House of Lords
Tributes: Lord Laming
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Smith of Basildon) (Lab)
My Lords, today I pay tribute to Lord Laming. His lifetime of public service has left an indelible mark on the whole fabric of British social work, public management and the very conscience of our nation. Herbert’s journey into the public sphere began with a deeply practical grounding, dedicating 20 years to Hertfordshire County Council and ultimately serving as director of social services, before rising to become Chief Inspector of the Social Services Inspectorate from 1991 to 1998.
However, it was his subsequent work on the national stage that elevated him into the public consciousness as a fearless seeker of accountability. Following the tragic death of eight year-old Victoria Climbié, the Government turned to Lord Laming to chair the landmark inquiry, in which he diagnosed a yawning gap between policy aspiration and front-line delivery. He famously observed that protecting a child
“needed nothing more than a manager doing their job by asking pertinent questions”.
His work directly laid the foundations for the Every Child Matters framework in the Children Act 2004. Years later, following the tragedy of baby P, he was called on once more to deliver an urgent national review, demonstrating a steadfast commitment to ensuring that the child’s welfare remains paramount.
Since entering this House in 1998, Herbert Laming was a pillar of the Cross Benches. His parliamentary peers recognised his fairness and integrity by electing him Convener of the Cross Benches from 2011 to 2015, followed by a distinguished tenure as Chairman of Committees. He spent decades reminding us that policies are only as good as their front-line execution. He combined a razor-sharp administrative intellect with a deeply compassionate heart. We owe him a debt of gratitude for forcing our country to look closer, to act more quickly and to better protect some of the most innocent and vulnerable in society. His legacy will endure for generations, and we remember him as a man of great generosity, spirit and decency—and as good company. We had many chats in my office, and I will always remember him first and foremost as a great friend. I know he is going to be sorely missed across your Lordships’ House, but weren’t we lucky to have him here with us? We send our deepest and most heartfelt condolences to all his family and friends.
Lord True (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness the Leader for her marvellous tribute. Like her, I convey our sincerest sympathy to Herbert’s family and friends.
I never heard Herbert raise his voice. Perhaps he did if he ever had a recalcitrant dog, but I doubt that, because Herbert would have calmed the dog, as he calmed every situation, however difficult—and there were quite a few in his life. As the Leader said, he has left a legacy that goes far beyond anything that most of us could ever even aspire to. As she said in her notable tribute, he did outstanding service in chairing two of the most harrowing and important inquiries and reports ever undertaken in the United Kingdom, in the Climbié and the baby P cases. In his typically painstaking, ever-listening and ever-giving to others way, his work revolutionised child care. I can only underline everything that the Leader said about those reports and recommendations. They have come to define the best of modern, professional and inter-agency standards.
He was a consummate professional, though he believed, and said so, that career paths could be closed because of too tightly prescribed routes in life. Much of Herbert’s career actually happened by accident, as he acknowledged. He said:
“We are writing off a huge amount of human potential”,
telling young professionals that
“qualifications had got us through the door, but from now on it was what we did that mattered”.
He was a practical man, with an every-open ear and eye. What you did for others was what he saw.
Some of his greatest insights into the need for inter-agency co-operation came from a very varied career. He started work as a probation officer in Nottinghamshire, near Stanton Ironworks, where my parents met—something we used to joke about quite often. In probation, he went on to study mental health, becoming a psychiatric social worker, and that informed his long, magnificent service in Hertfordshire, which the Leader referred to.
I first met Herbert in No. 10, in the early 1990s, when John Major was pushing through a programme of public service reform, which was aimed at placing greater emphasis on the needs of the user, transparency of outcomes and public accountability. Herbert was made Chief Inspector of Social Services in 1991, and he remained so until 1998. He was an enormous ally in all those efforts to improve public services for users. He was always, as I found then, an inspiration to talk to and a breath of fresh air. He was not a softy. He was hard-headed but kindly-hearted, as the Leader said.
Constant learning was something he applied to himself throughout his life:
“We must … never allow ourselves to think that we know everything”,
he said in an interview late in his life. Amen to that. And how much we learned from his great service in this House, not least as the Convenor of the Cross Benches. He was uniquely considerate of others. I must place on record my personal gratitude to him, as the Leader has in her case, for his sound advice in my many roles in this place.
Perhaps I might end by quoting what was said to me earlier by a younger Conservative colleague, more than 40 years Herbert’s junior: “I do not intend to speak”, she wrote, “But I wanted to let you know of Herbert’s kindness. I turned to him privately many times, as he was so generous with his time and his wise words. I will miss him so much”. We could all say the same of this dear man, who was a giant of public service and who will go on touching the lives of people at risk for generations to come. We will all miss him.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord True, and the Leader, and their very eloquent and emotional tributes to Herbert. Herbert was Convenor of the Cross Benches when I entered this House in 2013. He was always helpful, courteous and polite. For the whole of the duration that it was my pleasure to know him, he never passed, in many of our many corridors, without an inquiry as to how I was, referring to me by my name. After an early occasion in the Chamber having come into this House, when I was characteristically verbose, I got a polite note asking me for a chat. I dutifully went along to the Convener of the Cross Benches’ office and sat down. After receiving a very kind review of what I had said, he even more kindly suggested that I needed not have said it so much and for so long. I got a taste of how he approached his professional and parliamentary life: supportive, kind and, when necessary, firm.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow three such wonderful speeches that have so captured the man who is so dear to my colleagues on the Cross Bench here. Herbert Laming was born in 1936. He left school at 15, and in 1954 he was called up for national service. He chose the Royal Navy and was placed in a detachment that was being prepared for service east of Suez. You can imagine their excitement at the prospect of travel to exotic climes. On parade one morning, however, the chief petty officer asked for four volunteers and, being the man we knew, Ordinary Seaman Laming put his hand up, only to find that, far from being sent east of Suez, he was being posted to serve as stoker on the last remaining coal-fired ship in the Royal Navy. This was also in the Home Fleet, not overseas.
In 1955, however, having been awarded some leave, he was coming back to Liverpool, where his ship was docked, when the train broke down. In the carriage, Herbert worried that he was going to let his captain down by being late, and he got talking to a senior magistrate, who told him how difficult the delay was for him too. They spoke for some hours until the train was finally retrieved, but the net result was that Herbert was enrolled on a correspondence course and, latterly, evening courses that would allow him to go to university. The senior magistrate, Herbert’s captain and others all conspired to make sure that Herbert was able to take the necessary papers. Indeed, when Herbert’s ship called at port, he would usually find a batch of papers waiting for him. Herbert graduated from Durham University in 1960.
In 1962 Herbert married Aileen, who was his wife for 48 years until her untimely death in 2010. They together were on the adventure that was Herbert’s great career. They bought their wonderful home in 1971 when Herbert moved to Hertfordshire; it is in Tewin, the designation of his title.
Your Lordships have heard in the eloquent speeches from the Leader of the House and the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Purvis, of Herbert’s outstanding career in public services. I can add nothing further on his UK record of public services, but I will record his influence in other countries. Foster care did not exist in China 30 years ago but now does, through Herbert’s patient work with an enterprising charity, Care for Children. The model it developed started just in Shanghai but is now in many parts of China and several other Asian countries, all benefiting from British expertise and Herbert Laming’s magic in this most difficult area.
A year after the death of his beloved Aileen, Herbert became our convenor. He was immensely popular and finished in mid-2015, thinking that at 70 years old his years of service were over. Lord Sewel, however, unexpectedly stood back from his duties, and Herbert, a rare Chairman of Committees not from a major party, took over during the 2015 Summer Recess. When asked what sort of handover he would like, Herbert said that he would prefer it to be limited to activities in this House. I am sorry for those noble Lords who were not there then.
His retirement from the front line was further delayed by his stint as Chair of the Services Committee between 2016 and 2021. In this role he worked with many members of the House administration staff. It has been very touching to me how many of them have come forward since his death to tell me of his kindness towards them and his caring attitude.
Herbert felt unwell for the first time around March this year and was supported fully by his great friend, the noble Lord, Lord Patel, who is in his place today. Herbert’s successor as convener, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, was also very much a supporter in his final illness and is in his place today. There was much care, love and support from his family, and especially from Katarina and Sarah. To his family I add our condolences from these Benches.
In closing, I take your Lordships back to that parade in 1954 and the young sailors who were off to the Far East. I leave the final word to Herbert, reflecting on his good fortune in life. He said, “If someone asks you to volunteer, put your hand up”.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford
My Lords, it is with great sadness that the Lords spiritual join all noble Lords in marking the passing of Lord Laming, a great friend to so many of my colleagues, a man whose life of public service spanned many decades and whose influence was felt far beyond the institutions in which he formally served. Throughout a distinguished career in social work, public administration and Parliament, he brought wisdom, integrity and an unwavering commitment to the protection of the vulnerable.
We remember him with particular gratitude for the values that animated his work—values that resonate deeply with the mission of the Church, which he loved. He was always someone who looked out for others, who was prepared to stop and speak to staff and check how they were. He had an extraordinary memory for names and the details of people’s lives. He was genuinely interested to hear how people and their families were doing, always cheerful, smiling and with something positive to say, demonstrating his great skill of pastoral ministry, even to bishops. He was a trailblazer in his field and, long before safeguarding became the central concern that it rightly is today, Lord Laming understood that the measure of a society is found in the way it treats those who are most vulnerable and least able to speak for themselves.
As we have heard, the inquiry into the tragic death of Victoria Climbié became a watershed moment for child protection in this country, helping to transform attitudes, practice and accountability across public services. Across the Church, like many institutions, we have learned much from the culture of vigilance, responsibility and care that he consistently advocated.
His work served as a reminder that safeguarding is not merely a matter of procedure but a moral obligation rooted in respect for the dignity of every human person. In that sense, his legacy has made a lasting contribution to the life and witness of the Church, as well as to the wider public realm.
In this House, Lord Laming was widely respected for his independence of mind, his courtesy and his ability to command trust across differences. As Convenor of the Cross Benches and later as Chairman of Committees, he exemplified public service of the highest order. He allowed the Bishops to attend the regular Cross-Bench meeting as what he called “honorary members”. His steady, forensic mind helped hold the Church to account during his time as a member of the Ecclesiastical Committee. Yet perhaps his greatest legacy lies not in the offices he held but in the countless lives made safer because he refused to look away from difficult truths. His determination that vulnerable children should be seen, heard and protected reflected a profound belief in human worth, one that Christians recognise as flowing from the conviction that every person is created in the image of God.
We give thanks for his life, for his faithfulness to public duty, for his compassion and for his enduring contribution to the welfare of children and families. Our prayers are with his family and friends and with all those whose lives were touched by his kindness, wisdom and service. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)
My Lords, Lord Laming fulfilled his role as Chairman of Committees with considerable distinction. He was dedicated to the service of your Lordships’ House, and indeed, as we have heard, his appointment steadied the ship. He would be a hard act to follow, and his support for his successors as Chairman of Committees and Senior Deputy Speaker was absolute. I shall for ever remember his wisdom and innate kindness. It was a privilege to work with him on the many committees that the Senior Deputy Speaker chairs, often turning to him first to open the consideration; his sound judgment set the tone.
He spoke to everyone in that gentle and clear manner, but let us not forget his determination and tenacity when needed. There was no side to the noble Lord; he was utterly consistent in his decency and resolve. His humanity meant that he dealt with us all with good humour and grace. The noble Lord worked tirelessly for your Lordships, so often unknown to many. It is with profound sadness, and yet with gratitude, that I add these all too inadequate words to recognise such a public servant. Lord Laming was an exemplar that good does, in the end, prevail.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, Herbert Laming, as Chairman of Committees, was the one who enabled us to set up a foreign affairs Committee; we called it the International Relations Committee. At last, after many struggles and many years, he enabled it to happen. That committee, of course, has been an outstanding success and has had considerable impact on public thinking, ideas and debate. In retrospect, I believe that will come to be seen as one of his greatest achievements.
The Lord Speaker (Lord Forsyth of Drumlean)
My Lords, as we have heard, the death of Lord Laming, or Herbert as so many of us knew him, is a loss felt deeply across all these Benches. He was unapologetic in his determined campaigning to highlight the day-to-day pressures and achievements of those working in the social services and social care sectors. He gave voice to children who had none and never forgot those less able to protect themselves.
He showed that quiet persistence can change everything and that the gentlest of men can be among the most resolute reformers. He was a thoroughly kind, compassionate and decent person with a genuine interest in people, be it friends, colleagues, staff or complete strangers. He would always say to me, as the right reverend Prelate pointed out, “How are you getting on?”, and he really did mean it. We will never forget him and the caring legacy he has left to our nation. May he rest in peace.
