House of Lords
Oaths and Affirmations
Sustainable Drainage Systems
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Baroness Grender
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of progress by local planning authorities in implementing the National Planning Policy Framework changes regarding the mandatory use of sustainable drainage systems in new developments.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, the National Planning Policy Framework requires all new development that could affect drainage to incorporate sustainable drainage systems. We recently consulted on changes to the NPPF, including on sustainable drainage systems, and we will respond in due course. We had more than 20,000 responses, so we are still analysing them. By law, planning applications are determined in accordance with a development plan, with each application judged on its own merit. Any weight given to individual considerations is a matter for the local authority. I am pleased to tell the noble Baroness that in 2024-25, 96% of planning applications and 99% of new homes proposed in planning applications complied with Environment Agency advice on flood risk.
Baroness Grender (LD)
I thank the Minister for her reply. Does she agree that flooding continues to blight thousands of families and businesses and that the threat is growing? Can she explain why the standards on drainage set out in my Question are still not mandatory for every new development? Only this month, experts in water management have warned that without this legal duty, communities are left exposed to avoidable flood risk. Surely acting now is the thing to do, rather than placing our trust in voluntary compliance by the developers.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
We are proposing a requirement that SUDS are designed in accordance with new national standards, as well as a new policy to discourage the creation of new river culverts and to encourage the removal of existing ones to help drive river renaturalisation and improve water management. The National Planning Policy Framework is clear:
“Inappropriate development in areas at risk of flooding should be avoided by directing development away from areas at highest risk (whether existing or future). Where development is necessary in such areas, the development should be made safe for its lifetime without increasing flood risk elsewhere”.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that a recent court case set aside these informal and non-mandatory provisions. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs wants to implement the statutory basis of the 2010 Act to make these mandatory. Will she please agree to do so at the earliest possible opportunity?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I think the noble Baroness is referring to Schedule 3, which has been under consideration since 2010. It is important that we consider the most efficient and effective way of securing the objectives of that. Although a final decision has still not been made, we believe this can be better achieved through continued improvements to national planning policy and the adoption of maintenance approaches, rather than commencing Schedule 3. That is why we have strengthened the national planning policy on that important issue.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that at the micro level, small areas of open ground such as gardens, and particularly front gardens, are an important part of a natural drainage system, particularly in urban areas? Can she tell the House whether there is any active discouragement coming from local authorities, or indeed from government, to stop people or in any way discourage them from paving over important areas of open ground that are under their control?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
The discouragement from doing that comes through the planning process. When this kind of paving over is done subsequent to that, it is very difficult to monitor it, but I am sure our local authorities take a very serious attitude. Indeed, when I was a county councillor I had areas in my own county division that were subject to flooding, and we went out, inspected and gave advice to householders about how they might take these things forward. It remains the responsibility of local authorities to ensure that there is proper drainage for local areas and to make sure that a small area of paving will not overwhelm the systems that are put in place to take the water away.
Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)
My Lords, when I was young, some time ago, it was more commonplace that councils cleared out the storm drains on a cyclical maintenance basis. Many councils on discretionary cost-cutting no longer do that; some exemplary councils do. Can the Minister ensure that her good office tells local councils that this should be done on a regular basis? When we get downpours, this is the reason we often get local flooding—there is no other reason.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I understand the noble Lord’s point, but the substantial cuts to local government funding imposed by the party opposite mean it has been very difficult for local authorities to fulfil all the functions they need to undertake. Our local authorities understand that it can be devastating for households and communities that are affected by flooding, particularly where we get sudden downpours and there is an influx of water. I know they take this very seriously. We have introduced a new fair funding formula, which has increased the funding substantially to local authorities. I am sure they take their responsibilities extremely seriously.
Baroness O’Neill of Bexley (Con)
My Lords, our changing weather is bringing more frequent episodes of surface water flooding, and the importance of sustainable drainage systems in the new developments has been increasingly clear. While the revised National Planning Policy Framework strengthens expectations, what steps are the Government taking to ensure that local planning authorities have the expertise and resources to implement these requirements consistently?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I know I did so yesterday, but I welcome the noble Baroness to her place. She has great experience in local government and I look forward to working with her. She is quite right that it is important that local authorities take the maintenance seriously. Planning practice guidance already sets out that local authorities should be satisfied that all SUDS have clear maintenance and adoption arrangements in place for the lifetime of developments. In June we published new national standards on SUDS that introduce the need to consider the multiple benefits of SUDS—reuse, run-off quantity, water quality, amenity and biodiversity—and those standards should be used by developers to provide the best possible SUDS and by local planning authorities to assess the quality of proposals, with the aim that they will be consistently provided and, importantly, consistently maintained.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, large storage tanks can be used to store water at a time of flooding and then can be used in a dry period to pump off into the system. Are there any plans to extend the use of those tanks so that we can both deal with the flooding and provide water when we need it?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I cannot give my noble friend an answer to the specific question he asks, but the storage of water when it is available is critical. It was shocking to realise that we had not built a reservoir in the country for 30 years; we are now planning new reservoirs to store water. Also, during the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Act we talked about on-farm storage, for example; it is perfectly possible for farmers to develop storage on their own land so that they can keep water when it is plentiful for the times when it is not.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, to continue from the previous question, large underground attenuation tanks are often used in residential developments as their answer to sustainable drainage. Can the Minister tell us what consideration has been given for the water that is stored in these tanks to be used as grey water for local people to use during times of drought?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I know that my colleagues in Defra are giving a great deal of thought to the provision of water—both clean water and water for other purposes—and they have established the Water Delivery Taskforce to make sure that water companies deliver on their planned investments to provide water and wastewater capacity. The Government have worked hard to secure £104 billion of private sector investment into the water sector over the next five years so that we can upgrade ageing pipes, sewage treatment works and so on, and in partnership with water companies, investors and communities we will introduce a new water reform Bill to modernise the entire system. The issues that the noble Baroness raises are really important. We need to be using all the water that we have access to, particularly in dry areas of the country—I live in the east of England, one of the driest areas in our country—and we need to make sure that we are making the best use of any rainfall we have. The Government are working closely with the industry to make sure we do just that.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: Proscription
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Lord Cryer
To ask His Majesty’s Government what progress they have made towards drafting a bill creating the legal framework for the proscription of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
The National Security (State Threats) Bill was introduced to Parliament on 9 June. This legislation will create a new power for the Secretary of State to designate bodies engaged in foreign power threat activity equivalent to proscription under the Terrorism Act 2000. Designation will disrupt and deter the hostile activities of these bodies and those working with them, through new criminal offences.
Lord Cryer (Lab)
My Lords, I am glad to hear that the Government are bringing forward legislation, but it is not before time. We have seen IRGC proxies and operatives attacking British Jews and Jewish institutions. We have just seen two such proxies prosecuted and convicted for an almost fatal attack on an Iranian journalist. Is it not time to get this welcome new legislation through every stage of its parliamentary procedures sharpish, and then ban this bunch of homicidal maniacs?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
My noble friend will know that in the King’s gracious Speech we said we wanted to get this matter on the statute book as quickly as possible. I am in the hands of the House of Commons and this noble House with regard to that, but we want to get this done so that the power is there for the Secretary of State to make judgments on any state threat that we face and to take action which, if agreed by both Houses, will potentially result in sentences of 14 years’ imprisonment for anybody convicted.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, I certainly welcome the legislation that is proposed, plus the Minister’s own personal commitment to this, because the use of these proxies, behind which countries such as Iran are obviously hiding, is doing untold harm. It is not just the IRGC but the Iranian-linked Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya, which claims credit and responsibility for some of the recent antisemitic attacks. Will it also be included in the legislation?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The legislation gives the Secretary of State a power, and then how the Secretary of State uses that power will be for the Secretary of State to consider on the basis of the threats that are presented. The Government condemn antisemitism and are very much aware of the Iranian state threat. In fact, we have already sanctioned some 550 individuals from Iran and organisations, including the IRGC in its entirety. We take the threats from Iran extremely seriously, and we will continue to monitor that. But I hope that this power will be given speedy passage; then we can assess how best to use it.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, these Benches support this legislation and, when it comes to us in the next few weeks, we will ensure that there is a very constructive process. The IRGC and similar groups operate under proxies, as we have heard, but there is also enormous state capture of commercial organisations both within their countries and in the wider areas—especially in the Gulf. Can the Minister assure us that under the powers this legislation will allow, any organisation with a commercial link through complex legal, financial and trade routes that ends up in any part of the United Kingdom economy will be captured? Can he assure us that we will not only proscribe this organisation but starve it of funds if they are from the UK?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful for the noble Lord’s support for the legislation and for its fast track. We are getting ahead of ourselves. I am in the hands of the House of Commons and the House of Lords to end up with a legislation product that may or may not be amended. I hope that it will be passed speedily. I assure the noble Lord that the Government take this matter seriously and will make all the assessments that he has mentioned in relation to any power that the Government are given by the legislation that is passed. If this legislation can be fast-tracked, we will be able to make any assessments that we wish to make as soon as practicable after it is passed. As I say, I am grateful for the noble Lord’s support.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, now that the Government have published the National Security (State Threats) Bill, I can confirm to the Minister that His Majesty’s Opposition will work with the Government to ensure that the Bill can progress swiftly. I do have a few concerns, however, with the drafting of the Bill. One is that, unlike the Terrorism Act 2000, the Bill does not criminalise membership of a designated group. Can the Minister explain why?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I have had a detailed letter from the noble Lord raising a number of points that I will respond to. I am hoping to see him before the Bill comes to this House, for a private discussion on some of those matters. We have acted upon recommendations from Jonathan Hall KC, whom we asked to review this legislation. The Bill before Parliament is what he has assessed is a workable piece of legislation.
On including issues such as a membership offence, Jonathan Hall has judged that that is not workable because of international law considerations. We will have to debate that detail, but I hope that ultimately we can settle on a Bill that gives the Secretary of State—the Home Secretary in this case—the power to act against any state threat in a way that we are not able to do now. The House has pressed me about this on many occasions. We have not been able to do it because of the failings in the legislation to date. To deal with those challenges, this Bill will make that difference. I am grateful for the noble Lord's support.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I strongly welcome the role that the Minister has played in ensuring that this legislation is brought forward. I remind him of the debate that we had in in your Lordships’ House on the Joint Committee on Human Rights report, Transnational Repression in the UK. We took evidence from Iranians who had been left bleeding on the street after being attacked by members of the IRGC, and BBC Persian journalists who were targeted in the way that the noble lord, Lord Cryer, described.
Can the Minister ensure that the recommendations in that report are acted upon? Will he also look at what more can be done to hold to account those who have been executing Iranians in Iran at an unprecedented rate—some 2,159 in the last 12 months, 52% based on the death sentence issued by the revolutionary courts? Of course, in our minds is the young woman, Mahsa Amini, who was arrested and died in police custody because she offended the dress code.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful for the noble Lord’s support as well. I know he has a long-standing interest in this matter and has put pressure on the Government accordingly, which I welcome. We are trying to put in place a framework for legislation where we can act on any potential state threat. The type of incident that he has mentioned are ones that we will reflect upon. The Bill itself, unless amended by both Houses, means that there must be a UK connection of some sort for any designation to take place. Those are matters that we will discuss. I do not want us to get ahead of ourselves. I want this Bill to be an Act so that the Secretary of State can legally act to take action against any actor who is providing a state threat against this United Kingdom and its citizens.
Lord Polak (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Alton. He and I are the only two people here who are proscribed by the IRGC. I too put on record my thanks to the Minister. We have pushed hard and will continue to push hard. This needs to be done. As I said yesterday in this Chamber, it is not just the IRGC and its activities but what is going on in the charity world here. I hope that the legislation will be able to look at that too, because it is a serious matter. Money is being raised here in this country—British taxpayers’ money—which is going towards helping the IRGC.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
Again, I am grateful for the noble Lord’s support. He will know that we have already introduced a comprehensive set of measures against Iran, including the sanctioning of the IRGC in its entirety and of 550 Iranian individuals and organisations. Those sanctions mean a whole range of things, such as travel bans. That is already in place.
Importantly, we have also put the whole of Iran under the foreign influence registration scheme. If an individual is working for the Iranian Government and being paid by them but has not declared it, they face potentially a five-year sentence if found and convicted. A range of measures are in place but, if passed by both Houses, this power will give the Secretary of State an additional power to take action against any state threat that the Secretary of State deems to be a threat to the United Kingdom. Let us get this Bill passed first. We will consider and assess all potential state threats, but I will not comment on the detail until I bring the measures forward.
Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)
My Lords, the virtue of the Bill is the flexibility that it gives the Secretary of State, allowing him or her—depending who is there—to take action swiftly on the basis of security advice. I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and my noble friend Lord Cryer that it is now time. I hope that both Houses support the Minister, because he has been very active in this. I understand why it has taken so long. There is a balance of risk. Once you have proscribed an organisation, it is much more difficult to get information to counter that organisation. However, on any measure, the balance is now weighed heavily on one side for proscribing the organisations that have been mentioned and giving the Secretary of State the power to step in swiftly to act against anyone who is a threat to this nation.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend, who has great experience in these matters. When this Government came to power in July 2024, we recognised—this is not a political point—that there were challenges in the legislation that needed to be addressed. We commissioned Jonathan Hall KC to do a thorough review of that legislation. He has reported back and we have accepted those recommendations.
This legislation, which I have been trailing to the House in discussions when pressed on this matter, has now been produced. It was introduced on 9 June. It will be considered in both Houses of Parliament. We hope that it will be done quickly. I cannot comment on how the legislation will be used, but the power is there for the Secretary of State to take considerations, if required, on any state threat. Once this power is passed, the United Kingdom will be a safer place, because we will be able to take stronger action against those who seek to do us evil.
Antisemitism
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, antisemitism is a crisis for all of us and the Government are absolutely clear that it is unacceptable and has no place in our communities. It manifests across society—in schools, synagogues, workplaces and beyond—and that is why it requires a whole-of-society response. We are acting across education, communities and institutions, tackling antisemitism in schools, strengthening guidance for public bodies and supporting local responses as set out in Protecting What Matters. We are strengthening policing and investing in record protective security funding to keep our Jewish communities safe.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the positive steps the Government are taking, because many of us are utterly depressed by the antisemitism we have seen, particularly in recent months. However, could I ask the Minister to acknowledge something on the positive side of this? I have talked on behalf of refugees in many synagogues and to Jewish organisations, and it is characteristic of them to support child refugees, most of whom are Muslim. Is that not a positive story that we should talk about?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend for making that important point. All communities need to feel safe in our country, and some of the recent incidents have meant that many communities do not feel safe now. My noble friend referred to the welcoming Jewish culture, and I was delighted to see that Jewish Culture Month has been supported so strongly, recognising the contribution of Jewish heritage and culture to our country.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an antisemitic hoax purporting to detail a Jewish plot for global domination. It was published in imperial Russia in 1903 and exposed as black propaganda, but it is still widely available and quoted as if it is true. Does the Minister agree that modern social media is the current version of this infamous propaganda? I heard what the Minister said, but what moves are the Government making to stop this dissemination of antisemitic lies?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
There is a huge responsibility on online platforms to tackle this dreadful spread of misinformation. It is way past the time for them to take their responsibility more seriously. We are all in favour of free speech, but when it creeps into misinformation, inciting violence and spreading the kind of long-held misinformation to which the noble Lord referred, they need to tackle that. We are using the full strength of the powers under the Online Safety Act to tackle illegal and antisemitic content online. That places duties on platforms and other services in scope to address illegal hate content and content that is harmful to all. It is not only very concerning for our Jewish community but extremely harmful to our young people.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, have the Government taken the advice of global Jewish scholars, who have concluded that Holocaust education and memorialisation have no effect and can be positively damaging? This is supported in reviews by University College London. Youth education should instead be about Jewish life and history, and specifically about antisemitism—about life, not death. We do not need another Holocaust memorial; we need a Jewish museum in London. We can use that £200 million to celebrate a thousand years of Jewish contributions to this country.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
The Government are firmly committed to supporting Holocaust education, but I am pleased to tell the noble Baroness that, this week, I met with Andy Pearce from UCL to talk about the programme of education that that institution is undertaking. He told me about the evidence-based approach it takes to that education and how it is going to tackle some of the gaps it is finding in young people’s knowledge. Jewish Culture Month, which I referred to earlier, is a clear way that we can celebrate and inform the wider community about the wonderful heritage of our Jewish community.
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.
Lord Gold (Con)
My Lords, while I welcome the Minister’s assurances about what needs to be done, I fear that the “how” is missing, particularly on education at school and university level. What is being done to ensure that our children are educated in knowing that the scourge of antisemitism must be stopped and that it is bad for the country as a whole? Over the last year or so, we have heard so often that action will be taken, but this action has to be effective. The sooner that happens, the better.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I absolutely agree with the noble Lord, and the Government are committing £7 million of funding to tackle antisemitism in schools, colleges and universities. We launched the tackling antisemitism in education innovation fund to help identify and tackle misinformation, improve media literacy and promote tolerant debate among our young people. We will also respond to the findings of the review led by Sir David Bell into antisemitism in schools and colleges. The review looks at whether the policies, processes and support are available to help our schools and colleges across England to identify and tackle antisemitism when it arises.
The Lord Bishop of Sheffield
My Lords, last autumn, Sheffield City Council entered into a faith and belief charter with local faith leaders, setting out our expectations of one another for mutual respect and kindness. Yesterday, I spoke to a rabbi who observed that antisemitism inevitably increases in seasons when society is more divided and polarised, and decreases when the culture of our common life is kind. Does the Minister agree with me that faith charters, such as the one in Sheffield, play a vital role in fostering precisely the virtues of kindness and mutual respect that counter the evil of antisemitism, among other things?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I commend the work being done in Sheffield to promote tolerance between faiths. It is important that we do that. The problems do not lie in people in our communities getting together; they lie with those who want to cause division and hatred between communities. If we work more to bring faiths together in communities, so that we properly understand that we all have more in common than divides us, when people get together they will support each other and we will see a wonderful synergy between them. I hope there will be more of the type of charter to which the right reverend Prelate referred.
Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath (Lab)
My Lords, the Community Security Trust recorded 3,700 antisemitic incidents in 2025, including 1,500 online incidents and 984 involving Holocaust denial, Nazi glorification or Holocaust distortion. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that social media platforms are no longer passive hosts of hatred but active accelerants of radicalisation, conspiracy theories and anti-Jewish incitement? What further steps are being taken to ensure that rising antisemitism and racism is challenged online?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I have set out some steps already, but DSIT Ministers are also closely engaged with the Jewish leadership community, social media platforms and Ofcom to identify where we can go further to tackle antisemitic content online. It is important that we do this and that we make sure that Ofcom, the independent regulator, is also using its information gathering against services that fail to comply.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
My Lords, is not one of the dangers of discussing antisemitism today that we still think about the problem coming from the far right? Increasingly, however, virulent antisemitism in our society comes from an unholy combination of the far left and Islamist fundamentalism. Does the Minister share my concern that too many individuals who were rightly thrown out the Labour Party for antisemitism have been recycled into a new political home in the Green Party? Does she agree that no responsible political party should provide a home for antisemites, yet alone give them a green light?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
Wherever hate speech and division come from, they should not be tolerated and must be tackled. Whatever institutions we are thinking about, including our public bodies and those in our political environment, we must not tolerate antisemitism, any form of hate speech or any speech that wants to divide our communities. That is not the right way to go and we have seen the terrible consequences of that in recent days. We must all work to make sure that our communities are cohesive and stick together.
Misinformation: Social Market Foundation Report
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Baroness Berger
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the Social Market Foundation report No news is bad news: The hidden threat of unchecked local misinformation, published on 8 June.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Leong) (Lab)
My Lords, the Government recognise the harmful impact of misinformation and the vital role of trusted local journalism in upholding democratic accountability. We continue to monitor emerging evidence, including the Social Market Foundation’s report. The Online Safety Act requires platforms to tackle illegal content and content harmful to children, including misinformation and disinformation. Alongside regulation, we are strengthening trusted information sources and media literacy through our Protecting What Matters strategy and DSIT’s “You Won’t Know Until You Ask” campaign.
Baroness Berger (Lab)
My Lords, new analysis from the Social Market Foundation has found that more than one in four news-related posts on X are misinformation, and this proportion is rising sharply during election periods. Fake news spiked by one and a half on Facebook during the recent local election. We know that more people are increasingly consuming their local news from social media. This spread of false information is now a direct threat to our democratic process. I listened carefully to my noble friend the Minister in his response, but what more can be done to tackle this to ensure that our elections are not being compromised?
Lord Leong (Lab)
My Lords, my noble friend raises an important point. The Online Safety Act captures disinformation intended to disrupt elections when it constitutes an electoral offence, including foreign interference, incitement of violence against candidates and false statements about personal character. The Defending Democracy Taskforce, led by DSIT, works closely with government agencies, regulators and online platforms, particularly during recent elections, to improve preparedness, promote trustworthy information sources, and protect the integrity and resilience of our democratic process.
Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)
My Lords, could the Minister tell me what work is being done to protect Black and Afro-Caribbean communities in particular from misinformation online? One of the most egregious examples of this was that, during the Covid period, Black communities were encouraged to believe that we were immune to Covid because we have melanin in our skin. We are under particular attack from fake doctors and all manner of fake people online. What work is being done for that very vulnerable community to defend it from disinformation and misinformation?
Lord Leong (Lab)
The noble Lord raises a point that is close to my heart. We have to protect every community, not just the Black or Asian community or any other minority community. Misinformation is the sharing of false information without the intent to cause harm, whereas disinformation involves the deliberate creation or dissemination of falsehood to mislead, manipulate and undermine public trust. For such breaches of the law, including what the noble Lord has mentioned, there are clear legal powers to investigate and prosecute offences. The Online Safety Act imposes a duty on platforms to mitigate illegal content and protect users from harmful online activity.
Baroness Teather (LD)
My Lords, the SMF report, referenced earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Berger, recommends expanding the BBC’s Local Democracy Reporting Service as a countermeasure to news deserts and fake news, which seems even more urgent after the shocking violence we have seen this week. Will the Government commit to ensuring that the BBC has additional funds to expand the LDR service and make it a condition of expansion that local independent publishers are prioritised over large regional corporates, which currently have more than 80% of LDR contracts?
Lord Leong (Lab)
Local media plays a vital role in informing citizens, strengthening democratic accountability and fostering cohesive communities. We have provided funding of up to £12 million through our local media action plan, which aims to support a healthy and plural local media sector right across the country. It will help local newsrooms innovate and adopt sustainable business models for the digital age, while encouraging the production of high-quality and trustworthy journalism on which communities can rely, particularly at a time when misinformation and disinformation pose growing challenges.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, the Social Market Foundation report shows that misinformation flourishes particularly where conventional news has withdrawn from the market. Could the Minister consider ways in which schools might be encouraged to get their older students involved in producing local newspapers? For instance, covering local council meetings would be a fantastic education in politics and civil affairs.
Lord Leong (Lab)
Absolutely. Media literacy is essential for helping children, young adults and adults to identify, question and challenge misinformation online. My 19 year-old daughter and her friends are constantly online and, luckily for them, they really are now able to differentiate between correct information and misinformation. In March, DSIT published its three-year media literacy action plan to strengthen critical thinking and online resilience across society. In February this year, we launched a pilot campaign and the Kids Online Safety website to support parents and carers. Alongside this, the Government are committed to strengthening media literacy in the updated national curriculum, following the independent curriculum assessment review.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, it is not just about elections; social media exposes under-16s to relentless misinformation. It distorts their understanding of reality, fuels anxiety and fear, and normalises hateful or dangerous ideas. My noble friend Lord Bailey mentioned health misinformation. A ban would give children vital protection during a key developmental stage and support parents and schools in teaching critical thinking first. Yet another country, Canada, has recognised the seismic problem today. Why are the Government taking so long to act?
Lord Leong (Lab)
I am sure the noble Earl is very much aware of what the Government are doing. We have said that we will collate information and make a decision on banning social media. I am sure he will know that we are putting that in place, and further progress will be made very soon. Let me be absolutely clear: we have to make a distinction between misinformation and disinformation, and sometimes there is interchangeability between the two descriptions. We have to be absolutely sure about this. Sometimes, we may not like what is published, but it is not disinformation. We have to ensure that we get the category right.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a trustee of the charity Full Fact, which produced an annual report this week entitled A System Under Strain: Strengthening the UK’s Democratic Information Environment. Would my noble friend the Minister agree that the UK needs to treat the information environment as critical democratic infrastructure? Would he further agree that this requires clearer institutional co-ordination, stronger accountability for platforms and AI systems, better visibility for high-quality public interest information, and investment in public resilience?
Lord Leong (Lab)
Those who knowingly peddle misinformation and disinformation erode trust, poison public debate and undermine the very fabric of a decent democratic society. They are no friends of free speech or accountability. Deliberately spreading falsehood for political, financial or malicious gain weakens confidence in our institutions and fuels division and hostility. That is why this Government are determined to strengthen democratic resilience, uphold truth and transparency, and take robust action against unlawful online harm.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, once people get into the rabbit hole of disinformation or misinformation, the algorithms keep contributing to and multiplying the problem. Is it an option to look at the Government legislating that, every so often, the large tech companies have to press an “algorithm set to zero” button, which would mean that people are exposed to other information?
Lord Leong (Lab)
My Lords, algorithms can amplify sensational or misleading content at speed and scale, often without any transparency or accountability, as the noble Lord said. That is why the Government, through the Protecting What Matters strategy, are exploring measures to give users greater control over algorithmic recommendations and online content feeds. The Online Safety Act imposes duties on platforms to assess and mitigate risks arising from systems and processes. Technology must serve the public interest, not undermine democratic and social norms.
Infant (Born Alive) Protection Bill [HL]
Regulated Professions (Freedom of Speech) Bill [HL]
Welfare Reforms and Youth Unemployment
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Lord Evans of Rainow
That this House takes note of the economic implications of the Government’s approach to welfare reforms and the current levels of youth unemployment.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Younger on his 15 years’ service on the Front Bench. He was an outstanding public servant and is very much missed in your Lordships’ House.
All of us can remember our first job and the moment we got our first pay cheque—or, depending on how old you are, pay packet: cash paid in a little brown envelope with holes in it. My father was a wages clerk, and he always told me to open it instantly and count how much was in it. My first pay packet was £10 and I bought myself sweets, clothes and Airfix models. Then I moved on to working in my local pub, the Farmers Arms in Poynton, as a glass collector and bottle washer—hospitality and retail.
High streets and the NEET issue are inseparable. Hospitality and retail provide jobs in every high street in the UK. Hospitality and retail jobs are part of the answer to youth unemployment. Your first job is your first step. With businesses struggling with increased costs and additional taxes, they have been forced to cancel recruitment plans, cut staff hours and, in the worst cases, close. This has acutely affected part-time, entry-level and first jobs, feeding directly into today’s NEET crisis.
Let us look at some economic data and facts. Nearly 1 million young people between the age of 16 and 24 in the UK, one in eight, are NEET—not in education, employment or training. At the end of 2025, that figure was registered as 957,000 young people. If they formed a city, it would be the third largest in the UK, larger than cities such as Leeds, Glasgow and Cardiff.
This is a long-term issue, as over the last 25 years the NEET rate has fallen below 10% only during the Covid-19 pandemic, while at the end of 2024 it reached the highest level in a decade, 13.2%. The UK has a higher-than-average rate of young adults who are NEET compared to similar countries in the EU and the OECD. The EU average for 15 to 24 year-olds was 9% NEET. The UK used to be around the EU average, but now only Romania has a higher NEET rate. France had a similar NEET rate when it entered the Covid pandemic in 2020, but it is now lower. Denmark’s NEET rate for 15 to 24 year-olds was 8.4%. The Netherlands is currently around 4.1%. The UK has gone from being average to being an outlier.
