the commissioners travelled there was a sense deep in communities that people have been abandoned. In Northumberland, one woman said something I will never, ever forget. She said, “Don’t you dare call us disadvantaged; call us asset-stripped.” My God she was right. That is exactly what has happened to working-class Britain—asset-stripped, hope-stripped, industry-stripped, security-stripped—and then those very communities are blamed and demonised for the consequences of political choices.
But despite everything—despite all the hardship—those communities still fight for one another. That was the beautiful thing we witnessed everywhere we went. Solidarity is still alive in this country. Working-class people feeding each other, looking after each other and organising together show more humanity in church halls and community centres than many have ever experienced from Government. That is the spirit, and that is what the right to food campaign is built on, because people do not want charity forever; they want dignity, they want security and they want to know they can feed their families without fear.
Hunger is a political choice, and if hunger is a political choice then ending hunger must become a political priority. That means universal free school meals. It means wages people can actually live on. It means secure work and stronger trade unions. It means proper enforcement of a legal right to food, and it means investments in community kitchens and local food programmes. It means finally rebuilding a welfare state that protects people instead of punishing them, and, yes, price caps on essential items.
These are not extreme demands; they are the bare minimum standards of a civilised society, because in 21st-century Britain nobody should be going hungry. In the communities we have visited, everybody agrees that food is our most basic human right. Good food should be a fundamental human right for all, and a right to food would place this at the very heart of Government decision making. History will ask all of us in this House a very simple question: when millions of children were going hungry, what did you do about it? I know what side I am on.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call my constituency neighbour, Mike Martin.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
Madam Deputy Speaker, you do not normally introduce me like that, so thank you very much. It is an honour to share a constituency border with you and to follow the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne), who made a heartfelt and powerful speech.
Wars are raging in Europe and in the middle east, and there are extreme tensions in the far east. Moreover, these regional conflicts are starting to knit together: Russia and China supported Iran in the middle east, and North Korea supported Russia in Ukraine. This knitting together of regional conflicts is what we saw in the 1930s in the foothills of the second world war, so there is an argument that we are now in the foothills of another global war.
It is undoubtedly true that the threats we face are increasing, yet at the same time, day by day, UK military capability is decreasing. We must rapidly rearm to narrow this gap; it is the only way that we can deter conflict. Despite that, the King’s Speech contains no programme of rearmament. The Government speak the language of urgency yet refuse even to introduce the necessary policy and legislation. As has been mentioned by Members from all parts of the House, we have been waiting for the defence investment plan since last autumn, and we were promised a defence readiness Bill in this King’s Speech, but where is it?
As an island nation, our Navy is of the utmost importance, but it is also on its knees. While HMS Dragon took a week to deploy to the Mediterranean, the French sent an entire carrier group—an aircraft carrier, eight frigates and a submarine. How did they do that? On paper, France and the United Kingdom have comparable fleets, but in practice France achieves about 80% availability for its escort vessels, while we achieve only 50%. Through better maintenance, France achieves a better outcome. Capability on paper is worthless if it cannot deploy.
It gets worse. We started this year with seven frigates. HMS Richmond will be decommissioned this year, and HMS Iron Duke was withdrawn from service this month. That leaves us with five frigates. Furthermore, three build slots in Glasgow intended for new frigates have been ceded to Norway, because of the lack of guaranteed investment due to delays in the defence investment plan. That is a real-world example of Government inertia affecting our defence.
Putin exploits weakness, and he shies away from strength. It pains me to say it, but our Navy does not project strength, and Putin will continue to mount increasingly flagrant violations of our territorial waters until our Navy is strong enough to make him think twice. Will it take the severing of a data cable to cause us to act?
Moving from the sea to the land, the Ministry of Defence was unable to confirm to the Defence Committee whether it is able to deploy a battlegroup—1,000 soldiers—to the continent of Europe. That comes back to my point about projecting strength. Putin knows that if he were to test article 5, the 900 British soldiers in Estonia would be at extreme risk. We have no ability to deploy reinforcements, and the King’s Speech does not do anything to change that. There is a gaping hole in our deterrence, and every day it goes unaddressed, the risks to our forces already deployed and our nation at home grow.
Our artillery systems have halved in number since 1997. Our precision deep-fire capability has been cut by a third. We have just 14 155 mm artillery systems, although I note that the Government have recently announced a new order. Poland donated 100 systems to Ukraine and rebuilt its own inventory at the same time. It donated and replaced; we just donated, which is why we have 14 artillery systems left.
Meanwhile, warfare has changed, and the UK has not adapted. During a recent NATO training exercise, a British brigade was effectively wiped out by four Ukrainian drone operators. That is not an indictment of our soldiers, but a reflection of modern warfare. We cannot allow that situation to become a reality.
The picture I have painted is one of systematic underfunding across all domains, and unless we rapidly rearm, we will be unable to deter. If we want to deter and to lead in the security of the Euro-Atlantic area, we probably need an Army of about 100,000, with reserves of 50,000, a fleet of 50 ships and about 250 combat aircraft, with crewed systems surrounded by autonomous systems and one-way effectors. That is the capability we must be talking about if we want to lead and deter in the Euro-Atlantic.
Dr Murrison
I am following the hon. Member’s remarks with a great deal of interest. He mentioned the reserves, and I am a reservist. Would you give the Government credit where it is due for carrying over the Armed Forces Bill, which will advance the age of retirement for reserves to 65, and agree with me that we can probably go further in looking at people, especially the reserves, who are skilled in particular areas and may be able to help us address the challenges of the future, rather than those of the past?
Madam Deputy Speaker
Dr Andrew Murrison, you know better than to use the term “you”.
Mike Martin
I served on the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill, and as well as increasing the scope of who can be called up, it creates a consolidation of different types of reserves and allows zig-zag pathways for specialists who can come in and out of the reserves, so it is absolutely a step in the right direction.
One thing that is missing at the moment might create the political space for an increase in defence spending. I was slightly waylaid by the right hon. Member who intervened, but I should have said that to lead and deter in the Euro-Atlantic area, we are talking about a 50% increase in defence expenditure, not £1 billion here or £2 billion there. A 50% increase in defence is the scale we are talking about.
Mike Martin
I will not, if that is okay, because we are short on time.
To create the political space for some of these trade-offs, because that is a huge amount of money—£30 billion extra every single year—we need to have the national conversation on defence that was announced in the strategic defence review, but has been notable by its absence. That is why I, together with the hon. Members for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) and for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) and Field Marshal Richards in the other place, have formed the all-party parliamentary group on rearmament. We hope to raise public awareness not just of the threats, because I think the public understand the threats we face, but of the lack of capability, and the diminishing capability, in the UK military.
I recently went to a school in my constituency to talk to sixth-formers, and I have asked this question in several schools since, but they all assume we have a fleet of about 50 or 100 ships. When I tell them that we have 14 frigates and destroyers—surface combatants—they are shocked. The general public do not know the state of the British military, which is entirely incommensurate with the threat we face.
In conclusion, because time is very short, our military is a paper tiger. Sooner or later, we are going to be found out, and when we are found out and the battlegroup in Estonia is overrun or an aircraft carrier is sunk, Suez will pale into insignificance. This King’s Speech falls far short of what is required.
Mr Bayo Alaba (Southend East and Rochford) (Lab)
My belief in the importance of national defence is rooted in the single, simple idea that the United Kingdom is a nation inherently worth defending—not because of tradition or nostalgia, but because of the values of decency, respect, hard work and community that continue to define our society and can never be taken for granted. Sadly, these values are not universally held, and when we look beyond our borders, we see a world that is increasingly dangerous, worryingly unpredictable and more divided than I can remember.
That is why I welcome the Government’s steadfast commitment to improving Britain’s defence readiness, through both their pledge to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP and the various measures outlined in the strategic defence review. However, the scale of the challenges we face today is unprecedented, and our job is to meet them. Our approach to boosting Britain’s defence readiness cannot be focused on spending alone. Instead, we need to think about how to strengthen the industries that support our military capability, whether by streamlining procurement or empowering defence-focused SMEs to better respond to global conflicts.
Mr Alaba
I apologise, but I will not give way, because I am conscious that other Members want to speak.
All too often, we hear from SMEs in the defence sector that access to funding is limited, slow-moving and difficult to secure. All too often, we see innovative British companies sell up or even relocate overseas. Take Ballistic Dynamics for example, an SME that is passionate about boosting the UK’s defence capability, but whose founders report facing structural barriers such as a lack of consistent funding opportunities and frustratingly opaque tender processes.
In these troubling times, when our adversaries are increasingly bold in their challenges to our stability, home-grown industries will be a key component of what some are calling our pre-war phase or, in some cases, our grey zone. That pre-war phase must include the full utilisation of our highly trained and highly disciplined reserve forces who are too often undervalued in defence planning. I am glad to see the Government’s efforts to improve the recruitment process for reservists, and I would encourage even greater investment in the facilities, institutions and training that support them.
I also appreciate the focus on the reserve forces more generally, but it has to be noted that the very limited reference to the active reserve forces in the SDR is causing concern among some sections of the armed forces community. The strategic reserves as a concept is seductive, but it relies on many optimistic assumptions to be realistically relied on as part of any defence plan, whereas the active reserves exist now.
Preparing the United Kingdom for the potential of future conflict is a monumental task and it will require collaboration throughout Parliament. I urge Members across the House to work together to protect the security of the country, its citizens and our shared values.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)
It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. and gallant Member for Southend East and Rochford (Mr Alaba). He made some very important points about being prepared and the importance of the reserve.
I want to focus on the actual threats to this country as we stand here today. To a certain extent, the threats we face on a day-to-day basis get overlooked. A lot of people think a Russian invasion of the country would see missiles and bombs coming down, but there is a long, long way to go before we get to that sort of war. In fact, in many ways, we are already at war with Russia. Let us not forget that in 2017 Russia launched a chemical weapon attack in this country. If it had not been for favourable weather conditions, it could have killed thousands of people. In such circumstances, would article 5 have been triggered? In conversations I have had in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly at the North Atlantic Council, the general thought is that it would have been triggered. Whether accidental or not, a chemical weapon attack using one of the deadliest chemical weapons in the world was launched in this country.
Let me outline what the wrapper of hybrid warfare includes. Yes, there are cyber-attacks, which I will come back to. We also see sabotage across Europe, as well as arson, vandalism and terrorism. The destructive acts that we see on railway networks throughout Europe are almost certainly coming from the Russians. The chemical weapons attack I mentioned is not the only example of an assassination attempt on our soil. We know that malign finance, despite Governments’ praiseworthy efforts to crack down it, also takes place.
One thing that people perhaps do not realise takes place daily is information manipulation, or cognitive warfare. The Russians are brilliant at it and are well embedded in it, as are the Chinese. We have all described people who go down the rabbit holes of social media and the internet, but that is where it starts. They are monitoring people’s clicks. They are monitoring what you look at first of all. They are building a psychological profile of what you are, and then they identify your psychological vulnerabilities. They then feed that line. Why? Because they are trying to get this country, among lots of other countries, not to see the need to invest in defence.
I am sure that most Members will have first-hand experience of people saying to them that the war in Ukraine is NATO’s fault and Ukraine’s fault; that they represented a threat to Russia and Russia had no choice. Let me remind the House and the wider public that the only threat Russia felt was when the people of Ukraine said, in the purple revolution of February 2014, “We don’t want a dictatorial president,” and booted him out. They said, “We don’t want to look to Moscow; we want to look to Europe, because that is where they have the freedom of choice that we want to have.” That is what Russia saw as a threat. It could not let that happen and immediately invaded Crimea. It is to the shame of all of us that that was not taken as a warning at the time.
I am once again very pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) spoke before me, because he brings such experience to these issues. He spoke widely on that issue at the time. He makes the point that the money we were spending in the ’80s involved huge figures. That is the point we have to get back to.
We must get the public to recognise the threats that we are under. Today Marks & Spencer announced a £131 million loss from the cyber-attack it suffered. People saw empty shelves at Marks & Spencer, so they went to Sainsbury’s or Morrisons, but they did not see that a cyber-attack had emptied those shelves. They do not see that a software upgrade mistake can knock out the NHS for 24 hours, as happened a couple of years ago. That is what these threats represent.
Probably the most unpopular thing we can say to the public is that we must cut the budgets for other things to pay for defence. But the services that people want their money spent on will be gone if we do not pay for defence. They will not work. The biggest threat in the first 24 hours of any attack would be the knocking out of the power grid. Cyber-technology is embedded in a lot of areas, and we have to make sure that we can deal with that threat. Cyber-warfare has to have a whole-of-society approach to it. Governments cannot tackle it all on their own; they need companies such as Jaguar Land Rover and Co-op to protect those areas. It is going to cost an enormous amount of money but—in the old and well used phrase—the best way to have peace is to prepare for war. There are credible threats, so we have to spend huge amounts of money.
To deviate slightly from our policy, I think GDP percentages are a nonsense. It was ridiculous when NATO went there. We talk about what we were spending in the ’80s, but let me remind Members that the 2% of GDP came about in this century. The GDP figures of the past were what it cost. I urge the Government to look carefully at our proposals on reducing the welfare bill. Look at what Lord Robertson said about the welfare bill. The threats are real. We must have the deterrents in place so that an attack is not worthwhile, but the cost is an enormous amount of money, and the cognitive warfare that is taking place is making our citizens not recognise why we need to spend it. It will be a brave decision by the Government to spend that money, but as we have made clear, we would support them in it.
Several hon. Members rose—
David Taylor (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke), who I know is a vocal champion of tackling antisemitism, which I will focus on in my remarks.
In Tower Hamlets last week, a young man was filmed saying the most chilling antisemitic words:
“The Jews, you’re going to be beheaded one by one, you dirty Jews.”
He has been identified and arrested, and I thank the Met police for their action. I have picked that as just one example of the crisis we face on antisemitism. From the Golders Green terrorist attack to the Hatzola ambulance arson attack, these incidents continue to rise. What is behind this antisemitism? What radicalises individuals to act in this way? Who is responsible for these attacks?
It should not need saying, but I will spell it out. Jewish people in the UK are not responsible for the actions of the Netanyahu Government, and antisemitism did not start on 7 October. Israel had not yet begun its operations in Gaza in response to Hamas’s attack when the deputy leader of the Green party filmed a video saying that people should
“support the right of indigenous people to fight back”.
Antisemitism is often called the oldest hatred. I welcome His Majesty the King’s specific mention of antisemitism and the need to take urgent action to ensure that all communities feel safe. I welcome the commitment that the Prime Minister himself has shown in tackling antisemitism, both in our party and in government, including through the recent summit in Downing Street with the Jewish community. I further welcome the £25 million in additional funding to help protect Jewish communities, bringing the total to nearly £60 million.
I agree with the Board of Deputies, which calls for an end to incitement at pro-Palestinian protests, where antisemitic hate speech frequently takes place. It has also called for the use of public order powers to restrict and ban marches where necessary. If we look at the marches last weekend, speakers from one of the march organisers, Palestinian Forum in Britain, told the crowd that Israel is a “Zionist cancer”. Meanwhile, across London at the other, far-right march, a banner was proudly displayed that read, “End the Zionist occupation of Britain”. Perhaps they could have saved the taxpayer the £4.5 million policing bill by combining their marches.
Let us be clear: there is another major driver of antisemitism in this country, and that is the Islamist regime in Iran. The group Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya claimed responsibility for the ambulance arson attack among others. The US Department of Justice now believes that it was a front designed to carry out terrorist attacks at the behest of the IRGC and its proxies.
Meanwhile, we have Iran’s PressTV as well as its Spanish mouthpiece HispanTV. Its UK based show “Palestine Declassified” has regularly platformed conspiracy theorists and targeted Jewish schools in Britain as well as charities and individuals. I repeat my call for financial sanctions to be placed on them, as the US, Australia, Canada and the EU have done. That would close a legal loophole that currently allows them to pay UK nationals and operate through intermediaries without restriction.
Connected to that is Rad Media World, a company with links to Iran that The Sunday Telegraph just reported is using the skilled worker visa scheme completely legally. I hope that the Foreign Office will revoke that ability as well as track individuals who came here through that scheme.
There is also the issue of the charities that the Shawcross review has linked to Iran. In the interests of time, I will not repeat what I have said before, but I agree with the call of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North East (Damien Egan) for the Charity Commission to have extra resource to go after those charities and close them down.
Along with other colleagues across the House, I have been campaigning for proscription of the IRGC for some time. I was therefore delighted to see the announcement in the King’s Speech of the tackling state threats Bill to give the Home Secretary new powers to clamp down on foreign states and organisations posing a threat to our national security. I hope that will come alongside further and faster action to tackle the Iranian threat to us—as we have tried to do with Putin—including against its vast property empire in London and against its spreading of hatred and disinformation on social media, which is designed to sow discord and division in the UK. Are we robustly analysing the Companies House register to ensure that Bank Melli and its many subsidiaries are not dodging sanctions simply by changing their names at Companies House? Should we also be talking more about the VAJA—Iran’s intelligence agency—and its activities in the UK?
I urge my Government to ensure that as soon as the new law is passed, it will be immediately acted on. By that I mean that our intelligence officers must fully understand the powers available to them through not only the new legislation but existing legislation. This week, I had the pleasure of hosting Jonathan Hackett, a marine veteran and expert on counterintelligence and intelligence operations. He made the point that, sometimes on the ground, some of our intelligence officers are not fully aware of the powers available to them. It is crucial both that they are aware of the powers they have to take action and that they have the resources and capabilities to do so.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
I represent the constituency of Cheltenham, which is the home of GCHQ, where thousands of people work every day to keep us safe. They work quietly and never ask for our thanks. In this House, it is right that we acknowledge that whenever we can. I strongly agree with the points made earlier about the urgency of investment in defence. As a member of the all-party parliamentary group on rearmament, I commend the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin).
I also echo the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (James MacCleary) about the need to reintegrate with Europe as soon as we possibly can—if not on the economy then for defence alone. Almost 10 years ago, this country voted to leave the European Union, but it is now clear that whether you voted leave or remain, you did not get what you voted for. Has Brexit made us wealthier? No. Has it made us healthier? No. Has it made it easier for businesses to grow, as we were told by the Conservatives? No. Has it lowered our taxes? No. Has it helped us protect our environment? No. The faeces flowing into our rivers suggest strongly that it has not helped our environment.
Has Brexit helped us run a more effective immigration and asylum system? No! The gangsters profiting from small boats are laughing all the way to the bank. On the subject of today’s debate, has it made us more secure, and has it boosted national resilience? No! We are reliant on an unstable United States, run by an unpredictable leader who many now think is mad, with a deputy who is intent on fomenting discontent on our streets. Who is responsible for the abject failure of Brexit? It is certainly not the people of this country.
We all know in this House who is responsible for the failure of Brexit, and we all know that they are currently getting away with it. While the rest of us are undeniably poorer as a result of Brexit, there are 5 million reasons why the Reform party must keep claiming that it has been a huge success. We all know what those reasons are. Reform Members are deluded, and so are their pals in the Conservative party. They must, en masse, take responsibility for the fact that this country is now poorer and less secure as a result of their disastrous Brexit.
Our Government have a responsibility to be so much bolder in reversing the damage caused to this country. Every Labour Back Bencher and Minister knows that rapid reintegration with Europe is the only way to increase prosperity and security and boost business too. Apparently, the Mayor of Greater Manchester used to know it, but he is not sure for the next few weeks while he fights that awkward by-election. The good news is that the departed Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), is wildly pro-European again, which may or may not have something to do with the Manchester Mayor’s current travails. Who knows?
Such a moment of national challenge demanded a King’s Speech offering significant change to reintegrate with Europe for the sake of our economy and defence, but regrettably, the Prime Minister has offered us more of the same. Politics is about ideas, and the ideas that inspire me and those of us on the Liberal Democrat Benches are liberalism and internationalism. That will not change. The challenge facing our nation today can only be met by those ends.
At home, communities are crying out for real empowerment, yet this Government’s devolution agenda delivers only the illusion of local control. To achieve growth, including in our defence sector, Whitehall’s grip must be loosened to devolve real power and funding not just to distant regional centres away from our communities, but to towns and cities. Those include towns such as my constituency of Cheltenham, which stands ready to help, supporting the work of GCHQ and building on it at the Golden Valley cyber park, which is supported by this Government. I welcome that and commend the Government’s decision to do so.
The King’s Speech also ignores the new reality in British politics. The two-party system of the red team and the blue team shouting at each other is now over. That undermines our ability to have a thriving economy. It undermines our ability to make long-term plans to invest in the long-term defence and security of our country. It is a pity that Andy Burnham has changed his mind on proportional representation. That makes at least two U-turns before he has even rejoined this House, but let us hope he does a 180-degree turn when he gets back here.
This Government now face a stark choice. They either embrace proportional representation or usher in a future Reform Government propped up by the Conservatives to give us more of the same that they gave us before: the failure of Brexit, the lack of security and the failing economy. Sadly, this King’s Speech will not do what is needed to fix our relationship with Europe, to make us safer or to empower communities, and it will not change politics for the better. It is a crying shame that with a massive majority, the Government have a massive lack of ambition.
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
National security should be the primary duty of every Government, and so I have been pleased to be present in this House while listening to the contributions made on defence readiness as part of the King’s Speech debate. When the world today is more dangerous than it has been for a long time and when too many people are struggling with the cost of living and young people are finding employment prospects particularly difficult, the speech highlighted this Government’s plan to create a stronger, safer and fairer Britain.
Last week, I had the privilege of presenting the award for overall apprentice of the year at the Juniper Training awards in my constituency. What struck me at that event was not simply the talent in the room, but the determination, resilience and ambition shown by those young people. They are proof of the potential that lies within our young people and we have a duty to invest in their futures. Juniper Training is an example of an organisation that provides a credible alternative to traditional school or college pathways for young people who would otherwise be at risk of not being in employment, education or training. Its programmes offer not only qualifications for young people but confidence, resilience and a sense of purpose, providing a route into secure employment.
Our young people deserve our full support, which is why I am pleased to welcome the Government’s new deal for young people as part of our wider youth guarantee. I am especially proud that my constituency sits within the new west midlands trailblazer area, where young people are already beginning to benefit from these initiatives. Through funding provided by the Get Britain Working programme, more than 800 young people across the west midlands have already taken their first steps on to the career ladder, with a further 1,200 expected to benefit from the £10 million committed so far by the end of 2027.
In Wolverhampton itself, our youth guarantee trailblazer proposal is focused on structured work experience and transition support, intervening early to provide that crucial support. The “Wolves at Work” open door programme supports the youth trailblazer initiative and has placed more than 135 residents into work experience, and more than 50 of those individuals have already gone on to secure paid employment. Behind each of these numbers lies a young person whose life has been changed—someone who has gained confidence, stability and hope for the future. This is an achievement that my city of Wolverhampton can be proud of.
More broadly, I am proud of the work that this Government are undertaking nationally to support young people into work. The expanded jobs guarantee, now set to support an additional 35,000 young people, will provide vital opportunities to those on universal credit while helping people to get back into employment, thereby reducing long-term welfare dependency. Moreover, this Government are expanding youth hubs across the country to ensure that young people looking for work can access the advice and support they need to find employment. Through a £725 million investment in apprenticeships, we are backing our small and medium-sized businesses by covering their full apprenticeship costs for eligible young people. In doing so, we are also supporting our businesses to create the wealth that this country so desperately needs. This Labour Government are providing security and control to working people, and I am proud to support that mission.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] I usually get cheering at the end, not the beginning, but I appreciate it. Madam Deputy Speaker, I thank you for calling me; it is a lovely surprise.
I want to pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting). He is not in his place right now, but I have notified him that I will be possibly condemning his leadership bid. In 21 years in this House, I think his was one of the best speeches I have heard. We need to hear more from both sides of the House about uniting this nation. Whether the speech unites the Labour party is a matter for Labour Back Benchers, but at a time of nationalist and extreme talk on the left and right of British politics, we certainly need more people in all parties to stand up for the common good, for common purpose and for those things that unite us as a country rather than those that seek to divide us. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Whether you are from the left or right, whether you are gay or straight, whether you are Muslim or Christian and whether you are enlightened and educated, it is about British values—or, as certain Members suggest, whether it is because you have British values that you are not enlightened or educated. It is those values that unite us, whatever our party, and we all have a responsibility to stand up and be heard on these issues.
I also pay tribute to the former health Minister, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed). He, too, is not in his place, but I have emailed his office. He has answered more questions more quickly and more substantively than any other Minister during the period I have spent in this House apart from one other, who went on to be Prime Minister. That is my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak)—just to be clear, that is Richmond, Yorkshire. Richmond, Surrey—or London—has the 54 Lib Dem councillors, but that is not the case in Richmond, Yorkshire, and hopefully never will be.
I think my speech has already gone out the window, but—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I know, it comes as a great relief. I want to pay tribute to all our armed forces on what is Defence day for the King’s Speech, including all those at RAF Cosford in my constituency—the second largest RAF base in the world—all those at the Royal Irish Regiment in Clive Barracks at Tern Hill and all those in MOD Donnington. All of them contribute to our national security.
As I mentioned earlier, yes, this is about defence procurement, kit and equipment, but without defence people, without personnel—we have the Minister responsible for personnel here today—the national defence falls apart. The Minister was not here earlier, but his colleague, the Minister of State for Defence Procurement, has volunteered a meeting with myself and the Minister about the important issue of the children of our armed forces personnel, in particular those with SEND needs. I have come across quite a few cases where armed forces personnel have redeployed and relocated from, say, the United States back to the UK or from Scotland to England, and yet there has been no SEND support or even SEND information when the children are redeployed with their parents. I hope that the Minister responsible for defence personnel will meet me and look at this issue because we have to look after not only our defence personnel, but their families.
Lillian Jones (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab)
Does the right hon. Member agree that there should be a national SEND programme for armed forces children throughout the United Kingdom to support them in changing schools so often?
Mark Pritchard
The hon. Member is absolutely right. There is a patchwork of quality, if you like, and it is different depending on the local education authority, so there is an argument at least to look at whether there should be—forgive me—uniformity between Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and England when looking at the particular needs of children with SEND within the armed forces.
May I go a little bit more parochial and welcome the investment of Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land into my constituency? As the Minister will know, we are currently building the Challenger 3 tank. I am grateful that the Government listened to my representations and those of many others within the Wrekin, Shropshire and the borough of Telford and Wrekin to ensure that the gun barrel factory, which is a real strategic asset, was put into Shropshire. I want to recognise all those working so well on the Boxer vehicle programme—an absolutely vital asset for this country—and pay tribute to all those defence engineers, men and women, and those apprentices, who are doing such a great job in keeping us all safe.
I will now pivot back to a more strategic comment. Some weeks ago—colleagues may or may not remember this—I completely fluffed my PMQ about the strategic missile threat to this nation, but thankfully I had my notes on the side. Of course, we do have a counter to cruise missiles and to many other types of missiles, but this country has a strategic shortfall when it comes to ballistic missile defence. Of course, the Minister might say, “Well, we have certain capabilities on certain ships,” and I know what they are, but unless the ships are in the right place at the right time, should a ballistic missile come to this country we are, quite frankly—as I have said previously to the Defence Secretary—a sitting duck. That is not acceptable. It is the first duty of any Government to keep this country safe. How can this country be kept safe when we have direct threats from Russia with ballistic missiles, which are a proven technology, as we have sadly seen in Ukraine, and yet we have no real plan, despite the strategic defence review, to implement that need?
Finally, I say thank you to all our armed forces who keep us safe and keep our interests safe all around the world.
Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard). I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (David Taylor) on his speech; I will touch on some of the same themes.
I am only really going to refer to the tackling state threats Bill today. This new legislation honours Labour’s manifesto commitment to follow the Jonathan Hall review and to introduce new powers that allow us to proscribe state threats, specifically the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Many of us from across the House have been advocating for this for a long time—and I, for one, am grateful to the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary and the Security Minister for enduring my questions on the subject, both in this place and in private.
The Bill could not be more timely. We know that the IRGC directs Tehran’s terror networks abroad and brutally crushes dissent at home. It oversaw the sickening repression following January’s protest movement in Iran, which saw 30,000 people murdered. That repression continues to this day, while the conflict goes on, with torture, sham trials and executions all being used to try to beat the Iranian people into submission, and we are only getting a small amount of information out of Iran because of the internet blackouts.
We know that the IRGC is responsible for funding and arming terrorist proxies, including Hamas, Hezbollah and others across the region who seek to hurt our allies and destroy the world’s only Jewish state. The new head of the IRGC is an internationally wanted terrorist, implicated in the 1994 attack against the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people; he was also the Interior Minister in 2022, when Iran cracked down brutally on the Woman, Life, Freedom protest.
Of course, all of what I am saying is about Iran—a foreign country—and today’s debate is about defence readiness in this country, but unfortunately the IRGC seeks to wreak havoc on our shores. In November, the director general of MI5 linked the IRGC to no fewer than 20 potentially lethal threats here in the UK in the last year alone. The threat has only grown. The Chief Rabbi has said THAT British Jews and Iranian dissidents here are facing a
“sustained campaign of violence and intimidation”.
We have all seen this. We saw that the ambulances belonging to Hatzola, a Jewish charity serving the whole community, were targeted. We saw the Finchley Reform and Kenton United synagogues attacked. We saw Jewish charities, the Israeli embassy and the Iranian media all targeted. Most horrifying of all, we saw two Jews stabbed on the streets of London simply because they were Jewish. All this, the police and security experts suspect—there are ongoing investigations—is the work of paid proxies and criminal gangs on behalf of Iranian-backed terror groups, directed by the IRGC.
Since coming to office, this Government have continued to ramp up sanctions against the regime and individuals. Travel bans, asset freezes and disqualifications from directorships are all very welcome and very useful in the fight against this activity, but these sanctions cannot and have not curtailed the IRGC’s nefarious actions in the UK. That is why we need the proscription-like tool now being legislated for by the Government, and why we need it now.
We do not know the full detail of what is being proposed, which is why I am here to say that the Government must ensure that IRGC members cannot be active in any respect in the UK, and that includes attending or speaking at meetings. The new power must make it a criminal offence for anyone in the UK to associate with the IRGC, profess support for it, share any materials from it or attend any meetings with IRGC representatives. It must require all IRGC online material, be it propaganda or otherwise, to be removed from the internet.
I call on the Prime Minister to keep his promise from just a few weeks ago, stating that this legislation will be prioritised and accelerated through this parliamentary Session. We need to see it as soon as possible. I also urge the Government to build further on this legislation, and to take further action to protect our national security and the Jewish community. First, the Iranian embassy has been using social media to incite violence on our shores. Both the ambassador and the supreme leader’s representative in the UK should be expelled. Secondly, the regime is using soft influence networks across the UK to advance its objectives, under the cover of cultural, academic, charitable and media activity. These must be identified and dismantled. Thirdly, the Government’s “Protecting What Matters” strategy, the announcement of which was extremely welcome, needs to be implemented in full and quickly.
The Iranian regime is one of the world’s worst abusers of human rights. It menaces our allies in the region with its support for terrorist proxies. It threatens the safety and security of the British people, including our Jewish community here at home. I commend the Government on the seriousness with which they treat this danger, as underlined by this new legislation. We now have to get on, pass these new laws and proscribe the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. It is time to proscribe the IRGC.
Stuart Anderson (South Shropshire) (Con)
It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards), who clearly understands the topic. He spoke passionately and gave a great speech.
I want to turn the attention of the House to the following countries: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Norway, the US, Denmark, Greece, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands. What do all those countries have in common? Well, last year they all funded their defence with a higher percentage of their GDP than the UK did. To put that in perspective, only two NATO countries spent more on defence than we did in 2021—so there has been a significant change.
I ask myself, “What do those countries know that we do not?” I am fortunate to be a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. I have spoken with representatives—Ministers and other parliamentarians —from every one of those countries, and they realise that the world is changing. We face probably the most volatile geopolitical situation in over 80 years; as I have continually said, I do not believe that the world is going to go back to how it was and how we have seen it within our lifetime.
Those countries understand that the world is rearming. They look at the threats they face from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, which are trying to break down democracy and destabilise the world—and we just heard a great speech from the hon. Member for Leeds South West and Morley about the impact this situation is having on the streets of the UK. So what do those countries see in the UK? Many believe that we are leaving the room—that we are not standing up on the international stage anywhere near as much as we did. I will back that comment up.
One of my proudest moments on the cross-party NATO Parliamentary Assembly was in 2022 in the Latvian Parliament. The Defence Minister there said to the UK and the US, “Hold your head up high. You have led the world in this—you have funded and you have led—and we need to follow.” That was a really proud moment. I have fed this information directly to the Secretary of State, but in the same cross-party forum last month, a NATO Defence Minister—I will not say which country he was from—said, “With all due respect, the UK are not leading; they are not even in the room, and they are not funding as they were.” I could not disagree with him. That was one of my saddest days at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
We need this investment in defence. We need to clearly chart a course so we can ensure that we are funding where we need to be. I am saying this out of respect for Defence Ministers; I believe that there is a credible set of Defence Ministers, but the argument is not currently being won. We have dropped in the rankings. The NATO average for defence spending is about 2.76% and we are averaging about 2.4%, give or take. The argument that we have the largest sustained defence funding since the end of the cold war is a bit of a mockery, because we are comparing a peacetime situation to the most unstable geopolitical situation of our time. They are not comparable.
If we look at the facts, we see that in 2019-2020, spending went up by 0.2%, which is similar to the situation now. I called that out at the time. The Defence Committee was united in the last Parliament six and a half years ago, after I got into Parliament, when we said that we needed spending of 3%. That was the cross-party position then. We need to get to that position now. We need our ships funded, we need more troops, and we need drone warfare—we have seen what is happening in Iran. We must expand our technological approach to defence. The shape of defence is changing, and we need to look at this issue really seriously if we are to be able to stand on the world stage.
Our military strength has always been the bedrock, and our global soft power has given us authority and a platform to stand up for British values, but on the world stage at the moment, that authority is waning and our platform is shaking. As we chart our course, we have to have a serious response today—I am not interested in what has happened over 10, 20 or 40 years. As we have heard from hon. Members on all sides of the House, defence funding was significantly higher many years ago. It has been very hard to put that across to the public, but that conversation is getting easier. When they see the impact on fuel prices of what is happening in the middle east, they ask, “Will I be able to fly away on holiday in the summer?” All those equations are coming to the forefront, and people are asking those questions. When I used to speak at dinners or events, every so often, someone would talk about defence. Now, almost every question is, “Can we defend ourselves, and can we rearm?”
I am pleading with the Ministers to win the argument, because I know that every single one of them wants more funding for defence. I am pleading with them to do whatever it takes so that we can rearm and have the armed forces we need, and can stand on the world stage with our head held high.
Graeme Downie (Dunfermline and Dollar) (Lab)
It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) in what has been a constructive debate with a lot of cross-party consensus. I welcome the Minister’s speech about the measures that were included in the King’s Speech, such as the Armed Forces Bill and the commitment to support drone testing, which is something that—as we have heard from Members across the House—is very much required.
I will make three points in my speech, which are about defence priorities, the threats that we face, and the need for long-term thinking. We heard from the right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke), who is no longer in his place, about the need for the British people to understand the threats that this country faces and what warfare looks like in a modern context. I am one of those who believes we are already in a conflict with Russia and should take action along those lines; indeed, I believe that in the High North, not only are we in that conflict but we are a frontline nation. Just this week, we have seen the threat we face in reports of Russian submarines in the north Atlantic and attacks on energy infrastructure, and indeed the threat to subsea cables. Those are things that I see and hear about all the time as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Estonia. I was privileged to visit Estonia earlier this year to see some of the work it is doing to prepare not only its military, but its society.
This week, there was an article in Foreign Policy by Franz-Stefan Gady that I highly recommend everyone reads. It was regarding the threats and weaknesses that NATO faces, not only on the military front but on political decision making. In that article, Mr Gady describes how he defeated NATO while playing a war game. It was not actually about military strength; it was about the need for quick decision making. He describes the UK forces in Estonia as well as other NATO forces in Lithuania. When the Secretary of State sums up, will he provide some reassurance about Cabrit and the fantastic British forces in Estonia, the speed of their response, and the operational decision making that is in place to make sure we are not delayed by political stasis in the event of Russian aggression through hybrid warfare? Russia’s experience in Ukraine indicates that once Russia controls the battlefield, that makes a counter-attack by NATO or anyone else very hard.
Fred Thomas (Plymouth Moor View) (Lab)
My hon. Friend speaks passionately about Estonia. Britain has troops deployed in Estonia providing a tripwire, as he well knows, having no doubt spent some time with them recently. Will he join me in encouraging the Government to make every effort to arm and equip those troops with the capabilities necessary simply to survive? Does he agree that at the moment, those troops do not provide much deterrent force at all, and will not do so until we give them the technologies that have been standard in modern warfare for multiple years now?
Graeme Downie
I totally agree with my hon. Friend that if we are to have an effective deterrent in the Baltics, it must be operationally ready to fight the threat that he identifies, not just look good on paper.
I will move on to the role of information and how we are informing the British public of the threat. I have made the point before that we must trust the British people with more information about the threat that they face, whether that is in relation to cyber-security or subsea cables and energy infrastructure. Unless the British people fully understand the threat that they face, they will not put the necessary pressure on Government or give us licence to act more quickly, as all of us in the House know we must, to defend ourselves.
I believe that information breeds teamwork and togetherness, and a lack or a void of information creates speculation and misinformation from our enemies—and, indeed, from some in this House. We must ensure that the British people are the ones keeping us on our toes, and that we are defending them in the way that we should. I point to the recent cyber-attacks on Jaguar Land Rover and the retail sector, as have been mentioned. These are all threats that the UK is facing, and we must be much more up front, straightforward and trusting with the British people about that information.
I move on to talk about some of the priorities for the long-term defence of the United Kingdom, which I am afraid requires uttering the initials DIP. I do not want to revisit the arguments that we have already had, but I urge Ministers to ensure that the defence investment plan looks at long-term planning as well. When the document is published, we should not focus only on some of the more immediate things.
In my constituency, we are looking at the work that needs to be done around our submarine fleet, as was also mentioned by the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison). For example, work needs to be done on contingent docking facilities at Rosyth to ensure that a lack of infrastructure does not delay or curtail the operation of Dreadnought-class submarines in the future. I know that Defence Ministers are aware of the threat that poses. When we get to that position, Dreadnought must be able to enter service immediately and fully, taking the pressure off Vanguard.
Alan Gemmell (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)
I put on record my support and recognition of the bold and principled speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) earlier today. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie) for his support of the Government’s defence agenda. Does he share my deep disappointment that British manufacturing scale-up Aeralis has gone into administration? Aeralis was potentially about to create the UK’s replacement to the Red Arrows’ Hawk jet, and with its loss, we may see our beloved Red Arrows no longer being British.
Graeme Downie
I know how closely my hon. Friend worked with Aeralis to ensure that it was considered. Having visited RAF Valley earlier this year, I saw how pressing the need was to replace the Hawk as a trainer aircraft—and it is a need that must be met quickly.
I am aware that I have taken more interventions than other Members, so I apologise Madam Deputy Speaker. I urge Ministers to consider, in the DIP and more generally, the submarine recycling project, which the Minister for Defence Procurement is well aware of. As submarines continue through, we need to ensure that we have the space to manage and recycle them effectively and safely. At Rosyth, the HMS Swiftsure pilot project is coming to an end, which has seen the dismantling of one submarine. That steel has been recycled and used in the Dreadnought programme, which is an incredible way of ensuring that we are reusing materials—holding down costs and securing hundreds of jobs in my constituency.
It is those kinds of projects that we must focus on for defence. We must ensure that we are aware of the threats we face, that we inform the British people about them, and that we plan for the long term so that this country remains safe.
Michelle Scrogham
I thank my hon. Friend for his powerful contribution. The work of the Defence Committee involves a lot of private briefings that some Members in this Chamber and the public do not have the privilege of hearing. When I asked the Chief of the Defence Staff recently why we do not tell the public more, he said, “We don’t want to alarm people.” Does my hon. Friend agree that the public are grown-ups, and that they should probably be a little more alarmed than they already are? That way, they could come with us on this journey and say, “Yes please, spend more on defence.”
Graeme Downie
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. We must bring the British people with us on this journey and trust them with that information. Only by moving together as a country can we defend ourselves against the threats we face.
Graham Leadbitter (Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey) (SNP)
Less than two weeks ago, the SNP secured a landslide, record-breaking Scottish election victory, including the election of two constituency MSPs who have left this place for Scotland’s Parliament. I know that regardless of political difference, there is a significant level of respect across the parties for their contributions in this Chamber and to the wider work of Parliament. That experience will stand them in good stead for what lies ahead in Holyrood.
Much more respect for Scottish voters is required from the UK Government. While the Labour Government here in Westminster have floundered month after month, failing to address the cost of living crisis affecting all my constituents, the SNP has offered a message of hope for what Scotland can and should be, with its vast natural resources, its strategically important geographical position in the world, and the incredible talents of its people. It is particularly notable that in Scotland, support for independence is now consistently polling above 50%, and that Scotland’s voters have elected a significant majority of MSPs who support independence—more than ever before—with a clear mandate from the Scottish electorate to pursue an independence referendum.
The theme for today’s King’s Speech debate is defence readiness. Many Members will focus on defence spend, defence procurement, national security threats and other direct defence issues. I agree with many of the points that have been made by hon. Members in the debate this afternoon; many of them were extremely well made. However, I contend that for around 4,500 personnel across three significant bases in my constituency and probably the same number again in family members; around 1,000 permanent defence contractors and their families; and an estimated 12,000 veterans and their families—a total of over 30,000 people with a defence connection—there are many issues that contribute to defence readiness.
I turn first to the cost of living crisis. Like every other resident in Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey, our defence community are struggling to cover bills and are having to cope with more month than there is money. Defence personnel posted to the north of Scotland from elsewhere in the UK will experience an amazing place to live and work, but they will also experience among the highest energy prices in Europe, caused by a regulatory system that is hugely discriminatory to the north of Scotland. Labour MPs promised that people would see a £300 reduction in energy bills, but people there are projected to see a more than £400-a-year increase. There is little to nothing in the King’s Speech that seeks to reverse that £700-plus difference from Labour’s manifesto promise or that would remove the discrimination faced by households and businesses in the north of Scotland—discrimination that has gone on for decades, with no action to address it by the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and now Labour.
Up until yesterday, there was no plan from the Westminster Government to address growing food costs—something that the SNP is tackling head-on. Seemingly, the Chancellor is now looking to do similar, but, critically, not in a compulsory way. I very much welcome the Government’s late acceptance of the SNP’s wisdom in this matter, but if the Government are going to do it, I strongly urge them to do it properly.
There is no plan to cut fuel costs. There has been a promise not to increase tax further, but there is no plan to reduce it. In constituencies like mine, where car use is necessary for accessing basic services and education, leisure and employment opportunities, that is especially disappointing. People in the north of Scotland deserve better than to be punished by Westminster just for living where they live. Defence personnel, who are often hundreds of miles from their family, also deserve better than having to incur substantial costs when they drive home.
When it comes to energy and net zero, a sector that has always been a strong destination for retiring forces personnel, and which is very much suited to the skillsets of many who come from a military background, the current Government are intent on repeating the mistakes of the past by accelerating the decline of one sector, in this case oil and gas, at a rate that does not match either demand changes or the growth of the renewables sector. That is simply Thatcherism all over again, which saw the tearing apart of coal and steel communities in Scotland. It is also a betrayal of North sea workers and those in the vast supply chain associated with those jobs, from skilled parts manufacturing jobs to the hospitality staff across the north of Scotland—taxi drivers, cafés and corner shops—who are seeing their revenues eroded to an unsustainable level.
The Government’s policies are eroding the opportunities available to defence personnel, too, and the Conservatives are no better. Their answer is simply to push the cliff edge further away, rather than embrace a managed transition, which is what the industry wants to see. Neither of those scenarios is acceptable to Scotland or to my constituents.
That brings me back to the theme of today: defence readiness. It is not attractive for people to join the military when jobs and opportunity are being eroded around key bases. That stifles transition opportunities for personnel leaving the services and erodes the vitality of the communities of which those bases are an integral part. Defence spending needs to be significantly increased, we need a better offer for new military personnel, and we absolutely need much stronger defence resilience in a more challenging world—where dictators such as Putin are prepared to threaten peace on a shocking scale and threaten the infrastructure that is critical to our economic and social wellbeing.
At the heart of this issue are the defence communities that are embedded in their wider communities. Those defence communities have the same aspirations, and want the same opportunities for themselves, as their surrounding communities and regions. Getting these fundamentals right supports that bigger community, aids recruitment and retention in our armed forces, and provides the opportunities that our veterans deserve when they exit service.
Gill German (Clwyd North) (Lab)
Things feel insecure right now, whether that is because of the war in Iran, the cost of living pressures on families or the sense that systems are not working quite right. In Clwyd North, I hear that all the time. When families are struggling and young people do not feel that they have a fair chance, it erodes their trust in the belief that things can start getting better, and it creates a feeling of insecurity.
Building up that trust starts with clearly defining what we have put in place in our first two years of Government, and how our future actions will improve people’s lives. I know from speaking to people in Rhyl, in Colwyn Bay, in Abergele, in Denbigh and in communities across Clwyd North that my constituency is full of decent people trying to do the right thing day by day. I want to make sure that those people know that they are heard and that things can and will get better.
We must be honest about the challenges, but focus on what matters to people: building something that works better. In Wales, that means a relentless focus on building a stronger and fairer future, helping families with the cost of living, strengthening our communities through better connections and opportunities, and improving our energy and, crucially, national security. It is about making sure that progress is felt in everyday life, especially in communities that have been historically left behind. It is about recognising how rich and varied Wales is with our cities, countryside and coast, and recognising that that requires a tailored approach to reflect different needs.
This Government have already delivered significant achievements, passing 50 Acts in our first parliamentary Session. Behind every piece of legislation are real people and real lives. Among that legislation is the Employment Rights Act 2025, which strengthens protections, improves pay and tackles exploitative practices for people across Clwyd North. The removal of the two-child limit is set to benefit around 69,000 children in Wales, including 3,100 in Clwyd North. That is not an abstract number; that is families feeling more stability. When it comes to safety, the Crime and Policing Act 2026 responds to local concerns about antisocial behaviour, introducing tougher action to improve our town centres.
These changes matter because of the difference they make to everyday life, with fairer work, stronger families and safer communities here at home. The need to feel secure is important to us all. In this King’s Speech, we are taking crucial steps to strengthen security, because people deserve to feel safe. The Armed Forces Bill delivers a long overdue boost to defence spending, strengthens reserve forces, improves the service justice system and puts the armed forces covenant into law, which my local veterans have said is much needed.
Security also means stronger communities and shared purpose. Cutting bureaucracy, increasing police presence and introducing a national digital ID system will help people feel safer and better supported. That feeling of security also means tackling the root causes of the high cost of living, not just the symptoms. The energy independence Bill will reduce reliance on volatile global markets and deliver more secure, home-grown energy to stabilise and lower bills for households in Clwyd North. Changes to commonhold and leasehold will tackle the unfair ground rents and rising service charges about which I have heard too often in my constituency. For local businesses, the commercial payments Bill will crack down on the scourge of late payments, which is currently leading to the closure of a shocking 38 businesses a day. Taken together, those changes will ease pressure on families, support local economies, and build long-term resilience against rising costs.
Security means better connections too. The railways Bill will unify track and train under one body, and give the Welsh Government a stronger role. Backed by a £14 billion plan, it will improve connections, support 12,000 jobs, and make journeys across north Wales more reliable.
Given that such an ambitious plan has been set, we need all hands on deck to put it into action. I promise to play my part and to make a tangible difference to lives across Clwyd North, delivering real improvements and lasting change for the communities that I am proud to serve.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
You will almost be bored with hearing me say, Madam Deputy Speaker—as will the Secretary of State—that I represent Gosport, which has one of the highest proportions of veterans in the UK, but we also have fantastic servicemen and women at sites such as HMS Collingwood, HMS Sultan, the Institute of Naval Medicine and, across the harbour, Portsmouth naval base, as well as thousands more who work in the defence industry.
Although we have such a proud history of serving the nation, many of my constituents already feel deeply disillusioned and let down by this Government. Why? Quite simply, because of their failure to deliver. Inaction could be their strapline. There is a total disparity between what is said and what is done, and defence is a perfect example of that. The Government talk of defence spending, but the Secretary of State knows that, as we speak, every single corner of our armed forces is being asked to find cuts—and where is the defence investment plan, the clear signal that defence companies in my constituency need in order to make spending decisions to protect jobs and livelihoods? It is nowhere to be seen.
This theme of over-promising and under-delivering extends to a range of other sectors. Because I chair the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, I want to say a little about that sector, which contributes 16 times more to the UK economy than defence manufacturing. Formula 1, for example, is a global British brand that is worth £12 billion to the UK economy. However, our world-class major events sector is being held back by gaps in legislation—and what do the Government do? They come forward with the Sporting Events Bill announced in the King’s Speech, which was a brilliant idea, but the Bill has very limited scope. It does nothing to address the wider needs of the major events industry, which is so valuable to the British economy. In particular, cultural and business events are vital to our economy, our communities and our international standing. All words, no action.
Then there is the lack of ambition in relation to ticket touts. The ticket tout ban Bill was announced in November. The Government promised a “ready to go” Bill that would put fans first, but they have relegated that promise to a mere draft Bill, kicking the can into the next parliamentary Session at the very earliest. The longer it takes for the Government to act, the longer touts will be able to rinse fans in my constituency and throughout the country to the tune of approximately £145 million, most of which goes to overseas operators. All words, no action.
Then there is touring in the EU. In the ongoing psychodrama gripping the Labour party, I note that the subject of Brexit is back on the agenda and is a hot topic, but there is so much that the Government could do for our creative industries without reopening that can of worms and starting to renegotiate Brexit. They could revisit their decision to cut orchestral tax relief for EU touring. They could ensure that A1 forms are processed without delay, so that artists do not have to make double social security contributions. They could help with the cost of ATA carnets, which the Association of British Orchestras says adds about £10,000 to an orchestra’s budget. All words, no action.
Let us look at school and community sport. The King’s Speech contained absolutely no new measures to improve physical activity. There has been no resolution of the stand-off between the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Education and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport over cuts to physical education funding. If we are serious about getting our country more active, we need action, not words. That needs to begin with legislative changes to increase participation, to increase investment in the facilities on which communities rely, and to require schools to prioritise physical education alongside academic attainment. The case is clear: a more active nation is healthier, more productive and, ultimately, more prosperous. Once again: all words, no action.
There is nothing in the King’s Speech for young people. The Culture Secretary has made her national youth strategy her stated legacy in the Department, but as far as I can see, all the Government have done is rip up the National Citizen Service. They have overseen the exodus of youth workers from the third sector and replaced them with nothing but a slogan. The Culture Secretary says that young people want
“somewhere to go, something to do and someone who cares”,
but it is all words. There is no action.
Do this Government care at all? They must begin to back up words with deeds. The King’s Speech does not even begin to provide the ambition necessary to maximise the potential of our culture, media and sport, or to back our veterans and those who work so hard in constituencies like mine in the service of our nation. Meanwhile, the British economy, people’s livelihoods and jobs are suffering.
Anna Gelderd (South East Cornwall) (Lab)
Meur ras, Madam Deputy Speaker. This King’s Speech makes it clear that defence readiness is changing. It will always be about the strength and professionalism of our armed forces personnel and their families, but it is also about energy security and digital capability—new challenges in a new era.
The threats that we face are rapidly evolving. Hostile cyber-activity, damage to critical infrastructure, global instability and climate pressures increasingly affect our national security, our economy and our resilience as a country. Defence readiness today is digital as well as physical, and I welcome the measures brought forward in the Armed Forces Bill and the work of the Ministry of Defence team. Labour Ministers, many of whom have first-hand experience, are actively listening and working to implement the changes that our military communities have been calling for: improved housing, better protections for women and girls, and fully enshrining the armed forces covenant in law. This is a Government of service and delivery, and in South East Cornwall we understand that deeply.
The strategic defence review rightly talks about a whole-of-society approach to national resilience and warfighting readiness. That means recognising that defence capability depends not only on military sites, but on the civilian infrastructure, workers and communities that sustain them each and every day. My constituency has a proud and long-standing connection to our nation’s defence, with over 6,000 households home to at least one veteran. That amounts to nearly 15% of households in my constituency—over double the UK average. We are home to HMS Raleigh in Torpoint, one of the Royal Navy’s key training establishments, through which thousands of recruits pass each and every year. Across South East Cornwall, many local families are directly connected to defence through their military service, veteran communities, dockyard supply chains and skilled employment. My community is also closely linked to the nationally significant work that is carried out at HM Naval Base Devonport and by Babcock International. In fact, 23% of Devonport workers live in South East Cornwall.
The long-term investment going into Devonport is hugely welcome and is important for Britain’s future, particularly as we strengthen submarine support and deliver major national defence programmes, but that capability does not stop at the dockyard gates—an important point that I want to stress today. The workforce sustaining nationally significant activity at Devonport do not come from just one side of the Tamar river, and we in South East Cornwall are firmly part of the wider defence ecosystem that supports Devonport every single day. Thousands of workers regularly use the Tamar crossings for employment that is linked directly or indirectly to defence, including engineers, apprentices, contractors, dockyard workers and military personnel. We are a proud part of the wider Plymouth travel-to-work area and our connectivity across the Tamar is essential to sustaining that defence workforce and unlocking regional growth.
I have consistently raised the importance of those crossings in the House, yet they are still sometimes treated as purely local infrastructure. As investment in Devonport and long-term defence capability continues to grow, the pressure on those links will only grow. As the Government rightly invest billions of pounds in strengthening Britain’s defence capability and long-term readiness, and as South East Cornwall helps sustain nationally important defence activity, our local community must feel the benefits of that investment.
We recognise the reality that energy security is national security. Recent years have shown the risks of overexposure to volatile international energy markets. Secure home-grown clean energy strengthens resilience, supports economic stability and reduces vulnerability to external shocks. Climate resilience rightly forms part of this Government’s understanding of what defence readiness means to communities like mine. Extreme weather and environmental instability increasingly affect infrastructure, supply chains and operational capability across the world. Preparing for those risks is part of preparing Britain for our future.
Finally, defence readiness in the modern world must include cyber-resilience and digital capabilities. Protecting critical infrastructure, communication systems and national networks is fundamental to protecting our country, because the future of defence will depend not only on ships, submarines and military assets, but on secure systems, skilled workers, resilient infrastructure and strong communities like that of South East Cornwall.
When we talk about strengthening Britain’s defence capability, we recognise the places and the people helping to sustain it every day, because defence readiness begins long before a ship leaves port; it begins with resilient infrastructure, secure energy, strong digital capabilities and communities like mine. So I welcome this new era of defence readiness, and South East Cornwall is proud to play its part in supporting that national effort.