Pensions Commission
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Lord Davies of Brixton
To ask His Majesty’s Government what recent progress the Pensions Commission has made on its programme of work.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Sherlock) (Lab)
My Lords, last year, the Government revived the Pensions Commission to examine how to improve retirement outcomes for future generations. Its interim report, published on 19 May 2026, sets out key challenges with the current system and priorities for the next phase of work. It highlights that too many people, especially low and middle-income earners, are not saving enough for retirement. The Government look forward to receiving the commission’s final report and recommendations in early 2027.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
Perhaps I may first welcome my noble friend the Minister to her rightful place on the Front Bench. I thank her for her Answer. We look forward to the progress of the commission to the agreed timetable, but I have concerns that it is only one leg of a three-part review: there is the commission; there is the Government’s review of the state pension age, which commenced a year ago yesterday and has been little heard of since; and there is the issue of the triple lock and the level of the new state pension. They all need to be resolved together to achieve a sustainable settlement. Can my noble friend explain to the House how these different strands will be brought together?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I can indeed, and I am grateful to my noble friend for his welcome back. He will forgive me, as I will not be able to give him any specific answers on the future rates of the state pension; if I pre-empt the Budget, I think I may be the shortest-living Minister in history—I would not even make it to 24 hours. But I can tell him how the process will work. The Government are required to do a review of the state pension age. We have set up an independent commission, chaired by Dr Suzy Morrissey, to look at the evidence and make a report, which it has now done and handed it in. The Government will take a wider range of evidence, including from the Pensions Commission, and will then have to make a decision about the future of the state pension age. The commission is looking at the adequacy of the state pension. Obviously, the state pension is there, but the key objective is determining whether people are saving enough for retirement—so it is not just about what the state pension is doing but about whether people are saving enough in private pensions for retirement, and it is clear from the interim report that they are not. We now look forward to the recommendations that are coming. All of us will come together and the Government will make a decision. This is all on the back of the significant work done already by the pensions investment commission and the recent Bill on private pension schemes. It is all coming together.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the fact that the Minister is still there on the Front Bench; may it continue. My question is on which comes first. We discussed the then Pension Schemes Bill at length—a very complicated Bill—various other pension things have come before the House; and now we have a commission. Surely, it is putting the cart before the horse by us all doing lots of legislation and then having a commission to see what should be in it. Surely, the commission should have come first.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I now realise that I did a terrible job, because repeatedly during the passage of the Pension Schemes Act I tried to explain why that was not right, and I utterly failed—I will have one last go. The Government set out a pensions investment review to look at the state of the landscape of private pension saving. We then recognised that, if we want people to save more for their retirement in private pensions, we need to make sure that they will get the returns they need. The Pension Schemes Act is now laying the ground to make sure that private pension savers are getting the returns, so that if the Pensions Commission looks at it and decides there needs to be more private pension saving, the people who make those savings will get the return on that hard-earned money. It does all come together. I know the noble Lord was not able to be there, but I did a briefing yesterday, open to all Peers, on what is happening in the pensions area, and we set out a road map showing how all these things come together; I would be very happy to send him a copy of that.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, in welcoming the Minister back to her seat, with her in-depth knowledge of all these topics, can I ask whether the Pensions Commission will explore how access to the state pension for terminally ill people of working age who are too ill to continue working can be made available? A large number of them have already paid 35 years of contributions but, because they are young, they are not accessing the pension at a time when they desperately need it.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I am not pre-empting anything that the commission will say, but the Government are very aware of the position of people who have terminal illnesses. As the noble Baroness of course knows very well, we have looked at some of the rules around how, for example, the benefits system can best assist people. She may be aware, from a Question answered by my noble friend Lord Livermore in which she was very much involved, that the Government have agreed to look at the way in which the tax system more broadly treats that and how we will address it. All those things are being looked at in the round. What the Pensions Commission does is up to it and I wait to hear what it has to say.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that only 17% of the 4.4 million self-employed people in this country are actively saving? Is this of grave concern to her? What are the Government going to do about it?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
The noble Lord raises an excellent point. In fact, we have seen a significant drop. In the 1990s, roughly half of people who were self-employed were saving for a pension; it is now under 20%. There are more self-employed people now and there are different kinds of self-employment. However, there is no question that that is a big dip. The Pensions Commission found that, of those whose only income comes from self-employment, only 4% were saving for a pension. One of the key tasks for the Pensions Commission is specifically to look at and recommend to government what to do about all those who are undersaving, including people who are self-employed. I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising that.
Lord Beamish (Lab)
My Lords, I too welcome my noble friend back to her rightful position. She talked about people working hard to save for their pensions. They include pensioners who worked at Nissan in the north-east. Many now find themselves in very dire straits, because for those who accumulated in a pension scheme before 1997, the pension trustees and company are no longer increasing it along with inflation, so those pensioners are now finding the value of their pensions diminishing. Is this something that the Government could look at?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I am grateful—I will never be so appreciated ever again, so I am really going to enjoy this session. My noble friend raises an important point. In a sense, it is up to individual schemes what their rules are for indexing their pensions. The minimum legal requirements for indexation have to be appropriate for all DB pension schemes, because they have to strike a balance between what members need and what the employer can afford. In the end, as he will know, the strongest guarantee is a good, strong sponsoring employer. However, there are two things that may help. One is, as he may be aware from the Bill, that the Government have changed the rules to allow a wider range of well-funded schemes to release any surplus that is there, with the agreement of trustees, which could be used to go towards paying for indexation, for example, if affordable and appropriate. At the other end of the scheme, the Government took action in that Bill to look at giving indexation to those who end up in the PPF or FAS for benefits earned before 1997. That will at least help.
Baroness Spielman (Con)
My Lords, the Pensions Commission is rightly worried about pension adequacy for a worryingly large and even growing proportion of the population and will of course make its recommendations in due course. But given the urgency of the problem, can the Minister tell us what the Government are doing now to promote greater financial self-sufficiency and reduced welfare dependency in retirement?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
Yes. The single best guarantee of a happy retirement is a happy working life where people have the opportunity to earn enough money and to save enough money. We absolutely are doing huge amounts—I will not recite it all here as I have done many times before—and investing in all kinds of programmes to get people into work and to get them to progress in work and to be able to move up the income ladder to be able to save. However, one thing we know is that too many people are not working long enough to save or saving enough when they are in work and, in many cases, even if they put the right amount of saving in, the decisions they make at the point they come to retire—decumulation—can be crucial to how much they get to live on. We have to attack it on all fronts; no one of those alone will do it.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
Will the Minister rule out the state pension age ever being 70, despite what the commission and others might say, recognising that the pace of the increase in life expectancy has slowed considerably?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, the law is clear at the moment. The state pension age is now gradually rising from 66 to 67. That began in April 2026, and it will finish in March 2028. What I can say about the state pension age is that, as legislated by the previous Government, there is a requirement periodically to review it. The third government review of the state pension age was launched on 21 July last year. It has to be completed by the end of March 2029. Clearly, I cannot pre-empt what will come out there. Its job is to consider a wide range of evidence, including evidence on life expectancy, findings from the Government Actuary on the proportion of adult life spent in retirement and the independent report by Dr Suzy Morrissey that I mentioned earlier, as well as other evidence; for example, from the Pensions Commission. The Secretary of State will look at all that evidence and make a decision. For reasons the noble Baroness will know very well as a former Secretary of State having been in that kind of position, he will wait until he has all that evidence and make a decision.
Performing Artists and Musicians: Access to the EU
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Lord Berkeley of Knighton
To ask His Majesty’s Government what progress they have made on securing better access to the EU for performing artists and musicians.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)
My Lords, securing better access to the EU for our creative and cultural sectors is a priority for this Government. We remain committed to pursuing practical, mutually beneficial improvements with the European Commission and member states and welcome the Commission’s recent commitment in its visa strategy to explore practical flexibilities for touring artists. We continue to pursue improvements that will enable UK artists, performers and crews to build audiences and seize opportunities across Europe, supporting growth across our industries.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
I thank the Minister for that Answer. Dancers, actors, artists and musicians are having a dire time of it in terms of touring in the EU. For example, 85% of musicians have had a significant loss of income and more than 40% have had a total loss. For young musicians and groups, touring is no longer viable at all. Despite the Minister’s assurances, I hear from the creative industries, from people dealing with Europe and from across the channel that the perception is that this is not a high priority for the department or the Government. I would like to challenge the Minister to say a bit more about that and why she would dispute it, if she does. I was assured by the outgoing Prime Minister, and other Members of this House have assured us, that this is a very important aspect of touring that affects people’s income and the whole reputation of our culture.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
Helping touring artists is a manifesto commitment. We continue to engage with the EU and member states to determine how best to improve arrangements for touring across the European continent. We know that there can be additional practical barriers for those at the start of their careers who often have fewer resources, as the noble Lord will be aware. Following his appointment, the Prime Minister reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to building a closer, more ambitious relationship with the European Union, based on shared interests and practical co-operation. To be clear, I can reassure the noble Lord that, in his first call with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the Prime Minister agreed that UK and EU teams should work closely towards a UK-EU summit later this year.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, in the light of the cancellation of the summit on 22 July—today—and the fact that this matter has been raised by many noble Lords on many occasions, can the Minister give us some reassurance that it will be on the agenda when the EU-UK summit takes place later this year?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I cannot write the agenda before a date is set, but this is a priority for the Government. In March, when Minister Murray co-chaired the first UK-European Commission high-level meeting on culture with Commissioner Micallef, he made sure that this was discussed. It marked a step forward since the UK-EU summit and brought together UK and commission representatives to discuss common priorities. This is one of our manifesto commitments, and it remains a commitment of this Government.
Lord Oates (LD)
My Lords, this problem, as we have heard, has gone on for many years now, despite the protestations of the Government that they are doing all they can. Is it not now time for the Government to take a much more ambitious approach to our relationships with the EU and start negotiating our return to the single market, which would solve this problem?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The only thing I would add to what I said previously is to repeat that, when the new Prime Minister spoke following his appointment, he reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to building a closer, more ambitious relationship with the European Union. Part of this will be to make sure that we have the summit later this year, if at all possible.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my registered interest on this matter. Does the Minister accept that this issue has been festering for all the 10 years since the disastrous Brexit vote and that successive Governments have so far failed to bring forward new initiatives to crack it? What new initiative will be forthcoming from this Government that might at last make a difference?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I reject the term “festering” in relation to what this Government have done. Helping touring artists and addressing issues around co-operation with Europe remain a priority. I am grateful to the noble Lord for reminding the House of why we ended up leaving the EU in the first place, which was not because of anything that this Government did but was down to the previous one.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, UK talent that performs overseas is nurtured via the music and dance scheme—a long-standing programme to help students overcome financial barriers and to support our next generation of brilliant performing artists and musicians. Can the Minister confirm that funding for this scheme will continue?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
We are hugely keen to make sure that creative careers are accessible for everyone. I do not have the detail of the exact scheme to which the noble Earl refers, but I will write to him.
Baroness Hyde of Bemerton (Lab)
My Lords, I am delighted, as I know many noble Lords are, about the coming of the Bayeux Tapestry to this country. It is to be celebrated. What can be learned from this loan to build better co-ordination with our nearest neighbours across the arts and heritage sectors?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I saw the Bayeux Tapestry last week, and it was one of the most amazing experiences of not just my career in your Lordships’ House but my entire life. Obviously, the process goes back to discussions that took place over a number of years, including under the previous Government. We can learn from it about working closely with colleagues in Europe from the very top, because it is clear that the President of France is as engaged in this as senior people in this Government. It is basically a gesture celebrating and building on our shared heritage. I urge all noble Lords to make sure that they go along and see this incredible tapestry when it is open to the public.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, we will hear from the right reverend Prelate next.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford
My Lords, income from overseas tours often helps cathedrals sustain music programmes, scholarships and outreach work in rural and disadvantaged communities. Have the Government assessed the impact that barriers to European touring are having on the long-term sustainability of these opportunities for young people?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I am not clear whether we have done that assessment, so I will look into it. I am happy to talk to the right reverend Prelate about that and the contribution this makes to the congregations, choirs and performers involved, as well as the opportunity for our young people.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, perhaps the most intractable problem is that of work for artists in Europe, whether temporary or permanent. As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, this is affecting not just musicians but dancers and actors, who often fall at the first hurdle because they do not possess an EU passport. For many artists, a position in Europe has been an essential part of their career development. Will the Government ensure that this, alongside all the other concerns, will be on the agenda at the next UK-EU summit?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I do recognise how some creative professionals have found it more difficult to take up opportunities in Europe, as practical barriers, including whether they have an EU passport, can have a disproportionate impact. That is why we are working with the European Commission and member states. The Government remain 100% committed to resolving this issue and to improving opportunities for UK artists of all ages to access European audiences and develop international experiences, recognising the cultural and economic value that those exchanges bring.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, as the Minister will know, the European entry system is proving a great difficulty for EU performing artists and musicians, and particularly for British colleagues going over to the EU. Will she look at this and see whether we can ameliorate the situation to make their travel easier?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I think the noble Baroness is referring to the entry/exit system. It is an EU scheme and its implementation is primarily the responsibility of the European Commission and participating member states. However, the Government recognise that there has been some disruption—in some cases, considerable disruption—and we continue to work closely with EU member states and industry to understand the impact of the EES and advocate for the use of flexibilities that minimise disruption for UK citizens, including performers.