In the early 2010s, most NEET young people were unemployed, seeking employment and ready to start. Now only 43% are. The other 57% are economically inactive. This is driven most by an increase in inactivity among men since the Covid pandemic. Six in 10 NEET young people today have never had a job, going up from four in 10 in 2005.
The duration that a young person is NEET makes a big difference on returning to employment. Some 65% of those who are NEET for less than a year return to employment the following year, but only 25% of those who are NEET for more than a year do so. While there are 7 million more jobs in the UK than in 2000, the number of workers who are under 25 has fallen. Young people have gone from making up one in seven workers to one in nine. At the turn of the millennium, 63% of young people were in work, but now it is barely 50%. In contrast, the employment rate for 25 to 64 year-olds rose from 74% to 80% over the same period. Unemployment among young people was 9% in 2022. It is now 16%. More than 250,000 young people have been unemployed for over six months, the highest number since 2015.
The Young People and Work interim report, the Milburn review, estimated that the NEET rate could increase to over 16%, or more than 1.25 million young people, within five years. Over the last decade, the proportion of those who say they are NEET due to a work-limiting health condition has gone up by 70%. The proportion of NEET young adults who are inactive due to sickness or disability has gone up from 11% in 2005 to 28%. The proportion of disabled NEET young adults who cite mental health as their main health problem has risen from 24% in 2011 to 42% in 2025. All those who fell into ill health-related economic inactivity between 2017 and 2019, almost eight in 10, were still NEET more than two years later.
A young person who first claimed health and disability benefits in 2019 is one-third more likely to be NEET five years later than someone who first claimed in 2010. Between 2010 and 2020, the proportion of young people leaving disability benefits within five years dropped by 40%. Today, around seven in 10 young people claiming a health and disability benefit are still claiming a decade later.
The Milburn review found that only one in five NEET young people in England are getting meaningful employment support from the welfare system. Around half the young people in the UK do not claim benefits and so are hidden from the system. Of those who claim benefits, only one-third get meaningful support in finding employment, and these are often those who face the least barriers to work. Almost half of those who first claimed a health and disability benefit aged 16 to 24 are not in work or education 15 years later.
A young person who first claimed health and disability benefits in 2019 is 34% more likely to be NEET after five years than someone who first claimed in 2010, but this is different from what those surveyed for the Milburn review claimed they wanted. In a survey carried out for that review, 64% of NEET young people said they wanted to find a job or an apprenticeship, and 19% wanted to enter education or training. Of the young people who are claiming disability or health benefits and were surveyed by the Milburn review, 90% are working and 49% believe that they could work, either now if the right support was available or in the future if their health improved. Only 32% feel that they will not be able to work again.
This is not what the system supports. Less than half of the total £8 billion currently spent on key benefits for young people aged 16 to 24 has any participation support or requirement attached to it. It is an issue that affects the whole system. More than 4 million people claim universal credit, with no requirement to look for work. In 2024-25, DWP spent less than £0.2 billion on funding employment support programmes for young people, plus a share of the £1.4 billion spent on jobcentres, which support all ages.
The Milburn review estimated that, in 2024-25, £25 was spent on benefits for young people for every £1 on employment support for them. The amount of money spent on PIP for young people alone is expected to rise from £3.2 billion to £6.5 billion by 2031-32. The Milburn review estimated that, if the spend on DWP employment support stays at the levels currently funded through the youth guarantee, by 2030-31, for every £1 spent on employment support for young people, around £10 will be spent on welfare support for them.
The Milburn review estimates that the cost to the 45% of today’s NEET 24 year-olds who have never had a job will be almost £300,000 in earnings over the course of their lifetime. Their cost to the state could be up to £240,000. The estimated direct total potential output lost due to NEET 18 to 24 year-olds is £38 billion, and the estimated scarring impact on output is £63 billion. The estimated forgone tax revenue for 18 to 24 year-olds who are NEET is £3.2 billion and the estimated scarring forgone revenue is £10.8 billion. The cumulative annual cost to the UK of almost a million NEET young people is £125 billion. The UK’s welfare expenditure is set to rise by £18 billion this year, up to around £333 billion. That is an eye-watering figure, given that we need to spend more on defence and elsewhere.
When I was a Member of Parliament in the other place during the coalition Government, the Conservatives’ approach, working together with the Liberal Democrats, achieved some significant thresholds. Workless households fell to a record low; there were over half a million fewer children growing up in workless homes; youth unemployment was cut in half; and £20 billion was saved from the annual welfare bill. OBR analysis concluded that UK government policy reduced social security spending by £19.6 billion in 2015-16 alone, relative to the 2010-11 baseline. That shows how, by working together cross-party, savings can be made that are fair to the recipients of welfare but also fair to those taxpayers who have to pay for it.
What about the employers who will employ young people? Make UK, the manufacturers’ representative association, has set out a range of challenges, from an employer perspective, that are making it more difficult to recruit, train and retain young workers. It cites overall employment costs as the most significant concern for manufacturers in 2026, as overall hiring appears to be slowing as a result of higher costs. There are constraints on apprenticeships, with a lack of the right local provision, while increasing training and employment costs are limiting employers’ capacity to offer apprenticeship opportunities. On wider skills and technical education, there is insufficient exposure to vocational and technical routes, while lack of employer engagement from schools is limiting awareness and understanding of skilled employment opportunities for young people in sectors such as manufacturing. Consistently high increases in both the national living wage and national minimum wage and their age-based rates, plus the proposed reduction in the national living wage age threshold to 18, mean restricting opportunities for young people. On labour market regulation and the Employment Rights Act 2025, measures such as the right to guaranteed hours may limit opportunities for young people to be employed flexibly.
At the beginning of my speech, I mentioned hospitality and retail, which cite the tax burden that recently fell upon the sector. Since the 2024 Budget, the hospitality sector has been battling an increase of £3.4 billion in annual costs and, more recently, an existential crisis in business rates. Hospitality has been disproportionately and repeatedly hit with taxes by successive Budgets. The sector has accounted for nearly half of all job losses in the UK since the Budget, confirming that it is the hardest hit by tax increases. Hospitality is the biggest employer of young people, with 39% of its workforce being 16 to 24 years old, by far the highest of any sector. Young people have typically been able to rely on a job in their local high street as their first job, and job losses in the hospitality sector affect them most acutely.
The changes to employer national insurance contributions brought in at the 2024 Budget are costing the hospitality sector £1 billion annually. Employment costs hit every part of the workforce, but particularly young people. A student working 14 hours at the weekend would mean £1,140 more in employment costs. Last year saw a 25% year-on-year drop in summer jobs, evidencing the loss of job opportunities for young people. High employment costs have had a knock-on effect in limiting job opportunities for young people and reduced footfall in the high streets. High-cost employment is high-risk employment; hospitality offers many people their first job and is a vital first step on the career ladder for many young people. The Government must de-risk businesses employing the least trained and least experienced in the economy, by reducing employment costs and ensuring that part-time and temporary work is affordable for businesses to offer.
Job losses in the hospitality and tourism sector are collateral damage to the Government’s NEET mission. The industry is leading the way, providing 25% of all entry-level jobs. Will the Government rethink any fiscal measures that threaten further job losses in hospitality and elsewhere to provide accessible jobs for everyone, everywhere? Why was hospitality not included in the Government’s industrial strategy? Again, that would have helped young people gain good-quality apprenticeships.
Finally, we are still awaiting the Government’s response to the 2025 Lords report on social mobility, which was completed in December last year. The Government should have reported back by February this year. With exceptional delays, if a response is likely to take longer than two months, the responsible government department must write to the specific committee, explaining the delay and providing a revised timetable. With this in mind, can the Minister take this opportunity to ask her departmental officials to update your Lordships’ House on the Government’s response to this important Lords report on social mobility, which is highly relevant to all those NEETs who are no longer or have not started in the workplace? I beg to move.
Lord Walker of Broxton (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Evans, and I congratulate him on securing this debate. I must declare an interest as the executive chairman of Iceland Foods.
Hanging on the wall in our boardroom is a framed version of the company’s guiding values. It proclaims just four things: Simplification, Focus, Urgency and Accept Reality. There is also a framed picture of a cartoon, in which half a dozen people are sitting round a board table and the chairman is saying:
“Instead of risking anything new, let’s continue our slow decline into obsolescence”.
Business success is not about being ruthless; we are always in the Sunday Times list of best companies to work for. It is about being a business that can thrive, grow, adapt, change to circumstances and move quickly to outfox the competition. In doing so, wealth and jobs are created, taxes are paid and society benefits.
As I said in my maiden speech, I support the Labour Party, not the “Benefits Party”: a party that promised to be pro-growth, pro-business and on the side of the builders, not the blockers. Yet hard truths must be spoken, because we cannot keep kicking the can down the road.
We must urgently reform the welfare system so that the safety net catches those who truly need it, not those who choose it as a lifestyle. But let us jettison the worn-out stereotype of who constitutes the biggest drain on our benefits system. We should have the courage to challenge the pensions triple lock. It is mathematically unsustainable, politically untouchable and profoundly unfair: we all know it. As for the epidemic of youth unemployment, it is a tragedy that will be made worse by the challenges of AI but also because the reality is that incentives to work are diminishing.
The bottom line is this: we will cure the problem only by growing the economy. It really is that simple. I was happy to support Labour in 2024 precisely because it promised a growth-first mission. Yet I have to confess that progress has been slower than I imagined, and in my short time working within No. 10 as the cost of living champion, I have been disappointed to find out how hard it actually is to get stuff done, a frustration that I know the Prime Minister shares. I recently presented a comprehensive report to No. 10, setting out practical steps that could be taken immediately to ease the pressures facing many households, including young people. The report focuses on energy debt relief, winter energy affordability, faster support payments, action on consumer rip-offs and reform of punitive debt collection. These recommendations need to be translated into urgent action; let us see what No. 10 does with it.
On the broader stage of the national economy, we need to break out of the endless cycle of consultations and procrastination and actually get stuff done. To grow the economy, the Government need to be more business friendly. It is only business that creates wealth and jobs and pays tax. I repeat: it is only business that can grow the economy. If time permitted, I could list 100 things the Government could do today to help businesses prosper, thereby driving down youth unemployment and reducing the need for welfare. But in brief, my recommendation is: put those two framed pictures we have at Iceland’s HQ in every single office within government. Simplicity, focus, urgency and accepting reality are the proven keys to success, and that really would be trying something new. The hour is late, the stakes are high and it is time to choose. Adapt and thrive, or drift and die.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Walker of Broxton. He has a huge amount of practical advice but, as he said, we cannot keep kicking the can down the road. Youth unemployment, he said, was a tragedy, and I agree with him. We have seen it rise in recent times. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Rainow, for enabling us to hold this debate, which is timely in the context of the Milburn review.
First, welfare support should not be removed from young people if there is no work for them to do. Young people do want to work; they do not prefer to live on benefits. I have been a member of two Select Committees reporting in recent years on youth unemployment. I chaired the Youth Unemployment Committee that reported Skills for Every Young Person in November 2021. It had been the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, from whom we shall hear shortly; I look forward to that. We identified a huge skills mismatch between the needs of employers and the qualifications of young people leaving school. We identified deficiencies in the digital skills of young people. We were concerned by the narrowness of the national curriculum. We saw the need for more technical and vocational education and more apprenticeships for school leavers. We understood the importance of work experience and the capacity of employers to meet demand.
I was then a member of the committee chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, which late in 2024 produced a report, Think Work First, on the transition from education to work for young disabled people. We know from Mencap that 86% of young people with a learning disability want a job. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, said that the report provided a blueprint for the new Government to implement their manifesto commitment to getting more young disabled people into work, and to bridge the gap between education and work for them. Two key proposals were supported internships and better career support in schools, to which I think we should add more face-to-face assessments for those being interviewed for personal independence payments and the decisions around that.
What has happened? We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Evans, that more than 1 million are not in education, employment and training and the number is growing. Youth unemployment today stands at 16.2%. The long-term impact of Covid, the rise of AI and the lack of entry-level jobs all add together to make the picture worryingly bleak. Crucially, half of those not in education, employment and training have never worked. Yet the cost of youth unemployment is £125 billion in benefit payments and lost tax revenues taken together. DWP statistics show that for every £25 spent on benefits, only £1 is spent on helping young people into work; I find those to be astonishing figures. I have concluded that the DWP is too centralised: we need to devolve now to combined authorities and mayors and to give them a clear responsibility to deliver a reduction in NEETs and a real increase in youth employment in their areas.
We can compare ourselves with the Netherlands, where there is stronger vocational education and better, more targeted financial support for business. There is a work experience system and a welfare system that promotes engagement by young people. Municipal authorities, not central government, run welfare programmes.
The noble Lord, Lord Walker of Broxton, was very helpful about the need to support employers. The Government’s youth guarantee is good but it needs to be part of a package of tax incentives, and the truth is that the national insurance rise has been a significant disincentive. To conclude, too many young people are leaving school without the skills that they need to succeed or that employers need. Support through coaching is insufficient. I remember our taking evidence from young people who said that the jobcentre saw them as statistics. The jobcentre’s objective was to get the young person into a job, whether or not that job was suitable for them or might lead them to a career. We have to get coaching of individual young people so much better.
Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and a particular pleasure to hear the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Walker. I could not agree more with almost everything he said. I declare my interest as a retired member of a farming family in Somerset, and I will talk about rural youth unemployment.
Our rural youth has special problems, mostly to do with transport and the distances involved. The great question for the rural young is: how do I get to a job without a set of wheels? There is no other way to get to a job at 7.30 am in a place that is 10 miles away without your own set of wheels. But how do I get a set of wheels without the money from my first job? It is a Catch-22. The simple answer is that you lend the youngster a moped. There used to be hundreds of these Wheels to Work schemes around England doing just that. After a short training session, the youngster was lent a moped free of charge; after six months in work, they had to give it back and get their own set of wheels. The scheme was funded by local authorities and the DWP, but then local authorities ran out of money, as we all know, and the urban-based DWP simply did not get it. It did not get the fact that these schemes cost less per head than the social security benefits otherwise payable to these youngsters, who if they had been helped into work would probably never trouble the welfare state again for the rest of their lives. Sadly, nearly all these Wheels to Work schemes have died.
These schemes help youngsters get to training courses, and that is a problem in itself. Technical colleges can be 15 to 20 miles away, so now most aspiring youngsters have to cadge beds from their fellow pupils living in the town, sofa-hopping until their welcome runs out. Sometimes, it is easier just to launch yourself into some sort of self-employment. Rural England has twice as many self-employed people as a percentage than urban England, and some counties—my own county of Cornwall, for instance—have five or six times as many. We are an enterprising crowd, but we could really benefit from help, training and advice.
I came across a scheme at Loch Lomond, which I think should be replicated all around the country. Youngsters applied to the national park authority, which organised tuition classes, paid for by the youngsters themselves. It was simple stuff, such as budgets, cash flows and marketing, but important if you want to earn your own money by mending bikes or computers, fitting IT routers or cleaning windows. Helping a percentage of the rural workforce to earn their own money rather than draw the dole must make a difference, both to them and to the Treasury.
Small rural family businesses have always tried hard to give local youngsters a start in life. These businesses have always been and felt part of their community, so it is ingrained in their ethos. But whereas in 2020 employing a 21 year-old cost £17,000 per annum, now, in 2026, it costs £29,600, and no small business can afford to employ an untrained 21 year-old at that price. Who loses? The 21 year-olds, of course. Just when they are on the springboard of a working life, it collapses beneath them. The other loser is the Treasury, because it has to pay benefits to these now unemployed 21 year-olds, as opposed to receiving probably their lifelong payments of tax.
I will stop there. We are an enterprising lot in rural Britain. We have many more businesses per head than the towns. Our youngsters would love to join this world of work, but they need that extra help to enable them to do so.
The Lord Bishop of Leicester
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Rainow, for securing this debate and to all taking part. Noble Lords may differ on the diagnosis but I think the whole House shares the same concern for the young people behind these figures.
I begin by noting that none of us likes to be labelled, and the use of acronyms to refer to people is even more disconcerting. Each young person is unique and precious, whatever their circumstances, and their dignity must be at the heart of our concerns. I also want to push back on the narrative which we often see in the media—that the rise in young people who are not in education, employment or training reflects a generation that has no appetite for work. The evidence simply does not bear that out.
Research by the Learning and Work Institute shows that the vast majority of young people who are not in education or training—84%—had clear career or educational aspirations. Only 6% said they did not want to find work. Nor is it a case of unrealistic aspirations. Only 4% said they were waiting for an opportunity in a specific sector, whereas 17% said they planned to find any job they could. Similarly, research by the King’s Trust showed that one in five young people who are not in education, employment or training are applying for jobs every single day. Almost one-third have applied for jobs they did not even want, out of sheer desperation to get a foothold on the labour market. One in six had been rejected from more than 50 positions, and more than half said they feel embarrassed about not having a job. That is not a picture of idleness. It speaks of a generation knocking on doors that are just not opening for them, because more than half of so-called entry-level vacancies now demand prior experience—on average, nearly three years of it.
We should be especially wary of stigmatising young people and suggesting they have a poor work ethic or a lack of realistic ambition, because the more that narrative takes hold, the more reluctant employers will be to take a chance on them. We will, in other words, perpetuate the problem which we want to solve.
If the problem is not a lack of work ethic then the solution is not necessarily tough love. It is, at least in part, confidence, coaching and a community that believes in them. I want to recommend a model that does precisely this: the Spear programme, run by the charity Resurgo and delivered through local churches. Spear began in 2003, at St Paul’s Church in Hammersmith, as a response to the unemployed young people on its own doorstep. It has since grown to some 18 centres across the country and works with over 1,000 young people each year, all of whom face multiple significant barriers to work—from mental health issues to criminal history and adverse childhood trauma. The programme involves six weeks of group work and one-to-one coaching that tackles the psychological barriers as much as the practical ones—confidence, mindset and resilience—alongside CV writing, interview practice and job search skills. It is followed by up to a year of ongoing support, as each young person moves into work or education and, crucially, stays there. Around three-quarters of those who complete the programme are in work or training a year later—a figure I am sure noble Lords will agree is remarkable.
What I want to draw out for the House from this model is the importance of a supportive community in helping marginalised young people into work and the importance of a trusted adult to journey with each young person. As Ministers build out the youth guarantee, I urge them to recognise that the availability of placements on its own is not enough for young people who face multiple barriers to work. Many young people need the intensive personalised confidence-building support of organisations such as Spear to provide for and help them as they seek to find placements. The positive ripple effects of these will be generational, passed down to their children, as well as being important for wider society as a whole.
Baroness Shephard of Northwold (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Evans of Rainow on introducing this important and timely debate.
Successive Governments have had to deal with rising levels of youth unemployment for a range of reasons, including economic shocks, deindustrialisation and changing patterns of demand. I recall from earlier years, as no doubt other noble Lords do, initiatives such as youth training schemes, training and enterprise councils, and new qualifications such as NVQs—not perfect solutions, but constructive and collaborative. They involved close working between government, both national and local, along with employers, further and higher education, and training providers.
Today, we have the aftermath of Covid, the world economic situation, war, the influence of social media and the implications of AI—uncertainty on all fronts. The Government need all possible co-operation from business and employers, but that is not what they have provided, which is higher national insurance costs, increased national minimum wage and business rates, new workers’ rights legislation and more regulation. These are disincentives for business stability and expansion. Employers are reluctant, even unable, to take on more staff to provide those vital first job openings for any staff they may not be able to retain. There is, as has already been pointed out, a chronic shortage of part-time job opportunities for young people, such as paper rounds or part-time work in cafés and shops, making progression to full-time work even harder for the young. These issues are difficult enough, but other government policies are exacerbating the grievous situation, especially for NEETs, as exposed by Alan Milburn’s recently published report.
The complete chaos and uncertainty caused by this Government inflicting an uncertain future on local government has already been mentioned in this debate. Local government is a provider for those with special educational needs, a key further education provider and a partner with the business sector in apprenticeship and training schemes. How can collaborative partnership proceed when there is currently no clear future for the whole sector, as pointed out in the Milburn report? As has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, there are particular problems for rural communities, where there is less visible aspiration and transport is expensive and often non-existent. The Government’s apparent hostility to such communities, as shown by them loading them with tax after tax on their livelihoods and their very future, provides a bleak landscape for unemployed young people.
As I have said, rising youth unemployment has been a problem faced by successive Governments, but some of the facts revealed in Alan Milburn’s unflinching report on NEETs are mind blowing. NEETs account for one-quarter of all pupils and half of all those ending up on benefits in their late 20s. In this country, we spend 25 times as much on benefits for NEETs as we do on helping them back into work. That cannot continue. As the noble Lord, Lord Walker, has already pointed out, Alan Milburn has described the situation as “scandalous”. His report has this clear message to the Government: if the Government’s
“priority is to create young people’s jobs, then it’s got to create the right conditions for employers to do so”.
So far, they have not.
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)
My Lords, I very much welcome the opportunity in this debate to explore why youth unemployment is so high in our education system. It is deplorable that we have 1 million young people aged 16 to 24 who have never had work and who, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester said, want to work. The education system has failed. This debate gives us a chance to examine what is wrong with our education system and secondary schools.
The problem with our secondary schools, and the reason why unemployment is so much lower in Europe, is due to the fact that, in Europe, all the countries that my noble friend Lord Evans mentioned teach technical and vocational education to students aged under 16. Our bog-standard comprehensives do not teach students at all, and they leave school with no employability skills. It is not their fault.
When you want to know what employability skills are, you should look at the information that the Nuffield Foundation has sent to all Peers for this debate because it lists employability skills. The first is collaboration; students at school should have experience of working in teams. The second is communication, so that students can persuade their future employer of what they have learned and how it has inspired them. The third is creative thinking: organising, planning, prioritising, problem-solving and decision-making. These are not taught in our secondary schools today. It is an indictment of Conservative Governments and Labour Governments that, since the turn of the century, they have not made any significant change in this, whereas in Europe there is lots of technical education for those aged under 16. That is why, 15 years ago, Lord Dearing and I created a new type of school, a university technical college, for 14 to 18 year-old children. Children who attend those schools leave with employability skills. That is what this country needs in a much greater area, and it is very disappointing that it is not developing at all quickly.
Just before the Government came into power, the unemployment rate in Britain was about 13%. Two and a half years later, it has gone up to 16%, and Alan Milburn thinks that it could well be much higher than that by the time of the next election. It therefore makes sense to consider what changes must be made to our education system.
Some 15 years ago, I developed with Lord Dearing a new type of school called a “university technical college” for 14 to 18 year-old students. We have 21,000 students. Last September, we had to turn 6,000 away because so many of our colleges are oversubscribed. Our unemployment rate is not 15.8%; it less than 4%. That is because 20% of our students become apprentices, whereas that figure is only 3% in an ordinary school. You must realise that heads of schools do not want to encourage apprenticeships because every person they lose to an apprenticeship costs them £6,000 in funding, so they do not promote apprenticeships. Some 50% of our students go to university to study STEM subjects or the humanities. The rest get local jobs because they have worked with the companies that support them.
I believe that we should have many more of these technical schools. We had 300 technical schools in 1945, which were, in fact, abolished by snobbery. The technical schools that we have now are the best we have ever had, and I would like to see expansion. I would like 300 of them, but I am not going to have them, because no schools will be built in this country for about five or 10 years. We have therefore got to change the existing bog-standard comprehensives to include practical technical education. We have devised a scheme whereby we can insert a sleeve of technical education for 14 to 18 year-olds into every comprehensive. We would give advice and explain what equipment they need, the subjects they need to study, et cetera.
We have umpteen schools that now want a sleeve, where students choose whether they follow the technical route or the academic route. I am glad to say that the first of these sleeves will commence in Barrow-in-Furness this September. Currently, BAE Systems cannot recruit from Cumbria any students of the quality that it wants, but soon it will be able to. It costs £2.5 million to provide a sleeve, whereas building a new college would cost £25 million, so it is the cheapest and easiest way of improving technical education in our schools.
The Minister replying this afternoon likes UTCs—she has listed three of them—and the Secretary of State likes them too. Will they please therefore support the idea of the UTC sleeve for bog-standard comprehensives? That is the biggest and cheapest way that we can reduce unemployment.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Rainow, for this debate. Its urgency is exemplified by Alan Milburn’s important review of young people and work, which, as people have said, is brimming with shocking and scandalous revelations. Not only are 1 million young people aged 16 to 24 not in work or education, but 61% of NEETs are not even looking for a job, and Britain spends more on health and disability benefits for that age group than it does on apprenticeships.
Of course, there are lots of factors stacked up against the young, some of which we in Parliament are responsible for, including the counterproductive jobs tax that we have heard about and the consequences of uncontrolled mass migration distorting the labour market. However, we should be wary of suggesting that these are insurmountable external problems because that could fuel an exaggerated sense of grievance or fatalism among the young and a sense that there is nothing they can do to get a job and it is not their fault.
I agree with Alan Milburn that what is at stake is,
“more than an economic crisis, it is a moral one”.
However, I am a bit disappointed that the review does not dig deeper into reasons and solutions for why so many young people are detached from the world of work. I agree with the review’s argument for a participation-first welfare system, but the barriers to participation are not always external.
The moral question is why so many young people are alienated from participating per se, and why there is a seeming rejection of the work ethic. On this, I am definitely at odds with the right reverend prelate the Bishop of Leicester—it is not the first time I have been at odds with the Church, but there we go. In another recent report, Inside the Mind of a Young NEET, the authors note that
“Many young people told us they wanted to work but felt they could not immediately cope with 35 or 40 hours a week”—
cue a slew of proposals to offer part-time supported work opportunities, trial shifts and so on to help build confidence. But is that not pandering to low expectations and creating new dependencies? Do we not need to interrogate why past generations of young people grasped full-time work as an opportunity, a rite of passage to adulthood? Today, so many, too many, feel themselves unable to cope.
Similarly, employers report that it is younger employees who are most keen to work from home. They cite everything from travelling to and from work being too stressful, to anxiety arising from being forced to spend so many hours with strangers they have nothing in common with—otherwise known as fellow workers. Then there is the boss and work discipline; strict time-keeping and the expectation of productive outcomes are characterised as oppressive or even bullying. Rather than challenge such low levels of resilience, HR departments and policy experts attempt to reshape workplaces to accommodate demands.
Of course, I am generalising and caricaturing, a bit at least, and no doubt Alan Milburn would scold me, because he worries that it is too easy to tell the NEET story as being about a generation that is less resilient and more snowflakey. Perhaps I am victim-blaming, but I work with young people at the Academy of Ideas who I think are fantastic, and they and I share some worries about their generation. I fear that we, the grown-ups, are facilitating the internalisation of a victim narrative in the young, infantilising them and institutionalising a self-justification for non-participation—that they are too fragile to cope with the rigours of working, just too vulnerable to take responsibility for transcending challenges.
In this climate, it is unsurprising that one growing, normalised explanation for NEETdom is psychological illness. There is a well-documented huge surge of allegedly debilitating mental health conditions such as depression and neurodivergence. We accept these accounts of distress uncritically, and even without medical diagnosis. When we heard last year that 63,000 students went straight from university on to long-term sickness benefits, we might note that recently, Oxford University agreed to give 25% more exam time to students who said that they had ADHD, without any formal diagnosis. The university explained that seeking diagnostic documentation is an onerous administrative burden and a barrier to inclusion of disabled students.