Adrian Ramsay (Waveney Valley) (Green)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd).
The first duty of any Government is to keep the public safe. This duty must shape everything we do in this House, and it must shape how we think about defence. There is no doubt that Britain today faces profound defence challenges, as we have heard in this debate, from international instability to cyber-threats and increasing pressure on our energy and supply chains. But if we are serious about defence, we must also recognise that the types of threats that we face are changing. In debating security, we must also look at whether our most vulnerable people are protected from extreme heat, whether our communities can cope with flooding, and whether we can secure food, water and energy in an increasingly unstable world.
Today, the Climate Change Committee published its report on climate adaptation, and its warnings could not be clearer. We are on a path to 2°C of warming by 2050. That means that in just a couple of decades or so, nine in 10 of our homes will be at risk of overheating. Peak river flows may rise by 45%, water supply shortfalls may exceed 5 billion litres per day, and 40° heatwaves will become the new normal across the UK, potentially leading to an additional 10,000 heat-related deaths per year. The CCC is also clear that without action, warming of up to 4° by the end of this century remains a possibility, which would be catastrophic, with temperatures in the UK nearing 50°, infrastructure pushed beyond what it was ever designed to withstand, and profound consequences for public health, economic stability and social cohesion.
Those are not distant projections, Madam Deputy Speaker. My constituents and yours are already having to live with the consequences of climate breakdown. We see it in the thousands of deaths caused by the increasingly regular heatwaves, in the communities repeatedly devastated by flooding, and in rising food prices, rising insurance costs and growing pressures on the services and systems that people rely on every day.
None of this should come as a surprise. Earlier this year, the Government’s own Joint Intelligence Committee warned that biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse pose serious risks to national security, threatening food and water supplies, disruption to infrastructure and supply chains, increased flooding, risks to public health and wider economic instability. It also warned of the cascading effects of displacement, conflict and competition for resources. Yet despite the scale and seriousness of warnings by the Government’s own advisers, and despite repeated calls for parliamentary time, this House has still not been allowed a dedicated opportunity to debate its findings or scrutinise the Government’s response.
Our children will have to live with the consequences of inaction. It would be a dereliction of duty to let political dramas around by-elections and leadership contests distract us from this most fundamental responsibility. The evidence is clear, and we are not without options. Today’s report sets out practical, costed solutions: better cooling for hospitals, schools and care homes, so our most vulnerable are protected during extreme heat; stronger flood defences and investment in natural flood management for our communities; a serious approach to water security, so shortages do not become routine; support for British farmers, so British food production remains viable under changing conditions; retrofitting homes so they are fit for a warmer climate; and infrastructure built to withstand climate impacts rather than fail under them. The economics are equally clear. The cost of action is about £11 billion a year, but the cost of inaction could rise to between £60 billion and £260 billion annually.
This must be a turning point. We can no longer treat climate adaptation as a secondary environmental issue; it is a matter of national defence, a matter of economic security and, above all, a matter of protecting people. However, it needs to be far higher up the agenda for the Government and for Parliament. That is why I am calling for a dedicated climate protection unit in No. 10, with the sole purpose of working across Departments to fund and drive forward the recommendations in this report. I am also supporting amendment (g) to the King’s Speech on the threats that nature collapse poses to national security. Defence is not about responding after disaster strikes; defence is about reducing risks before crisis becomes catastrophe. If the first duty of Government is to keep people safe, climate adaptation cannot sit at the margins of the King’s Speech, but must be placed firmly at its heart.
Tim Roca (Macclesfield) (Lab)
I have spoken in this Chamber at some length about defence and the urgency of rearmament, and I was proud to join the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) and Field Marshal Lord Richards in creating the all-party parliamentary group on rearmament.
Before I turn to what the Government are doing about defence readiness, I think it is worth pausing, as we always should, on how we got here, because context always matters. A century ago, the Member for Epping—one who understood well what it meant to watch a nation sleep while danger gathered—described the period of neglect and lost opportunity in defence as
“the years that the locust hath eaten”.
I think we can apply the same epitaph to the years of stewardship of defence of the previous Government and the coalition Government. The locusts were busy: armed forces’ pay was cut in real terms in nine out of 14 years; forces housing was in such a state of disrepair that complaints reached a record 13,000 in a single year; troop numbers fell to the lowest level since the Napoleonic era; frigates and destroyers were cut by a quarter, minehunters reduced by half and ground-based air defence spending was slashed by 70% in their final years in office; and the defence industrial strategy sat on a shelf gathering dust, with a commitment on paper, but nothing in practice. They certainly were the years that the locusts had eaten.
That is the inheritance Defence Ministers have to contend with. I have spoken before about the urgency of rearmament, and I will not repeat myself, but I will say that I am incredibly proud of the Government’s Front-Bench Defence team. I believe they have brought coherence, great industry and a genuine patriotic determination to sort out the mess they inherited, and they deserve to be recognised for that.
I am glad that the Government are investing over £270 billion across defence during this Parliament—not as an accountancy exercise, but as a genuine strategic commitment to rebuilding our national security from the ground up. As we meet our commitments made at The Hague NATO conference to reach 3.5% in the future, I understand that there will be difficult discussions to be had, just as there were difficult discussions about foreign aid. However, there is no magic bullet when we are talking about increasing defence expenditure, and pretending that one thing will solve the issue is simply not realistic. In the two previous periods during which this country had to rearm significantly—the 1930s and the 1950s—it was a combination of increased taxation, increased borrowing and difficult choices about public expenditure that did it. I am not convinced by wishy-washy words about how just cutting welfare will sort it all out.
Crucially, something else this Government understand and the previous Government never grasped is that defence spending is not just a cost. It is an investment and an engine for growth. We spend £32 billion annually with industry, equivalent to £460 for every person living in this country. UK defence supports 463,000 high-quality, well-paying jobs—one in every 60 jobs across the UK.
Gideon Amos
In the south-west where I come from, 96,000 jobs relate to defence, so it is a huge sector. In my town, SMEs are key to those jobs. Despite welcome changes, with the Defence Office for Small Business Growth from the MOD, portals are still unnavigable for many small businesses. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the MOD should do more to make contracts available for our small businesses and SMEs?
Tim Roca
I was in Bristol recently at the National Armaments Director Group, the renamed defence Government support group, and I was glad to hear that it is doing more on SMEs. Maybe the Government Front Bench will comment more on that later, but it is right to recognise that SMEs are crucial and that, in the hon. Gentleman’s area of the country, they are really important. These are livelihoods, communities and the kind of good skilled unionised jobs that those of us on the Labour Benches have always stood for.
I want to acknowledge the other work the Government have done: last year, £1.5 billion was committed to building the factories of the future, including the first energetics factories in two decades, creating over 1,000 jobs in our industrial heartlands; the £8 billion deal with Turkey sustaining a 20,000-strong workforce across Scotland, Lancashire and Bristol; and the Type 26 frigates selected by Norway which were mentioned earlier in the debate. I was disappointed to see Sweden choose France over the UK in its frigate decision today, but we will just leave that to the traditional UK-France enmity. There is a genuine defence dividend that is measured not in press releases, but in real jobs in real communities the length and breadth of this country.
Turning briefly to something I hope will receive the attention it deserves, the SDR rightly made several important recommendations on strengthening home defence and resilience in the context of a whole-of-society approach to national security—several hon. Friends have talked about that today. The threats we face are not confined to the battlefield. They reach into our infrastructure, our supply chains and our communities. Resilience must be built across the whole of society, not just within the wire fences of our military establishments. With that in mind, I was reassured to hear the Minister, at the beginning of the debate, say that Ministers are working hard and that we will in due course see a defence readiness Bill. The legal and institutional framework for defence readiness matters and I think we all want to see that Bill come forward.
I am by temperament an impatient person when it comes to defence—as you will be impatient for me to finish the speech, Madam Deputy Speaker—but the threats are not waiting for us. I am a fair person and it is only fair to say that in my view the Government are doing serious and sustained work for the renewal and rebuilding of our armed forces, restoring our industrial base and making Britain once again a country capable of defending itself. I certainly hope that the years the locusts have eaten are behind us.
Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)
We have had a very interesting debate, with interesting speeches from many Members. I, too, am fully behind the rapid increase in funds for defence and I wish to add my thanks to our serving personnel.
Defence readiness requires a whole-society response and sovereign capability. Across a wide range of issues in our technologies, defence, infrastructure, housing and regulation, the same pattern keeps appearing. Services and systems that are set up to serve the public gradually drift away from having purpose to simply extracting rents and our time, all wrapped up in a bureaucratic mess. The overriding demand for quarterly profits and denial of early intervention, instead rationing resources at the point of maximum need, has driven perverse outcomes in strategic change. We are renting our entire economy to ourselves. We are wasting it on our own bureaucracies, while too often the gains are captured elsewhere.
We need to move back to something much more fundamental: an economy and a set of systems that we build, understand and control. That means having real capability on sovereign technology, UK business and intellectual property, and a resilient defence and security. But this is not abstract. It is directly connected to whether this country is affordable, liveable and works for the people in it.
Ultimately, this is about the social contract. My constituents need to know that the systems that they rely on—public services, housing, business, using buses and trains—have purpose to the people and are not just bottom lines to fill. They need to know that they are designed in their interest and will continue to work for them over time.
I want to use one example: the Palantir contract with the NHS. That example demonstrates, in one place, how we have got it all wrong. We have a major national system that handles highly sensitive personal data where the procurement model is subscription-based, not delivery-based, and where the intellectual property is wrapped up in “know-how”, as much of what is built does not sit clearly with the public. If we become dependent on a single supplier over time, that is not just a procurement question but a question of control, resilience and long-term cost. From a systems perspective, it creates lock-in. From an economic perspective, it allows value to flow out, rather than being built here. From a national perspective, it raises the question: what happens if that capability is withdrawn, restricted or simply becomes too expensive to change?
We have British firms, British engineers, and a strong, open-source capability that could deliver these systems, so the issue is not capability but choice. We cannot make the same mistake with the new single patient record in the forthcoming health Bill, announced in the King’s Speech. That should be transformational, allowing access to patients’ details wherever they originate, and it must be a sovereign capability.
The same principle applies to business more broadly. Markets should reward value creation, but too often now the incentives cause value to be extracted instead, whether through monopoly positions, weak regulation or misaligned incentives. This is where the Government have a role—not to replace markets but to make them work properly again.
In sector after sector we see systems that continue to function but no longer serve the people they were designed for. That applies equally to defence and security. Resilience is about not just spending levels but design. It is about ensuring that we do not build national capability on systems that can fail at a single point—whether that is a supply chain, a digital platform or a dependency on external actors. Sovereign capability is not an abstract concept. It is the practical ability to continue operating when conditions are difficult. It is the ability to serve our country and our constituents through thick and thin, whatever the weather.
What links all of this is simple. When incentives drift, when control is lost, when systems become extractive, the social contract begins to fail. We have talent in this country, and we have capability. The question is whether we choose to use it. In the end, I want to see systems that work and a social contract that people can trust. The King’s Speech does not sufficiently address sovereign capability, and it lacks ambition. The Government need to go further and faster for us to truly be defence ready.
Richard Baker (Glenrothes and Mid Fife) (Lab)
Earlier this month I joined the workers, apprentices and management at the Methil yard in my constituency, where they christened the Seahorse barge. At 85 metres long, 25 metres wide, weighing approximately 1,400 tonnes, Seahorse is an impressive achievement and will play a critical role in enabling the construction of the Royal Navy’s three fleet solid support ships.
The sun was shining on Methil that day, the Forth was sparkling, and it was fantastic to join the workers, who are rightly proud of delivering this project on time and on budget. It was particularly good to hear from the apprentices at the yard about the skills and experience they had gained from being involved and about their hopes for the future. It was a day of pride and joy for the workers—and what a contrast it was to my first visit at only a few days after I was elected to this place. Then, Harland & Wolff had fallen into administration, and the future of the yard and its skilled workforce was under very real threat, but it was Labour Ministers who stepped in and worked with Navantia UK to save Methil and three other yards across the United Kingdom.
Methil has reaped the rewards. Where there was once a bleak future, now there is investment and opportunity in a community where too many people and too many families are still struggling. Since acquiring Methil, Navantia has grown the workforce from 180 to 260, and it is now on a recruitment drive to fill a further 110 roles. That includes recruiting 50 more apprentices to join the existing 54 apprentices at the yard—brilliant opportunities for young people from the local area for the future.
Navantia UK has invested £27 million in upgrading the yard and its facilities. That investment has turned around the fortunes of the yard, which has won a further two contracts for marine infrastructure that the workforce will deliver in the coming months. The transformation means that the yard is ready to play a key role in the delivery of future defence contracts. Methil is a living example of what can be achieved through defence investment as an engine for growth. Of course, growth and growing our economy is at the heart of the King’s Speech.
Yesterday, I was delighted to hear my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary set out the measure of that ambition in his speech to the Good Growth Foundation. He made it clear that our increased defence spending will bring investment into the British defence sector. Scotland shows the difference that that can make with a £10 billion deal with Norway for frigates to be built on the Clyde, supporting 2,000 jobs until the end of the next decade and a further 2,000 jobs in the supply chain. How often we have talked about nostalgia for the great days of the Clyde and fearing for its future? The Government are delivering contracts that make the future bright. For Fife, with the yard at Methil and the yard at Rosyth, of which my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie) is a doughty champion, as Ministers know, the defence investment plan will be vital for the future of our local area and our defence businesses.
I am as impatient as anybody for the plan’s publication, but I understand how important it is to get it right and ensure that it is ready with the right strategy when it is published. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is aware of my view that a key part of getting that plan right is securing work for Methil and for Belfast through Programme Euston, to deliver new dry docks for Faslane. My experience of working with the workforce, the management and the unions at Methil is that the case for investment in British yards, in British businesses and in our workers is not only about the benefits it brings to our economies and our communities; it is because the skills, the capabilities and the experience in our defence industry is second to none across the world. That is why taking forward this strategy is right for our economy, for our armed forces and, at a time when we face so much global uncertainty, for our national security. I hope that it is one that the Government will continue to pursue.
Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)
We have heard plenty this afternoon about the lack of a defence readiness Bill in the King’s Speech and lots about the yawning delay of the defence investment plan, which has been rehearsed over and over again. I want to remind Ministers of why that is important. It is important because SMEs right across this country are waiting for the detail to be set out so that they can plan for the future, to provide the skills and jobs that the country needs. We have already heard from the Minister that contracts have been awarded since the Government came into power, but that is not good enough, because they are not providing reassurance and security, particularly to SMEs. That is incredibly serious, whether to constituents of mine working in Portsmouth or to businesses in my constituency who tell me that they are waiting with bated breath for the DIP. However, I want to focus on two things: the regulating for growth Bill and the challenge that manufacturing is facing around the steel industry.
The King’s Speech included a regulating for growth Bill. We might argue that that is a misnomer as regulations usually have the opposite effect and stifle growth, but I appreciate what is trying to be done here—it is something that I have long been calling for. Plymouth has been named the centre for marine autonomy by the Government. That is a welcome designation, but that means nothing if we cannot change regulations to enable these businesses to do what they have set out to do and deliver for our defence industry. I have raised this issue here time and again. I have met key stakeholders, local businesses, industry experts and the Marine Management Organisation. I have also spoken with relevant Ministers and I know that they have been aware of the issue for a considerable amount of time. I have to say, though, that I am disappointed with the speed at which things have moved. At the end of the day, marine autonomy waits for no man—it is progressing quickly down the river, so to speak—and we are not doing the industry any favours with the amount of time this is taking.
The matter requires primary legislation, which is why the Bill is welcome. However, the Government were able to push through the removal of the two-child benefit cap, which was never on their programme, so that highlights their priorities. That is why I tabled an Autonomous Maritime Vessels (Regulation) Bill in March this year, because I was keen to force the conversation. That seems to have had the desired effect, so I will take some credit for the regulating for growth Bill.
I am pleased to see that, within the Government’s write-up of the Bill as it stands already, there are illustrations from overseas. I was recently at Oceanology International at the Excel centre, where I met Canadians from Nova Scotia who already have the regulations that we need here, which, in about six weeks, enable equivalent marine autonomy businesses to get the right permissions to test and develop and put the development of the new vessels into practice. Similarly, I recently met an American company whose ambition to manufacture unmanned ships would not yet be deliverable in this country purely because of our out-of-date regulations.
Local businesses such as MSubs, ZeroUSV and ACUA Ocean—I know the Secretary of State is familiar with many of them—are all cutting-edge and desperately in need of the legislation to fully deliver on their ambitious potential, a part of which is the developing of test sites. I believe the coast off Plymouth is the perfect place to pilot that, and we do not need to wait until it is ready for everyone at the same time. Turnchapel Wharf and those behind Team Plymouth are keen to get going, and I would be delighted for us to be that pilot, if that were helpful.
I call on the Government to make the Bill a priority, and let us see Second Reading soon after the Whitsun recess so we can get moving. Please, let us also keep the Bill agile and flexible in its drafting to avoid a repeat situation where regulations cannot keep up with technology. Let us make sure this legislation is as good as it needs to be.
Tomorrow sees the debate on the Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill. Before that even begins, however, we have another steel-related issue that has the potential to significantly damage UK manufacturing and, by association, our defence readiness. The new UK steel regime kicks in on 1 July. Plymouth is home to Plymouth Manufacturers’ Group, which is a cluster of manufacturing businesses ranging from Alderman Tooling, Lang and Potter, Olympus Algram and Plessey to Rittal CSM and Kawasaki Precision Machinery. All those businesses have been part of a system of manufacturing in Plymouth that was set up after the war when the dockyard was seeing a decline, so naturally, we have this hub there. Yet ultimately, the new regime that will come in on 1 July means those businesses are already seeing costs going into the hundreds of thousands—in one case, there are additional costs of at least £2 million a year—simply because of the steel quotas.
I think you will agree, Madam Deputy Speaker, that while I understand what the Government are trying to do to promote British industry, if we impact British manufacturing inadvertently—I am sure it is not deliberate—where the supply chain cannot always buy purely British steel, we ultimately hinder the Government’s aims to see growth, jobs, skills and manufacturing, particularly around the industrial strategy.
I therefore urge the Ministers here to listen to manufacturers. Letters have gone to the Secretary of State about the issue, but it is vital that we do not tie another hand behind the backs of these manufacturing industry professionals, who want to help and make a difference and who are passionate about what they do. If we start giving them additional costs on top of the challenges they have had around employment, we will see the end of manufacturing in this country, and I am sure no one in this Chamber wants that.
Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)
Today’s debate theme is defence readiness, and I am pleased that we heard in His Majesty’s Speech the Government’s clear commitment to a sustained increase in defence spending. I also welcome the announcement of several Bills aimed at boosting national security, notably the tackling state threats Bill, intended to create a tougher operating environment for foreign intelligence services and their proxies. I also welcome the national security Bill to target those inciting terrorism—whether Islamist, linked to another religion, extreme right-wing or in any other form—and extreme violence online. We know that many of those threats are arriving from overseas, and their prevention is a key part of our defence. The establishment of a defence housing service, as laid out in the armed forces Bill, will be of huge benefit to the many military families in my constituency. We have to look after the people who devote their lives to serving our country.
On housing more broadly, I am pleased to see the commonhold and leasehold reform Bill. Leasehold tenancies are a huge problem for so many in my area, and I look forward to a fairer system that limits ground rent as well as protecting my constituents from being exploited by poor managing agents. We need greater transparency over service charges and more powers for residents to challenge them. I have also had constituents approach me who have been victims of domestic abuse and have been unable to remove their abuser from their joint social tenancy due to a gap in legislation. I am therefore delighted that the Government have listened to representations on this and set out plans for the social housing Bill to address that issue. That will be a real change for my constituents who have had to live in fear and uncertainty, and it ties into the Government’s ambitions to tackle violence against women and girls.
On that note, I raised a serious issue during the debate on the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill last year around taxis and private hire vehicles. The ability of many private hire vehicles to be licensed in any authority in the country yet operate far away from the authority that licenses them is creating an environment that allows shopping around for lower standards. This is affecting passenger safety and driver security, as well as penalising those drivers who do the right thing and register where they actually work. We have started to tackle this issue through the national minimum standards being brought in through that legislation, and I am pleased to see in this King’s Speech measures to go further. The taxi and private hire vehicle Bill announced in the King’s Speech will specifically deliver on the recommendations of the Casey report on child sexual exploitation and abuse, such as clear licensing requirements and stronger, more consistent enforcement powers. That will be a real positive for both passengers and drivers.
I am going to focus the remainder of my speech on the regulating for growth Bill, which I hope will have significant potential to support British business and innovation and make us much more competitive on the international stage, including in defence. I am pleased that the Government have explicitly referenced this Bill being used to enable better testing of next-generation defence technology. Having a background in life sciences, I am keenly aware of the ever-faster progress our researchers are making in developing new drugs, therapies and medical technologies to fight disease.
British science is often world-leading, and for good reason, but translating conceptual research into clinical trials and eventually into products and services is too difficult. That problem will increase as we move further into the world of personalised medicine, where we are using genetic data to create hyper-specific therapies that will specifically target individual patients’ cancers. This Government laid world-first regulations last July to make access to these therapies easier once approved, allowing them to be manufactured closer to patients so that they can be delivered far faster and save more lives.
The appetite is there, but the regulatory environment needs an overhaul. That is not an attack on our regulators either. In my capacity as chair of the all-party parliamentary group known as the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee—the oldest APPG, set up in 1939—I regularly engage with research scientists and professional bodies, and we had a very well-attended discussion meeting as recently as Monday this week. They often express a lot of support for our life sciences regulators, most of whom get it, fully back our growth agenda and very much want to be facilitators rather than blockers, but there is too much fragmentation for that to work effectively.
To name just a few regulators, we have the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency looking at safety and efficacy; the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence examining cost-effectiveness; the Health and Safety Executive examining hazardous substances and genetically modified organisms; the Human Tissue Authority regulating human tissue use; the Health Research Authority making assessments around ethics; the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which needs to sign off on some stem cell research projects; and the projects that require animal studies need to go to the Animals in Science Regulation Unit in the Home Office.
That is not an exhaustive list, and I have not even touched on the plethora of NHS bodies that have to give approval for data sharing and usage, should research studies need that, as many do. These bodies all look at different and important features, but this is a crazy number of regulators. It is not that we need to deregulate; rather, we need to bring together regulators to streamline decisions without compromising on standards, and I hope that the Government will use this Bill to do that.
The individual regulators usually have reasonable decision-making timelines, though some are prone to delays, but in totality, having to get so many decisions slows down research and innovation enormously, particularly when researchers have to apply for clearance from them sequentially in most cases, although this Government have taken the first steps to reduce that through a new combined pathway between NICE and the MHRA. Regulators often ask for very similar information in slightly different formats and timetables. That wastes time and money across industry and academia for knowledgeable people who want to be cracking on and actually doing their research.
Why can we not have a single front door for approvals? There could be a unified approvals application process that collects all the relevant information in one go, so that researchers could submit one application and then have the regulators work out which of them needed to make the decisions, ideally doing so in tandem rather than each waiting for the previous one. We could also look to merge some of the regulators, and I would not object to that either, provided we can keep their expertise. I will be closely following how the legislation progresses.
Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
It is a privilege to speak in this debate on defence readiness. Like others, I am disappointed by this Government’s delay in bringing forward the long-promised defence readiness Bill, both because of what that means for the security of our nation and the implications for the hundreds of my constituents who work in the defence sector. I want to talk, however, about readiness more widely.
The Government are right that energy security is national security. A country that cannot power itself cannot defend itself. I represent a constituency that has the potential to deliver a great deal of clean power to support that security. However, this Government are not delivering on that promise. Ministers often speak of a golden age of nuclear and name Sizewell C, Hinkley Point C and Wylfa. I remind Ministers, as I have done in previous debates, that any honest list of that golden age must include Oldbury. Oldbury sits in my constituency, and has a community that knows nuclear and a site ready for the next generation.
But nuclear on the horizon does not help constituents struggling with their bills today. Energy prices are crippling households and the businesses that employ people. In the past two years, we have seen the loss of hundreds of manufacturing jobs in my constituency with the closure of the Beko factory and Billington steelworks. The remaining businesses tell me that our energy prices are deterring them from expanding. Decisions taken in the last Session have made running a business harder, not easier, and there is little sign in the proposed Bills of the Government changing that. We cannot build resilience in defence or anything else if the industrial base that sustains it is hollowed out. Without local supply chains, we will be vulnerable to interference in our energy grid and other forms of parallel warfare.
More needs to be done to ensure that we have a skilled workforce to support that industry. Thornbury and Yate has no dedicated technical further education provision. Young people who want to train as electricians, welders, nuclear technicians and wind turbine engineers at a further education college must travel out of the area, often by buses that do not run when they need them. The south-west aerospace and defence cluster on our doorstep, employing tens of thousands in skilled, well-paid jobs, stands ready to absorb the local talent we are not yet training. A constituency that sits between a nuclear site, a tidal estuary and one of the country’s largest aerospace and defence clusters should be exactly the right place for fresh technical skills provision. Put the clean energy jobs of the future in young people’s hands and let them tackle a challenge from their own community.
Industry needs infrastructure to support it, too, whether that is investing in a permanent solution for the old Severn bridge, which HGVs are not currently allowed to cross—which is having a massive impact on hauliers—or investing in the redevelopment of Yate station in what is a closing window of opportunity, as the adjacent land has become available. I have raised this point with the Prime Minister and I raise it again today, and I would welcome a meeting with the Rail Minister.
We also need resilience in our public services, like education and health. I have spoken a lot in this House about SEND issues, so now I will talk about health. My constituents are not waiting for structural reform to the NHS; they are waiting for a GP appointment, for an NHS dentist taking new patients and for elective procedures that would let them go back to work. Structural reform is necessary, but it is not by itself sufficient. I urge Ministers to direct the savings to our constituents in a visible way.
I will judge this Government by results in my constituency. Can a young adult get a bus to a technical college and train for a clean energy job? Can a local business afford to hire people after its energy bills, business rates and tax costs? Can a constituent access the medical care they need when they need it? Can Oldbury be part of the golden age that this Government have promised? Sadly, the Government’s proposals in the King’s Speech represent more incrementalism at a moment that calls for seriousness—more fiddling around the edges, with consequences not just for this Government’s reputation but for my constituents’ living standards and the security of the country that we are all sent here to defend.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
It is always a privilege to speak in this House and to represent the people of Portsmouth, a proud naval city built on service, innovation and hard work. As Portsmouth marks 100 years of city status, and as the city bids to become the next and the first ever southern city of culture, there is a real sense of pride, ambition and resilience.
Defence readiness is not just about the hard shiny stuff—it is about everything. In Portsmouth, defence is not an abstract Westminster debate but part of our identity. It is in our dockyards, our naval bases, our engineering firms, our supply chains, our communities and our homes. Generations of people in my city have helped to defend this country, and they continue to do so today, but people in Portsmouth also know what happens when Governments fail to back British industry properly. Under the Conservatives, Britain’s and Portsmouth’s shipbuilding capacity was absolutely hollowed out. Skills were lost, opportunities were missed and too many communities like Portsmouth were left behind, despite the enormous contribution that they have made and can make to our national security.
This decline did not happen overnight, and reversing it will require long-term commitment, serious investment and tangible action. That is why the second King’s Speech of this Labour Government matters. We have delivered real and lasting change for our armed forces community in our first two years, with the largest pay rise for the armed forces in 22 years and £9 billion of investment to upgrade thousands of forces homes, making them fit for service personnel and their families—changes that I have seen at first hand. These changes—alongside providing a named housing officer for every service family to improve the repairs process, and updated rules that allow families to decorate how they wish and keep pets without seeking permission—go some way towards giving back.
We have established the independent Armed Forces Commissioner, with powers to investigate general service welfare matters; we have put in place new targeted retention measures to keep those with valuable experience in the forces; we have expanded the early years childcare funding overseas to match the offer available in England; we have invested in cadets; and we continue to support specialist mental health and homelessness services for veterans. I am proud that, through my persistence, I have secured an Operation Valour centre in my city. A lot has been done, but there is so much more to do.
Jim Shannon
I commend the hon. Lady on being a strong spokesperson for the forces, particularly the Navy. She referred to cadets. We have a strong cadet force in Northern Ireland; all we need is a bit of extra money to ensure that thousands of extra cadets can be recruited. Most of the officers in charge work for a small fee or in a volunteer capacity. Does she agree that, when it comes to cadet forces, a lot more could be done for a lot less, but that the benefits and dividends would be incredibly great?
Amanda Martin
The hon. Gentleman makes some valuable points.
This second King’s Speech provides an opportunity to go further to continue to renew our contract and commitment to our armed forces, to strengthen British industry and to ensure that defence investment delivers real benefits to communities like mine.
I welcome the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie) and by the right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke) about the necessity of NATO and the threats—both visible and invisible—that we face as a country. At a time when the world feels more uncertain and dangerous, working together to strengthen our armed forces and national resilience is not optional. Our commitment to NATO and to closer working with our allies is crucial, as is the need for a public conversation about the threats and our priorities, so that, like our Nordic allies, we can have reasoned and sensible conversations in households, schools and community spaces, and do not leave the internet and the right-wing press to scaremonger.
Portsmouth has huge strengths in defence, aerospace, maritime engineering and advanced manufacturing. Companies such as Portsmouth Aviation, Accuracy International, Harwin, and Griffon Marine are already delivering world-class expertise and highly-skilled jobs. Alongside primes such as Airbus and BAE Systems, they demonstrate the depth of talent that exists in our city. I particularly welcome the new partnership between Airbus and the Solent Growth Partnership—a collaboration to create the UK’s first ever space and defence apprenticeship matching programme. This new initiative ensures talented young people who narrowly miss out on the highly competitive Airbus apprenticeships are supported into alternative, quality opportunities with local SMEs. In just two months, the partnership has already begun to support 50 young people, helping them to gain the advanced skills needed for brilliant careers in defence. This is exactly the kind of workforce development we need more of. If Britain is serious about defence readiness, then we must invest not only in equipment, but in people, skills and industry.
Portsmouth has not always received the level of investment that it deserves, and after decades of neglect, many local businesses want to see clearer signs that opportunity is coming their way. The Government have done much work to unlock defence investment and opportunities for finance, but my local businesses tell me that more needs to be done. We must have the defence investment plan, and we need other opportunities for partnership and finance so that our SMEs can be agile and innovative in their research and development, and manufacturing. I look forward to enabling and working with the Department and the Treasury to unlock this investment.
I was really disappointed to see that none of the Government’s defence manufacturing construction colleges were awarded to Portsmouth or our surrounding area. Our city has the industrial heritage, skills base and defence experts to play a leading role. I would like to explore with the Department how we can access this opportunity further and close the gap. Portsmouth businesses and Portsmouth people do not want special treatment; they just want a fair chance to survive.
As a proud naval city, Portsmouth understands the sacrifices made by our armed forces, veterans and military families better than most. We also understand the enormous contribution made every day by the workers, engineers, apprentices and small businesses that help to keep our country safe. One of the greatest strengths of Portsmouth is its people, and the way that people from all faiths and backgrounds stand together. At a time when many faiths and communities have felt under attack or targeted by division and hatred, we must continue to work together to protect tolerance, respect and community cohesion across my city and this country.
As we begin this new Session of Parliament, my focus remains solidly where it has always been: on working hard for Portsmouth North, championing local businesses, and ensuring that our city plays a full and leading role in building a fairer, stronger and more secure United Kingdom. As a Member of Parliament, I am going to pull every lever possible in this Government to ensure that these are not just words on a page, but tangible actions.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin), who gave a very powerful speech. I want to use my time to address the issues that matter to the defence of our country and its future from a very domestic perspective. If I have time, I will touch on the historical waste in the defence industry.
Following what was said by the former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), sadly around 50% of young people today say that they would not defend our country. The question is, why? Is it because we do not build a strong country by making poor people poorer, and we do not build a strong Army from an unhealthy, under-educated and economically broken population? The two things are not in competition; they are connected.
An argument has been made today that we must sacrifice welfare for warfare—strip the safety net to fund the military—but my argument is this: the things that make people feel safe at home are exactly what make us worth defending. We talk endlessly about threats abroad, but the things that lead to instability—poverty, inequality, failed public services and communities being left behind—are right here. Just this weekend, on Saturday, at the march to allegedly “Unite the Kingdom”, we saw vile Islamophobic rhetoric and shouts, with organisers and speakers on stage calling for Muslims to be deported from this country and from this place where we sit. Members of parties across the board were openly told to go back home, despite being born and brought up here. These are the things that are going to destroy our nation; these are the things that we really need to worry about.
I would also like to highlight the colossal waste of money in previous defence projects, given that many people jump to say that we must spend on defence and sacrifice welfare, which they say is such a waste of money. The Ajax armoured vehicle programme costs £5.5 billion; it is still not ready and is running over a decade late. The Bowman radio cost £2.5 billion; it was 25 years late and still does not work properly. The Type 45 Daring class destroyers are £1.5 billion over budget, and the majority are now being maintained in a dock, despite being less than 15 years old.
I turn now to the economy and, more specifically, the businesses that sit at its heart. Small and medium-sized enterprises are the backbone of British prosperity. In my constituency of Leicester South, as in constituencies across this country, the employers, the innovators, and the anchor institutions of our high streets and industrial estates, are being hammered by the increased cost of living, whether it is energy and business rate rises, increased costs to staffing budgets, or national insurance contributions. The Office for Budget Responsibility found that the changes to national insurance contributions caused a 2% hike in payroll costs for employers last year alone, while the confidence of chief executive officers has fallen more in recent years than during the pandemic.
The Government’s spending on defence must come from the bottom up. We must invest in the future rather than pile costs on to our own businesses, and thereby allow corporations to run riot. That is why it has been very pleasing to hear many Members speak about apprenticeships, which are a perfect example of investing in the future. I welcome any ambition to expand opportunities for young people, but warm words must be followed by structural change. University was once the most favoured destination for economic growth, but for many, that is economically out of reach. Still, the journey of an apprenticeship is a renewed ticket to economic growth and the skilled defence workforce this country urgently needs, including engineers, manufacturers and technicians. We cannot build frigates or maintain fighter jets with a generation who have been left behind.
I will quickly turn to an example that illustrates precisely what backing businesses ought to look like in practice, and where Government procurement could—if the Government choose—make a transformative difference. I have spoken to local textile business owners in Leicester, the city that used to clothe the world. At one stage, it was the second richest city in Europe because of its industry; unfortunately, it is now on its knees because contracts are being given to foreign companies, such as those in China, instead of to young, hard-working British entrepreneurs. Awarding defence uniform contracts to Chinese manufacturers is not simply an economic error, but a strategic one. It creates supply chain dependency on foreign nations at the precise moment when the Government are asking us to take defence seriously. Leicester’s textile sector exists, the capability exists, and the security case for buying British has never been stronger.
The NHS is the largest employer in the country and one of the largest procurers of textiles, from uniforms to bedding and from surgical gowns to staff clothing. The potential is enormous. Not only would a targeted commitment to NHS procurement from UK manufacturers—and Leicester manufacturers in particular—support local jobs and local supply chains; it would reduce carbon emissions from long-distance shipping, strengthen our supply chain resilience, and build exactly the kind of productive, skilled employment base that the Government say they want to create.
Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)
I am very grateful to be making a contribution to the debate on the King’s Speech. It touched on what, in my view, is the core foundation of the nation’s future, which is defensive readiness. My remarks will focus on what is a real part of our national defence: the defence of our democracy and our communities from hostile foreign influence.
One might be forgiven for thinking that defensive readiness is about the quality of ships, aircraft, cyber-systems and military capabilities, but it is also about whether our elections are secure, whether our public debate is protected, and whether communities in this country can live free from hatred and fear. There is no doubt that foreign interference is a threat. The Rycroft review made clear that this country
“faces a persistent problem of foreign interests seeking to exert influence on, and to interfere in, our politics.”
That should be of concern to every Member of this House.
Our elections are the foundations of our democracy. If hostile states can use online disinformation and covert influence to shape our political debate, they are attacking the public’s right to decide the future of this country freely and fairly. I am proud that this Government are rightly strengthening rules on political finance, including through tighter requirements on company donations and measures aimed at preventing foreign actors from using companies to influence UK politics. Some of that influence is well known, such as the millions of pounds from Thailand and the curious friendship between the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe) and the world’s richest man.
The Community Security Trust records antisemitic activity, which is now at record levels. I welcomed the eloquent speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Hemel Hempstead (David Taylor) and for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards), neither of whom are now in their seats. Not every antisemitic incident is foreign-directed, but it is clear that hostile foreign actors amplify hatred online and use it to further divide our society. That is why the threat from Iran and the IRGC matters so much. The Security Minister stated that the UK has responded to 20 Iran-backed plots since the start of 2022, presenting potentially lethal threats to British citizens and UK residents. That clearly presents a foreign policy and domestic security issue, and I strongly believe that the Government must tackle it head-on.
What can we do to ensure defensive readiness? We must ensure strong election security, strong action against foreign online interference, and robust protection for Jewish communities facing real and sustained threats. My constituents, and communities across the country, rightly expect democracy to be protected and all their neighbours to be safe.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend is making a trademark excellent and well-thought-out speech, which is what we expect from him. I know he is a champion of the BBC World Service, so will he take a moment to mention the important part it plays, along with BBC Monitoring, in our soft power and the defence of our nation?
Peter Prinsley
I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention and agree that the BBC World Service is almost the best example of our country’s soft power. I welcome the extra investment promised by this Government to support its work, but I would like it to be greater. We will do all we can to support the World Service.
The duty to protect democracy is a sacred duty of this House. It is a simple wish, and something I am sure we can all do.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
I extend my condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Lance Bombardier Ciara Sullivan, who sadly died on Friday following an incident at the Royal Windsor horse show.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) and I thank him for his powerful speech. I am delighted to speak in this debate on the Gracious Speech.
Rural Britain is home to nearly 10 million people. It produces our food and is critical to delivering net zero. It is also host to much of the infrastructure our defence depends on. From naval air stations and training estates to solar manufacturers and helicopter production lines, to the farms and energy networks that keep the country running, rural Britain is not a backdrop to national defence; it is the backbone of it. The rural economy, however, is nearly 20% less productive than the national average. That gap is not, and should not be, inevitable. It is a product of policy choices, and those choices matter for defence readiness as much as they matter for growth.
Glastonbury and Somerton sits at the heart of Britain’s defence industrial base. RNAS Yeovilton—HMS Heron—is home to the Fleet Air Arm, Wildcat and Commando Helicopter Forces. In Templecombe, Thales Group designs and manufactures the sonar systems that are the eyes and ears of the Royal Navy’s submarine fleet, and it was awarded a £1.85 billion contract two years ago to keep doing so for another 15 years.
My constituency is also home to companies that are important to the defence supply chain, such as Needles and Pins Aerospace based in Somerton, which provides precision textile engineering for aviation and defence. Just over the border in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance), Leonardo helicopters employs around 3,300 people, many of whom live in my constituency.
Leonardo is the UK’s only end-to-end rotary wing manufacturer. I welcome the new medium helicopter contract that was finally awarded in March, but the path to that decision should worry every Member of this House. This is no way to run a defence industrial strategy. The defence investment plan was promised in autumn 2025; it is now May 2026, and the delay has created a credibility issue with industry and our allies.
Releasing a plan is not the same as funding or delivering one. The Liberal Democrats have been clear that this Government must commit to 3% of GDP on defence by 2030, and we have called for cross-party talks to agree the route to get there. We have also proposed a £20 billion defence bond programme to kick-start investment in the capital-intensive assets the strategic defence review identified, because, as the IFS itself suggests, borrowing to invest in defence can support economic growth, particularly when spending is investment heavy. We must also restart negotiations to rejoin the EU’s €150 billion SAFE rearmament programme so that British defence firms, including those in Somerset and the south-west, can compete for European contracts and the UK can play its full part in collective European rearmament.
Defence readiness also depends on how we treat those who serve. As chair of the APPG on women in defence, I believe it is crucial that we see at least 30% female representation across the defence enterprise by 2030. Last night we held our summer reception, which was well attended by hon. Members, members of our armed forces and the wider defence community. In conversation with the managing director of NP Aerospace, I was shocked to learn that women are 7% more vulnerable than their male counterparts on the frontline simply because they are wearing body armour that does not fit. The Ministry of Defence has said that it could deliver new armour plates from 2029, but that equipment cannot come soon enough.
We are increasingly at risk of international and geopolitical shocks, rising prices and food chain disruption. The obvious solution, one would think, is to incentivise farmers to grow enough food here at home, yet England is the only country in Europe that does not financially support farmers to produce food, stymieing food production and innovation in the food and drink sector. The omission of a good food Bill is a massive missed opportunity to back British farmers, improve public health—
Sarah Dyke
I will not, I am afraid, due to time.
A good food Bill would also give our food system the long-term framework it badly needs. A national food strategy is needed now more than ever. Ignoring the largest British business sector is short-sighted—the rural economy cannot grow while its largest sector is left without a plan.
To conclude, defence readiness is about not just the frontline, but whether the country behind the frontline is resilient. Rural England is not a backdrop to national defence; it is its backbone. If this Government are serious about defence readiness, they must be serious about backing rural Britain, backing British industry and backing the men and women who serve our country.
Melanie Ward (Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy) (Lab)
I rise to speak in support of His Majesty’s Speech and to call for our Government to take bolder action on many of the challenges faced by our country, and indeed our world. We are living through global instability on a scale not seen for decades. The power shifts are real. Now more than at any time since world war two, we must stand up and defend our values on the international stage. To do that, we need more hard power—much more—but we should also protect and wield our soft power.
After 14 years of Tory neglect, our Government’s commitment to defence investment is vital not only to our national security, but to communities like mine in Fife. From the £340 million invested in Rosyth dockyard to support for Methil-based Navantia, now with 120 new jobs and 20 new apprenticeships, this investment is creating skilled jobs and driving the local economy. It comes alongside a new Government support package for defence sector SMEs such as Viper Applied Science in Aberdour and PowerPhotonic in Dalgety Bay. UK Government backing is helping to strengthen our local economy for the future. After two decades of wilful neglect by the SNP on defence skills, Fife and Kirkcaldy in particular stand ready to play our part in rapidly scaling up the next generation of workers in the defence industry.
We must heed the warnings on the defence investment plan and rapidly make it a reality—I am sure the Defence Secretary will agree with that. As we strengthen our nation’s ability to protect our people, we must work with our allies and form new relationships, including stronger relations with our European allies and friends. Our collective defence is a cause of the utmost urgency, but so is the defence of our common values: democracy, the rule of law and human rights. Make no mistake—they are under attack.
We must act faster to build the UK’s national resilience, too. Our country and our people are not yet ready to face the kinds of turbulence and crises—even conflict—that may lie in our future. Comparable European nations are well ahead of us in building their resilience, and it is time to turbocharge that work in the UK. As we build our hard power and our own resilience, it would be a mistake to allow our soft power to fall away. DFID, a proud achievement of the last Labour Government, is a body that we miss today amid so much conflict and global health crises, such as the latest Ebola outbreak.
As defence chiefs said this week, recent cuts to the aid budget are a source of deep pain to many of us, but to no one more so than the children going to bed hungry because of them. In north-east Nigeria, where I once served as an aid worker, more than 1 million people affected by the conflict with Boko Haram risk being cut off from food and nutrition support because of cuts to the World Food Programme. What happens when the world cuts aid at a time of greater global conflict than any other since world war two? Already displaced people will be further displaced. They will migrate in search of survival.
Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an informed and well-made speech. Does she agree that we need to look at not only how we can expand international aid to deliver for the world’s poorest, but how we can regain moral leadership? A crucial part of that, as she and my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) have said, is the BBC World Service. Those frequencies have been taken over by Russia and other anti-democratic nations. The World Service must be a key part of supporting that goal, not just in the future, but right now.
Melanie Ward
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about soft power and why it is such an important complement to hard power.
It has become common to say that the rules-based order is dead or dying, but we must stand with our allies to preserve and defend all that was built to protect humanity from evil in the ashes of two world wars and the cold war. Data shows that since 2012, there has been an increase in the number of countries where mass atrocity crimes are occurring, and action is needed. Let us remind ourselves that we are talking about genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity from Sudan to Sinjar. These are the most heinous crimes that exist—mass identity-based violence. Where is the UK Government’s strategy to work with like-minded countries to prevent that? There is not one. We need to change that, and fast. Doing so would be an obvious complement to the important work that the Foreign Secretary is doing on women and girls in Sudan.
The United Nations and the International Criminal Court—two imperfect but vital institutions designed to protect humanity and respond to it at its worst—are under enormous pressure, not least from the US Government, whose sanctions are designed to hobble the ICC. Our Government are supporting the UN and the ICC, but we should be making the case for them loudly and globally, working with like-minded allies to protect and defend their very existence. It is time to act at the pace required by global events. The time for incremental micro-steps is over. We must act at a scale appropriate to the urgency of the moment we are in. On Iran and Ukraine, the Government are doing the right thing, but the world can see for itself what is happening in Palestine and Lebanon. Experts say that there has been genocide in Gaza. Israel continues to bomb and kill, including doctors, hospitals and aid workers in Gaza and Lebanon. Israeli settlers in the west bank are trying to ethnically cleanse Palestinians with the support of their Government.
Dr Zubir Ahmed (Glasgow South West) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a thought-provoking contribution, and I thank her for her leadership on international aid, both before she came to this place and now. With Gaza in mind, does she agree that although the cameras have turned away, we cannot? As a British and UK Labour Government, we have a moral responsibility to continue to provide whatever medical assistance and expertise is required in that area.
Melanie Ward
My hon. Friend is right. He is a doctor himself, and I know how well he understands and how much he feels the need for the world to do better—to make change in this area, and stop just talking about making change.
It is time for much bolder action from our Government. It is time for them to stand against what is happening, and to influence events. We need not more words, but more action. To start with, we need comprehensive sanctions on Israeli officials who are responsible for human rights violations and the denial of aid, we need a ban on settlement trade, and we need to outlaw the funnelling of money to settlements by British charities. It is not good enough to say that it is difficult to do these things. Civilians need us to act, and both history and the public are judging us now. Incremental change does not cut it in this time of massive global shifts. We must be bold in our global action, just as we must be bold here at home.
Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy (Melanie Ward) on her passionate and compassionate speech.
There is much in the King’s Speech that I can support in principle, and the Liberal Democrats will engage constructively, but not uncritically, with its proposals. Too often, however, this Government’s instinct has been to prevaricate rather than to lead, and nowhere is that more apparent than in their dithering over our relationship with Europe. Any measure that rebuilds even a fraction of what the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) undermined and the Conservatives demolished deserves support, and on those narrow terms I welcome the European partnership Bill, but let us be candid: the Government are not proposing an ambitious reset. This is at best tinkering, not the full-bodied re-engagement that our economy desperately needs and that the public are demanding.
Debate on this issue is too often conducted as though opinion froze a decade ago, but the country has moved on, with two thirds of the public now favouring proper re-engagement with the EU. Sadly, the current Prime Minister has tied himself down with red lines that make that impossible, while the leading contender to take over from him has already U-turned on his EU commitments, along with his U-turns on proportional representation and the fiscal rules. Andy Burnham does not just turn and U-turn; he spins.
The National Bureau of Economic Research estimates that Brexit has reduced UK GDP by at least 6%, with business investment running nearly 20% lower than that in comparable economies, and both employment and productivity down by roughly 4%. That is why I am urging every Labour Member who wants to grow our economy and fund our armed services properly to vote for our amendment, which simply calls on their Government to begin negotiating a new customs union with the EU.
The world today bears little resemblance to the one in which Brexit was conceived. Putin’s Russia is four years into a land war in Europe, has sent warships into British waters and has poisoned British citizens on British soil, while NATO is under threat from an American President who treats collective security as a transaction rather than a commitment. The case for building our European partnerships, rather than forsaking them, has never been stronger. The new UK-EU security and defence partnership is consequently welcome, but aspiration must be matched with urgent commitment. The threats gathering on our continent will not wait while Labour indulges in another psychodrama like those that plagued the previous Tory Government.
The proposal to deepen co-operation with Europol, Frontex and the European Migration Network to combat people-smuggling is overdue and welcome. The sharing of biometric data, criminal records and intelligence on people-smuggling gangs should never have ended, notwithstanding Brexit. However, we need to go further. The EU is transitioning to a new migration and asylum pact, and we, like other non-EU countries including Norway and Switzerland, should be involved in that arrangement.
As my party’s Northern Ireland spokesperson, I welcome the European partnership Bill’s provisions simplifying food and plant movements between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but let us not pretend that the Windsor framework has delivered the “frictionless” utopia that was promised. Despite the purported benefits of the green lane, nearly 60% of Northern Ireland businesses report challenges, and one in three have ceased trading with Great Britain entirely. The tensions come from the fact that Northern Ireland has the advantage of access to the EU’s single market while the rest of the UK does not, and the only durable way to manage the complications that arise is to bring the rest of the UK into closer alignment with the EU.
Finally, I turn to amendment (o), tabled by the Conservatives. Although we support the need to increase defence spending and join them in calling for urgent publication of the delayed defence investment plan, their cynical amendment fails to make reference to the Tories’ responsibility for the hollowing out of the armed forces. Their call to abandon the remedial order that remedies defects in the Tories’ flawed legacy Act disingenuously implies that veterans who served in Northern Ireland are currently protected from prosecution, despite the fact that the provisions in the Act that purport to confer such immunity were never brought into force and were subsequently declared unlawful by the UK courts.
I ask the House to vote for our amendment but not the Conservatives’ one.
Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)
In the two years since the last King’s Speech, and my maiden speech, the world has changed dramatically. The global insecurity we face was always real, but now the insecurity has come to our shores. It is felt in our economy, our homes and our everyday lives, and we are living in a global tinderbox. The voters spoke in the local elections: they sent a clear message that they do not trust the current Government to defend their interests or to create resilience, stability and growth, which are key to our nation’s defence.
In Harpenden, Berkhamsted, Tring and the villages, families feel the instability every day, with many struggling to pay their bills and wondering how they will pay their fluctuating mortgage or rent. They see the high costs of childcare and worry about their children getting the right education or staying safe online, all while costs continue to rise. Parents, such as Louisa from Wheathampstead, are worried about getting their kids into the right school. Her child, who has specific SEND needs, has already been through failed placements. She says:
“It is only in a specialist school that they feel safe, settled and able to learn.”
The younger generation look at the broken system, and it is no wonder they question whether they should pay into it. Hannah, a sixth-former from Harpenden, says:
“I’ve never considered living in Harpenden in the future because it’d be far too expensive to buy a place to live.”
Despite the official definition, new build homes are nowhere near being genuinely “affordable”, given that they cost half a million pounds.
The older generation, who worked hard and paid into the system, have not got what they were promised. One of my constituents says:
“I started work at 15, and the deal was that I would finish working at 60.”
Another says:
“I struggle with poverty and exhaustion, and I was told to carry on working until I was 66. I have been plagued with heath issues ever since.”
In the middle, the young and middle-aged professionals are squeezed. The path laid out before them has shifted beneath their feet. They were told, “Buy a house, have kids if you want to, and work in a job that you love. You will have more wealth and freedom than your parents did.” However, each generation now faces less wealth, less freedom and fewer opportunities. No wonder politics is being turned on its head, all while people scroll through a picture-perfect world that falls apart with every news headline.
The businesses in our communities—the backbone of our economy—are finding it harder, more expensive and more challenging. Darren, who runs Faire at 190 in Berkhamsted, is a serial entrepreneur who knows what he is doing. He is finding the costs and burdens unsustainable. He says that the continuing rise in staff costs is killing the hospitality sector, and goes on to say:
“This Government is driving experienced entrepreneurs away, quietly draining the UK of the people most likely to build, hire and invest again.”
Our communities feel again and again that they are done to, not worked with. There is no greater example than completely undemocratic top-down development plans that bypass local communities, who understand the need for housing but not on a scale that the local infrastructure cannot handle. Like many people, Lucy from Tring is genuinely concerned about the impact on our communities and landscapes. Liz from Redbourn says that the legacy of this Labour Government will see the death of our villages. She says:
“The effect on wildlife and the chalk streams will be immense.”
For our communities and our country, the time for action is now. This King’s Speech could have been an opportunity to reset the direction of this country. Although I welcome the action to tackle energy costs and sewage, and to end unfair residential leaseholds, such measures do not go far enough. Where is the urgent action to end the social care crisis? Where is the “good food” Bill to back British farmers? Where is the commitment to spend 3% of GDP on defence by 2030? That is vital to keep our borders safe. Where is the digital sovereign strategy? Where is the defence readiness Bill? And where is the ambitious EU reset Bill that we desperately need to grow our economy? That would empower our communities and make us richer and safer.
This country is at a crossroads. Our current Government are not delivering. The two old parties are finished. The populists and extremists want to burn things down. Millions of people want change, which is about building things up. That is the kind of positive change that the Liberal Democrats are offering—change that brings people, communities and our country together, and which makes us ready to face the international insecurity that rocks our borders. We believe in a better, stronger trade and defence relationship with Europe, one that truly delivers for Britain. I believe in collaborative sovereignty that values our resilience through prosperity, production and partnership, backing British domestic strength while working with our allies to be stronger, whether through military sovereignty, digital sovereignty, energy sovereignty or food sovereignty, but being stronger as a nation and being stronger partners internationally.
As politicians, we must turn up again and again. We have to turn up in the messiness but be honest about what needs to be done. And with that comes hope: hope for a better future, for growth and for prosperity. So the time is now. The moment for us to be radically reasonable is now. It is time that the system worked for local people.
In my maiden speech, I shared that my mother came to this country in search of opportunity, and through everything that I do here, I want to ensure that same opportunity is available for all who seek it. That means a bolder vision for our Great Britain, and that needs to start now.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
I start by acknowledging the dedication to public service of all who serve and have served or who support those in our armed forces and our wider defence industry.
There are opportunities, as well as glaring omissions, in what the Government have put forward for this Session. I am certainly glad to see new legislation coming forward on two of the biggest issues facing us in North Norfolk: getting our NHS back on its feet, and getting sewage out of our rivers and seas. I hope the forthcoming Health Bill will be another step towards rebuilding our NHS after the appalling damage done by successive Conservative Governments. I am keen to see how the Bill can tackle some of the rural inequalities we face in North Norfolk, however, which are about not only health access, but health outcomes, and that is one reason why we will not back down over Benjamin Court, a vital rehabilitation resource for people leaving hospital that was closed down by Norfolk county council under the Conservatives.
Elsewhere, I am pleased that the clean water Bill will be coming forward, but I do have serious worries that it will be yet another piece of weak, watered-down legislation that does not place proper pain on water companies when they behave badly. I am delighted that our years of campaigning have helped secure £83 million of investment from Anglian Water, which has already brought down sewage spills by 95% in some parts of North Norfolk, but there is still much to do and I will not rest until sewage spills are a thing of the past. The Government must also take steps to make our chalk streams UNESCO natural heritage sites and recognise and protect the unique character of chalk streams, such as the Glaven, the Stiffkey and the Bure in North Norfolk.