Healthcare Sector: Clinicians
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Baroness Nargund
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to support clinicians to become innovators and entrepreneurs in the healthcare sector.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)
My Lords, we are committed to supporting NHS staff to innovate and translate new ideas into improved patient care. We have recommissioned the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme for a further five years. We have also published NHS intellectual property guidance for NHS staff and organisations, which was last updated 24 years ago. Healthcare innovators can also benefit from the wider investment into innovation that is outlined within the 10-year health plan and the life sciences sector plan.
Baroness Nargund (Lab)
I thank my noble friend the Minister for her reply and welcome the Government’s commitment to innovation, but the actual programme has supported only a small fraction of the NHS workforce so far. I have met so many doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals in my career with innovative ideas that could improve patient care, reduce costs and improve productivity. Yet too often, these ideas get nowhere because there are no clear, accessible pathways to develop them, and we are losing out on so many innovators and innovations that would benefit not only our patients but the Treasury. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that we now need an NHS entrepreneurship workforce strategy that could truly make our NHS the Silicon Valley of health innovation? If so, what steps could the Government take to give every NHS staff member protected time, training, mentoring incentives and accessible, clear pathways to develop and scale their innovative ideas?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
I certainly agree with my noble friend that there is a rich seam of intellectual capital among the 1.5 million NHS staff in our country. I am glad to say that the clinical entrepreneur programme is already a world leader in healthcare entrepreneurship, as my noble friend looks for. It has supported over 1,800 NHS staff and 690 start-ups, and it has raised more than £1.2 billion. We have now doubled the baseline annual funding for the programme. Yes, I agree that a clear pathway to adoption is vital, so we are expanding the health innovation networks, because they will provide the necessary support.
Lord Hintze (Con)
My Lords, I apologise to the Minister and to the House for my breach of protocol. There is a serious question here. Innovation is a very important part of what the NHS does, and it is very good at it, but I am keen to understand what we are doing to allow our consultants and doctors to innovate to get the backlog under control. I speak from personal experience, but I am not going to talk about my hip, my heart, my kidneys, and goodness knows what else. The point is that many of these individuals cannot clear their backlog because they fear that they are going to be hauled before the CEO of the NHS for breaching their budget. That is an issue.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
That is exactly the reason why we need to encourage innovation and take advantage of all the improvements now available to us, including AI. It is by modernising our approach that we will move forward greatly. That is why we are building the practicalities, as I described in my Answer just now, as well as a culture of innovation. We are also providing the ability to see adoption, because people are rightly concerned if time is spent on innovation but the product or service never comes forward. We are changing a number of points to improve that.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, in a growing number of hospitals, clinicians are using at-home bladder cancer testing to reduce the number of cystoscopies and speed up diagnosis. Can the Minister expand on how the Government will help clinician-led innovations such as this to spread across the NHS, so that access does not depend on where a patient lives?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
Yes, I am very pleased to do that. I point to the National Healthtech Access Programme, which is exactly what the noble Baroness is seeking. It is a route for cost-effective and clinically effective technologies, such as the one the noble Baroness describes, so that we can see the best benefit to patients and the best value, and that supports more equitable access. NICE is currently assessing three projects, including using AI in histopathology for the diagnosis of prostate cancer and breast cancer, to give two examples, and we will shortly see the publication of those results.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, the Minister quite rightly alluded to the clinical entrepreneur programmes, and she might want to say a bit more about how successful they have been. Does she agree that, for these programmes to succeed in making clinical departments more innovative, we need strong academic departments working together with universities and teaching hospitals?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
I certainly agree with that, because there are many aspects to this. On the successes of the clinical entrepreneur programme—some of which I have mentioned—we now know that, as of June, that over 10,500 occurrences of innovation are being adopted by organisations. That has resulted in the creation of over 5,100 jobs, and 448 NHS staff have been retained by, or have returned to, the NHS to be part of the programme. This is an extremely active area that will greatly contribute to services for patients: better care and safety, as well as tackling waiting times.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, can I ask about entrepreneurs who are not clinicians but have a product or service that could improve health or social care? For them, there is no obvious front door to the NHS, so they spend ages trying to get into the system at primary care, trust or ICB level, and, sadly, some give up or go abroad. Could I suggest that the new Minister for Technology and Innovation, when they are appointed, creates a front door or one-stop shop to triage those who approach them? They could distinguish between salespeople with no real product, those who have a product but need more support, and those who have a fantastic product that could save lives now and that we could pilot as quickly as possible. Can the Minister make that suggestion to the new Minister for Technology within health?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
Those important discussions will take place. I refer the noble Lord to the Life Sciences Sector Plan, which followed on from the 10-year health plan and which addresses exactly the point he rightly makes. I also refer him to the updated NHS intellectual property guidance, which provided organisations that provide or commission NHS services with much clearer routes to identify, protect and commercialise innovation. That, along with a number of other steps we are taking, will do what he seeks, which is important.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, some three months ago I visited the Institute of Cancer Research at the Royal Marsden Hospital. I met several clinicians and research scientists, who were clear that innovation was vital in bringing forward therapies to deal with the various types of cancer. But they said that there was one gap: in the funding for university research. So, as a follow-up to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Patel, what additional funding will the Government provide to university research to ensure that new therapies can come that will accelerate improvements in cancer care?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
I will of course raise the points made by my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Patel, about funding for universities. But, as I mentioned, it is worth saying more broadly that the life sciences sector leads the drive for investment into the UK economy. For example, the sector raised the third-highest amount of equity finance in 2023 among comparator countries, leaving us behind only the United States and China. That gives some idea of the status and the activity in the UK, and I am glad that we continue to build on it.
AI: International Co-operation
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Lord Davidson of Glen Clova
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the call by China’s President at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference last week for “extensive international cooperation” regarding the development of AI.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (Baroness Lloyd of Effra) (Lab)
The Government agree that international co-operation on AI is essential. That is why we play a leading role internationally on AI, including work to support shared prosperity through the UN and OECD and to improve awareness of AI risks via our AI Security Institute and the International AI Safety Report. Given that the transformative scale of AI advances requires a strategic whole of government approach, the Prime Minister is establishing a new AI task force to take this all forward.
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for her informative Answer. The AI world is dividing into three blocks: the China side, the EU and the US. This is creating divergence, with diverging philosophies on state stability, individual rights and market form. Does the Minister consider that the UK has a convening power that it may use to guide governance of this powerful technology?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
AI can indeed be a powerful force for growth, scientific progress, better public services and sustainable development. We believe we can unlock this potential, working together with other countries, to build trust, to manage the risks and to ensure that the benefits of AI are shared widely. That is why the UK co-ordinates the international network of AISIs, which delivered the International AI Safety Report. We also fund practical partnerships with the OECD, the African Union and south-east Asia to support responsible AI adoption and drive growth worldwide.
Baroness Teather (LD)
My Lords, in the light of the news today that one of OpenAI’s agents went rogue in an experiment and attacked another AI start-up, does the Minister agree that this indicates an urgent need for global co-operation to agree safeguards and accountability frameworks? It seems that companies cannot be trusted to control the technology they are developing without this. Furthermore, does this not also indicate the need for us to develop a sovereign AI capability strategy so that we have the influence and expertise to shape these critical global conversations?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
With the AI Security Institute, we have a world-leading, world-class institution that is able to test frontier models and provide advice, including with the National Cyber Security Centre, in order to equip companies against the risks that are prevalent with the advances in these technologies. That is exactly what happened earlier, and we encourage all firms and other organisations to take the mitigations that are necessary to reduce vulnerabilities and increase resilience. On the question of AI sovereignty and technological developments, we are absolutely taking an approach to build out AI capabilities. That is why we have the AI hardware plan to support development in that area, as well as the sovereign AI fund.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Davidson, for bringing this important subject to the House today. Can the Minister tell the House whether the relevant Minister or officials have spoken to trusted international partners before responding to this offer from the President of China? Can she also inform the House, since the former Prime Minister made much of his thawing of relations with China, whether our new Prime Minister will continue with that approach?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
The UK is not a member of the World AI Cooperation Organization. We are carefully assessing its implications for UK interests in global AI governance and international technology standards. As yet, we have not seen any detailed proposals for its mandate or activities. We do believe that co-operation and dialogue is essential, including dialogue with China on all these matters.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, in assessing the CCP’s AI global initiative, which the noble Baroness just referred to, will she look carefully at the 29 member states of that initiative, which include Putin’s Russia, the military dictatorship in Myanmar and regimes in Serbia, Cuba, Belarus and Nicaragua? Although it is important that we should co-operate with like-minded nations, will she reflect on how the Chinese Communist Party regime has deployed AI-powered facial recognition, deploys hundreds of millions of CCTV cameras in a surveillance state and has powered biometric harvesting and digital tracking to monitor its population? Is the alliance that we need not with like-minded democratic nations living up to the standards set by the Council of Europe’s suggestions on proper guardrails? Should we not be doing what the noble Baroness said before and developing our own sovereign approach to AI?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
We are indeed co-operating with many like-minded allies and countries —for example, the G7 and the OECD, to which the noble Lord referred—on taking forward the AI principles. Those agreed standards are vital for the governance and the effective adoption of AI in all countries. As I mentioned in reference to the question from the noble Earl, we are not a member of the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization. I did review its membership before answering this Question, so I am aware of that. This is a global technology; it is providing opportunities and threats globally. It is very important that, in respect of the UK, we provide advice to our companies and the public sector, so that we can be prepared both for the risks and the opportunities.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, we will hear from the Labour and then the Conservative Benches.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I hope we will raise our sights above some of our traditional disputes. The threat we face is a worldwide one, as is recognised with what happened with the attack on Hugging Face by OpenAI. This is truly a threat to the whole world, regardless of where we come from politically, and we must therefore look to get the maximum co-operation, on a worldwide basis, that we can secure. Could we, as a starter, start to write out what principles and what guidance we should seek to put into AI that should be minimum standards for a world application?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
As I mentioned, the Government co-operate with others in numerous multilateral forums. We have taken forward the OECD principles in many of these and they include some of aspects to which my noble friend referred. We will continue to talk to allies about all these aspects. On risks, it is important to emphasise that we are both providing advice to companies on what measures they can take to improve their resilience and taking new powers, through the Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill, to protect our essential services from attacks, wherever they emanate from.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
My Lords, should China, or indeed any other country, wish to co-operate with us on AI policy, whom should they call? The Minister at DBIST, DCMS or the Cabinet Office, or the Prime Minister’s AI adviser at the Office for the Prime Minister and the Cabinet?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
We set out yesterday in our Written Ministerial Statement the allocation of responsibilities under the Government going forward. The strategy will be looked after by the Cabinet Office, which is taking the lead for AI strategy and public sector AI adoption. The Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade will take on responsibility for the science and innovation portfolio. As I mentioned at the beginning, it is a whole of government approach. You will find discussion of AI policy implications in every sectoral dimension, from financial services to maritime, because it is a technology that affects all areas. That is another reason why we need to look at regulation with a sector by sector approach, because it affects different sectors differently.
Baroness Berger (Lab)
My Lords, there can be no greater motivation for extensive international co-operation on AI than when it comes to safety. Other noble Lords have referred to this, but it is worth reiterating in detail that, last night, the co-founder of OpenAI, Sam Altman, announced to the world that its latest next-generation version GPT-5.6 Sol, and an even more capable pre-release model were involved in an unprecedented cyber incident and independently executed a complex cyber attack. Surely the time for giving advice to the tech companies is over. I welcome the Government’s Bill on cyber security and resilience, but it does not extend to AI. Will the UK lead the way and co-ordinate a global agreement on the transparency, oversight and regulation of AI?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
We will continue to build on the work of discussing AI safety, adoption and governance through existing multilateral and multi-stakeholder initiatives, such as those I referred to before, including the G7, the OECD Global Partnership on AI and the Council of Europe, among others. That is the approach we will be taking forward. My noble friend raises very important questions, and in respect of online safety, our online safety regulator co-operates closely with other regulators to look at the implications of AI for online safety and will continue to do so.
Category 4 Steel Imports: Tariff-free Quotas
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Lord Hunt of Wirral
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to set out details of changes to tariff-free quotas for category 4 galvanised steel imports and; what assessment they have made of the impact of those changes on (1) domestic steel production, (2) employment, (3) investment and (4) supply chains.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade (Lord Leong) (Lab)
My Lords, before I respond to the noble Lord’s Question, I first want to say that in the last couple of weeks, we have been seeing each other across the Dispatch Box quite regularly, and it is arousing some suspicion from my wife.