I used to work in mental health, and back then we worried about the stigma of disability labels. Now, in an era of identity politics embraced by many politicians, identity labels afford privileges and entitlements, so the young are desperate to acquire medical labels and we reward them. Policymakers have also encouraged pathologising the ups and downs of everyday life. We have medicalised social media use as addictive, and academics issue trigger warnings on classic texts to prevent students suffering post-traumatic stress disorder from exposure to difficult or offensive content.
In fact, many of the worst habits exhibited by the young in relation to work can be traced back to us. Let us not forget, in lockdown we taught the young that health trumps everything—work, school and the economy. For me, welfare dependency is the tip of the iceberg. I am glad that we are examining the tip, but we have a lot further to go.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)
I remind the House that this is a time-limited debate. Any extra time Members take will be taken off the Front-Bench response.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Rainow, on securing this debate and on the largely non-partisan way in which he explained the problem.
I would love to see cross-party consensus on welfare reform, but if we are to get that, I totally agree with my noble friend Lord Walker that it has to examine the challenge of the ageing society and whether we can continue to support the pension triple lock and all the costs of NHS and social care, which, if we are not careful, produce great generational inequality in Britain. Something has to be done to address that.
On the Milburn report, first, I would like to say that it is brilliant. The way in which Alan Milburn and Pat McFadden are going about trying to get positive change in this policy area is an example that the rest of our Government here should follow. They are making a really powerful argument for change with compelling clarity, and we want more of this from our Government. They also make it clear that there are no simplistic solutions to this problem. I agree with Tony Blair that the Government made a mistake in putting up national insurance as a way of raising taxes—we should have done something else—particularly in lowering the threshold at which national insurance is paid, which hit low-paid starter jobs particularly hard. However, changing that is not going to change what is a very complex problem, as the Milburn report has outlined.
Part of this is a classic story of social exclusion, and the Government are doing a lot through Early Years to try to get more children school ready by five. The report demonstrates that it is children who are not school ready at five who are much more likely to be jobless at 18. We are doing good work there. There is also a problem of poor school attendance among the less able children. This is a question of education reform, as the noble Lord, Lord Baker, explained to us; we have to be better not just at training kids to pass exams but at giving them skills. The system is not well organised for that. However, it is a much bigger problem than social exclusion. After all, 30% of NEETs have good GCSEs, 20.1% have level 3 qualifications, and 15% have a degree, so it is not just a problem of social exclusion.
The most interesting part of the report, which was new to me, was the changing nature of the labour market and how the supply of entry jobs has gone down. This has not happened under the Labour Government in the last two years; it is much more of a long-term trend. We remember Norman Tebbit saying that you had to get on your bike to find a job. Nowadays, Milburn tells the rather pitiful story of young people who make hundreds of applications by email and typically do not even get an acknowledgement. So that is an issue.
We have to have more incentives for employers to provide apprenticeships, which have fallen by 35% since 2019. What the Government are doing there is right. We have to have an extended job guarantee, as we had in the early 1980s through the Manpower Services Commission. There are lots of ideas that need to be explored. This is one of the great social challenges of our time, and we must address it.
Lord Willetts (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Evans on his excellent introduction to this debate, full of relevant facts and analysis. Indeed, we at the Resolution Foundation—I declare an interest as its president—have tried to contribute to such an analysis. It is absolutely clear that this is a British problem. The NEETs rate in the Netherlands is 5%; in Britain it is 15%. This is not some pervasive problem of young people affected by social media. Other countries do better, and we should be able to raise our game. Part of the problem is simply the cost of employing young people. We have had some examples of those costs already, but it is worth recording that the minimum wage for young people this year is going up by 8.5%, compared with 4.1% generally. Does the Minister accept that the time has come to halt or pause the process of aligning young persons’ minimum wage rates with the wider adult population’s, because it is one of the factors driving the increase in unemployment?
There is more that we can do to lower the cost of employing people. Although there have been many references already to the Milburn review—an excellent document, brilliantly presented—I draw the attention of the House and the Minister to another report that has not had quite so much attention. It is the 27th occasional paper from the Social Security Advisory Committee, which came out in March, entitled The Influence of the Social Security System on Educational and Vocational Decision-making at Age 16. It is another very useful contribution to the debate and shows how, for households, the cost in benefits foregone of a 16 or 17 year-old going into an apprenticeship is really very considerable. I hope the Minister will look at that report alongside Alan Milburn’s.
There is already one very useful initiative, the youth guarantee, which guarantees a work placement or an apprenticeship for young people who are on benefits. It does appear to be effective. However, there are currently only 43,000 young people on it. It should be extended to young people who are not on benefits—we should remember that half of NEETs are not on any benefits—and to 22 to 24 year-olds. But this would cost money, and we absolutely cannot afford further increases in the total budget. I have been inspired by the interventions from the noble Lords, Lord Walker and Lord Liddle, because there is one obvious way of funding it: by getting rid of the pensions triple lock and linking pension payments to earnings. This would not be the tough regime we had under Margaret Thatcher, who I used to advise, when it was linked simply to prices, but we estimate that if we just said that pensions will rise with earnings, by the end of this Parliament that would save £650 million a year. What better use of that saving than instead shifting it towards young people who could gain from the guarantee?
When we look at how Britain compares so poorly with continental countries, the main gap, however, is not in employment but in people who are not participating in education and training. There is clearly a lot more we can do there. The apprenticeship levy has been captured by older workers and absolutely should be redirected to prioritise young people. Higher education can also make a contribution. It offers a large amount of vocational and technical education. It is very hard to measure this, but almost 80% of graduates in work say that they are directly using what they learned in higher education for their work, and graduate employment rates, at 88%, are significantly higher than employment rates among non-graduates, at 68%. Although there are, as we have heard, graduates who are NEET, they are far less likely to be NEET, so I ask the Minister, with her wide range of responsibilities, to recognise that higher education can be part of the answer, not part of the problem.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow in the wake of my noble friend Lord Willetts and to join others in commending my noble friend Lord Evans on choosing this highly topical subject for today’s debate. He and I both sat on the Social Mobility Policy Committee, which focused directly on NEETs and youth unemployment. Only the House of Lords would put three old Etonians on a social mobility committee, but I challenge anyone reading Hansard to identify who they were. Our work has been complemented, as others have said, by the Milburn interim review. I read all 217 pages over the Whitsun Recess. It is one of the finest reports I have ever read—evidence-based, balanced, clearly written, without any jargon, and with the author’s commitment to social justice shining through. The difficulty is that he has raised enormously high expectations for his final report, due in the autumn.
I will just contrast for a moment the Government’s approach to youth unemployment with that of social care. The Milburn review was announced in November last year, with a final report in early autumn—less than a year. The Casey review into social care was announced in January 2025, with a report expected in 2028. Adult social care has been kicked into touch.
I will pick up two points from the review, one mentioned by my noble friend Lord Willetts. The Milburn review said that the apprenticeship levy
“has been captured by employers upskilling existing workers rather than bringing in new ones”.
It makes the point that only 2% of apprenticeships actually go to NEETs. That is a distorted priority that the Government should urgently correct. The second point is one paragraph of Milburn that I thought encapsulated the whole problem:
“Less than half of the total £8.1 billion currently spent on key benefits for young people aged 16 to 24 years old has any participation support or requirements attached to it”.
It is the polar opposite of what a participation-first welfare system should be providing and means that more and more people are being trapped on benefits. He concludes:
“This is a catastrophic failure”.
The Milburn review and our Social Mobility Policy Committee report both point in the same direction: tackle youth employment locally. Milburn said:
“There is a strong case for local leadership to address the NEET crisis. Labour markets are local. Transport is local. Employer relationships are local … Strategic authorities are bodies that have huge potential to enact change”.
That reflects the recommendation of the Select Committee:
“We recommend that the Government takes note of the successful local partnerships working with those who are NEET … They should support local and combined authorities in endeavours to develop the leadership of such local initiatives”.
We concluded:
“The current local government restructure and the creation of mayoral combined authorities is an opportunity for Government to devolve the power and resources needed for those authorities to lead work, through local partnerships with schools, colleges, universities and employers and Skills England, to promote social mobility and address the acute NEET problem”.
We saw that working in practice when we visited Liverpool.
I end with a radical suggestion that takes those recommendations to a logical conclusion and builds on the point that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, made earlier. Pick as a pilot a mayoral authority such as Bristol and work out what the DWP would spend over the next 12 months on benefits for those aged 16 to 24. Give that sum—it is probably billions—as a lump sum to the mayor to work with the universities, the technical colleges and local employers, and challenge them to invest that money in new apprenticeships, work experience, training and voluntary work. Every claimant would of course keep the benefit to which they are entitled, but I believe that unlocking that budget in that way would have a major impact, by the end of the year, on the solution we all want—namely, more jobs for young people. Do the Government have the nerve to do this?
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I declare an interest as the patron of Career Connect. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Evans, for initiating this debate and welcome the opportunity to contribute on welfare reform and youth unemployment. Recent analysis from the Health Foundation highlights a significant change in the profile of young people who are not in employment, education or training. A decade ago, around a quarter of these young people reported a work-limiting health condition. Today, that figure is almost a half. Perhaps most strikingly, mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions are now among the principal barriers preventing many young people participating in education and employment.
These findings tell us something important about the challenge we face. Too often, debates about welfare and unemployment focus solely on economic incentives or labour market conditions. Important though these issues are, they tell only part of the story. For a growing number of young people, the challenge is not a lack of aspiration but a struggle with their health and well-being. As someone who spent many years working in schools, I know that these difficulties rarely emerge overnight. The young person who eventually leaves education without qualifications, confidence or a clear pathway into work often showed signs much earlier. The question for policymakers is whether we recognise those signs and provide support before any disadvantage becomes entrenched.
The evidence suggests that employment policy, health policy and welfare policy can no longer be treated as separate conversations. A young person experiencing poor mental health does not encounter these challenges in neat departmental categories. They experience them as barriers to learning, to work and to participation in society. That is why early intervention matters so greatly. Effective mental health support, strong pastoral care in schools and colleges, access to mentoring, high-quality careers advice, and opportunities for training and employment can make the difference for a young person between becoming disconnected from society and fulfilling their potential.
As we have heard from my noble friend Lord Shipley and others, perhaps we could learn lessons from elsewhere. Young people in the Netherlands report anxiety at much the same levels, yet the Dutch NEET rate is less than a third of ours. There, vocational education is prized, not patronised. The Dutch call it the foundation of their economy. Employers are involved from the classroom onwards and, by 19, more than half of Dutch young people have workplace experience. Here it is fewer than one in five. The Resolution Foundation estimates that matching the Dutch rate would mean 600,000 more of our young people earning and learning.
I welcome the youth guarantee, but it is built around claimants. Can the Minister tell us how it will reach the far larger group who are economically inactive and the 314,000 young people who claim nothing and are known to no service at all? Will it be sustained, or will it be another new initiative funded and then quietly wound down? Will the Government give every young person a statutory entitlement to meaningful work experience and face-to-face careers guidance, starting early and reaching those who need it most? Will they go further in rebalancing the apprenticeship levy towards young people entering work, while easing national insurance and business rate burdens on hospitality and high street employers who give so many of them their first job?
We should judge our success not merely by the number of people moved through a system but by the number of young lives put on a path to opportunity. Welfare reform must be about more than managing need; it must be about creating the conditions in which people can thrive. If we can help young people overcome the barriers that prevent them participating fully in education and employment, we will not only improve individual lives but strengthen our communities, reduce inequality and support economic growth. That is an objective which I hope can command support across this House.
Lord Grayling (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on today’s timely and important debate. I was Employment Minister back in 2010. We inherited a country in which unemployment was heading to 3 million, youth unemployment was close to 1 million and the system had deep flaws. We also inherited some good things, which have been lost over the years. I will set out some of the things that worked.
My noble friend rightly made the point that, over the decade that followed, we saw some significant improvements in relation to the number of children growing up in workless households and the level of youth unemployment. We achieved the lowest unemployment levels since the 1970s. Part of that was down to getting the economy right. The noble Lord, Lord Walker, is absolutely right about the need for growth; I hope he will use his position on those Benches to put pressure on the Government, with whom he clearly does not entirely agree, to change some of the things they are doing.
Three key elements are needed to get to grips with the issues in the welfare system. Clearly, there are big issues around education, as we have heard, and we have an Education Minister responding today, but I will focus on issues within welfare. First, there has to be a central element in the system that is face to face. In 2010, we inherited in the disability living allowance a system where people had largely self-referred. That cannot be right. We changed it, but I freely admit that under the last Government that was significantly lost during the pandemic. That needs to change—we need to get back to a situation where people cannot self-refer to benefits but are subject to challenge, question and assistance. They should not be able simply to enter the system and stay there.
The second thing that needs to happen is around activity. I very much welcome the youth guarantee, but the work programme we put in place after 2010 made a genuine difference. If Ministers look back at the official findings of the 2016 report that assessed its effectiveness, they will find that it was cost effective for taxpayers and highly effective for claimants. It required those who were stranded on benefits to get involved in significant programmes to do things and be subject to constant challenge. We need to make sure that that is a central part, so that no one is sitting at home doing nothing but they are getting out and doing things. The youth guarantee is positive, but it needs to be spread so that no one is left at home doing nothing.
How do you pay for that? The Minister needs to have a conversation with the Treasury about the DEL/AME switch. The way that worked was very simple: the money saved by getting people off benefits was used to pay for the programmes that helped them get there. If you keep somebody in work for a couple of years, they are almost certain to stay there. At that point, the Treasury generates a genuine saving, it becomes extremely high value for money for the taxpayer, and it deals with a long-term social issue. So I encourage Ministers to go back and look at the work programme, the DEL/AME switch and the innovative things that providers did. These private sector, yes, but also voluntary sector providers were brought into the network and the system by the previous Labour Government, and I commend them for that. There were some first-rate organisations and charities, some of which were quite close to people sitting on my Front Bench, and they did a first-rate job.
Thirdly, there have to be consequences and sanctions for those who will not participate. It is simply not good enough. I have sat in meetings, assessments and all kinds of processes where people were subject to help, challenge and assessment. I have seen at first hand how different people respond, including people with mental health challenges. It can be done, it can make a difference, and we can turn those lives around. However, if people will not engage, there must be consequences. They cannot expect simply to carry on drawing benefits while refusing to engage with the system. Again, part of that was lost during the pandemic. I say to Ministers that it is now time to put some of the sticks back in place alongside the carrots. The bloc of people who will not engage, but would benefit from doing so, must be brought into the system.
Ultimately, the welfare state should be a ladder up which people climb, not a place in which they live. All the evidence shows that, if people are on benefits long term, they are less healthy, die younger and are less happy. That cannot be good for any of us.
Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Evans, on securing this important debate. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester that young people want to work but, as we have seen from Alan Milburn’s report, they are being badly let down. Of course, if young people refuse to engage in work there should be sanctions, but that is very much the minority. There are 1 million young people out of work because they have no opportunities. You have to deal with that first and that should be the top priority. One in six is now unemployed—1 million. That is the highest rate in Europe apart from Romania’s. It is not because they are sitting at home refusing to engage. The rate is four times higher than in the Netherlands and twice as high as in Ireland. As Alan Milburn says, without urgent action it will soon be 1.25 million.
More than half of these young people have not had the opportunity to work at all. The number of entry-level jobs in shops, restaurants and pubs has halved in four years, not just over the last two years of this Government. Apprenticeships have collapsed in the last decade. A lot of the problem starts at school in that children who often miss school are four times more likely to end up out of work. A generation of young people have been let down at school and college, and now, when they cannot get an apprenticeship or a job.
When people say that young people are unemployed because of mental health problems, I think they have got it the wrong way round. It is no wonder they have mental health problems when they are left sitting at home on their phones all day, bored and with nothing to do. It is shocking that for every £1 helping a young person into work, £25 is spent on benefits. Why are we still bringing in so many plumbers, electricians, building workers and labourers from abroad when we could be training British young people to do these jobs? Why do we limit the number of nurse training places and import nurses from abroad when there are plenty of young women in places such as Dudley who would love to train to become nurses?
The whole country should be furious about youth unemployment, not just because young people’s lives are being ruined but because it is costing us all a fortune, and it will cost much more in the future. What is the Government’s political problem? In essence, it is that no one really knows what their objective is. What are they for? What is their driving mission and sense of purpose? They are not able to set out this narrative. Nobody really knows whose side the Government are on. Ministers, starting with the Prime Minister, should talk about this issue every single day. What, after all, is the point of a Labour Government if they are not tackling youth unemployment and making this the central issue?
This sounds trivial, but if I was the Prime Minister, I would put one of those massive electronic counters up in Downing Street showing the number of young unemployed people or the number of apprenticeships, and if it is not moving in the right direction, I would want to know why. That would focus the whole of the Government’s attention on this issue. How many apprentices are now working in the Civil Service? Every Cabinet Minister should double the number of young trainees in their department straightaway. Every quango, government agency and local authority should do that too, as should every local authority. The number of apprenticeships in local authorities has collapsed, but they could be taking on young people in building trades, parks, leisure centres, finance and admin. The NHS could be doing the same. I asked West Midlands Police why it did not have apprentices helping to look after the fleet of police cars. It said, “Oh, we couldn’t possibly do that”. I explained to them, “Well, if you’re not helping young people now, you’ll be arresting them in a few years’ time”. Companies and charities that get government contracts should be required to take on apprentices and trainees as part of the procurement process. Obviously, the Government should cut red tape and employment costs that prevent businesses taking on young people.
The noble Lord, Lord Baker, is right—and I have agreed with him for years on this—that we have to reform technical education so that young people specialise more at 14 and can learn practical skills for careers in construction, engineering and other industries. We should improve vocational courses in colleges so that students study full-time, like their counterparts doing A-levels, instead of just half the week, so that they would be ready for work or an apprenticeship when they leave.
In conclusion, obviously, all this would cost money, but it would cost a lot less than we are spending on the benefits system. When we are spending more on benefits than on education or defence, and when we have a generation of young people whose lives are being ruined, my view is not that we cannot afford to do this, it is that we cannot afford not to.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Evans of Rainow on securing this vital and timely, and very interesting, debate. Welfare is out of control and risks bankrupting the country unless serious action is taken soon. Let us consider the following figures from the Taxpayers’ Alliance to add to those cited by my noble friend and in the excellent Library Note. Between 2019 and 2025 in England, there was a 106 % increase in people claiming PIP—that was up to 3.5 million. Over the same period, there was a 139% increase in claims for the enhanced element of PIP, taking that to 1.75 million—by the way, they are all entitled to claim Motability cars.
That is unsustainable. I had to say that, although my purpose in speaking is to give a perspective from my time at Tesco. Retailers are amazing providers of first-time jobs, as we have seen recently from the new Marks & Spencer scheme. I also commend the ambition to increase the number of apprenticeships. I welcome the Government’s decision to reinstate the low-level foundation apprenticeships. These were abandoned some years ago, with a devastating impact on apprenticeship numbers.
However, my main concern is with the job guarantee, for which the Secretary of State this week announced bids for multiyear grants to delivery organisations. In my experience, taking youngsters into retail businesses, whether for job experience, internships or special schemes, is difficult. To be successful, it requires exceptional and experienced staff willing to mentor them, and corporate commitment to accept the hanging around and distraction of permanent staff—one sometimes gets the comment, “Never again”. The truth is that, for success, the scheme needs to reflect the reality of retail life. The youngsters need to turn up on time, pass their health and safety test, and be able do a full day’s work, which is appreciably more than the 25 hours a week reimbursable under the new scheme. It needs to be possible to terminate or suspend failing participants. The job guarantee criteria are for youths of 18 to 24 who have been on UC for six months and out of work for 18 months. This is not an easy cohort to deal with.
We are also talking about substantial government investment. How many job guarantee placements do the Government expect to find over the next three years, and how does that compare to their target of getting 90,000 into paid permanent employment? Bear in mind, as we have heard, the high cost of the minimum wage, NICs and the demands of the Employment Rights Act thereafter. More specifically, what does the Minister expect to be the cost per participant, and can that be value for money? Or will the beneficiaries, as so often with government schemes, be the consultants who are bidding for the work?
I fear we have both a supply-side problem, which I have described, and a demand-side problem, since, once they have been on benefits for 18 months, youngsters find it difficult to knuckle down to the kind of jobs that will be made available. My noble friend Lord Baker is right that schools are part of the problem. I agree we need a technical stream in comprehensives, and to learn from his brilliant experience with city technical colleges.
Having said that, in my time at Tesco, we pioneered a not dissimilar scheme for our regeneration stores, in tough places like Seacroft in Leeds and Beckton, near Newham. We took a group of long-term unemployed and got them into the new store teams ahead of opening. The DWP helped with the funding and many—crucially, not all—settled into fruitful careers in the business. The local MP, now Sir Stephen Timms and a DWP Minister, will remember the scheme and it may have some lessons for the new guarantee.
Helen Dickinson of the British Retail Consortium and an impressive roll of retail leaders yesterday called for a government and retail taskforce to help the Government build credible arrangements for getting young people back into work. This seems to me a good idea. Does the Minister agree?
Baroness Nargund (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Evans, for securing this very important debate. I also thank our Government for commissioning the Milburn report. I declare my interest as a former trustee and vice-chair of the British Red Cross.
We face a profound challenge. NEET is not simply a jobs crisis; it is in fact a health crisis with a job problem. Some 44 % of NEET young people report a work-limiting health condition, 24% cite depression and anxiety, and 70% report loneliness.
The review shows these problems often begin long before young people become NEET. Reduced socialisation, weaker support networks and the pandemic have left many young people less confident, less connected and more isolated. We have not got a jobs gap: in my view, we have a jobs readiness gap. Over half of 18 to 24 year-olds say they do not feel prepared when leaving education, despite 84% of NEET young people saying they want a job, education or training.
We need to bridge the gap between education and employment. That is why volunteering matters. Throughout my years in the voluntary sector, which has been decades, including at the British Red Cross, I have seen first-hand how volunteering transforms lives. I know it from my own personal experience: I have been a volunteer and I have spoken to thousands of volunteers across our country. The evidence is compelling. Research shows that one-third of volunteers aged 16 to 19 said volunteering helped them secure their first job. Some 84% of young volunteers report gaining skills and confidence, while 77% say it reduces their feelings of isolation and loneliness.
This matters because poor mental health and unemployment reinforce one another. Volunteering tackles both. It helps young people develop the skills and qualities employers value: reliability, responsibility, communication, resilience and problem-solving. It also provides structure, experience and purpose. Yet, too few young people volunteer. Schools and universities should work with the local voluntary sector so that volunteering becomes part of their education. Jobcentres should actively promote volunteering pathways, backed by the Government’s right to try guarantee, so participation does not risk benefit reassessment.
Without these actions, one in six young people could be NEET by 2030. That is something we cannot afford, economically or socially. As such, I welcome our Government’s youth jobs grant and other initiatives when it comes to hiring apprentices, several of which the DWP has come up with. In fact, it proactively came up with these policies before the Milburn report was published, in order to support NEET young people. If we are serious about tackling youth economic inactivity in our country and getting young people back into work, we must stop seeing volunteering as an optional extra but as a practical, proven tool for tackling youth inactivity, and start recognising it as a vital pathway into work.
For many young people, volunteering is not simply something good to do; it is the bridge to a better future. I ask my noble friend the Minister whether volunteering could be placed at the heart of the strategy for supporting young people into employment and opportunities. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to take part in this debate, and I congratulate my noble friend Lord Evans of Rainow. I can see that the Government are not responsible for every societal phenomenon, so I accept that artificial intelligence and the overhang of Covid are outwith their competence. Nevertheless, that is about as consensual as I am going to get this afternoon.
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Walker of Broxton. I think you could probably call that friendly fire from him. It was an excellent speech. There is a particular consensus around the triple lock, and we have to come back to that debate.
We have a crisis of youth unemployment in this country, and a welfare budget which, as has been said, is out of control. In 2025-26, total UK welfare spending is forecast to be £334 billion, 10.9% of UK GDP. By 2031, it is predicted to have risen to £409 billion. This is completely unsustainable. It is not only an inefficient use of resources but, frankly, a social catastrophe.
I campaigned against the free movement directive from 2005 onwards as a constituency MP, because, as the noble Lord, Lord Austin of Dudley, has said quite rightly, we imported cheap foreign labour and displaced our own indigenous British youth workforce by driving down their wages and conditions. That was under a Labour Government, unfortunately, and was a completely ill-thought-out policy.
Some 13.5% of all 16 to 24 year-olds are NEETs, as we heard earlier. Yet in its 2024 election manifesto, Labour committed to reviewing universal credit and reforming employment support. This Government also committed to “make work pay”. But do businesses and business leaders think the Government have succeeded? The answer is no. The British Chambers of Commerce has predicted that the rate of unemployment among young people in the UK will rise to 17.8% by 2027. It has argued that the Government’s decision to raise national insurance contributions and the minimum wage has helped to lock young people out of opportunities.
We only need to look, for instance, at the experience of Shepherd Neame, Britain’s oldest brewer, and the 15% decline in hiring of their business. The number of applications has risen by 15% and there has been a 41% increase in applications for bar jobs. Young people are attempting to get into employment, but the Government’s economic policies are making it harder for them to get employed. David McDowall, head of Britain’s biggest pub company, said to the Government directly:
“I implore the Chancellor to reverse the increase in NICs to give our sector, and the wider UK high street, the support it needs to reinvigorate youth employment”.
The increase in national insurance costs is making it impossible to hire people in entry-level roles. An increase of £1,200 makes it impossible to effectively run a business. The same message comes from UKHospitality, which is suffering in a similar way.
The Government have a choice. They could follow their own MPs—who were famously quoted recently by the Secretary of State for welfare as saying “Who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others?”—and increase the welfare bill, or commit to welfare reform that both incentivises people into work and cuts the cost to the taxpayer, so that these employment costs can be cut or mitigated. The balance spent on welfare payments versus employment support needs to change. Milburn’s review, as we know, shows that nearly two-thirds of all 16 to 24 year-olds claiming PIP payments do so on the basis of anxiety, depression, autism and ADHD. Eight in 10 GPs admit that they prescribe antidepressants that they do not think are necessary. Rather than diagnose and overtreat, we should recognise that, often, worthwhile employment would have a more transformative effect. We must not tolerate abuse of the benefits system. One of the policy proposals in the Centre for Social Justice’s The Benefits Budget report was that welfare support for those with milder anxiety, depression or ADHD should be reduced or removed.
In conclusion, this Government have to prioritise job creation over benefits if they want Britain to succeed. Labour has done it before and it can do it again. If they do not, the crisis of youth unemployment, which they themselves have recognised, social immobility, societal strife and inequality will only get worse.
Baroness Meyer (Con)
My Lords, it is an honour to follow my noble friend’s excellent speech. As many pointed out, the Alan Milburn review was a wake-up call. I am not going to go through all the facts and figures again, because they were so clearly presented by the noble Lord, Lord Evans, in his opening speech, and followed up on by many others who spoke before me. But the reality is, as Alan Milburn warned, we risk creating a lost generation trapped in economic inactivity and long-term dependency, and that should concern us all. Work is about far more than earning a living; it provides purpose, dignity, self-respect and independence. A society that leaves a growing number of young people without work is failing them.
I therefore welcome the Government’s recognition that the current welfare system is unsustainable and that economic inactivity must be reduced. But recognising a problem and solving it are two different things. The welfare bill is projected to exceed £400 billion a year. Our national debt is approaching £3 trillion, while debt interest payments alone now exceed £100 billion a year. I imagine that the Minister will remind us that Britain’s borrowing remains below the average of the G7 economies, but is that a fair or comforting comparison? It is a bit like claiming that freedom of speech in the United Kingdom is excellent because it is better than in Russia or China.