The forthcoming education for all Bill will be cautiously welcomed by parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities in our area. It recognises that the system is broken and is failing schools, local authorities, parents and, most significantly, children. But many parents have told me they are worried about how the rights of their children will be affected and how access to adequate support will be guaranteed for them. The Bill also needs to ensure that reform of the SEND system includes equal access for the whole country and ends the continuing postcode lottery. I have heard concerns from constituents about how underserved some of our coastal communities are and how far young people have to travel just to get to a setting that suits their needs. I have also spoken to parents with primary schoolchildren who are worried about what is happening right now in our overstretched schools. They worry that these reforms will be too late for hundreds of SEND children who need help now.
I am also awaiting the digital access to services bill with interest. The Government missed a lot of opportunities with last year’s Data (Use and Access) Bill to legislate for a more data-driven Government who are better at doing things digitally. Part of this is about ensuring people who do not do things digitally can still access those services, yet just weeks after assuring me in Committee that existing legislation would cover this, the Government announced their ill-fated digital ID pet project. So despite believing that digital transformation is a key ingredient in fixing what is broken in our country, I will be pushing them again, as I did last year, to enshrine in law a right to non-digital ID to protect the elderly and vulnerable people in North Norfolk or those who simply do not want to use it.
Frustratingly, there are still some important omissions from the 35 Bills put before us. On defence readiness, I am disappointed to see no concrete action on financial transparency in the overseas territories. Offshore tax havens are simply hiding places for dirty money, oligarch wealth, rogue states and corporations dodging their responsibilities while ordinary people pick up the bill. We know these gaps can be closed, so why are the Government not prepared to bring forward legislation to close them once and for all?
Meanwhile, many young people are worried about how their careers will be impacted by AI and older, vulnerable people are worried about how criminals can misuse AI to defraud and scam them. We have to keep up with the times. We have to ensure that AI is providing benefits to all, not just concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a few select tech barons and foreign states. The economy used to be powered mainly by people, but it is increasingly powered by software. It is therefore regrettable that the King’s Speech did not make provision to adapt the tax base to accommodate the hyper-concentration of ownership of tech firms, starting with a digital services tax.
It is clear to me from speaking to people at the thousands of doors I knocked on during the local elections and the many emails I receive every day that change is not coming fast enough. People feel the Government are dragging their feet, and that the machinery of the state has little interest in delivering the radical change this country needs. There are green shoots in this Government’s programme, but little more. My hon. Friends and I look forward to scrutinising, pushing and challenging the Government to do more over this Session.
Brian Mathew (Melksham and Devizes) (LD)
Today, we have been talking about defence readiness, and I commend the members of the armed forces and, indeed, the veterans who live or are based in my constituency. However, our defence comes in various forms. Farming and food security were not mentioned in the King’s Speech, and this was surely a major omission.
Today, I am wearing a WaterAid tie that I was given 35 years ago when I started working with it in Tanzania. Aid is a major part of our soft power. It not only helps to save lives and helps people withstand climate change, but it allows us to stand tall for all the good things that we do around the world. I would be grateful if the Secretary of State confirmed that UK aid will not be cut further to just 0.1% of gross national income. This is doubly important now that the spectre of Ebola is haunting Africa.
David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)
It is an honour to wind up the final day of debate on the King’s Speech for His Majesty’s loyal Opposition. We have heard many sterling speeches from Members across this House, and I will turn to some of them shortly.
First, however, I want to pose once more the central question of this debate, and ask every Member to answer it honestly: is our national defence truly ready? My honest assessment is no, it is not. War is no longer a matter of history. The international order we have all lived under is fracturing. War has broken out across multiple continents, and rapid technological advancement and the accelerating consequences of climate change are compounding an already dangerous volatility. The world is not as it was, and we cannot afford to govern as though it is.
While it is encouraging that so many Members are engaging with this epoch-defining issue, it is equally clear that there is a “corrosive complacency” at the heart of this Government. Those are not my words; they belong to Lord Robertson, a former Labour Defence Secretary and a former NATO Secretary-General and one of the most distinguished voices in this country’s defence establishment. He did not use them lightly, and he directed them squarely at this Prime Minister and this Chancellor. When a man of that stature speaks in those terms about his own party’s Government, this House would do well to listen. More than that, there should be no politics in acknowledging the reality that stares us plainly in the face. Where politics legitimately begins is in the harder questions about where the money comes from and how and what we choose to spend it on.
Turning to the speeches, opening the batting was the Chair of the Defence Committee, the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), and I think we can all agree that he made quite a brave and powerful speech. He laid bare the holes in the Government’s approach to defence in a constructive way, as I have seen him do repeatedly in his work as Chair of his Committee. It was also good to see him wearing his Royal College of Defence Studies tie.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) made an excellent speech, as is to be expected. He touched on the supply chain issues and reliance on China, and I will come back to those points later.
The right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) is no longer in his place, but it was quite intimidating to see the Streetonian praetorian guard out in full force. He articulated the weighty issues we face as a country and I seriously hope that defence issues are front and centre of his coup d’état attempts.
My right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) illustrated lessons from world war two, and what we need to learn and act on without delay, points that were reinforced by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis).
I think we can all agree that the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) is doing a fantastic job as trade envoy to Italy. She called out some of the supply chains that she is seeing in her work with Italy around the Global Combat Air Programme and pointed out the Government’s dither regarding the slow release of the defence investment plan.
We also had strong contributions from the hon. Members for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne), for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) and for Southend East and Rochford (Mr Alaba), my right hon. Friends the Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke) and for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), the hon. Members for Hemel Hempstead (David Taylor), for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss), for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson), for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards) and for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie), and my hon. Friends the Members for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) and for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith). There were many more contributions—too many to mention, Madam Deputy Speaker—but it was great to see so many of my constituency neighbours from the south-west. As the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry has championed repeatedly, it is a region that will play a decisive role in our defence readiness going forward.
Like many in this House, I am utterly tired, if not bored, of asking when the defence investment plan will be published, and I am not even going to bother asking about the planned defence readiness Bill. The Government set their own deadline last autumn and 10 months on it is still nowhere to be seen. For the large prime contractors, those too big to fail, the calculation is simple: they leverage their workforce and industrial base to force the Government’s hand. But for smaller companies in the supply chain, the picture is far bleaker. With a meagre number of contracts being awarded, they are being starved of work. If they have not already gone out of business, many are reaching the same conclusion: if you want to grow, you have to go. And go they will. The United States and European defence markets are rising to the moment. Companies and finance will follow the business. The Government’s indecision and delay is placing British defence at the back of the queue at precisely the moment when the queue has never mattered more.
That leaves me to challenge a phrase used too freely by Defence Ministers: sovereign capability. For many of the areas where we most want to excel, true sovereignty is a myth. The best AI needs the best chips, and we do not own the means of production. Our options are either our American allies or China. I know which one I choose. The Government talk a good game on drones, but most small aerial drone systems depend on neodymium magnets and China controls over 90% of global supply. That is not a supply chain problem; it is a strategic vulnerability. What is truly in our national interest is to identify these dependencies—a point reinforced by the Chair of the Defence Committee, whose Committee is looking at this—and swiftly partner with allies who can help to address them. I do not see that joined-up work happening across the Government.
That leads me to the structure of our public defence establishment. We have roughly 55,000 MOD civil servants, yet we recently struggled to deploy a single, partially functional destroyer to protect our sovereign base area in Cyprus, a point expanded on by the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells. There are many fantastic civil servants in the MOD—I have personally had the privilege to work alongside a number of them—but I cannot believe I am alone in seeing the imbalance in that equation.
Lastly, I turn to our service personnel and veterans. At every UK training establishment, the law of armed conflict is rigorously instilled into every recruit and officer cadet. That legal framework underpins a service person’s conduct throughout their career and on operations. I speak with the lived experience as a former Royal Marine. Where someone transgresses from those rules, they are investigated and if found guilty the full weight of the law is brought to bear, and rightly so.
However, the Government must confront an uncomfortable truth. By dragging veterans through the courts decades after the event, as will likely occur under the Government’s Northern Ireland troubles legislation, the process becomes the punishment. Indefinite legal jeopardy, with no discernible end, causes profound and lasting mental anguish. Apply that logic to serving personnel operating in unimaginably violent environments: hesitation in the heat of battle, borne of legal fear rather than military judgments, can cost lives. For most of us in this House, it is impossible to truly comprehend what that means, but we must try. We owe it to the people who place themselves in harm’s way on our behalf to give them the assurance that this House has their back.
I want to extend a hand of co-operation to the Government—an olive branch offered by the Leader of the Opposition and carelessly dismissed by the Prime Minister. In this new era of geopolitical instability, we want to support the Government in delivering the defence readiness that this country deserves. The shadow Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), has set out the Conservatives’ proposals clearly. We will continue to work on them, and I hope the Government will receive them in the spirit in which they are intended.
Our country needs politicians who can rise to the moment. This is that moment. With that, I wish the Government Godspeed in this new Session, for it is not their party’s fortune that depends on it but our nation’s security.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Before I call the Secretary of State, I would like to say that, while I appreciate that I am preaching to the choir, because every Member present is indeed present, perhaps the message can get back to colleagues who are not present that page 4 of the guide to Chamber courtesies indicates that if you have contributed to the debate, you must return for the wind-up speeches. I call the Secretary of State.
The Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey)
I begin by paying tribute to Lance Bombardier Ciara Sullivan of the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery, who tragically died at the Royal Windsor horse show. She was a brilliant young soldier, and her commanding officer described her as a “fearless and gifted horsewoman.” I know that the thoughts of the whole House will be with her family and comrades as they come to terms with her loss.
I also want to pay tribute to our armed forces personnel for their professionalism and dedication. Right now, we have servicemen and women keeping us safe 24/7 in the most difficult circumstances at home, under the sea and around the world in over 30 operations. I offer them our profound respect and gratitude.
It is a privilege to close this debate on the Gracious Speech on behalf of the Government and to do so at the special request of the Chief Whip. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister set out a legislative agenda to strengthen Britain’s economic, energy and national security—a decisive break from the failed past. We are a Government who will cut bills, back workers, lift children out of poverty, reform the NHS, control borders, rebuild ties with Europe, accelerate clean energy and invest in defence.
Over the five days of this King’s Speech debate, we have had speeches from 297 Members, including 37 from Back Benchers in the debate this afternoon. I had the privilege of opening the last King’s Speech debate 22 months ago, and I quoted then what the then Chief of the Defence Staff said to me on my first day in this job: “You are taking on this role at the most extraordinary time in my 35 years of service.” Events since have only reinforced that judgment.
Putin’s aggression is growing across Europe. He is escalating his attacks in Ukraine, increasing air incursions into NATO airspace, and reopening cold war bases in the High North. Only today I revealed details of the dangerous interference with the RAF Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft—an unarmed surveillance aircraft—by two Russian jets over the Black sea. We have démarched the Russians over this totally unacceptable act.
We have war in the middle east, with Iranian airstrikes threatening British lives, British interests and British partner nations across the region. Here at home, we have defended ourselves from Russian spy ships and from subs in our wider waters; we do so daily in the face of cyber-attacks.
My hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), who chairs the Defence Committee, said that Russia is already operating in the grey zone. The right hon. Members for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke) both said that people do not know what threats we face, and the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green said that the world is more dangerous now than it was during the cold war.
At the same time, the US has rightly challenged European nations to step up and take on more responsibility for European security. We are, and we will do further. This, therefore, is undeniably a new era of threat that requires a new era for defence. In the coming years, we will ask more of our armed forces personnel. It is only right that they expect more of their Government and their nation.
We were elected on a promise to renew the nation’s commitment to and contract with those who serve and the families who support them. Through the Armed Forces Bill, we are in part delivering on that promise, extending the armed forces covenant into full legal force, delivering better defence housing, and providing better protections for those who serve through reforms to the service justice system. Through the Bill, we will bolster our readiness by introducing new legal powers to bring down unidentified drones over UK military bases.
We will also expand the pool of our British reserves. That point was made so strongly by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend East and Rochford (Mr Alaba), who is reserve himself. He said that the focus must be more fully on our reserves. We have made a commitment to grow our reserves by 20%.
Jim Shannon
I speak as a former member of the reserves and a part-time soldier for 14 and a half years back in the ’70s through to the late ’80s. In that time, we could recruit plenty of reserves, but today there seems to be a problem with recruitment. I am reminded of that ’60s song, which I am old enough to remember, “The Times They Are A-Changin’”—and we understand that. What more can be done to ensure that reserves can get on with their role as reserve soldiers at the same time as holding jobs? It is really important to have a job and be able to do the reserve role as well.
John Healey
It is indeed; the hon. Gentleman is right. We should pay tribute to, support and welcome those employers who make it possible for their staff and employees to serve as reservists. We do so in the civil service, and there are many very good commercial firms that do the same. We need more to do that, we need more to serve as reservists, and we need to change the terms on which our reservists serve. That is why we are making amendments through the Armed Forces Bill.
It is fair to say that Members on both sides of the House urged on me questions about the publication of the defence investment plan. The Chair of the Defence Committee did so, as did the hon. Member for Exmouth and Exeter East (David Reed), who spoke from the Dispatch Box to wind up for the Opposition, and the shadow Defence Secretary, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge). Everybody wanted the DIP published sooner, including me. The Prime Minister knows of its importance and has been clear to the Liaison Committee that it is a personal priority. I say to those on both sides of the Chamber, and particularly to Opposition Front-Bench Members: we have to get this right.
The equipment programme and the procurement plan that we took on was over-committed, underfunded, and unsuited to our changing threats and battlefield conditions. Defence has not done a line-by-line assessment of how it spends taxpayers’ money for nearly 20 years. The last Government made commitments of tens of billions that were not funded. [Interruption.] The shadow Defence Secretary is chuntering, but let me use an example that he himself used. He announced a £10 billion munitions strategy: it was never developed, never published and never funded. It was announced, of course, just weeks before the election. Those are the problems that we have to sort out.
James Cartlidge
One of the most critical issues in defence at the moment is the munitions position. Obviously, we did not publish it; we were not allowed to as it is a highly sensitive document. I cannot state what the figures were. We had a general election and we became the Opposition. However—[Interruption.] Madam Deputy Speaker, I am being intervened on as I intervene.
To be clear on the 14 years point—I hope that those on the Government Benches agree with this—we gave a vast amount of munitions to Ukraine. We did that to protect Europe so that we did not end up with a situation where Russia conquered Ukraine early. It was the right thing to do, but it left massive gaps in the inventory that we were filling. If we had become the Government, we had a plan ready to go and it was funded by cutting the civil service. That is why Labour Members did not like it. The way that we were going to pay for it is something that no Labour party could agree with.
John Healey
The shadow Secretary of State has admitted to the House exactly what I was saying. The munitions strategy that he announced weeks before the election was never developed and never funded, and the country cannot be defended with unfunded commitments.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
I heard something this morning that I could scarcely believe. I heard that neither the Armed Forces Minister nor the Veterans Minister—notably, the two military veterans on the MOD’s ministerial team—have actually seen the defence investment plan. If he can, will the Secretary of State confirm or deny whether that is the case?
John Healey
I am really proud to have the Minister for Veterans and People and the Minister for the Armed Forces as part of our Defence team. We play different roles across the Department and they make an extraordinary contribution to the defence of this nation. There are briefings in the Department. Those Ministers play an exceptionally important part in the defence of our country and in the Defence team of this nation, and I am proud that they are part of it. The defence investment plan will be published shortly, as we can settle it within Government. There are critical parts of Defence that feed into the investment plan.
Stuart Anderson
If the defence investment plan is the Secretary of State’s priority and the Prime Minister’s priority, is it completed and just waiting for the financial sign-off, or is there a gap in capability to be able to complete it?
John Healey
This is a personal priority for the Prime Minister. We are working flat out to complete it, and we will complete and publish it soon. The whole Defence team are making a contribution to its development, and that contribution stretches right across the defence effort.
I say to the shadow Secretary of State: this has not stopped us getting on with the job of government. This has not stopped us letting more than 1,200 major contracts since the election, with nearly nine in 10 going to British-based firms, creating British-based jobs; nearly 70% of those jobs, investments and contracts are beyond London and the south-east. That is defence driving economic growth and lifting parts of the country, right across the UK.
In just the last seven days, we have invested in and announced: over £100 million in the new hybrid Navy to help with our deployment of the multinational mission to the middle east to reopen the strait of Hormuz; a £1 billion contract for new mobile artillery for the Army, with steel made in Sheffield and artillery barrels made in Telford; and rapidly procured weapons for our Typhoons so they can shoot down drones at a lower cost. Just yesterday, I announced 13 contracts of up to £4 million each for small British defence tech firms, all of which have the potential to become Britain’s next defence unicorns.
Several hon. Members rose—
John Healey
I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman, then I will make some progress.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
The right hon. Gentleman knows that I have huge regard for him. We go back quite a long way, and I hope that what I am going to say now will be helpful to him and his Defence team. Poland is planning eventually to spend 9% of its GDP on defence. It is approaching 5% today from a standing start. Everybody in this House with an ounce of common sense wants the right hon. Gentleman and his team to succeed and to get the money they require to increase our defences, but we are behind the curve. I am not blaming him; I am blaming other elements in Government. Will he use this opportunity to send the message to the Government that the House requires that we get the money, publish the plan and get on with making defence successful? The Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), has said this, and Members on both sides of the House want the Secretary of State to have it. Please take this message back to the Chancellor: “Enough is enough. We have to do this for our security.” Will he now do that?
John Healey
We have to do this for our security, and we will do this for our security. In the meantime, we are getting on and doing what is necessary for Britain’s security.
John Healey
I will now turn to some of the contributions to the debate. As I said, 37 Back Benchers have spoken, and I am going to turn to some of their contributions now. I will start with the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), if I may. He urged us to reprovision our nuclear programme, and I would just say to him that, in this Parliament alone, we are putting £15 billion into the warhead programme and £6 billion into upgrading Barrow to produce the submarines that we need.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) rightly talked about the impact that defence skills have across the economy. She also talked about the skills gaps that need to be filled, which is a central part of the defence technical excellence colleges, the defence growth deals and the Defence Universities Alliance that we are putting in place.
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) spoke passionately about the work he is doing on the Right to Food UK Commission. The testimony that he gave us from workers and parents about the pressure they are under and the problems that creates was really moving. We look forward to the commission’s report. My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd North (Gill German) also ranged more widely than defence, and mentioned the pressure on families and the action that the Government are now taking on rising costs. She talked about the importance of the legislation in the King’s Speech on railways and on housing for the future.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss) talked about the importance of resilience that runs through every aspect of our defence programme. My hon. Friends the Members for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards) and for Hemel Hempstead (David Taylor) both spoke movingly, and for the House, on the scourge of antisemitism and the need to stamp it out wherever it is, and about the threat of Iran and the edge of threat that the IRGC poses to this country, as well as to Iran’s own people.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie) asked for comments on Cabrit and Estonia. I shall be out there in Estonia with our forward land force tomorrow, so if he will forgive me, I will probably be able to give him a more up to date and informed comment if he would like to wait until I come back, rather than commenting from the Dispatch Box today.
My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd) talked about the important fact that our armed forces depend on the strength of the innovators and the strength of the industry that stands behind them. This is a lesson that we can draw from Ukraine: when a country is under threat or forced to fight, it is its industry, its innovators and its wider society that must stand behind it to give it strength. She rightly paid tribute to and reminded us about the civilian workforce that supports our uniformed personnel.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
On the point about Ukraine, we learned today about the delay to a ban on jet fuel and diesel made from Russian crude oil and refined in places like India and Turkey. Does the Secretary of State accept that the British people do not want to contribute one more ruble to the Kremlin for use in its war machine against the Ukrainian people?
John Healey
I rather regret giving way to the hon. Member because he has not been in the debate, and clearly was not in for the urgent question either, when it was made very clear that there are new sanctions to clamp down on Russian oil revenues and that the licensing regime is a way of bringing those new sanctions in. I urge him to consult the record.
John Healey
No, I will proceed.
I pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) and Members from different parties on the all-party parliamentary group on rearmament. He talked about the way that the locusts were busy on UK defence during those 14 Conservative years when it was hollowed out and underfunded, and about the extent of the legacy from which we are now recovering. He rightly reminded us that defence is not just a cost or spending for the Government; defence is an investment and an engine for growth across the country.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes and Mid Fife (Richard Baker) gave us a direct example of that from his Methil shipyard, in saying that Labour defence investment and export wins have led to a transformation from the bleak future that he described when he first became an MP to the current recruitment drive. That point was echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy (Melanie Ward). She rightly took the Scottish nationalists to task for their repeated failure to be willing to invest in defence skills—skills that benefit our security, that benefit Scottish workers and that give opportunities to Scottish young people.
My hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling), who is in his place, talked about the many military families in his area. He rightly said that we have to look after those who look after us. Just as an aside, I have been campaigning for over a decade for stronger licensing for taxi and private hire vehicles, exactly like he has, and I welcome the comments he made—entirely irrelevant to defence, but important nevertheless.
My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) spoke as the proud parent of a young forces member. She was right to say that at the heart of our Government commitment is the nation’s commitment to those who serve, and I am delighted to hear that she has been successful in Portsmouth in helping win part of the Valour funding—the £50 million behind the new network of veteran centres. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) rightly said that election security is linked to our national security and that we are right to toughen up the rules on political funding.
Finally, I say to the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler) that where I live in Rotherham, no one is talking about the European Union. People have put Brexit behind them. Nevertheless, I welcome his welcome for the European partnership Bill, but the last thing that people want is for us to set aside the manifesto they elected us on and to plunge back into detailed institutional negotiations with the European Union.
Mark Pritchard
One of the defining features of this country’s support for Ukraine has been the cross-party support, but I think it is right for His Majesty’s Opposition to call out the Government where we think they have got it wrong. Over the last 24 hours, I think the Government have got it both right and wrong. I support the Government in the new sanctions regime around third countries. Where I do not support the Government is in allowing temporary licences for the import of Russian jet fuel and diesel. Today in Ukraine, the bombs and missiles are falling. This country should have no part in funding any part of Putin’s war machine.
John Healey
As the Minister for Trade said in response to the urgent question, and as I said earlier, these are steps to further sanctions in order to tighten sanctions and to screw down further on Putin’s ability to fund his illegal war in Ukraine.
I will turn to the question of spending on defence, which was mentioned, as always, by the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), as well as by the hon. Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Lewes (James MacCleary). In the debate on the last King’s Speech in 2024, I reaffirmed this Government’s manifesto pledge to reach 2.5% of GDP on defence spending. Throughout that debate, the figure of 2.5% of GDP on defence spending by 2030 was urged on me 16 times by the shadow Defence Secretary. We have done that, and we have done it three years earlier than anyone expected. We have put in place the biggest increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war. We will spend more—we know we must. I say to the shadow Defence Secretary, the defence budget this year is more than £11 billion greater than it was in the final year of his Government.
In that same debate, I promised the strategic defence review, the first of its kind, which we published as a vision for defending Britain, making it safer and more secure at home. I told the House then that we would step up our support for Ukraine. We have provided more military assistance than ever before, we took on the leadership of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group to support the fight today, and we established and now lead the coalition of the willing for Ukraine to secure the peace tomorrow. I pledged a new UK-Germany defence agreement, and less than four months later I signed that with Defence Minister Pistorius in the Trinity House agreement. I went on to sign deals with France, Norway and Turkey.
In the same debate, I raised the scourge of dreadful military housing. Within months, we brought back into public ownership 36,000 homes that our military families live in. We upgraded the worst 1,000 before Christmas, and we have already done another 250 since then. In that debate, I said that the morale of our service personnel was at a record low. Since then, we have awarded them the biggest pay rise for nearly two decades, extended free childcare and legislated for the first ever Armed Forces Commissioner in order to improve service life.
I say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) that I missed him at Cabinet this week. He gave us a reflective speech. He is rightly proud of the Government’s record on rebuilding and reforming the NHS, but I trust that he will agree that as with the NHS, in Defence we have certainly not been treading water.
I will close with the His Majesty the King’s opening words last week:
“An increasingly dangerous and volatile world threatens the United Kingdom…Every element of the nation’s energy, defence and economic security will be tested.”
Every Member of the House recognises that truth. We are a Government committed to a decade of rising defence spending, to the readiness of our armed forces, to backing Britain’s industries and its innovators, and to making Britain safer, more secure at home and stronger abroad.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Mr Adnan Hussain (Blackburn) (Ind)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Videos are emerging of civilians, including British nationals, blindfolded, bound, forced to the ground and crying out in what appears to be agony after Israel’s interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters. These were ordinary people carrying aid to the starving and besieged population of Gaza. Their crime: refusing to sit back while the world watches genocide unfold live on our screens.
I met members of the flotilla team here in Parliament before they sailed. They were sincere, courageous people driven to act because Governments would not. Moved by images of genocide, they chose to act. All 14 British nationals on board—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to get to the point of his point of order.
Mr Hussain
I have asked the Government whether they will summon the Israeli ambassador, demand the immediate release of those detained, including British nationals, and speak out in the face of such barbaric breaches of international law. What recourse is available to secure immediate answers from the Government on the detention of British nationals and the action being taken to secure their release?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. As he will know, it is not a matter for the Chair. He might have an opportunity tomorrow to raise it with the Leader of the House at business questions. Those on the Government Front Bench will have heard his question, and I think it is best this evening that we move on.
Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Two Sikh women were raped in the Birmingham and west midlands area. While one of them was being raped, a perpetrator directed Islamic and Muslim slurs at her. My mosque in my constituency was attacked not once, not twice but on three separate occasions. These attacks do not happen in a vacuum. We all saw the scenes from the march over the weekend and heard the vile Islamophobic comments that were made. What advice can you provide about getting a Minister to make a statement on this topic?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. Again, that is not a matter for the Chair, but Government Front-Bench Members will have heard his comments. I am sure that if they are planning to bring a statement forward, they will indeed do so.
Business without Debate
Petitions
Julia Buckley (Shrewsbury) (Lab)
Shropshire is the only county in England without a direct train service connecting it to London. I stand here today alongside my neighbours from Wrexham, Ruabon, Wolverhampton, South Shropshire, The Wrekin and Nuneaton, who share my request to reinstate the line that connects six underserved towns back to the capital. In total, over 10,000 people have signed the petitions, with 1,436 having done so on paper and 8,741 having signed a similar one online, demonstrating the strong public demand for the service—those are 10,000 fare paying passengers asking for a train.
The petition states:
“The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to support the proposal for a Wrexham, Shropshire and Midlands Railway by encouraging the Office of Rail and Road and Network Rail to work constructively with the operator to enable the establishment of new direct services between London and North Wales, Shropshire and the Midlands.”
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of England and Wales,
Declares that the Wrexham, Shropshire and Midlands Railway has submitted proposals to restore direct rail services between Wrexham, Shropshire, the Midlands and London, which would offer significant economic, social and environmental benefits for the communities along the route; further declares that the establishment of these new direct services would improve transport links, access to health services, and strengthen regional economies across North Wales, Shropshire and the Midlands.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to support the proposal for a Wrexham, Shropshire and Midlands Railway by encouraging the Office of Rail and Road and Network Rail to work constructively with the operator to enable the establishment of new direct services between London and North Wales, Shropshire and the Midlands.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P003201]
Charlie Dewhirst (Bridlington and The Wolds) (Con)
The proposed rushed closure of the care unit at Bridlington hospital in my constituency is deeply concerning and must not go ahead. The unit provides vital short-stay rehabilitation close to home, especially for elderly residents, avoiding unnecessary travel to Scarborough or York for care or for relatives’ visits. Some 5,784 local residents have signed my petition in-person and online against the closure, in the light of Bridlington’s rapidly growing population, especially the over-65s.
The petition states:
“The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to urgently instruct both NHS Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board and York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust not to close the Bridlington Care Unit; and further to urge the Government to work with the various health providers and the Bridlington Health Forum to in fact actively expand the range of services available at Bridlington.”
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of East Yorkshire,
Declares that the proposed closure of the Bridlington Care Unit is deeply concerning and must not go ahead; further declares that Bridlington Hospital has successfully achieved accreditation as an elective surgical hub and has potential to increase the number of operations delivered on site, as it did during Covid; further declares that York and Scarborough are already at capacity with patients; and further declares that redeploying staff from Bridlington to other NHS facilities in Scarborough and York will extra incur costs to the trust.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to urgently instruct both NHS Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board and York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust not to close the Bridlington Care Unit; and further to urge the Government to work with the various health providers and the Bridlington Health Forum to in fact actively expand the range of services available at Bridlington.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P003202]
Banking Hubs
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Graham Leadbitter (Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey) (SNP)
It is pleasing to see a significant number of Members in the Chamber to be part of this Adjournment debate, by hearing it and perhaps by participating. I am aware of about 15 hon. Members who have asked to intervene on me, which is a high number for an Adjournment debate. There may be more whom I am unaware of. The Minister has kindly indicated that she is also happy to take interventions, so if hon. Members feel like spreading the love when they think I have had enough, that would be much appreciated.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
On that point—[Laughter.] First, may I commend the hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter) for bringing this matter forward? I spoke to him beforehand, and I thought it was important to put this point on the record. I have had 11 banks close in my constituency, and seeing the decline of banks in rural areas has been excessively worrying and frustrating. Although every bank that has pulled out of the peninsula in Ards has promised working hubs, the reality is that a member of staff in a room without even the facility to print off a bank statement for a client is not acceptable. Does the hon. Member not agree that a hub must have banking facilities, as well as a post office, and that we must make sure that there is not just a member of staff for two hours a day or a week?
Graham Leadbitter
I absolutely agree with that. It is important that, where there are hubs, they are open for a reasonable period of time and are accessible at different points of the day to different people with different needs.
The important subject of banking hub criteria has been raised many times in this place and in Westminster Hall, and it is an issue I have campaigned on since I was elected and during my time as a councillor and a council leader. In 2015, Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey had 22 bank branches. Just 11 years later, the number has dropped to just six in the latest data from January this year; that is a 77% reduction. That is six banks for almost 100,000 people living in the fifth largest constituency by geographical area in the UK—a constituency that it takes about two and half hours to drive from end to end.
The following bank branches alone have closed since 2020: in Forres, the Bank of Scotland and TSB closed their branches in 2022; in Badenoch and Strathspey, the Bank of Scotland closed its branch in Aviemore in 2024; and in Grantown-on-Spey, the Bank of Scotland and the TSB closed their branches in 2020 and 2021; while in Nairn, the TSB closed its branch in 2021, and most recently, the town lost its last bank. Link, the organisation that monitors bank closures and which is tasked with determining where new shared services should be, reports the total number of bank closures across the UK as 2,237 since 2022. For the same period, 276 banking hubs have been recommended by Link.
In this modern age, when there is digital banking on websites and through apps and when, frankly, fewer and fewer people are using physical bank branches, it is not a surprise to see those closures. However, it is how we respond that is important. There remain many vulnerable people and, indeed, certain types of businesses that rely heavily on cash banking and we cannot allow the rug to be pulled out from under them.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way and for securing this debate and choosing this topic. He is so right that there are older and vulnerable people who are not able to access banking services or to access cash because of high street bank closures. Does he share my view that the Government’s introduction of the Financial Services and Markets Bill today in the other place presents a great opportunity for them to consider how banking services and access to cash can be provided in rural areas?
Graham Leadbitter
I absolutely agree. I am pleased to see the Bill coming forward, as it will provide opportunities to make progress on this important issue.
There is also the vital question of community sustainability. The loss of banking services in rural communities makes it harder to attract people to live and work there. It also means the loss of local banking jobs that have long provided access to respected professional jobs and the potential of a career in financial services.
Gordon McKee (Glasgow South) (Lab)
The hon. Member rightly talks about the lack of banking access in his constituency and in rural areas. I have noticed that there is now a lack of banking access even in my urban constituency in Glasgow, particularly in areas such as Castlemilk and Carnwadric. That is particularly bad because some of the people there do not have access to a car. Does the hon. Member agree that banking hubs are also important in urban areas where those services are not provided?
Graham Leadbitter
Certainly; there are some areas, particularly large estates in urban areas, where we can see services disappearing simply because of how people live their lives. It is important that the state takes action to protect those critical services that people access. I was a student in Glasgow, and I see lots of places where there were banks that I used when I was a student which simply do not exist any more.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I know that this is an issue that the hon. Member cares about passionately. I am sure that like me, he has had issues with people, particularly elderly people, who fear that they have been scammed. It is all very well saying, “Get online and we’ll see if we can sort this out,” but there is nothing like a face-to-face meeting and somebody from the Bank of Scotland, the Clydesdale or the Royal Bank of Scotland saying, “No, you’re okay,” or, “This is what we’ll do.” With all due respect, that reassurance is not there online. That is why I believe that face-to-face advice is hugely important.
Graham Leadbitter
I absolutely agree about face to face, particularly for vulnerable people, but also for businesses or maybe somebody who might be thinking about starting up in business. Being able to talk to a community banker who can give them a little bit of early advice about access to basic business services is really helpful.
Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman has been very generous with his time in allowing all these interventions. Does he agree that part of this is about fairness? Without the access to the professional advice that they would get from face-to-face banking, some businesses might not succeed as much as they should have done. In my own constituency, we have seen high streets being closed, but we have not yet been successful in getting a bank hub in Abbots Langley, despite there being a community demand and, I would argue, a need for it.
Graham Leadbitter
The hon. Gentleman makes a fantastic point and I will come on to that later in my remarks.
Ann Davies (Caerfyrddin) (PC)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. We will leave him in peace for a while after this. For nine months I have been trying to get a banking hub in Ammanford, which is a post-industrial town, but Link has turned us down. We went to appeal and it turned us down again. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need consistency in applying Financial Conduct Authority guidance? All the elements seem to qualify that town for a banking hub, but yet again, Link has turned us down. There seems to be a lack of consistency in applying the rules.
Graham Leadbitter
Absolutely. That consistency is vital, but flexibility within the criteria is also vital. I will come on to that as well.
It is frankly hard to stomach that the big high street banks use the argument of increased digital banking to justify local bank closures while building large, centralised banking centres in our cities. Surely the same argument can be applied to push workforce and management out to existing bank branches in local communities and enable that local workforce to carry out tasks on national functions such as mortgage services and business banking using the very same digital technology.
Henry Tufnell (Mid and South Pembrokeshire) (Lab)
On the point about the assessment made by Link under statute, does the hon. Gentleman agree that the three-mile radius that is being used by Link is totally inadequate when looking at rural areas such as mine in Pembrokeshire?
Graham Leadbitter
Yes, and I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. We are down to six bank branches in an area that takes two and a half hours to drive around. It is simply impossible for many people in those areas to access those services.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
It is really interesting hearing about these rural-urban splits. My constituency is very much on the urban fringe, yet we are really struggling. We have been trying to get branches in Chertsey and Addlestone, and we had one in Cobham that recently closed down. This sounds like an issue that affects people everywhere, irrespective of rurality, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for taking forward this debate.
Graham Leadbitter
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that.
After the election, the Government said they were working closely with industry to roll out 350 banking hubs across the UK, which is very welcome, and that the banking sector was committed to deliver those hubs by the end of this Parliament. But that is not far off just one for every two constituencies, and we need more and much better targets than that.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
The banking and cash hubs in Hornsea, Withernsea and now Hedon in my constituency are fantastic and really work well, but is the hon. Gentleman aware that Lloyds is the only major bank that does not allow the deposit of cheques at post offices and cash and banking hubs, and that that is damaging to the most vulnerable in our society and to the bank’s customers. Will he join me in calling on Lloyds to look at that again, to ensure that people can deposit those cheques? Apps and other approaches do not always meet people’s needs, particularly those of elderly people.
Graham Leadbitter
Absolutely. I would consider those to be basic services that people should be able to access as close to their own community as they possibly can.
I was perplexed to read, in response to a written question from November last year, that the Government do not hold any bank closure data at all, despite the figures that I have quoted from Link. That is concerning when it is considered alongside the policy of 350 banking hubs, as neither the Government nor we who provide scrutiny can determine definitively how many closures have occurred and, by extension, how much damage requires to be mitigated.
Katrina Murray (Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch) (Lab)
We successfully managed to apply for an interim banking hub in Kilsyth, which opened only four weeks ago. One of the grounds for having that hub was the closure of the Santander branch in Cumbernauld. There was a push then saying that the nearest alternative was the Santander branch in Kirkintilloch. Six months after the branch in Cumbernauld closed, notification was given that the Kirkintilloch branch would also close, with the nearest facility being in Glasgow, 25 miles away.
Graham Leadbitter
That gets to the heart of the matter. There is not an understanding by either the regulators or the banks themselves of the impacts that those closures have on communities that view themselves as being neighbours and part of a wider community, and the cumulative impact of that is significant.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)
We are talking about the rules. We know that the banks have withdrawn from our communities. My market towns of Fakenham and Aylsham have had all the banks go apart from one Nationwide. They say their answer to that is Link, and yet the rules seem to say that market towns, with that huge hinterland they also serve, are not sufficient to allow for banking services to be provided via hubs. Does the hon. Member agree that if those are the rules, those rules need to change?
Graham Leadbitter
Absolutely.
I turn to the inadequacies in the current framework, and I will try to make some progress. Current criteria include the number of remaining branches, the population size and the retail centre size, which is frankly ridiculous when some communities can be compact while others can have a narrow spread over a greater distance, often constrained by physical landscape and infrastructure features, such as rivers, railway lines, roads and, in some cases such as in my constituency, the foot of a mountain range. Transport distance, public transport links, population vulnerability and existing cash services are also all considered by Link. It is, however, the flexibility of those criteria that is the problem and the lack of cognisance of the wider geographic and population context, especially in areas such as the north of Scotland.
Friends in Kinross in Perthshire, while not in my constituency, noted that one criterion their community failed to meet was the retail centre requirements. They are sandwiched between a loch and a motorway, so the town can only realistically expand in two directions, resulting in smaller retail hubs rather than a bigger central area. Surely the answer is not reclaiming the loch or moving the motorway to get support for banking facilities.
Equally, the lack of progress on potential banking hubs in Grantown, Lossiemouth, Nairn and Aviemore in my constituency tells me that the current criteria are simply not good enough. Current population criteria ignore the needs of smaller hub towns in rural areas. Bus and train services to even relatively close alternatives still require significant journey planning and, indeed, cost for people who had previously been able to access facilities for free within walking distance. What may seem a relatively short distance can see a bus going off the most direct route into other communities, en route to the destination, and the return journey is not always available immediately on concluding banking transactions. In inclement weather, this process is even less appealing, and in mid-winter it is deeply concerning that elderly people may be waiting for buses in temperatures well below zero. That is very common through the winter months in the Cairngorms area where several of these communities are located.
The lack of banking facilities in Lossiemouth, for example, means that many businesses have to rely on services in Elgin, which is five to six miles away. Although that may not sound like a significant distance, travel times, paid parking and the impact of these repeat journeys to Elgin on smaller businesses’ workforces pose severe problems for Lossiemouth-based customers.
For the towns of Newtonmore, Kingussie and Aviemore, their last banks have all closed. The closest bank is in Inverness, which is up to an hour’s drive away across a distance of 30 to 45 miles. That is especially concerning as Aviemore is the UK’s principal ski resort, but locals and visitors alike do not have a bank to use. A banking hub would be a great way to boost the local economy, which is reliant on tourism and hospitality—traditionally a more cash reliant part of the economy.
For Grantown, a market town, its nearest non-Post Office banking service is now a 30-minute drive away in Forres, on a road with snow gates and snow poles that I can assure Members are necessary on numerous occasions over the winter. A banking hub would reduce journey times, costs and banking uncertainty for residents.
In Nairn, another busy town with significant tourism and a population of approaching 10,000 people, which is much higher in the summer with the tourist population added, there are no more banks in town. Alternatives are in Forres and in Inverness, but people cannot reasonably travel to and from those towns on public transport in under two hours, in addition to the time taken to transact their banking business.
Finally, I would like to point to an area not related to access to cash but to the other critical services offered by banks through banking hubs.
Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is being incredibly generous with his time. I share his frustration that from the northern parts of Scotland to Southampton, on the south coast, the criteria is completely inadequate. In fact, in its assessment for the Bitterne application, Link included bus times that simply did not exist on any timetable anywhere. Does he agree with me that when banks have been removed, an assessment of access to cash is entirely the wrong answer to the question? Does he welcome, as I do, the Government’s review, and does he share my hope that what we will actually get to is an adequate, effective tool to assess the lack of banking services?
Graham Leadbitter
Absolutely. I am about to talk about the critical services offered by banks through banking hubs, which addresses the hon. Gentleman’s point.
Community bankers located within banking hubs can offer much needed savings, loan and mortgage advice. Recently, a local community leader in Grantown made the strong point that basic business support, such as collecting change, depositing and withdrawing cash, transferring money between business accounts, making payments, managing cards, fraud support and money advice and even offering simple advice on how to open a business bank account, can be the difference between a business thriving and a business failing in a rural community.
Paying utility bills, depositing cheques and, for local charitable groups, even depositing the proceeds from a coffee morning or a raffle stall at a Highland Games, can make the difference between succeeding or struggling. The golden thread in all of this is that without banking hubs in the areas that need them, current policy is making it harder for people to buy their own homes, to run their own businesses and even to simply access cash in these areas.
I am pleased to acknowledge the Government’s announcement last week of an independent access to cash review, which will report in October 2026. I would have liked that work to have been done and concluded by now, but now it is in place I do not want to be churlish or grumpy about it. I know that those engaged in that review will be paying close attention to debates like this. I am sure that they will have noted the number of hon. Members from all political parties who are contributing to this debate and making their views and those of their communities known on this important issue. It is important that the regulators and the independent reviewer hear that breadth of opinion, because that will inform the response to the review.
Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and allowing me to give one further example that I hope the reviewers will consider. Lloyds will this month close the last existing bank in Kingswinford and South Staffordshire, leaving all of my constituents, whether urban or rural, without a proper bank. However, none of the villages are eligible for banking hubs because of the presence of building societies—sometimes part-time building societies —within the villages. Does he agree that while our building societies provide a fantastic service, they do not provide the range of services that my constituents, particularly those with small businesses, need that could be offered through a banking hub?
Graham Leadbitter
Absolutely. Again, that goes back to the point I made about people needing a business service and basic business advice without having to travel dozens of miles to access that. Setting up a business is hard at the best of times, and having simple access to somewhere that will answer simple questions is really important.
To conclude my 12-minute speech that has now lasted for 20 minutes, banking hubs would make a massive difference to communities like Lossiemouth, Grantown, Aviemore and Nairn, and to the many other communities that Members from across the House have mentioned in the debate. I trust that the Minister will recognise the firm but constructive approach that I and other Members have taken on this important issue.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Rachel Blake)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter) for securing this debate and for setting out the concerns of not only of his constituents but, as he made clear, those of the many Members who are in the Chamber this evening who want to talk about this topic. I congratulate him on gathering people from across the country and from across different political persuasions to talk about access to banking services—I know how important it is to people.
Let me start by acknowledging the important work done on this issue by my predecessor, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North (Lucy Rigby), particularly in relation to the announcement of the independent review on access to banking services and the Financial Services and Markets Bill, which was introduced yesterday. I will return to that later in my speech—in fact, I will probably be referring most hon. Members’ interventions to the access to banking services review.
Liam Conlon (Beckenham and Penge) (Lab)
The Minister mentioned interventions, so I congratulate her and welcome her to her place.
I welcome this Government’s commitment to ensuring that people up and down the country have access to banking services. In my constituency, Mr Jignesh Patel has made an excellent application to open a banking hub in his post office in Anerley, with the support of local Labour councillors for Crystal Palace and Anerley as well as residents. With an experienced team already handling sensitive financial transactions daily and existing infrastructure already in place, his post office is fully equipped to deliver a banking hub with minimal disruption. Does the Minister agree that the application process must ensure that the merits of excellent applications such as that of Mr Jignesh Patel are fully considered, giving him and others the best chance of success?
Rachel Blake
I thank my hon. Friend for his thoughtful intervention, and I wish local businesses in his constituency all the best. These decisions are made by Link, but the Government keep a very close eye on the assessment criteria.
Linsey Farnsworth (Amber Valley) (Lab)
I want to bring a bit of good news to the House. Last month, I had the honour of cutting the ribbon on a new banking hub on Oxford Street in Ripley. It is an important facility for my constituents, but it is actually the first of its kind. It did not go through the Link procedure; it was identified as a site by Cash Access UK. It is run by and staffed entirely by Cash Access UK, so a continuing team is involved there. Will the Minister recognise the great achievement of Cash Access UK in my town and the importance of similar banking hubs across the country?
Rachel Blake
I absolutely recognise the importance of banking hubs, as my hon. Friend has described. I am very grateful to her for highlighting the different models available, and I very much hope that she will submit some of that evidence and the case study to the access to banking services review.
I am particularly struck by the reflections of hon. Members on the importance of banking services for those who are vulnerable, and the importance of banking services in urban and rural communities and how they have been lost.
David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)
I welcome the Minister to her new role.
On the criteria, I have pushed for a banking hub in Budleigh Salterton for a great deal of time, but it was pushed back because there is a post office in the town. The post office was closed for 10 weeks last year, and the surrounding rural villages—places such as East Budleigh, Otterton and Colaton Raleigh—were starved of cash. Will the Minister meet with me to look at the criteria that Link has put in place around the post office’s suitability to see if we can get that overturned?
Rachel Blake
I would absolutely be happy to meet with the hon. Member to talk about that issue. I hope to meet with Members from across the House about the access to banking services review.
Feryal Clark (Enfield North) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister to her place.
My constituency was one of the lucky ones that was awarded a banking hub two years ago, and I worked with Cash Access UK to secure a temporary place in the council library. Two years on, it has failed to secure an accessible permanent site and is refusing to engage with me. Will the review also look into the delivery of commitments by Cash Access UK?
Rachel Blake
I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution, and I hope that we can discuss it during the review.
Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)
I have had the pleasure of opening two banking hubs, in Rossington and in Thorne, and have seen the success that they have brought to the area. However, I also have the Isle of Axholme—a rural area—in my constituency, and access to cash is really important for financial inclusion, local businesses, and the resilience of our rural communities. Will the review take that into account?
Rachel Blake
My hon. Friend makes important points about access to banking services across a number of different areas. I am grateful to him, and I hope we can continue to discuss this issue.
We now have very little time left—
Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)
On that point, will the Minister give way? [Laughter.]
Dave Doogan
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Could she give my constituents some comfort that after the review—I am certain it will find that the current criteria set out for Link by the FCA are deeply flawed and exist in a random, abstract form that bears no resemblance to local people’s circumstances—places such as Pitlochry will be able to revisit Link and the FCA’s flawed decisions?
Rachel Blake
I disagree—I think that the hon. Gentleman goes too far in his criticism of the criteria. It is important that the Government continue to monitor how these banking hubs are assessed and the need for them.
I will close by talking about—
Suella Braverman (Fareham and Waterlooville) (Reform)
Will the Minister give way?
Rachel Blake
I am going to make a little bit of progress now, because we do not have much time. Despite the important progress that we have heard this evening about the number of banking hubs that have been set up—a commitment to 275 with 235 already delivered—it would be premature to conclude that all people and communities are receiving support with their banking needs. Decisions to close bank branches are ultimately commercial decisions taken by banks and building societies, and reflect some of the changes in the way people choose to bank.
Rachel Blake
I have to finish now. I welcome the commitments that firms have made to maintain or improve their existing branches, recognising just how important they are to their customers. There are already some rules and obligations for firms that are changing their branch networks, which they must take very seriously. All Members should know that those decisions must be taken with regard to the impact on customers and communities. I underline that banks and building societies are expected to put appropriate alternatives in place ahead of closure, and where they fall short of those expectations, the FCA can and will ask for closures to be paused.
Rachel Blake
I am not going to give way. I fully support those powers, and expect the FCA to use them where necessary. However, the Government are concerned that although firms have been reshaping their branch networks in response to customer demand, this may be creating particular challenges, which is why we have brought forward the review.
The Government recognise how important it is that communities such as those represented by the hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey and many other Members from all parts of the country have sufficient access to cash and banking services. Banks and building societies are a core part of the everyday economy. It is critical that communities have sufficient access to those important services. I am sure that many Members from across the House agree with that, and I look forward to working with them on the access to banking services review.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Hampshire and the Solent Combined County Authority Regulations 2026
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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The Minister for Local Government and Homelessness (Alison McGovern)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Hampshire and the Solent Combined County Authority Regulations 2026.
It is, as ever, a great pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stuart. The draft regulations were laid on 16 March 2026. When referring to the Hampshire and the Solent combined county authority, I will use the term “strategic authority” hereafter, unless there is a reason to be specific.
This Government were elected on a manifesto commitment to widen and deepen devolution across England, and the English devolution White Paper set out our plans to achieve that. Devolution is a critical lever for delivering growth and prosperity, as mayors and local leaders are best placed to take the decisions that benefit local communities. Much of the White Paper has now been taken through Parliament via the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026.
The White Paper also launched the devolution priority programme to provide a fast track to establish a new wave of mayoral strategic authorities. In February 2025, following an expressions-of-interest process, we announced six places on that programme, including Hampshire and the Solent. The regulations will establish the strategic authority and provide for mayoral elections. In so doing, they represent substantial progress towards fulfilling our commitment to move power out of Whitehall and back to those who know their areas best.
The Government have worked closely on the regulations with the constituent councils in Hampshire and the Solent. The constituent councils are: Hampshire county council, Isle of Wight council, Portsmouth city council and Southampton city council. All the constituent councils have consented to the making of the regulations, and I personally thank local leaders and their councils for their support in getting us to this point.
If Parliament approves, the regulations will be made under the enabling provisions of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023. The amendments made to those provisions by the 2026 Act do not apply for the purposes of these regulations because of transitional and saving provisions made in a separate statutory instrument: the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 (Transitional and Saving Provisions) (England) Regulations 2026. The strategic authority will be established on the day after the day on which the regulations are made. The inaugural mayoral election is due to take place on 4 May 2028, and the elected mayor will take office on 8 May 2028 for a four-year term.
The regulations provide for the governance arrangements of the strategic authority. Each constituent council appoints one of its elected members to be a member of the strategic authority, with Hampshire county council appointing a further member. The mayor will also be a member once in office. The strategic authority can also appoint non-constituent and associate members to support its work. Each voting member is to have one vote. Before the mayor takes office, there will, by the unanimous request of all constituent authorities, be specific interim governance arrangements for decisions on certain matters, as set out in the regulations. Once the mayor takes office, the vast majority of decisions are to be determined by a simple majority of the members present and voting. That majority must include the mayor, or the deputy mayor acting in place of the mayor.
The regulations provide some functions in relation to transport and economic development, but there is a strong link here with the 2026 Act. On its establishment, the Hampshire and the Solent strategic authority will be classed as a mayoral strategic authority, and the functions reserved for that tier will automatically be conferred. Even before the mayor is in office, the strategic authority will be able to exercise mayoral strategic authority functions, with the exception of those that are reserved specifically for the mayor. That is why the regulations confer fewer functions than previous statutory instruments establishing strategic authorities. The functions that they do confer, which are focused around local transport and economic development, are designed to support the work of the strategic authority before all provisions of the 2026 Act are in force, and to enable it to deliver the benefits of devolution from day one.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government consulted on a proposal to establish the strategic authority between 17 February 2025 and 13 April 2025. The purpose of the consultation was to gather evidence and information on the effects of establishing the strategic authority. The consultation was promoted through social media, a communications campaign, a dedicated website, online and in-person events, and the distribution of consultation materials. Responses could be made online, by email or by post.
A summary of responses, which were received from a wide range of stakeholder groups, including members of the public, businesses, councils, universities, the third sector and other bodies, has been published on gov.uk. The Government carefully considered the responses, and on 17 July we confirmed to Parliament that the statutory tests to establish a strategic authority had been met. Subject to the making of the regulations, the strategic authority will receive devolved funding, including for transport and adult skills, capacity funding and a 30-year mayoral investment fund to support local priorities.
The regulations represent clear progress on our mission to widen and deepen devolution in England, and will make it a reality in Hampshire and the Solent. That will empower local leaders to deliver for their communities, improving the lives of, and opportunities for, their residents. I look forward to the debate, and I hope that the Committee will join me in supporting the regulations.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. It is also a pleasure to see the Minister in her place. The explanatory note was written in the name of the former Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Peckham (Miatta Fahnbulleh). I am sure that the Minister would give the Committee the same assurances as the former Under-Secretary of State about the provisions meeting the relevant standard.
The Opposition do not propose to divide the Committee on this delegated legislation. We recognise that this is one of a number of such decisions brought forward, at the invitation of the Government, as local authorities have sought to take advantage of what is the only game in town for them to secure the additional powers and scope that a combined county authority will bring. For the record, we remain sceptical about whether a directly elected mayor is the optimal type of political leadership for all parts of England that currently do not have that arrangement—we acknowledge in particular the diverse geography of the area that we are debating—and whether a single elected individual will be in a position to make effective decisions that enjoy democratic support, which is a significant challenge. Although we do not oppose the regulations, we remain concerned about that.
Members will be conscious that a series of local elections took place that will change the political dynamics of the authorities that are set out as party to this agreement, and that those authorities will be subject to boundary changes in future. The Minister will have heard the impassioned pleas, particularly from Members for the New Forest constituencies, to reconsider the impact that those proposed local government boundary changes will have on their local areas and communities. It would be helpful for her to set out for the Committee whether the impact of those changes on subsequent authorities has been considered by the Ministry in its decision-making process.
In the regulations, the proposed date for the new mayoral elections is 2028. Only a short time ago, those mayoral elections were due to take place this year. Across the country, political parties selected mayoral candidates and campaigned, but then we saw the frankly incredible shambles of elections being cancelled and then uncancelled as a result of judicial reviews, with mayoral campaigns being stood up and then stood down, all of which has undermined the confidence of those involved in the process about whether the end point is realistic and deliverable.
The new unitary authorities within the geographical area to which the regulations relate are due to have elections in 2027. Although I am sure that the Minister is not minded to amend the regulations, I would be grateful if she told the Committee whether she will consider amending the legislation so that, instead of having two separate, dissonant sets of elections, the elections that take place under the new arrangements all take place at the same time in 2027. That would ensure a smooth transition from the powers that are about to be removed—such as those of the office of the police and crime commissioner—to the new arrangements that the mayor will bring in, rather than having a 12-month hiatus in the process. It would also give residents the opportunity, within those democratic processes, to give their judgment on the mayoral proposals and the new unitary authorities, which would come into being at the same time. That would save taxpayer money and result in a smoother and more efficient transition.
Finally, the provisions of the 2026 Act include specific prohibitions for those who hold mayoral office from becoming Members of Parliament and vice versa. Will the Minister set out how those provisions will apply to the regulations?