I welcome the opportunity to respond to the noble Lord’s question. On 1 July 2026, the steel trade measure came into force, and I presented the details to this House on 30 June. The measure limits tariff-free steel imports, including for category 4, and reduces overall quota volumes by 51%, compared to the expired steel safeguard, to 3.2 million tonnes. Any imports above these levels will face a 50% tariff. The details of this measure have not changed since my Statement on 30 June.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, we should not have had to read in the Financial Times earlier this week that the Government had made specific changes to the steel tariff regime for a particular country, India, following negotiations over one of the United Kingdom’s most important trade agreements. I welcome the opening words of the Minister, and I always enjoy exchanges with him in this Chamber. But Parliament should surely not be learning from the media that the Government have made specific changes to the steel tariff regime for any particular country following negotiations over one of the United Kingdom’s most important trade agreements.
The Ministerial Code is clear that major policy announcements should be made first to Parliament when Parliament is in session. Will the Minister explain why Parliament was not told the full details of any further India-related changes before the tariff regime came into force on 1 July, and will the Government now commit to making a Statement while your Lordships’ House is in session, setting out what changed, why it changed, and what assessment was made of the impact of these changes on domestic steel producers, downstream sectors, exporters, supply chains, investment and jobs?
Lord Leong (Lab)
My Lords, I will just say to the noble Lord that it was a pretty good try. First, there has been no change to India’s category 4 quota compared to the provisional quota published in April 2026. We did not negotiate quotas with any countries apart from our agreed outcome with the EU. We have been engaging with India on steel, as we have all our trading partners. Overall, quotas reflect the need to balance stronger protection for UK producers with continued access to critical inputs for downstream sectors and critical national infrastructure.
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)
My Lords, nearly 40,000 people are involved in steel production in this country. However, 400,000 people are involved in manufacturing as a byproduct from steel. It is really important that both sides of that industry are protected. My fear is that these tariffs may actually affect badly the manufacturing side of the industry; I seek reassurance from the Minister that this will not happen.
Lord Leong (Lab)
My Lords, first, employment impacts form part of the Government’s wider assessment when determining any future steel trade measures. Our objective is to protect jobs throughout the steel supply chain, both in primary steel production and among downstream manufacturers. We continue to engage closely with producers, manufacturers and trade bodies to monitor market conditions. Where evidence suggests unintended consequences, we will continue to review the operation of the regime to ensure it remains proportionate and effective.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)
My Lords, while there is a case for protection for speciality steels for sectors like the nuclear industry, surely the Government’s wider policy on quotas and tariffs is harmful to British industry as a whole. The awkward reality is that the domestic steel industry cannot supply the total demand in this country. Imports have to happen and account for 60% of production in this country. If we do not allow those imports into this country, free of tariffs and quotas, it penalises those who are making finished products, who have to compete with imports which are finished and do not bear this taxation at the border. This is deeply harmful to British industry.
Lord Leong (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for the questions. I think I responded to the noble Lord on Monday on a particular Urgent Question on steel and addressed the tariff issue. However, I will address his point about imports. We have carried out a programme of extensive engagement with industry, as well as negotiations with the EU ahead of its own steel measure coming into effect. Some 74% of all imports by volume fall outside the scope of this measure and will not be subject to any tariffs. For other products, tariffs will only be due once quotas have been exhausted. We will continue to hear from businesses and closely monitor the impact of this measure. We will also review it after 12 months to ensure it remains effective and that the balance is right for both producers and downstream users.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I welcome what the Government did in protecting the steel industry in this country, but do we not need to do a lot more to develop our resilience and reduce our dependence? Was the danger here not of Chinese domination of the industry? The Government were right to act. In that context, will the Minister say what compensation has been paid to the Chinese regime? On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, about learning things from the media, was the Times accurate when it reported that China had offered debt relief in return for a green light for its proposed mega-embassy in London?
Lord Leong (Lab)
I will first address the issue on British Steel, which I am sure is what the noble Lord is referring to. We took British Steel into public ownership immediately after we passed the Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Act. As it stands, under the Act, we will appoint an independent valuer to assess the compensation, if any, that is due. As far as we know, it is zero compensation and that is where it stands. As for his question on the Chinese embassy, I am not aware of that, but I will find out and write to him.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware, from our earlier discussion on the steel legislation that went through this House, of my concern relating to the availability of steel for defence purposes. Can he give an assurance that in considering these changes the Government have given full attention to the reliability and dependability of supplies for defence purposes, particularly in circumstances where the defence pressures may be different from our current peacetime ones?
Lord Leong (Lab)
I remember our exchanges across the Dispatch Box. As I said then, I will say now that we are mindful of the specialised steel used in any of the industries that require a speciality type of steel. We will monitor the usage but, as it stands, any steel that is not manufactured in this country—which is imported—is outside the scope of the tariff.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his answers. He is always informative, courteous and diligent at that Dispatch Box. If it is true that we have, as reported, widened the quota for India, we have presumably done so on two very sensible grounds. The first is good relations with India. This is a really important trade deal, and we can hardly renege on it when the ink is barely dry. The second is that we want to boost our domestic economy and, as the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, says, we do not want to place British manufacturers at a relative disadvantage vis-à-vis the rest of the world by forcing up their input costs. Why does that apply only to India? Should we not take the same approach to our trading partners in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the GCC, the European Union and elsewhere? Of course, the real answer is to cut energy costs but, until we get there, it does seem crazy that we are going down this Trumpian route of having these immensely high tariffs, which always serve to the detriment of the industries they are supposed to protect.
Lord Leong (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for those kind words. We do not import steel only from India. In fact, the largest import of steel is actually from the EU, followed very closely by Vietnam, then India, and not forgetting South Korea. Those are the principal importers of steel into this country. As I said earlier, we have not changed the quotas as far as India is concerned. We continue to engage regularly with India and with Tata, which is owned by an Indian company, on the usage of steel in this country.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, following on from the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, why does the Minister think that the overwhelming majority of economists say that tariffs harm the economy?
Lord Leong (Lab)
I refer the noble Earl to other countries such as Canada and the USA, and to the EU. We are not the only country that has import tariffs. When a particular sector is impacted and it impacts on our domestic supply, it is right to have tariffs in place to protect the domestic sector, which in turn protects jobs and, I would hope, creates growth.
Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)
My Lords, government action on this in the workforce is extremely welcome, because for many years our domestic steel industry was threatened by the dumping of cheap Chinese steel. This action was motivated by trying to give our steel industry a chance to grow, to win and to provide the security and sovereignty this country deserves. Can my noble friend the Minister reassure us that he will keep under review the tariff regime and that he will maintain a strong engagement with trade unions, whose members have an interest across industries and jobs and want to see this policy work?
Lord Leong (Lab)
My noble friend is absolutely right. We currently review tariffs, and, as it stands, we are committed to reviewing them again at the end of the 12-month period. I state again that the quotas in place were informed by evidence and analysis of market conditions. Where steels products are not produced in sufficient quantities in the United Kingdom, mechanisms remain available to ensure that businesses can continue to access essential imports, while maintaining appropriate safeguards for the domestic industry.
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
I thank the Minister very much for answering questions on the Statement so fully. My understanding is that, under this round, imports of galvanised steel to the UK will triple. Some of the concerns have been about the impact on production here. As my noble friend Lord Lamont said, we need to fill the gaps in our industry. Does the Minister have any idea what impact this will have on our own steel industry and our capacity to grow it?
Lord Leong (Lab)
My Lords, as it stands, the Government fully recognise the importance of ensuring that businesses can obtain the materials they require. That is the principal objective for this category of steel. For noble Lords who do not know what category 4 galvanised steel is, it is the steel that is mainly used for generic purposes such as steel automotives. The revised quota system seeks to balance the needs of downstream users with the need to protect the UK steel industry from unfair trading practices. We have to bear in mind that there is an oversupply of steel in the market, but we have to protect it in order to protect our local manufacturers and downstream users.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
I am very grateful to the Minister. He is in effect saying that there were no changes. Therefore, can he share with the House, in a full statement before we rise, exactly what tariff-free quota changes were made for category 4 galvanised steel products? That should include the quota granted to India, the basis on which it was calculated, any consequential changes for other countries and the assessment made of the impact on domestic steel production. I think we are entitled to that statement, if he could make it in due course.
Lord Leong (Lab)
I will try to provide—I hope—a more robust and comprehensive response to the noble Lord. As I said earlier, there is no change to the quota on steel imported from India, as far as I am aware. On the assessment, we have laid two pieces of legislation setting out how this measure will impact different types of businesses. Bearing in mind that these measures just came in on 1 July—it has been only 21 days—we should give it some time before we see how it will impact the sector and industry. As I said, we constantly monitor the situation, and my ministerial colleagues have regular conversations with steel manufacturers and downstream users. I am really pleased that my colleague Chris McDonald has been reappointed as Minister of State—I congratulate him on that—and he has regular contact with the steel sector. We work very closely with the sector, and if there are any changes, we will address them accordingly.
Co-operative Capital Bill
European Affairs Committee
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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The Senior Deputy Speaker
That Baroness Gustafsson be appointed a member of the Select Committee, in place of Baroness Brown of Silvertown.
Draft Conversion Practices Bill
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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The Lord Privy Seal
That it is expedient that a joint committee of Lords and Commons be appointed to consider and report on the Draft Conversion Practices Bill presented to both Houses on 25 June (CP 1604), and that the Committee should report on the draft Bill by 22 January 2027.
Infected Blood Compensation Scheme (Amendment) Regulations 2026
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 18 June be approved.
Relevant document: 8th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument)
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)
My Lords, we must never lose sight of why we are here to debate these regulations. The infected blood scandal was a catastrophic failure of the state. It is a tragedy measured not only by the pain and suffering of its victims but by the decades it took for the suffering to be recognised. The victims in the scandal have suffered unspeakably, and the former Prime Minister, when leader of the Opposition, acknowledged the suffering caused by continued systemic failure. Our new Prime Minister has long supported the infected blood community and its fight for justice. I want to reassure noble Lords that the Government will not deprioritise this important work.
Before I move on to the substance of the SI, I will take a moment to reflect on the people behind the statistics, specifically the families of the infected, who have had not just to watch as their loved ones suffered in front of them but to fight for justice, in some cases for decades, putting their lives on hold and changing them irreversibly. We must recognise the sacrifice of the families, carers and campaigners.
When I first spoke at the Dispatch Box on the infected blood scandal in March last year, it was to discuss the second set of compensation regulations. I updated your Lordships’ House on the progress IBCA had made, specifically that 255 people had been asked to start their compensation claim, and £44 million-worth of offers had been made. A substantial amount of progress has been made since then. Indeed, as of 14 July, 5,404 people have been asked to start their claim, with over £2.7 billion of offers made. That is not to say that our work is done, which is why we are here today.
The regulations at hand are a direct product of what we heard in the consultation. I am sure noble Lords will appreciate that there is a diversity of views within the community, and the Government have done what they can to consolidate these views to ensure that the changes we are making reflect the thoughts and feelings of the majority. I will briefly summarise those changes.
Regulation 3 introduces a new level 2B award, as recommended by the inquiry, so that people who suffered from the side effects of interferon treatment receive an additional injury award, as well as further financial loss and care compensation, to reflect the impact it had on their lives. Following the consultation, the regulations also make sure that people who received more than one round of interferon will be properly compensated for each of those rounds of treatment. To be clear, the introduction of the level 2B banding is in line with the inquiry’s recommendations, which set out that the choice between creating this new banding or uplifting those who receive treatment with interferon to level 3 was for the Minister for the Cabinet Office to take.
Regulation 4 removes the 25% deduction applied to past care compensation for people who choose to receive support scheme payments for life. Following the consultation, the regulations make sure that people receive past financial loss compensation based on whichever of the two ways to calculate this award is most financially beneficial to them. The Government have chosen to do this to recognise that selecting only one way of calculating this award would mean that some people’s expected awards may reduce in size. By running both calculations and giving each person whichever is the highest amount in their personal circumstances, we ensure that everyone gets fair compensation for this award.
Regulation 5 makes provision for a 50% uplift to the core autonomy award for those infected under the age of 18, calculated based on the highest severity of infection they experienced during childhood.
Regulation 6 amends the eligibility criteria for the unethical research award so that everyone treated for a bleeding disorder before 1986 will receive an unethical research award. The regulations also introduce a new unethical research award for children. This means that people who were treated for a bleeding disorder in childhood will receive an uplifted award. The regulations also increase the amount of compensation that all eligible people receive for this award. It is one of the most shocking aspects of the scandal, and I am sure that noble Lords will agree that no amount of money could ever make up for the heinous experimentation that happened, particularly when that took place on children. We have listened to the feedback received through the consultation and, as a result, people who attended Treloar’s will receive £60,000, rather than the £25,000 proposed in the consultation. Other children will receive £45,000. Those treated in adulthood will receive £30,000, tripling the amount they currently receive.