The reality is that a country cannot indefinitely spend more money than it creates, yet I fear that the Government are not confronting these challenges with pragmatism. The Chancellor’s doctrine of securonomics rests on an assumption that the Government can play a central role in directing growth and wealth, but history suggests otherwise. Governments can create the conditions for growth but they do not create wealth itself. Wealth is created by businesses, entrepreneurs, innovators, investors and workers. The role of the state is to enable growth, not to substitute itself for growth.
This matters because it exposes a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the Government’s welfare reforms. Ministers say they want more people in work, yet they continue to increase the cost of employing them. They say they want to reduce welfare dependency, yet they burden the very businesses that create jobs and provide entry-level opportunities. They say they want growth, yet they pursue policies that discourage investment, enterprise and wealth creation. As has been pointed out many times before, the sectors that traditionally provide young people with their jobs—hospitality, retail and small businesses—are already under immense pressure. Young people are being locked out of the labour market before they have even reached the first rung of the ladder. This is not a coherent economic strategy.
The current incapacity benefit system illustrates the problem perfectly. Too much of the debate focuses on what people cannot do, rather than on what they can do. The system asks people why they cannot work; a better system would ask them what support they need in order to work. That is a fundamentally different philosophy. Of course we must support those who genuinely cannot work, but the challenge is not simply to reduce welfare spending but to increase employment. A welfare system should provide a safety net, not become a destination. The Government cannot claim to be tackling worklessness while simultaneously making work more expensive, more regulated and harder to find. That is not pragmatism; it is ideology.
Does the Minister agree that Labour’s economic policies are undermining its own welfare system? Even Sir Tony Blair has warned that the Government lack a credible plan for growth and has questioned whether their current approach is sustainable. If the Government accept that work is the best route out of dependency, can the Minister explain why they believe that increasing the cost of employing people will help achieve their objective?
Lord Sentamu (CB)
My Lords, the interim independent review by Alan Milburn into young people and work, and young people not in education, employment or training, is absolutely shocking. On the acronym, I would say that I am guilty as charged, but is the acronym appropriate? I am not a lover of acronyms. Given the many accents of our union, “NEET” could easily be pronounced in a way that may mean something that is not intended—I could try that out, but time does not allow me. It is not an inviting acronym for the young people of the United Kingdom who are not in work or employment.
Reading Alan Milburn’s interim report reminded me of the question Queen Elizabeth famously asked economists at the London School of Economics. After receiving a briefing on the unprecedented magnitude of the financial crisis and the resultant global credit crunch, she asked, “Why did nobody see the awful financial crash coming if it was that big?” A group of leading economists sent her a three-page letter explaining that the crisis was caused by a failure of the collective imagination of many bright people. For young people who are not in education, employment or training and who are claiming health and disability benefits, the crisis we face now has been caused by a similar failure of the collective imagination of many bright people.
What can we do? How do we lift our young people out of this deep quagmire they find themselves in? The interim report is a wake-up call for us all. Let me take us all, in hearts and minds, to the northern province of York, to hear what we have tried to do to change young people so that they can develop wonderful habits of the heart through commands given in our schools and colleges, so that they do not end up among the 1 million young people not in education, employment or training. For most of us, we learned the habits we now practise from how we lived, not from somebody telling us about them across a long distance. Archbishop Desmond Tutu helped officially inaugurate the Archbishop of York Youth Trust in 2009, which has gone on to help a lot of young people. It trains them to be leaders, empowering them from year 6 to post-16, so they can be real leaders in their communities.
I strongly believe that young people are not our leaders of tomorrow but our leaders of today. Young people and children can make a positive and transformative difference to their local communities. For example, a group of 50 young people living in a very deprived area asked 500 homes with older people, “What do you want to get at Christmas to keep you warm?” The answer was very simple: woollen jumpers and fleeces. The young people contacted the businesses in their community, which supplied all the goods they needed. Then they went to those homes and gave the older people jumpers and fleeces. In an area that was so troubled by truanting and bad behaviour, suddenly these older people saw the young people as friends and no longer as a menace. I could give endless examples, but time does not allow me.
When Alan Milburn’s final review is published, it will be crucial to see young people as key players in becoming the change they want to see, turning their eyes to the horizon of hope. May all our work with children and young people be similar to that of Isaac Newton, who saw ground-breaking discoveries in physics and mathematics and built on the earlier work of his predecessors, writing:
“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants”.
May we become those giants, so that young people can stand on our shoulders and then learn to be leaders and help other young people.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I declare my interest as the director of the Institute of Economic Affairs, the longest established free market think tank in the country. I recently came across something called Munchausen syndrome by proxy. The medical or legal name for it is FDIA—factitious disorder imposed on another. It means giving people poison in the guise of medicine. Sometimes, it is a mental health condition, and occasionally, it is a crime. I do not know if any of your Lordships happened to catch the dramatisation “The Serpent”, which told the story of Charles Sobhraj, who would poison backpackers in Asia and, under the guise of making them better, would give them more and more of the poison, until he was able to murder and rob them.
I will talk a little bit about the theme of giving the patient more of the medicine that sickened him in the first place. The illness here is actually very easy to identify—we have heard it from all sides: there is a rise in unemployment and, particularly, a rise in youth unemployment. Between 2021 and the present, the number of 16 to 24 year-olds out of work rose from 9.7% to 12.8%. This is since the pandemic, when we should have been in an upswing.
Some 957,000 young people, according to the latest figures, are not in education, employment or training. Why is that? It is quite obvious, if you look at cause and effect, what has caused these things. The national insurance rise has deterred firms from taking people on, through the imposition of some £25 billion on the private sector. On the Employment Rights Act, it is always an unpopular thing to say, but if we want to make it easier to hire people, we need to make it easier to fire people. The thing that will encourage employers to take people on is the knowledge that if something goes wrong, they will not be lumbered with an open-ended commitment. Therefore, all these rights are a way of building up the number of unemployed people. One thing that people do not like to talk about is the extraordinary rise in the minimum wage. The cost of employing someone has gone up by over £4,000 since the beginning of the pandemic—up 26% in three years. All these things are happening in an economy that, more widely, is failing to grow because of excessive taxation, regulation and debt.
The things that we individually complain of, such as price rises, tax rises, debt levels, worklessness and dependency on welfare, are all the symptoms of the underlying disease: excessive government—that is, Governments intruding in fields where they have no proper business and making things worse, which is what I mean by more of the medicine that sickened the patient. What are the Government’s solutions to youth unemployment? They are not to remove the things that are causing it in the first place, but to have even more expensive and intrusive measures to deal with the problems of their own creation. I am reminded of the aphorism popularised by the great African-American economist Walter Williams, who said that almost all our problems are caused by politicians trying to solve problems that they themselves created. What cures are being offered for the disease of big government? They are all more government: the jobs guarantee, the youth jobs grant, the new apprenticeship initiative, some 80 youth hubs and the Fair Work Agency, which is currently in Tashkent. Its members are off on a jolly in Uzbekistan, looking at the impact of migration. All these things are adding yet more intrusion and money, which are what caused the problem in the first place.
I finish with a heartfelt plea to all Front Benches, because some of these problems predate the current Government. Will they please spare us their however well-intentioned interventions? Will they please just leave us alone? We do not want the grants or the guarantees or the initiatives or the agencies or any of the regulation. All we ask is to be allowed to get on with our jobs.
Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell (Con)
My Lords, it is a huge pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Hannan, and I thank my noble friend Lord Evans for securing the debate. This is not the first time I have spoken about the million plus young people who are not in education, employment or training. It is a subject I follow closely as president of the Jobs Foundation, as declared in the register.
In his interim report, Sir Alan Milburn rightly said that:
“We are at risk of a lost generation”
of young people. He rightly stated that:
“If public policy aims to increase youth participation, it has to minimise risks and maximise incentives”.
In this vein, I will reiterate a cost-free idea that I first proposed over a year ago, which has now garnered support from other noble Lords, as well as Back-Benchers in the other place and regional mayors. Noble lords will be aware that there is currently a scheme to incentivise employers to hire veterans, which was first introduced in 2020 and has been extended by the current Government to last until at least 2028. The scheme is very simple: employers who hire veterans do not have to pay the employers’ national insurance for that new employee during their first year of employment. This is facilitated through a zero rate of employers’ NI on salaries below roughly £50,000 a year.
In a similar way, employers hiring those under 21 also do not have to pay employers’ NI, a change first introduced in 2015. My hope is that the Government might be willing to consider extending this scheme to those older than 21 who are moving from welfare into work. They might wish to extend it to anyone moving from welfare into work, or they might wish to restrict it to those aged 24 or under, but it is certainly a proposal that would help maximise incentives for employers, as Sir Alan Milburn put it.
When I first mentioned this proposal last year, when we debated the Universal Credit Bill, it was supported only by the Jobs Foundation and the Good Growth Foundation, whose advisory board boasts the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, who I am pleased is in his place. I endorse his call for a cross-party approach on this issue.
Crucially, the Good Growth Foundation estimates that the policy would save the Exchequer up to £1.1 billion every year were it to be adopted for all employees helped from welfare into work. It would surely also save the Exchequer money were it to be restricted to NEETs.
I am pleased to say that support for this proposal has grown over the past year. In your Lordships’ House, the final report of the Autism Act 2009 Committee, published last November, recommended
“the use of tax incentives and/or national insurance relief”
to help businesses employ more autistic people.
The concept has also received backing from Labour Back-Benchers in the other place. Speaking to the Sunday Times a fortnight ago, Labour Back-Bencher Wes Streeting said:
“I think we should be thinking actively about … targeted reduction in employers’ National Insurance”.
I was also pleased to hear one of our great regional mayors, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, telling BBC “Newsnight” that he was “sympathetic” to reversing the recent rise in national insurance for employers.
Given that my modest proposal now has growing support on a cross-party basis, I have two questions for the Minister. First, can she confirm that the Milburn review will be allowed to make policy proposals with budgetary implications, including those involving tax incentives? Secondly, can she clarify whether the Treasury will hold back from finalising the Autumn Budget until it has both seen and considered the final recommendations of the Milburn review?
Lord Blackwater (Con)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow my noble friend Lord Elliott, and I congratulate my noble friend Lord Evans on the excellent way he presented this debate and the figures he set out. He touched a real nerve with me because, like him, my first job was working in a pub, and I feel that I probably learned much more there than I did at the university I went to afterwards.
I want to agree with the present Prime Minister, who spoke a year ago of a “moral imperative” to fix the welfare state—ironically, hours after being forced to U-turn on benefit reforms. He promised that there would be reforms but, he said, in a “Labour way”. A year later, we still are waiting keenly to see what that way is.
As my noble friend Lord Hannan said, we must treat causes and not symptoms. Nothing will help young people find work and contribute to society—as, according to the Milburn report, 84% of them long to do, as the right reverend Prelate said—better than a taxation and regulatory system allowing businesses to create such jobs. Currently, young people are priced out of work, particularly, as we have heard, in the hospitality and retail sectors.
Worse, as the noble Lord, Lord Austin, said, some develop psychological frailties because they cannot work. The moral imperative must be to help them by finding them jobs. Among the barrage of statistics, one is deeply alarming: the proportion of those not in employment, education or training and diagnosed with a work-limiting health condition has risen from 26% to 44% since 2015. Psychological conditions account for much of that rise.
However, there is a fundamental economic problem. Only this week Tom Kerridge, the restaurateur, said of his sector:
“Younger people, part-time staff, they just don’t exist very much in the businesses any more … those businesses cannot afford it”.
He cited national insurance contributions for those over 21 and the steep rise in the minimum wage for those aged 18 to 20, and pleaded for a VAT cut for the hospitality industry. Last Monday, the owner of a car repair business quoted in the Times said:
“Minimum wage for an apprentice now is ridiculous. It steers you away from wanting to have young people in your company”.
We must have some, doubtless uncomfortable, philosophical discussions about the minimum wage and about other employment rights, and about the health assessment process for benefit claimants, most of whom, as noble Lords heard on Monday, never have face-to-face consultations. We should discuss how to make as many “work-limiting” health conditions as possible unlimiting. I realise that this may require a review of GPs’ working practices, and I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that we should perhaps be less uncritical about some of these diagnoses.
It is unfashionable to cite the Victorian distinction between the deserving and the undeserving poor, but that too merits discussion. However Dickensian that distinction might sound—although Dickens himself, as close students of him will know, was not so opposed to it as many think—it ensured that scarce resources were channelled towards those in the most need and not used to encourage a life of unnecessary dependency.
It is 84 years since the Beveridge report, but since politicians of all colours like to cite it as the foundation stone of welfarism, we might note some of Beveridge’s doctrines. He said that
“getting work or getting well may involve a change of habits, doing something that is unfamiliar or leaving one’s friends or making a painful effort of some other kind. The danger of providing benefits, which are both adequate in amount and indefinite in duration, is that men, as creatures who adapt themselves to circumstances, may settle down to them”.
As relevant to this debate, he also said that
“six months for adults would perhaps be a reasonable average period of benefit without conditions. But for young persons who have not yet the habit of continuous work the period should be shorter; for boys and girls there should ideally be no unconditional benefit at all; their enforced abstention from work should be made an occasion of further training”.
He stressed that welfare
“should not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility”
and emphasised that
“benefit in return for contributions, rather than free allowances from the State, is what the people of Britain desire”.
I suspect that our people desire that still, and would endorse another of Beveridge’s fundamentals, that
“the Idleness which destroys wealth and corrupts men, whether they are well fed or not”
is bad
“when they are idle”.
This reminds us that the Prime Minister’s moral question remains shamefully unanswered.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will speak briefly in the gap. I have been here from the beginning of this debate because I am a social mobility commissioner, so this topic is very close to both my heart and my responsibilities in that role. As it happens, our annual symposium in a fortnight will be very much devoted to the topic of NEETs.
I did sign up to speak in this debate, but when I saw the august array of speakers I was not sure that there would be anything I could add to what I expected to be said. I have very much enjoyed the contributions from all noble Lords. But there is one thing I have not heard mentioned that I feel is important, so I want to add it before we get to the winders. It is the importance of the family to anybody’s progress and the importance of a stable and secure home to a child’s development. Much has been said in this debate about employability skills or soft skills. I tend to call them the credentials of character—things such as punctuality and reliability, the shared common standards that we expect of one another when we start work or are in work and faced with people of lots of different backgrounds, levels of educational attainment or abilities.
These shared standards are very much what we learn at home and in the family. They form part of what we learn at school, but they are critical to anybody’s progress. According to a Children’s Commissioner report in 2022, which is not that long ago, 44% of those born in this country at the start of this century did not live with both biological parents for their whole childhood. That is up from 21% for children born in 1970. We have to include the family and home when we are looking at this topic. What are the Government doing to support families, both generally speaking and in the context of how they are considering responding to the challenges highlighted in the Milburn report?
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Evans, for securing this important debate and all noble Lords for their thoughtful contributions.
As I have listened, I have been struck by how this debate is not merely about stats, forecasts and the Government’s programme. It is about people, particularly young people, and the opportunities that can shape the course of their lives. I know this from experience. In the late 1980s, I was fortunate enough to gain a place on a youth training scheme, a YTS. We all know what they were—£27.50 for 40 hours. Mine was at the Sheffield Co-op at Hillsborough. Like many young people growing up at the time, I entered that labour market during a period of economic uncertainty and high unemployment similar to what young people face today. The opportunity that I received through that programme was not simply about a wage. It gave me confidence, experience, skills and, perhaps most importantly, a sense of purpose and possibility. I often reflect on how different my life might have been had that opportunity not existed for me. The experience has stayed with me throughout my career.
Before I entered your Lordships’ House, I spent many years working with young people in Sheffield who have often been referred to during this debate as NEETs. I often want to change it, get rid of the “N” and replace it with an “L” to say “looking” for employment, looking for training et cetera. When you speak to young people you often hear that they do not like being called a NEET. I met those young people and saw in them a talent that was obvious to everyone except them and the system that was there to support them. I met young people who were struggling with poor mental health, unstable homes, family difficulties or a lack of confidence. I learned that very few young people lack ambition. What many lack is the opportunity, the support and sometimes someone to believe in them.
This is why the figures from the House of Lords Library should concern us all. Almost 1 million young people are, in my view, looking for employment, education or training, while welfare spending continues to rise significantly. We heard from a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Austin, about this 25:1 ratio. We are spending 25 times more on welfare than on helping and supporting these young people who are looking for opportunities. It reminds me of my time in local government. We had a term, “invest to save”—invest in now and make savings. I hope that when the Minister responds we look seriously at how we can invest now to save in future. How can we invest in young people’s future now?
For us, the test of welfare reform is not how we can move people off the benefit roll; it is how many people we can help into fulfilling, sustainable employment and support to live independent lives. The most successful welfare systems are not those that simply reduce expenditure but those that invest in people. We have heard from many noble Lords about the example of the Dutch model, which invests a lot more in training in early years in secondary schools. That their NEETs level is less than half of ours means that we should take the opportunity that has been afforded to us by the Milburn review. He has diagnosed the problem; the challenge of the next six months is to see what the possible solutions are.
I hope that we can use energy and expertise from across your Lordships’ House to come together to shape the recommendations of the Milburn review. Rather than waiting for Alan Milburn to come back to both Houses with his recommendations, we should use that time, possibly with a cross-party working group—however you term it, I hope the Minister looks at it favourably—to use our experiences to say what should be in Milburn. We all want to see fewer young people on welfare and more support for them to fulfil their lives because that would be good for society.
The Government are right to recognise that economic inactivity has become a significant challenge to growth. We on these Benches welcome efforts to improve access to employment, training and apprenticeships, as my noble friend Lord Shipley said earlier. However, we remain concerned that some aspects of the welfare reforms focus too heavily on short-term savings while failing to address the underlying causes of inactivity.
As I said, my experience in Sheffield has taught me that many young people who are disconnected from work are facing multiple barriers simultaneously. A young person experiencing anxiety, depression or poor physical health cannot simply be instructed into employment. A young person without qualifications, work experience or a stable support network requires investment and guidance. If we ignore these realities, we risk treating the symptoms, as we heard earlier, while leaving the cause untouched. Milburn warns of a “lost generation”, and it is a warning to us all. Those words should resonate in your Lordships’ House.
When a young person spends years disconnected from education and employment, the consequences, as Milburn said, are often lifelong. Lower earnings, poor health outcomes and reduced economic participation all follow. The costs are personal, social and economic, but I remain optimistic because I have seen what works. I have seen young people flourish when given access to mentoring, skills training and meaningful work experience. I just flag to your Lordships that as university and sixth-form terms come to an end, many young people are seeking opportunities for work experience. I will be taking a number of young people on in July, and I hope that many other Members of your Lordships’ House take the opportunity to give that experience.
I always say to young people, “You’re all going to get GCSEs. Some of you will get A-levels and some of you will get degrees. What else can you get? That is the difference that an employer seeks”. If we in your Lordships’ House can play a very small part in doing that, I urge noble Lords to take up those opportunities that young people welcome. I have badgered my Liberal Democrat colleagues to take on four young people who have approached us.
On that greater investment in young people, I make a plea to the Minister that investment in youth services and community organisations is important because they often engage with young people before the statutory sector gets involved. We need skills and apprenticeship systems that work for every young person, not just those who follow the traditional academic route. We also need employment support that is personalised and supportive. Many disabled young people and those with long-term health conditions want to work, but need flexibility and understanding. The principle behind the Government’s “right to try” approach—that people should test their ability to work without fear of losing support—is sensible, and I welcome it. I hope they can strengthen it further.
The economic argument, as we have heard today from many noble Lords, is compelling. Britain cannot afford to leave the talent of over 1 million young people untapped. At a time when growth remains weak and productivity challenges persist, helping young people into education, training and employment is not simply a social policy but an economic policy, yet beyond the economics lies something even more important. Every young person deserves a chance such as that which I was fortunate to receive, as I said earlier, as a young YTS trainee all those years ago.
Here is one thing that I hope we can build on. I know the Government have tried to reset their relationship with the European Union around Erasmus. When I was in the European Parliament with the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, I was on that committee, and we were looking at expanding Erasmus to include more young people on apprenticeships, not just the academic route. At the time, I argued that if the sons and daughters of hospital cleaners and car mechanics from Hull and elsewhere were working at Siemens, they should also have the opportunity to go abroad, and I really hope that that opportunity continues. Young people deserve that opportunity to discover their talents, contribute to their communities and build a better future for themselves. If we are serious about welfare reforms, we must be equally serious about creating opportunities, as I said earlier. If we are serious about economic growth, we must invest in potential for our young people. If we are serious about building a fairer society, we must also ensure that no young person is written off because they happened to start life on the wrong side of the opportunity.
This is a challenge for us all, and it is one that I hope the Government will continue to address with ambition, compassion and determination.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to Lord Younger, our colleague on these Benches who has left the House, not of his own volition. He is a great loss to the House, as are all the hereditary Peers who have left us. I also thank my noble friend Lord Evans very much for making this debate happen. Look at what he has done: we have had a fantastic array of speeches and knowledge. He is now our DWP Whip. I also welcome my noble friend Lady Spielman to our Front Bench; she will be a great asset to our team.
I hope the Minister and everybody in the House have enjoyed the masterclass they have had today on welfare reform and opportunities to help young people into the labour market. I know we have had lots of debates, questions and conversations about the NEET problem. Many judgments have been passed across the House about who has caused it. I hope that we have got past that today and have been able to speak honestly about some of the things that we believe might help the situation.
I am not going to repeat all the statistics in my speech—I have rubbed them out, because they have been put very powerfully—but I will start by talking about the concern that 61% of young people are reported as NEET, which is a record, where economically inactive means that they are not working and are not looking for work and, in many cases, are not required to look for work. My noble friend Lord Young made that point. Can the Minister tell us what proportion of those who are economically inactive are so because they are not required to look for work? I am sure she will have noted Alan Milburn’s warning that the welfare state is “exacerbating inactivity”, which is a point that has been made right through this debate. His argument is that the Government’s new work programmes alone, welcome though they are, will not be enough to address problems that are far deeper-rooted.
So I ask everyone to be brave, think the impossible and take seriously some of the recommendations that have been made today—even by an Etonian, my noble friend Lord Younger, about changing the way in which Jobcentre Plus money and activity are used. I spent 32 years trying to help people to get and keep a job; that is why I got up in the morning, and to some degree it is why I get up now.
I want to tell noble Lords about a meeting I had with a doctor at a conference. He said to me, “Debbie, I’ve got heart-sink patients”. I said, “What’s wrong with them?”, and he said, “My heart sinks every time they walk into the surgery, because I’ve got nothing for them. Can you put your people into my surgery and see what you can do for them?” To cut a long story short, we had 200 people on our books, and we had a consulting room in the surgery, and I am pleased to say that we reduced the antidepressant prescription by over 34% and reduced referrals to counsellors by 86%. Of those whom we got into work, which was around 56% in a year, 76% were still in work a year later. That is the kind of magic, and the kind of energy, that we need to inject into our thinking and our challenges.
The challenge before us all is profound. Now is the moment for us all to work together, as has been said by many people, to improve the lives of the people whom we exist to serve.
I have to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Walker, on his outstanding contribution. It cannot have been easy to make it, but I say to him: “Well done for your bravery, sir”. I wish we all had it by the bucketload. If the noble Lord wants another job, then that as a speechwriter beckons; I am sure he will be very welcome.
I recognise that the issue of the economy is, at least in part, on the Government’s radar. Policies such as the youth guarantee scheme, while we may have disagreements over them, represent the beginning of a response, but the scale of the challenge demands something far more serious, coherent and ambitious. I thank my noble friend Lord Elliot for his idea, which seems to have caught everyone’s imagination; it is one that we should embrace.
The labour market has changed fundamentally over the past 20 years; the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said that, as did my noble friend Lady Shephard of Northwold. Our economy now has around 1.6 million fewer lower-skilled and medium-skilled jobs than it once did. Entry-level work is harder to find, if not impossible. Competition for those jobs is more intense and the pathways into stable employment are far less straightforward than they were for previous generations. Technology has changed, and absolute support on an individual basis is really important.
From an employer perspective, the British Retail Consortium has talked about the impact of the Government’s changes on the cost of hiring people. It says—it is not me saying this—that taking on young people is more expensive and complicated, and schemes are not working. We should be brave enough to go back to the drawing board and work out what might work, and I am sure that today’s debate has helped us come up with even more ideas about what is possible. The Government cannot do this job alone; it is incumbent on all of us to work together to do it.
I spent a whole couple of days in Suffolk recently talking to businesses and colleges and to Jobcentre Plus. They were very excited about the prospect of jobcentres merging with the careers service. This has not been mentioned today, but I wonder whether, either in the Minister’s response or in writing, we can be told how long the merger will take, how long it will take for it to become fully operational and what outcomes we are expecting from it.
I want to talk about regional disparities. I agree with everyone who said that national programmes have been good in the past, but they are not right for now. We have to allow local people and local organisations to come up with interventions that work for them. We do not need a national programme, because no national programme can sort it out, but whatever happens must be known nationally and delivered locally, and the impact must be known and felt personally.
Finally, I want to talk about early intervention. We have a NEET problem but, for me, if we want to prevent NEETs in future, we have to start earlier and make sure that no young person leaves education, in whatever form, as a NEET. Another thing that I was involved in was ThinkForward, where we put our advisers into schools to work with young people about whom, at the age of 14, everybody said, “They’re going to end up in trouble; they’re going to end up NEET; they’re not going to get anywhere”. When we worked with them, I think it was the most wonderful thing I was ever involved in.
Eighty-five per cent of those 14 to 16 year-olds showed statistically significant improvements in their attendance, because when they did not turn up for school, we went round their house and got them. Sixty per cent of our school leavers achieved at least five GCSEs grades A to C, and 96% of our 17 to 18 year-olds were, when I left, in further education, employment and training. That NEET problem had been all but eradicated. This is the kind of thinking we need today. Can the Minister set out what the Government are doing on early intervention and how DWP is working with the Department for Education to make sure that happens?
Mental health has been mentioned. I know that young people are suffering anxiety. For those of us who see it with people in our families, it is real and we have to help them.
The other thing I want to finish on, if noble Lords will allow me, is that we need a strong economy. Others more eloquent than me have articulated how that should work and what needs to happen. It is obvious that only employers create jobs. Again, I plead with the Minister: please will she and her Government rethink the additional costs that they have added to business? I am telling your Lordships that if we did something about that now, this problem would start to go away. We need earlier intervention and a vibrant economy, and we need people to think what they dare not think and implement it.
I thank noble Lords for their honest contributions. I hope all contributions have been taken by the Government in the right spirit and that this propels us into action to do the right thing.
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Evans, for bringing forward this debate, which has been very constructive and wide-ranging. There was a clear consensus in it that far too many young people in this country are leaving education and not getting the chance to work. We must be clear about the scale and implications of this challenge that we face. It is, of course, not a problem that arrived in the last year, or in fact in the last two years; it is deep rooted and long term.
The number of young people not in education, employment or training has been rising for years, increasing by a quarter of a million in the three years leading up to the election. As many others have said, it is now close to a million, which is far too high. But it is not inevitable; it is a crisis of opportunity and one that we should not accept.
I agree with those who said that what it is not is a failure of ambition among young people. There are many young people keen to learn and work who are not provided with that opportunity. It is too often a failure of the system to provide the opportunity and support that they need. As others have said, it is not only a social challenge; it is an economic one as well, and one that needs early intervention and work across the whole of government. That is why I am so pleased that I sit now in two departments: the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education. One of my bosses, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, commissioned Alan Milburn to examine the underlying drivers of rising youth inactivity, because we were clear that this is not a single issue with a single cause. Also, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester identified, this is a series of individuals, quite often with differing needs and reasons why they are not working, learning or earning. In many cases, they very much want to work.