Liz Jarvis (Eastleigh) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stuart.
I recognise that the aim of the combined mayoral authority is to devolve more powers from central Government to a more local level. The Liberal Democrats believe that powers should be devolved to local bodies as far as possible, and the statutory instrument is a step in the right direction. We would like to see more powers devolved in this arrangement, such as the regulation of ferries, which are vital for thousands of residents across the Solent region, especially those on the Isle of Wight. It is equally important to ensure that councils have the resources they need to deliver on their statutory duties and on the additional services that they offer to make residents’ lives easier, better and more fulfilling.
This is a missed opportunity to address the funding deficit faced by local councils, and to deliver greater value for money by encouraging more joined-up working across the local authorities that constitute the combined mayoral authority. In the context of local government reorganisation—a measure imposed on Hampshire councils by this Government as a condition of greater devolution—the mechanisms described in the regulations are unclear. The regulations refer only to the higher-tier authorities: Hampshire county council, Southampton and Portsmouth city councils, and Isle of Wight council. No role is defined for district councils, which are closest to residents.
The regulations therefore disenfranchise district councils and the local voices they represent. Without clarity on future structures, there is a risk that the balance of representation, both politically and by population area, could be skewed, undermining fair and effective governance. The uncertainty around the implementation of LGR is compounded by the illogical introduction from April 2027 of a combined mayoral authority that will not have a mayor until 2028. Surely a combined mayoral authority should have an elected mayor in place from its inception, so that the new mayoralty and the new unitary structures begin together, and residents see a clearer and more coherent transition. Moreover, with the welcome announcement that police and crime commissioners will be abolished, who will oversee police in the local area before the mayor is elected?
We are also concerned about how the combined mayoral authority will interact with local authorities from April 2027, while there are transitionary arrangements in place between the current councils and the future unitary councils. In particular, what formal role will those councils have in governance and decision making for the mayoral authority? That is especially important in the light of the section 24 notice expected later this year, which would require the successor councils to agree certain financial decisions involving land disposals and major contracts.
The Minister may need to consider whether the regulations should provide a formal role for shadow authorities, or whether the section 24 arrangements themselves need to be adjusted. Of course, we must guard against placing too much power in the hands of one individual. Can the Minister assure me that the new unitary councils will be empowered to hold elected mayors to account and will have genuine decision-making powers to pursue the goals of their communities? We also need a commitment to return to a proportional voting system, so that regional mayors—and perhaps even the new unitary councils—are elected with a broader base of support.
Finally, I commend the work of borough, town and parish councils in Eastleigh and across Hampshire. Despite the Government’s continued failure to recognise the important role played by parish and town councils, they do fantastic work on behalf of local residents, and, for many communities, they are the most visible and accessible part of local government. I urge the Minister and the Department to work closely with colleagues and offices across all tiers of local government in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight to ensure that local voices are heard and that this transition delivers an accountable, transparent system that works in the best interests of all our residents.
Alison McGovern
I thank the Opposition spokespeople, the hon. Members for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner and for Eastleigh, for their contributions, which were, as ever, helpful and thoughtful. Before we conclude, I will address a couple of their points.
Both Members mentioned local government reorganisation. It is important to say that it does have a purpose. Unitary councils are more effective and able—
Alison McGovern
I will finish my point. Unitary councils are able join up services and improve how they respond to the needs of residents. The hon. Member for Broxbourne is free to disagree if he so wishes.
Lewis Cocking
Will the Minister set out the evidence for her statement that unitary councils perform better?
Alison McGovern
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has heard me say this before, but I grew up in the Wirral. Previously, it was one small council operating under Cheshire county council—nobody has ever campaigned to divide our council again. The same is true just down the road, where Cheshire West and Chester council went through the process back in the late 2000s. Once unitarisation happens, it tends to be supported, with limited calls for its reversal. Sadly, we can see the impacts of the two-tier system today, but we have rehearsed that argument many times, so I will not detain the Committee with it.
David Simmonds
Let me pick on the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne made about the evidence on performance. People might feel a certain way about such local authorities, but following reorganisation, Cheshire West and Chester council and Cheshire East council, which the Minister just mentioned, both suffered significant problems with Ofsted inspections and Care Quality Commission inspections of children’s and adults’ social care, requiring significant intervention. It was clear that the disruption inherent in reorganisation had been a major factor in the emergence of those problems. The same was true in Somerset, in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, and in a number of other authorities. It would be helpful if the Minister set out the evidence for the performance improvement that she cited.
Alison McGovern
I respect the hon. Gentleman and his point, but I will not detain the Committee by debating that topic, which does not relate directly to the regulations. I gently say to him that under the previous Government, a lot of the accountability measures for local authorities were taken away. We will reintroduce an outcomes framework and much more transparency about performance, precisely so that we can guard against the issues that he mentions. Reasonable people can disagree, but I will not detain the Committee any further on that matter.
The hon. Members for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner and for Eastleigh both mentioned changing the date of elections. The shadow Minister also mentioned confidence and trust, which we will have to bear in mind when making any further changes.
The hon. Member for Eastleigh asked a couple of specific questions about powers and other things. I will write to her about those matters, if that is okay. She may not be aware, but strictly speaking, the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Nesil Caliskan), would ordinarily have taken this debate, but unfortunately she is elsewhere in the country today. I will ensure that she responds to the hon. Member’s points. In the meantime, I assure the hon. Member that district councils have been fully involved in the local government reorganisation process, and that we have listened and will continue to listen carefully to their representations.
I will not detain the Committee any longer. We have discussed the issues relating to this topic, as we have done before and will do again. I thank all Committee members for participating in the discussion on this incredibly important matter, and I hope they will join me in supporting the regulations.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Statements
Horizon Shortfall Scheme: Fixed-sum Offer Appeals and Independent Senior Lawyer
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Blair McDougall)
The Government are determined that postmasters affected by the Horizon scandal receive the compensation they deserve.
The Government are today announcing further details about how postmasters who previously accepted the Horizon shortfall scheme fixed-sum offer will be able to request permission from an independent person to appeal their award. We are also providing an update on the recommendations from the Horizon shortfall scheme independent senior lawyer on cases where there is no evidence of a shortfall.
Permission to appeal
Volume 1 of the Post Office IT Horizon inquiry report recommended that postmasters who feel they may have under-settled their HSS claim by accepting the 75,000 HSS FSO
“should be afforded the opportunity to appeal against their acceptance of such an offer if they are granted permission to do so”
by an independent person. Being granted permission to appeal will not guarantee that a postmaster’s award will be uplifted when their claim is fully assessed in the HSS appeals process.
To implement Sir Wyn Williams’ recommendation, the Department for Business and Trade has developed draft guidance for the scheme and engaged with key stakeholders, including claimants’ representatives, the Horizon compensation advisory board and postmaster organisations. This is to ensure that the process will be fit for purpose and meets its aims.
The FSO permission to appeal process will open for registrations later this year. Postmasters who have already received an FSO will have three months from the launch date to register and seek permission to appeal. Those who receive FSOs in future will have three months from the date of the offer to seek permission to appeal. Once confirmed as eligible, they will then have a further three months to make their application by submitting a concise written narrative explaining why they believe that their claim was under-settled. Assessment of these requests will be undertaken completely independently of the Department and Post Office. A postmaster who is granted permission will be permitted to apply to the HSS appeals process.
DBT will fund postmasters’ reasonable costs of obtaining legal advice to understand the value of their potential claim and prepare their narrative on the basis of a tariff which was discussed with legal representatives and has also been published today. We will strongly encourage those considering seeking permission to appeal to take up this offer and only engage solicitors and firms that are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Law Society of Scotland or the Law Society of Northern Ireland. Additionally, postmasters should not engage any firm which offers a “no-win, no-fee” conditional fee or litigation funding agreement.
The Government have today published the draft fixed-sum offer permission to appeal process guide, which details the proposed principles, eligibility criteria, stages of the process and expectations for applicants. This provides the information which postmasters and their legal representatives will need to start submitting cases. We continue to welcome feedback from stakeholders on our proposals. This is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/horizon-shortfall-scheme-hss-fixed-sum-offer-permission-to-appeal-process .
DBT will work with the Post Office to ensure postmasters who previously received an FSO are contacted upon launch to make them aware that this process is available.
Horizon shortfall scheme
In December 2025, Sir Gary Hickinbottom was appointed to the HSS as the independent senior lawyer to review any generic issues arising under the scheme; and, if appropriate, make recommendations to ensure full, fair and prompt redress within the scheme and, as far as possible, across the Horizon redress schemes as a whole.
The DBT and Post Office referred the handling of cases without shortfall evidence to Sir Gary for review. He has reviewed this process and provided recommendations on it. He advised that, subject to implementation of those recommendations, the process is appropriate, robust and fair, and does not apply more than the necessary burden on claimants. The Government have today published the full report which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-senior-lawyers-review-of-unevidenced-shortfalls-process . The Post Office and the Department are grateful for his advice and have accepted his recommendations in full.
In addition to the report, we have issued guidance outlining the procedures for managing and processing these cases to ensure claimants have a clear understanding of how their claims will be handled. The Post Office and the Department are committed to providing full and fair redress for those affected by the Horizon scandal. We consider that this revised process will ensure that applicants will obtain that redress in a manner that is fair to all claimants. DBT will continue to work with Post Office to ensure claims are processed as quickly as possible.
I will keep the House updated as this work progresses.
[HCWS45]
Trade Negotiations
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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The Minister for Trade (Chris Bryant)
The UK has concluded a free trade agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—as friends and valued partners.
The UK’s ties with the Gulf are deep, historic, and future-focused. This deal is founded upon our shared commitment to open trade, mutual prosperity, and the long-term economic success of all our nations.
The Government recognise the challenges UK businesses are facing as a result of the situation in the middle east and are already taking action to support firms through this period of uncertainty, by supporting critical supply chains, strengthening domestic steel production and boosting consumer confidence. Ministers are working closely with business groups and industry leaders to understand the pressures facing industry and, as the situation develops, will be agile in responding.
Today’s agreement with the GCC supports that wider, co-ordinated response—providing the legal certainty and long-term stability that businesses tell us they need to plan, invest and grow with confidence. Alongside domestic action through the industrial strategy and small business plan, this deal forms part of a coherent strategy to build economic resilience and support long-term growth in trade and exports.
This deal is one of the most ambitious that the GCC has ever concluded and marks the first FTA it has concluded with a G7 nation. It reflects and strengthens the deep, long-standing partnership between our nations, built on decades of shared commitment to open trade, mutual prosperity and the long-term economic success of all our nations.
The GCC is equivalent to the UK’s 10th largest trading partner1, with total trade between the UK and GCC valued at £53 billion in 20252. This deal is estimated to grow trade between us by almost 20%3, supporting economic growth and putting money in people’s pockets. The deal could add an estimated £3.7 billion annually to the UK economy in the long run when compared to 2040 projections and £1.9 billion a year to real wages4. When combined with the India FTA, the two agreements are estimated to add over £8 billion a year in real terms5, helping to drive forward our modern industrial strategy. This agreement responds directly to the priorities raised by UK businesses and includes measures that will meaningfully improve the ease of doing business with the GCC.
As the second largest services exporter in the world6, with strengths in sectors such as financial and professional business services, the UK is well matched to support the Gulf’s ambitions to diversify its economies. This FTA gives UK firms the tools and certainty they need to expand their presence across the region. This includes locking in market access across a broad range of sectors for our services firms. This will ensure that UK businesses are provided with guaranteed terms on which to trade, reducing the risk of future restrictions that could impact their operations. This includes limitations on foreign ownership or requirements to set up a base in the GCC to supply their services in the region. We are also providing greater regulatory transparency in telecoms, including authorisation and licensing processes, ensuring that businesses can access GCC regulations and that regulatory processes are fair and efficient.
The GCC has taken its most ambitious commitments on business mobility to date, which will improve consistency and transparency of visa requirements and processes, and provide increased certainty on the level of access that businesses can enjoy. This will support UK firms to deliver services in the region, in support of the GCC’s diversification plans.
For the first time, the GCC has committed not to impose disproportionate or unjustified requirements on firms to store their data locally in the bloc, giving UK tech firms greater confidence that they will not face costly new burdens. The far-reaching digital provisions in this agreement will drive innovation and support the use of emerging digital technologies through UK-GCC co-operation. This will enable both sides to take advantage of opportunities when new products and services emerge, including in areas such as artificial intelligence, paperless trade and clean energy.
For goods exporters, the deal will make trade cheaper, faster, and more predictable, cutting red tape, reducing and removing tariffs and simplifying customs processes. Based on existing trade, the deal will eliminate duties worth an estimated £580 million a year on UK goods exported to the GCC once fully implemented.
Some £360 million of these estimated duties will be removed on day one of the agreement entering into force7. After a decade, 90% of GCC tariff lines will have tariffs removed, unlocking tariff-free access for around 93% of UK goods exports based on existing trade. Two thirds of UK exports will enter the GCC tariff-free immediately after the deal enters into force, delivering a major boost for UK manufacturers, food and high-value brands8. The UK is also liberalising tariffs on all current GCC exports from day one under this agreement, supporting supply chains and helping UK businesses to reduce input costs. The deal excludes pork, chicken and eggs from tariff liberalisation.
This deal removes tariffs on British exports, including automotives, aerospace, and food and drink such as smoked salmon and baked goods. UK businesses will benefit from tailored rules of origin, digital trade provisions such as paperless trading, a ban on customs duties on electronic transmissions and provisions allowing UK exporters, should they wish, to complete and self-certify their own origin documentation after initial registration. This was a top ask from businesses, helping to remove the often costly and time-consuming requirements which often deter smaller firms from exporting.
Investment is a core pillar of our growth mission, and this deal lays the foundation for even deeper UK-GCC investment ties, protecting investment on both sides and driving growth for years to come. The GCC is already a key source of inward investment into the UK, with total foreign direct investments, portfolio, derivatives and other investment assets and liabilities between the UK and Gulf Arabian countries—which include the GCC nations, as well as Yemen and Iraq9—amounting to £485 billion in 202410. UK investors from a range of sectors also have a long history of investing in the Gulf. In this deal we have agreed comprehensive levels of protections for UK and GCC investors and their investments, ensuring they will receive fair and non- discriminatory treatment that will give investors the confidence to make long-term investment decisions. It will also provide transparent, independent legal recourse to resolve disputes if treaty obligations are breached. This will help to ensure that projects in both regions have the certainty they need to succeed.
Within this FTA, we have also agreed a package of commitments on environment, labour, women’s economic empowerment, and animal welfare that go further than anything the GCC has agreed before in an FTA, opening new avenues for collaboration on shared priorities. These include commitments to address barriers that are specific to women in trade, as well as upholding the labour standards that underpin fair competition for businesses on both sides.
The UK will continue to work closely with our Gulf partners—across trade, investment, defence and security and to build prosperity across all our nations. We will now go through the steps to prepare this treaty for signature, and I look forward to updating the House further on this agreement in due course.
1,2https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/datasets/uktotaltradeallcountriesseasonallyadjusted
3DBT modelling
4DBT modelling
5DBT modelling
6UNCTAD
7Duty estimates are based on GCC import figures from ITC trademap, using 2024 data for all countries except Oman, which uses 2023 data. Duties are calculated using the GCC common external tariff and country-specific tariffs as of 2022. For countries where HS6-level data is used (Oman, Qatar and the UAE), the lowest MFN tariff within the HS6 subheading is applied to provide a conservative estimate.
8Estimates based on GCC import figures from ITC trademap, using 2024 data for all countries except Oman, which uses 2023 data.
9Yemen and Iraq are not a part of this FTA.
10https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/datasets/10geographicalbreakdownoftheukinternationalinvestmentpositionthepinkbook2016 Gulf Arabian in this instance refers to GCC members states, in addition to Yemen and Iraq. Due to data limitations, it is not possible to calculate the value of GCC assets in the UK collectively.
[HCWS52]
Covid-19 Inquiry Response Costs
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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The Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Nick Thomas-Symonds)
The UK Covid-19 Inquiry is examining the UK’s response to and impact of the pandemic. The Government are fully committed to supporting the work of the Covid-19 Inquiry and to learning lessons from the covid-19 pandemic to ensure that the UK is better prepared for a future pandemic. Quarter 1 Quarter 2 Quarter 3 Cumulative Total for 2025-26 Cost of UK Covid-19 Inquiry response unit staff (including contingent labour costs) £5,015,000 £4,299,000 £3,486,000 £12,800,000 Number of UK Covid-19 Inquiry response unit staff (full time equivalents) 248 207 167 N/A Quarter 1 Quarter 2 Quarter 3 Cumulative Total for 2025-26 Total legal costs £5,034,000 £6,298,000 £3,633,000 £14,965,000
The Government recognise the unprecedented and wholly exceptional circumstances of the pandemic. The inquiry is therefore unprecedented in its scope, complexity and profile.
The independent UK Covid-19 Inquiry publishes its own running costs quarterly. The Chair is under a statutory obligation to avoid unnecessary costs in the inquiry’s work—and she has been clear as to her intention to complete her work as quickly and efficiently as possible.
I would like to update the House on the costs to the UK Government associated with responding to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.
Figures provided are based upon a selection of the most relevant Departments and are not based on a complete set of departmental figures, and different Departments organise their response teams in different ways, according to business need. As such, these are not precise figures for accounting purposes. Ensuring a comprehensive and timely response to the inquiry requires significant input from a number of key Government Departments, including, but not limited to, the Cabinet Office, the Department of Health and Social Care, the UK Health Security Agency, the Home Office and HM Treasury, many of which are supported by the Government Legal Department. While every effort has been made to ensure a robust methodology, complexities remain in trying to quantify the time and costs dedicated to the inquiry alone.
It should be noted that alongside full-time resource within Departments, inquiry response teams draw on expertise from across their organisations. These costs, including costs associated with staff taking time to provide written or oral evidence, are not included in the costs below.
Breakdown of staff and costs
The Government’s response to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry is led by inquiry response units across Departments. These associated staff costs for Q3 2025-26 are below, and include retrospective adjustments for Q1-2.
Q3 number of UK Covid-19 Inquiry response unit staff: 167 full time equivalents
Q3 cost of UK Covid-19 Inquiry response unit staff: £3,486,000 (including contingent labour costs)
Financial year 2025-26 (Q1 + Q2 + Q3), total cost of UK Covid-19 Inquiry response unit staff: £12,800,000 (including contingent labour costs, and retrospective adjustments for Q1-2)
Total inquiry response unit legal costs
Inquiry response units across Government Departments are supported by the Government Legal Department, co-partnering firms of solicitors, and legal counsel. These associated legal costs—excluding internal departmental advisory legal costs—for Q3 2025-26 are below, and include retrospective adjustments for Q1-2.
Q3 legal costs: £3,633,000
Financial year 2025-26 (Q1 + Q2 + Q3), total legal costs: £14,965,000 (including retrospective adjustments for Q1-2)
[HCWS50]
Transport Taxation
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Dan Tomlinson)
The Government are confirming action to support households and businesses with their fuel costs, in response to the conflict in the middle east.
Middle east context and existing Government action
A rapid de-escalation in the middle east remains the best way to bring down fuel prices, where the most impactful step is to reopen the strait of Hormuz. The UK Government are playing a leading role in the international effort to get shipping flowing freely.
Alongside this key step, the Government’s priorities will continue to be helping families with the cost of living, including through protecting the public finances to support the Bank of England with its role in keeping inflation as low as possible.
The Government have already taken action to bear down on prices at the pump. In November, the Government extended the 5p per litre cut in fuel duty for a further five months and ensured that fuel duty will not increase in line with inflation this year. The Government’s fuel finder scheme is delivering real benefits at the pump, with a growing number of apps and websites making near-live fuel prices available to drivers right across the UK. The CMA has stepped up its monitoring of petrol and diesel prices, recently publishing its first enhanced monitoring report on the impact of the conflict, with plans to report further in the coming week.
Petrol and diesel are currently 11p per litre cheaper than under plans inherited from the previous Government, and fuel duty has not been lower than it is now at any point in over 16 years. However, some fuels have been more impacted than others by this conflict, with jet fuel, diesel and heating oil prices increasing more than petrol. The Government also recognise the pressures being faced by drivers and other fuel users.
Going further to support motorists and other fuel users
Today, the Government are announcing a package worth over £400 million, which combines broad support for motorists with targeted support for sectors most exposed to and affected by higher fuel prices.
Fuel duty: 5p cut extension until end of 2026 to support motorists
The Government will not add to the cost of fuel while this war goes on, so there will be no rise this year. The temporary 5p per litre cut, which was introduced in 2022 and remains in place now, will be extended until the end of the year, providing certainty to motorists. This will save the average motorist over £120 compared to plans inherited from the previous Government, with hauliers and van drivers seeing greater savings. The proportionate percentage cut for rebated fuels, which includes red diesel, will also be extended.
This support for motorists builds on help for more families to get off the fossil fuel rollercoaster for good, through the over 110,000 electric car grants the Government have made in the last year to help people to switch to EVs. The Government have also worked to bring the cost down and convenience up to make electric driving work for more people, enabling motorists to save with every mile they drive, irrespective of the Iran conflict’s uncertain path. This change to fuel duty will ease the pressure on those not yet ready or able to make the switch.
Fuel duty: additional support for red diesel users
To support farmers, who face substantially increased costs on fertiliser and fuel, the Government will cut the duty rate on red diesel by over a third per litre from 10.18p to 6.48p, the lowest rate in over 20 years.
This lower rate will take effect from 15 June and remain in place until the end of the year, supporting the agricultural sector in the fuel-intensive harvest period through to the end of the year, and will also help other users of red diesel too, such as maritime, commercial fishing and rail freight.
HGV VED holiday: support for haulage
In recognising the key role the road haulage sector plays in transporting goods across the UK and their disproportionate exposure to fuel costs, the Government are introducing a 12-month holiday from vehicle excise duty for the majority of heavy goods vehicles, which will save a typical HGV £600 on top of savings from fuel duty. Fuel costs make up a substantial proportion of HGV operating costs, and this action will help prevent cost pressures from the Iran conflict spreading across the economy.
The Government will bring forward legislation to enact these changes.
Today’s announcement is one part of support for households and businesses. The Government will consider further action if price levels increase significantly. More broadly, the Government will continue to monitor the situation and make the necessary decisions to help protect consumers from price increases from the Iran war.
[HCWS49]
Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations: Annual Reports and Accounts 2
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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The Minister for Veterans and People (Louise Sandher-Jones)
I have today placed in the Library of the House a copy of the Council of the Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations annual report and accounts 2023-24 and 2024-25, in accordance with the Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations Regulations 2014.
Attachments can be viewed online at: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2026-05-20/HCWS48.
[HCWS48]
Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy Review
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Emma Hardy)
I am today updating the House on the Environment Agency’s review of the statutory flood and coastal erosion risk management strategy for England.
The current strategy, published in 2020, sets the long-term direction for managing flood and coastal erosion risk. Since then, our understanding of flood and coastal erosion risk has developed, which includes increasing recognition of the risk of surface water flooding.
This Government have also delivered significant changes to strengthen our national resilience to flood and coastal erosion risks. These include major changes to flood and coastal erosion funding rules to make it quicker and easier to deliver the right flood defences in the right places; the publication of the water White Paper, which sets out once-in-a-generation reforms that will transform the water system; and the UK resilience action plan, which sets priorities to strengthen resilience across society.
It is important that the updated strategy reflects the Government policy priorities to ensure that delivery is aligned with Government objectives. It must deliver and enable real improvements in protection and resilience for people and communities at risk of flooding and coastal erosion. I have, therefore, written to the chair of the Environment Agency, as the statutory body responsible for the strategy, to set out the Government priorities for the review. I have asked that the strategy should:
Recognise that deprived communities are more likely to face flood risk and coastal erosion, as well as face bigger challenges in recovery;
Reflect the latest evidence and learning on approaches to engaging the public in taking action to improve community resilience to flooding and coastal change as well as reflect best practice from community-voluntary groups in flood preparedness;
Reflect the ongoing work of the floods resilience taskforce to improve communications and co-ordination around flood preparedness and response;
Implement the Government’s updated flood funding policy to deliver a broad range of projects, including rebalancing investment towards capital and routine maintenance, repair and refurbishment, natural flood management and property level measures, and focusing investment decisions around value for money, continuing to seek partnership funding to make every pound of taxpayer funding go further;
Aim to define what good flood and coastal resilience looks like by setting out long-term strategic objectives and shorter-term measures, which should include exploring how a measure of national flood resilience could be developed over the longer term;
Provide strategic direction in support of lead local flood authorities to manage surface water flood risk including local skills and capability building, and supporting greater take up of surface water flood risk projects;
Align with latest Government policy on matters relating to water and English devolution such as the published water White Paper and the Government commitment to reorganising local government and supporting mayoral combined authorities, in particular taking into consideration the proposals for regional water planning to improve joined-up local decision making and delivery;
Reflect and showcase the learning and successes of long-term, place-based, integrated planning—such as “Thames Estuary 2100” and “Humber Estuary 2100”—with a view to embedding these approaches where they support Government priorities, notably growth, and deliver multiple benefits for flood, water and other outcomes;
Actively support the recommendations from the flood-ready review to encourage greater take-up of property flood resilience;
Consider the right long-term approaches to manage rural flood resilience, including a more sustainable approach to asset management;
Support the updating and implementation of shoreline management plans to inform investment and planning decisions over the long term, including the mainstreaming of innovative measures to adapt to coastal erosion;
Identify improvements to flood and coastal risk modelling and mapping, including sharing of flood depth information, to inform policymakers and practitioners in risk management authorities;
Explore ways to better assess the wider impacts of flood events on people, businesses, infrastructure and agriculture.
The Environment Agency will continue to engage with flood risk management authorities, local partners and stakeholders as the review progresses. I will ensure the House is kept informed at appropriate stages, including following public consultation on the updated strategy.
This work will help to ensure that the strategy continues to provide clear and effective direction for managing flood and coastal erosion risk, supporting communities, and preparing the country for the challenges ahead in a changing climate.
[HCWS46]
Telecoms Fraud Charter
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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The Minister for Security (Dan Jarvis)
My noble Friend the Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) has today made the following written ministerial statement:
The telecoms fraud charter was signed on 5 November 2025 by the six major UK mobile networks and 13 business-to-business telecoms companies.
This statement provides a six-month progress update on delivery of the telecoms fraud charter, launched to strengthen the telecoms sector’s role in preventing fraud, protecting consumers and businesses, and supporting law enforcement. As set out in the fraud strategy, the Home Office has committed to report to Parliament on delivery of the charter every six months until the end of 2027.
Commitments made under the charter are on track. Several workstreams are now established and operational, demonstrating strong collective ambition to disrupt fraud at scale.
Progress is being led through two complementary groups:
The Communications Crime Strategy Group, covering the UK’s mobile network operators; and
Comms Council UK, representing the business-to-business telecoms sector.
Communications Crime Strategy Group—mobile networks
Data sharing
Cross sector workshops are under way, focusing on progressing new data sharing pilots, including opportunities involving voice data. By November 2026, we expect to see cross-sector data sharing models to be finalised and wider information sharing practices in place.
Voice fraud
An industry workstream has been established, with activity on traceback progressing, as well as planned engagement with Ofcom and cross-sector partners to improve alignment.
SMS fraud
Following a Home Office workshop, activity is progressing across the SMS workstream, with planned engagement with tech platforms on emerging messaging services such as RCS. By November 2026, we expect to see strengthened sender verification and onboarding processes across the major UK networks, with established sector-wide standards for secure messaging.
Artificial intelligence
An AI-focused industry group has been established, mapping current use across networks and developing a shared view of future risks and opportunities. By November 2026, ethical principles on AI are to be agreed and published, along with an operational intelligence sharing framework for AI-related threats.
“Stop! Think Fraud” campaign
CCSG working group is in place, with ongoing collaboration to tailor campaign messaging for mobile-specific threats and consumer behaviours.
Staff capability and victims
Industry has shared best practice, with work under way to map standards, identify learning needs, and strengthen support for staff and fraud victims. Collaboration with National Trading Standards on this is ongoing.
Collaboration with law enforcement
Strong engagement continues, with active industry groups, a dedicated eSIM working group, CCSG representation in policing forums, and industry participation in the fraud targeting cell.
Comms Council UK
Data sharing and tracing
Promotion of the National Trading Standards data sharing scheme is ongoing, alongside support for development of a traceback scheme and continued engagement with CCSG. By November 2026, findings and recommendations for sector-wide adoption on a traceback solution are to be shared with the Home Office.
Best practice and standards
Guidance for business telecoms providers has been updated and placed on a regular review cycle, with ongoing promotion to members. By November 2026, a new and updated guidance is to be shared with the Home Office.
Awareness, staff and business victims
A fraud information hub has been launched, with support for the “Stop! Think Fraud” campaign and work to improve support and guidance for business victims.
Technology and innovation
Members are sharing how new technologies, including AI-enabled tools, are being used to strengthen fraud detection and prevention.
Conclusion
At the six-month point, the telecoms fraud charter is firmly on track. Industry, Government and law enforcement are now working together through established structures, with clear momentum across all workstreams.
Government welcome the proactive approach shown by both CCSG and CCUK and will continue to work closely with them to ensure delivery over the coming year, building a more resilient telecoms ecosystem and strengthening protection for consumers and businesses alike.
[HCWS47]
Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Samantha Dixon)
The Grenfell Tower tragedy exposed deep-rooted weaknesses in the systems designed to keep people safe. The preventable loss of 72 lives remains a profound failure of oversight and accountability which should never have occurred. The bereaved, survivors and local community continue to remind us of the human cost of those failures and of the importance of lasting reform.
This Government accepted the inquiry’s findings and is today publishing the May 2026 Grenfell Tower inquiry progress report, setting out the action taken and the further work under way to deliver a more robust, coherent and accountable building safety system. Since February 2026, we have completed a further nine recommendations, bringing the total of closed recommendations to 21 since February 2025. We remain on track to deliver all recommendations by the end of 2029.
Alongside the May progress update, we are publishing:
A call for evidence on the building professions, trades and occupations;
The college of fire and rescue consultation;
The building control independent panel report and Government response;
The public engagement policy;
An Office for Product Safety and Standards research paper.
The publications alongside this progress report illustrate the continued progress being made towards implementation of the inquiry’s recommendations and wider reforms of social housing and the construction sector. While not all these documents in themselves close a recommendation, they represent important steps in the work needed to do so, and form the foundations to support sustained, system-wide change. They seek to address fragmentation and ensure that those responsible for building and fire safety have the support they need to keep the public safe in their homes.
The Government will also bring forward a remediation Bill, which will drive forward the remediation of unsafe cladding by giving regulators the powers they need to compel the worst blockers to take action, and make those responsible pay towards the cost of fixing the problem they caused.
Call for evidence on the building professions, trades and occupations
Following on from publication of the single construction regulator prospectus in December 2025, we have today launched a call for evidence on the built environment professions, trades and occupations. This goes beyond the specific recommendations in the Grenfell Tower inquiry for fire engineers, fire risk assessors, principal contractors and architects to tackle the underlying findings of the inquiry. This concluded that the skills, knowledge and experience of all those engaged in the construction industry are critical to making sure our buildings and environments are safe, high quality and high performing.
This call for evidence seeks information about current barriers, opportunities and interdependencies shaping how people work and behave during all stages of the building process. The outcomes of this exercise will help to set the shape and scope of the new overarching strategy for the professions, trades and occupations which will be published in 2027. This will set out a long-term plan for regulatory and non-regulatory reform across Government and the sector, in addition to the delivery of the specific recommendations around professions.
The call for evidence will run for 12 weeks until 12 August 2026.
Building control independent panel report and Government response
The Government have today published the final report of the building control independent panel, alongside our response. The panel was established, under the chairship of Dame Judith Hackitt, following a recommendation of the Grenfell Tower inquiry phase 2 to consider whether building control functions should be performed by those who have a commercial interest in the process; and whether all building control functions should be performed by a national authority.
We welcome the panel’s clear assessment of long-standing challenges in the system, despite the professionalism and commitment of many of those working within it. The report sets out principles for reform, alongside recommendations for action in the near term and options for longer-term reform.
The Government agree with the panel’s assessment and accept the direction of travel it has set out. Our response makes clear that building control must be properly supported as part of a well-functioning wider building safety system, building on reforms already delivered since the Grenfell Tower tragedy.
We will now take forward detailed work on the panel’s recommendations at pace, including how reform can be taken forward in a way that strengthens public safety, supports the profession and maintains confidence across the sector. We will set out further detail as this work develops.
College of fire and rescue consultation
We are today publishing a public consultation on the establishment of a new college of fire and rescue. This consultation seeks views on the role, design and delivery of a new centre of excellence to support the capability, professionalism and resilience of the fire and rescue sector.
The consultation marks an important step in delivering the recommendations of the Grenfell Tower inquiry. The inquiry identified serious and systemic weaknesses across the fire and rescue sector, including inconsistent professional standards, variation in training and leadership, and fragmented responsibilities. As the cornerstone of our reform programme, the college will address these challenges and build on the recommendations from the phase 1 report by collecting and curating operational learning and providing a trusted national voice on risk and fire behaviour. The college will therefore play a critical role in raising professional standards and improving outcomes for the fire and rescue workforce.
The consultation sets out proposals for the college’s strategic purpose and the functions it could fulfil, including, but not limited to, leadership and command, recruitment and training, and culture and integrity. It also seeks views on how the college could operate in practice.
This consultation will run for eight weeks, closing on 15 July, and we strongly encourage responses from the public, the fire and rescue sector, other blue light services and any other respondents with an interest in this work. The consultation will be available on gov.uk and will be laid in both Houses.
Public engagement policy
The Grenfell Tower inquiry details significant widespread failings that led to the Grenfell Tower tragedy. Of these failings, and the many individuals and organisations named, seven firms were most significantly criticised for their actions. Sir Michael Moore-Bick found that some of these organisations acted with “systematic dishonesty” and
“engaged in deliberate, sustained strategies to mislead the market.”
The inquiry found that materials were used on Grenfell Tower that firms knew were not fit for purpose, and that safety was deprioritised behind ease and economic gain.
In response to these findings, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has implemented a policy to advise Ministers and senior officials not to share a public platform with any of these firms. The principles of this approach have since been shared across Government.
[HCWS51]
House of Lords
Self-employed: Paternity Leave
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Baroness Penn
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to provide paternity leave to the self-employed.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (Baroness Lloyd of Effra) (Lab)
The Government are undertaking a review of parental leave and pay, which presents a much-needed opportunity to consider our approach to the system and whether the support available meets the needs of modern working families, including the self-employed. The review will conclude in early 2027 with a set of findings in which the Government will outline next steps for taking any potential reforms forward to implementation.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, why do the Government need another review to tell us what is obvious: that excluding nearly one in four fathers from our system of paternity pay is unfair and needs fixing? Becoming a new father can be stressful and expensive, as well as wonderful and joyous. But if the Government are committed to supporting families now with the cost of living, can the Minister commit to closing this loophole in 2026, not in another year’s time?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for her advocacy for the importance of paternity leave and parental rights. We have already delivered real change through the Employment Rights Act. On 6 April, paternity leave and unpaid parental leave became day-one rights. Alongside these changes, we are undertaking this comprehensive review of the system to consider whether further reforms are required. We have engaged with a broad range of stakeholders, alongside evaluating other sources of evidence. We have received almost 1,500 responses to the call for evidence, and it is important that we consider these carefully before deciding what further reforms are required.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, we thank the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, for bringing this question up; it is really important. However, it is not just about rights that do not exist; current rights and their take-up is also a really important issue, and I hope the review will look at that. According to the 2025 Unison parental leave survey, there was an 86.3% uptake of maternal leave but only a 31.8% uptake of paternal leave. Paternal leave is just as important—in fact, even more important—because fathers are an important influence. Will the review look at the take-up of existing rights, as well as developing rights of the sort the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, talked about?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
The noble Lord is right to draw attention to the importance of fathers and mothers, the whole family unit and kinship carers in nurturing families, and the role of families in our communities. The review is wide-ranging. It is considering all existing entitlements and is looking at the implications for economic growth, labour market participation, maternal health and the best start in life. I am sure it will also look at the uptake of existing measures as well as potential extensions to entitlements, on top of what is already in place.
Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)
My Lords, it is nearly a year since the Women and Equalities Committee recommended the introduction of a paternal allowance for self-employed working fathers and other parents, similar to the maternity allowance for self-employed mothers. The committee also said that the lack of any provision for self-employed working dads was “deeply unfair”. Do the Government agree?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
The Government agree that more can be done to improve the system. The review is looking at the extension of entitlement to potential support for self-employed fathers as well as others in this quite complex system. We are looking at how we can take that forward. The review will conclude early in 2027 with findings and the next steps for reform.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, the Minister is of course right that there are complexities, and the review will have to look at all of those. However, there is the very uncomplex issue of the right of self-employed men to some sort of paternity leave. It would be reassuring to know that the Government recognise that this is an issue of principle that they must deal with, alongside the many other issues.
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
We are clear in the terms of reference for the review that it considers the needs of self-employed parents, including fathers and partners. We agree that more can be done to improve the system. We are taking evidence, looking at international comparisons and looking to build on what we have already done. For example, we are bringing 32,000 parents into scope for paternity leave and around 1.5 million for unpaid parental leave as a consequence of the Employment Rights Act.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
The Minister has said twice at the Dispatch Box that she will report back with a decision in early 2027. Will that be January or February 2027?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
We are considering the extensive reports, as I mentioned, and all the evidence. We will conclude early in 2027.
Lord Watts (Lab)
Have the Government considered looking at the previous Government’s proposals in this area to see what lessons can be learned?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
I am pleased to say that, as a result of the Employment Rights Act, we have established new rights for parents through paternity leave and the unpaid parental leave day-one rights to bring more parents into scope, so that they can access parental leave and support their families.
Baroness Penn (Con)
Does the Minister recognise that the lack of proper pay is the number one reason for a lack of take-up of existing rights? Will she confirm whether the new day one right to paternity leave is for paid or unpaid leave?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
The paternity review will look at whether we should extend the current entitlement for qualifying employees under the new rights that have come in, which for qualifying employees is two weeks’ leave paid at the statutory rate. The parental leave and pay review is considering whether this entitlement is sufficient.
Lord Hintze (Con)
My Lords, what is the cost of this scheme that the Government want to bring in?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
The costs of all the schemes that are being suggested and the potential expansions of rights, whether for self-employed fathers or mothers, will be considered. We have taken into account the costings that have been put to us by some of the groups that are advocating for these measures, and we are assessing the full costs of these as part of the review.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
Does the Minister not accept that the real problem is that employment costs are rising to such an extent that it is now much more difficult for businesses to offer enhanced paternity leave and other support for working parents? Will she consult with her colleagues and bring forward a clear strategy to reduce business costs, so that more employers and self-employed parents have the flexibility to support families when a new child arrives?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
I am pleased to take this opportunity to say that the UK had the highest growth in the G7 in the last quarter. I am also pleased to highlight the measures we are taking to reduce costs on business—for example, ending mandatory strategic reports. I am also pleased to talk about the measures we are now taking to support families with the cost of living, be it energy costs or expanding free school meals.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
Will the Minister confirm that, compared to years ago, when society put more responsibility on mothers than it should in bringing up children, society is now much better, in that fathers share responsibilities far more than they did then? Will she therefore join me in congratulating those parents who work together to bring up their children to best effect?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
Parents and families of all compositions are trying their best to bring their children up. The Government are there to provide support, whether through, for example, free school meals or employment rights. There are many ways to do so, which is why there is complexity in looking at what further should be done.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, during the passage of the Bill that became the Employment Rights Act, the Minister talked a lot about consultation with small businesses—for example, the FSB, the union of independent businesses and the NFU. Can she tell the House how much support from small businesses there was for this measure and the wider measures? Will there be ongoing consultation, maybe every year, on the impact of these measures in the future?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
The terms of reference of the parental leave and pay review make it clear that we are consulting businesses and looking at the impact on the Exchequer. We will continue to consult businesses of all sizes in taking forward this suite of reforms.
Disadvantaged Pupils: Music Attainment Gap
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Baroness Keeley
To ask His Majesty’s Government what actions they intend to take to reduce the attainment gap in music for disadvantaged pupils in state schools.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)
My Lords, the Government are committed to tackling inequity in music education. In response to the curriculum and assessment review, we will reform the music curriculum in all state-funded schools from September 2028, with a focus on improving equity and quality. We will also establish the new national centre for music and arts education later this year to support teacher development, backed by continued investment in the music hubs network.
Baroness Keeley (Lab)
My Lords, more than six out of 10 schools with the highest level of disadvantage entered no pupils for GCSE music in 2024-25, compared to just one in 10 of the least disadvantaged. The Primary Winds Programme at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire helps to address this gap at primary level by offering free instrument loans, bursaries for beginners from low-income families and sustained musical training on Saturdays. What targeted action of that sort will the Government take to ensure that many more children from disadvantaged areas have the benefit of musical tuition in their school?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
My noble friend highlights a key area. The department funds the music opportunities pilot in 10 areas to assess the impact of targeted support for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and for SEND and offers primary and secondary pupils free lessons to progress, including taking music exams. All music hubs must have inclusion strategies to support disadvantaged children, and an evaluation report is due next year. Finally, the new national centre for music and arts education will focus on addressing inequity in arts education, including a key role in promoting to schools the benefits of studying performing arts to age 16, such as GCSE music.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
The Minister mentioned music hubs. The key thing in getting an opportunity for disadvantaged students from schools that do not have good musical education is to put them in touch with music hubs. I declare an interest as I used to be chair of the VOCES8 Foundation. What shocked us when we started taking singing into schools was how many primary schools did not have a teacher with any music education, and some secondary schools had almost no expertise in music. Enthusiastic and expert music teachers are the way to get disadvantaged children into music hubs and give them the opportunities they need. What are the Government going to do to make sure that every school has a teacher with at least some training and skills in music?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
The noble Lord raises a critical point, which I think was the basis of the initial Question. Too many children and young people in this country have no access to the arts in any form before they go to school, and that is something we are going to address. Family hubs are part of this picture, opening up access and opportunities, as is making sure that music hubs work with all local partners—obviously, they have to bring in private money to support them. Through that, we can move on to making sure that we have the right teacher training and the right opportunities in every school, as he suggests.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lord, the inequalities that the noble Baroness identified in her Question go on to be clearly manifest in the creative industries, where we know from the excellent work of the Sutton Trust that top-selling musicians are six times more likely to have attended a private school and that more than half the music students at prestigious conservatoires are privately educated, so it is not just the inequalities within education but what they lead to. What are the Government doing to expand career pathways and pathways into further education for students who show talent?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
Of course, the noble Baroness is right. I think there is still a lack of recognition of just how important our creative industries are to the economy of this country and to those who engage in them, and of the wider benefit that flows from them. We have to make sure that we get the pathways quite right, as she suggests. That is why the curriculum review is making sure that the opportunities are there so that every child at key stage 4 will study an arts subject, but we need to do far more to promote the opportunities in the sector and make sure that it is established across all schools. This is about all young people and, frankly, too many have been left behind and do not have the opportunity that she has outlined.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, while welcoming the positive things that my noble friend has said, is she confident that the messaging going to schools is clear about the value of music education and that attention is being drawn to the considerable body of evidence about the benefits of music education and the wider academic benefits that come with it? I think there is still a degree of autonomy in schools that allows some to decide that it is not going to be a priority for them.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I think the emphasis that this Government are putting on quality teacher training and expanding all the areas is going to be critical in taking this agenda forward. As I have said before, it is still unknown just what the benefits are. I bring forward from my personal experience the increase in attainment as a result of studying music, particularly in maths, and the impact on mental health, well-being and all those broader matters that enable young people to learn and thrive.
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne (Con)
I welcome the Question from the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley. May I suggest to the Minister that she looks more closely at music hubs? It is extremely difficult for disabled children to get to music hubs because it has to be a parent who drives them there. I am sure the investment in music is very welcome, but it will not help disabled children. One of the many benefits of music is singing, which allows deaf children to learn how to speak properly.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I suspect that, if we look across all 43 of the music hubs, some will be brilliant at doing exactly what the noble Baroness says. We need to make sure that there is consistency and an expectation that all young people will be able to benefit from their provision. It is obviously a key point, and I take it on board.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, partnerships between independent and state schools are making a tangible difference in closing the music attainment gap. Programmes such as MusicShare in the West Midlands have reached over 30,000 pupils across 500 schools, and community initiatives such as Wells Cathedral School’s free Saturday orchestra have opened opportunities to children who might otherwise miss out. Will the Government recognise and support the expansion of these proven school partnerships to reach more disadvantaged pupils?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
The experience of partnerships is very positive, as the noble Baroness suggests. The difficulty is that, if we are not careful, it leaves great holes among many young people who do not have access to that provision. Not all private schools open their doors to people in the local community. We want to make sure that we have an inclusive approach through every school so that every young person can get the quality education that they deserve.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
Like everyone on these Benches, I welcome the fact that the Government are intending to give more prominence to creative subjects, music included, with their proposed reforms to the Progress 8 model. However, there is a real risk that the proposals end up sacrificing depth for breadth without significantly affecting the attainment gap or subject-specific uptake. Can the Minister update the House on the recent consultation on Progress 8 and whether, in light of it, there is new evidence supporting these reforms?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I was expecting a question on Progress 8 and on attainment generally. We are still moving forward, and in discussions. I am sure that the noble Baroness will make a contribution to those discussions to make sure that what she has outlined is not a result. We are confident that, in the whole programme of looking at the curriculum, we will increase the quality, the breadth and, therefore, the attainment and enjoyment of young people going to school.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, my noble friend the Minister has already recognised that there is a gap not just in attainment between advantaged and less advantaged students and pupils; there is also a gap in whether they can access any music education in school. That will lead to a significant downward spiral, with fewer people presenting who want to become teachers of music. From around the House, I think there is enthusiasm in saying that we need more music in schools. I encourage my noble friend the Minister to make sure that we are promoting music teaching as a very good career.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I thank my noble friend. This is, of course, a really important issue. Running alongside this is the requirement for Ofsted to develop toolkits with its inspections to make sure that the new enrichment benchmarks are adhered to in schools. We have a long way to go, but I feel encouraged and enthusiastic that we are on the right path.
2026 FIFA World Cup: Replica Kit Pricing
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Lord Walker of Broxton
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the increase in price of replica football kits for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, particularly in children’s sizes; and what plans they have to ask the Competition and Markets Authority to examine pricing practices in this market.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)
This summer’s World Cup is a brilliant opportunity to unite communities across the country, and we know just how much wearing the team colours means to fans. Unfortunately, while we recognise and share concerns over costs, setting prices remains a matter for manufacturers and the respective football associations. We do encourage them to ensure that kits are affordable, particularly for children. As an independent authority, it is for the Competition and Markets Authority to determine which cases to investigate according to its prioritisation principles, but it has a track record of taking action.
Lord Walker of Broxton (Lab)
I thank my noble friend the Minister. Many families are now being forced to turn to counterfeit kits because the official versions have become completely unaffordable. This raises serious issues, not only of consumer protection because of poor quality but with many investigations having shown that knock-off kits are produced in unregulated sweatshops where workers face severe exploitation. Therefore, will she consider whether the Government should pressure both the FA and big brand manufacturers to work with them to develop clearer guidance and protocols on supply and profit margins?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
We strongly condemn the sale of counterfeit merchandise, which fuels organised crime and bypasses critical safety standards. Buying fake kits directly funds serious criminal networks and deprives grass-roots football of vital investment. Furthermore, fake kit may not be subject to UK safety regulations, with very concerning reports of counterfeit shirts aimed at children being highly flammable. The Intellectual Property Office and the police work tirelessly to disrupt this trade.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, kits always seem to be too expensive for everybody. They have done for a long time, and the club game has suffered from this for a long time as well. It would help if national teams were to publish what revenue they get from this and where it is spent to make sure that people know, because if they are doing something good with that money, at least that is some mitigation.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I hope the noble Lord will be reassured that I asked that specific question as part of my preparation. I was told that the FA puts money from the sale of such kits back into grass-roots football, which I am sure all noble Lords will appreciate. However, that does not detract from the fact that they are prohibitively expensive, which excludes some people from having them. The pricing is part of a multi-year deal between the FA and manufacturers, and the prices reflect consistently high prices internationally. I will ensure through officials at DCMS that the FA has noted the points raised in this debate in your Lordships’ House.
Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)
My Lords, I speak as a football fan with two small boys who I continually have to provide kits for, even though they are Spurs kits and this season has not been the best. The problem we have is the naked commercialisation of clubs when it comes to not just one kit but multiple kits, plastered with sponsorship from multinational companies, so there is vast revenue coming in from these kits anyway. It is a challenge for spectators and fans to belong to the club, and the clubs like to make the link that they are for the fans. What is the Independent Football Regulator’s view on the price of kits and the multitude of kits?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I am not privy to the Independent Football Regulator’s precise views on this, but the Government established the Independent Football Regulator specifically to put hearts back at the centre of how clubs operate. This will include issues around pricing and consultation about a whole range of things. I look forward to seeing how the Independent Football Regulator works in practice, both with the football clubs and leagues, but also representing the interests of fans in this way.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, with no disrespect to my noble friend Lord Walker, England is not the only national team at the World Cup. If my noble friend the Minister is making representations, will she make representations also to the Scottish FA in relation to kits? While she is doing that, will she also ask it to investigate how Celtic managed to steal the Scottish Premier League?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I have really missed responding to my noble friend Lord Foulkes’ questions. It is always good to have a question from him. I did ask how the kits and strips for other home nations compared in pricing with the England kit. I understand, without promoting them specifically, that the adult Adidas strips for other home nations come in at a much more reasonable price. Clearly, it is still a concern when people are outpriced in this way, so I will pass on his comments through the Scotland Office in the same way. I know all noble Lords will wish both home teams all the best in the World Cup.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that I have been instructed by my ecstatic kids that I need some updated Arsenal kit? Should I go along with what they suggest?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
Absolutely. Whichever club noble Lords support—I support a club that has, sadly, been relegated—the joy that was apparent from all supporters, including the Prime Minister, at Arsenal’s victory is just uplifting. Congratulations to them and to all their supporters.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
My Lords, as a Chelsea fan, I take this opportunity to congratulate Arsenal on winning the Premier League and to commiserate with Spurs on their imminent relegation.
I have to say that I am confused by these exchanges— a retailer inviting government interference on prices, a Conservative doing the same and a Scotchman inviting English interference in Scottish sport. I do not know which way to turn. However, while I appreciate the sentiment of regulating sports shirts, where does this end? We know that the Government are apparently planning to regulate prices in supermarkets on eggs and milk, which has been roundly condemned by retailers. Will that extend to season tickets and Sky Sports subscriptions? It is a dangerous road that the Minister is being invited to travel down.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
It is also a road that is full of mythology and misunderstandings about where the Government are going. The Exchequer Secretary was emphatically clear this morning that capping supermarket prices is not something that the Government are considering, although clearly the price of food is of deep concern to many people, given the rising cost of living, and is something that the Government share their concerns on.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
As a West Ham fan, I have absolutely nothing to say about football. Following on from my noble friend’s question, does the Minister agree that, rather than inviting the Competition and Markets Authority into ever more marginal consumer pricing questions, the Government’s priority should be serious reform of the competition regime itself? In particular, will the forthcoming competition reform legislation ensure that the CMA supports innovation, investment and growth and does not become a brake on British business?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The CMA does not come under DCMS, as people will understand, but we are keen to make sure that it has the teeth to take action. I have a line somewhere in my brief about the additional powers that we are giving it, and I know that those are intended specifically to give it the teeth to act decisively and provide the challenge as part of the regulatory regime that it operates.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, the production cost of a typical replica football kit is less than 10% of the selling price. Companies such as Nike and Adidas use an opaque network of offshore entities to inflate costs by adding royalty, licensing, marketing and other payments through intragroup transactions—in short, they shift profits. Does the Minister agree that profiteering cannot be tackled without an investigation of profit shifting by companies? If so, when will the Government commission that investigation?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My noble friend has raised a number of issues. We are keen, to go back to the initial Question, to urge manufacturers to keep kits affordable. We want to make sure that football remains accessible, but pricing is ultimately a matter for the relevant football association and its manufacturing partners. We are not intending to dictate pricing in this respect, but we urge manufacturers to keep kits affordable to make sure that everyone can enjoy supporting our teams domestically and internationally and that we continue to share the highs and lows of our national sport.
Unite the Kingdom March
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Lord Mohammed of Tinsley
To ask His Majesty’s Government what actions they are taking in response to incidents of hate speech and Islamophobia at the Unite the Kingdom march held in London on 16 May.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
No one should ever be a victim of hatred or live in fear because of their religion, beliefs or the way in which they choose to live their lives. In preparation for the 16 May marches, the Metropolitan Police Service publicly outlined the robust approach it would take to criminality, including hate speech. The protesters do not speak for the vast majority of the British people.
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the statement from the Minister, but I have to share with your Lordships’ House the profound anger and hurt that some of the speeches from the stage just outside here caused, not just in London but across the country. I will share my experiences from my own immediate family. One of my sons works for the railway industry, the other for the NHS, and they have said to me, “Dad, are people questioning our existence in this society, given your long service in public services?” One of the speakers at the march pointed at this building and said we need to remove Islam from this building. Does that mean people like me do not have a place in this society anymore?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
No, of course it does not, and I will defend and support the right of people to enjoy and cherish their religion. That is what freedom of speech allows us to do. The noble Lord will also know that, on the day in question, there were 13 arrests for hate crime-related offences; 10 of those arrested were affiliated to Unite the Kingdom and they included arrests for offences motivated by race, religion, sexuality and disability. As I said at the outset, this is a fight for the soul of this country. It is not acceptable to have that type of hatred, and I will stand up with him to support the rights of people to enjoy their religion freely.
Baroness Gohir (CB)
My Lords, Muslim women’s safety matters too. When will the Government announce funding for the safety and security of Muslim women? I know about the funding for mosque security and the helpline, so I am not asking about that. What about Muslim women? We feel invisible. By the way, I support Arsenal—yay!
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The one thing that struck me about the demonstration on Saturday was the completely offensive demonstration involving three people wearing burkas and purporting to be Muslim women. I support the noble Baroness’s wish. I will look at what she has said. She knows—and I will not repeat it now—that there is significant resource going into protecting the Muslim community. We have also a new definition of anti-Muslim hostility which was put in place only in April this year. She has my support to ensure that she and other women like her who have the Muslim religion are allowed to lead their lives freely and openly.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, can I ask the Minister to confirm that the police will be very robust in tackling antisemitic remarks and actions at pro-Palestinian marches?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The law does not discriminate against individuals who are Jewish or Muslim. The law says that people who bring forward hate crime or encourage discrimination on the basis of a religion, or indeed a faith of any kind, face the full force of the law. The Metropolitan Police showed that on Saturday with the number of arrests it made, and will do so again, free of political interference, according to the law set down by both Houses of Parliament.