Regulation 7 ensures that everyone who was eligible for the special category mechanism or an equivalent payment through the infected blood support schemes receives additional financial loss and care compensation. Following the consultation, these regulations ensure that everyone in this position has the award backdated to 2017, when the SCM award was first introduced, regardless of when they were assessed. Living people who were not assessed as eligible for SCM can now apply for it through IBCA, including those who were previously unsuccessful in their application to the IBSS.
Regulations 8 and 9 make changes to the exceptional loss award under the supplementary route. These regulations introduce a compensation uplift of £60,000 for people who had entered or had an offer to enter a career that generally would have paid 10% more than the gross national median average earnings as determined in 2024 at any point prior to retirement age but were unable to progress in this career due to their infection. This award will be made on top of their core route financial loss award.
We also heard in the consultation that some people are concerned that they will not be able to access the exceptional loss award if they do not have historic payslips. The Government will work with IBCA to ensure that all relevant evidence can be used to help someone show that they are eligible for the exceptional loss award so that that is not a barrier. The Government have been clear that we want the scheme to be as sympathetic and unburdensome to applicants as possible.
Regulation 10 introduces a 50% uplift to the core injury award for some affected people. This includes eligible bereaved partners, and children and siblings who themselves have been affected under 18 years of age. Eligible bereaved parents will also be able to receive this award in the tragic circumstances where their child passed away while under the age of 18. I assure noble Lords that, as with the rest of these regulations, the decisions we made on this award directly reflect what we heard through the consultation about the specific impacts of the scandal on children.
Regulations 11 and 12 are unrelated to the public consultation and relate to the transfer of responsibility for making support scheme payments from the infected blood support scheme to IBCA. To maintain consistency with the support schemes, the value of someone’s support scheme payments is uprated every year in April at the rate of CPI in the previous September. These regulations therefore account for the next CPI uplift taking place in April 2027, after IBCA takes responsibility for making support scheme payments for the infected blood support schemes.
The changes that I have set out are the result of this Government accounting for the variety of views that we heard in the consultation and balancing this with a tariff-based scheme that can be delivered as quickly as possible. Today’s debate, while focused on the regulations, is not about the Government’s work on this matter. It is about those people who have lived through some of the most tragic circumstances and doing what we can to bring them justice. I beg to move.
Baroness Brinton
At end insert “but that this House regrets that the draft Regulations do not address the concerns expressed by many victims about the changes made from the original proposals in Sir Brian Langstaff’s Inquiry Report and Additional Report on Compensation; further regrets the slow progress they make in addressing the cases of affected victims, while welcoming the progress in compensation for the living infected victims; expresses concerns about the arrangements for estates of deceased victims; and notes the difficulties in implementation they will pose for the Infected Blood Compensation Authority, which may lead to further delays in providing compensation.”
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
I thank the Minister for her introduction to the SI and for the recent meeting. I will ask her many questions. If she cannot answer them all, I will look forward to hearing from her in due course. I have tabled this amendment because of very serious disquiet from infected and affected victims about changes to the scheme, including some in this SI, and real worries about the new processes. I thank the individuals and infected blood organisations for contacting me and echo the points made by the Minister about the seriousness of what has happened to them and their lives and the loved ones they have lost.
Unfortunately, the changes have destroyed what remained of the trust of many of the victims and have had a deeply damaging consequence on people already victimised for decades by our NHS and Governments past. There was real hope after Sir Brian Langstaff’s full inquiry report in May 2024 and his additional report last July stating that government and IBCA needed to review their processes to get them right and follow his recommendations.
IBCA says that scheme managers attend a three-week training course. Astonishingly, there are no assessors or reviewers who have clinical experience in this specific area. Victims tell me that assessors just do not understand what had happened medically to victims, causing immense distress. Both the Haemophilia Society and the Hepatitis C Trust say that the arbitrary and indefensible inequities resulting from this lack of expertise must be addressed. For example, the consequences of using interferon as an early treatment for hepatitis C are similar to having severe chemotherapy, which has caused, on top of the infection, very long-term life-changing damage to victims. The new level 2B uplift of two years’ financial loss award just does not recognise the lasting medical legacy from interferon treatment.
Will the Government agree that those treated with interferon should receive a permanent uplift to their financial loss and care awards? Sir Brian Langstaff said clearly in his inquiry report that assessors must not ask for inappropriate evidence. IBCA assessors keep asking clinicians in haemophilia centres for the exact date of infection, but the inquiry report set out in detail how many health records were destroyed many years ago. Worse, these IBCA requests then result in long pauses to the processing of claims as well as frustration from clinicians and, frankly, despair from victims.
This burden of exact proof should be relaxed, as Sir Brian said. It is clear, over the decades of illness and treatment, roughly when people were infected. Arguments about an exact date in the decade of infection do not change the subsequent decades of ill health, loss of employment, infection of family and consequences for affected victims. Will the Government stop this practice, take Sir Brian’s common-sense approach to the burden of proof and relax exact evidence requirements for infected and affected families once it is clear roughly when people were infected? Will the Government address this and other operational problems as a priority?
Concerns continue about the unethical research awards. I am glad that the Minister mentioned this. It is not clear exactly how these awards were calculated. Please can this be explained clearly and the level reviewed, reflecting the seriousness of the treatment? To be absolutely clear, this was the NHS and the state using children as guinea pigs without their or their family’s knowledge or understanding of the risks. It is still truly shocking and not just a minor dereliction of duty.
The IBCA technical experts group’s discussions about how to handle suicide or attempted suicide are appalling. It beggars belief for officials to suggest that people might wish to commit suicide in order to secure some further compensation for their family. It demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of what the families have been through, long before the scheme was created more recently. Their view—that is, the technical experts’ view—contradicts the Government’s own view that the infected blood scandal represents a system failure with
“a profound and lasting impact on the lives of thousands”.
No wonder families are distressed.
Compensation for carers is also causing real concern. Many affected people provided unpaid care for family members, including children, suffering financial disadvantage and missing work opportunities. The current scheme does not recognise this financial and personal loss, so will the Government review this injustice?
The Government say that the care award for deceased estates recognises care received by the infected person, but this award is automatically passed on only through the law of succession. Therefore, family members who may have provided full-time care for decades, but who are not in that direct line of succession—for example, a parent or a previous wife—are excluded from the estate. That is a denial of everything that family carer did and lost. How is this fair? Also, the financial loss payments for eligible dependants of the deceased infected people do not address the substantial difference in overall compensation between an infected person who survives to claim, and one who dies just before compensation is paid. The financial loss was the same; the difference is catastrophic.
Can the Minister say why the infected injury award increases according to the severity of the infection, but the tariff ends before the most serious outcome of all, the death of the infected person, and why there is no recognition of this ultimate harm? The Treasury uses its compensation “death discount” if there was any physical separation of the couple before death. One caregiving widow left the marital home because she feared her husband’s behaviour—a side-effect of his infection—with their children. The Treasury’s actions seem unforgivably hard.
These are just a few of the concerns of the infected blood community, and I hope the Government will review these issues urgently. I beg to move.
Lord Patten (Con)
My Lords, time is short not just for speakers in this debate, but increasingly so for the remaining victims of infected blood to get justice after one of the biggest ever failures by the British state on record. Curiously enough, all infected blood records are missing in Northern Ireland, for unknown reasons; therefore, I am speaking simply for England, Scotland and Wales. But I strongly agree with all that my noble friend Lady Brinton has just said in speaking to her regret amendment. For sure, there is an ongoing process to recognise and compensate, but it has been fraught with a lot of confusion, muddle and terrible delays, and still today, no sense of urgency that I can see.
These 10 regulations are in fact just one more skirmish with reality, causing alarm indeed in the way they have been mooted. For example, one correspondent from the infected blood community world, who I do not know, wrote to me out of the blue, thinking that this set of regulations gives the last chance to do anything at all. This is not so, if Ministers decide, for they can change policy and can change pace at will, but I have no sense that this is happening. Indeed, the obfuscation continues. The Minister kindly provided me with a Written Answer earlier this month, telling me that there have been 19,565 claimants to the Infected Blood Compensation Authority, of whom only 3,336 have been paid. That is clear and straightforward, and I thank her for that.
On the other hand, in a parallel Question—again, in this month—about the numbers who have died before settlements, amid quite a chunk of verbiage there was no answer at all about those who have died before settlement has happened. I think we should have this information and it is wrong that we do not. I look to the Minister perhaps to revisit my Question when she has a moment, to see what can be done.
This whole issue has been criss-crossing ministerial desks for decades. It was certainly doing that when the new Prime Minister was himself Secretary of State for Health, which was quite a long time ago. I trust that his door at No. 10 will always be open to the afflicted, and I hope that, while he is Prime Minister, the shutters are never going to come down on those who are afflicted wishing to get access. I warmly welcome the appointment of the new Secretary of State for Health. She is—I say this with respect—a noted Whitehall warrior and has real depth of experience, over decades in ministerial office. I hope she will now get a real grip, as a matter of urgency, on this faltering process, cutting through the administrative thickets before many more die as continuing mortality takes its toll.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, we must thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for her introduction to this amendment. Like others, I have had some desperately sad correspondence from widows whose husbands died relatively early after infection. Infection denied them children, some suffered serious discrimination within their family, some find that their husbands medical records are missing, and probate rules have created barriers. All those affected are so deeply wounded by the lasting emotional, financial and practical consequences of the scandal, retraumatised over decades of seeking accountability. As one widow wrote,
“no amount of money will bring back our loved ones, and there is no way you can put a figure on what we have had to go through”.
There are ongoing problems, and we must follow Sir Brian’s lead. Two years ago, though, not a penny was going out the door in recognition of the wrongs perpetrated. The delays until now are shameful. I thank the Minister and the civil servants for meeting me. The civil servants working on this are being as scrupulous as they can. The compensation coming from the Treasury, in effect from taxpayers, recognises as a nation the extent of the scandal: the NHS purchased contaminated products, and some professionals abused the trust of people in services meant to protect and respect life. We have gone from nowhere to where we are today, thanks only to those wronged speaking out, time and again, to a system that seemed deaf to their plight.
My noble friend Lady Campbell of Surbiton cannot be here today. Through her own experiences, she has taught me and others so much. I am grateful to her for sharing her thoughts on this amendment and on the need for recognising those affected, as well as those infected. Differing eligibility criteria and inconsistencies in estimating financial loss and bereavement have led to inequalities and unintended consequences. Those affected fear claims over their deceased infected relative being increasingly delayed.
The proposed death recognition award should be amended to recognise those who experienced the bereavement, rather than automatically becoming part of an estate, as probate barriers can stop the person most affected being recognised in the compensation. Deceased infected claims progress more slowly than many expected, prolonging uncertainty for bereaved families. Families who provided years of unpaid care feel that their contribution has gone inadequately recognised. Because financial loss awards differ depending on dates and circumstances, many families believe this creates unjust disparities in compensation that they cannot understand.
Thousands of families live with the consequences of the infected blood scandal. While no compensation can replace a loved one, it can acknowledge the profound loss suffered and help restore confidence that the state is committed to delivering justice fairly. There is an ancient saying: “Trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback”. This compensation scheme and the Hillsborough law might be the foot soldiers of trust in this nation, if, and only if, we have candour and get the subsequent actions right.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and all the speakers in this debate thus far. I continue where she left off, taking a moment to look at the big picture.
We have a huge problem with trust in politics and government in our society at the moment. Sometimes, attached to that is the idea that, in the past, there was some golden age when everything worked. This tragedy, this awful behaviour by the state, is a demonstration that that is not the case. We have huge problems of dysfunction in the way our state has worked over long periods of time. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said, addressing this fairly and justly, with compassion and care, could start to repair the relationship between the state and people.
I note the powerful speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, who, like all the speakers before her, has been very much a leader in this area. I come along modestly and add the Green Party’s support when I can. I thank the Minister for addressing the start of this debate with appropriate seriousness and recognising the sacrifice of families, campaigners and those who have been affected, who have demonstrated that campaigning works, in that we at least have a compensation scheme. But their experience also demonstrates that you cannot say, “We’ve won our fight, now we can get on with our lives”. People have to keep fighting and fighting and fighting. That is an unreasonable burden to put on people who have already fought for so much.
I want to pick up a couple of specific points, starting with the important contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Patten. It is considered bad form in your Lordships’ House to repeat, but I am going to repeat his demand: the Government surely have to be able to find figures to show how many people have died waiting for compensation. The figures are awful—around 3,000 people have been compensated out of 19,000 applications. We know that there must have been a lot of deaths. It cannot be beyond the capacity of the Government to give us that figure and demonstrate to the public that everyone can see clearly what is happening. This is about basic transparency.