Another area of consensus in the debate, I think we all agree, is that Alan Milburn’s report provides a very important, serious assessment of the challenge. Having read quite a lot of Government-produced or prompted reports in my time, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Young, that it is very much better than a lot of them and certainly well worth a read.
On the point made by several noble Lords about the position of the economy and costs in the labour market, I am sure noble Lords will recognise, as I pointed out to the House the other day, that Alan Milburn makes it clear in paragraphs 264 and 266 that it is not actually about the national insurance contribution increases or the national minimum wage. If we look at the way in which both of those impact on the labour market, but also the reliefs that are available to employers, particularly with respect to national insurance contributions when they take on young people, we see that this is not at the heart of the cause of youth unemployment. We have the fastest-growing economy among G7 countries. We have 416,000 more people in work in this country now than a year ago. Our unemployment is lower than in most OECD countries and the EU average. There are specific issues that young people face in being able to access the labour market; we need to respond not only to the economic conditions but to all the other issues too.
The other important thing about the Milburn report is that it brings into sharper focus the nature of what we face, not just its scale but its persistence: what has been described as “stickiness”. Too often, once a young person falls out of work or education, they can become stuck outside the system and, the longer that continues, the harder it becomes to return, with lasting consequences for their prospects, their health and their earnings. The report highlights the growing number of young people who are not only out of work but who are assessed as having health-related barriers to work. That underlines that this is not simply a labour market issue but one that cuts across employment, health, education and welfare. That is why it cannot be a challenge for one department alone. There must be a whole-of-government effort and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, mentioned, a broader campaign across the country to tackle it.
As the Chamber has also recognised today, when so many young people are outside work or education, we constrain labour supply, limit productivity and store up long-term costs for individuals, for the Exchequer and for the economy. That is why this Government have acted and are investing. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, this Government are investing now to save for the future. There is an additional £2.5 billion in the youth guarantee and the growth and skills levy, in support of young people and employers over the next few years, including a £3,000 youth jobs grant for employers hiring a young person who has been out of work for six months. There is also a £2,000 incentive for small and medium-sized businesses taking on young apprentices.
We are turning the focus of apprenticeships back to young people, including the full funding of training costs for SMEs employing apprentices under 25. I strongly agree with my noble friend Lord Austin and the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, about the need to achieve this pivot of the apprenticeship system back to young people, and to reverse the sharp decline in apprenticeship starts among young people, which have fallen by 40% over the last decade. That is why we are expanding opportunities for young people through new foundation apprenticeships. It is why we have introduced a £2,000 hiring payment for non-levy-paying employers. We are removing the requirement for small businesses to fund any element of training, and there will be additional investment for taking on apprentices if they are out of work.
This is backed by an additional £1 billion investment and will support 50,000 more young people into apprenticeships over the next three years, providing a clear route into skilled work and helping businesses grow with the talent that they need. My noble friend Lord Austin is right to emphasise the role of government here. I am proud that our estates strategy at the Department for Education, as we repair and rebuild schools, will provide places for 13,000 more apprentices and T-level placements.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Willets, that we are considering the report of the Social Security Advisory Committee on the impact of apprenticeships on benefits, and we will have more to say about that.
Another element of the youth guarantee is the expansion of youth hubs across the country, bringing together employment skills and the sort of wider support that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester rightly identified in local communities.
The noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, and the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, in particular raised the issue of rural unemployment. We recognise that transport can be a barrier for young people in rural areas. That is why we design youth hubs to be flexible, to work with local partners and to tailor delivery to what works best in each area, including flexible opening hours or choosing locations that can align with local transport patterns. Youth hubs bring together employability support from jobcentre work coaches with mental health, housing, essential skills and employer engagement support in community settings, so that young people have access to local opportunities and support tailored to community needs.
We are also, in doing that—I think the noble Lord, Lord Young, is right about the need for more place-based funding and the ability to address this problem—actively testing and evaluating place-based delivery models. This includes how we reach a diverse customer base, including those with specific needs and in hard to reach areas, such as through jobcentre vans: mobile units are being tested in nine areas including Bolton, the highlands of Scotland and north Wales. In particular, the youth guarantee trailblazers, where we are working with mayoral strategic authorities in eight areas, are testing the ability of those strategic authorities with government investment to test innovative approaches to identify and deliver support to young people who are NEET or at risk of becoming NEET. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, will be pleased to hear that in the west of England one of the ideas in rural north-east Somerset is to facilitate e-bike loans for young jobseekers to be able to travel.
On another element of the youth guarantee, young people on universal credit looking for work will get support through the youth guarantee, with a dedicated gateway meeting and intensive support if they are still not earning or learning after 13 weeks. Nearly 900,000 16 to 24 year-olds will be able to benefit from that dedicated session and four weeks of additional intensive work coach support, including work experience and the ability to enter into and benefit from sector work-based academies as well.
Finally in the youth guarantee there is a jobs guarantee, providing six months of paid government-subsidised work for young people who remain unemployed in the long term after all of that other support. I welcome the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, about her experience at Tesco. She is absolutely right that these are not easy cohorts of young people by definition if they have been out of work for 18 months. The delivery partners we are working with are not consultants. They are organisations with exactly the experience of getting young people to work and getting them there on time. I agree with the noble Baroness about all those requirements; perhaps we should send the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, round to get them up in the morning. It is the Government’s intention—we have expanded the investment in this—to enable this job guarantee to provide the six months of paid work to 90,000 young people by virtue of our investment.
I will just touch on retail and hospitality—which was raised by several noble Lords—not least because, as we know, retail and hospitality have traditionally provided those first experiences in work for young people. We know that employers want to play their part in supporting young people. For instance, I welcome the announcement just this week from Marks & Spencer that it is launching a training programme for 1,000 young people.
I had a very good visit to B&M, where, in a meeting facilitated by the BRC, I met other retail employers; and I was able to join the BRC HR leaders’ webinar just the other day. Of course, while there are concerns about the costs and risks of employing young people, I found there was also a lot of enthusiasm from retailers to be involved with, and be a part of, the Government’s youth guarantee, and to play their role in it. In exchange, we want to support and work with employers to develop opportunities for young people. In the DWP, we continue to expand our current network to more employers in key sectors, such as retail and hospitality, where there is a critical demand for workers. We have expanded opportunities through new foundation apprenticeships in hospitality and retail, in addition to our new V-level in marketing and retail, which we aim to introduce in 2028.
Noble Lords also raised an important theme about how we prioritise prevention: how we make it easier to identify young people who are at risk of becoming NEET, and how we stop that from happening. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, identified, we know that these barriers emerge early in life. As a Government, we are focused on ensuring that young people get the best start in life, which many are not currently getting. That is why we are bolstering our prevention measures. Through our child poverty strategy, we are taking steps to lift 550,000 children out of poverty. We have committed to ensuring that 75% of children reach a good level of development by the end of reception, so that they can engage in learning. We know that persistent absence from school is not just a short-term problem but closely linked to young people becoming NEET later on. That is why we welcome the action that has led to the fastest improvement in attendance in a decade.
We know that the transitions between school, further education and employment are too often simply not strong enough to keep young people engaged and moving forward, and we know that the curriculum needs change. That is why we set up the Curriculum and Assessment Review, which will enable young people to have more of those skills that are necessary to operate in the modern job market. It is why we are reforming post-16 qualifications to increase the number of young people who can do T-levels, and it is why, as I said, we are introducing the new V-level qualification, which will be closely linked to occupational standards and involve working with employers, providing a high-quality vocational route for young people.
I welcome the further push from the noble Lord, Lord Baker, on the UTC Sleeve, and I will come back to him on that.
I also hear what noble Lords are saying about work experience. One of the things that Alan Milburn identified is the way in which it is much harder now for young people to get work experience, which is why, through our youth guarantee, we will find 300,000 placements for work experience and sector-based work academy programmes, backed by major employers such as Manchester Airports Group, JD Sports and Gatwick Airport. We are strengthening work experience in schools, with a guarantee of two weeks’ high-quality work experience for every young person. As my noble friend Lady Nargund said, volunteering also plays a very important role in this.
There are other deeper challenges at play as well. More than one in six young people who are not earning or learning had a mental health condition as their primary condition in 2024, more than double the rate in 2012. That is why it is so important that this week we were able to show how the expansion of mental health support teams in schools is progressing. Six million children now have access to mental health support in their schools. We know that young people with SEND and those who struggle to achieve at school face a significantly higher risk of becoming a NEET. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, is right. There are supported internships, which I was fortunate enough to see in practice at Whipps Cross Hospital last week through Project SEARCH, which I note is also now working with Amazon on a very big expansion. Supported internships are important for those with education, health and care plans—but the Government are also investing in research as to how we can develop them for those who do not have EHCPs.
This is about much more than education or employment alone: it is about early support and well-being, and ensuring that our systems work together around the young person. It is about more responsibility on schools to identify early who will become a NEET, with the improved risk of NEET indicator tools that we are developing. It is about ensuring, as we are doing, that we build on the existing guarantee of a place in education or training for every 16 and 17 year-old. Much of this, particularly the youth guarantee, is welfare reform, but we are reforming the welfare system more widely as well to ensure that it supports people to engage with work wherever possible. That includes legislating for a right to try, so that disabled people can take steps into work without fear of automatic reassessment. It means changes to universal credit to reduce disincentives to work and investment in personalised employment support, including for people with health conditions.
These reforms reflect a broader shift under this Government, from a system which can too often write people off to one that acts as a platform for opportunity, now also essential to ensuring the long-term sustainability of the system, supporting those who need it while enabling more people to move into and progress in work. We are clear, however, despite this significant progress, that more must be done, because for many young people, the barriers to work do not begin at 16. As I have said, they often have their roots in poorer health, disadvantage and unequal access to opportunity. As our population ages and migration falls, we will depend more than ever on the talent and potential of our young people. We cannot afford economically or socially to leave so many outside work and education. We will take determined action; we will learn from others, which is why my right honourable friend the Secretary of State at the DWP is visiting the Netherlands, possibly even at this very moment, to learn from it.
We look ahead to Alan Milburn’s full recommendations in the autumn, but our objective is clear: to build a system that places opportunity and work at its heart—
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My noble friend Lord Evans asked at the beginning of the debate when the Government would respond to the Select Committee report on social mobility. The report was published in November; the government convention is to reply within eight weeks, and it is now almost six months. When will we get a reply?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I am sorry that there has not been a reply yet. I think there should have been, and I have already made that point to both the DfE and the DWP. I will undertake to ensure that we get that back as quickly as possible.
Just to reiterate, our objective is clear: we need to build a system that places opportunity and work at its heart, one that is not concerned only with what people receive but asks a broader question of how we help people to change their lives. That is the challenge before us, and it is one that this Government are determined to meet.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
My Lords, I am truly grateful to everyone who contributed with excellent speeches to this debate today. As the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said, it has been a non-partisan debate, which means that I look forward to debating again when we get the Milburn report, as the Minister says, in the autumn, because it is so important. I referred to the coalition Government and the progress made there 15 years ago. Your Lordships’ House has an important role in helping with this NEET issue. The noble Lord, Lord Walker, made the point in his excellent contribution that his is the Labour Party, not the benefits party, and that private sector businesses—indeed, private sector family businesses—create the jobs, create the wealth, to move the nation forward.
I am also grateful to the Minister for her responses. I am biased when it comes to the report of the Lords Social Mobility Committee, because I sat on that committee, but it is an excellent report and is complementary to the Milburn report, as my noble friend Lord Young said. The key recommendation is to run a pilot scheme and look at a combined authority, such as that of Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester, or indeed Bristol or elsewhere, to give them the money and see if we can learn from a focused and concentrated effort to reduce NEETs in those communities. As we say in the report, there needs to be a welfare system reset to reflect local areas and local labour markets, because those mayors know best about the specific needs. One hat does not fit all, and it should not even be on a regional basis but on a town-by-town, city-by-city basis.
We cannot carry on spending more on disability and incapacity benefits than we do on defence. At the beginning of my speech, I referred to the predicted growth in welfare spending of £333 billion by 2030. During this debate, I was very sorry to learn that the Defence Secretary, John Healey, has resigned, specifically because of the lack of money being provided for our defence at this time. I pay tribute to John Healey, who was an outstanding Defence Secretary and, indeed, public servant.
Finally, my noble friend Lord Young light-heartedly pointed out that of the five Conservatives on the Select Committee, three were old Etonians, but there was also one NEET. I was the NEET on that committee, and when I left school at 16 with no qualifications, I was lucky enough, as I indicated in my opening remarks, to have had a Saturday job in a shop. I also worked in my local pub, which gave me the work ethic that enabled me to get into a business career in manufacturing, in the local aviation sector near where I lived, which set me up for life. The challenge is to get young people into those early start-up jobs. Saturday jobs are a rare thing these days, as has been ably pointed out. Your Lordships’ House is in a position to help NEETs. I beg to move.
Railways Bill
Bosnia and Herzegovina
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Baroness Helic
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the political and security situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Baroness Helic (Con)
I thank all noble Lords who are participating today and acknowledge the considerable expertise and experience they bring to this debate. It is the dream team.
There are moments in international affairs when the distance between what Governments say and what they do becomes impossible to ignore. I believe we have reached such a moment with our policy on Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Government’s assessment last week identified instabilities in the western Balkans as
“strategic risks to the UK and our NATO allies … In Bosnia and Herzegovina … we have seen attempts to undermine the Dayton settlement that has maintained peace since the mid-1990s”.
These are serious conclusions and they deserve a serious response.
For over 30 years, the Dayton peace agreement sustained peace in Bosnia. It did so because it rested on strong local institutions and a broadly united international commitment to defend them and the sovereignty of the country. By 2010, the assumption was that the constitutional settlement had become sufficiently entrenched that European integration would drive reform, and the international consensus underpinning the post-Dayton order would endure.
Today, those assumptions can no longer be taken for granted. Bosnia and Herzegovina faces its most serious political crisis since 1995. What began as questions of constitutional authority have become questions of sovereignty. Backed by the Kremlin, the leadership of the Bosnian entity of Republika Srpska has embarked on a project of dismantling state institutions and eroding the country’s territorial integrity. The aspiration, stated with increasing openness, is the dissolution of the Bosnian state and the realisation of the project of greater Serbia, just as in 1992.
That would not merely destroy a country but destabilise an entire neighbourhood, pulling a thread that could unravel wider European security. The consequences for the people of Bosnia, of every ethnicity and community, would be devastating. The memories of the 1990s are sadly still alive. Let us be clear: this is not a project pursued in the interests of ordinary Bosnian Serb citizens, who are among the poorest in Europe. They deserve better than to be instrumentalised and used by a political elite who would sacrifice their futures and the futures of their children on the altar of nationalist ideology and personal ambition and gain.
The question today is whether the international framework that preserved peace for 30 years remains capable of responding effectively. Last week, the Peace Implementation Council, of which the United Kingdom is a founding member, met in Sarajevo to agree a successor to the outgoing high representative. It was unable to do so. That matters profoundly because the office of high representative remains the principal international mechanism for safeguarding the peace agreement.
At the moment of Bosnia’s most serious challenge in a generation, the states responsible for upholding the peace publicly demonstrated that they could not agree on the future leadership of its most important international institution. The United States, our closest ally, sought to install a preferred candidate, as though the high representative was a political appointment rather than an independent office. That is precisely the wrong approach. The high representative must be chosen on the basis of independence, credibility and unconditional readiness to uphold the Dayton peace accords impartially, not because they are acceptable to one capital or another, including this one. The office derives its authority from the Dayton agreement, not from the preference of any individual state.
This failure reflects broader and more troubling changes. Last year, the United States lifted sanctions on 48 Republika Srpska individuals and entities, the very people whom President Trump or his Administration described as having a corrupt, destabilising political agenda and enriching themselves and their associates at public expense, including denial of genocide. I do not speculate on the motives behind that decision. There are many views in Washington, but the significance extends well beyond the sanctions themselves. The United States appears to be taking a wrecking ball to the architecture of its own successful policy.
Britain cannot determine American policy, but neither can we treat these as inconsequential differences. They go to the very heart of European security. Nor can we ignore the broader regional and geopolitical picture. Regrettably, Serbia continues to provide political and material support to the Srpska leadership. China is actively converting its economic relationship with Belgrade into military co-operation, gaining strategic leverage in the heart of Europe. Even Croatia, a member of both NATO and the European Union, often meddles in Bosnia’s constitutional arrangements.
Above all, it is Russia that is working systematically to fracture Bosnia and the wider western Balkans as part of its sustained campaign to weaken Euro-Atlantic institutions. It is recruiting fighters to fight against Ukraine and using disinformation, not because it cares one iota about the citizens living there but because division is its instrument of power and control. I would not be shocked if, in the years ahead, a new wall were to divide Europe; it would run through Bosnia, a country almost entirely bordering EU and NATO member states. That is the strategic absurdity we are sleepwalking towards.
The Government have spoken at length about their commitment to deepen defence co-operation with the European Union and greater European responsibility. These are serious and welcome ambitions. We must be self-reliant. This will make us stronger and would respond to the Washington push, but ambitions require practical foundations.
EUFOR Operation Althea, working with NATO, remains the principal international military mission responsible for maintaining stability in Bosnia. Yet Britain left after Brexit. We currently lack the framework that would permit participation in that mission, should circumstances require. If instability in the western Balkans is genuinely a strategic interest of the United Kingdom, as the Government rightly say, and if stronger UK-EU defence co-operation is a genuine priority, the absence of such a framework is difficult to reconcile with either that risk assessment or those stated priorities.
I have several questions for the Minister. First, what specific actions—not statements but actions—will follow from the Government’s identification of the western Balkans as a strategic risk to the United Kingdom and our NATO allies? Secondly, do the Government regard the failure to agree the high representative as a serious sign of weakening international cohesion, and what are they actively doing to break the deadlock? Will the next PIC be held at ministerial level? Thirdly, does the United Kingdom have plans to negotiate a third-country participation agreement for EUFOR Operation Althea? If not, why not? Fourthly, do the Government believe the international framework protecting Bosnia and Herzegovina and its territorial integrity is as credible today as it was 10 or 20 years ago? If not, will they raise with NATO allies the case for a more explicit security guarantee?
Finally, Britain helped to end the war in Bosnia. British soldiers served there and some never came back. British diplomats helped shape the settlement. Bosnia is not a peripheral concern. It sits at the intersection of European security, transatlantic relations and the credibility of the international agreements upon which peace itself depends. The Government have correctly identified the risks. The question before us, which I hope the Minister will answer, is whether Britain’s response matches its own assessment. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, on getting this brief debate. I pay tribute to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Peach, and Karen Pierce as envoys for the western Balkans. It was an imaginative appointment to make, and both have discharged the job with immense skill and results.
I want to make just two points in a very brief speech. First, we must, as a country and as a continent, stay engaged, interested and involved in the whole of the western Balkans region. After all, we have seen in the past how what happens in the western Balkans can all too easily spill over into the rest of the continent and into a wider calamity.
My second point is that in Europe we need to be collectively firm and decisive about the trouble being created by the leaders in Republika Srpska, a part of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and those in Belgrade who are encouraging their particular wrecking tactics. We need to do this confidently and boldly, and the EU needs to do it with us, to act to stop the mayhem that the irresponsibility in the region is promising. The western Balkans must not become an adventure playground for inside and outside malicious actors, as it so often has been in the past, to our collective detriment.
Lord Peach (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interest as the former Prime Minister’s envoy to the western Balkan region. I join in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, on gaining this short debate. I very much align myself not just with the quality of her speech but with the content.
Of course, we can all be honest with ourselves in your Lordships’ House that when Dayton was created, nobody probably expected it as an agreement to be helping to run a country 30 years hence. But it is, and we must protect it. In the over three years that I had that role, I visited the region more than 100 times. When you stand or sit in Sarajevo, you feel the hand of history; you know what happened there. Many British soldiers lost their lives in gaining the Dayton accords and agreements, and we must also honour their memory.
The ethnic tension I saw in that role is very real; it is stoked by modern techniques and social media, and also age-old tensions. The noble Baroness, Lady Helic, is right to remind us that regional powers play both a role that is allegedly positive, in wanting to join the European Union, and then a role within the ethnic groups that is the opposite. The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, has made that clear. I strongly associate myself with his phrase that there is a real risk of spillover.
As I regularly reported from the region, Russian influence is cheap. It is not hard for Russia to establish influence, and worse, in and around Banja Luka, the capital of Republika Srpska. It is enabled for Russia so to do, and it does not miss an opportunity. There are sensitive issues here, not least the kinship and the myth of folk relationships through the Slavic brotherhood and the Orthodox Church—often myths but often exploited. So there are real dangers in the fragility that the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, has made clear.
Another, human element to this is also clear from my time as special envoy: far too many young and talented people from Bosnia and Herzegovina are leaving their country because of the actions of their own politicians. Many of them told me that. They have largely migrated to Europe and are forming their new lives there. They are not going back—they are not temporary—and that diminishes the strength in society.
I also strongly align myself with the thoughts around the European Union Force. It is for the European Union to determine how strong it must be for the situation, but it must have sufficient mandate, supported by a high representative, to enable it to sustain the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and not allow that territorial integrity to be hijacked by those who wish for some form of secession.
Captain of the King’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard and Deputy Chief Whip (Baroness Wheeler) (Lab)
The speaking time is three minutes, and the noble and gallant Lord is over his time. If he takes much longer, other noble Lords will not have their time to speak; it is a timed debate.
Lord Peach (CB)
It is time for the UK to honour its reputation, which is very strong. We should retain our leadership role and our influence. We have done so for 30 years; now is not the time to stop.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Con)
My Lords, I join in the congratulations to my noble friend Lady Helic for securing the debate. Her deep knowledge of the issue derives from her personal experience and expertise. We are also fortunate to hear today from the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Peach, who was our UK envoy to the western Balkans for some years, and from the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, who was Secretary-General of NATO. Their engagement with political leaders and international bodies to support Bosnia and Herzegovina’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and Euro-Atlantic integration was and remains vital.
A few years ago, when I was the Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict, I had a meeting in Banja Luka with the Prime Minister of Republika Srpska and the Prime Minister of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I was reported as saying:
“I am pleased to witness this positive and constructive engagement of the two entities in addressing and solving issues and disputes and would like to see the implementation of the agreed Agenda for Reform without delay”.
Regrettably, what followed was the continuation of instability and concerns about security in the country, including reports of external influence by Russia and secessionist rhetoric in Republika Srpska.
Although the war in the Balkans finished some 30 years ago, its devastating impact still deeply affects those who bore the brunt of that violence. For example, women were gang raped, and were sometimes forced to watch their very young daughters being raped too. They were often ostracised by their families when they became pregnant as a consequence of those rapes. Whether young or older today, they endure physical and mental damage, which they bear with dignity. It was a privilege to meet so many of them. I shall never forget them.
When the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, responded to a question from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, she said that the Government are
“protecting everything for this financial year in our humanitarian work”.—[Official Report, 3/4/26; col. 375.]
My question for today’s Minister is can he give a commitment that the UK will continue to allocate grants to NGOs, so that they can provide medical and psychological rehabilitation for the survivors of sexual violence in conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina?
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, if you have ever seen a ballerina stationary en pointe, you will know that, unaided, she can hold the position for only a couple of seconds. It is simply too unstable. To sustain it for longer, she must be supported by others. This, it seems to me, is a fitting analogy for the political situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Without external support, it will collapse. We must understand that.
The question is what constitutes adequate support? That must depend on an analysis of the destabilising factors. There are two main issues, as we have already heard, and they are closely linked. The first is the centrifugal forces between the entities themselves, particularly those driven by Republika Srpska and Serbia. The second is the exploitation of those forces by malign external actors, principally Russia.
That leads us to some clear conclusions about the nature of the support required. The first is that it must be powerful and agile enough to deter those within Bosnia-Herzegovina from fatally undermining the current arrangements, while at the same time offering compelling incentives for good behaviour. This means a mix of hard and soft power employed in a responsive way to overmatch rapidly evolving attempts to destroy the Dayton settlement. It is up to all of us in western Europe to provide the tools, but they must be wielded by somebody sufficiently close to the action and to the various actors if they are to be used effectively. The High Representative is the key player in this regard, and any attempts to weaken, let alone abolish, the position must be strenuously resisted.
The next conclusion is that this is not just about sustaining Dayton; this is a key part of our response to Russia’s attempts to undermine and threaten our security within Europe. It is not simply local Balkan business; it is of strategic importance to us within Europe more widely. We have to treat it accordingly and to counter Russia’s moves with strength and determination.
Going back to my initial analogy, our support has to be enduring and unwavering. A falling off of our commitment or a weakening of attention on our part could prove fatal, and this is where the greatest danger lies. It is easy to become wearied by such long-term commitments. They can be difficult to justify to domestic audiences with short attention spans and many concerns closer to home, but the alternative is the re-emergence of chaos and bloodshed in the Balkans, a return to ethnic cleansing and the kind of political upheaval that invariably damages our own prosperity as well as European security. We have shown that we are not good at getting people to face stark realities and the hard choices they entail. We must do far better, not least on this issue.
Lord Soames of Fletching (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Lord Speaker for giving me permission to speak sitting down. I am afraid that I am immobile at the moment. The expertise of the my noble friend Lady Helic in these matters is very well known. I share her concern, as do many of us, about the instability threatening Bosnia and Herzegovina and the efforts that are underway to challenge the constitutional order and dismantle the Dayton agreement.
Deterrence has been central to that achievement, particularly through NATO and EUFOR Operation Althea. However, greater clarity is needed on their respective roles. In that vein, I urge the Government to take three steps. First, will they clarify the relationship between NATO and Operation Althea, so that there is no ambiguity in the event of a serious challenge to Bosnia’s territorial integrity? Secondly, will the Government seek a third-party participation agreement to facilitate involvement in Operation Althea, which would signal a strong UK commitment to peace in the region, something of profound importance? Thirdly, will the Government lead efforts to secure a credible NATO guarantee of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s sovereignty to lay to rest once and for all the idea that Bosnia’s borders can be changed by force? We must act decisively, using all the assets—hard and soft, military and diplomatic—and demonstrate the political will required to uphold peace and stability in this region, which is so critical to our interests.
Baroness Gill (Lab)
I join the chorus of congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, on bringing about this important debate. Bosnia and Herzegovina faces its gravest political turmoil since the Dayton accords, as the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Peach, and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, amply highlighted. We are witnessing active threats to its territorial integrity, deliberate institutional paralysis and a genuine danger of renewed conflict.
As the outgoing high representative recently warned the UN Security Council, we face an ongoing crisis of political responsibility driven by Republika Srpska’s leadership’s deliberate attempts to deconstruct state-level institutions. Unbelievably, there are accounts of persistent genocide denial, 30 years after the war that our country and the then Labour Government played a pivotal part in resolving.
The current crisis is worsened by a fractured western policy. Western allies are divided over appointing a new high representative. Meanwhile, a dramatic shift in US policy has lifted sanctions on Milorad Dodik. In this vacuum, Russia and China are expanding their influence, exemplified by NATO partner Serbia actively buying Chinese missiles. Western policy must shift from reactive crisis management to a long-term strategy. The UK, as others have said, must lead the Euro-Atlantic response. The borders must not change. We need a credible NATO guarantee, alongside a strengthening of EUFOR Operation Althea, which currently sits at just 1,500 troops.