Baroness Verma (Con)
My Lords, women of all faiths find it difficult these days, particularly women of colour. You cannot say whether someone is Muslim or not because we do not wear a badge on our foreheads to say what we are or are not. We all get abuse. We need to change the tone and the narrative of how we are behaving, not only in Parliament but out there too. I think it is on all of us when we are debating this to make people believe that we are actually coming together to tackle this rather than trying to give it as antisemitic or anti-Muslim. Many of us who are not either are still suffering the same, but we do not have a voice anywhere in the debate.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The noble Baroness will know that the Government have a manifesto commitment to develop a strategy on anti-violence against women and girls and to halve violence against women and girls over 10 years. As part of that strategy, we are acutely aware that the type of violence against women and girls that is of a serious nature begins with disrespect and basic misogyny. Part of the challenge for this Government is to ensure that all women have the right to live their lives free of intimidation and abuse.
Lord Spellar (Lab)
Can I put it to my noble friend the Minister that, given the events being described that took place at the marches on Saturday and the cost to the police, let alone the diversion of police officers from the task they ought to be undertaking, which is cracking down on the tide of crime in this country, it would be better to limit the number of such marches and demonstrations?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
My noble friend will wish to know that, under existing legislation—and, indeed, under the Crime and Policing Act that was passed by this House with Royal Assent only on 29 April—the police already have powers to both ban marches and/or reroute marches away from areas of potential conflict and issue. That is a judgment for the police. It would be wrong for politicians to determine which marches take place and when, but it is right that the police look at public security and public order and make some determinations. They have done and will do so.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, there were two protests last weekend. One of those attracted widespread condemnation from the Prime Minister, the Mayor of London, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and most in the Parliamentary Labour Party; the other attracted little or no condemnation. That other protest, staged by the far left, saw Nazi salutes, calls for Jews to be beheaded and the displaying of a sign calling Jewish people Nazis. One wonders why those very people who found it so easy to criticise one of those protests found it so difficult to criticise the other. Can the Minister perhaps give a guarantee that legitimate criticism of religion, which is a fundamental aspect of free speech, is always maintained?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The right to criticise religion is perfectly acceptable and in order. But again, I put it to the noble Lord that those rights to criticise also come with responsibilities. There is a clear definition in law about what is regarded as abuse, what is discrimination and what is intimidation and harassment. In both cases, if such instances are determined by the police, then the police will take action and, as on Saturday, arrests will be made. Some arrests were made in relation to the noble Lord’s question and some were in relation to the initial demonstration raised by the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, so the police act fairly and the legislation is set down. I want to see a fair and open society where people can enjoy their religion and criticise political activity and/or religion, as well as states, at will, but within a limit.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, it is the turn of the Cross Benches next; then we will go to the Liberal Democrat Benches.
Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)
My Lords, all communities seen as different experience prejudice. There are no comparative statistics, properly gathered, to show that one community suffers more than others from this hate crime. It is visible difference that is the causing factor. Does the Minister agree that all communities should be protected equally and that there should not be a special difference set aside for one community, such as the definition of anti-Muslim hate crime? Why not anti-Sikh, anti-Hindu or anti-Buddhist hate crime? Does he further agree that the law already protects different communities? It is already there in law, and if other communities are hurt, that should also be looked at.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The Government treat all forms of hate crime equally seriously. There is no hierarchy of victims. The police and the CPS will make decisions based on the facts and legal threshold in each case. There are definitions of types of harassment, and definitions of types of assurance for both Jewish and Muslim communities, but the Government and the police will treat all hate crime extremely seriously.
Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)
My Lords, at the rally last Saturday led by the convicted criminal Tommy Robinson, some of the hate speech we heard was specifically about Muslims, such as “It’s time for Muslims to leave the country”. Sadly, they are completely focused on attacking the Muslim community. History teaches us where such language can lead. British Muslims helped to build this country and serve it by teaching in schools, while over 89,000 Muslim staff work in our NHS, so I say that this is our country. My question is: why is this disgraceful hate speech and Islamophobia tolerated when it comes to British Muslims, and even defended, when the equivalent aimed at any other group would rightly be met with condemnation, prosecution and political outrage?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I say to the noble Baroness that it is not tolerated. The Prime Minister said on Saturday that this is a
“fight for the soul of the country”
and condemned the speeches made at that demonstration. The police have taken action accordingly. Indeed, the Government banned certain individuals from entering the country because of concerns about further activity following those speeches. This is not being tolerated. Muslims have a right to live, contribute and participate in our society free of intimidation and free of harassment. The Government, along with the Jewish community, will make sure that those individuals enjoy their lives free of that intimidation.
Supermarkets: Voluntary Price Caps
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Lord Sharpe of Epsom
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ask supermarkets to introduce voluntary price caps or freezes on essential food items; and what assessment they have made of the impact of such measures on food prices, supply, competition and investment.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Livermore) (Lab)
My Lords, the Chancellor has held a round table with supermarkets to discuss the role that retailers can play in bearing down on food prices and the additional steps that the Government can take. This comes on top of the action that the Government have already taken to reduce the cost of living, which has helped drive today’s larger than expected fall in inflation.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his Answer. The Government should understand and know that price controls do not work and do not reduce prices. They instead suppress supply, create shortages, and ultimately leave consumers worse off and more exposed to food insecurity. I must say that, when we first heard these stories, we feared that the ghost of Stalin was roaming the corridors of the Treasury. For the avoidance of doubt, will the Minister today give an unequivocal commitment that the Government will rule out price caps, voluntary or otherwise, entirely? Can I suggest that he confers with noble Lords in this House, including on his own Benches, who will confirm that the supermarket industry is fiercely competitive?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his questions. I agree with his last point, if not all of what he said. I understand exactly what he set out, which is why we are not doing what he suggests we are doing. We are of course having discussions with supermarkets—that is the right thing to do—as we have with all sectors. The Chancellor has held round tables with fuel retailers, supermarkets and high street banks, among other industries. It is right that we discuss ways we can work together to ease the cost of living for households. This is not about price caps, as some speculation has suggested. We will never advocate for that, as it is not for the Government to tell supermarkets how to do their jobs. We are taking action across the board, with rail fare freezes, prescription fee freezes and £150 off energy bills. These are the driving factors behind today’s bigger than expected fall in inflation. Further, today, the Chancellor extended the 5p cut on fuel duty and introduced further new fuel duty support for HGVs and farmers.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, I am pleased to hear that the Government are talking to supermarkets about the role they might have in prices, because prices are an important worry for people right across the country—they really are going up. In the course of those discussions, did the Government talk about their role in bringing down prices and with supermarkets? The input costs that supermarkets face have gone up dramatically; some of those things a Government cannot control, but some of those things they can. They can control employer contributions for NICs and the level of business rates—so ask not what the supermarkets can do for you but what you can do for the supermarkets to bring down the cost.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
There is definitely something in what the noble Lord says, although I am not sure that I quite agree with where his question ended up. He is right to say that families are struggling with the cost of living, and they will be worried about the prospect of food prices rising again following the conflict in the Middle East. That is why, in April, major food and farming trade bodies came together with the Government to share intelligence, assess emerging pressures and agree on how we can keep our food sector resilient and stable. As I say, the Chancellor held a round table with supermarkets to discuss the role that retailers can play in bearing down on food prices, and, as the noble Lord asked, additional steps that the Government can take.
Lord Redwood (Con)
Will the Minister congratulate the supermarkets on being competitive, with good prices, despite all the costs the Government are imposing on them? Does he agree that their net profit margins are very low, showing that the problem of rising food prices rests elsewhere?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
As I said yesterday in response to similar questions, we want the most competitive supermarket sector we can possibly get, and it is not for the Government to tell supermarkets how to do their jobs.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I asked the Minister yesterday about caps on food prices and he said then that that was not the role of the Government. Having said that, the suggested freeze is voluntary, as I understand it. Given that supermarkets— I think I might get booed here—squeeze producers of all kinds, farmers and their customers, making huge profits, should the Government not be a little bolder and actually think about the people for once?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
The end of the noble Baroness’s question is preposterous. This is not about price caps, as some speculation has suggested. As I said yesterday, we would never advocate for that, and I repeat that it is not for the Government to tell supermarkets how to do their jobs.
Baroness Gill (Lab)
My Lords, food poverty and food security need a joint focus. Examples of best practice can be found in our neighbourhoods, in Italy’s approach to local food systems, where there is a 50% reduction in business rates for greengrocers selling produce from within 50 miles of their town, or in the Liège food-land belt initiative, which sponsors the growth of farmers’ co-ops to supply 50% of their own food needs. Have the Government explored these alternatives to addressing the cost of living crisis?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am not in a position to stand here and suggest a 50% business rates reduction for any business, but my noble friend is absolutely right on the importance of taking action across the board to help reduce the cost of living. As I say, we have frozen rail fares, frozen prescription fees and taken £150 off energy bills—these are the driving factors behind today’s bigger than expected fall in inflation.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
It is the turn of the Conservative Benches next, and then of the Liberal Democrat Benches.
Lord Harper (Con)
I am grateful to the Government Chief Whip. The Minister will be aware that the Scottish Government are proposing compulsory caps on the prices of basic foodstuffs in supermarkets that operate in Scotland. Can the Minister confirm for the benefit of your Lordships whether that power is actually within the devolved competence of the Scottish Government?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
That may be subject to UK internal market and single market regulations. I am happy to check and confirm that to the noble Lord. As I have said, this is not about price caps, as some speculation has suggested, and we would never advocate for that.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that any deal that the Government might do with the supermarkets to cut prices in exchange for delaying regulations on healthy food would be short-sighted, against public health and damaging to the NHS?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I absolutely understand the importance of the regulations that the noble Baroness is talking about. As her noble friend said, this is about what we as a Government can do, such as easing existing regulations on supermarkets, which would then enable them to keep costs down for consumers.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, 50 years ago I was working in the retail sector when the right honourable Baroness Williams, who was a Member of this House some time later, was the Minister for food prices. At the end of her term of office, she admitted that it was a hopeless task to try to curtail food prices or to ration them. Can I suggest that the Government dig out the files from 50 years ago, read them and then maybe reconsider whether this rather extreme idea from Scotland is worth pursuing any further?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
The noble Lord asks me to reconsider an extreme idea that we are not considering, so I think we should be okay on that point. The times he talked about were very different. I do not think anyone would advocate for that now, and we certainly are not.
Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I very much welcome that the Minister has ruled out supermarket price fixing, because the people who would be pressurised by such fixing are the farmers and the producers. They are already under incredible pressure from the power of the supermarkets. I am concerned that this will gain some traction and that, even though it is not government policy, the supermarkets might take this up. Are there any plans to meet farmers’ representatives to discuss those issues?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
The noble Baroness is absolutely right. The Government are aware of the challenges and the cumulative pressures facing food and drink manufacturers, and farmers in particular. I hope that she will welcome our announcement today on red diesel, for example, to support farmers who face substantially increased costs on fertiliser and fuel. The Government have announced that we will cut the duty rate on red diesel by over a third per litre, to the lowest rate for over 20 years.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, if the House allows me, I will quote a headline from the Daily Telegraph:
“Rishi Sunak scraps plan for supermarket price cap after backlash … Downing Street had been considering a voluntary cap scheme for major supermarkets, modelled on similar plan in France”.
In the Government coming to the conclusion that this would be the wrong way forward, instead of going back 50 years we can go back to 2023. What did the current Government learn from the attempt under Rishi Sunak as Chancellor to introduce the very caps that have been described by those on the right-hand side as Stalinist?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I would not necessarily recommend that the noble Lord rely on a headline in the Daily Telegraph as the basis for his assumptions of what the Government are or are not considering.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I understand that, but, as I already said, this Government are not considering price caps, as some speculation has suggested, and we would never advocate for that.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, I would like to ask the Minister about several factors that seem to be occurring at once. The first is that floods in Morocco, Spain and Sicily have badly affected salad crops at the beginning of the year. Further, Cambridgeshire had just 5% of its annual rainfall in April and many farmers cannot plant crops, and we now know from American scientific research that there is a 61% chance of a super El Niño this year. We will therefore face severe shortages of fresh food and other food. What are the supermarkets doing? What are the Government doing to engage them and farmers in conversations about the situation here in August, September and October, and indeed going into the winter? From everything I understand, this is potentially very serious. It is not about price fixing; it is about how we keep people in healthy food, rather than ultra-processed food from a factory.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I do not underestimate at all the significant climate factors to which the noble Baroness refers. I have said that, in April, major food and farming trade bodies came together with the Government to share intelligence, assess emerging pressures and agree on how we can keep our food sector resilient and stable. It is why the Chancellor held a round table with supermarkets to discuss the issues that I have already mentioned and many of the issues raised by the noble Baroness.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
We will hear next from the Labour Benches and then from the Conservative Benches.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, could my noble friend the Minister indicate whether ongoing discussions are taking place with the Groceries Code Adjudicator, who is the overall ombudsman, to negotiate between suppliers and the 10 largest supermarkets and to protect consumers?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
We are engaging with a wide range of stakeholders and I am sure that we will continue to do so.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)
My Lords, I am extremely pleased that the Minister has confirmed that price controls, if they came in, would be voluntary. However, we have also been informed by his replies that it is going to be voluntary in exchange for a regulatory incentive. If certain regulations will be repealed in exchange for price controls, does that not show that such regulations—whether they are on the environment, food safety or anything else—should have been considered for repeal or for lightening anyway?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am sure that there is much in what the noble Lord says. On regulatory burdens, the Prime Minister has set a 25% target to bring the cumulative cost of regulation down. We have already announced £1.5 billion of gross annual administrative savings so far, and we expect to set out further savings in due course.
Lord Sahota (Lab)
My Lords, first, I congratulate the Government on bringing inflation down to 2.8% and removing the 5p fuel duty. If the Government had a quiet word with the supermarkets making excessive profits of billions and billions of pounds, telling them to take it easy and not make that much profit, I am sure that the public would welcome that kind of interference, because the public would like cheaper food in every supermarket.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I agree with the first half of my noble friend’s point but not necessarily the second half—I think there was an “if” in there, which is important. As I have said already, we are taking action across the board to ease the cost of living: we are freezing rail fares and prescription fees, and we have taken £150 off energy bills. These are the driving factors behind today’s bigger than expected fall in inflation, which my noble friend mentioned. Further, today, the Chancellor has extended the 5p cut on fuel duty to the end of the year.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Non-Afl)
My Lords, at a time of rising economic populism, there is a responsibility on all of us in this House, and especially Ministers, to be calm, factual and accurate. To follow on from the remarks of my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble Lord, Lord Sahota, there is a widespread view among the public that supermarkets are making huge profits. A survey by the Institute of Economic Affairs found that the median voter thinks that supermarkets make a 50% profit, whereas the actual figure is about 3%. Will the Minister take this opportunity to repeat the very basic economic verity that price rises are a signal to producers to make more of something and that if prices are artificially frozen then there is less incentive to bring that product to market, so you end up with a worse shortage and higher prices than you had before you started?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
As always, the noble Lord is very interesting. I simply say that I always strive to be calm, factual and accurate.
Conduct Committee
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Lord Kakkar
That the Report from the Select Committee The conduct of Lord Stone of Blackheath (11th Report of Session 2024-26, HL Paper 295) be agreed to.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, Lord Stone of Blackheath, the subject of this report, resigned from your Lordships’ House in December last year. Soon after, the commissioner launched an investigation into three complaints, two made by visitors and a third by a member of staff in the Parliamentary Digital Service. The commissioner upheld all three complaints, finding that, in each case, Lord Stone’s behaviour constituted harassment. The commissioner also found that Lord Stone’s actions towards two of the complainants, who were visiting the estate as his guests, constituted sexual misconduct.
This is the fourth report in which Lord Stone has been found to have engaged in bullying, harassment or sexual misconduct towards staff or visitors. Following the third report on his conduct, agreed by your Lordships’ House in December 2024, he was suspended from the House for six months. In this latest report, the commissioner, in considering an appropriate sanction, took account not only of the gravity of the latest breaches but the fact that Lord Stone is a repeat offender who has been unable or unwilling to take steps to improve his conduct.
Had Lord Stone not already resigned from the House, the commissioner would have recommended his expulsion, but, given that expulsion was unavailable, the commissioner instead recommended that Lord Stone be permanently excluded from the House of Lords estate. The Conduct Committee agreed with the commissioner that Lord Stone’s presence on the estate, either as a passholder or as a guest, would present a clear and intolerable risk to other members of the parliamentary community. I therefore invite your Lordships to endorse our conclusion that Lord Stone be permanently excluded from the House of Lords estate.
Finally, if this report is agreed, I shall write to the Speaker of the House of Commons to invite him to impose similar restrictions on Lord Stone’s access to the House of Commons estate. I beg to move.
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede)
My Lords, under Standing Order 68, no debate is allowed on this Motion. I must therefore now put the Question that this Motion be agreed to.
Provision of Information (Contractual Control) (Registered Land) Regulations 2026
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Baroness Taylor of Stevenage
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 9 and 16 March be approved.
Relevant document: 57th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, Session 2024-26. Considered in Grand Committee on 18 May.
Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Regulations 2026
Lord Wilson of Sedgefield
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 25 March be approved.
Relevant document: 57th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, Session 2024-26. Considered in Grand Committee on 18 May.
Youth Justice
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
My Lords, we on these Benches welcome any measures that genuinely and effectively prevent young people falling into a life of crime. Every young person diverted away from violence and offending is welcome. The continued reduction in the number of children held in custody is welcome. The fall from around 2,800 children in custody in 2003 to approximately 1,400 today reflects significant progress across successive Governments. We also recognise that the nature of offending has changed. Cases involving county lines, online exploitation, organised gangs and serious violence are often more complex than those faced by the justice system a generation ago.
However, while some of the Government’s individual proposals in this White Paper may sound reasonable in isolation, a deeper concern runs through the paper. Once again, the Government are at risk of confusing rehabilitation with the dilution of accountability. The White Paper is right to identify young people not in education, employment or training as being at heightened risk of offending. But, if the Government are serious about prevention, they must confront the economic conditions affecting young people across the country. The most effective intervention for many young people is not another review, another pilot scheme or another bureaucratic framework; it is to deliver an economy that can provide them and their families with stability.
There is a reference in the White Paper to reshaping the justice system. The paper records the Government’s proposal to undertake what they describe as a “fundamental look” at the role and purpose of the criminal courts for child defendants. This work will consider whether entirely different court processes should apply not only to children but potentially also to vulnerable adults and young adults. This raises material concerns. If the Government wish to reform sentencing policy to reduce reoffending, that is one debate, but gradually reshaping the philosophical foundations of our criminal justice system itself is quite another.
The Government appear to be intent on treating long-standing justice structures not as constitutional safeguards but as obstacles to be removed or redesigned. We have already seen proposals to weaken jury trial and other proposals designed to keep offenders out of prison. Now Ministers appear to be questioning whether traditional criminal courts themselves remain appropriate for wider categories of offenders. But where does such a process end? Accountability and punishment are being steadily downgraded within a system increasingly defined through the lens of vulnerability.
At this point, I turn to the issue of victims and public confidence. The Government proposed further consultation on the victims’ code, including consideration of a separate code for children. Once again, this Government are drawn towards creating new frameworks and pursuing new consultations rather than improving the operation of an existing system. If there are gaps in protections for child victims, strengthen the existing code. If the Minister believes the current code is unfit for purpose, why was that not addressed during the passage of the Victims and Courts Act just a matter of weeks ago? We must break from a constant cycle of consultation and restructuring. Improving outcomes is not synonymous with endless consultation and the expansion of bureaucracy.
The Government’s underlying philosophy of justice is perhaps laid bare in the sentencing proposals in this paper. For example, they explicitly reject vehicle theft as deserving of a custodial sentence, no matter how many vehicles an individual may have stolen. We do not argue that custody should follow in every case, but sentencing in all cases, youth and otherwise, must reflect individual circumstances. The issue before your Lordships is whether the Government still believe that custody serves any meaningful deterrent or punitive function. The message increasingly appears to be that more or less all young offenders should remain in the community. Once they remain in the community, the Government now stipulate in their White Paper that they
“do not intend on making electronic whereabouts monitoring mandatory”.
So offenders are not to be placed in custody, but nor are they to be monitored. The public are right to ask in these circumstances where the balance is between rehabilitation and public protection.
The White Paper also touches on the issue of remand in respect of young offenders. But the average number of children on remand in England and Wales at any time is now about 183, and some of those may be on remand for their own protection, so I wonder to what extent it is really a major or material issue for consultation at this stage.
The White Paper then turns to the age of criminal responsibility, and it is a concern to see that there is a specific section in the proposals on this issue and the idea that it should be a raised age. The Government state that they will consider a wide evidence base before making a decision on this important issue.
I wonder whether the intended consultation will consider the opinion of the Minister, who declared less than two months ago: “Raising the age risks removing an important safeguard in those exceptional cases where serious offending does occur”, and “setting the threshold too high may have unintended consequences, including the potential for older offenders to exploit younger children who fall below the age of responsibility”. We look forward to considering the scope of the consultation that is to follow.
The fact that this issue now appears in the White Paper inevitably raises questions about the Government’s intention. Ministers may try to present this as a neutral review of evidence, but many may recognise that this is the soft launch of yet another policy reversal. Once again, under the veil of consultation, the Government are moving further away from the important issue of accountability within the justice system.
In conclusion, of course we support the objective of reducing youth offending and preventing young people entering a life of crime—early intervention and diversion have important roles to play within any functioning justice system—but rehabilitation cannot come at the expense of accountability. This Government appear to view punishment, deterrence and public protection as outdated concepts to be eroded, rather than as essential pillars of a justice system. A system in which offenders are neither placed in custody nor monitored when out in the community, where courts themselves are the subject of constant redesign and where accountability is repeatedly softened under the language of reform is not a system in which the public will be able to retain confidence.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, the success in reducing the number of children in custody has been a great achievement, and we should still be concentrating on further bringing down that number. That success has been largely achieved through the work of the Youth Justice Board, in which my noble friend Lord McNally played a major part during the coalition. We note the commitment to reform of the Youth Justice Board, but such reform should be constructive and committed to rehabilitation and reform, turning lives around, whether or not the youth justice service is at some stage in the future housed within the MoJ.
The Statement rightly emphasises how often the criminal conduct of children and young people is the result of instability, trauma and neglect, accompanying violence, addiction and abuse among those around them. But we must also address those factors that lead to Black children being so much more vulnerable to ending up in the criminal justice system. The Statement is right about that, as David Lammy was when he did his review in 2017.
On these Benches we have long sought to address these issues, but the Government now rightly highlight new hazards facing children and young people and leading to crime: online harms, criminal grooming through social media and exposure to extremist content. The £46 million to be invested in the turnaround programme is of course welcome, and the Statement is also right to call for early and effective intervention. But the likely success of new and recent measures—including parenting orders, youth diversion orders, youth intervention courts or reforms to the out-of-court resolution service—cannot yet be assessed. All these measures will take resources, and the amount is difficult to quantify. Can the Minister say a little more about the resourcing of the reforms promised? How, for example, was the £46 million figure assessed?
In proceedings on the Sentencing Bill, now Act, we discussed the extra resources needed for the Probation Service and others, not only for extra handling of early release, tagging and post-release supervision but to improve both the quantity and quality of the supervision of offenders and the help that the Probation Service necessarily provides to the courts.
So how, we would ask, is the need for resources to be kept under review, and what extra resources may there be to meet a need that is currently unforeseen? Is there sufficient flexibility to avoid the increases in offending that inevitably follow from underresourcing? Spending in this area is largely spending to save, given the massive direct and social cost of crime, and particularly of reoffending. Annexe A to the White Paper rightly sets out eleven “golden questions” for further research, saying there are “key evidence gaps”. What plans have the Government to fill those key evidence gaps?
Finally, the age of criminal responsibility is at last to be reconsidered. I remember the noble Baroness defending the present age of criminal responsibility— I disagreed with her then, and I do now—and I note the endorsement by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, of her former views. There is also to be reform of the childhood criminal records regime, or that too is mooted and is welcome. We have long argued that to criminalise a child at the age of 10 flies in the face of all the evidence on developmental reform, and that it is inhumane and wrong. I ask, because this is an all-party and an all-public issue, how will this consideration proceed? Will there be formal public or all-party consideration? I certainly look forward to discussing these issues in depth, as I know others do.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for the points they have made on this important issue. I will turn to the specifics of some of them towards the end of this short address.
On Monday, the Deputy Prime Minister set out in the other place a bold new approach to youth justice. We intend to build a system that intervenes early, responds more effectively and does more to turn young lives around. By doing all these things, we are fulfilling the first duty of government, which is to protect the public.
The evidence is compelling. About 80% of prolific adult offenders began committing crime when they were children. Cycles of criminal behaviour can start early, become entrenched and, if left unchallenged, become harder to break. If we fail to tackle them, we fail not only those children but the victims and communities who suffer the consequences. Every child we divert from criminal behaviour now not only saves a victim next week, next year, but possibly in our grandchildren’s generation.
Diversion for lower-level offences remains the most effective response, and we will set out plans to reform the out-of-court resolution framework later this year. This is most emphatically not us being soft on crime; rather, it is a firm, fair and consistent approach that steps in sooner and addresses the underlying causes of offending before the behaviour escalates. Where children offend, there must of course be swift and meaningful intervention. That said, short custodial sentences for children are associated with high reoffending rates. More than two-thirds of those given a short sentence offend again. Basically, by repeatedly locking these children up, we are locking them into a cycle of repeat offending, and they are highly likely to become the prolific offenders of the future.
Protection of the public is very much at the forefront of our minds. Custody will always be necessary for the most serious and dangerous offences and offenders. However, it is not just about sentencing but about where children are placed while they await trial. We know that for many children, even a short period in custody can deepen the problems that led them to offend in the first place. It breaks their contact with education, and it can break their contact with their families and cause all sorts of problems. That is why it is our ambition to cut the number of children who are remanded in custody by 25% over this Parliament.
To do that while keeping the public safe, we will invest £5 million in intensive community placements and stronger bail support. These measures are designed to protect the public and give children a genuine chance of changing course. We will also pilot youth intervention courts. We intend these to take a problem-solving approach, looking at the causes of offending by tailoring the approach to individual circumstances. These will be focused on the children who are most at risk of reoffending.
Early evidence from the similar intensive supervision courts in the adult system, upon which these are loosely based, is encouraging. We will draw on this while continuing to adopt an approach that reflects children’s needs. This will include judge-led reviews as part of a child’s sentence. Judges will play a key role in monitoring their progress. The Government appreciate that this will place additional pressure on the courts. As your Lordships are aware, we are taking action to address capacity through the Courts and Tribunals Bill.
The criminal records review is about ensuring that the system strikes the right balance between protecting the public and supporting rehabilitation. Stable employment is a crucial factor, and where individuals who have committed crimes as children have demonstrably turned their lives around, it serves neither them nor the wider public to impose unnecessary barriers to opportunity. This will be a targeted package of reforms. These may include considering how long childhood offences should be disclosed on basic checks and whether certain offences should remain disclosable for life—for example, when applying for roles working with vulnerable people.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, raised the issue of the age of criminal responsibility. My words were quoted back at me by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen. I do not resile from them. I used words such as “may” and “risk” and made the point that we would always listen and keep this under review. The review of the age of criminal responsibility is not our review but the Bar Council’s review. Nobody is suggesting that, once that review has reported, we should not look at it. We will look at it and then make a decision. We are evaluating it.
On the question of resources, the Government are committed to putting money into these matters. That is why this is a bold reform. The Government have committed a further £15 million a year for three years to the turnaround programme, which seeks to intervene upstream of criminal justice interventions. On the funding issues concerning the youth justice system and the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales, I notice that in their places are the noble Lords, Lord McNally and Lord Clarke, both of whom have had a great deal to do with these issues over the years. I am grateful to see them both.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, has ranged far and wide in his criticisms of the Government’s approach to many matters across criminal justice and other areas. We are criticised for consulting on this, but I am not going to apologise for that. This Government take an incremental approach to the reforms we are bringing in, introducing them cautiously and acting on evidence rather than on ideology or whim, so that we know that what we are doing will work before rolling it out nationally.
Regarding consulting on wider issues, I stood at this Dispatch Box on Monday and was criticised from the Opposition Front Bench by the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, for introducing too much legislation. This is not legislation: it is consultation and reform, and that is why we are doing it. The bold approach this Government are taking on youth justice is about ensuring that the system intervenes earlier and more effectively. We want to get children and young people back on track so that we can protect the public. To achieve that, we are following the evidence on what works. I look forward to engaging with your Lordships over the coming months as the Government finalise their plans.
Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)
My Lords, can my noble kinswoman the Minister confirm that the Government reject the miserably pessimistic and defeatist view of the youth justice system expressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen? Will she confirm that a key aim of the plan with which she is dealing today must be to provide an improved education service for the diverse cohort of children in custody that is of such good quality that they will not emerge from custody as automatic second-class citizens?
Baroness Levitt (Lab)
My Lords, we are taking decisive action to drive up performance in relation to the youth custody estate. The Deputy Prime Minister chairs a newly established performance taskforce to hold the system to account. It seeks very detailed information on what happens to children in custody, which includes things such as time out of room, access to education, rates of violence and staffing. As we have announced, our target is to increase the time that children spend outside their room by 50%, so that they are engaged in meaningful activities, because every hour that they are in their room they are not engaged in education, training or other purposeful activity. This is about ensuring that children who end up in custody come out as less of a risk to the public than when they went in.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, the Statement refers to the Southport murders and the lack of co-ordination between the appropriate authorities. Does the Minister accept that, when a review or inquiry is commissioned, the terms of reference should provide for the explicit incorporation of a mechanism for reviewing and monitoring the implementation of its recommendations?
Baroness Levitt (Lab)
That is an interesting idea. I do not think I am going to commit to it today, but I will certainly bear it in mind.
Lord McNally (LD)
My Lords, the YJB is one of the great successes of government over the last 25 years and a great credit to those involved. I do not think the time is wrong for a thorough review of youth justice. As the Minister indicated, there is a whole range of new factors, not least the internet and online harms, since the YJB was created. What I find difficult to understand in this proposal is why, of all the various open-ended proposals and inquiries, it is the YJB that is most decisively sent to the Back Benches.
I urge the Government to appoint a full-time chair of the YJB, allow it to operate at full capacity and keep it outside the Ministry of Justice for the time being, because a lot of the matters will be judgments of the Ministry of Justice as well. I worry that this proposal is part of a long-standing ambition of the Ministry of Justice to take youth justice back into its concern, aided and abetted by the Treasury, which is looking for substantial savings by so doing. Am I being overly suspicious?
Baroness Levitt (Lab)
My Lords, I pay tribute of course to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and the Youth Justice Board, which deserves to be congratulated for the work it has done over the last 20 years in relation to reducing youth crime. We have no intention of abolishing the Youth Justice Board. Since it was established, it has made incredibly valued contributions to improving outcomes for children, and there are significant reductions that we can point to the Youth Justice Board for having achieved.
The noble Lord makes the valuable point that, in the years since it was established, children within the justice system now face different challenges and we need to take another look at it. Needs are now much more complex, so the plan is to refocus the Youth Justice Board so that it does what it is really good at, which is driving the continuous improvement of the services.
The Government wish to increase the democratic oversight of some aspects of what the Youth Justice Board is concerned with: funding, accountability and policy. But, as far as the delivery of that is concerned, the intention is that that will remain with the Youth Justice Board because of the excellent work the board does.
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)
My Lords, I welcome the publication of the youth justice system reform and delivery plan. In particular, I welcome the announcement of an expanded and clearly defined role for the Welsh Government, in recognition of the fact that the context has changed considerably in Wales since the current arrangements were put in place in 1998. Does the Minister agree that the recent expansion of Senedd Cymru and the Welsh Government begins a new chapter for devolution? In relation to youth justice, currently the Welsh Government fund up to 64% of youth justice services in Wales. Is it not time to fully devolve youth justice to Wales?
Baroness Levitt (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. In March, we committed to devolving youth, remand and turnaround funding to the Welsh Government for 2027 and 2028. This is part of a broader commitment, as the noble Baroness knows, between the UK and the Welsh Government to establish a clearer and stronger role for the Welsh Government in the delivery of youth justice. It is definitely the intention of this Government to try not to, as it were, empire-build by bringing more things into the centre, but to ensure that we can pool funding and expertise in regional areas, as well as in Wales, in order to ensure that local areas can deliver things for the communities that they serve.
Lord Oates (LD)
Does the Minister recognise that the Youth Justice Board was a jewel in the crown of the 1997 Labour Government, dramatically reducing the number of young people in the juvenile secure estate while reducing youth offending and recidivism? Does she also recognise that the powers and responsibilities given to the Youth Justice Board were removed from the Home Office because the youth cohort was relatively small and often ignored, and there was a real danger in going back into the Ministry of Justice that it would be again? Finally, will she explain why the Government, having commissioned a review of the Youth Justice Service by Steve Crocker, have chosen to largely ignore the outcome of that review?
Baroness Levitt (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question. I think he and I are looking forward to speaking to each other about this tomorrow, as I shall be answering a Question on pretty much the same subject. I repeat that there is no intention to abolish the Youth Justice Board, but there is a policy, following a Cabinet Office review of arm’s-length bodies, not just the Youth Justice Board, of ensuring that matters that we believe should be retained within various Ministries and departments in order to ensure democratic accountability are returned there. That is the reason we have taken the view that we have. As the noble Lord rightly says, the review was commissioned. Our view was that we needed to go further than the recommendations that were made.
Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)
My Lords, we welcome the focus on reducing youth crime, but I would like to ask a question. The Minister detailed a 25% reduction in the number of children who are held on remand. Where did this figure come from? If that number is reduced arbitrarily, that pain will be absorbed by the community, because it will have a number of young people in its purview whom it would not have had beforehand who could be causing some problems there.
There was a comment about the propensity of Black children to be more vulnerable to being in the system. Excuse the roughness of the comment I am about to make, but unless as white liberals you are prepared to take on Black parents to do more—they need support and challenge in equal measure to do more to make our children less vulnerable to this system—you will achieve nothing. The things most facing Black children so they end up that way are lack of school achievement, lack of graduate jobs, the high number of single parents and all those things. That is what makes Black children more vulnerable to the youth justice system. Where is the work to improve those figures?
Baroness Levitt (Lab)
The noble Lord makes two points, and I will do my best to answer them. As far as 25% fewer children on remand is concerned, that is not a number that we will take out on an arbitrary basis. It is a target. We are aiming to reduce by 25% the number of children who await trial in custody. The way we want to do that is by strengthening bail provisions, and there is a commitment of additional money so that we can look at things such as bail fostering arrangements to ensure that children do not go into custodial institutions, particularly for short periods, because we know what a terrible effect that can have on them, by breaking all the links I was talking about earlier with families and education.
As far as racial disparities and the disproportionate effect are concerned, it is a great anxiety to us that it remains the case that certain cohorts—normally Black and mixed-heritage children—are disproportionately represented in the justice system and in the custodial estate.
I absolutely take the point about involving parents; that is why we are exploring the question of parental orders and seeing whether we can expand them. This is not about criminalising parents but about making the point that these are children. Sometimes they look like adults, but they are children, with everything that is engaged in that. They need parents to help guide them. Certainly, I have experience of some parents in the youth court who would like to be more involved but the child in question rejects that. It may be helpful for them to be able to say to the child, “I am sorry, I am doing this because the courts told me I have to; there is a parental order in place”. We absolutely agree that these are all critical factors; that is why we are looking at diversion rather than simply locking children up all the time.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I am disappointed by the somewhat discordant tone of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, with respect to my noble and learned friend on the Front Bench, who made some sensible points. We all agree that children should not be warehoused through crime academies, we all agree that they should be well educated and we all believe in the concept of rehabilitation, but there has to be a limit on the liberal and permissive policy in the criminal justice system.
I had the privilege of serving on the British Transport Police Authority for four years, and one of our key areas of concern was county lines. Without proper monitoring and without the possible sanction of a custodial sentence, what is the sanction to prevent criminals engaging children and young people in drugs and a life of crime going into the future if there is not the sanction of a custodial sentence for those young people? Is there not a risk that these reforms may result in more young people being drawn into that lifestyle? Is that not something that the Government should seriously take into account?
Baroness Levitt (Lab)
The Government are seriously taking it into account. That is why we are investing more than £34 million this year in the county lines programme, which has closed more than 3,700 county lines and led to 10,100 arrests. Absolutely, we take it seriously. The important point here is that we are tough on crime but smart on prevention of crime. There is no point continuing to do things that plainly do not work—things that do not protect the public and are bad for the children as well.
Baroness Brown of Silvertown (Lab)
Can my noble friend the Minister talk a little more about bail fostering? In my dealings with the parents of children who were caught up in county lines, one of the biggest issues they had was getting the child away from the pernicious behaviours of the gang. Being able to foster a child outside the area and break that connection with the gang seems to be a jolly good thing, particularly given that the gangs were also very active within the institutions in which those children were placed, whether custodial or educational. Can my noble friend give us a little more detail about fostering arrangements on bail?
Baroness Levitt (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend for her support of the Government’s plans in relation to this. The point about gang involvement is very much at the forefront of the Government’s mind. One of the reasons we do not want children in the custodial estate is because that is where they end up with the rest of the gangs. We are actively involved in exploring specialist placements such as remand foster care. I will write to my noble friend to give her some more detail in relation to the arrangements.
Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (UUP)
My Lords, I welcome the announcement in the Statement that the number of young people being detained in custody has reduced significantly. There is something being done reasonably well, so I would be reluctant to change it dramatically. I would like an assurance that there is no predetermined position to change the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10. There may be some options for reasonable movements away if exceptions can be made, but I would not want to see it done automatically without the proper consultation, because we need to find a way to ensure that there are fewer young people in custody but at the same time that they abide by the law.
Baroness Levitt (Lab)
The reduction in the number of children involved is very good news. In fact, it is an even greater reduction than the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, said. He said that there are now only about 1,400 children in custody, whereas it is actually only just over 400, so it is even better. The noble Lord will recall that a few moments ago the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, repeated back my words from when I was standing here dealing with the age of criminal responsibility before. I can certainly reassure him that we do not have any plan to change the age of criminal responsibility. We are going to let the Bar Council report and then we will look at what that report says. We know that it is fraught with risks. I can recall the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, making a powerful speech about the risk that gangs could recruit children with impunity if either the age of criminal responsibility is raised or their criminal records are wiped clean. We will bear in mind all those things when we look at this. The clue is in the word “consulting”, which is what we get criticised for doing by the party opposite.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the plan. Will the Minister join me in recognising the role that young offender institutions play? Can she update the House on the recruitment and retention of those who serve in often very difficult circumstances in those institutions?
Baroness Levitt (Lab)
I certainly will pay tribute to those who work in young offender institutions—it is a really difficult job—but the custodial youth estate is fundamentally failing children at the moment. There is quite a lot of evidence that smaller units such as secure children’s homes are more effective at supporting children. It is a difficult issue. Noble Lords may have heard a rumour that we inherited a challenging financial position, and plainly we need to consider that while we are deciding what to do, but we have a youth custody transformation plan. In essence, the White Paper is the umbrella that sets out where we intend to go and three further announcements will then be made: the youth custody transformation plan in autumn 2026, the diversion from custody—the non-custodial options—plan also in autumn 2026, and the review of youth courts and the part that they play in the treatment of children in the criminal justice system, which I am sure noble Lords will be delighted to hear is being conducted by the eminent academic Professor David Ormerod KC, which is intended to report in August 2027.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, correct me if I am wrong, but I think the Government said that they will try to slash custodial remand for young offenders by one quarter. Is that correct? Surely remand should be used in response to need and not subject to arbitrary targets. That does not make any sense at all. What happens if violent youth crime and repeat offending go up? I hope to goodness they do not but, if they do, will she and her fellow Ministers stick to the targets? That makes no sense.
Baroness Levitt (Lab)
It is for our independent judges to decide whether somebody is given bail or remanded. All that we are looking at is whether alternatives can be offered to the courts. At the moment, you tend to have a straightforward binary choice of bail back at home where half the problem started in the first place or remand into custody in one of these institutions that we know do not work for children and where there is a huge risk of reoffending once they are released. For the most serious offences, there is no question but that children will continue to be remanded into the custodial estate. But we want to be more imaginative about this, remembering that these are not tiny adults but children, and some of them come from very difficult circumstances.
Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con)
My Lords, I commend the report. I am among those who would like to see the age of criminal responsibility increased—
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)
I am sorry, the debate has timed out.
King’s Speech
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Baroness Crawley
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty as follows:
“Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty addressed to both Houses of Parliament”.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)
My Lords, it is a real honour to open today’s debate on behalf of His Majesty’s Government. When it was my privilege to close the last debate on the last gracious Speech, I spoke about the Mental Health Bill and the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. I thank noble Lords across the House for their engagement and thoughtful scrutiny of both those pieces of legislation, which have delivered significant Acts of Parliament and what I would describe as significant acts of change for the better. Those two Acts are among the most important steps for improving public health in decades—cornerstones of the Government’s commitment to reduce inequalities in this Parliament.
This gracious Speech sets out how we will go even further to make our country stronger and fairer through a renewal of our public services. I hope noble Lords will welcome the progress that the Government have made since taking office in respect of the health service, including action on waiting lists, now down by half a million, while the number of people waiting less than 18 weeks for planned care now stands at 65.3%, up from 59%. We see ambulances responding to strokes and heart attacks arriving five crucial minutes faster compared to last year. We have met our manifesto commitment to recruit an additional 8,500 mental health staff three years early.
Underpinning everything, we have set out a new direction for the future of healthcare through the 10-year health plan. We are reforming the NHS to make it fit for the future. We are shifting from sickness to prevention, from analogue to digital and from hospital to community. As noble Lords have regularly observed, we face an uphill battle, which is what the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, found in his independent review. One of the noble Lord’s conclusions was that past legislation was too rigid and overly specific, which had the effect of increasing bureaucracy and diluting accountability over time, and of this we have certainly taken heed.
I welcome, as I hope noble Lords will, the Health Bill outlined in the gracious Speech, which is an important part of the delivery of our 10-year plan. In summary, the Bill will cut bureaucracy; it will improve patient safety through a single patient record; it will ensure that patients receive care that is better tailored to their needs, when and where they need it; and it will help us to make the shift from sickness to prevention, while improving patient safety and patient experience. Importantly, it will put more resources into the front line through the abolition of NHS England.
Noble Lords know only too well that, far too often, patients experience care that is fragmented and inaccessible. Patients and carers find themselves telling their story time and again, every time they meet a new clinician or a new healthcare professional. That is not just an inconvenience; it actually adds to the strain on people when they least need it. It also risks the safety and quality of services.
Alongside this, without integrated data the NHS misses opportunities to diagnose and treat people early, leaving too many seeking urgent care once their health has deteriorated. It is common sense to note that, when clinicians do not have all the facts to hand, they simply cannot make the best decisions to support the interests of patients. Equally, we cannot sensibly expect patients and carers to keep track of all the different documents, from all the different specialists, for all the different appointments in all the different providers. The Health Bill creates the statutory basis for the NHS to bring patients’ health and social care records into one place, enabling people to access their own health record, securely, through the NHS app. We are actively shifting the NHS from analogue to digital, empowering patients to take informed decisions and giving them more choice and control.
Putting patients at the heart of care means devolving decisions to a local level to meet the specific needs of the local population, where different services can better integrate around the needs of the patient. That is why integrated care boards will directly commission a greater proportion of NHS services. However, some aspects must be and are best done nationally. Where that is the case, we need to ensure that arrangements are efficient and have clear and strong accountability to Parliament.
The current system of two national bodies overseeing the NHS—the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England—fails both those tests. That is why responsibility for all but the most specialised commissioning functions will be transferred to integrated care boards, including primary care, dentistry, ophthalmology and pharmacy commissioning. Integrated care boards are best placed to integrate care as local strategic commissioners, and we are empowering providers through foundation trust reform, giving them more flexibility to design and deliver healthcare around local needs. We will bring the functions of NHS England within the department. In other words, we are abolishing NHS England.
Through and across other departments of government, we are acting to continue to make the country fairer. Through MHCLG, we have already taken decisive action to fix the foundations of the housing system. Through the Renters’ Rights Act, we are strengthening security for 11 million tenants. We have ended the unfair system of no-fault evictions and given people greater stability in their homes. Alongside this, the Planning and Infrastructure Act is making it faster and simpler to build the homes and infrastructure our communities need. The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act ensures that power moves away from Whitehall, giving people the right to make decisions about the things that matter to them, where they matter. We have made £78 billion available in the latest local government finance settlement, which is a 6.1% increase from the previous year.
This year’s gracious Speech brings forward reforms that make it easier for people to have a say, to own and stay in their homes, and to see their local areas and local voices improved. As outlined in the gracious Speech, the Representation of the People Bill will protect the integrity of our elections and inject a new vigour into our democracy by tightening the rules on political finance, improving transparency, introducing tougher measures to tackle the intimidation of candidates and electoral staff, and by extending the right to vote to 16 year-olds and 17 year-olds—the biggest expansion of the franchise in over half a century.
We are not just giving young people a greater say in our democracy. Through the commonhold and leasehold reform Bill, we are protecting their rights when they take their first steps on the property ladder, by fixing abuses and ensuring commonhold replaces leasehold by default. This Bill will make owning a home fairer and the provisions more transparent. Far too many leaseholders face unregulated and unaffordable ground rents; they face unjustified permissions and administration fees, unreasonable or extortionate charges, and conditions imposed with little or no consultation. The Bill will cut unfair charges, give people more control over how their buildings are run and ensure that they cannot lose their home for minor disputes or unexpected costs.
Alongside the ongoing implementation of reforms to the leasehold system which are already in statute, the Bill makes progress towards ending the feudal leasehold system so that future homeowners can buy with greater confidence and fewer hidden costs. It will cap ground rents for leaseholders today and will set a decisive path towards eradicating them, ending this exploitative practice of money for nothing.
Many leaseholders, as we know and have debated many times, are also trapped in unsuitable homes that they are unable to sell. It is a disgrace that nearly nine years on from the appalling tragedy at Grenfell Tower, there are still people in this country who live in buildings with unsafe cladding. The building remediation Bill will deliver on our commitment to fix the cladding crisis and, crucially, make those responsible pay towards fixing the problem that they caused, so that residents can feel safe in their homes and are no longer stuck in property that they cannot sell or move on from. There will be clear legal duties to fix buildings and penalties for those who fail.
Everybody deserves to live in a decent, safe, secure and affordable home, yet too many families in need of a social rented home are languishing on local authority waiting lists, being forced to struggle in the private rented sector or in expensive temporary accommodation. We have committed to invest £39 billion in the social and affordable housing programme over the next decade, with a further £3.6 billion to tackle the root causes of homelessness—and we are going further. The Social Housing Bill will help more families to access a safe and affordable home. It will protect the homes we already have and give tenants greater security, particularly those who need extra support, such as victims of domestic violence. It will also keep homes in the social sector through sensible reforms to the right to buy while ensuring that, where they are sold, the public purse is protected. This Government are putting the social housing sector on to a secure and sure footing.
We will also continue to keep our promise to transfer powers out of Westminster. The overnight visitor levy Bill will grant new revenue-raising powers to local leaders, as a step towards a new era of fiscal devolution in England, so that places can raise funding locally and invest it back into the services and spaces that people use every single day. Mayors will have the power to raise money and invest it into projects that improve their areas, to raise living standards and to support economic growth. They will be able to decide for themselves and not rely on central government to do it for them.
If I had to summarise these reforms, I would say that they are about something in some ways simple but also deeply fundamental. They are about ensuring that more people can live in a safe, secure home. They support better health, stronger communities and a growing economy.
To that last point, this growth also depends on world-class infrastructure, and our economic security depends on a strong transport network, whether of roads, rail or runways, so the Department for Transport is driving economic growth and transforming how people travel. It is making journeys greener, safer and healthier for all, as well as making them more available.
We are delivering a more integrated, reliable and future-focused transport system by improving connectivity, strengthening capacity and making travel more affordable. We are doing this by modernising rail, investing in better roads and empowering local areas to shape the transport services that they need. We are also setting a long-term vision for how people and places connect to drive the transition to net zero.
For too long, passengers have had to put up with unreliable services, confusing fares and no single body accountable for delivering a railway that works. I am glad to say that the Railways Bill puts an end to this by establishing Great British Railways, a new publicly owned company with sole responsibility for delivering for passengers and freight operators. Whether it be through simplifying the complex fares and ticketing system, through developing a timetable that actually works or through ensuring the needs of local communities are no longer ignored, GBR will deliver it. The Bill also establishes a powerful passenger watchdog to ensure that passengers are consistently championed at every turn. In addition, Northern Powerhouse Rail will create more reliable and more frequent services between the north of England’s great cities, so that more housing and better access to jobs, services and culture will have opportunities to grow.
As part of our drive to literally move forward, the Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill strengthens consumer rights and promotes fair treatment of passengers. We are also making sure those rights are properly enforced by equipping the Civil Aviation Authority with direct powers to take action if airlines or airports fail consumers. The Bill will also promote economic growth through better infrastructure and improve aviation safety.
As set out in the gracious Speech, the highways financing Bill will help to unlock private investment in major road schemes. It gives the Government more ways to fund building and to maintain large-scale road infrastructure projects, while reducing the burden on the taxpayer.
The gracious Speech gives us the tools we need to build a stronger and fairer Britain. I and my Front-Bench colleagues look forward to taking these measures through your Lordships’ House and to working with noble Lords on all sides of the House.
It is only fair for patients to expect world-class healthcare that works around their needs; it is only fair for families to expect safe and affordable housing, and it is only fair that young people should never be cut off from opportunities, no matter where they live.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the clear way in which she introduced the debate. We all know that our country faces profound and growing challenges in health and social care. As the leader of the Opposition made clear in her response to the gracious Speech in the other place, we are entering a period of deep structural pressure that will test the foundations of our system. His Majesty’s loyal Opposition will engage constructively with the Government’s proposed reforms, but it is essential that the Government reassure patients that any changes will improve the quality of care, protect patient safety and their privacy and avoid costly disruption.
Our system of healthcare, especially the NHS, is caring for more people than ever before. Although people may be living longer, too often they spend their later lives and later years in poor health. Increasingly, patients present not with a single condition but with multiple, complex and interlocking needs. Multimorbidity is no longer a challenge for the future, but a challenge for now. It is reshaping demand across primary care, hospitals, community services and social care. That pressure is compounded by the wider state of the nation’s health. Healthy life expectancy has fallen, meaning more years lived in ill health, a sustained greater demand for services and a heavier strain on an already stretched workforce.
In the drive to improve our health by reducing obesity, for example, successive Governments have relied heavily on top-down or trickle-down, state-led interventions, such as sugar taxes. But often this has not led to sufficient changes in behaviour. Often, the poorest families simply end up paying more, or swap their favourite brand of sugary drink or snack for a cheaper brand. What is amazing about this view is that, when I speak to public health academics, they agree with it, but they also agree that community led, bottom-up approaches are far more effective than top-down state interventions.
I should declare my interest as a professor of politics and international relations at St Mary’s University, where I teach an MBA module in healthcare policy and am helping with a new medical school, which will accept its first trainees this year. I also run seminars and supervise students at the Vinson Centre for the Public Understanding of Economics and Entrepreneurship at the University of Buckingham, which also has a medical school, but I have no relationship with that.
Unfortunately, successive Governments have failed to pay enough attention to the successes of community-led projects. An example is BRITE Box, which gives families ingredients and a recipe card with instructions to help them to cook healthy meals together. The recipe cards have been designed to be child-friendly, with more pictures and simpler wording. Often, it is the children who encourage their parents to join in preparing the meals as a family. BRITE Box aims for the box of healthy ingredients to cost around £5 to feed a family of four. This helps not only with budgeting but with changing eating habits and tackling obesity. So, while the Government repeat their mantra “From Hospital to Community”, on which there is obviously widespread agreement, can the Minister answering tell noble Lords what plans there are for the department to work more closely with existing projects that are already tackling many of these problems in their own communities? How can we expand the role of these projects in those communities?
At precisely the moment that the NHS needs resilience, it is constrained by workforce shortages, delayed discharge driven by fragility in adult social care and urgent and emergency care performance that reflects a system operating too close to the edge. The continual risk of industrial action, which the recently departed Secretary of State promised to end, only adds further to uncertainty for patients and staff alike.
The news last week that waiting lists had fallen is welcome in principle, and the Minister referred to this. However, I subsequently read in the Health Service Journal that the “majority of the improvement” in March was driven not by genuine progress but by a “record” spike in “unreported removals”. When I asked a Written Question on the reasons for patients being removed from the waiting lists, the Government replied:
“The Department does not hold the data”
showing the reasons why patients were removed from the waiting lists. Really? So how did the Government decide which patients to remove from the waiting lists if they did not have the data on why they were removed? There has to be a reason for these patients to have been removed. I urge the Minister to go back to the department and give a more credible response, so we can understand the reasons for the removals.
I turn to the King’s Speech and, in particular, the NHS modernisation Bill. On the face of it, some proposals are welcome: a single patient record, clear accountability in local systems and a simplified approach to patient safety. Any reform that reduces duplication, improves efficiency and, above all, improves patient care and outcomes deserves support. However, as successive Governments of all colours have found, good intentions do not by themselves guarantee better outcomes. The Government’s approach is not without risk. The history of NHS reform shows that structural change can impose substantial costs and disruption if not designed carefully and implemented safely. We have seen major programmes such as Epic create unforeseen problems in interoperability and access to information, and we have seen how cyber incidents can rapidly undermine clinical and operational capacity, as happened with the Synnovis cyber attack recently.
The healthcare landscape is now an extraordinarily complex network of providers, partnerships and systems with interdependent responsibilities, so reform driven from the centre must reflect that reality and diversity. A single patient record may have real potential, but it will succeed only if it is delivered with clear standards, accountability for implementation and robust cyber resilience. It must also earn the trust of patients, especially in how their data is protected. Failing to do so would incur the wrath of civil liberties organisations and reduce patient trust. In my time in the department, I supported the initiative of officials to consult organisations such as medConfidential. Although I expected the officials to be sceptical, they said, “We actually agree with many of medConfidential’s asks. They are reasonable and deliverable”. Let us make sure that we have that same relationship of trust between the civil liberties organisations and the department.
While many noble Lords will support the reduction of duplication between the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England, abolishing an institution is often more difficult than creating one—especially since NHS England currently co-ordinates a vast range of activity that underpins clinical practice and the patient experience and outcomes. When the NHS modernisation Bill reaches this House, we will look to the Government to provide clarity on three points: the timetable and cost of transition; the continuity of national functions, including planning, performance of oversight, specialised services, digital delivery and how they will be maintained without interruption; and how the stated ambition of decentralisation and devolution is reconciled with the transfer of substantial powers to a central department.