There are many points to be made about what is wrong with what is happening now, and many of them have already been made. I pick two issues that the public would be astonished by if they were widely known. One is the fact that compensation payments are being eroded by inflation. The longer the state drags its feet, the less effective the money that people are getting to be able to get on with their lives. That is inappropriate and clearly wrong. The other point is that victims who have died must be treated in the same way as living victims. Bereaved families see the money immediately reduced as soon as someone dies, but they have died because of the terrible actions of the state. That cannot be considered in any way acceptable.
It is easy to get angry about this—your Lordships already have and will continue to do so. We have a new Government and a chance for a new start. Let us hope that this Government approach this with compassion, care and a realistic understanding that we have to restore trust in the state and in government. Indeed, in this current age of shocks, with so many health and other threats approaching, we need to ensure that there is trust in the medical profession. This compensation scheme can go some way to restoring that.
Baroness Davies of Devonport (Con)
My Lords, my mum Sheila Davies died from liver cancer in 2017 after a long battle with hepatitis. She did not drink, she never smoked, and I think she went out of the country a grand total of three times. In fact, she rarely ventured outside Plymouth, where she worked in the MoD. She worked all her life, paid her taxes, bought up my twin brothers as a single parent, and did not moan. In fact, she was the most stoic, brave, and principled woman I know.
In the late 1970s, she had a gall bladder operation in Devonport Hospital, Plymouth. The gallstones they removed filled a jam jar. I remember her shaking them at me at the kitchen table. I was 15. She was on warfarin at the time and therefore needed a blood transfusion, which was standard practice for a large-wound operation, and she thought nothing of it. As with so many hepatitis cases, it took 20 years before the symptoms started to really impact her life. From that moment, she was on a cocktail of tablets, drugs and endless tests, yet she never stopped working through colds, flu and infections. She never explained to us children what she had, so she dealt with that fear all alone. I rang her best friend at the weekend to check, and my mum had never told her either, such was the shame and stigma that came with the diagnosis of hepatitis and HIV, which meant that so many people were shunned and abandoned. Whole families of haemophiliacs died while communities ostracised them. In many cases, it was women who picked up the burden of care.
Mum had a consultant who seemed to get things under control, but when he went back to Australia, things went downhill very fast. It was only at the very end when my brother had to take my mum to appointments that the truth started to come out. I then took her to Harley Street after she decided to pay herself to see a specialist. I sat there while he told her that, had she been referred six months earlier, he could have done something to help her, but, apart from experimental drugs that would put her in bed for six months and prolong her life just a little, there was nothing he could now do. It was too late. It felt like the third time that our NHS had let her down. I talked her out of spending her last three months in bed as she was a fiercely independent woman, and three months later she died. We got her back home to the house that she lived in for 50 years and she was surrounded by her family.
My story is not unique. There are many families with worse ones. Mum died in February 2017, just months before the first real transparency on contaminated blood. We found out that blood was obtained not only from American prisons but from prisons in the UK, such as Dartmoor, which might well have been the prison that supplied the blood to hospitals in Plymouth. It had not been screened. Worse, it was batched, long after many countries had changed their practice. Some hospitals and trusts, as we have heard, and I know, deliberately destroyed records.
My mum died before she could talk about what she had endured. She was terrified that it might come out that she had hep C because I was in the public eye. Getting records together has been nigh on impossible. I have tried, with my influence, which is better than most, and still we have had little help. There are many poor families out there who are really struggling with just getting the information.
Last weekend, I spent time online with people who have lived this nightmare. I hope the Minister, who I know genuinely wants to help, will find some of their expertise useful. They mentioned awareness of and equality for hep B sufferers and the importance of understanding how hep B can be a trigger, especially for haemophiliacs who have multi-conditions. Claim managers were suggested who can target claim types, so they can build up expertise and knowledge in specialist areas. They call for help with record gathering, an emphasis on genuine testimony, speeding up compensation, especially for those who are dying, working closely with charities and support groups which have been dealing with victims for decades, and support and recognition for the many women who were given contaminated blood during childbirth and were told not to have any more children.
This was beyond a terrible, avoidable mistake, and there was the even bigger disgrace of the cover-up. A minimum of 30,000 people were affected, and there were 3,000 premature deaths. Hundreds of thousands of families affected by this contaminated blood scandal have been ignored for so many years. All Governments have to own their part and all Members of this House and the other place need to come together to establish justice and transparency for all victims. We must take lessons from what has gone on in the past and do no harm going forward.
Baroness Featherstone (LD)
My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Baroness. When one hears stories directly like that, they have an impact. I am so sorry for the noble Baroness’s loss. As ever, I have to declare my interest: one of my sister’s twin boys—my nephew, who was a haemophiliac—was infected with hepatitis C and died at the age of 35, leaving behind a 10 month-old baby daughter. I more than support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. Of course, although progress has been made, the implementation of the compensation scheme is still causing unnecessary and huge distress to too many victims and their families. Despite those of us who fight in this Chamber and raise the issues we are hearing about today about the affected and the infected, nothing fundamentally changes on those issues.
I begin by acknowledging this Minister’s personal commitment to this issue, which is appreciated. I know that much work has gone into establishing the compensation scheme, but the measure of success is not the creation of the scheme but the experience of those going through it. I want to raise three practical concerns today.
The first is the burden of evidence. Time and again, I hear from victims and bereaved families who are being asked to provide information that they have already supplied many times over many years to government departments, previous support schemes and the infected blood inquiry itself. Others are being asked for records dating back 40 or 50 years, which have long since disappeared. Surely, the starting point should be different. Where the state already holds the information or has previously accepted the facts, it should rely on its own records. After decades of fighting simply to be believed, people should not now feel that they are being asked to prove their case all over again.
My second concern is that these problems are not new. Representative organisations and affected individuals have been raising them consistently. The Government know about them; IBCA knows about them. We politicians have raised them often enough. Yet the same concerns continue to be raised over and over again, to no avail. The Government should and must expect the authority to learn quickly from claimants’ experience and to adapt its processes as problems emerge. If the same complaints continue to be heard month after month, something is plainly not working as it should.
My third point is about certainty. Many people still do not know when they are likely to be invited into the scheme, how long the process is expected to take or what stage their claim has reached. After decades of uncertainty, they deserve clear communication about what they can expect and when they can expect it.
I ask the Minister three questions. First, what further steps will the Government take to ensure that claimants are not repeatedly asked for information that the Government and other organisations already possess? Secondly, what assurances and examples can the Minister give the House that the Government are holding IBCA to account for resolving these recurring problems more quickly, and what punishment do they mete out to IBCA when it cannot answer? Thirdly, what further improvements will be made to communications with claimants, so they have a clear understanding of where they are in the process and when they can realistically expect decisions?
The hard decisions have already been taken. The inquiry established the truth. Parliament accepted the need for compensation. The money is there. The remaining task is to ensure that delivery matches the promises that have been made. That is what victims and families—those who have waited so long for justice—now deserve.
Lord Doyle (Non-Afl)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. I want to mention in particular the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Davies of Devonport, who set out so powerfully the real-world consequences of this scandal: not just the infections but the stigma that went with them. I thank her for doing that in this debate.
I thank the Minister for all her work on this; I know she has been a passionate advocate for change. I also want to use this debate to pay tribute also to the outgoing Paymaster General, Nick Thomas-Symonds, for all that he did to implement the inquiry’s recommendations. We now have an operational, funded compensation scheme that has paid out more than £2.5 billion. The difference this has made to victims is immeasurable. For many infected people, it has brought not only financial security but, after more than 40 years, the sense that they can begin to move forward with dignity and hope.
I pay tribute to the Terrence Higgins Trust for its tireless work in supporting people living with HIV and hepatitis C, and ensuring that victims’ voices have been heard, because there are a couple of outstanding issues for those co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C from contaminated blood and blood products that I want to mention today. The first regards interferon treatment.
Many people co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C could not wait for newer, safer treatments. Their health was deteriorating, HIV treatment options were limited and the pressure to act was immense. Interferon brought severe side-effects, repeated courses of therapy and additional suffering, compounded by HIV infection. The Government have said in the other place that those who suffered side-effects from interferon will receive an additional award and that each course of treatment will be recognised. That commitment is absolutely welcome but, from my reading of them, it is not explicitly in the regulations before us. Will the Minister confirm that this instrument will apply equally to all co-infected victims, including payments for each round of interferon treatment?
My second point concerns bereaved parents. I welcome the proposed exceptional loss uplift for bereaved partners, children, siblings and parents of children who died before 18, but there remains a gap. Many people infected with HIV never had the opportunity to build families of their own because of the stigma, discrimination and fear, and the expectation of an early death. Some died as adults while still being cared for by their parents. Those parents still suffered profound loss and should not be excluded simply because their child lived beyond their 18th birthday. I therefore ask the Minister to consider extending the 50% exceptional loss uplift to bereaved parents whose infected child died aged over 18 without a partner or children.
This scandal caused lifelong physical and psychological harm, compounded for those living with HIV by stigma, isolation and decades of uncertainty. This Government have made great strides towards justice: to rebuilding trust through the scheme and, with the passing of the duty of candour law, to dealing with other such scandals. I hope we can now take these final steps to ensure that everyone impacted receives the fairness, dignity and recognition they deserve.
Lord Pack (LD)
I am deeply conscious of how much knowledge many noble Lords have on this topic, knowledge that has often been tragically accumulated through their own personal experiences and those of their families. I pay tribute to those, both in this House and outside it, who have done so much to expose the scandal and to push for justice, including of course several noble Lords who have so eloquently spoken in this debate. If I may, I will briefly mention one other: my noble friend Lady Featherstone’s late sister, Della, who I remember as always such a smiling and happy person, but who was also such a formidable campaigner, driven by her own family’s tragedy.
Of course, one issue of widespread concern, as the noble Lord, Lord Patten, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, in particular have touched on, is the speed with which compensation payments are being made and will be made, especially given the steady death toll, sadly, of victims of this tragedy. I very much welcomed the Government’s response when the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, of which I am a member, dug into this SI, confirming that they expect the “vast majority” of payments for infected people to be made by 2027 and for those affected by 2029.
Last year, however, the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, the Minister, went a little further on 19 March, when she talked of IBCA’s
“aim to have made the majority of payments far ahead of those dates”.—[Official Report, 19/3/25; col. 1316.]
I hope she might be able to tell us what progress is being made on those more ambitious dates. When, for example, can we expect the majority of payments to be made by, and have those dates changed since the original profile of compensation spending was agreed with the Treasury?
However, even with the best possible answers on those points, it will still be several years before payments are concluded, so the fixed financial figures set in this statutory instrument and other related legislation will, as we have heard, continue to be eroded by inflation, reducing what people receive before everything is settled. I must admit that I found the Government’s explanation to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for not uprating figures to cater for inflation to be a little puzzling, because it was a two-pronged justification, the first being that it
“would not be consistent with a tariff-based approach”,
and the second being that it would be “administratively burdensome”. I find that puzzling, because there are many other SIs that come through Parliament that appear to manage both those things. Conscious of time, I will mention only one.
The Armed Forces and Reserve Forces (Compensation Scheme) (Amendment) Order 2026 takes several financial numbers related to compensation that are fixed in legislation and updates them explicitly in response to those figures having been eroded by inflation over time. The Government’s Explanatory Memorandum also talks of plans to regularly review the relevant lump sum to uprate it in future in line with inflation. That is just one of many different examples of other schemes and compensation arrangements where the Government regularly update figures in line with inflation. They do not find it inconsistent with tariff-based approaches in those other areas, and they do not find it unnecessarily administratively burdensome.
I therefore hope the Minister can, if not necessarily promise future uprating to deal with inflation, at least set out a clear path to look further at this issue. This is not just an abstract matter of geeky maths and statistical detail; it goes to the heart of whether victims of this appalling tragedy will finally be properly treated and respected by the systems that govern us. I very much hope that the Minister will respond positively on those points and on the others that we have heard in this debate.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, before I speak to the Motion to approve these regulations and to the regret amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, I want to begin by reflecting on the courage and tenacity of all infected and affected victims of the infected blood scandal. They have shown immense strength in the course of their long campaign, and they deserve justice without delay. There is one point that ought to be made at the outset: the previous Minister for the Cabinet Office rightly placed great store by the delivery of infected blood compensation and repeatedly presented it as a central priority. Victims are now entitled to ask where it leaves them. Not only do they have to live with the uncertainty that inevitably accompanies a change of Government but the latest figures demonstrate that the pace and consistency of compensation payments remain well behind where they should be. After everything these families have endured, they should not be expected to endure yet more uncertainty about when justice will finally arrive.