I believe that the UK Government, as others have said, must act on two immediate priorities. First, ahead of the October 2026 election, the UK must urgently negotiate a third-country participation agreement with the EU to deploy British troops directly into EUFOR. This is a critical opportunity to prove the UK-EU strategic capacity to act independently of the US. Secondly, I draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that the Government must urgently address indefensible foreign lobbying within our own borders. Under the foreign influence registration scheme, former British diplomats and political figures are actively paid by the Republika Srpska Government to lobby our own Ministers on behalf of an entity which leaders of the UK have explicitly sanctioned for destabilising the region. This is totally unacceptable. We must enforce accountability, strengthen our security posture and stand firmly with the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, on this day last week, the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, spoke powerfully in the debate on genocide and atrocity crimes, pledging support for my Genocide Determination Bill, which will be debated on 17 July. Today, as we recall the horrific depredations of the Bosnian genocide and the massacre at Srebrenica, she has eloquently taken us to the current and urgent situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In the context of Putin’s seizure of sovereign territory and illegal attempts to change borders by force, this must surely constitute the most dangerous moment since Dayton. Given Russia’s interference in domestic affairs across so many countries, we need far greater NATO unity in our response and we need to hear more American voices joining ours in insisting that Bosnia’s borders must be guaranteed.
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect spells out the risks, including weakness of state structures and institutions, civic space under threat, hate speech, incitement and targeting of specific groups. Republika Srpska has intensified its efforts to erode and undermine the authority of the formal state Government and state-level institutions, including enacting legislation openly challenging the jurisdiction of the constitutional court and other central bodies. Recent trends in nationalist rhetoric, leading to the normalisation of denial of the Srebrenica genocide and narratives exacerbating ethno-nationalist tensions, create a fertile ground for hate-based violence. What are we doing to help strengthen state-level institutions, including by capacity building and monitoring, to accelerate the expeditious prosecution of war crimes without further delays and to support efforts to counter hateful narratives and genocide denialism?
There are new challenges. The Global Centre points to how
“Digital technologies, particularly the rise of generative AI, have accelerated the spread of narratives that weaponise societal grievances, undermine trust in democratic institutions and erode electoral integrity”.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I have the honour to chair, is currently looking at AI and human rights. It is alarming to see how AI could be used to contribute to atrocity crimes or exacerbate the risks thereof.
Can the Minister please tell us when the last joint analysis of conflict and stability was undertaken by the FCDO in Bosnia and how we have used its findings? Can he spell out the role of the FCDO atrocity prevention unit? Following the Bosnian genocide, the 1948 convention on the crime of genocide—given to us by Raphael Lemkin, who gave us the word “genocide”, meaning the cutting of the human family—with its duties to prevent, protect and punish, requires signatories, of which we are one, to look for predictive early warning signs and risk factors. Are we doing that?
We urgently need to agitate for a new high representative, expose the role of corrupt deals and lobbying, uphold sanctions and never forget the consequences when we last looked away. The world’s attention deficit and the temptation for international juggernauts to move on simply will not do.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, during my time as Minister it was my humbling honour to serve for seven years as leading the UK’s Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict initiative, picking up the baton from my noble friend Lady Anelay and continuing the valuable work of my noble friend Lord Hague. In thanking my noble friend Lady Helic for tabling this debate, I note her powerful advocacy on this issue.
I had the opportunity of visiting Bosnia several times. Each time I went to Sarajevo. I was taken by a city that bore the scars of war. In Srebrenica, the shadow of the genocide of 8,000 young Bosnian men and boys is real, through the simple tombstones around the green fields and the poignancy of the Mothers of Srebrenica. Like my noble friend Lady Anelay, I sat with survivors of sexual violence—women of extraordinary courage whose lives were torn apart by a weapon of war designed to strip them of their dignity, identity and humanity, yet they continue to speak.
Their testimonies were our inspiration, to ensure that we as a Government did our part to see rape and sexual violence as a deliberate tactic of war and a crime under international law. We worked alongside survivors, activists, prosecutors and religious leaders to ensure that the voices of survivors were heard, evidence was preserved and perpetrators understood that the passage of time would not erase their crimes. I ask the Government to reconfirm, as my noble friend did, that they are committed not only in words but through actions and money in support of survivors.
As we have heard, 30 years after Dayton, survivors are still seeking justice. Barriers are faced. Political leaders such as Milorad Dodik must be stopped. The previous Government put sanctions on him, but we need to do more. His repeated attacks on the constitutional order of Bosnia-Herzegovina, efforts to weaken state institutions, inflammatory language and nationalist rhetoric do not merely create political instability but undermine reconciliation and undermine justice for survivors. There can be no reconciliation without truth. There can be no durable peace without accountability. There can be no future for Bosnia if political leaders like him continue to undermine the institutions.
I say to the Minister specifically that we need to work together with partners—including, importantly, the United States, which has lifted sanctions on Mr Dodik—to ensure that we do not undermine the institutions. We need to re-enforce these sanctions and ensure the sovereignty of Bosnia-Herzegovina is retained. We need to do it not just for the survivors but because it is a collective responsibility for us all.
Baroness Goudie (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, for securing this important debate. Her continued leadership on Bosnia and Herzegovina, genocide prevention and the defence of the women, peace and security agenda around the world is of the utmost importance given the state of the world today and the number of conflicts that we hear about daily. Discussions such as the one before us today show our commitment to ensuring that the lessons of Bosnia are never treated as mere history. We have a continued responsibility to the legacy of the people of Bosnia who lost their lives and to the families and communities who are still living with the consequences of the 1992-95 war.
What happened in Bosnia-Herzegovina matters deeply to Europe. More than 100,000 lives were lost. In July 1995, between 7,000 and 8,000 Muslim men and boys were murdered at Srebrenica and Žepa, in an atrocious event that was rightly recognised as genocide. This trauma has left enduring scars. We must reject genocide denial, further division and political intimidation where it shows its head, especially in a space where remembrance and accountability are so important—not just for the women, children and families who live with the deep consequences of the war but for the status of international law and its capacity to protect the vulnerable.
The Government continue to support Bosnia-Herzegovina’s sovereignty and the Dayton peace agreement, which I welcome gladly. I also welcome our continued support for the Office of the High Representative in the face of international challenges that threaten its stability. As outgoing High Representative Christian Schmidt assessed, the situation in Bosnia is “stable but fragile”. Obstructions to the court and state institutions threaten this stability and reduce the confidence of the Bosnian people in the country’s future and security.
For me, women, peace and security must be central to our conversations on Bosnia, given the terrible use of sexual violence as a weapon of war in the very recent past. An estimated 20,000 women and girls were subjected to sexual violence during the conflict. This proves that, to rebuild a safe and inclusive society, women must be at the centre of Bosnia’s future. Women currently make up only 19% of the members of the lower chamber of the parliamentary assembly. This is not simply a question of representation; it is a question of democracy. Inclusive institutions are stronger institutions. Women peacebuilders, society leaders and human rights defenders are often the first to see the warning signs of division, fear and exclusion.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, it is easy to forget how close the Yugoslav succession crises came, during the 1990s, to destroying or at least severely damaging both the UN and NATO, not to speak of the appalling death toll culminating in the genocide of Srebrenica; and to forget how those crises ended the golden era when, following the reversal of Saddam Hussein’s aggression against Kuwait, it looked as though the international community was really going to live up to the precepts of the UN charter. We should not forget those events, and we owe a debt to the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, for reminding us that, now, even the second-best outcome to the Bosnian war—the compromises reached at Dayton—are under severe threat, and that even the much solider outcome to the Kosovo crisis is not yet safely consolidated.
Both these settlements are at some risk: both are challenged by Serbian separatist movements in Bosnia and Kosovo encouraged by the authorities in Belgrade, albeit surreptitiously. The success of either would be highly welcome to Vladimir Putin, who would see their progress as a counterpart to his own aggression against Ukraine.
What is to be done to prevent these risks progressing? First, in Bosnia, the UK needs to give the firmest support to press ahead with the appointment of an international representative with proper powers, whose task will be to resist the attempts of Republika Srpska to destroy or render inoperable the provisions of the Dayton agreements. Are we doing that? Are we considering making a peacekeeping contribution to the EU’s deployment in Bosnia—Operation Althea—which surely fits well, does it not, with the Government’s commitment to strengthening the European pillar of our defence?
The long-term solutions to both Bosnia and Kosovo must surely lie in the accession of both of them, as well as that of Serbia, to the EU. Unfortunately, due to Brexit, we have no say or influence over those decisions, but we need to realise that the success or failure of those membership applications will affect our own security, just as the turmoil in the Balkans did in the 1990s—a realisation at which we arrived all too slowly during the period when I was Britain’s Permanent Representative at the UN .
One thing we could do is to increase our co-operation with all the countries of the western Balkans in combating international crime, which plagues both them and us. Can the Minister tell the House what we are doing now in that respect and what we are planning to do in the future?
Baroness Mobarik (Con)
My Lords, many voices were raised during the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s, but it was only after Srebrenica that the world took action. I visited Bosnia shortly after the Dayton peace agreement was signed and I encountered a country traumatised by four years of war, devastated communities, immense human suffering and the enduring scars of ethnic hatred and violence. For me, it illustrated that conflicts rarely emerge without warning. Too often, we fail to act when tensions are building and respond only when events have reached an unacceptable pitch and action can no longer be avoided.
I believe we should recognise the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina today for what it is: a grave political and constitutional crisis. I do not suggest that the country stands on the brink of war; however, a number of developments should concern us. Secessionist rhetoric continues to challenge the territorial integrity of the state; genocide denial persists, despite the fact that the genocide at Srebrenica was established by international courts and must never be rewritten or diminished; there are disagreements surrounding the appointment of a new high representative, whose independence and impartiality are fundamental to the Dayton framework; and, at the same time, we see increasing Russian influence in the region, closer Serbian defence ties with China and a significant shift in US policy towards figures associated with secessionist ambitions.
Taken individually, each of these developments may appear manageable; taken together, they suggest a weakening of the international consensus that has underpinned peace since 1995. If we are serious about atrocity prevention, we must recognise warning signs before they become crises. Having seen Bosnia in the aftermath of war, I believe we have a responsibility to ensure that the principles of Dayton remain firmly protected and that emerging risks are addressed before circumstances deteriorate further.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, I warmly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, for securing this important debate and for her consistent work in keeping our attention on Bosnia and Herzegovina, and I congratulate her on her excellent speech. I think the House is speaking with a united voice.
Just as things are looking a bit brighter elsewhere in eastern and south-eastern Europe—in Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Armenia and especially Hungary, with the removal of Viktor Orbán, a key protector of Dodik—the western Balkans remains vulnerable to secessionist and destabilising risks, stoked by Serbia, Russia and China, and an area of threat to European, including UK, strategic and security interests.
When my late noble friend Lord Ashdown—Paddy—helped raise the alarm during the Bosnian war, people said, “Why are you bothering with this remote country?” Of course, he later became high representative, but he understood our own strategic interest in that country.
Sadly, we do not see much help coming nowadays from the United States, whose stance towards Russia and Ukraine seems driven as much by the commercial interests of the Trump family and coterie as by America’s real security interests.
I want to ask the Minister about two former ambassadors: Charles Crawford, who was once UK ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Sir Dominick Chilcott, former ambassador to Ireland and to Turkey, who have both registered under FIRS as lobbyists for Republika Srpska, whose leading players, including Dodik—even if he is no longer technically in office—and his associates are rightly under UK sanctions. Is there really nothing in the rules about former senior FCDO staff to stop this activity, which I regard as dishonourable?
As others have asked, I would like to hear where we have got to regarding UK forces’ participation in EUFOR’s Operation Althea, which would be a practical demonstration of our security partnership with the EU.
Lastly, how much aid money are we giving to Bosnia and Herzegovina to support, for example, an independent press, which is under a great deal of strain, human rights defenders, survivors of sexual violence, and civic society in general? I have looked online at the Western Balkans Freedom and Resilience Programme, but I am afraid I was unable to decipher the project’s recipients and amounts. I imagine this programme has been cut, as these Benches have consistently deplored; in Bosnia and Herzegovina, that would be particularly counterproductive. Can the Minister enumerate the sums for us?
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, this has been a very timely debate, and I congratulate my noble friend Lady Helic on securing time for it. She showed in her powerful opening speech her immense knowledge and appreciation for the region, and I think the House benefited from that.
We have heard a number of other excellent speeches, particularly from the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Peach and Lord Stirrup, the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, and my noble friend Lady Anelay. I thought the analogy of the ballerina on pointe was particularly apt—we all need to be supporting that benighted region.
Regarding the International Relations and Defence Committee’s 2024 report on the western Balkans, the chair, my noble friend Lord Ashton of Hyde, said:
“It is in the UK’s interest to promote peace, prosperity, and stability in the Western Balkans”.
He went on to argue that the UK must
“review its approach to the region in light of the disturbing escalation of violence in northern Kosovo and secessionist rhetoric from the Republika Srpska leadership in Bosnia and Herzegovina”.
It is of course sad that he is no longer a Member of your Lordships’ House and cannot contribute to our debate today, but Lord Ashton was in fact right.
We know that we cannot play a full role on the international stage without the necessary defence capabilities, but the Government have clearly failed on that. The House will be aware that the Defence Secretary resigned during the previous debate. In his letter to the Prime Minister, he wrote that
“you have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country”.
That must have been of great interest to the noble Lord, Lord Robertson. I bet that even he is shocked at the chaos that his excellent defence review has unleashed in the Government.
On Bosnia specifically, the previous Government, as my noble friend Lord Ahmad reminded us, sanctioned Milorad Dodik. This Government are right to build on that work by maintaining the sanctions regime, and I would be interested in the Minister’s comments on how they will take that forward. Sadly, as a number of other noble Lords observed, the United States chose to discontinue its sanctions regime in October 2025. Can the Minister say what discussions Ministers in the FCDO had with their counterparts on that? The recently elected Siniša Karan is a known associate of Milorad Dodik. What is the Government’s view on that fact and the influence that Dodik may wield informally as a result?
Many noble Lords have commented on the malign influence of Russia in the region as it attempts to shore up its support. Pleasingly, Moscow has recently suffered a number of setbacks in its influence campaigns. We should all work together to make sure that Bosnia and Herzegovina is the latest setback for its influence campaigns.
Republika Srpska has been seeking to undermine the memory of the Srebrenica massacre. Will the Minister reassure the House that His Majesty’s Government will continue Srebrenica education and memorialisation efforts in future?
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, for securing this debate, and I appreciate the discussions that we have had in advance of it. Not only has she secured this debate but she has kept the western Balkans, particularly Bosnia, front of mind for all of us, and we are deeply in her debt for that.
I thank all noble Lords for their contribution to this important and rich debate; I am painfully aware that I am in very distinguished company. Inevitably on these occasions, you do not have enough time to namecheck everyone, as I am sure noble Lords understand, but I will try to do so where I can. There are some specific points that I will try to address, but I fear I will not be able to do justice to them, so I will read Hansard carefully and write to all the participants in the debate about those points.
As a number of noble Lords have said, for over 30 years the Dayton peace agreement has underpinned peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. That framework continues to provide the basis for stability. As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Peach, said, we would have been surprised to imagine that it was still the framework after 30 years, but it is. It is the best framework, and it is the one to which the Government remain committed. However, stability cannot be taken for granted. I want to make some remarks about destabilisation, as indeed a number of noble Lords have already done.
Over the past two years, Bosnia and Herzegovina has experienced political crisis and sustained deadlock, characterised by challenges to state institutions, divisive rhetoric and an obstruction of political process. Tensions are rising again ahead of October elections with secessionist rhetoric, Islamophobia, ethnically divisive narratives and continued institutional blockages. A number of your Lordships have referenced all those points and we all acknowledge the seriousness of the situation. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, drew our attention to that.
We remain deeply concerned by the actions and rhetoric of the Republika Srpska, which a number of noble Lords have referenced, and its leadership, but we are also concerned by proposals for constitutional fragmentation, including calls for a so-called third entity, which risks destabilisation. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Peach, my noble friend Lord Robertson, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and, I think, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, used the word spillover. We are very bothered about that.
Let me be completely clear with your Lordships’ House: the United Kingdom is committed to the sovereignty, territorial integrity and constitutional order of Bosnia and Herzegovina. As I have said, we support Dayton as the foundation for peace and stability; I do not want to leave any doubts in your Lordships’ minds about that. We are working closely with international partners through the Peace Implementation Council, and we will continue to pursue the 5+2 agenda.
Let me say a few words about the high representative, which a number of noble Lords have mentioned. Dayton mandates a high representative to uphold its civilian aspects and safeguard the constitutional order—the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, reminded us of Lord Ashdown’s role in all this. In parallel, EUFOR upholds military aspects. The UN Security Council has affirmed the role of both, and the view of the UK Government remains that they are entirely indispensable.
We support the high representative. We want to see someone of independence and integrity—if I can use the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Helic—including, where necessary, the ability to use the Bonn powers as a safeguard to protect state institutions and ensure the peace settlement is respected. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, reinforced, as did the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, the importance of the high representative, and I entirely agree. That is a central plank and I am sorry that we have not got to the point of an appointment yet. We could have had a slightly different debate if we had, but it is good to have it anyway. Nevertheless, we recognise the urgent need for a smooth transition, and we are hoping, as the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, will know, for something by 30 June.
We will continue to actively engage partners in Europe and across the Peace Implementation Council to ensure rapid agreement on a successor high representative who has the right credentials with all the communities in Bosnia and is fully empowered by the Bonn powers to carry out their mandate effectively, in the interests of everyone in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Completion of the 5+2 agenda, as I have said, remains essential before the office of the high representative can close. We do not want to see any timeline set for it; that mandate must continue. Those conditions are a benchmark for a Bosnia and Herzegovina that is irreversibly secure, stable and sovereign. We are not there yet.
The noble and gallant Lord put his finger, as always, on exactly the key question: what then is adequate support? I want to set out for your Lordships what the UK Government are doing. Your Lordships may not agree that it is adequate—I suspect they will not, at least in part—but it is important that I set it out clearly. We are taking practical steps to support stability, resilience and reform. We are building on our leadership of the Berlin process last year, which I hope is reassurance and testament to the UK’s continued commitment to Bosnia and Herzegovina. That is the first thing I would like to say.
The second matter, which several noble Lords have pointed to, is the appointment of Dame Karen Pierce as the special envoy in March 2025. My noble friend Lord Robertson mentioned it in succession to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Peach, and I pay tribute to his distinguished work. We are stepping up our efforts to tackle violence against women and girls in Bosnia. The noble Baronesses, Lady Goudie and Lady Anelay, and the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, all mention the importance of this, including through work on preventing sexual violence in conflict and championing survivor-centred approaches, accountability and regional co-operation. We are delighted that Bosnia and Herzegovina is part of both the international alliance for preventing sexual violence in conflict, and a new coalition to tackle violence against women and girls, launched by the Foreign Secretary at the Global Partnerships Conference.
The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, asked me about our commitment to Srebrenica. I must say that Srebrenica was one of the most soul-searing experiences of recent years, and the Government are absolutely committed to making sure that it is remembered in the appropriate way; I want to make that clear. We welcome progress on rolling out election technology to reduce fraud, and we are also supporting programmes to build institutional resilience and, importantly, as a number of noble Lords have mentioned, counter disinformation from hostile actors.
The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, asked me about how much we are spending. We are committing £37 million to work in the region of the western Balkans over the next three years. When I write to the noble Baroness, I will be happy to give additional details about how that is made up. Russia continues to seek to undermine stability, challenge Dayton, undermine the legitimacy of the High Representative and exploit divisions. We are taking actions to challenge destabilising actors in Bosnia and Herzegovina itself, including through our sanctions programme, and to uphold the country’s integrity.
Other noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Ahmad and Lord Callanan, asked me about where we are on sanctions, and I am happy to make that clear. The UK has imposed sanctions on individuals undermining Bosnia and Herzegovina’s constitutional order, including Milorad Dodik and his allies. We continue to co-ordinate sanctions activities with our international partners to maximise collective impact, though we may not always agree on precise designations nor take identical action.
I have two minutes left, but I will do my best. As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, encouraged us to do, we are seeking to tackle the long-term structural drivers of instability, and we are concerned about atrocity crimes. I say sorry to the noble Lord, Lord Alton: it is always very unsatisfactory to give these one-line answers on complicated problems, but he will appreciate my problem and I promise to write in more detail.
Last but not least, I will directly address the question that I have been asked by several of your Lordships about defence and security co-operation. The UK has provided over £2 million in defence and security assistance since 2021. This includes military training and education and support for defence reform, helping to strengthen the capacity of the Bosnia and Herzegovina armed forces. We have a lot of experience in this area, as noble Lords know, and interoperability with NATO. We continue to support the EUFOR peacekeeping mission, as the noble Lords, Lord Soames and Lord Hannay, asked us to do, including by acting to safeguard its annual renewal by the UN Security Council. We remain very committed to that, and we remain in close contact with our EU, NATO and other partners regarding the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The UK is a major contributor to NATO’s strategic reserve forces covering the western Balkans; we have 600 troops on the ground. I am not seeking to deny the fact that noble Lords would like us to do more, and a number have mentioned the questions around the third-party participation agreement. But that is where we are for the moment.
Finally, I reassure your Lordships that Bosnia and Herzegovina is not a peripheral concern. The months ahead will be really significant and the United Kingdom remains a committed partner. We will, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, asked, stay engaged.
Rural Economy
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Lord Fuller
That this House takes note of the Government’s record on the rural economy.
Lord Fuller (Con)
My Lords, I spent yesterday standing in a field in that new spiritual home of British agriculture, Diddly Squat Farm in Oxfordshire, for the cereals trade show. Nearly 20,000 farmers, growers, advisers, machinery dealers, drone flyers and, yes—by way of declaration of interest—fertiliser suppliers such as myself, huddled under umbrellas, wearing wellingtons, talking trade. The host, Jeremy Clarkson, has said that there cannot be a single farmer left who supports this Government. I can tell noble Lords that my experience yesterday proves him correct.
Indifference from a north London-based Labour Party sadly has morphed into a hatred of those who live in the shires—those who put bread on the table and sustain our nation—with no signs of contrition in the gracious Speech. You know the malevolence has reached an apogee when even the former Secretary of State for Health and the current Mayor of Manchester have realised that this ritual rural abuse must stop. It has taken a while, but those two honourable gentlemen have worked out for themselves that Labour’s war on the countryside has gone too far and must be halted.
It is because the food, drink and agriculture business is big. Agriculture’s annual contribution to the UK economy is £13.9 billion. But this is not a debate about farming alone; the debate is wider than that. This debate seeks to hold the Government to account for the damage they have wrought on those who live in the sticks: the places where the Uber cannot come and collect you from the pub at 11 pm, because either the pub has closed down as a result of Labour’s war on the high street in our market towns, villages and coastal communities, or because there is not an Uber in the countryside anyway. You see, we do different out in the sticks.
It is not just rural pubs. It has been terminal for country house hotels and other hospitality businesses, filleted by extra rates, hobbled by new employment taxes and made unviable with other levies, fees and charges such as the tax on glass bottles.
It is not just hotels; it is also private schools. Many custodians of wonderful grade 1 heritage buildings are the last employers where they have made country towns factory towns: places such as Holt, Marlborough, Oakham and Uppingham. Mostly charities, they are significant contributors to the UK exports for services, but the Government are deaf to that reality. In these places, they are the factories employing hundreds. The people who work there—cooks, cleaners, groundsmen and, yes, teachers—are not rich, but they have been the collateral damage in a class war that has seen them lose their jobs in areas with so few other opportunities. So much for the party supporting the workers.
We have seen £110 million slashed from rural councils with the abolition of the rural services delivery grant. Devon lost £10 million out of £100 million. Norfolk is not far behind and North Yorkshire, our largest rural county, has lost over £12 million, with the countryside being short-changed.
Support for off-grid home owners, people off the beaten track who heat their homes with oil, has been nothing but an inadequate afterthought. Now we see a fresh war on country pursuits, which employ thousands, enhance conservation and dispose of fallen stock while keeping the country pub going in the winter—not with fallen stock, I hasten to add.
On Tuesday, the noble Lord, Lord Deben, raised the inexplicable behaviour of His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which refused to refund millions in VAT incorrectly levied on county show societies that could force their insolvency. We see that political indifference is now infecting the behaviours of the departments of state, damaging the cultural life of the countryside.
Now let us dwell on the harm inflicted on farmers, which structurally undermines our food security as the result of the sustained attack on those who feed us. Last summer there was a ham-fisted cessation of SFI, which could have helped the natural world. What an irony that it has led to farmers intensifying production instead. We saw the cancellation of slurry lagoon grants that, more than anything, could have helped reduce river pollution. We have empowered private equity and sovereign wealth funds to compulsorily purchase land for other purposes. All these have shot the environment in the foot—an activity that will be possible only until shooting itself is sidelined.
Thinking of the rural economy more widely, let us consider the inheritance taxes levied on farmers and other family businesses, which are disproportionately clustered around our market towns in modest trading estates. Together, they employ millions in firms handed down in trust for the next generation. However, they are being systematically filleted and starved of working capital in a way that foreign owners, private equity or publicly traded shares held by pension funds are excused from. This spiteful apartheid disproportionately affects firms in the provinces, especially the large number of rural trades involved in food processing, machinery dealing, fencing, ditch digging, plant hire, and any other ancillary trades, such as timber and buildings merchants, and the haulage contractors that fetch and carry supplies.
We see that Labour’s economic illiteracy is chilling the private investment that drives growth, reducing profits today and damaging the corporation tax revenues of tomorrow—all of which pay for schools and hospitals. We have a Chancellor boasting about free bus travel for youngsters in August. If only there were buses in the countryside for them to ride. Instead, those who drive those twin-cab trucks, who know how to get up in the morning, are to be taxed more heavily. All these people need to move about anyway because of poor digital connectivity in our villages. The Treasury boasts that it has taken about threepence off the price of a litre of red diesel, but only until Christmas. This is a Government reduced to gimmickry. All these active harms visited on the rural economy are the result of the smug city dweller, for whom the countryside is somewhere to look down on and patronise: it is all rather provincial, you see. That is part of the problem. This Government misunderstand, underappreciate and malign the countryside; they should stop treating us as second-class citizens.
Like the hopeless apprentice, Labour is not learning on the job, as there are other insults in the pipeline. To mask the manifest failure of housebuilding in the cities, Labour has increased housebuilding targets in rural districts by over 50% to unachievable levels—levels that have never been achieved before. The Social Housing Bill does nothing to promote social housing in rural areas of the sort championed by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington. Under the land use framework, 1.7 million hectares of productive farmland—about 20%—will be removed from agriculture. At a typical £2,000 gross income per hectare, that represents a £3.4 billion annual hit to the rural economy—a sector that lost an estimated £800 million last year. The countryside is being made poorer and, if things carry on at this rate, there will be no money left to make it more attractive to the birds and the bees and the other species.
The new SFI is meant to be more environmentally beneficial, with fewer actions, but with a paltry £240 million budget announced today, and capping, it prevents those with the most land from making the greatest environmental impact. Worse, at a time when there is hunger and a need for food security, there is a plan to introduce insane carbon taxes on fertiliser—the farmer’s largest expense. That will do nothing to reduce emissions yet will turbocharge food price inflation at a moment when the EU is racing to reduce the impact. Why are we running towards this danger with a scheme that is architecturally incompatible with that of the EU, and which has additional complications—free allowances, default values, and so forth?