I will set out a few areas where we will seek greater engagement from the Government between now and the introduction of that Bill. First, on the shift from treatment to prevention—which noble Lords also agree with—we support the idea that the most effective way to reduce pressure on the health system is to tackle problems at source, to prevent ill health where we can, intervene earlier where we must, and reduce demand on GPs, hospitals and emergency care providers where it is appropriate and safe to do so. While public health has a role to play, it will be important for the Minister’s department and local authorities to work with many of the local community organisations that I referred to. When it comes to healthier diets, I have already mentioned BRITE Box, but many noble Lords will be aware of local community projects, wherever they live, that work in social prescribing, including on music and well-being.
During debate on the Mental Health Bill, we discussed the increasing incidence of mental-health issues across the population. Sometimes medication is appropriate, but not always. Another option could be social intervention, such as music or art therapy. We know that these can help people feel much better, without the need to go to hospital in the first place. There are many such organisations up and down the country. I urge the Government to seek the solution in prevention, by increasing well-being, and not always through treatment.
We also need a credible workforce and staff retention plan: sadly, this is something we realised too late when in government. The continued risk of industrial action—combined with growing concerns that shortages in some clinical roles are putting patient safety at risk—creates a deeply worrying picture. Across the country, patients who choose to use the NHS live with the fear that a long-awaited appointment, operation or procedure may be cancelled at short notice. Against the backdrop of an ageing population leading to increased pressure on the public purse, the UK faces a challenge: while we probably have more doctors and nurses than before, is it realistic and affordable to keep recruiting more staff to try to keep pace with demand?
One way that the former Secretary of State wanted to address this issue was through the increased use of technology. During my time as Minister for Technology, Innovation and Life Sciences, one of my frustrations was that much of the technology to improve prevention and diagnosis was already available. This could be better use of a mobile phone camera to send high-definition photos or scans to be analysed by health professionals, or wearable technology to monitor patient health. But one problem is that there is no front door for start-ups and scale-ups in medical technology with the potential to transform healthcare. We need a front door, a one-stop shop, to distinguish the sales talk from those who claim to have a solution but actually have nothing more than a minimally viable product, from those who have a potentially transformative tech solution that could be adopted and make huge changes across our system of healthcare.
Another problem is that current suppliers of technology are often reluctant to work with start-ups, and quite often erect technical barriers to the adoption of solutions they did not invent. When I was a Minister, I had many emails on this subject; I still do now, as a shadow Minister. People offer real solutions that could potentially transform healthcare, but the existing suppliers find an excuse not to interoperate. We also need the department to be wary of vendor lock-in, especially in the development of a federated data platform.
When it comes to tech, the obvious phrase on everyone’s lips is the potential of AI. It does have huge potential to help analyse datasets and enable clinicians to make more informed decisions. But we must ensure that there is a human backstop immediately available when there are problems. I am sure many noble Lords have been caught up in online or telephone customer service—what people call “doom loops”—where they are unable to reach a human. While some companies may get away with this sort of customer service, or lack of customer service, timely human intervention in healthcare could make the difference between life and death.
During my time in this House, I have heard noble Lords on the Government Benches say that the state cannot do it all. The role of partnerships with non-state providers will be crucial. While our system of healthcare is often used as a political football to score points, I hope that, particularly in your Lordships’ House, we may be able to find some room for consensus.
I think back to when my father was a bus driver and a member of the Transport and General Workers’ Union. My father’s subscription included treatment at the independent Manor House Hospital, so when my mother had to wait to be seen by a specialist on the NHS, she was able to be seen by a specialist there. Today, we know that many trade unions offer private health insurance or health plans as part of their membership package. In seeking to improve the supply of healthcare in a sustainable way, I wonder if we can find some consensus and agree across the political divide on an increased role for non-state providers, including mutuals, such as Benenden Health, and charities, friendly societies, co-operatives and private non-profit providers. I recognise that there will be some political disagreement over private for-profit providers, but I wonder if even there we could find agreement where they have been used to increase capacity and reduce pressure on the National Health Service.
Let me be clear: this is not to diminish the role of the NHS, which is treasured across the country by people of all political persuasions. However, we need to consider how we reduce pressure on the NHS and the public purse, while increasing capacity and patient choice. I have tabled Written Questions on the role of mutuals in healthcare, and hope that I will be able to work with noble Lords on all Benches to encourage more of these organisations to play a greater role in our system of health and care.
We also need to be realistic about labour shortages. We know that, after the war, it was mostly Commonwealth citizens who came to this country to rebuild our public services. However, we live at a time when the Government, the Opposition and a populist party are making sceptical noises over immigration. Given this, we need to have a serious, grown-up conversation about where we find the young people to fill the vacancies in health and social care and pay taxes to fund the public services for an ageing population. Is it realistic to find them from only among the current UK population, or do we need to acknowledge that we need some immigration? How do we do that in a sensitive way, without invoking accusations of domination being made by some national politicians?
I come back to today’s debate, where we are considering housing and transport, as well as health. My noble friends Lady Scott, Lord Jamieson and Lord Moylan will say more on housing and transport, but I hope that the Minister and the Government recognise the connection between health and place. I saw that the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, was in his place earlier; he talks about this a lot. The Government had an opportunity in the King’s Speech to go much further in reflecting that relationship by adopting a genuinely place-based approach that looks at not only healthcare services but the environments in which people live, work, travel and age. The evidence is clear: sustained improvements in health will not be delivered by the Department of Health and Social Care acting in isolation. It requires a rounded approach across housing, transport, planning, education, work, local government, and perhaps other departments too.
Finally, we have heard time and again how the pressures in social care are directly affecting secondary care capacity. I look forward to the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, who talks about this often. Delayed discharges, poor hospital flow and workforce shortages in adult social care all feed back into the NHS, leaving beds occupied by patients who are medically fit to leave but cannot be safely discharged. If the Government’s modernisation agenda is to rely on local integration through ICBs and more joined-up patient records, then that must be matched by a clear and credible plan for social care. If we do not fix social care, we do not fix the wider health system. Without such a plan, social care will remain one of the most limiting factors in the NHS’s ability to recover.
I will end by taking a step back from policy. As ever, the patient has to remain at the centre of our concern. His Majesty’s Opposition will work with the Government when it comes to improving outcomes and the quality of patient care, creating a system of health and care that is responsive, responsible and effective. We need a system that is robust, efficient and accessible—a service in which people feel empowered to seek help, are able to do so when they need it, and feel confident that they will receive their treatment in a timely and effective way. We need to move away from the 1940s model of trying to get hold of your GP so that they can sign a prescription or refer you to a hospital. Technology and a diversity of health and social care organisations can help with this transition. These Benches stand ready to support reforms where they remove needless duplication or bureaucracy, improve outcomes and the experience of patients, and strengthen our system of health and care to meet the demands of the future.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
I too thank the noble Baroness for the very sincere conviction and clarity with which she gave her introduction. From these Benches, I shall speak to the housing issues in the humble Address and will save a lot of the detail for the various Bills—so I hope the Minister does not think that she is going to get let off too lightly—knowing full well that my noble friends will address the issues of health and transport in greater detail.
Listening to the housing measures in the gracious Speech, I was struck by a rather familiar feeling, the sort you get when you get handed a glossy developer’s brochure. Noble Lords know the one—the sunlit streets, the happy families, everything finished and perfect, not a wheelie bin or an old banger in sight. It all looks excellent until you actually visit the site, where the picture is somewhat different. I am afraid that, with much of what we have before us, the gap between the brochure and the build still looms rather large.
Let me be fair: there is much to welcome. There is energy, there are Bills already in motion to support the ones that are coming forward and, for me, there is a real recognition that housing is not just another policy; it is actually the most important issue for millions of citizens and for the economy of the whole country. However, as someone who has spent years trying to get homes built—I was dubbed the pro-development mayor—I have learned that housing policy is judged not on what it says on the paper but on what gets built where. My test is simple: will this deliver more homes, and particularly more social homes, at the pace needed to turn the tide and at an affordable price?
It must be said that, on the whole, the sector has been very pleased. Long-term funding for social housing, at last, is very welcome: we cannot build homes with short-term thinking. A stronger Homes England and sensible powers to provide land for social homes and community facilities are vital. Unlocking land matters. The provisions in the Social Housing Bill supporting those fleeing domestic abuse are close to my heart and genuinely important—housing should always be part of the solution and not a barrier—and there has been progress on the remediation of homes with cladding. “At last”, the campaigners will say, but the date of 2029 will still feel a long way away. But let us close that brochure and look at the reality. There are over 1.3 million households on waiting lists and over 130,000 households in temporary accommodation, including thousands of children. As Shelter has put it,
“This is the devastating result of a severe shortage of social rent homes”.
That is the benchmark.
We welcome the Social Housing Bill and its broad policy direction but, sadly, at its heart it is mainly a right to buy reform Bill. Necessary? Absolutely: it reduces discounts, tightens the system and seeks better replacement. Our policy is to allow councils to make their own decisions in that regard as to what would suit them, but this is at least a step in the right direction. But let us be clear: slowing the loss of homes is not the same as building new ones. It plugs the holes in the bucket but, at the moment, the bucket has very little in it. It does not yet deliver the step change in supply that we need.
This brings me to one of the biggest gaps: affordability. There is very little said about affordability. This is not only a housing crisis but an affordability one. For those who need social housing, supply is too low. For renters, rents are too high, and for first-time buyers, ownership is too far away. We must and can build more homes, but if people cannot afford them, the problem simply moves rather than disappears.
In the private rented sector, people are being squeezed from both sides, with high rents but no realistic route into ownership. The local housing allowance no longer matches market rents in many areas. Are the Government considering changes in the welfare system to support housing, or will we continue to expect people to bridge a widening gap that should not exist at all?
Our concern is the lack of a real route to delivery, because this is where ambition—and there is no lack of ambition from this Government—meets reality. Planning departments are overstretched, with around 80% underresourced. Recruitment plans are welcome, but they do not yet match the scale of the gap. Perhaps the Minister has an update on the promised target of 1,400 new planners by the end of the Parliament. But you cannot accelerate delivery if the system that approves development is running short of people.
This takes us to construction. There are currently 140,000 vacancies in construction. There is an ageing workforce, with many due to retire in the next few years and far too few apprentices coming through. There is a cross-party consensus about the need for more homes as we seem to vie with each other to announce higher targets, but targets do not build houses. Builders, plumbers and carpenters build them, and we do not have enough of any of them.
We should not forget SME builders, which are often the backbone of delivering the homes we need. What are the Government doing to support these businesses, which are crucial to delivering their ambition? They are often the ones which deliver smaller sites faster and more flexibly, and very locally. Yet they face tight margins, rising costs, complex regulations—always their moan—and difficulties accessing land and finance. The system as we have it now increasingly works for the bigger players, not the smaller ones. That matters, and I hope it matters to government, because if we squeeze out SMEs, as has been happening year on year, we reduce capacity and slow delivery.
On leasehold reform, we feel the direction is generally right, but we are nowhere near the destination, and there seems no sign of that. Commonhold is not clearly the default. Conversion remains complex, and everyday issues, such as service charges and property management practices, remain only partially addressed. The legislation seems geared towards future development and comes at the expense of existing leaseholders, particularly those in flats, leaving them trapped in a harmful two-tier market, further devaluing their homes and leaving them dependent on predatory freeholders and unregulated management agents whose interests are diametrically opposed to their own. These are the two glaring omissions that we would seek to fill. We have the promise of reform for some, but we agree with the Prime Minister, who, after the election, said, “Incremental change won’t cut it”—but this is incremental.
Then there is the much-welcomed remediation Bill. This is a test of whether subsequent Governments meant what they said after Grenfell. Nearly a decade on, thousands of buildings still require work. Progress has been made, but nowhere near quickly enough. The Public Accounts Committee has called it “far too slow”, and campaigners speak of people trapped, unable to sell, facing rising costs, living with uncertainty, lives on hold. Until the work is completed—not promised or planned but completed—we have not honoured the promise of “Never again”. Promises of everything being done by 2029 still seem a long way off if you are one of those people.
Finally, there is the last missing disappointment. Let us be blunt and realistic: public protest is often the reason for held up delivery, which those of us in local politics will know only too well. People are wary of any changes and unconvinced of the positives about development. This is despite their children not being able to live in the town, village or city in which their parents live. So why is that? Could it be homes built without infrastructure, promises not delivered, fears of overcrowding of major services such as schools and GP surgeries, or even about somewhere to park? These are real fears and concerns, which have built a lack of trust. Unless we rebuild that trust through better design, real engagement and delivering what is actually needed and promised, we will not build at scale and take communities with us.
The Government’s policy direction to solve this problem—despite their rhetoric in the introduction—is to take decision-making away from communities and upwards towards combined authorities’ mayors. When I read my planning email this morning, I saw that there may be further plans to give more decisions to council officers and not to councillors. I can understand why that is, but that is not what we need. As with many of the issues facing society at the moment, we need real leadership at all levels—from not just Ministers, who do say what needs to be said, but local MPs and councillors of all parties, including mine.
We will support the Government where we believe they are going in the right direction. We will do the usual urging faster and further, and in some regards, we will certainly challenge omissions; otherwise, there remains a gap between what is promised and what is delivered. What is missing is not intent or activity, and possibly not even resources—though more are always sought and welcome—but certainty of delivery at the scale and pace required. It is all about whether people have somewhere safe, secure and affordable to live. Right now, it feels like we have got rather good at producing the brochure; we just have not delivered the houses—but I am sure the Minister is as impatient for this as we are.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Wilson of Sedgefield) (Lab)
My Lords, before we move on, I remind noble Lords on all sides that there is an advisory limit of five minutes for speeches. If we could stay within that, that would be great, because obviously we want to finish at a reasonable time this evening, and we have to show other noble Lords who are speaking a bit of respect.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that notice before I got up. In the brief few minutes I have, I am going to speak mostly about the Health Bill. The Bill is light in legislation, with 72 clauses and 48 pages, but it has 143 pages of schedules. One wonders whether most of the powers might therefore be through SIs and guidance, and that is what we have to explore.
I will concentrate my remarks on the notes produced by the Government following the gracious Speech. It is customary, as has been noticed over the last three days, that most noble Lords offer their alternative legislation to that which the Government are going to bring forward. This is evidenced by the 300-plus noble Lords who will have spoken by the close of business tomorrow. I will refrain from doing that; I will stick to what is in the legislation and follow the notes that have been circulated.
Early this morning, I listened to a podcast about health and social care. It was recorded just a few weeks ago, and the person who was interviewed was Andy Burnham. Some of the things that he reflected on in the podcast are in the legislation, but he focused mostly on social care and prevention in the wider sense. I do not want to predict the future, but I wonder whether we will have another Bill in times to come following that podcast. However, I put that aside.
Sticking to the Bill, I am grateful to the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, for introducing its health aspects, and I will pick up some of the points she made. The first is the abolition of NHS England. I accept that there was a disconnect between NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care that needed to be addressed, and this Bill tries to do that. However, in doing so, it gives wider and deeper powers to the Secretary of State and to Ministers, to the point of the ability to intervene both locally and nationally. That might be a good thing, if the leadership recognises that any intervention has to be for the benefit of the patient, but that will have to be tested in times to come. That is my anxiety about that— I hope that is not my phone I can hear ringing; it is not.
The Bill strengthens local democratic accountability in the health system by means of mayoral nominees on the integrated care boards. In some areas, such as Manchester, these are referred to as health commissioners. If the responsibility of the mayoral representative is to focus on local and regional healthcare and to drive the ICB’s commissioning powers that way, that will be most welcome.
There are other issues, such as the CQC now being responsible for patient safety. The CQC has not improved the quality of healthcare in all its time. There are issues around the recognition of the patient voice, which will be taken away from Healthwatch and put into the Department of Health via a patient experience directorate. I do not know whether that can be regarded as the patient voice.
In my last minute or so, I comment the single patient record—it is universally accepted that we should have a patient record that goes from GPs to hospitals to social care—but there are issues with the curation and use of this data and with who has ownership, which now appears to be in the hands of the department and the Minister, not the patient. We have to explore how this data will be released and to whom, and its relationship with the NHS data platform, which is contracted out just now to organisations such as Palantir. This is an important issue to explore in depth, which I hope we will do in Committee.
There are issues around ICBs and their role now as a commissioner of services, and the representation on their boards. That requires further exploration, because it appears that the local authority representation might now be removed.
I will engage with this Bill constructively, with a view to be helpful and not in any way to criticise. The 10-year health plan and the 10-year cancer plan are good documents to drive improvement in healthcare.
The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford
My Lords, as the Church of England’s lead bishop for housing, I commend the measures in the gracious Speech that will improve different parts of our housing system.
The housing affordability crisis threatens to unravel the unwritten social contract: that if you get a decent education and then work hard, you should be able to earn enough to save for a deposit, buy a home, get married, start a family and provide stability for your children until they can do likewise. While these proposed Bills are important and worth while, I urge the Government to use this forthcoming legislation to address the most acute part of the housing crisis: the affordability of homes, whether for rent or for purchase.
The social housing renewal Bill represents an opportunity to build more decent, affordable homes. Will the Minister consider allowing councils access to low-interest, long-term development finance on the same favourable terms as those given to housing associations?
It is important to complete the legislation in the leasehold reform Bill and to get it right, so that it delivers a fairer system and justice to those leaseholders who have suffered gravely at the hands of unscrupulous freeholders. At the same time, we need to recognise that legislative nuance may yet be required to preserve the heritage value of certain historical estates.
There is a fundamental moral case for correcting the imbalances, distortions and injustices in our housing system. First, there is the growing inequality between those with housing equity and those without. The former have seen their unearned housing wealth grow inexorably, whereas those whose income is derived solely from their labour watch the bottom rung of the housing ladder slowly receding from their grasp. Secondly, there is the lack of labour mobility. People struggle to relocate to where new jobs are emerging, which puts a drag on economic growth, productivity and incomes. Lastly, long-term damage is even more insidious. Prolonged high housing costs delay family formation and fewer children are born. Would-be parents cannot afford to stop work to raise a family unless one of them is a high earner. The consequences of demographic decline can be severe, including a shrinking workforce, a growing old-age dependency ratio and severe pressures on health and social care provision for an ageing population.
My second point is that there is a real danger that vital qualitative aspects of the housing that we need will be sacrificed in pursuit of arbitrary numerical targets. I encourage the Government to promote the language of building homes, not units, and creating communities, not developments, and places, not housing estates. We also need to ensure that the foundational infrastructure is delivered in a timely way. Good design also creates the shared green spaces where both nature and residents can thrive. The report of the New Towns Taskforce underscored this priority. Can the Minister provide assurance that the new towns unit is putting as much emphasis on the qualitative aspects of delivering new towns as the quantitative?
The Church of England is ready to support the soft relational side of place-making as we strive to offer a Christian presence in every community. We can provide schools, social housing and management of community centres. Our network of volunteers can offer a welcome and attend to the spiritual and social welfare of the residents. Together with other grass-roots charities and faith organisations, we can help build the relational networks that shape the character of any new community. I hope that we will not allow the pressure for action, acute though it is, to deter us from creating a housing system that our children and grandchildren will thank us for.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)
My Lords, in my 29 years in this House I have spoken in many a debate on the health provisions in many a gracious Speech. I have longed for the day when I could rejoice in the plans set out for a new deal on social care. Sadly, I am still waiting. Whatever improvements His Majesty’s Government make in the way healthcare is delivered, it will not be as effective as we hope unless we tackle the elephant in the room—the grave shortcomings in social care and their inevitable juxtaposition with NHS care. However, there are many things to welcome in this modernisation Bill.
In the past I have had cause to complain that the NHS did not pay sufficient attention to the contribution of unpaid carers, nor seek to meet their needs as well as those of the patient. This time I am pleased to say that carers’ rights to involvement are threaded throughout the Bill in relation to services commissioned by the Secretary of State and by integrated care boards. Where ICBs have acquired the involving responsibilities of local Healthwatch organisations, carers have clearly been included and are in the Bill.
The creation of a single patient record across health and social care is also greatly to be welcomed and should reduce the need for carers to repeat information on behalf of the person they care for—as the Minister has reminded us. I have lost count of the number of times I have been told by patients and their carers, “Why is it that every time I meet a new person dealing with my relative’s care I have to start from scratch and give them all the details? Why on earth don’t they pass the details on to each other?”
When I chaired a committee in your Lordships’ House about integration between health and community care services, it was clear that integration was controlled as much by professional attitudes as by patient need and that data sharing was hindered by cultural and perceived—often inaccurately—legal obstacles. Often there was a misguided sense of protecting patients by not sharing data when patients themselves always assumed that the information had been shared. So the move to create a single patient record is welcome. As part of wider plans to digitise the NHS, it will be a game-changer. Patients will receive safer, quicker and more accurate healthcare and clinicians will have accurate data about a patient in one place.
On patient information, I put in a plea for sharing information with carers when appropriate. Too many carers who take huge responsibility and often administer NHS procedures to those for whom they care are denied information about the patient condition for reasons of confidentiality. I fully appreciate and understand this, but a carer cannot be expected to take 24/7 responsibility for the care of someone and then be denied access to information that would greatly help them in providing that care. Will the single patient record also allow access for the unpaid carers who provide the bulk of care?
I mentioned Healthwatch. Although I acknowledge the variety of quality in local Healthwatch organisations, they did provide a valuable source of gathering varied and rich data about communities and their needs. Now that these responsibilities are being transferred, as the modernisation Bill goes through Parliament we must ensure that the voices of patients and carers are heard loud and clear in the new system. I would be glad to receive reassurance that the Minister remains committed to this, as the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, reminded us that the Opposition remain committed.
I started with reference to the ongoing elephant in the room, social care. I end by saying that although frustrated by waiting for any definite proposals from the review by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, I am heartened by the things I have heard the Minister say thus far and look forward very much to the outcomes from the national conversation that she is initiating. I understand that this has been slightly delayed. Can the Minister confirm the timetable for this very important development?
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley. On social care, she is absolutely right.
On housing, the Government’s target of 1.5 million homes is not a policy but a dream. By their own calculations, they are already 400,000 adrift. In London we need 88,000 new homes a year. Last year they finished 6,000. While I welcome all the plans to speed up planning, much of which are now in place, that is not the problem. The number of sites with planning permission not yet built on is more than 1.5 million. The problem is not potential supply but demand. Builders will not build if there is not a buyer. If there is no buyer, it is not just the market buyers who are hit but the people wanting social homes. Following what the right reverend Prelate said on affordable homes, half the social homes are built through Section 106. They are built on the back of market homes. If we do not get the market homes, we do not get the social homes. That hits those in real need.
On 17 December 2024 the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, answered questions on a Statement that stated that there were,
“to our shame as a nation, just shy of 160,000 homeless children living right now in temporary accommodation”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/12/24; col. 1057.]
A year later it had risen to over 176,000.
We need to kick-start both markets—market homes and social homes—and we urgently need a successor to Help to Buy for first-time buyers. Most renters want to buy. The average rent is higher than the average mortgage payment. But, without wealthy relatives, many renters simply cannot afford the deposit. This is where we need urgent government action in conjunction with the financial institutions and developers to find a successor to Help to Buy. I note in passing that the Government made a profit of £1.3 billion on Help to Buy.
On remediation, I warmly welcome the appointment of the noble Lord, Lord Roe, to chair the building safety regulator. I commend him on the progress he has made in reducing the backlog of approvals for new high-rise homes. But there is a real challenge post Grenfell. Almost nine years later, over half a million people are still living in flats with a fire risk. Less than 20% of buildings over 11 metres high with unsafe cladding have been fixed.
The remediation Bill puts a little meat on the bones of the Government’s remediation acceleration plan, but there are still a range of issues on which leaseholders and I have been campaigning: non-cladding defects are not comprehensively funded; non-qualifying leaseholders continue to face ruinous costs; developers in the developer remediation contract are, in far too many cases, doing the bare minimum and marking their own homework; safety risks are being reassessed as tolerable, with buildings left half safe; building insurance premiums remain eye-watering; leaseholders are still having to pay for waking watches; and shared owners still face problems—they cannot sell because their registered social landlord will not buy, so they are having to sublet.
On funding for buildings under 11 metres with the same sort of cladding as Grenfell, we had an announcement in July 2025, but we still have no details. The BSR’s remediation improvement plan is yet to have an effect on high-rise buildings, with the median approval time now at 46 weeks. Leaseholders and residents are pushed from pillar to post, scrambling for simple answers about their homes.
In opposition, Labour understood that accelerating remediation without fixing the structural problems that I have mentioned would not work and recognised that remediation had to be comprehensive and independently overseen, with leaseholders and residents at the centre. Put simply, some leaseholders in some buildings are protected from the costs to fix some safety defects—that is simply not good enough. I look forward to working with this Government, as I did with the last, to do justice to leaseholders, who are in no way to blame for the misfortune that confronts them.
Lord Best (CB)
My Lords, my contribution today considers the housing aspects of the King’s Speech, and I will echo some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham. I declare my housing interests as listed in the register, including chairing the Northern Housing Consortium’s Renew initiative to boost local economies through housing-led regeneration.
There are three Bills in the King’s Speech that relate to the ongoing acute shortages of decent affordable housing. These Bills complement the Government’s efforts, currently thwarted by adverse market conditions, to secure the building of 1.5 million new homes in this Parliament. Although the Government’s Homes England programme of £39 billion for new social housing over the next decade represents the largest input of funding for the sector since 2010, a lot more still needs to be done. All three new Bills are very welcome. I offer a comment on each.
First, the commonhold and leasehold reform Bill will address key aspects of the current leasehold system, which is in desperate need of radical change. The Bill’s main omission is the absence of sufficient action to improve the performance of managing agents of blocks of leasehold flats and weed out the worst operators. The Housing Minister has promised requirements for mandatory qualifications, but, sadly, the Government have not brought forward measures to create any code of practice to raise standards enforced by a proper regulator of property agents.
Secondly, the remediation Bill—the so-called Grenfell Bill—will tackle the slow speed to date of the removal of unsafe cladding, the cost of which should fall on those manufacturing it and specifying its use. This saga has, to date, taken almost 10 years to find resolution, with work on unsafe cladding in high-rise buildings being completed on only a third of known cases. We must hope, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, mentioned, that the new legislation supported by the noble Lord, Lord Roe, and the building safety regulator, which he chairs, will finally fix the crisis, and that those who have behaved appallingly—and, it seems, criminally—will be brought to justice.
Thirdly, the Social Housing Bill will continue the Government’s attempts to boost the amount of social and affordable housing against the backdrop of 176,000 children in temporary accommodation where their health and well-being are suffering so badly. Among that Bill’s measures are important extra support for domestic abuse survivors to remain in their homes and greater protection of precious existing social housing from further loss through right-to-buy purchases. We would have over 2 million more social homes but for the sales under that giveaway scheme. Some 40% per cent of the homes sold are now in the hands of private landlords charging up to three times the previous council rents, with the cost falling largely on the taxpayer. No wonder few local authorities have been building new homes when they have known that these can be bought cheaply and sold on by their occupiers. That would be like trying to run the bath with the plug out.
However, I see a big omission from the Social Housing Bill in the absence of any reference to the regeneration of existing outdated social housing stock, not least the worst of the 1960s tower blocks and prefabricated buildings. Little Awaab Ishak, who died from the effects of mould growth, lived in substandard 1960s social housing. Tougher regulations now require social housing providers to take more urgent action and a sensible settlement has been agreed for annual rent increases, but rental revenue will not stretch to paying for serious renewal and replacement. This urgent need for regeneration matches the necessity to build new homes and deserves more government attention.
The three Bills take us in exactly the right directions. I commend them, with the proviso that I foresee that there might be some useful, modest amendments for your Lordships to consider in due course.
Baroness Shah (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak about an issue that millions of our fellow citizens suffer under a system that exists not by accident but by design. Housing, His Majesty told us, is
“a source of insecurity for many people”.
That is perhaps the most restrained description of the leasehold system one could offer in this House. Some 91% of owner-occupied flats in England are leasehold. In total, one in five properties—nearly 5 million homes—is leasehold. These are not fringe numbers; they represent the daily lived experience of millions who do not truly own their home, and so it is right that it was included in the gracious Speech.
Before I turn to the scandal of what leasehold has become, I want to say something about building homes in the first place. This is a matter of which I have direct experience. As a cabinet member for regeneration for eight years in Brent, I know what it takes to bring homes forward at scale. Building homes is not a technocratic ambition; it is a moral one. The Government’s commitment to build 1.5 million homes in this Parliament is right and necessary. But here is a truth that experience teaches: it is not enough simply to build homes; we must ask what kinds of homes they will be and on what terms people will hold them. We must ensure that the homes we build do not become the instruments of a new injustice. That is precisely where the leasehold system bites hardest.
The majority of new homes delivered at scale will be flats—that is the arithmetic of housebuilding. If they are sold as leasehold, as has been the default for generations, every new home that we build is a potential new entrant to a system of tenure that is unjust. We cannot build our way to a fairer housing market while maintaining an unfair tenure at its heart.
It is young people who bear the sharpest cost of both failures. For a generation of young people, the aspiration of home ownership is not being deferred; it is being extinguished. The Institute for Fiscal Studies found that home ownership among 25 to 34 year-olds stood at 55% in 1997. By 2017, it had collapsed to just 35%. Since 2005, home ownership rates have fallen for every age group except those aged 65 and over, whose rate has risen by 7%. We are building a country in which housing wealth accumulates with age and inheritance, not with work and aspiration. That is an intergenerational injustice.
When these young people finally reach the property ladder, often through a flat, which is often their only realistic option, they find themselves met not with security but with ground rent, service charges and a tenure that gives the cost of ownership without the control. The Government estimate that more than £600 million was paid by leaseholders in ground rents in 2025 alone. For a young person already stretched across a 30-plus year mortgage and a huge deposit, that is not a minor inconvenience; it is further extraction from those who can afford it least. The Government’s manifesto committed to bringing the feudal leasehold system to an end. This is structural reform of a system that has for generations denied working people the full fruits of home ownership. The Bill will cap ground rents, ban leasehold for new flats and make commonhold the default.
On commonhold, the Bill is at its most radical and most just. Flat owners will hold their rents as freeholders, managing their building collectively as equals, with no absentee overlord and no arbitrary charges approved without scrutiny. As the chief executive of the Property Institute has observed, this model already operates in most countries across the world, including Scotland. The Government are proposing not revolution but joining the rest of the civilised property-owning world. Some 5 million leaseholders across England and Wales are waiting for this legislation, and the Government have an electoral mandate to act.
I shall add only one note of caution. The Property Institute is right that empowered commonholders must be supported by qualified professional property managers and that resident empowerment must not outpace protections against an unregulated sector. This House will rightly scrutinise the safeguards with care. Let us be clear what this moment represents. The Government are committed to dismantling this archaic and iniquitous system, not overnight, not recklessly, but decisively and for good. For every young person currently saving for a deposit they fear will never be enough, for every leaseholder paying rent on land that they thought had been bought, and for every family in a new-build flat discovering that the tenure that was sold does not deliver the security they were promised, this Bill will matter. Building more homes is essential, but building them fairly is non-negotiable.
Baroness Neuberger (CB)
My Lords, I rise to welcome the health Bill part of the King’s Speech and declare an interest as chair of University College London Foundation NHS Trust and of Whittington Health. I express my gratitude to the King’s Fund, the Health Foundation and colleagues at both my trusts, to whom I pay great tribute for all the work they do, and many others for their briefings and conversations.
I want to welcome the Bill, but there are a lot of buts. I completely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, about the absence of a mention of social care. Where is social care? We were expecting to see it in this King’s Speech, and there is nothing. Alas, that is the first point where there is a big but.
Secondly, abolishing NHS England and transferring its powers to the Secretary of State in the Department of Health is fine, and in many ways very sensible, but the detail is slim and, let us be clear, we tend to go through phases of restructuring in the NHS. Moving the deckchairs is something that Health Secretaries like to do, despite this Government having said that they were not going to do it. Bringing powers back to the Secretary of State without a clear way of keeping a public eye on what is going on is clearly a cause for concern. We await the detail. I would be very grateful if the Minister could spell out for us where accountability, independence and the public interest will lie in this new system, all the more so when so many powers are transferring from NHS England to the Secretary of State, including the ability to direct local NHS organisations.
These powers risk Ministers being given too much power over the day to day, with too little power lying in the hands of patients and the public. That is all the more important given the decision—or the intention, anyway—to abolish Healthwatch. A stronger replacement than what is currently on offer will be needed. The NHS is a public service, deeply rooted in our communities. Many of us are even more worried about what this means for the patient and public voice, given the lack of clarity at best about governors, with whom we at University College Hospital have worked extremely well, and I pay tribute to them. We are seriously concerned that their role will not be compulsory in this new future, with no adequate patient and public voice replacement.
Thirdly—and this is the compliment—there is the single patient record. I think we are all thrilled about that, but even there the devil is in the detail. We know there is a long history of NHS IT failures that have been quite expensive. Who is going to be in charge? What will be the safeguards? Will the Government recognise deep concern among staff and the public about Palantir, as my noble friend Lord Patel has already said? The Department of Health has brought in Palantir, but disquiet is widespread and is expressed at our public meetings. How will privacy and security be guaranteed with a company that is not UK-based? We need far more detail. Trust from patients, staff and the public will be essential for the plans to succeed.
Then there are the changes to the local management of the NHS with the revision of integrated care boards’ membership. It might well help simplify the system, but the changes also risk undermining partnership working, which is needed to improve health and care. Removing, for instance, mandatory local authority representatives from ICBs could make things worse, and bringing in mayors is really not enough.
Lastly, there are the things that we were expecting to see. I had expected to see something on the role of the new advanced foundation trusts. We need to understand something about the proposals to cap some trusts’ spending, including that of foundation trusts and maybe even advanced foundation trusts, in order to use the cash to support other cash-deprived trusts. Will the Minister clarify? Will she also tell us what really lies within this new Bill about neighbourhoods and integration?
To sum up, I and many others were delighted to see much of what is in this Bill, but we are puzzled by some of the changes, by more power going to the Secretary of State and by the lack of a patient voice. I hope the Minister can provide some clarity and, indeed, some comfort.
Lord Bradshaw (LD)
My Lords, I have had a long career in transport, particularly in the railways. I can remember the day they were first nationalised. I worked in the industry in good times and bad times. In the good times, for example when I was chief operating manager at Crewe, more than 90% of the trains on the west coast main line ran on time, day after day. Money was tight, but we managed.
The newly publicly owned railway faces radical change, which I welcome. Running railways is a job for railway professionals, not civil servants, regulators, armies of lawyers, financial manipulators and consultants, often paid a lot of money, producing poor standards of punctuality and poor financial management, as we see in the case of HS2, which was not designed or built by railway professionals. This is about to change radically, and I hope the Minister will endorse these thoughts and say that the integrated railway that he envisages will result in consistently better performance for users and taxpayers.
Can he confirm a changing role for the rail regulator and that Great British Railways will strategically plan network access to make best use of the network and the limited capacity we have available and hope in time to improve? Does he believe that freight deserves a better deal, particularly as train loads and speeds increase? Does he believe that the curse of bus substitution is something we can look forward to seeing the end of, because people always prefer to stay in a train as long as they have reasonable notice of what is happening? Will the Minister turn his back on the blame game and concentrate all efforts by operators and engineers on putting right yesterday’s failings the next day or as soon as possible thereafter? I believe the recently appointed managing directors are doing this already and will be keen, as will their staff, to run the best operated of the franchises, or divisions, or whatever they will be called.
What is the future for open access operators? What changes does the Minister think need to be made to safety regulation and for the needs of the mobility-impaired?
Railways are a long-term industry, and planning timescales are necessarily long. We need a financial framework that supports this, not year-to-year planning. Does the Minister share my view of the railway that we need to set our sights on for 2040, when Scotland and London will be half an hour closer together and one mainline route will always be open between important centres?
I want to finish with something that I heard last night. When the Chelsea Flower Show came to its conclusion with the awards, the best show was exhibited by a lady who has won 19 gold medals. She said that creating something like this was like creating a decent railway; it was all down to team effort. I hope that the Minister will endorse that view when he comes to speak.
Lord McLoughlin (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and to acknowledge his expertise and his dedication to the rail industry. When I saw that I had been drawn to speak after him, I knew that, by the time we came to that part of the debate, we would be on the transport section. I am grateful to the noble Lord for being the first speaker to take us into transport as far as the Loyal Address is concerned.
The Government put GBR in their manifesto, so it was obviously going to happen. It is interesting to note that, since privatisation and franchising of the railways, there was a Labour Government for 14 years, who decided to stick with the system that they had inherited. I think they decided to stick with that because they knew that it was working. Prior to privatisation, there were 700 million passenger journeys a year on our railways. During the period of privatisation, that figure went up to 1.7 billion. That was pre the pandemic. We saw private investment taking in the railways. I remember when I first got elected that the last place anybody would want to spend any time was St Pancras station. It was a dump. It was awful. It lacked investment. It lacked investment because nobody was investing in the railways. If you are competing against the health service and education for public sector money, and you want to put money in the railways, guess which comes last? It is the railways. I raise my concern about that and what may well happen. I am sure that, in the new utopia that we will get as far as GBR is concerned, we will see no delays and everything will be fine in the future—well, in your dreams, and in the Government’s dreams. It is a great pity that they will not be using the expertise of getting private investment in.
As a Secretary of State for Transport, I saw the detail that was gone into when a new franchise was coming up for renegotiation, the extra services that were lobbied for by local Members of Parliament and the like. That was encouraging, and more services were provided. I worry about the conglomeration of it all as to whether we will get that sort of dedication into those individual services; I am sure it will happen.
I want also to make a reference to HS2. It disappoints me immensely that we have got ourselves into such a mess on that project. Yesterday, the Secretary of State said that she was angry. She singled out four Prime Ministers. Not surprisingly, no Prime Ministers of the Labour Party were singled out, just Conservative Prime Ministers. So I had a look at the original Command Paper that was given to Parliament in 2010. Who was it signed by? The answer is Gordon Brown and Andrew Adonis—the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, as he is now. Who started this project? The Labour Party started it.
How did we get it so wrong? How has it been possible for such an important national scheme to have gone so wrong, and been deliberate? It is not the first time railway projects have gone wrong. The Command Paper is still a relevant document, and a very good one. On page 12, it says:
“The West Coast Route Modernisation Project cost £8.9 billion”
—let us not forget that this was 2010—
“and took almost a decade. It delivered fewer benefits than originally envisaged and caused serious disruption to travellers and to business, at a significant economic and social price in addition to the cost of the project itself”.
Getting rail infrastructure right, as the Minister knows probably better than most, is not something that happens overnight. It takes time, and a commitment over a longer period.
There are other Bills in the gracious Speech. I want to give the Minister one possible quick win: when it comes to the highways finance Bill, how about a clause saying that any utility company that has traffic lights on roads over the weekend, particularly A roads, has to pay £50,000 a day to leave those traffic lights in position over that weekend? I am pretty sure that, if there was such a charge on them, they would get them down fairly quickly over those weekends and that motorists would be very pleased indeed. They are growing like mushrooms, like we have never seen before.
Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak after the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin.
I welcome the proposed legislation regarding social housing and health outlined in the King’s gracious Speech, as I believe that they are inextricably linked. I declare my interest as chair of the Look Ahead housing association, which delivers not only housing but social care for people with mental health and learning disabilities.
The Government have committed to several housing plan reforms in future parliamentary Sessions and have done so in the past, as has been referred to earlier, but particular changes are now proposed in relation to making commonhold a default tenure for new flats. This is excellent news but leaves many tenants in leasehold flats in very difficult situations regarding increasing costs, as other noble Lords have said.
The proposed remediation Bill is intended to accelerate the removal of unsafe cladding and strengthen protections for residents. This will be essential to ensure that works are completed swiftly. However, the proposals are unclear about protecting current tenant-owners encouraged to buy shared ownership with housing associations prior to the recent changes in legislation. Those individuals remain accountable for significant costs, as was illustrated only yesterday in the news about tenants of properties in the former Olympic village. It illustrated the significant stress and challenges facing many people in regard to these issues. Can the Minister explain how this issue will be resolved under the new legislation?
Any new social housing to be built must be designed so that families can live safely and healthily in their homes. As others have said, it remains a scandal that we still have children living in hotel rooms with parents, with the uncertainty that temporary accommodation creates and its associated mental and physical health problems. What is the Government’s timescale for ensuring that no child remains in temporary accommodation for more than a month, thus enabling them to stay in the same school for significant periods?
I welcome the announcement that legislation is to be introduced to abolish NHS England and believe that significant cost savings that can be redirected into patient care. However, the Bill appears to omit reference to parts of the healthcare system—most notably the need to provide NHS dentistry more equitably across England—and does not make significant reference to the fact that the new Mental Health Act will need to be implemented, and that this will be costly. Can the Minister explain where responsibilities for such services, particularly specialist services, will be held in the new system? Will they be at the department or with ICBs? What information will be provided on the role of regional teams?
Like others, I warmly welcome the single patient record. The introduction of new digital platforms is to be commended and will make access to information much swifter for every health and care provider with regard to individual patients. However, much of the NHS is commissioned from providers who are not part of the main NHS. For example, acute mental health services, radiology reviews and cataract surgery are provided in independent services commissioned by the NHS. What is the intention of the Government in terms of independent providers having access to, and the ability to add information to, the single patient record? I suggest that this is an issue that will need careful exploration and possible amendments to the Bill, both for the protection of the information in patients’ records and to ensure that information on assessment and treatment from all services paid for by the NHS can be used and incorporated into the single patient record.
Finally, as the Minister said earlier, the last Session passed vital legislation on public health measures for future generations on tobacco and vapes. I am concerned that this Session makes no reference to the important issue of alcohol harms and what might be done to improve this scenario. It would be helpful if the Minister could comment on whether a minimum unit price for retail sales, not those in hospitality, might be considered to reduce the health damage caused by alcohol abuse and addiction and the associated costs of treatment in our health service.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as the vice-president of the Local Government Association and vice-president of the National Association of Local Councils.
Housing appears to have taken a back seat in the Government’s agenda. For all the talk of 1.5 million new homes, we heard no mention of that target in the King’s Speech. When we asked for a progress update last month, we were instead referred to a Written Answer from February. Can we have those updated figures now, please? How many dwellings will be completed this coming year? According to the department’s official statistics, an estimated 342,100 net additional homes were delivered in England between the start of this Parliament and March this year. At this rate, it will take over five and a half more years to meet the target of 1.5 million homes. The Government must not shy away from these facts. When will we see an improvement in the figures?
We Conservatives delivered 1 million new homes over the last Parliament and had a plan to build 1.6 million homes in the next. Despite 14 years in opposition, Labour did not and do not have a plan to meet their less ambitious target. We knew this, and my right honourable friend the Leader of the Opposition in the other place, when she was the shadow Housing Secretary, told the then Secretary of State that she had been stitched up by her colleagues. We support the delivery of more housing and my right honourable friend in the other place offered our help, which throughout these recent Bills has not been taken up. Instead, this Government’s choices, on top of global pressures, have left us with high energy, labour and regulatory costs, pushing up the overall cost of housebuilding and leaving many consented sites unviable.
Time and time again on the doorstep, we heard of young people’s desire to own their own home. Too many are trapped in the rental sector, and even there the Government are not helping the supply of rental properties. Smaller landlords in particular are exiting the market. What is the Government’s assessment of this trend and the impact on the supply of rental properties? The Renters’ Rights Act is now in force, and we are already seeing the consequences of this. Build-to-rent developers are affected, too, with the Act expected to increase the number of rent appeals even further. Is the data on the average time for property chambers to process rent appeal cases now being collected, and what does it show so far? The Government are also committed to capping ground rents through the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill, and we look forward to this Bill and to looking at these ideas in detail. In the meantime, what action is planned in relation to service charges, which are getting higher and higher every single year?
We are also seeing long waiting lists in social housing. Thanks to this Government’s choices to increase employer national insurance and taxes on business, unemployment has now risen to 5%. Even worse, youth unemployment especially is increasing, with one in six young people unable to find a job. Young people have no hope of getting on the housing ladder under this Government. Where do they go? This Government risk creating a vicious circle, where more and more people are forced to look to social housing. Yet, shockingly, around 33,000 new social tenancies each year are going to households where the lead tenant is not a UK national. The Government are spending around £4 billion a year to deliver about 30,000 new social homes annually, meaning that spending on the affordable homes programme is going entirely on housing non-nationals. How is this sustainable?
Housing is a major policy area which is fundamental to solving the cost of living crisis. However, we are not seeing it prioritised in this debate. We need a constructive policy environment to tackle these issues, not just policy tweaks or arbitrary state interventions that do not fix problems at source. This House deserves to see proposals for genuine solutions, as well as clear figures, to ensure we see actual delivery. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Jordan (Lab)
My Lords, as life president of RoSPA, I welcome the opportunity today to speak on an issue that crucially affects us all: the growing crisis of preventable accidents. It is not receiving the attention or urgency it deserves, and people are dying because of that. Accidents are not rare or isolated incidents. They are the leading cause of avoidable deaths and injuries in the United Kingdom. They happen in places where people should feel and be safest: in their homes, their communities and doing the ordinary things in life. Research from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents shows that around 23,000 people die each year because of accidents, while close to 1 million—yes, 1 million—are admitted to hospital. More worrying is that the accidental death rates have risen by more than 40% over the last 10 years. This is not a temporary spike; it is a sustained increase that highlights that there is a major flaw in how the country approaches accident prevention.
That flaw is a lack of a coherent national strategy for reducing accidental harm. At the heart of the problem is that responsibility for preventing accidents is fragmented across government departments, agencies and systems. Valuable work takes place, but it is leaderless and disconnected. This point was clearly reflected in the recent Westminster Hall debate on accident prevention. The Minister for Local Transport highlighted a range of welcome initiatives already under way. We heard of the good work on safety in transport, housing and the workplace, in products and fire prevention—all important in their own right. But what came across clearly was that responsibility for accident prevention exists in separate departments but lacks an overarching framework to bring it together.
Let us look at falls, the leading cause of accidental death and serious injury, particularly for the elderly. Everyone in this Chamber will know the devastating impact that a fall can have on older people, leading to prolonged hospital stays, a loss of mobility, isolation, and an end to their independence and well-being, costing the NHS and the social care system £6 billion every year. We have seen the cost that this inflicts on families emotionally, practically and financially, yet this harm and these costs are preventable—and the place to focus on is in the home, where most of these accidents occur. The Minister said that everyone has the right to live in a safe home. Creating safe homes means homes designed and maintained with safety and accessibility in mind. It means co-ordination with health and care services, identifying risks early. It means GPs, community nurses and local services being able to intervene before serious injury occurs.
Preventing accidents cannot be the responsibility of central government alone. It requires central and local government departments, employers and charities to work together. Governments can make that happen. A national accident prevention strategy would give the co-ordination and leadership needed to connect existing safety efforts, identify gaps, improve accountability and reduce unnecessary duplication of work across different departments, all ensuring that precious time and resources are used as effectively as possible.
The Labour Government have a proud history of leadership in health and safety. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 put an end to the devastating toll of injuries and death that for 150 years had plagued the world of manufacturing. I know that a national accident prevention strategy could and would have the same impact in reducing the unacceptable and unnecessary number of accidental deaths and injuries that plague us now. Let us have a national prevention strategy now.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased to speak in this debate on the gracious Speech and to welcome the focus on public sector reform and delivery. This is my first intervention since I was appointed the chair of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. As noble Lords know, ACAS is independent of government and provides impartial advice and support to both employers and workers. I am acutely conscious in my new role of the need for me to maintain and protect ACAS’s independence and impartiality. With that in mind, I will not be voting on any measures relating to employment law, labour regulation or any areas in which my doing so might be misconstrued as impacting on ACAS’s impartiality. I refer the House to my declaration in the register of interests.
The gracious Speech sets out the Government’s plans for further reform of critical public services. The public sector improvements proposed are far-reaching and impactful, but I argue that they are deliverable only with a strong industrial relations framework that rejects the outdated models of perpetual conflict and finds a new consensus. In 2025, the UK lost 740,000 days to industrial action. While that is significantly lower than the post-Covid bump of over 2.5 million per year, it is much higher than 10 years ago—and, as we know, that conflict cost GB employers at least £28 billion a year. All the evidence shows that the most sustainable business improvements are made where workers and their bosses make changes together. That has been the experience of a huge number of employers and unions, who have built robust modern systems of dialogue and partnership. Our challenge now is to bring everyone else up to those standards.
For example, the creation of Great British Railways is a real opportunity to reset industrial relations in the transport sector. Good workforce relations are going to be key to its success. I welcome the announcement of a long-term rail network strategy, but I hope my noble friend the Minister recognises that the workforce needs to be part of that strategy from the start, underpinned by a framework of strong collective industrial relations.
This is not just a problem in collective disputes. Research commissioned by ACAS tells us that about 44% of people who work in the transport and storage sectors experienced individual workplace conflicts in the past year. That carries a real cost to business through absenteeism, presenteeism, low retention and disengagement of staff. Does the Minister recognise that there are huge financial and operational advantages in creating a modern industrial relations framework in the transport sector that can prevent conflicts developing in the first place?
Good workplace relations are equally critical to the success of the health and social care sector. In fact, in this sector, employers’ research shows that there is a clear link between positive workplace relations and patient outcomes. There is more that we can do to improve industrial relations across the NHS, and the new adult social care negotiating body is a positive first step. It brings employers and unions together to tackle pay conditions and retention, and I am pleased to report that ACAS is supporting this work and the wider reforms. However, the fact remains that there is a higher incidence of conflict in the health and social care sector—47%, compared to 44% overall—and a higher prevalence of discrimination claims, and individual disputes are even more likely to end up being decided in employment tribunals.
The lesson from these examples is that our nation depends on workplaces in both the public and private sectors being efficient, responsive and innovative, with positive relationships between workers, leaders and their unions. However, we have seen a marked decline in the skills, knowledge and confidence needed to underpin relationships at work and manage conflicts early. I propose a simple reframe of good industrial relations, based on three principles. The first is collaboration and partnership, treating each other with mutual respect as negotiating partners rather than adversaries. The second is balancing interests to deliver the prize of economic growth, improving productivity and better working lives. The third is proportionality, where formal action is used only as a last resort to mitigate the harm that it aims to rectify.
I hope my noble friend the Minister recognises the prize that can come from reshaping industrial relations for the new challenges we face in both the public and private sectors, which can ultimately build an economy that is stronger because it works for all.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a councillor in Central Bedfordshire Council.
As my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook said, we have a housing crisis, and nowhere is that clearer than in London. The noble Lord, Lord Livermore, often speaks of 14 years of a Conservative Government. Well, after 10 years of a Labour mayor in London, do this Government really believe the situation in the capital is improving? There are 13,000 rough sleepers in London, up 10% this year. That represents around one-quarter of the English total. More than 75,000 London households are in temporary accommodation, over half the English total, and there are 341,000 households on London waiting lists. Many private renters in London are paying over 50% of their income on rent.
Despite all that, housebuilding in London continues to fall. Latest figures show that in quarter 1 of this year only 937 new homes were registered. That is a drop of 84% in the last decade and well below the target of 88,000 homes a year. Affordable housing starts in London have fallen by almost 80%, to around 4,500 last year. We on this side of the House have consistently argued for prioritising and facilitating building on brownfield land in London, yet the Government have failed to deliver. Of course we need safe buildings and quality homes, but how many more costs and delays can developers absorb before they stop being viable?
Recent analysis from Ackroyd Lowrie shows build costs have increased 80% in the last decade, whereas house prices are up only around 14%, and in some cases the average London build costs now exceed average selling prices. Adding layers of bureaucracy and costs in the pursuit of the ideal home is resulting in no homes at all. London Councils spends more than £4 million daily on temporary accommodation. What are the justifications of the Government and the mayor for managing this crisis rather than solving it? London does not lack demand, sites or potential funding. We need to remove the blockers. We need a system that delivers homes quickly, at lower cost and at scale.
Moving on, we have previously debated right to buy. Reinvesting proceeds from right to buy into a new home provides two homes in the place of one. It can be done. Many councils, including my own, Central Bedfordshire, have successfully used right-to-buy proceeds to build more homes than were sold; not only that but it has enabled a focus on more specialist accommodation for the elderly and those with disabilities, and on temporary accommodation—which someone mentioned earlier—all of which were in short supply. This is a pragmatic solution: reinvesting to build more homes.
Getting on the housing ladder is increasingly difficult and out of reach for many. It is not only the deposit; it is higher mortgage rates, driven by the economic policy of this Government. Help to Buy has gone and stamp duty relief for first-time buyers has been reduced. When I bought my first home, you bought what you could afford—usually something small and somewhere less fashionable—and then, over time, you moved on. That was how people got started and how communities regenerated. That is how staircasing works. Today, much of that progress is wiped out by stamp duty and fees. For many families, moving home now comes with a tax bill the size of a deposit. This is not how we support the economy or aspiration.
If we are to address the housing crisis this country faces, we must solve the London housebuilding crisis. We need a practical system that builds more homes and helps people on to the housing ladder.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, why do we have five days of debate on the King’s Speech but no mention of the environment—it is not included in the issues to cover? I point out that the Conservative Government always put the environment down as an issue that should be debated, but here, Labour has failed, as it always does on the environment. In his speech, the King actually said:
“My Government will remain a leading advocate for tackling climate change”.
That is absolute nonsense. There are no plans in any of the Bills mentioned that will help the environment, help nature or help people to enjoy the environment.
According to the Natural History Museum’s Biodiversity Intactness Index, the UK ranks 189th out of 240 countries and territories for how intact its nature and biodiversity remain. Can a country truly claim to be a global climate leader while its own nature crumbles? Paul de Zylva, Friends of the Earth’s senior nature analyst, explained the gap between the UK’s green rhetoric and the grim reality of its biodiversity collapse. Just 53% of the UK’s original nature is left intact, which is far below the index’s safe limit of 90% and the global average of 79%. The United Kingdom has always prided itself on being a green and pleasant land, and a nation synonymous with rolling countryside, abundant wildlife and environmental stewardship, yet beneath this postcard-perfect image lies a startling reality: the UK is now one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries. As the 2030 deadline approaches, Britain’s natural wealth lies in ruins.
The UK Government track approximately 50 different biodiversity indicators, and the 2025 results paint a troubling picture. Indicators still heading in the wrong direction include the size of fish in the North Sea, the status of pollinating insects—that is bees, hoverflies and moths—and bird numbers on farmland and in woodlands. Perhaps the Minister can tell me the plans to move these figures in the right direction. I accept that we do not have an Environment Minister on the Front Bench, but perhaps I can have a letter explaining that.
Then there is the global threat. We have recently had a Ministry of Defence committee report headed by Lieutenant General Richard Nugee, a former senior British Army officer and a leading voice on climate and national security. He told us that the report clearly states that climate change is now a core national security threat. We have ice melting at a frantic rate in Greenland, an incoming record-breaking El Niño event and species going extinct faster than Labour voters. This all affects our safety.