I thank the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, both for their time and for putting the victims at the centre of their remarks. Our shared, cross-party objective of delivering justice for the victims is why we are having this debate, and we will continue to work constructively to maintain that consensus across the main parties. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, notes in her amendment, we should recognise the progress made by the Government and the Infected Blood Compensation Authority since October 2025. The latest publicly available figures show that 3,358 people have received compensation. While that is welcome, there is still widespread concern about the pace of progress. The Hepatitis C Trust has said that compensation must be delivered faster, and that thousands of victims are still waiting even to be invited to claim compensation, let alone be paid what they are due.
There also remains a striking imbalance in who has received compensation to date. Living infected persons who have never received support comprise just 35 people—1% of the claims paid. A concerningly small number of affected people and those acting on behalf of a deceased infected person have received payments following their claims. When does the Minister anticipate a meaningful increase in the figures for those groups of victims?
On costs and compensation, the previous Government allocated £11.8 billion to fund infected blood compensation, but the National Audit Office now estimates the total expected payout to be £12.8 billion. What contingencies are being put in place to ensure that funds are available to pay compensation to all those who are eligible? Pace is not the only concern. A number of important issues remain unresolved, including but not limited to the disparity between compensation for living and deceased infected people and the injury award for unethical medical testing. I hope the Minister will be able to address those and other concerns when she responds to this debate. In doing so, will she set out what work is being done to support affected and infected people with their applications for compensation? We need a scheme that recognises the complexities of individual cases and takes care to give people tailored support.
I very much pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Davies of Devonport, who spoke so movingly of her experiences and her mother’s story. She and other noble Lords rightly highlighted the challenges faced by many families in obtaining the necessary records. This is another example of the need for tailored support for victims. Do the teams at IBCA have the skills to support families where records are difficult to access? What assessment has been made to ensure that IBCA has the necessary skills in place to deliver the best possible support for all victims? They and their families must come first. We will continue to work constructively with the Government to ensure that rapid progress is made.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, before I start, I put on record that I am in awe of the noble Baroness, Lady Davies, and her speech. I can only imagine how difficult it was for her to stand up and do that. She demonstrates what we have all listened to on many occasions: the pain and heartbreak, and why we are actually here, because behind each statistic that is so easy for us to talk about there is a family still grieving for their loved one. We are so grateful that she and the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone —I will call her my noble friend—are here to remind us every day of the realities. I also put on record my personal thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, who is not able to be with us today. She makes sure that, every day, she speaks truth to power on behalf of everybody who is suffering. I thank all of them for doing so.
Many points have been raised. I am really aware that this is the first time I have done a timed SI and that this is such an emotive issue, so I may not be able to answer every point. As ever, I will reflect on Hansard and write, but I want to put a couple of things on record. When we discuss the issues of infected blood, we know that people are listening to us to make sure of what the Government are saying and that we are sticking with what we have promised, so I want to make sure of that too. In answer to a very important point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, I want to make it clear that the £11.8 billion allocated by the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer is neither a target nor a cap. I would also make every guarantee on behalf of the new Chancellor of the Exchequer that the money will be found if it needs to be found, but this is neither a target nor a cap.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Davies and Lady Featherstone, raised a range of specific recommendations. I would like to facilitate two meetings, if noble Lords wish to attend. One would be with the leadership of IBCA to go through some of the recommendations, some of which are about humanity and how we engage. I think it would be helpful for it to hear those stories. Another, again, would be with my officials. There is always an open door with my officials on the specifics that we face.
I think every Member of your Lordships’ House reflected that we are still dealing with a matter of national shame. This is a black mark that we still have to tackle. I very much echo the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay: this is taxpayers’ money in recognition of an appalling state failure, and we need to get this right. I personally have hope for the way we are doing this. We had an option, and the tariff-based scheme was recommended as the fastest way of getting the money out of the door, because all the people we are trying to support have varying lives that are complicated and challenging, but we can definitely help support the majority.
I turn to some of the specifics that have been raised. Forgive me, I will speak quickly because I want the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, to have as much time as possible at the end of the debate. IBCA’s prioritisation was raised by many Members of your Lordships’ House. IBCA prioritises claims based on recommendations from the Infected Blood Inquiry. Prioritisation lists differ slightly depending on the cohort, but I want to reassure noble Lords that those sadly nearing the end of life, aged 75 or over, are prioritised across the board, whether infected or affected.
Noble Lords will be aware that every affected claim has to be based on the assessment of an infected claim —a foundational claim to tie the two claims together. As per IBCA’s community update of 9 July, earlier this month, it has asked everyone registered as living infected, never compensated and nearing the end of their life to start their claim and is now contacting people with advanced liver disease. IBCA has asked everyone who has registered to make a deceased infected claim with a beneficiary of an estate who is nearing the end of their life to start their claim and is now contacting beneficiaries who are aged 75 or over. We are currently asking living affected people who are nearing the end of their life to start their claim and expect soon to have contacted everyone currently registered in this group. It will then contact people aged 75 or over to start the claim.
On IBCA’s staff training, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, IBCA’s claim managers do indeed receive an initial three-week training, which includes the background on the infected blood scandal and the inquiry’s work and recommendations, so that everyone in the organisation understands the human stories behind their work. Staff receive specific trauma-informed training from a clinical psychologist to ensure that they can provide the best support possible to each person coming to IBCA. Claim managers meet members of the community during their training to ensure that they understand not just what happened but how it has impacted lives, and this continues throughout their employment.
The noble Baroness raised the long-term effects of interferon. These regulations will introduce a new higher level of award for infected people who were treated with interferon. The new level 2B core compensation award will provide more financial loss and care compensation for the full two years after treatment to anyone treated with interferon who would otherwise be receiving a level 2 award. For those on the level 3 or level 4 infection severity banding, the inquiry made no recommendations in relation to recognising the impact of interferon treatment for people who are already eligible for those awards. The technical expert group supported the view that level 3 compensation awards already account for the types of harms that people may have suffered as a result of treatment with interferon.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, raised the most heartbreaking thing, which is the historic evidence of suicide. The Government looked at how to make the severe health condition award for psychiatric disorders more accessible and have a less intrusive ask for evidence. We examined using types of evidence, such as suicide, to qualify for the award. Imposing such a retraumatising requirement would place an unconscionable and egregious burden on families who have already endured decades of profound mental suffering. When designing any compensation scheme, the Government must ensure that no mechanism or award criteria inadvertently creates a risk to potentially vulnerable people. That is why we are progressing in the way that we are, but I will put that in writing to all noble Lords.
On the recognition of carers, I have also met and heard from many of the people whom noble Lords have. The care award is provided to people making a claim as an infected person or as the representative of a deceased infected person’s estate. This award is intended to compensate specifically for financial loss caused by the hours and the nature of care needed, but I am aware of the impact that that has had on some people who would not necessarily have received that through the estate.
The unethical research award amount has been raised with me many times, both in your Lordships’ House and outside. The Government took a great deal of care in determining the award values and the qualifying criteria for the cohort of people who were or may have been subjected to unethical research. This included obtaining advice from legal experts and considering the responses to the consultation. The published response to the consultation provides an analysis of the responses received. This award is intended to compensate people for the specific distress caused by discovering that they may have been subject to unethical research practices. The core route awards, such as the injury and social impact award, already compensate for the long-term physical and mental impact caused by someone’s infections.
I am aware that if I speak for much longer, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will not have much time, so I will write on every other point raised—apologies. I put on record my thanks to every Member of your Lordships’ House who has ensured that this issue continues to get the hearing it deserves. I thank my incredible team, both my private office and my civil servants, for making sure that I am well informed and engaged on such an emotive issue, and that we are trying our very best to make sure we support the victims of one of the most egregious scandals in living memory.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Davies of Devonport, for her very moving contribution about her mother’s own experience, reminding us of the consequences of stigma, hidden infections and diseases such as hepatitis not being identified, which meant that she could not be treated. I understand what it took for the noble Baroness to give that speech, but it was very powerful. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, cannot be here this afternoon, and I pay tribute to her many decades of campaigning for justice for victims of contaminated blood. My noble friend Lady Featherstone’s family’s experience was sobering for us all and a reminder of the real impact of this. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patten, for his informed contribution, which stressed the urgency of resolving the many outstanding issues, and I am grateful to the Minister for responding to that.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay and Lady Bennett, both spoke movingly about the bigger picture; we must not lose sight of that. The noble Lord, Lord Doyle, reminded us of the progress that has been made. I apologise that my speech did not talk much about progress—there has been some. My concern is what is still outstanding. The noble Lord, Lord Pack, made a very important point about inflation, which I hope the Minister can look at.
I thank the Minister for her measured and caring approach, as ever. This is something on which we all want to work together, but today’s debate has demonstrated that there remain urgent issues. I end by thanking all the victims and their families. I hope they are reassured by the cross-party support for them and their concerns. I hope the Minister will be able to improve payment times and remedy some of the many injustices in the scheme at the moment. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment to the Motion.
Greater Cambridge Development Corporation (Establishment) Order 2026
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Baroness Taylor of Stevenage
That the Order laid before the House on 4 June be approved.
Relevant document: 5th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980 sets out that the Secretary of State may designate an urban development area where they are of the opinion that it is expedient and in the national interest, and following a public consultation. Between 4 February and 1 April 2026, the Government held a public consultation on establishing the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation to promote ambitious, high-quality and sustainable growth, and unlock the full potential of Greater Cambridge for the benefit of its communities and the country as a whole. I am grateful to all those who took time to engage and provide thoughtful and constructive feedback.
Consultation respondents were clear that Greater Cambridge faces increasingly complex challenges relating to infrastructure provision and the supply of affordable housing. This is having a detrimental effect on quality of life and holding back the region’s ability to scale its globally significant innovation economy.
The Government believe that these challenges cannot be met by incremental change alone. Delivering nationally significant growth in Greater Cambridge requires a bold, long-term approach, and a genuine step change in how infrastructure is planned, co-ordinated and delivered. The Government consider that establishing a centrally led development corporation is the most effective way to unlock nationally significant growth at the pace and scale required, combining responsiveness to local priorities with national leadership and influence.
To show the Government’s commitment to fulfilling the full potential of the region, since publishing the consultation the Chancellor has announced a further £400 million of funding for the Oxford-Cambridge corridor, doubling the £400 million announced in October 2025.
Once established, the boundary of the development corporation aligns with the combined administrative boundary of Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council. This will enable the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation to deliver on its objectives and make effective use of its powers, enabling the scale of growth necessary to deliver on both local and national interests.
As we set out in the consultation, the development area captures the core functional geography of the Cambridge economy, enabling a holistic approach to growth and infrastructure delivery. It will enable coherent planning across a wide area, strategic land assembly and land value capture to fund infrastructure. However, the success of the development corporation will also of course depend on strong partnership and proactive engagement with neighbouring authorities, and transport and utility providers beyond its boundary.
Although the development corporation will predominantly focus on its designated development area, it will also have influence beyond its formal boundary. This includes the ability to acquire land outside its development area to enable it to meet its objectives. The development corporation will bring a combination of powers, financing and national influence beyond what is available to existing local organisations. The development corporation will provide clarity and certainty through a clear vision for place and a stable governance framework.
The development corporation is intended as a joint national and local endeavour, combining local insight and input from local democratically elected representatives with national leadership, powers and investment. It will have direct access to central government and the ability to convene and co-ordinate partners around shared priorities. The democratically elected local leaders from Cambridge City Council, South Cambridgeshire District Council and Cambridgeshire County Council, and the Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, will be invited to join the board.
The Government also recognise that resident voices from across Greater Cambridge will form an integral part of the joint local and national endeavour in shaping the area’s future. The Government will therefore ask the development corporation to create structured forums for engagement that reflect the diversity of places and lived experiences across the region and serve as an exemplar of innovative, transparent, continuous and deep engagement. In short, it will provide Greater Cambridge with the tools, certainty and investment needed for sustainable, infrastructure-first growth. The model will form an exemplar for integrated powers and funding, setting the standard for housing development elsewhere in the country.
This establishment order will establish the GCDC as an entity, upon which it will be granted automatic infrastructure, financial and land assembly powers. My officials are now preparing the powers and functions order, a negative statutory instrument that is due later this year, which will equip the GCDC with planning powers, including the ability to determine planning applications for strategic development. Prior to the point at which we define the strategic sites, the development corporation will use minimum thresholds as a proxy to provide a clear and proportionate mechanism to focus the development corporation’s resources on sites of strategic importance. The development corporation will also take on plan-making powers, but it is anticipated that this will be once the draft local plan has been adopted, subject to public examination.
This combination of powers will provide Greater Cambridge with the tools, certainty and investment needed for sustainable, infrastructure-first growth. The model will be an exemplar for integrated powers and funding, setting the standard for housing development elsewhere in the country, delivering the good growth that this Government support.