For a country that no longer produces ammonia, the raw ingredient for fertiliser, foreign suppliers are already concluding—I know this from personal experience—that we are becoming far too difficult to deal with. That imperils our food security, because fertiliser forms the foundation of our food chain. Then there is the problematic SPS deal, which will turn back the clock on precision breeding—which drives sustainability and productivity—and ban advances and innovations in black grass chemistry. Here is the rub: Labour is trying to have it both ways on the SPS. It wants dynamic alignment with the EU, without the agricultural support that EU policies require. That leaves British farmers in a worst-of-all-worlds situation: all the costs and none of the revenue.
The EU has seen us coming, something the Government cannot see for themselves, and it will not rest until our best land is given up for solar schemes that destabilise the grid and generate no real income at all. There is no need for the little doers that keep the village stalls going—and to prove this point, yesterday we learned that Clarkson’s farm employs 150 people; converted to solar, it would employ nobody. Labour’s vandalism even goes as far as imposing metropolitan patterns on local councils, extending regional city councils to milk the surrounding parishes to pay off their historic debts. It is all quite a list.
Today I can reveal for the first time another example of this Government’s indifference to the rural economy: in reopening the Ensus plant to produce CO2 for our nation at a subsidy cost of £1 million a day, the first cargos of feedstock to power it were from France. The Government could not bring themselves to require that the wheat for that plant come from British farmers, who are on their knees. Given a free choice, this Government have subsidised French farmers to the extent of £1 million a day over our own. The irony is that none of this would have been necessary, had an unthinking Government not signed away our 1.4 billion litre a year bioethanol business in a trade deal with the US that collapsed grain prices on our shores.
This debate reveals a landscape where there is no one in government who understands or is prepared to stand up and speak for those who can see green outside their windows; just chaotic departments all pulling in different directions. We have a Government who prefer dogma to delivery and are ignorant of the millions who live and work in the sticks, working long hours out in the rain and cold, boosting nature, cherishing our countryside, tending to our herds and crops and making Britain a green and pleasant land. Labour has simply abandoned the countryside, providing nothing in the gracious Speech. It is an omission that will come back to bite it.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, for initiating this debate, but he would not expect me to agree with him on every point he has made. I remind the noble Lord that it was years of austerity that helped to undermine the money going to local councils that he regrets so much—and so do I.
Rural Britain is not peripheral; it is central to who we are. It contributes hundreds of billions to our economy, and it is home to nearly one in five of our citizens. Labour has a proud history of championing our rural areas, from the Attlee Government’s National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act onwards. That was the bedrock of today’s tourism, which contributes to our rural economy. I live in the Forest of Dean, and always have done, where there are no Ubers and a flourishing pub.
If we are to build a resilient and fair rural economy, we must move beyond rhetoric to a genuinely place-based long-term approach that treats rural communities not as recipients of policy but as partners in shaping it—farmers large and small, rural entrepreneurs, and local producers. The Government have rightly reaffirmed their commitment to rural-proofing, which is vital. It must be integral from the outset, influencing decisions on funding, service delivery and infrastructure. It must recognise that the rural economy includes culture and creativity.
I met a wonderful rural entrepreneur this morning, James Grugeon, who lives in Suffolk. Among other things, he works with the Adnams brewery, which will be well known to the noble Lord, Lord Fuller. Their Great Get Together beer will be available in our bars from Monday to mark 10 years since the murder of Jo Cox. I am delighted that the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act places a legal obligation on mayors and strategic authorities to actively consider the needs of rural communities when exercising their functions. This includes assessing impacts on land use, housing, local employment, health and well-being. I hope that others will follow the excellent example of the UK’s first protected, landscape-led natural health service, which is being piloted by North York Moors Trust as part of the Moving Forward campaign of David Skaith, Mayor of York and North Yorkshire. This will help to improve well-being, reduce loneliness and support people to get and stay active.
Alan Milburn’s interim review tells of the chronic problem of youth unemployment—aspirations thwarted, opportunities lost and futures placed on hold. The land and nature sectors offer fantastic jobs but, too often, young people from urban and rural areas do not know of their potential choices. What are the Government doing to ensure greater awareness of these opportunities, empowering young people to stay in rural areas and have fulfilling careers?
Horticulture makes an enormous contribution to our economy of around £40 billion. It plays a critical role in food security, environmental sustainability and human well-being, yet it remains underrecognised. Crops are essential, but so are our gardens, patios and window boxes, not to mention beautiful RHS gardens throughout the UK. This sector faces a chronic shortage of labour and skills at all levels. We need stronger education pathways and more degree-level study alongside high-quality apprenticeships that enable people to enter and thrive in the sector. The seasonal worker scheme remains essential. The Government’s extension of the scheme and recent reforms to introduce greater flexibility are important, but short-term visa decisions create uncertainty. A more predictable, rolling framework would provide the stability that growers and workers need.
The countryside should be enjoyed by all citizens of our country, not just those of us who are fortunate to live there. I wonder whether any schemes have followed the Generation Green 2 Defra-funded initiative that connected tens of thousands of disadvantaged young people in England with nature. The access to nature Green Paper will be welcome. I recently met a beautiful brown hare while walking across my fields—well, I do not own them, but they are by my house. I am delighted that the Government are committed to the implementation of a closed season for hares. When will the shooting of these glorious creatures in the breeding season cease?
Finally, I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us when the report of the rural task force will be published, likewise, the 25-year farming road map. The rural economy is about not only production, but about people, place and potential. It is about beauty and diversity. With the right long-term approach, it can and must thrive for the benefit of us all.
Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)
My Lords, it is a great honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. I am a retired member of a farming family from Somerset producing food and milk with lettings to domestic and commercial tenants. The first thing to say about the rural economy is that it is not agriculture that makes it tick. Agriculture and forestry actually represent less than 4% of rural employment and rural GVA. Of course, if you add in the support industries and the food chain, it is considerably more, but then many of those businesses are urban-based. So, although the food industry as a whole is vital to the nation’s economy and, indeed, its survival, farming, as such, plays a lesser part in the rural economy than many people think. However, it should be said that farmers also create our wonderful countryside, which helps attract rural tourism, which adds another 4% to rural GVA and also over 12% of all rural employment.
However, the rural economy is now incredibly diverse. There are more manufacturing businesses in rural England than in urban, not per head but per se. For example, in our converted farm buildings in Somerset, we have web designers, microchip manufacturers, school management services, vets, accountants, insurance brokers, hairdressers and even two padel courts. I suspect that we now have more people working on the farm than before the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. The rural economy is transformed and, certainly in the western half of England, many of our small farming families depend upon non-agricultural wages, which, when added to the family budget, help keep the farm solvent. In other words, the more diversified the rural economy, the better it is for agriculture.
The biggest problem holding back the rural economy now is the unavailability of labour, and there are two main features of this: housing and transport. The unaffordability and unavailability of rural housing means that the next generation of working families has largely moved to our cities and towns. I am hoping that the Social Housing Bill will help create more affordable houses in our villages and market towns, but that is a very big subject that I do not have time to go into now.
On transport, our rural young have a problem. How do you get to your first job 10 miles away at 7.30 am without a set of wheels, and how do you get a set of wheels without the wages from your first job? It is a Catch-22. The simple answer is that you lend the youngster a moped. There used to be hundreds of Wheels to Work schemes around England that did just that. The youngster was lent a moped free of charge and, after six months in work, had to give it back and get their own set of wheels. The scheme was funded by local authorities and the DWP. Then, as we all know, local authorities ran out of money and the urban-based DWP simply did not get that these schemes cost less per head than the social security benefits otherwise payable to these youngsters. Sadly, nearly all these Wheels to Work schemes have died.
Transport problems do not affect only the young. I have had families explain to me that with the cost of rural childcare and the low local wages available, it does not make economic sense for them to buy a second car so that the second adult can go to work. As I say, unavailability of labour remains a serious impediment to rural growth.
There are other problems for the growth of the rural economy. Most serious is the difficulty of accessing training, but there is also the poor connectivity of phones and broadband, higher energy costs and endless delays in planning. I say to our planners that our villages were made for work, rest and play. Remember the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. Villages have never been and should never be just dormitories.
We are an enterprising lot in rural Britain. There are more rural businesses per head than in urban Britain. There is a far higher rate of self-employment. We tend to prefer getting up and trying rather than getting up and taking the dole. We will always survive, but we need support and help to fulfil our true potential.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, it is great to see my noble friend Lord Roborough back in his place just in time for this important debate. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Fuller on securing it. There is no doubt that the rural economy, just like most of the UK, is struggling. Unfortunately, some of that is due to recent changes in a variety of areas of employment, but I will not pretend that it has not always faced more challenges than are experienced by most people in this country.
A few years ago, I was lead author on the policy paper Unleashing Rural Opportunity. Even then, I was challenging somewhat the Cabinet Office two-by-two matrix on how we determine median pay and employment. As soon as we took it down to a three-by-three matrix and started looking at district council level, it painted a very different picture from what Whitehall wanted to think was going on, which portrayed all of Wales and Cornwall as exceptionally poor. When you do the detailed work and analysis, it is not the same picture. Within counties, at a district council level, you see quite a difference. That is happening at not only a rural level but a coastal level.
I am conscious that this continues to be a challenge. I appreciate that the Government may be trying to look into it but, unfortunately, as my noble friend Lord Fuller pointed out, there is a systematic degradation going on. It is not deliberate, but it is happening, even on small things such as proposed changes to drink-driving limits. The impact on hospitality in the countryside will be significant, yet there is no evidence to suggest that those sorts of accidents or links are there in the countryside. We have to keep reminding ourselves to think about the minority of people in this country—not necessarily in terms of the land they cover—and how policy driven by Westminster and Whitehall can have an impact.
Plenty of noble Lords will be able to talk about farming or similar. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, that Wheels to Work is definitely still going. It is now often run by charities, and DWP helps to pay for it. I will focus not on the farmers or farriers—all key industries in our agriculture—but the opportunities to which noble Lords have already referred.
It is twofold, about colleges and childcare. More than half of young people cannot get to an FE college within half an hour. That starts to limit the options available to them and what sort of jobs they can do. I am conscious that we want to try to improve opportunities for young people through apprenticeships and the like. We need to keep focused on how we spend the increased amount on bursaries that was provided a few years ago and make sure it is focused on rural young people so that they can get to colleges to open up opportunities for them. It is important that we try to stop the drain of people moving away from the countryside to the cities and major towns by making sure they can get into work.
The other challenge is about being in and staying in work, and that is to do with childcare. When I was in the Cabinet, I failed to persuade my own Government about how to deal with childcare. We regularly talk about 30 hours a week. That is based on 38 weeks a year. It is entirely around school terms. We have seen a significant drop in the number of childminders, which started under a Labour Government and continued under a Conservative Government, while the proposals put forward by the Government are about school-based nurseries and the focus on term time.
A significant part of employment is connected to hospitality in the countryside and on the coast. When do people need flexible childcare? They need it during the summer holidays. I encourage the Minister to work with other government departments to look again, not just to see the rose-tinted view of what life is like in rural areas but to go a bit further into the detail to see why it is that the lowest-paid people and the lowest employment—not unemployment—are in the countryside, and to make changes to reverse that progression.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. I join her in saying how nice it is to be sitting just behind the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, whose return to the House is, I am sure, welcomed by everybody.
I have a great interest in the subject, having been a bulb grower before I came to this place 20 years ago last Friday. It does not seem long, but it is actually quite a large portion of my life. I am a Holbeachean by name now, and by birth, and I live there. The business in which I was involved is a family business, founded by my grandfather who originally had a 10-acre ex-serviceman’s smallholding after the First World War. He was able to build it up, and I hope I played my part in the system too. Since I became a Minister I have ceased to have any interest so, as a declaration of interests, I am interested in the subject but I have no pecuniary interest in the industry.
I do not know whether any noble Lords read last week’s Sunday Times special supplement on the fastest-growing private companies. It was really quite interesting. I do not think any of us would have been surprised to discover that out of the top 100, 45 were in Greater London and a huge proportion of the remainder were in the south-east and the areas around London. In the east Midlands, where I live, there were three. In the north-east there was one. In the whole of Scotland there were two, and there were four in Wales. These are privately owned companies which, as everybody here will know, are often the most dynamic elements of the economy. It is illustrative of the focus on urban matters, which tends to dominate economic thinking and everything else.
I am delighted that my noble friend Lord Fuller has tabled this Motion. He has been an exemplar of the dynamic, “go for it” entrepreneurialism that is essential in a rural environment. He has also been a key figure in rural local governance, which is an important part of the lives of people who live in the countryside.
I was trying to think of where I should start on this. I did not want to be totally negative, but it is creeping up to nearly two years since we had that disastrous Budget. It was a disastrous start for the Government, particularly their policy in connection with inheritance tax. I remember asking the noble Lord, Lord Livermore, a key Treasury figure, how we could expect investment following the farms and business inheritance tax, and what was the chance of growth. I shared with him a view of growth being the key factor. Before long, as other noble Lords have pointed out, employers whose staff had to travel distances to work were faced with a jobs tax. No wonder we have a rising number of young people who are NEETs, as we call them.
However, I do not want to make my contribution to this debate an anti-government contribution, because farming and rural areas need to feel the Government are with them. We should aim for efficiency and productivity. We may never be self-sufficient in food, but we should see rural England as a resource to be exploited to satisfy the consumer and the retail sector, and the enormous number of people engaged in the processing, packing and distribution of farm goods. The food valley stretching from Grimsby to Peterborough is a major centre for this activity.
I close by saying that I am concerned about SPS dynamic alignment. I was at the briefing, and the noble Lord replying to this debate was there as well. I hope he can reassure those of us who are concerned about the consequences and that it may lead to greater regulation. We are in business to grow and produce food, not to fill in forms.
Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach, whose knowledge in this area, as we heard, is very considerable. I also declare my farming interests as set out in the register.
So often, Labour Governments present themselves as friends and champions of the rural economy. But as we are seeing very visibly with this Government, the reality is somewhat different. Our rural way of life is being constantly eroded by the views of the urban majority, and our farming infrastructure and ability to grow food dismantled by ill thought-through policy and taxation.
I mean no disrespect to the Minister, but one of the key reasons for this, which I have mentioned before in the House, is that Defra simply has no one on its senior management or ministerial team who has any real-world farming knowledge, or farms on sufficient scale to understand the impact of this Government’s legislation. As a result, Defra Ministers and civil servants rely on very questionable advice from arm’s-length bodies such as Natural England, which are themselves populated by quasi-academics with their own ideological agenda, who have little or no understanding of how our rural communities work and often display a breathtaking level of political overreach. This translates across into Labour rural policy. Conceptually, the inverse would be like asking the senior management team of the National Farmers’ Union to run the Treasury—although some might argue that is not such a bad idea.
Seriously, protecting food security, growing the rural economy and maintaining the social fabric of the British countryside requires much more than just ideological theories and political slogans. It requires real, practical, effective and consistent policies that balance economic development, food security and conservation with the more nuanced elements of rural life.
The Labour Party’s approach to the rural economy has been quite the opposite, with policies such as the family farm tax, increases to the minimum wage, increases to national insurance contributions, withdrawing SFI at no notice and the banning of rural traditions such as trail-hunting and the use of lead shot. All these have caused farmers and those who live in the countryside severe economic hardship and a great deal of mental strain. Simply put, the rural economy feels, for good reason, under siege from Labour.
Let me return to the issue of policy consistency. Successful land management, food security and rural prosperity require clear, consistent planning and a long-term approach. I urge the Minister to tell his colleagues that frequent, unsignalled policy changes and endless U-turns create uncertainty for rural businesses, unsettle investors and create serious cash-flow problems for the sector—all of which lead to the sluggish and demoralised situation that we face now.
I close by asking the Minister three things. First, will he maintain a clear head when looking at banning or further restricting rural activities? Those pressing for a ban never understand the whole picture, and although they might outweigh in sheer numbers those who participate in these rural activities, that neither justifies nor validates their opinion. Secondly, will he publicly acknowledge the real-terms impact that inflation is having on farming budgets and look again at support, particularly direct support for fertiliser costs, to ensure that food continues to be grown across the UK? Thirdly, will he reverse the crippling APR and BPR tax charges on family farms and businesses, which continue to cause economic and emotional agony across the whole farming sector?
Lord Howard of Rising (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a farmer and the owner of a country estate.
When considering the rural economy—which, after all, consists mainly of people working hard for long hours with little reward, frequently for the good of others—we should remember that the English countryside does not look like it does by accident. It does so because of the endeavours of those who live and work there. For example, who takes care of the waste that costs the economy £1 billion a year? It is the farmers who pick up the large-scale dumping—and there is plenty of it. It is the public who organise litter picks to collect the stream of discarded tins and fast-food wrappers.
The Government missed the opportunity to put in the Crime and Policing Act powers for the police to seize the vehicles of litter louts, rather than waiting for local authorities to act. If you want to stop dumping, there needs to be a meaningful deterrent. If people thought that discarding a McDonald’s wrapper would cost them their car, they would think again.
However small their enterprises, farmers and landowners trim hedges, examine trees for potential danger, clear ditches, remove obstacles from footpaths and perform many other unsung acts of maintenance. When discussing the rural economy, your Lordships should bear in mind that the headline statement of income and expenditure, miserable as it is, omits the considerable burdens borne by those living and working in the countryside.
As my noble friend Lord Fuller pointed out, the Government make life harder for the rural economy. The average rural post office faces a fourfold increase in business rates compared with 2023-24. More and more pubs are shouting “Last orders!”: 161 pubs closed in the first three months of this year. Why add further unhappiness by attacking country sports? Banning trail-hunting is pointless and unnecessary. It does no harm but provides a welcome respite from the hard work and long hours associated with most countryside activities, and it contributes greatly to the rural economy.
The Church of England is responsible for the parishes, which are still a significant part, even now, of local communities. The consolidation of parishes means that there are fewer parish priests. Why does the Church of England not use some of its enormous wealth to maintain more parish priests and pay them better, rather than expanding bureaucracy and wasting money on trendy causes?
The fundamental truth of the countryside is that the majority of people involved in it are there as much for the love of the countryside as for making a living; generally speaking, there are no great riches in the countryside but it is a rewarding way of life. It would be even more so if government interference and impediment could be reduced. Today’s farmers spend as much time looking at spreadsheets, filling in forms and complying with directives—many of which are pointless—as they do farming. It is understandable that the country should maintain the ability to feed itself, and that might involve subsidies, but perhaps applying for them could be made a little less arduous.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, the memoir of the noble Baroness, Lady Batters, titled Harvest: A Farmer’s Story of Heritage, Home and Hope, has just been published. I notice that she dedicated it:
“To farmers, their families and all those who feed us”.
That is a fitting reminder of the importance of today’s debate. While the rural economy is not restricted to farmers, as we have heard, their interests and those of our whole society overlap existentially. International threats abound today, and the blocking of strategic shipping lines is a warning shot across our bows that national resilience requires domestic food production to flourish. In a free-market economy, that means that farming simply must be profitable.
As my entry in the register of interests states, I am a Farmer not only by name but by occupation. I have a farm in Hampshire and am deeply committed to the prospering of rurality.
Confidence among British farmers has fallen to historic lows: the NFU found that nearly two-thirds say that profits are declining or their business may not survive. Government polling found that only around a third feel positive about their future in agriculture. When I talk to other farmers I get a similar sense of their mood. They are asking, “How long can we hang on under the current economics of farming before having to throw in the towel?”
These economics include a low grain price, high fertiliser costs and ever-growing restrictions on pesticides. Andersen Consulting has said that last year agflation was running at 8.4%, well ahead of CPI, at 3.3%, and the prices for farm outputs were down 6.5% from the previous year. Farmers also face acres of form-filling and communications with Defra officials who seem to talk in a foreign language. They say the negative signals from these factors adversely influence whether the next generation will want to farm at all. Farming is already in the hands of relatively few people, and many are of the older generation and struggling to find skilled hired hands to farm with them.
Research confirms that our self-sufficiency is declining, particularly in certain sectors. We cannot discount the possibility of a tipping point, when British agricultural production, in effect, collapses to become irrelevant relative to the quantity of produce required to feed the population.
We had reached a similar crisis point in the 1930s, and it took significant public investment to bring UK agriculture back to life. Then there were many more people involved in agriculture and a much bigger pool of capable farmers to re-energise production. Today’s reduced numbers make this far harder—and robots are not the answer, although they might help at harvest time. Modern technology, such as combine harvesters guided by satellites, is undoubtedly much more sophisticated. But we will still need human beings for when the robotic combine header bends and needs mending. There is always a surprising number of mishaps affecting farming the whole time.
Do new employment laws allow for the exceptionalism of farming? At points in the year, very little goes on. Some farmhands work only seasonally. If people want to live in relatively remote places such as Shetland, they are required to run several jobs according to the season, and that is the norm. Should we encourage such norms to develop in farming?
In closing and to reiterate, we need to be resilient. When it comes to farming and food production, we are not. What will the Government do about this?
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, for tabling this debate and declare an interest as a resident of that most rural of counties, Herefordshire.
Last Sunday, I was in my local village hall, on the banks of the River Wye, cooking and serving breakfast for up to 50 people. The menu, if noble Lords are interested, was cereals and fruit, a full English with vegetarian and gluten-free options, and unlimited toast, tea and coffee, all for £6, with the profits being shared by the village hall and the local church. This event takes place on the first Sunday of every month. I mention it as it is typical of the activities which happen in so many village halls in so many villages. It is on village halls that I shall focus my brief contribution today.
Village halls serve as a vital community anchor, providing a wide range of benefits. They foster social and community cohesion and offer a neutral, accessible gathering space that brings together people of all ages and backgrounds. That helps reduce social isolation, particularly for elderly residents and those living alone. It fosters a sense of local identity and belonging. They have a role in health and well-being, hosting fitness classes, sports clubs and recreational activities. They provide venues for mental health support groups, carers’ groups and well-being programmes, and give older residents access to social activities which support physical and cognitive health. They are well known as venues for playgroups and nurseries.
They often serve in other ways with local services and support—as polling stations, post office drop-ins and GP surgery outposts in areas where these services have retreated. They host food banks, community larders and emergency relief efforts, and provide a base for Citizens Advice, debt counselling and other such support services. We must remember that problems of debt and poverty exist even in the most beautiful surroundings.
My noble friend mentioned cultural and educational life, and village halls make a huge contribution here. Our local village hall is transformed into a theatre when the local pantomime is produced. They host concerts, film screenings, art exhibitions, education classes, language groups and craft workshops. Your Lordships may be thinking that these things are not vital to the rural economy—a bit on the soft side, perhaps. I dispute that, as anything that helps community cohesion helps the economy.
Let me point out some of the more specific contributions to the economy. They provide affordable venue hire for small businesses, markets and tradespeople, and support local employment through hall management and events. I have seen many a volunteer develop skills to take into the workplace by volunteering to do the bookings and co-ordinating events. I have seen people who, following a major illness, have developed their skills so that they can go back into the workplace.
Think of what happens when there is a flood, of which, unfortunately, there are too many nowadays. Village halls act as emergency rest centres, where people can take refuge after a flood, power cut or other crisis. They serve as co-ordination hubs for the community emergency services.
Village halls contribute to democratic and civil life. They host parish council meetings and public consultations—how do you get a neighbourhood plan unless you have a gathering at your village hall?—and, of course, local elections. They give communities the space to debate, organise and hold authorities to account. In rural areas, as we have heard, the village hall is often the last remaining community building when all the other buildings—schools, pubs and shops—have closed, as all too frequently they have, sadly.
For all these reasons, I hope that the Government and local government recognise the contribution of village halls and the vital role that they play in rural life. I hope the Minister will acknowledge this and understand that any support given is repaid tenfold by the contribution of the volunteers who work so hard to keep them going, as an essential component of a living countryside, cementing the bonds of community, where people know and care for each other.
Viscount Goschen (Con)
My Lords, I declare at the outset that I live in rural Devon and own a small farm.
This House has a great deal of experience and expertise in farming and rural affairs, as demonstrated in the debate. However, I lament the experience that has been lost with the departure of so many of our colleagues who spoke so powerfully and with such personal knowledge on rural affairs and related matters.
In the short time available, I will cover only two points. The first is how policy that affects rural areas is made and communicated. A related point is the bond of trust that has to be present between the regulators and the regulated. I regret the distrust that perhaps has emerged, particularly since the IHT debacle, and the wedge that has been driven between the Government and so many who operate in rural areas, particularly those who have farming interests. It is important that that is rectified, so I very much look forward to what the Minister says.
The Government have made many of the right noises. For example, an interesting policy paper about rural-proofing was published in May 2025. It needs to be done, but the question is whether it has had any real impact and whether the taskforce that has been established is powerful enough, for example, in discussions with major departments such as the Treasury. That remains to be seen.
I will leave the detail of a debate on farming specifically to colleagues who have much greater experience and expertise than I, but note merely that farming is a long-cycle, capital-intensive industry making marginal returns, which is greatly influenced by government policy, and global commodity markets and trade policies. Above all, farmers need clarity and stability over the medium term against which they can make decisions. There is a lack of confidence that food production and security really are at the centre of policy-making. That has to change. There must be a bond of respect and trust between those who make policy and those who execute it.
I listened with great care to what my noble friend Lord Douglas-Miller had to say on this subject. We look forward to the 25-year road map, though 25 years sounds a bit ambitious when we are hearing important policy announcements that appear to be reversals of earlier policies, particularly around environmental impacts. You just have to look at the kites being flown around a potential requirement for a 25% reduction in livestock grazing. These are incredibly important policy areas and farmers must have confidence that their regulator and sponsor department understand the dynamics of their business and industry. That was something of a plea. The Government should listen carefully to what rural advocacy organisations say on that front.
In my remaining few seconds, I will say a word or two about transport. Travel by car is not a luxury in rural areas: it is a necessity, given that there is sparse public transport available. Loading tax and regulatory burdens on to motorists has a disproportionate effect on rural communities, where people need their cars to move around, get to work and get on with their lives. There is simply no alternative. Our rural road network is a disgrace, and this is not a party-political point: it has occurred over a variety of local and national administrations. Proactive maintenance such as ditch clearing, flood prevention and pothole mending to prevent major schemes being required is important. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I welcome my noble friends Lord Goschen and Lord Roborough back to their positions, and I congratulate my noble friend Lord Fuller on securing this debate, which I welcome very warmly.
What is a rural area? We know that rural areas in the UK generate over £250 billion annually for the national economy, yet the cost of living is a very real issue in rural areas. Wages are often lower, yet the costs of housing, transport and heating are higher, and it is more expensive to deliver public services in rural areas. The Government loosely define a rural area: its definition is literally everywhere other than an urban area. An urban area is a settlement with a population of 10,000 or more, based on the 2021 census. A rural area thereby includes rural towns, villages, hamlets, isolated dwellings and the open countryside. The rural population in 2021 was 9.5 million, representing 16.9% of England’s population. North Yorkshire, a part of which I was proud to represent in the other place, is a very sparsely populated and largely rural area, with 623,370 residents covering over 8,000 square kilometres. It is sparsely populated and, in parts, quite isolated.
What is a rural economy? It covers all economic activities, as we have heard, and industry employment in non-urban areas. While primarily agricultural in nature, a rural economy is diverse, covering manufacturing, engineering, tourism, professional services and the digital economy.