It is obvious this Government do not really care about rural areas, the countryside, nature, our waterways and “all that green stuff”. They just see newts, hedgehogs and bats as annoying things that get in the way of their bulldozers. I wish this had been a King’s Speech designed to revive the country and help people, especially those living in poverty, but instead it is a set of policies they hope will stop Keir Starmer being evicted from No. 10.
Will any of these government policies deal with the endemic problem of corporate greed that forces up the cost of living and our tax bill, especially the fossil fuel companies that are greedily helping to destroy our planet? Will any of this legislation make fares cheaper by ensuring that the rolling stock of our railways is owned by us rather than rented? Will it become easier for people to leave their cars behind by opting for a superb public transport system—and please do not give me that guff about electric vehicles, because there is a cost to them as well?
Will the water industry be taken into public ownership or will bill payers continue to pay billions of pounds to support a business model that relies on pumping raw sewage into our rivers and on to our seashore? Will taxpayers continue to pay the bulk of the housing benefit budget to private landlords or will we start a mass building programme for council houses, so that the public’s money goes directly into providing well-built homes at reasonable rents, with green spaces that the residents can enjoy? I cannot see any of this happening.
If Labour is looking for a reset under a new leader then we really ought to start with rent controls. Our new Green Party mayors and council leaders want the power to set rents that work for people in their areas. Greens understand that the poorest in society need clean air and green space as much as the richest do.
In short—I am cutting my speech extremely short— this Government urgently need some tuition from climatologists and green economists. I would be very happy to put them in touch with the best.
Baroness Linforth (Lab)
My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to speak in this debate on the gracious Speech delivered last week by His Majesty the King, although I profess I have first-time speaker nerves. My remarks concern the overlap between children in school and wider societal health. I suggest to the Government a simple, cost-effective solution that I believe would reduce the spread of sickness and improve health and save money.
My subject, clean air for schools, could have been discussed in the debates on education and the economy. Good government is joined up; it does not exist in individual Whitehall departments. The health improvements that come from providing clean air in public spaces have wider benefits. Breathing poor-quality air is a risk to children’s immediate and long-term health.
It is now accepted that outdoor air pollution is a problem. Less appreciated is that indoor air can be up to five times more polluted than outdoor air. The pollutants that can be present in our indoor air include particulate matter, as well as biological aerosol such as airborne viruses, mould, fungal spores, pollen, bacteria et cetera.
Quite apart from increasing sickness, elevated levels of pollutants have been shown to affect a child’s ability to focus, now linked to diminished performance in exams. Children spend most of their time in schools, but with densely packed, poorly ventilated classrooms, it is where they are most likely to pick up sickness. A recent study tracked 816 students and staff across a school year and found that at least 85% had a virus detected and 80% had an illness episode. The study states that:
“Schools are an important setting for infectious disease transmission”,
but they do not have to be.
A brilliant campaign called Clean Air for Kids has started in my home city of Bristol. It was started by a Bishopston resident, Ruth Brooker, when her son was going through cancer treatment and she wanted to get him back to school—or, as many parents would say, back to the “germ factory”. Ruth’s campaign is now going nationwide, beyond just Bristol—another good thing originating from my great city. Her campaign is simple: it is to add an air filter to each school classroom and to regularly open windows to reduce the number of coughs, colds and Covid-19 infections that kids and their teachers catch at school which then spread into the community. It is a cost-effective solution.
The Liberal Democrat spokesperson in the other place recently estimated that installing air filters in schools in England would have a one-off cost of around £140 million, while Sky News reported that supply teaching costs in state schools and academies in England last year were £1.4 billion. The running costs are low too. The Clean Air for Kids campaign has calculated that over the 20-year lifetime of an air filter that runs all day in schools during term times, including installation and running expenses, it would cost less than a tenner per child per year to provide pupils and staff with clean air—about the same cost as a coffee and a cake.
This simple solution would quickly pay for itself many times over in the savings from supply teacher budgets. The problem is that very few schools, local education authorities and academy trusts can afford the upfront cost of installation, but the Government easily could. With political leadership, we could transform the lives of schoolchildren, their teachers and their families by improving the quality of indoor air. Additionally, a programme of installing air filters to reduce the spread of sickness in schools will stop others becoming sick too. It will improve productivity, help the economy and drive growth, while protecting the NHS and taking the pressure off benefits budgets. It would have huge well-being outcomes, which in themselves would improve society.
We drink two litres of water and breathe in 11,000 litres of air every day. We would not want our children to drink dirty water, so why would we let them breathe dirty air indoors? Will the Minister share this with the relevant Minister and write to me or, even better, meet me and Ruth Brooker to discuss this further?
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, my remarks today focus mainly on health and its poor relation, social care, which had no mention in the gracious Speech. I will also comment briefly on some defence and national security issues, which will be centre stage tomorrow.
As we have heard, the modernisation Bill will abolish NHS England, make changes to the duties of integrated care boards and create the framework for a single patient record. In essence, it will pull many of the functions back into Whitehall, including transferring some powers directly to the Secretary of State. While recognising the improvements that the Minister set out when opening the debate, I have to admit to some disappointment at what feels like a largely technocratic Bill, focusing on structural and digital reform and accountability arrangements rather than on improving patient care and outcomes.
With the exception of data integration, there is very little focus on improving social care or mental health provision, which are both badly needed. As we said throughout debate on the Mental Health Bill, we need to see major investment in preventive and community services if the three big shifts in the 10-year plan are to be realised. The absence of social care from the legislative programme, referred to by so many speakers, reinforces my view that the Government give this low priority and fail to recognise the need for a fully joined-up health and social care reform programme. We cannot just wait for the Casey commission’s final recommendations; we need action now.
We also urgently need a new mental health strategy with a strong focus on community services and early intervention. The Government have recently issued a call for evidence, which I welcome; indeed, they are more than welcome to borrow from the wealth of ideas and evidence in the Liberal Democrats’ recent policy paper, Whole-Person Mental Health. This includes a new offer for young people, protecting by law the share of the NHS budget spent on mental health and the introduction of mental health check-ups for adults going through major life events.
While I welcome in principle, as so many others have today, the move to join up health and social care records to avoid the frustration of patients in having to keep repeating their medical history, many questions remain about how this is to be done and how privacy concerns will be addressed and trust built with patients. The proposed abolition of Healthwatch is a matter of huge concern to me and one that I shall be following very closely. In short, any successor arrangements must have a strong independent element to ensure that an authentic patient voice is heard.
Where Healthwatch worked well, it also provided unsolicited feedback on matters of real concern to patients and helped bridge the gap where trust between local communities and the healthcare system is fractured. The current proposals for ICBs and local authorities to take over the local responsibilities of Healthwatch feel unworkable to me. Can the Minister please explain how that will deal with the much-needed co-ordination between health and social care? In my book, it will simply exacerbate the divide. I am also concerned that the very large footprint of ICBs will make them disconnected from local communities.
As I said, at the heart of the Bill lies the abolition of NHS England. But I sense a real disconnect between a narrative saying, “You can’t run the NHS from Whitehall and need to devolve decision-making”, which I agree with, and simultaneously bringing more powers back to the centre and the Secretary of State. Two quick examples of this are the proposed new cap on NHS foundation trust spending limits and the need for appointments of all chairs and non-executive directors of these trusts to have Secretary of State approval. The rhetoric and the reality of this Bill do not add up.
On health inequalities, I am sure we are all deeply concerned by the widening and deepening inequalities in healthy life expectancy between the most affluent and deprived areas. It is scandalous that there are now, broadly, 20 years separating these two extremes. Yes, the Bill contains a duty on the Secretary of State to reduce disparities in health, but where is the programme of action to tackle the wider social determinants of health inequality and improve the nation’s health? The Bill should be seen as an opportunity to do just that and improve support for unpaid carers.
Finally, a healthy population is essential if we are to protect our shores effectively, strengthen our national security against the growing number and severity of threats that we face and increase our national resilience. This was all set out very cogently in the recent report by the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, on which I serve. Given the rising global tensions and rapidly changing geopolitics, we urgently need to see the Government’s long-overdue defence investment plan and far more detail on the target to spend 1.5% of GDP on security and resilience. I hope that relevant Ministers will respond to both these points in tomorrow’s debate.
Baroness Dacres of Lewisham (Lab)
My Lords, modern transport infrastructure is not simply about moving people from A to B. It is about economic growth, productivity, housing delivery, social mobility and national competitiveness. Too often, transport is viewed as a cost. In reality, it is one of the greatest investments that a nation can make.
From my time in local government and as chair of London Councils transport and environment committee, I have seen the transformative impact that investment in transport infrastructure can have on communities, businesses and local economies. Reliable and integrated rail infrastructure does more than just improve journeys; it increases labour market access, boosts productivity and creates the confidence needed for investment.
The creation of Great British Railways provides an opportunity to deliver a more integrated, reliable and passenger-focused railway network that supports growth and connectivity across the country. Business invests where connectivity is strong; people seek work where transport is reliable; developers build homes where infrastructure exists; and local economies thrive where communities are connected.
Investment in transport infrastructure also generates benefits far beyond the immediate area in which the project is delivered. One example of this is the Bakerloo line upgrade and extension. I have consistently argued that this is not simply a London transport project but a national growth project. For too long, parts of south-east London have experienced lower levels of transport investment, despite their enormous economic and housing potential. The benefits and return on investment are clear. This transformative and shovel-ready infrastructure project will unlock 107,000 new homes and 150,000 new jobs, while adding £1.5 billion in GVA to the national economy. Those are not simply transport statistics but indicators of economic growth.
Transport infrastructure changes the geography of opportunity. It determines whether someone can realistically access work, education, training or culture within a reasonable journey time. For many communities, better transport is not simply a convenient thing, it is a game-changer. Transport infrastructure helps to ensure that people from all communities can access jobs, education, training and opportunity and share in the benefit of economic growth. The economic benefit would not stop at London’s borders; the project would support engineering and manufacturing supply chains across the United Kingdom, including rail manufacturing jobs in Goole in Yorkshire and beyond.
Modern public transport infrastructure is also essential to reducing congestion, improving air quality and supporting sustainable economic growth. Infrastructure requires long-term thinking and partnership between national government, local government, businesses and regional leaders. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that long-term certainty around infrastructure investment is essential to giving businesses, developers and local authorities the confidence to invest, plan and deliver growth? Transport infrastructure is ultimately an investment in people, opportunity and national renewal. If we get this right, we will not simply be modernising transport networks, we will be unlocking growth, expanding opportunity and helping to build a fairer and more prosperous country.
Baroness Eaton (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Dacres, in this debate. I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and also the part owner of rented property in West Yorkshire.
It is a disappointment that the Social Housing Bill will see the further curtailment of right to buy, something I firmly oppose. Getting people on to the housing ladder should not be perceived negatively, and I pay tribute to private sector organisations, such as Rentplus UK, that are building affordable housing and getting young home owners on to the property ladder. You cannot make a modern-day case for capitalism if people do not own capital. It is why socialism always seems to have state-funded housing as the option, because it gives the state more control. As a former leader of Bradford Council, I recall inheriting from a socialist administration a housing revenue account which was millions in deficit with housing repairs and was out of control. My point is that legislation is all well and good, but poor management and governance on the ground will always be the barrier to the delivery of decent social housing standards.
While there is a case for the construction of more social homes—namely, that the state can reduce its housing benefit bill, which is potentially rising to £71 billion by 2050, with the increase in social housing stock—I hope that the Bill will go some way to addressing the key challenges occurring in social housing. I also hope that it will pave the way for local authorities that retain housing revenue accounts to have equal access to the £2.5 billion of low-interest loans announced in the 2025 spending review, currently accessible only to social housing providers.
Because of the Renters’ Rights Act, there needs to be a general acceptance that more renters in the private sector will be pushed into social housing, given the lack of private rental supply, as the Act will push more landlords out of the market. Consequently, councils may need to recruit additional staff and upskill the existing workforce. Future new burdens of funding must be up front, realistic and multi-year. Landlord penalties are unlikely to cover costs. Councils must have the right powers, skills, capacity and funding to enforce the new laws effectively and provide much-needed security for private renters.
Separately, and while I appreciate this may not fall within the Bill, I was pleased to hear that the Law Commission is soon to initiate a new project on the disposal of escheat land to the Crown Estate and whether other bodies will be able to take on this land. If the Law Commission finalises its work before the Bill passes through this House, I very much hope that the Government might consider the ability for escheat land to be handed over to local authority housing revenue accounts as opposed to the Crown Estate. The Crown Estate is sitting on many brownfield sites, which could easily be unlocked to local authorities for the purpose of building social housing. I hope that the Minister will be closely following the work of the Law Commission and make representations on behalf of local government.
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton. I welcome the reference in the gracious Speech to the continuing modernisation of the NHS. I will speak today about the Government’s commitment to the 2.5 million women in England living with osteoporosis and ask where that commitment now stands. Fracture liaison services are the gold standard for stopping osteoporosis in its tracks before it becomes catastrophic. Where they exist, patients who suffer a first fracture are caught, assessed, placed on medication and supported through a structured programme, interrupting the cycle that would otherwise lead to further breaks, lost independence and, in too many cases, premature death.
The Government committed to making these services universal across England by 2030, and it was a commitment that was warmly received. Since that day, women living with osteoporosis have heard that commitment 63 times in Parliament, in the media and in government documents, including, most recently, the Renewed Women’s Health Strategy for England. Yet no implementation plan has been published and there is no timetable, milestones or dedicated funding. The result is institutional paralysis. Some 60 new services are needed, but none has opened and, in that time, there have been 4,000 deaths that fracture liaison services could have helped to prevent.
That is why more than 60 organisations are calling for this rollout to happen. This coalition spans women’s health groups, royal colleges, trade unions and the world of business. However, this coalition is growing increasingly concerned, and the Government simply repeating the pledge is no longer sufficient to allay those concerns. The Society of Radiographers has warned that rollout must begin this summer for the 2030 target to remain achievable. These services cannot be created overnight; they require recruitment, staffing and commissioning. In some areas, local plans have been put on hold, waiting for national direction.
I make a straightforward plea for transparency. If there is a reason why the Government cannot move forward right now, please can they tell us when the plan will be published? Do Ministers still believe that the plan is deliverable by 2030? The 2.5 million women and 700,000 men living with osteoporosis and the sector that supports them look forward to an answer from the Minister.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, as we enjoy day 4 of the debate on the King’s Speech, I will concentrate my remarks on health, although inevitably that is inextricably linked with housing. I am happy to endorse the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, because what she says about osteoporosis is absolutely right; it needs tackling.
Looking for something positive to say as an opening, I welcome the commitment to a single patient record. Any objections on the grounds of data privacy must be overcome by the sheer common sense of the proposal. Qualms over data ownership are genuine. Palantir is a business with tentacles in strange places, and it is right that those should be explored and that we should find means of keeping them at bay. But my GP is in Westminster and has easy access to tests that are done in Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, but the same cannot be said about tests done at Tommy’s—St Thomas’ Hospital—which is actually closer to the surgery, or indeed Guy’s. In an age of data being easily transported, the river really should not be an obstacle to efficient communications in the NHS.
The single patient record has huge potential benefits, but it is the major bright spot, as far as I am concerned, in the King’s Speech. The NHS must modernise, but does that really require yet another massive shake-up? In the long term, it may be the right thing to do, but at the moment it is really not what the NHS needs. It was the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, who asked us to
“just imagine if all the effort and resource that had been poured into dissolving and reconstituting management structures had been invested in improving the delivery of services”.
Those words were echoed by the new Health Secretary less than two years ago, but now Wes Streeting has given us one parting gift: another NHS upheaval. I believe it will cause confusion and discontent in an NHS that is already wrought with tension.
However, on the truly vital issue of social care, the King’s Speech was almost silent. As others have remarked, this is a terrible omission. The lack of a proper social care system is a massive problem for the NHS. It was July 2011 when Andrew Dilnot proposed an answer to what was even then seen as a desperately urgent problem. His report was knocked into the long grass and, whenever the issue rolls back, it is knocked back again. This time, the Government opted for the increasingly popular answer to any tricky problem and asked the multitalented noble Baroness, Lady Casey, to lose it in a forest of consultations. So I add my voice to those who are asking: what is the timetable for something to emerge from all these consultations? When will we at last see something positive happening on social care?
While the talking continues, NHS beds are being blocked by elderly people who do not need acute medical care but do need social care. Maybe they live in unsuitable accommodation or have no access to the continuing care they need. Some lack family able or willing to take on some caring responsibility, and some are petrified at the prospect of being consigned to what is known as a care home, not least because of the massive bills this can entail. Dilnot proposed a type of insurance scheme that would cap the amount that any individual would have to contribute. Today, with most care homes run by the private sector and the for-profit element dominating, when will people really decide that private equity, with its high leverage and desperate need for income, is not the place for care homes to be entrusted?
So people remain in their hospital beds while others queue up behind them. A year ago, a report of the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee highlighted the problem. It was costing at least £1.89 billion a year then, and the figure has gone up. We need something to happen now.
Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)
It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, and I entirely agree with what she said about social care and the need for a timetable—that is a glaring omission from the Government’s programme.
I will speak mainly about health. The NHS modernisation Bill in the gracious Speech promises to reduce inefficiency and place power and resources in the hands of front-line NHS organisations. The review of the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, which has just been mentioned, describes the system as too rigid and complex, overcentralised, and having unclear lines of accountability.
The Government’s intention is to transfer NHS England’s functions into the Department of Health and Social Care and the wider system to reduce bureaucracy and free up resources to be reinvested in the front line. Here I compare what has happened in the devolved arrangements in Northern Ireland, just by way of illustration. Many of the same criticisms led the then DUP Health Minister in Northern Ireland, Simon Hamilton, to announce in 2015 the abolition of the Health and Social Care Board, which was responsible for regional commissioning of services, managing resources and performance management. Responsibility for the Stormont health portfolio has now passed on to other parties, and the board eventually closed in March 2022.
There has been reference to a 50% target for reduction in staff from merging when NHS England closes, but, unfortunately, that has been far from the outcome we have seen in Northern Ireland. Inexplicably, the health department in Northern Ireland now has more than 1,200 staff at Stormont, exceeding the combined number across both the Department of Health and the Health and Social Care Board prior to the board’s dissolution. The department’s new strategic planning and performance group alone comprises an extraordinary 500 people, administrative costs of £305 million and management costs of £264 million—both from two years ago. Each exceeds the respective totals for the HSC board and the department jointly in 2021-22 and previous years prior to the closure of the board.
Much of the rationale for removing the Health and Social Care Board was to reduce and streamline bureaucracy, which we heard the Government talk about in relation to their plans for NHS England. Yet the process in Northern Ireland and the same kind of approach have somehow ended up in a situation where the number of staff and the costs have grown. It is worth people keeping an eye on this and seeing what lessons can be learned from that devolved experience. Certainly, if lessons can be learned, they should be communicated back to the Northern Ireland Executive.
The Government are proposing, as we have heard, that the NHS harnesses digital technology and unlocks the value of health data with a new single patient record, bringing individuals’ information together into one place to improve patient safety and experience. In Northern Ireland, we have a single digital care record for every citizen, created via the encompass programme, which went live in the final two trusts, the southern trust and the western trust, 12 months ago. This provides patients and service users the ability to view and update their health information online wherever and whenever they like, via My Care, the patient portal. This makes it much easier for health and social care staff to view key information about their patients, both in a clinical setting and while out working in the community.
Bringing together health and social care records has maybe proven somewhat simpler in Northern Ireland, given our integrated trusts, compared with the local government responsibility for social care here in Great Britain. Unfortunately, however, the Northern Ireland electronic record does not incorporate GP and primary care data, so we will watch with interest the progress that His Majesty’s Government make on this front. Clearly, integrating primary care data would present a significant further step forward.
I want to see the Government, in this parliamentary Session, do more on fixing end-of-life and palliative care. All older people should be able to die with dignity, comfort and choice. We are now at a crucial point, given where we are with attempts to introduce the assisted dying Bill. We must see a government commitment to really change the provision for palliative and end-of-life care.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I would like to take the debate back to transport: I suppose that is no great surprise. I certainly welcome the introductory speech from my noble friend the Minister, who listed all the different Bills that we are going to be discussing in this current Session. Northern Powerhouse Rail is a great idea; civil aviation, great. GB Railways: well, we started that. But, of course, the Minister did not mention HS2, because there is no legislation required at the moment. Yesterday, the Secretary of State announced that the costs would exceed £100 billion. That was the figure I gave to the Department for Transport for several years, along with Michael Byng. The department strongly denied it and stated that they did not recognise my figure. Well, now they do.
In his speech half an hour ago, the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, mentioned that this project was started by the Labour Party under my noble friend Lord Adonis. I remember having strong arguments with Andrew at the time. He said, “We’ve got to have the best in the world. We’ve got to go fastest, it’s got to be the most comfortable, all on a straight line linking Glasgow and Edinburgh and many cities in between with London. And by the way, we’re going to start in London”. I asked why, because the existing railways outside the London area were a hell of a lot worse than they were around London. He said, “Yeah, well, the business case is better if you start in London”—and of course that is probably true, but it was not the right reason.
Anyway, it trundled on through however many years of Tory Government, and the Secretary of State finally got angry in her press release yesterday: regretting that taxpayers, communities, contractors and workers have been swindled by the failure of government. She is right. The whistleblowers, other professionals and landowners have all been silenced by some pretty horrendous NDAs. One wonders what the Cabinet Office, the Department for Transport and the Treasury have been doing, because they are all implicated in what may turn out to be a massive cover-up on costs, or even fraud.
The one thing I find particularly surprising is that Ministers are normally required to give permission for projects to exceed budgets: I think it is called a “ministerial direction”. This project is costing roughly six times its original budget, but I can find no record of any ministerial direction—so somebody has been asleep at the wheel, I think, probably intentionally.
We must not blame only the civil servants, however, because Parliament has failed too. MPs and Peers love going to London faster, regardless of cost: we are all guilty of it sometimes. Local services are used by many more people to attend school, college, shopping, visiting friends or whatever—“Yeah, but it’s important to get to London”. You have only to look at the service provided by CrossCountry trains, which must be one of the worst, to see that it does not go to London, which is a big mistake. My noble friend Lady Dacres outlined the need for better local rail infrastructure, and she is absolutely right.
There are lessons here that must be learned. Yesterday, the Secretary of State said they were going on to Euston, but I have not seen any plans. The boring machines are going, but normally when you build a tunnel you know where it is going to end up, and it is a bit unclear here.
We have had a big debate about the type of trains to be used, and there is a fellow called Chris Gibb who is highly experienced in west coast main line traffic. He suggested a much better solution, for which he has been sacked: again, that is no great surprise.
So there are lessons to be learned and I hope the new Government, when they start building the northern powerhouse and everything else, will learn those lessons, keep it small and keep everything within budget.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
It is a pleasure and an honour to take part in this interesting, if wide-ranging, debate. I will focus my remarks on the issue that was raised by my noble friend the Minister in opening: namely, the single patient record proposal, which will be part of the NHS modernisation Bill. I have the NHS app on my phone, as well as the patient access app from my local practice, and I have my chart from Guy’s and St Thomas’. I wish they would talk to each other. I am also a participant in UK Biobank, so that has my data as well.
While I welcome the proposal for the single patient record, I do not believe that Palantir is a suitable place to secure our health information and data. In truth, I am probably a bit late, because Palantir is already involved through the NHS federated data platform. However, its involvement is tightly constrained. What is being proposed here—if the data were handed over to Palantir—would be a very different situation, which raises not just technical issues but constitutional, ethical and democratic matters.
First, we need to understand the nature of the organisation. It was founded on the single premise that vast quantities of data, properly analysed, confer decisive commercial advantages. Historically, its customers have been the CIA, the NSA in the States and the US Department of Defense. Its software has been used in ways which, in my view, fall outside UK norms. This is not incidental to the company: it is at the heart of what that company does.
The second issue of concern is that the commercial incentives are deeply troubling. It is important to understand that it is not just the data that they benefit from: it is the links, the structure and the way in which the system works. That is where the real money is to be made. The data is just a means of moving towards a knowledge of the system on which we are based.
The third problem, which is well known, is the issue of dependency. We have seen this all too often. Once you adopt a particular software approach, you are very heavily locked in. If Palantir were to be involved, we would be locked in. It is not simple to walk away. To me, this makes it clear that we need an in-house solution. It is not beyond the capacity of an organisation the size of the NHS to develop its own software, in-house, protecting national interests.
Fourthly, there are questions about the governance framework. A particular concern is whether US surveillance law compels Palantir, as a foreign organisation, to disclose NHS data to American intelligence agencies. I think we need a clear and unambiguous position on that.
Finally, there is an argument of principle. Health data is not a resource to be managed by whoever submits the most competitive tender. It is generated in moments of profound vulnerability: illness, birth, death and mental crisis. The relationship between the patient and the health system rests on a compact of trust; the involvement of Palantir risks severely breaking that trust.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, while of course I welcome the King’s gracious Speech, the lack of some attention to the needs of this country is staggering. I could speak about HS2, which the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, allegedly has marked on his heart. I do not think that is true, but there we go.
I will speak on welfare, which was not in the Speech. Welfare should be top of the list of this Government’s concerns but appears to have been ignored. Welfare has been treated in this way because of opposition from Back-Benchers who may be pursuing voters in their own constituencies. This is deeply regrettable. The Back-Benchers concerned should be invited to explain themselves to their constituents. The problem is that very important issues are being sacrificed because of some constituents complaining. For instance, getting rid of the two-child benefit cap is frankly embarrassing when we acutely need the money to be spent on defence.
Another issue that was not raised in the Speech is defence. Yes, there was talk of defence, but no real mention of it in the Speech. I raised this issue endlessly with the last Government, and I have to say that things have got appreciably worse since the general election two years ago. It is all very well talking about an Armed Forces Bill, but this does nothing to protect the state. We need a defence investment programme, which we were promised in the excellent paper from the noble Lord, Lord Robertson. I hear that Wes Streeting was calling for it today in the Commons.
I could raise much more that should have been in the Speech. For instance, there was no mention of the antisemitism that is very frightening to Jewish people. These things may be embedded somewhere in other legislation, but frankly they needed to be expressed in the Speech. His Majesty raised his supportive position very well by visiting Golders Green. We need to express more clearly the British people’s resistance to antisemitism in the country.
I grew up on the edge of north-west London, where probably one in six of the boys at school were Jewish. I can honestly say that there was no genuine antisemitism in my school, although we did resent the way they got extra holidays for their Jewish faith. To digress slightly, once they were sitting around discussing what their fathers had done in the war. One young man said, “My grandmother won an Iron Cross”. His name was Soloman, and he was Jewish. I think that is quite interesting. Nobody held it against him.
Similarly, it is obvious that there is a lot of talk of more regulation, whereas we need less regulation in general. Masses of regulation does nothing for this country, and we could be better served with less regulation and a greater respect for law and order. There are 37 Bills in the Speech. I understand that some of the Bills will only increase bureaucratic time-wasting structures on people’s lives. We all talk of reducing the burden on civil servants, but a few of the Bills here may further the bureaucratic nightmare. A European partnership Bill, a regulating for growth Bill and a highways financing Bill are examples of yet more bureaucratic stuff to keep civil servants and the public busy.
The education for all Bill is not going to improve the output of our schools. Most people would say that the educational reforms by the noble Lord, Lord Gove, are working, and now they are being destroyed by the Government. There will be more legislation and no actual improvement. I could wax lyrical about giving 16 and 17 year-olds the right to vote, as I recall my daughter, aged 16, saying that she knew insufficient about government programmes, as did her school friends.
The Northern Ireland Troubles Bill needs to be looked at very closely. I see that some unionists have been opposed to any form of immunity. I understand that, but the truth is that only the nationalists and the IRA benefit from ongoing repercussions that were discussed 28 years ago. Having served in Northern Ireland, I can say that the British Army and the RUC behaved generally quite well. The Government must see that some current attitudes found in the Government are likely to lead to the IRA winning the war, which I do not believe the Government wish to see.
On that note, I will cease speaking. This is a missed opportunity, with far too much detailed legislation that will just add to the burden of this Government and not improve the lives of the people we serve.
Lord Babudu (Lab)
My Lords, health is wealth. The last parliamentary Session saw laws enacted that protect some of the most vulnerable in society and give them more opportunities to do well in life: removing the two-child limit, abolishing no-fault evictions and raising pay for the nearly 3 million workers on minimum wage. These may not seem like health measures, but at their heart they are. There is so much to commend in the Government’s agenda set out in the gracious Speech. Improving special educational needs provision, protecting and helping grow our social housing stock and taking the necessary steps to improve our NHS stand out for me as areas that, done right, can make our country healthier and help our economy to grow faster.
I will spend my limited time on what it feels is just beyond, yet within the reach of, the Government’s agenda as currently set out. I will focus on prioritising prevention. As mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, helping people stay in good health, instead of treating them once they are out of it, has to be the way forward, and prevention is rightly at the heart of the Government’s 10-year health plan. But we have known for generations that prevention beats treatment, yet we still have an NHS that is geared and tooled up to be a sickness service.
NHS modernisation is, by all accounts, hard to do well. As others have noted, it often does not change what it is intended to. But one of the greatest opportunities we have with the Government’s proposed changes is to make much more prevention possible. Organisations such as Demos and the Health Foundation have made compelling cases for ring-fencing more preventive spending and adapting relevant accounting standards so that it can be properly appraised and reported against.
While changes at the top of the health service are lamentable for several reasons, a great advantage of having a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury serving as the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is that we can finally crack what is needed for the Treasury to enable preventive spending in departmental budgets in a similar way to how capital expenditure is ring-fenced. By prevention, I do not mean sending more screening letters to people at greater risk of certain conditions, important though that is. I mean tackling our damaging food environments, poor air and often poor housing stock. I mean supporting people to stay in work instead of allowing them to fall out of it due to preventable ill health.
It may sound obvious once I say it, but where and how you live shapes your health. Too much of our population live in places bombarded with junk food advertising, on incomes that make healthier food unaffordable, breathing air that routinely breaches WHO air quality limits, and in cramped, damp and mouldy homes that exacerbate various health conditions.
Crudely speaking—but not too crudely—the poorer you are and the darker your skin, the more likely you are to be at the sharp end of most of these inequalities. I will not run through all the numbers, but the Government’s own estimates are that food-related illness caused by diet costs the UK £74 billion annually, including £11 billion to the NHS. The Royal College of Physicians estimates that poor air quality in the UK is killing 30,000 people a year and costing the UK £50 billion a year. These are outrageous harms at outrageous costs, and they are happening on our watch. If we can deliver on the 10-year health plan, we can roll back some of these harms. This is a packed legislative agenda. We will have to use our next parliamentary Session to bring a clean air Bill, a race and disabilities Bill and, assuming it is needed, legislation to enforce mandatory reporting on the healthiness of food sales, but if we can use this Session to crack the prevention puzzle, we will be well on our way.
Before I close, I would like to speak briefly about putting people’s voices at the heart of issues affecting them. The Health Bill proposes major changes to how we ensure that patients have a say in their health. I know from my experience in south London that many local Healthwatch organisations have been doing important work. In the proposed changes, we have a great opportunity to consolidate a fragmented system and strengthen accountability to patients. But I counsel the Government to ensure that patients’ views are at the heart of shaping the changes, not just heard once patients start experiencing changes that may not work for them.
Baroness Shawcross-Wolfson (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Babudu, and I apologise in advance for reiterating some of his excellent points.
We spend over £2 billion a year on the NHS, 40% of our day-to-day spending, yet it never seems to be enough. As our population ages, as chronic illness increases, as ever more adults leave the workforce, or never even enter it, as a result of long-term sickness, spending pressure will rise further and our capacity for funding that pressure will fall, so the first point I wish to make to your Lordships is that improving the NHS, while necessary, is not sufficient. Even a superbly efficient health care service could be overwhelmed by an ever-sicker society, so I was delighted to hear the Minister emphasise the importance of prevention when she opened this debate and I urge the Government to be bold. I agree that we need improvements in air quality, inside and out, as the noble Baroness, Lady Linforth, reminded us, to tackle respiratory and cardiovascular disease; we need restrictions on social media to protect young people’s mental health; and we need a serious strategy to tackle alcohol harms, as the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, set out. In short, we need a healthier population, not just a better NHS.
The second point I wish to make is that, unfortunately, redrawing the boundaries of NHS bodies will not automatically give us a better NHS. I understand why the Government want to abolish NHS England and I accept the valid arguments for doing so, but as the King’s Fund has observed, and those of us in government for the 2012 restructure can attest, reorganisations take far longer than we think, end up costing far more than we anticipate and leave us with a distracted and demoralised workforce. Change does not materialise because legislation transfers duties from one set of public servants in the NHS to another set of civil servants in the Department of Health and Social Care. Change does not materialise because we replace joint local health and well-being strategies with new neighbourhood health plans. Change materialises when Ministers and officials collaborate with clinicians and managers to deliver a coherent plan over a number of years.
I welcome the increase in patient satisfaction with GP access that we have seen under this Government and I commend Ministers and officials for all the work they have done to deliver this. I also point out that some of these improvements began with the primary care recovery plan published in 2023. I say that not to claim credit for the previous Administration but to point out that meaningful change really does require sustained focus over time. I hope that the Minister will ensure that she does not get lost in the legislation and instead is able to keep sight of the operational improvements that the public really care about, including the very urgent tasks of making maternity services safe and fixing social care.
There are two further elements we need to see if the Government are to meet their objective of NHS renewal. First, we need a longer-term capital strategy. The NHS has a capital budget of around £13 billion, yet we do not have a sufficient objective assessment of need, there is no reliable mechanism for efficient allocation, and there are too few incentives to ensure that assets are used productively. That needs to be fixed. Secondly, we need a credible long-term workforce plan. I was disappointed to see the 2023 workforce plan abandoned, but I look forward to seeing its successor. Like the Government, I hope that AI will improve productivity, but I do not recommend hope as the basis for a workforce strategy. I encourage the Government to listen to the Health Foundation’s advice and avoid both overstating the time technology will save and underestimating the staff and management capacity needed to implement it.
Turning to the details of the Health Bill, there will be plenty of opportunities to debate this at length, but I want to mention my concerns that despite the rhetoric of devolution, the Bill in fact represents a significant centralisation of power within the department and a reduced role for local authorities. I am also concerned about the impact of the abolition of HSSIB on patient safety and I look forward to discussing all these issues in more detail. However, there is a major opportunity here, as many other noble Lords have mentioned, and I share the Minister’s hope that the proposed single patient record, combined with wider technology reforms, will be truly transformative for this country. For years, we have aspired to achieve a digital NHS and now the Government have an opportunity to truly create one, but success will depend on public trust and clinical buy-in.
I hope that the Government will learn from the failures of the last 14 years, and in particular GDPR and care.data, as well as the recent cyber attacks that deliberately targeted very sensitive healthcare data. Privacy and security must be built into this project from the start.
There is much more to do to improve both public health and the NHS itself, but I hope that we can make meaningful progress this Session and I look forward to working across the House, with other noble Lords and the Minister, to do so.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Shawcross-Wolfson. I welcome the gracious Speech and a number of the important measures contained therein. In particular, I support the NHS modernisation Bill, the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, which rightly seeks to place victims and survivors at the centre of this difficult, vexatious legacy, and the European partnership Bill, which offers the prospect of renewed economic co-operation and prosperity. Indeed, I continue to believe that closer alignment with the European Union is essential for our long-term future. I also welcome the social housing renewal Bill. Access to secure, affordable housing is not simply an economic issue; it is fundamental to personal health, family stability and overall well-being.
I want to concentrate, like many noble Lords right across the Chamber, on health. I welcome the Government’s commitment to rebuilding public services after years of strain and fragmentation, as was evidenced by the previous Government. The NHS modernisation Bill presents a real opportunity to restore coherence to the system. As the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, has already said, we already have that single chart in Northern Ireland for each of our patients, but the sad reality is that it does not reflect GP services or one’s contact with the GP or primary care. At the heart of this NHS modernisation Bill, the issue is simple: people want timely access to care and treatment. They want shorter waiting lists, faster diagnoses and services that work seamlessly together.
Previous reforms back in 2011-12 created unnecessary fragmentation, something we have seen clearly in areas such as childhood vaccination programmes, which we are currently examining in the specialist Childhood Vaccinations Committee. There, complexity has undermined delivery, and that must be addressed. I have been contacted, like many noble Lords, by a range of organisations, including Parkinson’s UK, the Royal Osteoporosis Society and groups representing those with chronic skin conditions, all highlighting the same issues—long waiting times, gaps in care and inconsistent access to treatment. I hope that the structural issues highlighted in the NHS modernisation Bill can help to address those matters.
Parkinson’s UK, for example, has emphasised the importance of a fully integrated system. The move towards a single patient record could transform care by ensuring that those with complex long-term conditions receive co-ordinated treatment across multiple services. However, it rightly stresses that essential NHS England functions must not be lost in transition. It also highlights the critical importance of clinical expertise, particularly in neurology, given that one in six people in the UK lives with a neurological condition. Expertise must remain at the heart of decision-making, so I ask the Minister how the Government will ensure that key clinical advisory roles are retained within the new system, and what assurances can be given that the time-critical medicines programme will be delivered in full.
For patients with Parkinson’s, delays in medication are not just inconvenient; they can be life-threatening, but also, prevention must remain a priority. Fracture liaison services are a clear example of where early intervention can prevent further harm. These services identify patients after a first fracture, begin treatment and reduce the risk of reoccurrence. When will the Government publish a clear rollout plan to ensure universal access by 2030, an issue that was raised in previous debates? I am confident that this Government are committed to rebuilding and strengthening our NHS. The direction is right, but obviously delivery will be the key. We must ensure that reform leads not only to structural change but to real, tangible improvements in patients’ lives.
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, there is much that is good in the measures in the King’s Speech and certainly much that is well intentioned. However, I am left with the uncomfortable feeling that, overall, the contents of the speech do not, in a phrase often used by the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, rise to the level of events. I have some sympathy with the situation in which the Prime Minister and the Government find themselves. Paradoxically, they are shackled by their overwhelming victory in the last general election. The result is that the huge majority in the House of Commons contains a large number of Back-Benchers who have no prospect of ministerial office and who are alarmed by the prospect of tough measures which will harm their popularity in their constituencies and damage their prospects of re-election. In effect, the Government’s Back Benches become part of the opposition to the hard decisions which the Government need to take to achieve their objectives.
A section of the gracious Speech which I warmly welcome is the passage heralding proposals to
“strengthen the delivery, accountability, innovation and productivity of the Civil Service”
and
“to safeguard its impartiality and core values”.
I have never concealed my view that measures are always needed to bring the Civil Service up to the mark. Civil servants operate with other people’s money and lack the profit incentive which exists in the private sector. On the other hand, I believe that we are fortunate in having in this country a deep-rooted tradition of public service and that our civil servants do their best to achieve the Government’s objectives, if they are effectively led. In the recently appointed head of the Civil Service, Dame Antonia Romeo, I believe that we have someone who is capable of giving that leadership.
I particularly welcome the inclusion of the word “impartiality”. It is sometimes forgotten that, like the judiciary and the Armed Forces, the Civil Service is an independent service of the Crown and not the possession of any single set of politicians. If a Minister loses confidence in a civil servant, he or she is entitled to take action, but it should be dealt with by the head of the Civil Service and not through summary dismissal by a politician without due process.
I expressed at the outset of my speech my regret that the contents of the gracious Speech do not, in my view, rise to the level of events. I fear that the same can be said of our political discourse generally. The Government’s present disarray is easy meat for opposition parties and the media, but this is not a game. The dangers which the country faces, both nationally and internationally, seem to me very serious.
This year, we are 50 years on from the 1976 IMF crisis. The circumstances then were in some ways similar. Then, as now, we had suffered an oil price shock, although with different origins. In some respects, the circumstances in 1976 were worse, with inflation and unemployment rising simultaneously, a balance of payments in deficit and our reserves perilously low. Today, our level of national debt is unprecedentedly high and the cost of government borrowing is at an uncomfortable level. The experience of the Truss Government shows what happens if the markets lose confidence.
We should remember Prime Minister Callaghan’s speech to the 1976 Labour Party Conference, when he said:
“I tell you in all candour that the option”
of spending our way out of a recession “no longer exists”. Today is a moment for the same realism and courage. Our country urgently needs political leaders, both government and opposition, similarly to get serious and rise to the level of events.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the speech that we have just heard and I hope we will all ponder it. I am going to be a bit more frivolous in my contribution. When I saw the notice of the King’s Speech debate arrangements, I felt a bit like Cinderella, with everybody going to the ball except me. It was not only me who noticed that there was no slot for Defra or the environment in the debate in response to the King’s Speech; external commentators also remarked upon it, as well as several people within the House. Although there were opportunities to talk about energy, there was no opportunity to talk about Defra issues, including the clean water Bill and the important environmental issues arising from the regulating for growth Bill, as well as other general environmental implications of the overall programme of legislation. Above all, there was no chance to ask Defra Ministers questions.
I asked the Library and it said that I was correct in my recollection. I have been in this House for 29 years and it confirmed that, in the last 30 years—I did not ask the Library to go back any further—there had been the allocation of a day to Defra or its previous incarnations in every Queen’s or King’s Speech debate. I am concerned. Perhaps the Minister can account for the decision to drop Defra and the environment, though he may quite rightly say that it is outside his departmental responsibilities—which is precisely the point I am making.
I am concerned in case the omission signals a diminution of the importance of the environment in the Government’s mind, especially as recent National Trust polling has shown that nature is a major source of pride for the public, second only to the NHS. Despite the pressures of life, 83% of the public say that restoring nature is an important or top priority for them personally. When polled, the public said that weakening nature protections is as unpopular as cuts to the winter fuel allowance. I look forward to the Minister’s explanation as to why there was no Defra day.
However, Cinderella will go the ball. I can talk about housing, and I want to make two pleas. First, along with the commitment for more social homes, can we make sure that we enable smaller-sized renewable energy generators, especially community ones embedded in their communities and developments, to sell their power to local homes and businesses? It has been encouraging that DESNZ Ministers have expressed positive intentions on this. Investors and community organisations on the ground are eagerly waiting to see new rules put in place. Can the Minister say whether we will see this as part of the energy independence Bill?
My second plea—here I declare an interest as chair of the Forestry Commission—is this. I welcome the social housing renewal Bill, and particularly the commitment to build more social homes, but that is not only an opportunity to ensure that more people can live in decent, safe, secure and affordable homes. Along with the overall target of building 1.5 million homes, it offers further opportunities for public benefit, if we look at how these houses will be built.
Let us look at some statistics. The construction sector is currently responsible for 39% of global emissions. Houses built using timber reduce reliance on high-carbon concrete and steel. Wood absorbs CO2 as it grows and then locks it up for the duration, if used in buildings. We have a magnificent example on the premises, in the vaulted hammer-beam timber roof of Westminster Hall. Its 660 tonnes of wood have sequestered for 625 years CO2 equivalent to the average annual emissions of 300 internal combustion engine cars. That is just one example of the great amount of wood in the Palace of Westminster.
Wood is also a natural insulator, reducing energy needs. Over the border in Scotland, 92% of all houses are timber framed. In England, that is only 9%—so we need to copy the success of the Scots, which is not a sentiment I often prescribe.
In addition, 40% of UK woodlands are currently undermanaged. Increasing properly certified timber and construction creates a direct economic incentive to bring more woodland into active sustainable management, with benefits to biodiversity, productivity, employment and long-term carbon sequestration.
In conclusion, I ask the Minister what plans there are to use the push for increased social housing to also drive implementation of the Government’s Timber in Construction Roadmap 2025. Will he join with me in commending the Department for Education, which is actively pursuing engineered timber modular solutions for the next generation of schools? I ask the NHS to also follow suit.
Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the emphasis in the gracious Speech on renewing public services, modernising the NHS and supporting long-term economic security. They are the right ambitions, but they will matter to patients only if they translate into practical reforms that prevent ill health, reduce pressure on hospitals and help people stay independent.
The Minister will not be surprised that I will concentrate today on one such issue, fracture liaison services, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, with whose excellent speech I completely agree. These bone clinics identify people with osteoporosis after a first fracture, ensure they are assessed and treated, and help prevent the subsequent devastating fractures that would otherwise follow. That matters because osteoporosis is one of the most urgent threats to our ageing population, causing half of women and one fifth of men over 50 to suffer fractures.
The end result of untreated osteoporosis is a broken hip, which kills a quarter of sufferers within a year, and is a huge burden on the NHS, with around 7% of NHS beds occupied by people with fragility fractures. There is also a stark inequality dimension: people from deprived areas have a 25% higher risk of fractures. Safe, effective medication—costing around £1 per week—exists to stop this and save lives. But today, FLS are missing in half of NHS trusts, and that position has not shifted since the general election.
In 2024, the new Government pledged to roll out FLS to every area of England by 2030, and I applauded them for that. The then Secretary of State, Wes Streeting, said the rollout plan would be one of his “first acts in government”—but we are still waiting. As a result, over those two years, 4,000 people have died needlessly following hip fractures that a prompt rollout of FLS would have prevented.
Ministers, including the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, who is hugely supportive of this cause—and I am very grateful for that—have reiterated their FLS pledge no fewer than 63 times in Parliament and the media, as the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, said. Yet still, there has been no progress. The Government’s recent investment in replacing 14 bone density scanners is welcome—bravo—but a scan is just a scan. It does not start patients on medication or help patients adhere to their treatment through regular review, the vital elements of the FLS model that reduce refracture rates by 40%.
This is not a partisan issue; every political party backs the rollout. But, as we have heard, there are no implementation plans, dedicated resources or milestones. Many organisations that advocate for FLS fear the commitment exists on paper but will not be delivered in practice. If that is accurate, the costs are grave. Over 2,000 people die each year following hip fractures that FLS prevent. Since the election, the NHS has already spent an estimated £150 million treating fractures that FLS could have prevented—double the cost of FLS rollout. On any credible path to implementation, we would have expected 24 of the 60 NHS trusts missing FLS to be covered by now. Today, that number stands at zero. Worse, the lack of a national plan is impeding local areas from pushing on with their own FLS while awaiting central direction.
We are now at a moment of truth. The Society of Radiographers warns rollout must begin by summer 2026 if the Government are to have any chance of meeting the goal. It is now an urgent implementation challenge, not a distant timeline. A commitment without a delivery plan is not good enough. If Ministers truly intend a nationwide rollout for these services by 2030, surely there can be no objection to publishing a timetable for delivery. Could the Minister be frank with the House? Does the Department of Health, in view of all the evidence it has before it, believe the 2030 deadline remains deliverable and feasible without dedicated funding?
Ministers have rightly championed a shift from sickness to prevention; osteoporosis is a clear test of whether that ambition translates into practice. If we cannot act here, it is difficult to see where we will. The new Secretary of State, the noble Baroness’s colleague, has the rarest of opportunities: an easy win in a very difficult brief that will save lives and money and tackle stark health inequalities. What is not to like? The policy is agreed, the model is proven and the sector is ready and raring to go. What we need now is not another promise but action, a timetable, resources and the start of delivery. I hope we might get that commitment this evening.
Lord Truscott (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I very much welcome the reference to housing in the gracious Speech, particularly the commitment to long-term investment in social housing and to reform the leasehold system, including the capping of ground rents. I declare an interest as a landlord, leaseholder, former renter and co-chair of the All-Party Group on Leasehold and Commonhold Reform.
Labour’s manifesto pledged to end the “injustice of fleecehold”, and in the 2024 King’s Speech, His Majesty’s Government said they would
“take steps to bring the feudal leasehold system to an end”.—[Official Report, 18/7/24; col. 129.].
HMG have my full support in that.
The noble Lord, Lord Gove, guided through the seminal Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act in the dying days of the last Government. He is to be commended for his tenacity. HMG’s commonhold and leasehold Bill aims to make commonhold the default tenure, a long-overdue reform. It will improve the current system for the 5 million existing leasehold properties, bolstering fundamental rights, including enfranchisement and the right to manage, capping ground rents at £250 and other measures.
Alongside that, the Social Housing Bill, aiming to boost the supply of social housing, protect existing stock, strengthen protections for tenants and reduce bureaucracy so providers can build more homes, is also extremely welcome. The last 47 years have been a disaster for social and particularly council housing, stimulated by the right-to-buy scheme, which, while hugely popular, sowed the seeds of today’s housing crisis.
The housing market for potential home owners and renters has never been worse in my lifetime. The calculation is a simple one: there is not enough affordable housing to buy or rent. Thus, while HMG’s housing efforts are to be applauded, it is necessary to have a reality check. Almost two years into this Government, very important aspects of the Leasehold and Reform Act 2024 have still not been implemented. The Act was meant to make it cheaper and easier for existing leaseholders in houses and flats to extend their lease or buy their freehold.
There has been a commitment to abolish marriage value, but to date we have witnessed interminable consultations and legal challenges. To an extent, I have sympathy with the Government. The modern way of governing seems designed to foster delay and challenge, to the point that it is very difficult to get anything much done. Consultations on every conceivable subject and the fear of judicial review stymie the will of Parliament at every turn—just ask the Tories over their ill-fated Rwanda policy. This must change if the Government are to make progress with their programme. I think back to the Labour Government of 1945-51. Those reforms, at that pace, would be impossible today.
There is much to do in the housing field alone. We still await a register for short lets to cover the hollowing-out of long-term rental properties in our towns and cities by platforms like Airbnb—although a register is not a substitute for proper regulation. As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Best, earlier, we need proper regulation of property management companies, which are currently unregulated despite often managing millions of pounds. Some of these companies are appallingly managed, totally unqualified and rip off their clients.
HMG’s plan to build 1.5 million more homes and invest £39 billion over 10 years in social housing is to be admired, but there are serious doubts if it can be done as things stand. The 1.5 million target is already slipping and housing delivery is stalling. Our population has increased by 12 million people since the mid-1990s; housing supply is not keeping pace with demand. This is the real problem, not avaricious landlords facing escalating costs. The private rented sector has shrunk by 250,000 in 12 months. Where are the additional 1 million private rental homes which, according to Savills, are required by 2030, going to come from?
HMG need to incentivise councils, housing associations and developers to build private and social housing on brownfield sites, and encourage the PRS to grow, not shrink. For that to happen, the economy needs to flourish. The Bank of England and HMG should listen to what the IMF said this week. Instead of pandering to the banks to increase their profit margins, the BoE does not need to hike interest rates and may even need to cut them.
Finally, yes, the country wants change, but it wants good change, not bad change. What everyone really wants to see is improvement in their lives. That is the job of this Government.
Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for the gracious Speech and for the opportunity to reflect on its implications for transport across our United Kingdom. I also pay tribute to the House of Lords Library for its excellent preparatory work.
Transport is not just about infrastructure; it is about opportunity, connectivity and fairness. It determines whether people can access work, education, healthcare and community life—and nowhere is that more important than in my homeland of Wales.
The King’s Speech sets out an ambitious programme of change. The task is now for this ambition to translate into communities across the United Kingdom. For the public, what matters is simple: not what is promised, but what actually improves their daily journey.
Let me begin with the Railways Bill and the creation of Great British Railways. The intention to simplify a fragmented system is welcome, and the case for change is clear. But success will not be judged by structure but by outcomes. Passengers in my native south Wales will rightly ask: will services be more reliable? Will journeys be quicker? Will connections improve? Change must be measured in punctual trains, better connections and shorter journey times—not in organisational charts.
It is vital that these changes work for every part of the United Kingdom. That means genuine partnership with the nations and regions and ensuring that investment is fairly balanced—which has not always happened in the past. If this is truly a national railway, it must deliver for every nation—not just some parts.
On road safety, the Government’s proposals have the potential to make a real difference, and measures that save lives must always be supported, as we have seen in the 20mph rollout in Wales. However, we must recognise the realities faced in many communities. In rural Wales, driving is not optional—it is essential. Change must therefore be proportionate, protecting safety while maintaining independence, particularly for older people in our communities.
I welcome the Government’s intention to address micromobility. In cities such as Newport and Cardiff, e-scooters and similar devices are already well in use, so clear, balanced regulation is needed to support sustainable transport while maintaining public safety. Similarly, modernising the law on powered mobility devices is both necessary and timely. For many people, these are important and vital to maintaining independence.
What links all these issues is the need for integration. Transport policy must work as a system and not in silos. In Wales, that means better co-ordination between rail and bus services so that there are seamless journeys. It means recognising the importance of cross-border travel, particularly between south Wales and the west of England. More people move between Cardiff, Newport and Bristol every day than between Liverpool and Manchester. Connectivity therefore does not stop at borders—and nor should transport policy.
The real test is not whether we change the system but whether we improve the services. This House has an important role in ensuring that ambition is matched by accountability. Through careful scrutiny, we can help ensure that these proposals achieve their full potential. Above all, we must keep our focus on the people who rely on these systems every day—the commuter, the business owner, the rural resident. For them, transport is not abstract; it is essential.
I look forward to working constructively with colleagues to support our Government’s reforms and to ensure that they deliver real and lasting improvements across Wales and across the United Kingdom.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, recently my work has focused on two aspects of prevention of ill health and health inequalities. In 2024, I chaired a one-year special inquiry into food, diet and obesity, and this year I am chairing one into childhood vaccination rates in England. Apart from clean water, these are two of the most effective measures for preventing ill health. Both are in line with the Government’s 10-year plan and determination to raise the healthiest generation of children ever, but there was little in the gracious Speech about implementing these commitments. However, many of the things we need to do will require secondary legislation rather than primary legislation, so I am looking forward to scrutinising a lot of regulations in the coming year.
On food policy, things are moving too slowly. Mandatory reporting of healthy food standards, promised last year, is still awaiting publication of consultation. The ban on less healthy food being advertised before the 9 pm TV watershed and online is having limited effect because of the watering down of the rules to allow brand advertising. This loophole is currently being imaginatively explored by the food industry. The new nutrient profiling model will require secondary legislation to detail how it will be applied. Consultation is under way on this too. We still await the technical consultation on strengthening the soft drinks industry levy—the sugar tax. The 10-year plan promised a ban on the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to under 16 year-olds. However, progress on this has stalled, although it was announced in the previous King’s Speech and consultation was published in 2025.
I welcome the Government’s proposals on the review of the school food standards, and consultation has been launched, but I look forward to seeing the proposed changes to the Requirements for School Food Regulations 2014 as soon as possible this year.
Meanwhile, on our high streets, Action on Salt has found massive unnecessary amounts of salt in popular sandwiches—in one sandwich alone more than an adult’s daily limit. This is only one example of the unhealthy food which dominates our food system.