What are the challenges facing the rural economy? I will focus on farming as the major contributor and the one activity of which I have the closest knowledge. It is a source of great concern to me that, while the level of support is falling and the challenges and pressures on productive farming are growing, there is now a funding gap as farm incomes are going down. British farm payments are being slashed; at the same time, environmental schemes, including the SFI, as we have heard, are very slow to be introduced. There are particular challenges to upland farms, small family farms and tenant farms. Those three groups are facing the greatest challenges. On top of that, as we heard from the noble Lord moving this debate, there are geopolitical challenges: hostilities in Ukraine and the Middle East are threatening the supply chain, increasing costs, and, closer to home, clean energy schemes are taking 10% of some of the most productive farmland out of farming. The countryside is being blighted by solar farms, battery storage plants, wind turbines, pylons and overhead wire transmission. These schemes are threatening house prices and ruining the peace and quiet enjoyment of rural dwellers. The Government are focusing more on nature, oblivious to the fact that farmers have a closer and better understanding of farming than anybody else. They are wedded more to the environment than to boosting food production, yet environmental schemes do not put food on the table. I urge the Government to increase food security and resilience to the risk factors and increase our self-sufficiency in food.
Market towns such as Thirsk, Malton and Pickering are the hub of the rural economy. Often, in areas such as North Yorkshire with a thriving livestock presence, there is a mart. I urge everyone to visit their local mart because it will have some of the best food.
The future of livestock production must be ensured. Farmers, as we have heard, are the unsung heroes at the heart of the rural economy, not just producing food to eat but performing vital functions such as clearing the roads of snow in winter, draining low-lying watercourses at times of floods and manning parish councils. I urge the Government to seek mutual recognition rather than realignment of standards with the EU and, more especially, to refocus the rural economy and ensure that all their efforts, through land use and management, prioritise farming and food production over energy and environmental schemes. The Government started off promising a lot on the rural economy. Now they must deliver.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, for bringing forward this important discussion, and I welcome back the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, after a brief interregnum.
To repeat what the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, has said, our rural economy contributes over £240 billion annually and encompasses most of our land. It is central not only to our economic well-being but to our environmental stewardship and, particularly in a difficult week on this front, to our national identity. Yet, for all its importance, rural Britain too often feels like an afterthought in policy-making.
As the Rural Services Network has observed, rural communities are asking not for special treatment but for fair recognition—the opportunity for people and businesses in every part of this country to thrive. At present, that opportunity feels increasingly out of reach. The Rural Services Network points out that urban authorities receive some 40% more in funding per head of population than their rural counterparts.
The pressures are considerable. Farmers and rural businesses face the growing reality of extreme weather, from flooding that devastates farmland to heatwaves that reduce yields. Indeed, three of the worst five harvests have happened since 2020. At the same time, as pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, global instability, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has driven volatility in energy and fertiliser prices, placing further strain on already tight margins.
However, many of the structural weaknesses that we now see are not new. They stem in part from decisions taken over the past decade and longer. The Conservative Government presided over a series of changes that left the sector more exposed: the Brexit settlement introduced significant friction and red tape into export markets, while the trade agreements with countries such as Australia and New Zealand raised legitimate concerns about undercutting our own domestic producers. The transition away from the basic payment scheme was undertaken without a fully operational and trusted replacement, leaving many farmers navigating uncertainty at precisely the moment they needed clarity. My noble friend Lord Foster’s committee on our rural economy in 2019 got a rejection for many of its recommendations, such as a mandatory rural impact process for all legislation to end the decades of inbuilt natural urban bias.
That said, it would be wrong to suggest that the current Government have steadied the ship on this front. Too often, they appear to be continuing along the same uncertain path. Changes to agricultural property relief, as we have heard from other Peers, and national insurance have caused real anxiety among family farms, many of which operate on narrow margins and depend on long-term stability to survive. Policies that are perceived to penalise succession risk undermining the very fabric of rural communities.
Particularly troubling, as touched on by many, are the continuing difficulties surrounding the environmental land management schemes. Nearly a decade after the Brexit referendum, we still do not have a system that commands widespread confidence. The closure of the sustainable farming incentive to new applicants due to a capped budget has sent deeply damaging signals into the community. Reports of very limited uptake in the higher-tier schemes, alongside the exclusion of common land in many cases, suggest a system that is not as yet fit for purpose.
What is needed, going forward? From these Benches, we believe that the starting point must be long-term certainty. That requires, for instance—and it will not be the first time I have talked about it this week—a statutory national food strategy, embedding accountability and ensuring that food production, environmental sustainability and public health are considered together, rather than in isolation. We also believe that the farming budget must reflect the scale of the challenge. An increase in investment is not simply support for one sector; it is an investment in our national resilience, environmental recovery and economic stability.
This week, my Liberal Democrat colleague Daisy Cooper MP set out the Liberal Democrats’ essential energy guarantee, designed to give every household a basic allowance of cheaper energy, with additional support for those in greatest need. In rural areas, where homes are often harder to heat and businesses depend on energy-intensive operations, that kind of reform is not an abstract ideology. It is a practical response to a very real economic burden. The pressure on rural households is compounded by the cost of energy.
Equally important is the question of skills and workforce. Agriculture and land-based industries should be seen as dynamic, forward-looking career paths. There is significant untapped potential, particularly among young people who are not currently in education, employment or training, as we have been discussing only today and last week. A targeted programme bringing together training, paid experience and clear progression could help to renew the sector and ensure that innovation in areas such as agritech and sustainable land management is driven by a skilled domestic workforce.
Finally, we must recognise that food security is inseparable from national security. In an increasingly uncertain world, that resilience matters. This does not mean retreating from trade, but it does mean ensuring that domestic production remains strong and viable, with a more strategic approach to self-sufficiency, combined with fairer supply chains and stronger protection, especially for our rural producers.
The rural economy has immense potential, but it cannot thrive on the current scenario. It requires consistent policy and genuine engagement. Rural Britain does not seek any kind of special favours; it just seeks fairness in terms of the framework within which it can succeed, and I think it is time we provided that.
Lord Roborough (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Fuller for bringing this important debate to your Lordships’ House and to him and others for outlining the issues so comprehensively and eloquently. Before I begin, I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the register of interests as a livestock farmer, forester and renewable energy developer, and as an investor in Deere & Co, Kana and Agricarbon UK Ltd, which provides services to UK farmers. I should add that I am grateful to my leadership for giving me the opportunity to return and for the warm welcome that I have received today from all parts of the House.
In the previous Session, the Government treated the countryside as a piggy bank that they could raid to finance urban spending. The 50% reduction in IHT reliefs on APR and BPR assets is expected to raise around only £300 million per annum, yet it has a profound impact on family business planning, particularly in the agricultural industry, where asset values are high relative to the incomes they generate. The partial U-turn came only after tireless campaigning, not just from those of us on these Benches, but from farmers and supporters up and down the country. We will not be satisfied until the reliefs return to 100%. Perhaps the Minister, after hearing these arguments today, might even choose to make that commitment, although I doubt it.
The Government have launched new SFIs after the unexpected and unsettling closure early last year. The government announcement this morning of only £240 million for the new SFIs and £50 million for countryside stewardship is deeply disappointing. Can the Minister confirm that this Government’s commitment to spend £2.4 billion on farming in this fiscal year will remain intact and that those funds will be spent only on ELMS and residual BPS and will not be diverted to non-farming uses?
SFIs were supposed to promote sustainable farming, not just to act as a blanket payment. Applications have been capped at just one per farm with fewer sustainable farming actions to choose from and a maximum payment of £100,000 regardless of the farm size. Not only does this remove support for farmers but it lessens the incentives to farm sustainably. Before the end of the previous Session, the Government again dramatically accelerated the reduction of delinked payments. Following the two recent aggressive reductions, farmers’ ability to plan their businesses financially was undermined. As my noble friend Lord Fuller mentioned earlier, the removal of the rural services delivery grant reduced support for the less fortunate in the rural community. In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, it was her Government that removed them, not ours.
On top of these specific actions, the rural economy shared in the pain caused to business and employment more widely through the increase in employer national insurance contributions and minimum wages and the Employment Rights Act. Rural affairs were completely absent from the King’s Speech. This is deeply disappointing. Grain prices are very low relative to costs, particularly fertiliser, and offer no profit opportunity to farmers. Margins available on new SFIs are compressed, and timber prices are on their knees as housing construction slows, despite this Government’s commitments. Farming and the wider rural economy are in a very dark place, and our food security is diminishing, but it is clear that the Government are not yet finished. More harm may yet be done to our rural economy. Alignment with the EU risks sacrificing hard-won successes and important, ongoing progress. The UK is leading the way in developing a cattle vaccine for bovine TB. Can the Minister guarantee that aligning with the EU animal health framework and veterinary medicines regulations will not slow or hinder that development or the deployment of a future vaccine? In addition, will the UK Government commit to securing a carve-out for gene editing and precision breeding and to preventing any labelling requirements discriminating against its produce?
The new sanitary and phytosanitary agreement does nothing to compensate for the Government’s decision to grant the EU 12 years of continued access to UK fishing waters. That is a lost revenue opportunity for our fishermen to the order of £1 billion per annum. What safeguards are in place for our fishing industry to ensure that it is not threatened further by closer alignment? The Government rejected the EFRA Committee’s recommendation to negotiate a transition period as part of the EU-UK SPS agreement for affected businesses. However, many growers and farmers will be making production decisions now for food sold beyond mid-2027, when this agreement is expected to come into force. What steps are the Government taking at least to ensure a smooth transition for businesses and that those businesses are actively engaged to inform the Government’s approach?
Looking ahead, the Government have pledged to ban trail hunting, despite it being a harmless rural activity that supports jobs and brings rural communities together. Hunting with dogs has been illegal in this country since the Hunting Act came into force in 2005. Why do this Government think it is now worth wasting parliamentary and police time to ban trail hunting? Surely our police have higher priorities, such as tackling waste crime, and the crimes that really do affect rural communities, rather than turning a harmless activity into a criminal act.
The farming and rural community is at a point where it does not believe that the Government cares for it or governs for it. This is a terrible place in which to be. We are seeing this in other policy areas, too, as other noble Lords have mentioned. In energy policy, solar farms are stealing prime agricultural land, rather than making the most of oil and gas in the North Sea to lower energy costs. Last year, the CPRE found that two-thirds of mega solar farms are built on productive farmland. This is at a time when our food security is increasingly at risk. It is beyond urgent that new drilling programmes are licensed and that Jackdaw and Rosebank go ahead in the UK North Sea. The only hope of lowering our fertiliser costs is to produce domestically, and that requires much cheaper gas to be competitive. In mentioning this, I draw the attention of the House to my register of interests as an investor in EnQuest, Valarais and Noble Corporation.
The Government must think clearly in their approach to the rural economy and focus on delivering new income streams to bolster agricultural revenues, which, as we have heard, are not currently sufficient to ensure farming continuity. Defra operates over 700 different services, 300 websites and 100 IT platforms, and uses 600 paper forms. If the Government really want to help farmers farm sustainably and landowners to deliver nature restoration projects, why not implement a single digital platform to improve ease of access?
Not only has harm been done; there have also been missed opportunities. The Environment Agency and Natural England need to get out of the way of the rural economy and the wider economy and enable more private investment to fund nature restoration, water management and other ecosystem services.
The creation of ELMS by our Government was intended to act as a segue into the private sector funding these services. ELMS offered to transmute public goods into private goods that bring tangible benefits to local businesses, infrastructure owners and communities. There is considerable evidence that this is starting to work, with projects such as Evenlode Landscape Recovery making significant progress.
The upcoming water reform Bill must enable water companies to use nature-based solutions, not just to rely on concrete and steel constructions. There is considerable enthusiasm in the sector for doing just this. However, Ofwat and the Environment Agency continue to show distrust of nature-based solutions, despite compelling evidence of reductions in peak flood events, better water retention to mitigate droughts and improved water quality, as well as benefits for carbon sequestration and nature recovery.
We enter this Government’s second Session with a distrusting and abused rural economy. The solutions require two changes in the Government’s mindset. The first is to appreciate that the rural economy is a critical part of our national economy and has to be treated with respect, as highlighted by my noble friend Lord Goschen. I ask the Minister: how many of his Defra colleagues have visited the agricultural shows this season? I do not expect him to answer today, but perhaps in writing.
Secondly, there is the realisation that Governments do not create national wealth or growth—in fact, the opposite. Big government trying to fix all problems undermines individual self-reliance and businesses’ ability to react positively to market forces, ultimately leading to the place we are in now. The Government have raised taxes, increased regulations and increased government debt, causing the economy to stagnate and denying opportunity to younger generations.
I look forward to hearing from the Minister. I am conscious that I have asked quite a few questions, and I am very happy if he needs to reply in writing. I thank all noble Lords who have offered their insights in this much needed debate.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, for bringing this debate and to all noble Lords who have contributed to it. I certainly want to add to the chorus of cheers for the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, who is back in his place—asking way too many questions for me to answer. On that note, I will attempt to do as good a job as I can in the time I have, but I will also reflect on Hansard and write to any and all noble Lords if I have not managed to address their points.
It is clear from today’s debate that there is a depth of experience and expertise across all parts of the House on our rural life and the rural economy. It is also clear that the strength of feeling expressed today reflects the importance of the rural economy. It is not—and this Government have never considered or would consider it—a niche concern but a vital part of our national picture and prosperity.
In thanking him for bringing the debate, I gently point out to the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, that I prefer to foster the spirit of co-operation and national endeavour that I hear from the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach. Language such as political malevolence, class war and spiteful apartheid masks the efforts and challenges that we all face in promoting and supporting the rural economy in all its breadth and depth. This really should not be a partisan issue in the way that some have sought to describe it.
Labour cares deeply about the countryside and those living and working in it, and we want to promote it. In passing, I point out that the Countryside Alliance, no less, has worked out that 190 Labour MPs represent seats that are at least in part rural. So the countryside is not “the other” for the Labour Party and the Labour Government: it is part of who we are.
We recognise the central role that rural economies play in driving growth, supporting jobs and sustaining communities across the country. Since taking office, we have taken concrete steps to strengthen rural economies and back rural communities through sustained investment, targeted support and a renewed focus on ensuring that rural needs are properly reflected across government policy.
As many speakers in the debate noted, the rural economy contributes £259 billion annually in England alone and supports hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized businesses. These businesses are not peripheral; they are fundamental to our national growth mission. As many noble Lords—particularly the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington—have pointed out, the sectors that the rural economy encompasses are diverse and broad. Of course, agriculture is important, but it is by no means the only facet of the rural economy. That is why the Prime Minister’s SME plan represents such a significant step forward. It is designed to support over half a million rural businesses, giving them better access to finance, stronger skills and simpler support to help them grow and thrive.
At the same time, we are cutting red tape, tackling late payments and modernising regulation so that rural entrepreneurs can focus on building successful businesses. To those who say that there is nothing in the King’s Speech for rural businesses, I point to the Bill to tackle late payments, the Bill on regulation, and the Bill on the UK-EU reset—which we have already discussed, and which I will come on to in a little bit. All those will, in some part, have a clear impact on the rural economy and rural businesses. Crucially, we are also cutting business rates for the high street, supporting more than 750,000 retail, hospitality and leisure businesses, including the rural pubs and shops at the heart of our communities.
We have already heard how village halls are at the heart of rural life, and I thank my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley for raising the issue so eloquently. If I am ever in her patch and need a breakfast, I will know where to go. I say to her that, in 2026-27, Defra has given a £1.7 million grant to Action with Communities in Rural England—ACRE—which is England’s largest rural grouping of community support charities. One of the priorities for this grant is for ACRE to support village halls and community buildings, which, as my noble friend pointed out, are very much the lifeblood—the warp and weft—of many parts of the countryside. It is important that communities up and down the country can work with ACRE to use this funding.
I add that ACRE manages, on behalf of Defra, the rural community buildings loan fund, which helps community buildings fill temporary gaps in funding, either for specific projects or for urgent work connected with a building. It is a vital resource, and I am very pleased that the Government are making that investment. I hope it demonstrates our continuing support for village halls, of which my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley is such a champion.
A number of noble Lords—particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey—recognised the importance of training and skills in rural areas, and that their shortage remains a persistent challenge. Through Skills England and local partners, we are aligning training with local needs so that businesses can access the workforce to grow. The Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper sets out a more joined-up system, with clearer pathways for young people into work and flexible lifelong learning, so that rural businesses can access the workforce they need to grow and improve productivity.
We are also delivering the youth guarantee, which aims to give young people extra support to access high-quality learning and earning opportunities. We have committed to £90 million of investment in youth guarantee trailblazers in England to test innovative ways to bring together local leadership to tackle youth unemployment. For instance, in rural areas of north-east Somerset, where, as we have heard, people can face transport barriers, the West of England Combined Authority’s youth guarantee trailblazer is facilitating transport solutions, including e-bike loans.
My noble friend Lady Royall raised the Generation Green 2 scheme. That £4.45 million project, which ended last March, enabled more than 26,000 disadvantaged children and young people to experience the benefits of spending time in the great outdoors. I am pleased to tell my noble friend that the Government support the adventures away from home fund—a £4.7 million initiative, delivered in collaboration with UK Youth, to provide free outdoor learning experiences for disadvantaged young people. As my noble friend said—I think this is a belief that all noble Lords share—it is important to give young people from urban areas the chance to find out about, and grow to love, the countryside, and to consider a career and a life in a rural area.
My noble friend Lady Royall also asked about the seasonal worker scheme. In February 2025, the Government announced an extension to the seasonal worker visa route for five more years, giving farms a pipeline of workers and certainty to grow their businesses. Annual quota reviews will ensure that we strike the right balance, supporting farms while gradually transitioning away from reliance on seasonal migrant labour.
We are further supporting rural economies through our commitment to housebuilding, with £39 billion of investment to deliver the homes that this country needs, ensuring that rural areas have access to affordable housing that supports local people, businesses and growth.
Transport and connectivity were certainly recurring themes throughout this afternoon’s debate—and rightly so, because they are key enablers of rural growth. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, talked about the Wheels to Work scheme, and I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, was able to point out that it is still very much in existence in at least parts of the country.
The Bus Services Act 2025 is an important step in addressing the practical challenges faced by rural residents in accessing work, education and essential services. It places powers in the hands of local leaders, protects socially necessary routes, and is backed by over £3 billion of investment. Crucially, funding now reflects rurality for the first time, recognising the realities of delivering bus services in less densely populated areas. It is also worth pointing out the existence of the Rural Transport Accelerator fund, which has awarded £1.2 million to projects to better connect rural communities.
The noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, was absolutely right to say that for many rural residents the car is not a luxury but an essential part of rural life. He was right to point out the importance of proper highway maintenance, and the bugbear of many people across the country, in both rural and urban areas, which is potholes. That is why I am pleased to be able to tell him that the DfT is committing £7.3 billion of capital funding for local highway maintenance for 2026-30, which allows local authorities to shift from a reactive, pothole-filling strategy to more proactive road maintenance, which I hope will go some way to address the concerns that he raised.
Connectivity is not just a physical thing; it is also a digital thing, which is equally essential to rural economies. Through Project Gigabit, over 1.3 million premises, predominantly rural, have already benefited. This is not just about infrastructure; it is about opportunity, enabling people to work remotely, access services and grow their businesses, and indeed have the diverse economy that many noble Lords raised, not least the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, who described the rural economy in his part of the world.
Energy infrastructure is also critical to growth, as talked about by the noble Baroness, Lady Grender. The Government’s approach is clear: we must deliver clean power, but we must do so responsibly. We have announced bill discounts for communities living nearest to new electricity transmission infrastructure. On top of this, we are exploring options to ensure that communities directly benefit from the low carbon infrastructure they host.
On the critiques of land use from the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, the total area used by solar farms is very small. The most ambitious scenarios see up to 0.6% of total agricultural land expected to be occupied. It really is a chimera that somehow solar farms are squeezing out good land, to any great extent at least—it is not more than 1% of decent land that could be used for agriculture.
The noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, talked particularly about fly-tipping and waste crime. Of course, fly-tipping is a serious crime which blights local communities, both urban and particularly rural. Dealing with it imposes significant costs on both taxpayers and businesses. We have published a new waste crime action plan, which is the toughest ever crackdown on illegal waste, targeting the problem at its root. We will tighten regulation to close loopholes that criminals exploit, enabling tougher enforcement to disrupt and punish them. We have committed to forcing fly-tippers to clean up the mess that they have created, and Defra officials will soon consult on giving local councils powers to issue fly-tippers with conditional cautions, which could include up to 20 hours of unpaid work and paying back the cost of clean-up for waste dumped on public land.
I know the noble Lord felt that the Crime and Policing Act did not go far enough, but we secured powers in that Act to provide statutory fly-tipping enforcement guidance to support councils in consistently and effectively exercising their existing powers and enabling courts to award three to nine penalty points on driving licences for those found guilty of fly-tipping. We understand that it is a burden on landowners. I remember a number of discussions with the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen. I am pleasantly surprised that he decided not to focus on that in his contribution this afternoon, but I know he is committed to the issue and I hope he will agree that we certainly made movement during the passage of that Bill in the last Session to demonstrate our determination to help rural communities tackle the problem.
It would be remiss to close the debate without paying tribute to the vital work undertaken by this country’s farmers. Farmers are critical not just to food production, as we heard from so many contributions this afternoon, but to environmental stewardship and rural livelihoods. They are very much the lifeblood of our rural communities. We recognise the pressures they face, from tight margins to volatility in markets. We heard from a number of noble Lords about fertiliser costs, including the noble Lords, Lord Howard of Rising, Lord Douglas-Miller and Lord Roborough. It is clear that conflict in the Middle East has increased the cost of fertilisers. We are working in Defra to closely monitor the situation and the Treasury is seeking views on whether the suspension of tariffs on certain fertilisers could help farmers cope with the increase. We are, I should add, investing £120 million in grants and environmental land management schemes to support English farmers to adopt practices that are less reliant on artificial fertilisers. We recognise the pressures that farming businesses face and are clear that, while some of the causes of the problems are beyond our control due to international factors, we are working with the industry to address them as best we can.
The Government are taking action through an £11.8 billion investment in nature-friendly farming, including a £200 million investment in the farming innovation programme, and by bringing together industry leadership via the Farming and Food Partnership Board to remove barriers to farm profitability and unlock investment. On that note, I very much want to take the opportunity to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Batters, for her thorough and insightful farming profitability review, which sets out a clear assessment of the challenges facing the sector and the opportunities ahead. We are now carefully considering her 57 recommendations with the sector and will publish the Government’s response to her review alongside the farming road map. I can tell noble Lords that that will be this summer. I hope that goes some way to answering the questions posed by my noble friend Lady Royall and others about the timing.
I am glad that the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, recognises that 25 years for the road map is ambitious. We need to be ambitious in scale across all areas of growth in our economy, not least for the rural economy and for farmers. When it comes to the farming profitability review of the noble Baroness, Lady Batters, we have already taken on board her concerns around targeting the sustainable farming incentive support towards active farmers, rather than landowners or developers. Under the previous SFI scheme, one-quarter of funding went to just 4% of farms. We have redesigned it to be simpler and fairer, helping more farms grow, boost productivity and protect the natural environment they depend on.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and other noble Lords noted, we announced today a budget of £240 million for the new SFI agreements, with the first round of applications opening on 30 June for two groups: small farms and farms without an existing environmental land management revenue agreement. A second application window will open in September 2026, which will give all farmers and land managers the opportunity to apply. Some £50 million is available for new Countryside Stewardship higher-tier agreements this year, supporting targeted environmental improvements where they will have the greatest impact. Together, these schemes will help boost food production, strengthen farm resilience, support nature recovery and underpin the UK’s long-term food security.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Taylor of Holbeach and Lord Douglas-Miller, raised IHT and APR. As a consequence of the Government’s announcement in December 2025, around 85% of estates claiming agricultural property relief in 2026-27, including those that also claim for business property relief, are forecast to pay no more inheritance tax on their estates. The changes that we made to the policy in December were welcomed by the NFU. I agree with the NFU and others that the balance is now broadly right. For noble Lords who are critical of the scheme, I repeat the words of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defra, Emma Reynolds:
“It’s only right that larger estates contribute more”.
I hate to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, particularly on his first outing back on the Front Bench, but he will not be surprised that I will not comment further on any potential or theoretical future direction of that policy.
We spoke about the SPS scheme. We are negotiating a new SPS agreement with the EU to make agri-food trade with our biggest market cheaper and easier. This will cut costs for British retailers and producers, especially farmers. Obviously, I cannot comment on details as the negotiations are ongoing, so I cannot respond to the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Roborough. However, I point out to him that we have published a new strategy on bovine TB, developed in partnership with the industry. We are running a call for evidence to understand what businesses need from guidance on SPS, so that we can take full advantage of it from day one.
A consistent theme throughout the debate has been the need for the Government to understand and respond to the distinct characteristics of rural life. I cannot answer the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, on how many county shows my colleagues in Defra have been to or might be going to, but I undertake to write to him. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Douglas-Miller, that my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock has long experience of farming, so she at least can answer his question. This is precisely why we established a Defra-led rural taskforce that brings together partners from across Whitehall and beyond to strengthen our understanding of how best to support rural life, tackle rural disadvantage and unlock the full potential of the rural economy. I am pleased to say that the report based on the findings of this taskforce will be published shortly.
Time is against me. I know that we touched on trail-hunting, and I saw many noble Lords at the drop-in sessions that my noble friend Lady Hayman held on this. We have a manifesto commitment to ban trail-hunting, but we recognise the importance of rural pursuits to the rural economy and community life. That is why this consultation is important. We want to make sure that we have a clear understanding of all the material factors that are relevant in the development of our proposals for the ban on trail-hunting. My noble friend Lady Royall asked about hares. We have committed in the animal welfare strategy to considering how to bring forward a close season for hares, but we are still working on that and so I cannot share any more detail.
We want a rural economy that is dynamic and growing, communities that are connected and resilient, and people who are able to live, work and prosper wherever they choose. We recognise that there is more to do. Rural challenges, from transport to skills, require sustained focus and long-term solutions, but the direction is clear and I assure your Lordships’ House that the commitment is firm. I hope that, in closing, I have demonstrated the strength of the Government’s record to date and our ambition for the future. I am sure that there are points and questions that I have not covered, so I will reflect on Hansard.
Lord Fuller (Con)
My Lords, it has been an interesting debate and I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed. It was a good job that the speaking allocation was increased by 25%, because so many noble Lords had so much to say. It was a pleasure to see my noble friend Lord Roborough back in his seat—back in harness, so to speak—and fighting the good fight.
The Government have painted themselves into a corner on the countryside, but I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, on her spirited defence. However, she invites me to make a further declaration of interest, because I am a long-standing, and lately long-suffering, shareholder of Adnams, the brewery at Southwold. Its beers are as good as ever, even though its shares are not quite as plump.
There were so many contributions in the debate, including seasonal agricultural workers, education and rural crime, raised by my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising. We had the tension between alignment and mutual recognition, which is something we will return to in future weeks, with tourism and hospitality. The greatest pleasure I took from the debate was that the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, raised flooding before my noble friend Lady McIntosh, and then the greatest surprise was that the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, did not mention it although it is a hobby horse of hers. We covered housing and transport, from potholes to mopeds.
I was very taken by the comments from my noble friend Lady Coffey, who echoed a previous Secretary of State for Agriculture—it was probably MAFF at that time of day—when she made the important contribution that people in the countryside are not rich. There is poverty, but because it is diffuse it cannot obviously be seen. However, that does not hide the fact that there is poverty none the less. It is harder to see but more difficult to deal with, and I do not think that has always been grasped by urban politicians who can see it right before their eyes.
We have seen the interplay between business, councils, investment and the APR point. Let us not relitigate that, save to say that it particularly benights agricultural businesses because it includes the value of machinery, livestock and cultivations that are a work in progress, in a way that does not otherwise happen.
To summarise, I think we have shown today that the countryside has an empathy, and a love of landscape. There is the commitment to service that the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, raised, and the importance of hard work. The people in the countryside do not want to be classed as second-class citizens because they love our green and pleasant land. I beg to move.