On all these matters the Government need to be bolder. My committee recognised that the food industry makes a lot of profit, some of which it spends on lobbying government, and we recommended that policy on food should always be made independently in the interests of public health, followed by consultation with industry about how to implement the Government’s policy. This has not been happening. Under the previous Government, good food policies were significantly watered down and delayed by up to four years. I urge the Government not to do a deal with supermarkets by delaying healthy food regulations in exchange for capping food prices, as is rumoured. It would be against public health and damage the NHS, and would be very short-sighted. Can the Minister confirm whether the rumour is true: yes or no?
I turn to the single patient record. Health data is currently a shambles, with numerous different systems that cannot talk to each other. This brings risk to patients and barriers to planning. There are undoubtedly issues about privacy, security and ownership of the data, which will be debated when we discuss the Bill.
My current committee has heard in public oral evidence that there are serious issues about vaccination data. Although most childhood vaccinations are delivered and recorded within GP practices, some take place elsewhere. This information is often not brought together into a single record. Some people may not be registered with a GP, or there can be difficulties transferring information from one GP to another. The information is vital for the care of that child and for national data and commission planning. Responsibility for commissioning vaccination services is now to be given to large-footprint, cash-strapped ICB clusters, but where will responsibility and accountability lie nationally?
The challenge will arise of how outreach to under-vaccinated local communities with different characteristics can be designed and managed far away in the headquarters of a large ICB—and whether it will be funded sustainably. However, there may also be a benefit. The ICBs may be able to smooth the transition of information across the life course, from maternal vaccination through early years and the secondary school-age programme and onwards to the adult offer. We shall see.
Lord Winston (Lab)
It is with great pleasure that I follow the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. I want to offer something of importance to all women. A newborn girl has around 1 million eggs at birth in her ovaries. By puberty, most of those microscopic eggs have already disappeared, often leaving some 300,000, according to our laboratory calculations. This loss continues in all women throughout childbearing life. By the age of 45, few viable eggs are left in the ovaries and the chance of women getting pregnant spontaneously is less than 2% per month.
No medical treatment prevents this loss of eggs, so egg freezing is increasingly used to preserve female fertility. Frozen eggs are stored in liquid nitrogen but, unlike freezing embryos, which is highly successful, egg freezing is much more difficult—for technical and scientific reasons that I do not have time to explain. Egg freezing is a massive industry, mostly in private clinics. Many women are being encouraged to freeze their eggs. To have much chance of success, eggs must be collected and frozen early in reproductive life, before a woman is 30 or, at the latest, 35.
Information is available for the last 15 years or so from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which reports all this data to Parliament in some form. IVF is needed for frozen eggs to become babies, so this is relevant to the HFEA’s work. About eight years ago, the authority claimed that the chance of a woman getting pregnant with her frozen eggs was around 13%. Sadly, this estimate was grossly inaccurate, because its report counted only the transfer of embryos derived from frozen eggs to the uterus. There are many steps in egg freezing before embryos are created. Freezing itself has a failure rate, as we will see in a second, as do many early stages which are not being recorded. To get enough eggs from the ovary, they must be reasonably mature eggs. They must be produced through fertility drugs given in increasing doses, not without some risks.
However, some eggs do not freeze well and do not mature properly. At least 20% that are frozen do not thaw normally. Already there is an increased risk of damage from the thawing. When they have gone through this process, they are then exposed to sperm if they are normal, but they may not fertilise. Of those that are fertilised, many do not develop into embryos. Others may have chromosomal abnormalities—aneuploidy—and other cellular abnormalities which prevent their chance of being a normal embryo.
The HFEA’s figures from the last 10 years record about a quarter of a million eggs being currently in store—263,692 eggs have been frozen and stored. Some 34,000 eggs have been used for the treatment of women in the last 10 years. From these, 2,949 embryos were formed and transferred. That resulted in 609 women getting pregnant, about a 20% success rate. However, there were at least 93 miscarriages, which is 15% of the pregnancies. Therefore, after thawing 34,000 eggs, the real success rate of egg freezing is a pregnancy rate of around 1.7%.
This is not being told to the women. It is not fully reported in the numbers of live births. We do not know the precise status of these embryos. We do not have follow-up; we do not have information about any serious side-effects of the treatment. The HFEA says that it no longer keeps such statistics and that it could take up to 18 months for the Minister to get information.
Egg freezing means a great profit for private clinics. Patients usually pay £5,000 for each treatment but sometimes more—sometimes over £10,000. Some clinics have boasted to me—I have this on record—that they get a better than 60% pregnancy rate after egg freezing, which is more than what is achieved by sex in a comfortable bed. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will write to me about these deeply distressing statistics. They are largely hidden from women, who are frequently told by clinics that they should take out an effective insurance plan for their future well-being and happiness. This is not good information.
Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Winston.
London’s housing crisis is no longer a warning sign; it is a full-blown social failure. The Government and the Mayor of London are failing the people of this city. While politicians issue press releases and make grand announcements, ordinary Londoners have been priced out, pushed out and left behind. One in every 50 Londoners is homeless or living in temporary accommodation. Over 100,000 children are growing up without a stable home. I want your Lordships to think about that for a minute. At least one child in every London classroom is homeless. This is not merely disappointing; it is morally unacceptable. While this crisis deepens, London boroughs are struggling with a £5.5 million bill every single day for temporary accommodation—money that is spent on managing, not solving, a problem.
The single biggest failure in London housing today is simple: not enough homes are being built. The Government say that London should deliver 88,000 homes per annum, but last year London delivered only 32,000 homes—not even close. Even the Mayor of London’s own lower target of 52,000 homes was missed by a wide margin. This is not a small shortfall; this is systematic failure, and Londoners are paying the price.
Rents are exploding, families are overcrowded, young people cannot buy and working people are forced to live and work further and further away from the communities in which they grew up. At the same time, private rental lettings are down nearly 40% over a five-year period. The average rent is now £2,280 per month. The average house price in London is £542,000. The Mayor of London talks endlessly about housing targets, but housing targets do not home families; houses do. Londoners can now clearly see the gap between rhetoric and delivery.
Another glaring omission from the King’s Speech is proper action on short-term lets. Across London, entire neighbourhoods are being hollowed out. Residents are regularly dealing with noise, anti-social behaviour, waste, transient occupancy and, in some cases, criminal activity. Meanwhile, permanent housing stock is disappearing from London’s local communities. Councils need real powers, not token gestures. They need mandatory registration, real-time platform data sharing, punitive fines for rogue operators and proper enforcement funding. That is why I have introduced a Private Member’s Bill that will come before this House on 18 June. Communities deserve protection too and, if this Government will not act decisively, Parliament should push them to do so.
Britain’s housing market is jammed shut and stamp duty is one of the reasons for this. It punishes aspiration, traps older people in homes too large for them, prevents growing families moving and blocks younger people from taking their first step on the housing ladder. That is why the Leader of the Opposition, Kemi Badenoch, was right to propose the abolishment of stamp duty on family homes. Research shows that up to 2 million people would consider downsizing if stamp duty was removed. If only half of them did this, over 1 million additional homes would come back on the market. That is how the Government can get movement again: not through slogans, headlines and fantasy targets but through actual movement, homes and opportunities. The wider economic boost to local economies could be up to £1.2 billion for local tradesmen and professionals.
In conclusion, Londoners are tired of excuses. They are tired of hearing promises without delivery, targets without homes and announcements without action. This crisis is destroying aspiration and social mobility in our capital city. Young people cannot buy, families cannot move and councils are overwhelmed. Children are growing up in homelessness in one of the richest cities in the world. That should be a disgrace to all levels of government. We need radical housebuilding, functional rental markets and policies that reward work and aspiration, because housing is not a luxury; it is the foundation on which stable lives are built.
Baroness Nargund (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, and I thank my noble friend the Minister for her excellent introductory speech earlier.
I have spent nearly 40 years working in the National Health Service. I have seen it at its best—compassionate, innovative and life-saving—and I have seen it when the system fails and when patients fall through gaps that should never exist. That is why I welcome the NHS modernisation Bill, part of a wider national mission to move healthcare from hospital to community, from analogue to digital and from treatment to prevention. I welcome the provision to give flexibility to integrated care boards for addressing local needs. It has the real potential to address the deep health inequalities that scar our society, but we must ensure that there will be no creation of a postcode lottery. I also welcome the abolition of NHS England and reducing bureaucracies.
At the heart of the Bill is its most transformative proposal: the single patient record. We should remember, first, that care is not simply an outcome on a spreadsheet; it is whether patients feel seen, heard and safe. NHS trusts use multiple electronic record systems that often cannot communicate with one another. Millions of patients are treated every year without clinicians having access to their full medical history. That is not just an outdated infrastructure; it is a risk of harm. As a doctor, I can tell you that this happens too often, and unequally. The most vulnerable in our society—those with mental health conditions or disabilities and those without any family at their bedside—are the most likely to fall through the gaps.
The single patient record offers the opportunity to change that fundamentally. It can fundamentally change patient experience and improve clinical outcomes, operational efficiency and financial performance. It can narrow the gap between those whose histories are known and those whose histories are not known. It is, at its core, a tool for equity. Above all, it means that patients are no longer carrying the burden of stitching together their own care.
I particularly welcome the decision to begin its implementation through maternity care. Too many maternity complaints involve failures in communication between services. The consequences can be and have been fatal. One report described a pregnant woman with bipolar disorder and a history of postpartum psychosis whose psychiatric history was not properly communicated between services. She did not receive the specialist care she needed and died by suicide during pregnancy. That was a preventable systems failure. A single patient record can prevent such tragedies.
We must also ensure that significant treatments, both NHS-funded and non-NHS funded, taking place in the independent sector, such as IVF and assisted conception, should be in the single patient record. It is essential to ensure continuity of care, protect patient safety and build a clearer national understanding of the complications and long-term outcomes of fertility treatments. We must not miss this opportunity. In this context, I declare that I am a board member of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. I ask the Minister for her support to make this happen.
The single patient record will save lives. In time, it will also save money by reducing complications, complaints and medico-legal costs. Other countries have already shown what is possible. In Denmark, linked health data has strengthened clinical care while driving world-leading research. Used responsibly, with the trust of the public and health professionals, this could position our country as a global leader in life sciences.
If implemented well, this Bill has the potential not simply to modernise our NHS but to humanise it and to create a system in which patients are truly known not as isolated episodes of care but as whole people—a system that reflects the founding principle of our NHS: that every person matters equally and deserves care that is joined up, dignified and humane. I look forward to contributing to the Bill when it arrives in your Lordships’ House.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Nargund, and in so doing echo her remarks about the remarkable and customarily imaginative and enthusiastic way in which the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, introduced this debate. In so doing, I declare my interests as chairman of King’s Health Partners and the King’s Fund. It will be, of course, on the NHS modernisation Bill that I will contribute the majority of my remarks.
Before so doing, I would like to touch on one other Bill that has appeared in the gracious Speech, the peerage removal Bill. Here I declare my interest as chairman of your Lordships’ Conduct Committee and as a former chairman of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. This is an important Bill because it touches upon many important constitutional principles. It is designed to address an issue, as stated in the gracious Speech, with regard to the standing and reputation of your Lordships’ House. In its so doing, there will need to be careful consideration of how any statutory provisions touch upon the procedures and processes agreed by your Lordships’ House with regard to conduct and whether any such provisions will extend your Lordships’ provisions for assessment of conduct beyond conduct related to parliamentary activity to conduct outside your Lordships’ House.
Indeed, your Lordships will need to understand in some detail the mechanisms by which it is proposed that, if enacted, the Bill will function. Will it function as a function of your Lordships’ House—that is, a question of resolution by the House—or will it function through the creation of an additional body outside what would be normally considered the processes of a self-regulating Chamber?
In addition, it is going to be very important to understand what other opportunities might be reflected in the passage of such a measure, in particular, whether the provisions of the advisory House of Lords Appointments Commission are ultimately put on a statutory basis so that all nominations, be they political or to the independent Cross Benches, are subjected to the same evaluation in terms of individual propriety and suitability. These are important questions that, no doubt, your Lordships will be able to consider when the Bill comes for consideration in your Lordships’ House.
I now turn to the NHS modernisation Bill. As the noble Baroness stated, His Majesty’s Government began their term in office by undertaking a detailed and forensic examination of the condition of the NHS, which identified it to be in a state of some crisis. It is therefore important that any measure of such substance as those in this proposed Bill should be judged against the standard of addressing that crisis urgently, as I think all noble Lords would agree that time is now running out. We need to take serious, long-term decisions to achieve what was first described with eloquence and clarity in a report led by my noble friend Lord Patel. This was the 2017 report of a special Select Committee on the long-term sustainability of the health and care system in our country.
That report made a number of recommendations. I shall not rehearse all of them with your Lordships this evening, but two important ones regrettably do not appear to have been addressed in the measures proposed in the NHS modernisation Bill. The first was the need to bring together health and social care into a properly co-ordinated system to ensure the ultimate sustainability of our healthcare system. As we have heard earlier in this debate on the humble Address, it has not so far been easy to identify how the measures in this Bill will achieve that objective. The second recommendation was to secure an appropriate investment, not only in innovation and technology but in the development of the workforce, to ensure that innovation and technology could be adopted at scale and pace across the NHS and to achieve the objectives that we all recognise are vital to secure its sustainability.
I make one last point. The measures in the Bill once again centralise an awful lot of power, on the basis of a need for accountability, in the hands of the Secretary of State for Health and the Department of Health and Social Care. It is proposed thereafter to transfer some of those powers back to ICBs, which will become strategic commissioners of healthcare at a local level. Those important mechanisms, and indeed the willingness and determination of the Department of Health and Social Care to use those powers not to control but rather to facilitate, will need to be understood fully as we consider the Bill during its passage.
Baroness Bray of Coln (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar. The health measures outlined in the gracious Speech raise profound questions about the future direction of the National Health Service. Much of the focus of the proposed NHS modernisation Bill appears to centre on the abolition of NHS England and the transfer of its powers directly to the Department of Health and Social Care and, ultimately, to the Secretary of State. This is presented as a move to simplify decision-making and improve accountability. Ministers argue that, if the public are dissatisfied with the performance of the NHS, there should be no ambiguity about who is responsible. In theory, a more direct chain of command could reduce duplication and speed up reform.
But there are serious concerns that cannot be ignored. NHS England is not simply another layer of bureaucracy; it was created to provide a degree of operational independence from day-to-day political control and, importantly, to help ensure that the voice of patients remained central to how services were designed and delivered. There is also concern about the future of local Healthwatch organisations, which play an important role in representing patients and communities at a local level. If these bodies are weakened or removed along with NHS England, as is proposed in the Bill, there is a real risk that local accountability and patient representation will be diminished even further. Removing these structures risks concentrating too much power in the hands of Ministers while weakening independent advocacy for patients.
At a time when waiting lists remain long, staff morale is under strain and many patients struggle to access timely care, this reorganisation feels disconnected from the real pressures facing the NHS. Structural reform in itself does not shorten ambulance delays, increase GP appointments, recruit more nurses or improve social care provision. There is a danger that yet another major reorganisation consumes time, money and energy that should instead be directed towards improving front-line services.
The NHS has already undergone repeated restructurings over the past two decades. Each one has promised efficiency and better outcomes, yet the core challenges remain remarkably similar: workforce shortages, uneven access to care, rising demand, and chronic underinvestment in prevention and community services. Many people will therefore ask whether abolishing one organisation and transferring powers elsewhere is truly reform or simply rearrangement.
There is, however, one potentially positive proposal within these plans, which has been mentioned widely this evening: the ambition to create a single patient record across the NHS. If implemented properly, this could make a real difference. Too often, patients must repeat the same information to different parts of the system because records are fragmented and incompatible. A shared patient record could improve communication between hospitals, GPs, mental health services and social care, reducing delays and improving safety.
Equally important, giving patients direct access to their own records could empower people to take a greater role in managing their own health, but even here the detail matters enormously. Public trust will depend on strong safeguards around privacy, data security and consent. Patients must be confident that their information is protected and used appropriately. Technology should support care, not undermine confidence in it.
The key question is this: will these reforms genuinely improve patient outcomes? The NHS does not simply need another structural overhaul; it needs investment in staff, modernisation of services, stronger primary care, better integration with social care, and a relentless focus on performance, productivity and patient experience. Without that, changing organisational charts risks becoming a distraction from the urgent work that patients and healthcare professionals need most. The public judge the NHS not by who holds authority in Whitehall but by whether they can see a GP when they need one, whether ambulances arrive on time, and whether treatment is delivered safely and promptly. That is where the real test of these proposals will lie.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, I start by declaring my railway interests, as I will be speaking a lot about the Railways Bill in my remarks this evening. All these interests are unpaid. They include presidency of the Heritage Railway Association and of the Cotswold Line Promotion Group. I am a member of the Railway Heritage Designation Advisory Board and the National Railway Museum’s advisory board, and I chair the Great Western Railway’s stakeholder board.
I want to commend all those who are making such a success of Railway 200, the 200th anniversary of the opening of the world’s first passenger railway between Stockton and Darlington in 1825. It is rightly being celebrated throughout Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and allows us all to celebrate just how much railways have contributed to a nation’s happiness, health and prosperity. Railway 200’s exhibition train, which is called “Inspiration”, is conducting its nationwide tour and will be doing so until this summer. If noble Lords have not visited yet, I urge them to do so. It is likely to be at a heritage railway close to where they live. Curated in partnership with the National Railway Museum, the exhibition carriages of “Inspiration” are a great celebration of what the railway has done for everyone.
I congratulate my noble friend Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill on the part he has played in making Railway 200 such a success, his commitment to the heritage sector and, most important of all, his determination to ensure that we as country appreciate and stand behind our railways. My noble friend and I were invited to join the celebrations for the 75th anniversary of the Talyllyn Railway this week, but our duties here made it impossible for us to get away to north Wales. I am sure he will want to join me in sending our congratulations to that wonderful little railway.
I have spoken before in your Lordships’ House about the huge contribution that heritage railways make to the regional economy, to tourism and to the preservation of engineering skills. I again thank noble Lords in all parts of the House and the Government for supporting my efforts and those of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, to make it legal, through an amendment to the Employment Rights Act, for young people to work and volunteer on heritage railways. I am told that that is already making a great difference. It is a small change but an important one.
The value of a national rail system cannot be exaggerated. They have long played a vital part in shaping regional economies and communities, bringing a sense of community cohesion as they transport people from A to B. They enable people to get to work, school and university, to see friends and family, to go shopping and to go on holiday. There is so much more that they could be doing, particularly in improving the environment, by attracting much more heavy freight off the roads and on to the railway. I know my noble friend the Minister has already received representations from the rail freight sector and been given practical examples of what could usefully be done. I appreciate that the debate on the gracious Speech is not the right place for discussing detailed amendments to the Railways Bill, but I hope the Minister will be able to give an assurance that he and his officials are studying carefully the freight industry’s representations on matters such as access arrangements for non-Great British Railways operators and the freight growth target set for Great British Railways.
I will finish on a positive note. On Monday, direct services between Bristol and Oxford, calling at Bath, Chippenham and Swindon, were introduced by GWR and launched by the Secretary of State. The service runs every two hours and was made possible only because of the capacity improvements that Network Rail has made at Oxford station. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that this is exactly the type of thing we should be seeing train operating companies and GBR doing in future? They are responding to market demand, looking at new routes and growing revenue to help reduce taxpayer subsidy. It is also important to demonstrate that the rail network is not totally London-centric, and the success of this service will enable new housing opportunities and new job opportunities. It is connecting incredibly popular tourist destinations in Oxford and Bath, and will have superb connections to East West Rail when that opens for passenger service. I am sure that there are many other examples of where we can grow the railway in future, and I look forward to my noble friend’s speech.
Lord Mott (Con)
My Lords, I want to address the parts of the gracious Speech aimed at improving the NHS. Attempts to reduce bureaucracy and duplication in the NHS with the Health Bill are welcome if they can be successfully delivered. However, we have seen little progress in more than a year since the abolition of NHS England was first announced, with it still recruiting hundreds of roles and its pay bill increasing, and I fear that it may be diverting attention away from front-line services.
In that vein, there are four areas on which I will focus my brief remarks today. First, I turn to cancer, particularly rare cancer. During the last Session we saw significant progress with the Rare Cancers Act. This is not a partisan issue and I was proud to support that legislation, but there is no silver bullet and improvements in treatment options for some rare cancers have not significantly improved for decades, so we cannot let the momentum stall. We need further improvements, including improved pathways for the approval of innovative treatments and faster genomic testing. I urge the Government to ensure that rare cancers do not slide down the priority list simply because recent legislation has been passed, and that we remain focused on getting new treatments to patients in need.
Prostate cancer is another issue on which I have campaigned extensively, and I know it is a cause shared by many noble Lords and Members in the other place. Early diagnosis is the difference between a treatable condition and a terminal one, yet one in five men who receive a diagnosis do so too late to be cured. Despite that, and despite it being the most common cancer in the UK, we continue to see a postcode lottery that determines a man’s survival chances and we still do not have a national screening programme. I urge the Government to commit to a more proactive, modernised screening programme and to consider the evidence gathered by the APPG on Prostate Cancer, of which I am an officer, including in the excellent recent report Diagnosing Prostate Cancer: Insights from Primary Care, potentially saving thousands of men every year.
Thirdly, I turn to the state of maternity care. It is no secret that, sadly, it remains a national disgrace that half of all NHS maternity units in England are currently rated as either “requires improvement” or “inadequate”. After a new assessment framework was introduced in 2024, two-thirds of the services rated since were “inadequate” or “requires improvement”, and not one has been “outstanding”. This is a failure of safety for mothers and newborns, who deserve much better. While it is disappointing that there was no explicit mention of maternity safety in the King’s Speech, the House must ensure that it is not forgotten. We await the independent review by the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, with high expectations, but the Government must be prepared to act on those findings immediately, not simply add them to the list of more than 700 existing recommendations from previous reviews. Whether the answers are legislative or operational, mothers must be able to trust the care they receive.
Fourthly and finally, I turn to the challenge of late diagnosis of and poor support for people with ADHD. At a recent meeting of the APPG on ADHD, the tragic death of Matthew Lock was discussed. He was diagnosed with ADHD far too late. His condition was missed by the system on multiple occasions and this ultimately led to him taking his own life. We need to do much more to help those with ADHD so that Matthew’s experience and those of his parents, Richard and Christine, are not repeated for many more families. Will the Minister commit to look again at the excellent work done by the NHS England ADHD taskforce to see what can be implemented without delay?
These four areas do not get the same attention as headline measures to tackle waiting lists, but each one represents an area where patients deserve better and it will ultimately save lives. I urge the Minister to take this contribution in the constructive manner it is intended so that these areas get the attention they deserve within the health system.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, I am, as ever, honoured to be speaking in the debate on the gracious Speech today and I want to address two issues which I think are related: social care and the procurement of people-focused services. They are both central to the delivery of the NHS 10-year plan and the future of social care. I need to declare some interests: I am honoured to be the chair elect of SCIE—the Social Care Institute for Excellence; I am a patron of Social Enterprise UK; and a senior associate of E3M, working with the leadership of social businesses currently delivering public services.
I think we must all welcome the commitment of the proposed NHS modernisation Bill to ensure that the voices of people using care and support directly inform the services they receive. We need patients and those who have lived experience to be the voices in the design and delivery of neighbourhood health and the national care service. My first question to my noble friend the Minister is: how will the Government ensure that people’s lived experience shapes service design, improvement and accountability? Importantly, if they do that, how will they do it if Healthwatch is abolished? Although Healthwatch is not the only means of capturing lived experience—SCIE, among others, is expert at this—surely the abolition of an independent, separate body to gather and report patient, carer and care user experience, however uncomfortable that may be from time to time, smacks of the NHS marking its own homework. I think I am reflecting the concerns of many organisations, and we can predict this as a matter for some discussion when we reach that part of the legislation.
My second question concerns the importance of social care as an equal partner in the health and social care infrastructure. Given the moving feast of NHS reorganisation, the Casey review and local government reorganisation, this is important. Can my noble friend the Minister explain—I am happy if this is in a letter—how the Government will ensure that social care is treated equally within NHS reform and, before the Casey commission’s report, how they will ensure action to strengthen social care’s role in prevention, independence and community support? How will it otherwise be possible to deliver neighbourhood health?
The commissioning of community services to support vulnerable people should surely be vastly different from buying marketised goods and commercial services. I thank E3M, Stone King and, particularly, Sandra Hamilton for their research and thinking about this. Today, 80% of social services contracts are delivered by private for-profit actors and 50% of the children’s residential system is dominated by six private equity actors, with profits in excess of £45,000 per child per annum. This cannot be a good use of taxpayers’ money. The key words in people-focused procurement should surely be collaboration, not competition, on an open-book basis with predetermined reasonable profit margins. There is no reason why any purpose-aligned private company cannot do this too, as much as a social enterprise or a charity.
My question to the Government is: while some are working to maximise the significant yet little-used flexibilities available under the light-touch regime, how will the commissioning regime change? There is a need for a new and distinct regulatory regime for people-focused services, since 75% of local authority budgets are spent on those services, using market purchasing processes that are not fit for purpose. Caring for our most vulnerable citizens is not a market opportunity to exploit; it is a statutory public service system desperately in need of some long-term stewardship.
Lord Mawson (CB)
My Lords, in response to the gracious Speech, I want to focus on health. This Government’s policy to move more services out of hospitals and into local communities is the right direction of travel. However, NHS England’s neighbourhood health centre guidance deserves a clear-eyed response. After three decades working across primary care, grass-roots community regeneration and social enterprise, my colleagues and I at the Bromley by Bow Centre find ourselves holding two different views at the same time: real optimism about what this programme could become, and deep frustration about the journey and destination described in the current road map.
The Bromley by Bow Centre has been working in this space for 42 years. We built the first integrated working model of what we think the Government are proposing. We are now responsible for 55,000 patients on four sites in east London, and have grown, with our public and private sector partners, a national social business working on place-making projects across the country. I declare my interest. We have focused on practice in the micro because we know that the clues to the macro lie there.
The neighbourhood health centre programme signals a genuine institutional commitment to moving healthcare closer to communities. The ambition to create 250 centres by 2034, the multi-disciplinary model and the acknowledgement that health cannot be delivered by clinicians alone all point in the right direction. At its best, the NHC framework is an invitation. The problem is that it is written in the language of compliance, rather than liberation, and is simply not radical enough.
There is an implied acknowledgment that good health is driven principally by social factors, but there is an underpinning assumption that a successful NHC will be defined by how it more efficiently organises multidisciplinary teams in a single building, rather than how it might meaningfully pass the ownership of health resources into the hands of local communities. What the guidance gets right is the recognition that health is produced in communities, not just delivered by clinicians. The neighbourhood health centre framework could, if NHS England has the courage to allow it, become the vehicle through which a generation of community entrepreneurs—many of them GPs—finally get the platform, the estate and the institutional backing they have always lacked.
The Bromley by Bow Centre was an early example of what becomes possible when you refuse to draw hard boundaries between health, community, enterprise, the arts, green space and human connection. We were not unusual in our instinct; we were unusual in having the space and partners to act on it. NHCs could give many more organisations this same opportunity.
However, the case for flexibility is not simply ideological. We have known for decades that 80% of health outcomes are driven by social determinants. A programme that creates impressive buildings, staffed by excellent clinicians and allied professionals, but fails to address these upstream factors will make a marginal difference at best. The problem is that the guidance is shaped overwhelmingly by a statutory NHS-centric worldview.
The illustrative design briefs for new neighbourhood health centres capture this problem precisely: rooms with narrow purposes, square boxes, places for professionals who drink coffee, but no art-making spaces, no messy spaces and not a curved wall in sight, in buildings that one health colleague described as “prisons”. The consequence of this type of top-down thinking is a dominant multidisciplinary clinical model, with social factors treated as peripheral rather than foundational. These will be places to go for appointments, not places you belong to.
The omissions in the guidance are as telling. The creative arts are entirely absent, despite a substantial evidence base for their foundational and consistent role in good health outcomes. Social enterprise and business are also missing, despite some of the most innovative health-generating work in the UK being done in this space. On community ownership of assets, the words point to local power, but the structures point to central control. Green space and horticulture are a remarkable omission, given the evidence on their broad therapeutic and transformative value—ask the RHS. On funding for non-clinical services, social prescribing is promoted while its funding base is eroded and the resourcing of the non-statutory services that it refers into are being decimated.
Perhaps it is not too late. NHS England has a choice: it can insist on fidelity to the template and create 250 well-resourced and shiny MDT polyclinics that improve access to statutory services, or it can explicitly invite and resource flexible interpretation.
The modern health world is everybody’s business; it is no longer the private domain of the NHS and its clinicians. Such a model is totally financially unsustainable. The challenge for this Government is whether they will create a health landscape based on last-century thinking or a modern, entrepreneurial culture in which everybody plays their part. This is the big opportunity to truly join up government systems on the ground. Let us hope we do not miss it.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, this has been a really important debate on three fundamentals to our society: health, housing and transport. My noble friend Lady Thornhill talked in detail about the housing aspects in the gracious Speech and about concerns that the proposed legislation does not go far enough and that there is an absence of a coherent delivery plan. The noble Lords, Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Best, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, also set out some serious challenges in the area of housing. I will build on the excellent contributions from my noble friends Lord Bradshaw—with his decades of railway experience—Lady Tyler and Lady Walmsley.
On transport, these Benches support high-speed rail to Manchester and other northern cities to increase capacity, unlock local rail improvements and boost the economy. Clearly, getting Northern Powerhouse Rail from simply talk—which we have had since it was launched in 2014—to spades in the ground and passengers on trains on rails is critical. Can the Minister therefore advise which version of Northern Powerhouse Rail the Government are committing to? When will passengers be able to travel on any new lines as part of this project? Further, can we have some assurance that this is the end of U-turns and broken promises for our northern cities, which are desperate for greater connectivity? What learnings have there been from the challenges around delivering High Speed 2, which were highlighted earlier by the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin?
The Railways Bill establishing Great British Railways as a single accountable body to unite track and train management is a key part of the Minister’s work. On these Benches, we remain concerned that some proposals within the legislation may increase the potential for micromanagement and a power grab by a Secretary of State. But our main focus is on a passenger- centred railway that looks at growing the number of passengers and incentivises increased travel by rail, ensuring an affordable, reliable and accessible railway. I look forward to continuing to work with the Minister on this important Bill and hope we can see some amendments to deliver that ambition for passengers. The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox of Newport, rightly pointed out that this must deliver for all parts and deliver connectivity.
One concern for many people is the state of our roads and pavements. While the highways financing Bill looks to introduce a way to unlock private capital investment into major road infrastructure, we on these Benches wish to be assured that this delivers genuine value for money for taxpayers. Lessons must be learned from previous experiences, particularly in the case of Thames Water, where the model allowed the prioritisation of investor returns over public benefit. I hope the Minister can assure the House on this matter.
I am really pleased to see in the gracious Speech a draft taxi and private hire vehicle Bill. I worked closely with the Minister on the recent devolution legislation and helped to secure some provision for stronger enforcement across the country, and it became increasingly clear that a fundamental review was needed to bring the legislation into the 21st century. There are many concerns about the fragmented system that operates today, and I look forward to the planned consultation and engagement with drivers, the sector and passengers to increase safety and accessibility in this growing sector. Perhaps the Minister can advise on whether autonomous vehicles will be part of this pre-legislative scrutiny, given their growing presence and the timeline for the consultation.
The civil aviation Bill may be only a short Bill, but modernisation needs to work for all our communities and our environment, recognising that noise and air pollution has a significant impact on people and nature. We will look at this carefully to ensure that guardrails are in place for our communities that are affected by airports as they currently exist, let alone those that will be impacted by proposed expansions, which we clearly oppose, such as those at Heathrow and Gatwick. But lacking from the gracious Speech was detail about legislation to regulate and legalise e-bikes and e-scooters. That seems to us to be a missed opportunity, so I would like to hear more on that.
We have heard some strong contributions across the House on the health Bill—the NHS modernisation Bill—including from the noble Baronesses, Lady Watkins of Tavistock and Lady Neuberger. As we heard, the Bill will abolish NHS England as well as key organisations such as Healthwatch and the Health Services Safety Investigations Body, and it will create the framework for the single patient record. But we believe that the government solution, which is to pass responsibilities from one group of civil servants to another, misses an opportunity to improve services for patients and the health of our country. As the noble Baronesses, Lady Shawcross-Wolfson and Lady Bray, highlighted, patients will feel little difference, and these reorganisations cost a lot of money, take time and lose memory from the workforce, and ultimately they will not change the front-line patient experience. We have seen this time and time again over the last few decades with different restructures. I say this as a former NHS employee who has lived through many of those reorganised bodies.
Health and care services, as we have heard, remain under significant strain. More than 6 million people are still waiting for care, and performance is well below the standard that 92% of patients should start treatment within 18 weeks. As my noble friends Lady Tyler and Lady Walmsley outlined so clearly, a real NHS reform Bill would fundamentally rewire the NHS and would have social care, mental health services, general practice and prevention at its heart. We need to stop so many people having to go to hospital and help them leave more quickly when they do. That means having accessible local services in the community, including social care and a new focus on early intervention, which we have heard much about this afternoon, to stop people getting so sick.
What seems to have united many contributions, including that of the noble Baroness, Lady Nargund, is a single patient record. We will consider carefully the plans for this but, as we have heard, people are tired of having to reconfirm their medical histories over and over to different medical and other professionals. We would welcome different parts of the NHS and social care having access to that same patient information, but this has to come alongside new privacy protections through a new health data charter. The proof is clearly going to be in the detail, and we look forward to working with noble Lords to get that right.
Alongside the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and others, we have deep concerns over the abolition of Healthwatch and the HSSIB. Let us take Healthwatch, for example: the Government are stripping patients of their voice in our NHS. Rather than being able to go to—crucially—an independent body to express how the NHS could work better for them, patients will now have to give feedback, either to their local trust or via ICBs or councils. We do not think a department or a director within the department is good enough or has the independence that is required to ensure that patient voices are genuinely heard. The decision to scrap the Health Services Safety Investigations Body is also a major concern; it is fraught with risk. A trusted and efficient safety investigation process is the best way of restoring trust, learning from system failure and preventing costly public inquiries. We hope that the Government will reconsider those proposals.
As articulated by the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, and the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, the elephant in the room—the glaring absence from this legislative programme—is social care. It is clear, not just from these Benches but from others, such as the King’s Fund, that:
“Interim action should not wait for the Casey Commission’s final recommendations”.
The King’s Fund goes further and comments:
“The legislative programme lacks ambitious action to tackle some of the other biggest causes of ill health, including obesity and alcohol harm, or to address deep health inequalities across the country. This raises questions about how the government’s promised shift to prevention will be delivered”.
The noble Lord, Lord Babudu, focused on prevention in his contribution as well. The noble Lord, Lord Mott, highlighted the need for prostate cancer screening as a way of prevention. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that area.
With a focus on reorganisation, there will be limited immediate difference in how patients experience health services, which is a huge concern. How does this Bill address the deep-rooted concerns about capacity and access to front-line health services, including mental health and social care services? That is the area in which we would like to see the focus of legislation, rather than rearranging and rebranding civil servants and NHS organisations.
This legislative programme is very full, and we on these Benches will be scrutinising each Bill in great detail to ensure that the passenger, the resident and the patient are truly at the heart of the Government’s proposed legislation.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, it has been a truly interesting and wide-ranging debate. I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if I confine my remarks to the transport aspects of the debate. There were a number of interesting speeches in respect of transport. I do not propose to respond to them all, but I would like to single out the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, who I think deserves a rather doleful prize. For over 15 years now, he has been the Cassandra figure wandering across the stage from left to right periodically, telling everyone that HS2 was going to cost £100 billion. There is a great deal of blame to go around in respect of HS2, but none of it falls at the door of the noble Lord. Cassandra eventually has to be shown to be right; we know now that he has been right all along.
I want to start by referring to the circumstances, rather than the content, of the gracious Speech. I think it is fair to say that it was, frankly, painful to see His Majesty peering over the top of his Speech at a Prime Minister standing below Bar, of whom nobody knew whether he would still be in office 24 hours later. How has it come to this after less than two years? When Disraeli referred to Gladstone’s Front Bench as being like
“a range of exhausted volcanoes”,
he was at least acknowledging that they were volcanoes. We have been inflicted with something more like a row of molehills, from which the moles have departed. The rapidly leaving ranks of Ministers who are flooding out are now saying quite openly that the Labour Party was wholly unprepared for Government. How have we got to this stage?
However, we have a ready-wrapped solution at hand: Mr Burnham, and what is known as “Manchesterism”. I have looked into Manchesterism. It is very relevant to this debate, because it boils down to a transport policy. Manchesterism is, in essence, the fact that Mr Burnham has taken control of the buses and put a £2 fare cap in. It is worth saying that the £2 cap was, of course, a Conservative policy; that it was the Conservative policy to continue it, and that it was the Labour Party that put it up to £3 in every other part of the country.
When we think about the mechanism by which Mr Burnham has taken control of the buses in Manchester, let us remember that it was a Conservative Government that gave him the powers to do so. The mechanism he has used to take control of the buses is, of course, a franchising system in which the buses are still owned and operated by private companies, but he sets the fares, the routes and the timetables. In other words, it is a system wholly copied from what has been operating in London since roughly the 1980s. One could almost call it “Londonism”. Who was it who, in the 1985 Act, created that system in London? It was, of course, Mrs Thatcher. We might even say that it comes down to being called “Thatcherism”.
However, there is another paradox here. That very system of franchising, where contracts are let on a concession basis to private companies to provide the bus services, is exactly the system that the noble Lord the Minister has vehemently rejected in relation to the operation of the trains. In his paradise, the trains have to be owned and run by Great British Railways, and there is to be no room at all for any sort of competition, except where it exists already. Since we know where we are coming from, that makes me wonder whether the noble Lord the Minister has yet made the pilgrimage to Wigan to knock on a few doors and make inquiries of Mr Burnham as to whether he still backs the Great British Railways Bill with this mechanism, which is not part of the Manchesterist approach at all.
There is more to say about this Great British Railways Bill. Another thing that is going on is that, overnight, the Labour Party has become a party that wants to rejoin the European Union. Mr Streeting—I am putting Mr Starmer aside as being what might be described as a short-dated stock—wants to join the European Union, and he says so. Mr Burnham also wants to join the European Union, but he would prefer not to say so. Yet the one thing that is absolutely not compatible with being a member of the European Union is a Great British Railways structure in which there is no competition allowed—except, I grant you, temporarily for existing open-access operators. To exclude competition is completely incompatible with the EU’s railways directive.
Indeed, if we did rejoin the European Union, and Deutsche Bahn, or SNCF, or one of the private Italian railway companies turned up and said that they would like to run a service on Great British Railways’ tracks, and we were to refuse them on the basis of this Bill, we would find that the whole principle of the Bill would collapse immediately and we would lose the case under European Union law.
So there we are: we have the Bills, but we do not really know anything about the direction of travel and what is going to happen under an imminent new Prime Minister. We have a civil aviation Bill that replaces the EU regulation of airlines and airports, including consumer protection. We welcome that, but the way in which regulations are to be made is going to be an entirely private matter for the Civil Aviation Authority. I do not think the Government have got the message. We voted Brexit to get rid of unelected bureaucrats making laws for us—but at least we had parliamentary scrutiny. We had an array of European Union committees here in your Lordships’ House that would look at those laws before they were implemented. We are to have none of that: there will be no parliamentary scrutiny of the new regulations made by the Civil Aviation Authority and to some extent by the Secretary of State. That cannot be an acceptable Bill, and it is one that we are unhappy with as a matter of principle: we can support the substance, but the mechanisms are not appropriate.
My noble friend Lord McLoughlin spoke warmly about the highways finance Bill. We support the idea of finding new mechanisms for financing the building of roads, but I am really puzzled, and I want the noble Lord to address—if not today then later, when we get to the Bill—why the regulated asset base model is an appropriate way of attracting private finance, given that we know from experience elsewhere that it tends to encourage overspecification and gold-plating, and anyway is designed for infrastructure where assets are incrementally added, such as they might be at Heathrow, rather than for building a road or a bridge, which presumably once built is built and one does not periodically add to it over time. That is something else that we are going to want to look at.
Finally, I come to the Northern Powerhouse Rail Bill. Both the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, spoke in favour of this. In fact, they spoke as if the Bill were likely to make Northern Powerhouse Rail happen: as if it were pushing it forward. I do not want to raise the anxiety level of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, but as is explained in the document produced by the Government, the Northern Powerhouse Rail Bill is actually only a renamed High Speed Rail (Crewe-Manchester) Bill. That was a Bill introduced by the Conservative Government. It was carried over into the last parliamentary Session, nothing was done with it, and it is being carried over into the current parliamentary Session. It does not build Northern Powerhouse Rail; it simply creates certain powers to take land for the purpose of building the parts around Crewe and Manchester that are necessary for Northern Powerhouse Rail. There is no objection to this Bill from our side—as I say, it was our Bill originally—but, if anyone thinks that the Government are building Northern Powerhouse Rail, I point out that there is not a penny available to build Northern Powerhouse Rail, unless the Minister is going to tell us that that is what is coming up.
I have to congratulate the Government on acceding to the Conservative Party campaign not to increase fuel duty. That is a small win and something we can call a win-win for both of us, I think.
I will conclude by referring to something for which no legislation is provided. It is not in the gracious Speech, but it is an important matter: the electric vehicles mandate. The electric vehicles mandate is already destroying our automotive industry and is going to ruin the country in many ways, destroying many jobs in relation to cars. But that is not enough for the Government, who now want to extend it to HGVs. I simply say to the Government that they really must think very carefully about this. Indeed, there is simply not enough electricity in the system to power electric HGVs. The Government must move very cautiously on the electrification of HGVs. I hope that, if not today then soon, there will be an announcement from the Government that they are going to reflect on whether this is something they really want to push forward.
We have had a gracious Speech written for His Majesty the King by the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer. We do not know, as we debate it, who is going to be the Prime Minister a few weeks from now. We do not know, as a consequence, who the Secretary of State for Transport or for Health, or the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is going to be a few weeks from now. There is a degree of unreality about this debate. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part and treated it very seriously, and I look forward to hearing the Minister perhaps try to give some gloss to all this that will make sense of it to the rest of us.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, it is an honour to be closing today’s debate on behalf of His Majesty’s Government. I extend my thanks to His Majesty for his gracious Speech and to all noble Lords for their thoughtful contributions, except perhaps for the last one, which I shall mostly ignore.
I begin by echoing what my noble friend Lady Merron said in her admirable opening speech. She set out clearly and concisely the scope of the Government’s programme for the second Session in the areas of health, housing and transport. I am grateful to her not only for her clarity but for being a valued friend and colleague, as is the Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government here on the Front Bench.
As my noble friend Lady Merron was in relation to health, I am immensely proud of the progress this Government have made in laying the foundations for better public services, particularly in transport. Transport and the railway have been my life’s work, so it is a privilege to be part of the biggest transformation of the railway in over 30 years. We have also enabled a quiet revolution in bus service provision through the Bus Services Act and opened real opportunity for British innovation with the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Act. I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions on these Acts.
I was wondering yesterday and the day before how my noble friends closing these debates would cope with so many varied contributions, and now I have to do the same. I will do my best, but I am reassured that noble Lords who have spoken with such knowledge and passion will raise all their points in the passage of the Bills that are in the King’s Speech.
Before I talk about the Bills themselves, I will address a variety of other matters raised by noble Lords today. I start with the noble Lord, Lord Butler, who spoke widely and wisely, particularly about the Civil Service. I am delighted that he commended the new Cabinet Secretary and his views on impartiality are, of course, supported. The noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, spoke about the peerage removal Bill. We will take careful note of what he said tonight and when he speaks on the Bill itself.
My noble friend Lord Jordan spoke about accidents and, while I cannot say that we will take up his argument about an approach across government, he can rest assured that individual parts of government take this subject extremely seriously. My noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch spoke widely about the huge desirability of industrial harmony through dialogue and partnership. I echo that and, in terms of the progress on the railway towards Great British Railways, we will pursue it, and I am pleased that she welcomed the new arrangements in social care.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Young of Old Scone, raised the absence of the environment from the subjects for debate. I cannot account for that, but this Government are very serious about this subject. Let me give three examples: the pursuit of net zero, the vigorous action by my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock on farming and the environment, and the pursuit of more freight by rail are all individual examples of the Government’s care about the environment in the future. I will ask my noble friend Lady Hayman to write to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, further on that subject.
My noble friend Lady Linforth raised clean air in public spaces for kids. Again, I defer to my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock on that subject.
The noble Lord, Lord Robathan, made a wide-ranging speech on various subjects. He raised antisemitism, and I cannot believe that he cannot see a very strong response from this Government to the recent outrages to the Jewish community.
The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, spoke passionately about food standards. The Government thank her for her work in this area. I therefore hope that I have covered most of the subjects raised that do not really appear to be covered by the main subjects of this debate today.
Moving to health, this Government have already taken serious action on waiting lists. They are down by half a million and the number of people waiting less than 18 weeks for planned care is now at 65.3%, up from 59%. Ambulances responding to strokes and heart attacks are arriving 5 minutes faster compared to last year and we are meeting our manifesto commitment to recruit an additional 8,500 mental health staff, three years early. That is a foundation which we are not yet satisfied with, but it is a reasonable start.
The objectives of the NHS Bill have been debated in many contributions today. My noble friends Lady Nargund and Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick both fully supported the Bill. Others took a view that care needed to be taken about how this huge change, the abolition of NHS England, should be done—in particular, the noble Baronesses, Lady Shawcross-Wolfson and Lady Bray. We also note the important points made by the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, on this subject. It is a large step, and this Government are committed to doing it wisely, carefully and properly.
My noble friend Lord Babudu and the noble Baroness, Lady Shawcross-Wolfson, talked about prevention, which is important and one of the principal features of the Government’s policy. The noble Lord, Lord Kamall, and the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, talked about the connections between health and place. As it happens, the Secretary of State for Health in the other place is making a major speech on this tomorrow.
There was a lot of discussion about the single patient record, data security, careful use and comprehensiveness. The noble Baronesses, Lady Bray, Lady Tyler and Lady Walmsley, the noble Lord, Lord Patel—who was particularly helpful—and my noble friends Lady Pitkeathley and Lady Nargund all supported it. We listened with interest to the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, on the experience of Northern Ireland. My noble friend Lord Davies talked about the particular circumstances about Palantir. We are reviewing the federated data platform contract in advance of the break point. The single patient record is different: it will be supplied through contracts with multiple suppliers with no single supplier dominating. No decisions have been made about who those will be.
My noble friend Lady Donaghy and the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood, talked about osteoporosis and the fracture liaison services. The Government are committed to rolling out fracture liaison services everywhere by 2030, and my noble friend Lady Merron is well prepared to respond to any new issues in that respect.
My noble friend Lord Winston talked about egg freezing. I am singularly unqualified to deal with this subject in any practical way, but my noble friend Lady Merron has listened very carefully to everything he said and has committed herself to write to him.
Similarly, the noble Lord, Lord Mott, spoke about cancer and maternity services. My noble friend Lady Merron listened to that carefully too and is acting on it already. Lastly, the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, talked about his Bromley-by-Bow experience—as a matter of coincidence, he has shown me around that very thing—and it is an obvious long-term experience for government to take an interest in.
On health and local government, the first thing to say is on the Social Housing Bill. The Government believe that everyone deserves to live in a decent, safe, secure and affordable home. The Bill will provide much- needed social housing stock, give affordable housing providers the clarity and confidence they need to build more social homes, and better protect tenants who are victims of domestic abuse by providing them with greater security and stability. The Bill delivers on the manifesto commitments to prioritise the building of new social rented homes and to better protect our existing stock.
A number of noble Lords supported the concept of the Bill, but, unsurprisingly, there was some criticism of it. I can tell the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, that the proportion of people in rented accommodation is stable and has been since 2013-14. There has been a 3% increase in available homes in quarter 1 of 2026, and buy-to-let loans have increased by 14% in a year. Therefore it is not evident that there is a reduction. The noble Lord, Lord Bailey of Paddington, talked about stamp duty but did not explain where the £11 billion that it would cost to abolish it would come from. The Government are working with the Mayor of London on an emergency housing package to enable rapid delivery of what London needs.
The noble Lords, Lord Young of Cookham, Lord Best and Lord Truscott, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Shah and Lady Watkins, commented on various aspects of leasehold reform. I am confident that, when the Bill comes forward, they will have much to say during its passage. The Government believe the Bill is moving in the right direction to deal with what a number of noble Lords this evening have described variously, up to scandalous. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford is right that people are entitled to a home and that young people are entitled to have the certainty of knowing where they are going to live. There are powerful arguments for housing reform and I hope that she is convinced that the Government will move in the right direction.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, referred to social housing. My noble friend remarked that the £39 billion that the Government have allocated to that subject will certainly help provide it. She also referred to SME builders. The £16 billion National Housing Bank, started on 1 April, includes provision for financial support and loans for SMEs in the housing market.
The noble Lord, Lord Best, spoke powerfully about all aspects of the Bills that are being brought forward. I am sure he will make valuable contributions to the discussion of them when they arrive.
I move on to the four transport Bills. The Railways Bill will deliver on the Government’s manifesto. I was enormously encouraged by hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, who all of us with any connection with the railways admire and respect. As somebody who was there when the railways were nationalised in 1948, he has pretty good experience of what is going on. He is right that running railways is a job for railway people. The intention of this Bill is not, as it is wrongly characterised, to give any more powers to the Secretary of State—both the Secretary of State and I want less power—because the railway deserves to be run by people who understand how to make it work better, which is what passengers want.
I have the greatest respect for the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin. However, we are not starting from where he would like us to be but from where are at the moment. The railway needs an injection of vigour to get better reliability, drive up patronage and drive down costs. That has been seriously absent in the railway post Covid, even though it is run by allegedly vigorous private sector operators.
My noble friends Lady Dacres and Lady Wilcox talked about the benefits of transport investment. They are right that transport is not an end in itself. Transport is the means by which you create growth, jobs and homes. The noble Baroness, Lady Dacres, talked about the Bakerloo line extension to Lewisham. It is up to the Mayor of London to make the case and I know that he will do so. She talked about long-term finance. This Government have given that mayor the first long-term financial settlement for some considerable time, so that he can both spend the money better and decide where it should go.
My noble friend Lady Wilcox talked about it in terms of Wales. This Government have put over £400 million of railway investment into Wales, creating new stations in south Wales and better services in north Wales. That is an example of working together to create benefits throughout Great Britain. I am very pleased to join my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester in congratulating the Talyllyn Railway on its 75th anniversary in preservation—it was the world’s first preserved railway—which is great. He also talked more substantively about encouraging freight, which the Government are extraordinarily keen to do. Freight will form a part of the Railways Bill and a commitment will be made to freight growth in the railway. He also referred to the new service between Bristol and Oxford. That is an example, post Covid, of getting towards the new era and working collaboratively to produce new services. I am sure that Great British Railways will produce more of them.
The high-speed rail Bill described in the gracious Speech is currently headed the High Speed Rail (Crewe-Manchester) Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, is right that it was put forward by the previous Government. However, since the previous Government summarily cancelled phase 2a of HS2 between Birmingham and Manchester, the Bill has languished. It is now being reactivated because, contrary to what he said, the Government are funding Northern Powerhouse Rail. In fact, this is the first plan for railways for the north of England that is properly funded. Part of that Bill is necessary to create the new line between Manchester and Liverpool.
In the meantime, the trans-Pennine upgrade, which is funded and in delivery on time and on budget, will improve connectivity across the Pennines. On improvements east of the Pennines, the railways in Yorkshire will come sooner because they do not need new railways. There is a credible plan for the whole of Northern Powerhouse Rail. I am very happy to take the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, through the plans to describe precisely what they are. They are funded and there is a considerable amount of money in this spending review to move forward with them.
My noble friend Lord Berkeley and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, referred to HS2. The Secretary of State for Transport in the other place made a Statement about HS2 yesterday. It is a scandal. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Berkeley can be satisfied that he did tell us that it would cost a lot of money. But I am not sure he told us that the thing had been hideously mismanaged by a series of Governments and management boards of HS2. That is the lesson to be learned: not to not do these schemes but to do them properly. The trans-Pennine upgrade is one example of a scheme that is being done properly and on time.
It is not true that Britain cannot do these things. What is true, as the review recently set out, is that you should be slow to start these projects, decide what they are and then be quick to build them. This one was the other way around. The specification was obviously done by zealots. Part of it is incapable of being delivered because it is so technically advanced. That was wrong when it started and we are having to put it right now.
The highway financing Bill is not a bureaucratic Bill, contrary to what the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, said. It is a perfectly decent proposition about how to fund the Lower Thames Crossing and other future major road schemes. The noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, is right that there has to be genuine value for money for taxpayers. We are not proposing to do anything at all like Thames Water, for very obvious reasons, and there is absolutely no doubt that during the passage of the Bill we will debate why the regulated asset base is right for this class, as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, pointed out.
The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, is right to say that the civil aviation Bill, which has a number of powers, including much better powers for consumers, replaces EU legislation. He has pointed out to me on numerous occasions recently in dealing with statutory instruments that the powers to do that run out very shortly, and this Bill is necessary to replace them. We will debate to what extent it is desirable or necessary to have the Civil Aviation Authority making some of the rules when we get there. The Government’s view is that it is quite reasonable to delegate some of these powers to a competent authority, leaving some others to the authority of the Secretary of State.
I am very pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, raised micromobility. This House has debated micromobility, e-scooters and the like a number of times in the last nearly two years now. Although it did not feature in the gracious Speech, it is our intention to consult before the end of this year on what we will do about micromobility. The noble Baroness knows the range of different sorts of regulations there are throughout Europe. We have shared that information with her, and indeed I hope with others in your Lordships’ House. If we have not, I am very happy to share it. There is a huge divergence of views about how to regulate these things, so we need to properly consult on them before we get there.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, referred to the draft taxi and private hire Bill, which was in the gracious Speech. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to her for our collaboration to make the relevant part of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act serve the immediate purpose of better regulation of taxi and private hire out-of-area working. That really is not enough, so this draft Bill, which will need a lot of discussion because circumstances vary throughout the United Kingdom, is absolutely necessary.
I am tempted to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, on a couple of his points because, well, why not? He referred to the £2 fare cap, but what he did not say is that the previous Government instituted it but did not fund it much past the election date—
Lord McLoughlin (Con)
How has Andy Burnham managed to fund it, then, in Manchester alone?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The process by which bus franchising was established in Manchester was absolutely tortuous, although he was enabled to do it. The purpose of the bus services Bill is to make it easier to do, but the results are spectacularly good.
I have not been watching the clock. My time is up. I should say that my noble friends Lady Merron and Lady Taylor have listened carefully to the whole debate, as I have, and they will be as well placed as I am to take forward all the issues raised by noble Lords. The gracious Speech marks the next phase in our plan to deliver national renewal across housing, health and transport. This Government are putting better public services first. We have promised to do what these Bills set out and we will do that.