To conclude, this order will establish the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation and set out the boundary in which it may operate. The Greater Cambridge Development Corporation will be focused on the delivery of strategic, nationally significant growth in its boundary, and work collaboratively with councils both within and bordering the development area, transport bodies and utility providers, to help supercharge growth and unlock development opportunities. It will support the delivery of new homes, infrastructure, and business and laboratory space.
I extend my thanks to the local leaders and their councils for their hard work and for their ongoing collaboration in delivering nationally significant growth in Greater Cambridge. I also thank the Cambridge Growth Company, under the leadership of Peter Freeman, for its ongoing work in Cambridge that has helped unlock planning applications for over 9,000 homes and 528,000 square metres of commercial space. While I am standing at the Dispatch Box, I also thank my noble friend Lord Vallance, who is standing down from the Front Bench but has made a huge contribution to the development of the OxCam arc in his time as a Minister. I am very grateful to him for that work.
I hope noble Lords will join me in supporting the order. I beg to move.
Lord Lansley
At end to insert “but that this House regrets that the geographic scope of the Development Corporation proposed in the Order is not extended to correspond to the functional economic geography of the Cambridge-based economy; and that this Order is not accompanied by an Order setting out planning powers for the Development Corporation focused on very large new sites for development.”
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for introducing the order and setting out so clearly what the Government are seeking to achieve. I have tabled a regret amendment, not because I oppose the establishment of the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation but because I think what is in the order and in the Government’s plans both is insufficiently ambitious in terms of the geography and what needs to be achieved and overreaches in what the Government are seeking to do for planning and plan-making powers in Cambridge itself.
I should declare an interest. Of course, for 18 years I was Member of Parliament for South Cambridgeshire, the area that the development corporation will cover, and for the last decade I have been chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum. I have had only the most positive continuing engagement through that role with local planning authorities and the Cambridge Growth Company. I agree entirely with the Minister that we will very much miss the noble Lord, Lord Vallance, in his role as the Minister for the OxCam growth corridor, and I hope that the Government will continue to follow through on the excellent work that he implemented.
Why do I say that the Government are insufficiently ambitious? When we look 25 years ahead, we are looking for a development corporation to add value to what is already being done in Cambridge. We are already building. The university has helped to build Eddington. We have built out at Trumpington Meadows. We allocated green-belt land and are building out at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. It is the Government who prevented us from proceeding as we wanted to in Cambridge North because they would not pay for wastewater treatment and removal. We have just had Homes England, Hill Residential, the local authority and the Cambridge Growth Company coming together to set out plans for the redevelopment of Cambridge City Airport as the Cambridge East development, with East West Rail coming through. There is no shortage of impetus from the planning authorities. Indeed, last year, Greater Cambridge Shared Planning, a shared service between Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council, was the planning authority of the year.
We need to look at this development corporation and ask: how does it add value? The Minister was absolutely right: it is by building out the infrastructure. I will give just one example: the mass rapid transit requirements around Cambridge. Cambridge Ahead has said recently, on where the Cambridge cluster really extends to, that in the years ahead we are looking at what is, in effect, a polycentric system of Cambridge and related large settlements which will form part of a functional economic geography. If you look at a map, a 20-mile radius around Cambridge includes Ely, Newmarket, Haverhill, Royston, St Neots and Huntingdon.
Huntingdon is an excellent example. We need mass rapid transit to Huntingdon, in addition to the A14 and the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway. We have the space to do it. Huntingdon’s local plan process is currently looking at some 24,000 additional homes in the plan period and beyond, in places such as Alconbury Weald and Wyton. If the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation is going to deliver that infrastructure, it has the powers to do that beyond its territory, as the Minister said. But, if it wanted to take responsibility for major settlements such as Alconbury Weald or Wyton or, heading to the east, somewhere such as Westley Green, it is technically beyond the boundary that we are looking at. If the Minister wanted to add value to the local planning process, she might like to have a look at East Cambridgeshire District Council, which is not proceeding with any local plan process, unlike Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council, which are in the midst of creating a very ambitious local plan and expect to conclude it by the end of 2027.
What I ask the Minister to do is to think very hard about this regret amendment and accept that the development corporation should not be confined to the geography that is set out here. It should, in time, potentially be responsible for other major settlements. Within Cambridge city and South Cambridgeshire, it should not take general planning powers and, specifically, should not take the plan-making powers after the point at which the current local plan is adopted. That would be an outrageous abuse of the democratic process and would vitiate all the partnership working being done in Cambridge city and beyond in the Greater Cambridge area to try to deliver precisely the nationally significant growth that the Minister has been advocating.
We are talking here about the establishment order, but I think the Minister fully understands that what we are really talking about is that, when the subsequent planning functions order comes forward, that should be an opportunity for her to think again about the results of the consultation and to bring forward something focused on red-line sites for major, strategic settlements, and not taking responsibility for plan-making powers. I beg to move the regret amendment in my name.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for setting out the case for the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation. Unavoidably, it sounded like something out of the 1970s, rather than something fit for the 21st century.
It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, although my perspective is very different from his. One of my regrets about his amendment is that it is only a regret amendment, for there is clear evidence that there is strong local opposition to the creation of the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation—and there is very good reason for that. It might be said to be the last thing the city, its residents and its environment need or want. You would think it is also the last thing the Government should need or want, given that we have a new Prime Minister acknowledging that far too much focus has been put on, and resources sunk into, the development of a small area of the country, while the north, the Midlands, the south-west of England, many parts of Wales, and far too many coastal communities and market towns have been ignored and stripped of resources by austerity.
I return to Cambridge. The corporation model is designed to accelerate growth far beyond what local infrastructure, water supplies and fragile ecosystems can sustain, while stripping democratic control from Cambridge and Cambridgeshire residents. Developers, not communities, stand to benefit: the corporation risks becoming a vehicle for speculative development, with profits privatised and costs—from water shortages to traffic congestion—pushed on to residents.
The structure of the corporation is profoundly undemocratic, taking away from local councils control over planning decisions, thereby undermining the power of representatives whom local people voted for. The consultation showed majority resident opposition. The local Green group has told me that it is apparent from the debates that have taken place in the newly elected Cambridge City Council—no party now has overall control, but there is a ruling Labour group, the Greens are the second-largest party and the Lib Dems are close behind—that none of the parties supports the corporation.
More, the corporation plan is severely underfunded. What it is due to receive will do nothing to address the existing shortfall in infrastructure. It focuses on all the wrong outcomes, including growing the bioscience and IT sectors. Before any more commercial development happens, what needs to be addressed in particular are the chronic water shortages, the transport bottlenecks, the acute social housing shortfall—which new, high-priced housing estates will not resolve—the insufficient electricity supply, the limited sewage capacity, the lack of sufficient hospital places and the overstretched schools.
The inadequacy of the infrastructure there has been demonstrated by the conditions in Addenbrooke’s Hospital during the recent heatwave. Media reports indicated that four staff members went home ill and two more collapsed at work—and that is the staff. There is a clear need for significant investment there, as well as in the more than 60 schools that either closed early or indicated that pupils could leave because they were too hot. We need to fix the existing infrastructure before we think about going further.
Water stress is, of course, the biggest issue. No one has provided a substantive answer as to where the water will come from for future significant development proposed under the corporation—Lincolnshire or Wales, maybe. Both of those places in this heavily water-stressed land might well have something to say about that. The Environment Agency, as is well known, has opposed local planning applications already, such as the west Cambridge site, due to the lack of water supplies. The trees in the area—this is filling the local media at the moment—are dying because there is not enough water for them. That has been absolutely dominating the local press in the last few days.
I note that recently, the Labour group on the Cambridge City Council amended—downgraded—the Green group’s motion on the rights of the River Cam. Even though it was downgraded, the Labour motion still said:
“We regard the river as an integral part of the life of our city. Threats to our rivers are a threat to us all”.
I hope that the new Government are listening to their local representatives.
This development corporation is an idea that comes from the 20th century—a failed model that has caused the climate and nature emergencies, the terrible state of public health and the rampant inequality of the UK of 2026. It is ironic that this is happening while we have a new Prime Minister who says that he wants to give a greater say to communities. This corporation takes away that say. To quote local Green councillors, this is a “power grab”, not a plan. I realise that the Minister may not be able to provide a fresh perspective today, but I hope that a fresh approach does appear in the new Government over the summer.
Lord Best (CB)
My Lords, I note the criticisms of the new development corporation for Cambridgeshire, as spelled out by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, from his expert local knowledge, but my comments are from the broader policy perspective. The use of the development corporation model represents a huge opportunity up and down the country to reorder the development of new homes and infrastructure and the regeneration of existing neighbourhoods. Criticisms have abounded of the major housebuilders and developers failing to deliver the quantity or quality of new homes, facilities and infrastructure that they have promised.
Development corporations can do so much better. By capturing the land value, now without the necessity of incorporating hope value, with the possibility of using compulsory purchase powers as a last resort, a development corporation can deliver a high-quality master plan to include much-needed affordable homes and social and community benefits. Delivering new and regeneration schemes is a long-term proposition, during which there may well be changes of political control within local government for the area. The value of the development corporation is not only its public accountability but its longevity, irrespective of the local uncertainties our democracy creates.
Of course, planning decisions that are bound to cause local upset but which are in the national or regional interest—and we need to build 1.5 million new homes—are hard to take at the local authority level. We know from the success of the development corporations already up and running that this model can be a game-changer. Greater Cambridge would be well-served by having its own.
I support this order, and I greatly welcome in principle the establishment of the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation, with or without the modifications recommended by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley.
Lord Smith of Finsbury (Lab)
My Lords, with permission, I will express a few thoughts, and I speak as chancellor of the University of Cambridge. I welcome the establishment of the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation. It will, quite simply, speed things up and cut through bureaucratic delays.
We need to acknowledge the growth potential of our best universities, and Cambridge is, I am proud to say, one of them. The best place for start-up businesses in Europe is currently Cambridge. The alumni of the University of Cambridge in recent years have founded 2,600 venture-backed start-ups—more than anywhere else in Europe. We are rivalled only by the Bay Area in California and the other Cambridge and Boston area in Massachusetts.
Cambridge, since 2024, has raised more venture capital investment in deep-tech industries per capita than anywhere else in the world. We have had particular success in oncology, AI drug discovery, semiconductor manufacturing, chips and processing, cardiology and aerospace. The Government must recognise the world-class opportunity for catalysing growth that is represented by our leading universities, and especially by Cambridge. The development corporation is therefore very welcome.
I give three small words of warning, however. First, we have heard warm words before. The Oxford-Cambridge arc, especially the new rail link between Oxford and Cambridge, has been promised before. It must now happen.
Secondly, one other potential problem is the issue of water resources highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. At the moment, all of Cambridge’s water comes from boreholes dug into the aquifer below ground. In the long term, the huge pressure for development makes that resource unsustainable. I hope the Government will therefore do everything possible to ensure that the new Fens reservoir, which is desperately needed, can indeed happen.
Thirdly, there must be full and considered local consultation. I am delighted that the Minister has committed the Government to ensuring that that happens. The development corporation is a great start, but please make sure that Cambridge’s full potential is actually realised.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, development corporations have been widely welcomed—with one exception—because they have an important function in enabling development decisions that cover a wide area. So, the question for us is not the about principle of development corporations, but whether the Greater Cambridge devco is the most effective vehicle for achieving the purposes set out in the order.
I have a number of criticisms, and the first is about geography, which the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, pointed out. Decisions on local government reorganisation have, so far, specifically excluded a decision on the Cambridge area, yet here is a proposal with boundaries that may not conform to those decisions. This particular order is, therefore, in that regard, premature. Further, the boundaries proposed may actually constrain provision of the much-needed infrastructure.
The next criticism is the locally shared diagnosis that development in the Cambridge area is hampered by inadequate transport, as we have just heard, water resources, which is well known, energy and the affordability of housing. Despite the scale of the proposed development corporation, the solutions to the fundamental infrastructure problems lie with private companies, such as Cambridge Water, and central government to enable the development of much-needed improved transport structures. The Minister said that there will be another £400 million to do all this good work. That is a drop in the ocean compared to what is required in terms of essential infrastructure before all this development can take place. I would like to know whether the Department for Transport, the relevant water company and National Grid have been provided with the funding, either directly or via the regulators, to deliver this essential infrastructure in a timely way.
The third major criticism is that there is no clear rationale or evidence base for removing local plan-making powers from democratically elected councils serving the area. The problem that this creates is enabling development without the consensus of residents or those elected to represent them. The councils involved have a strong record, which the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, referred to, of successfully making the arguments for growth: 77,000 homes are included in the emerging local plan. Local plans are the bedrock for encouraging agreed change in an area. They consult residents, provide criteria for change and develop a coherent plan, and then councillors debate and agree an outcome. That process is essential if those affected by development are to believe they have had a chance to influence it. To remove plan-making powers and then, disgracefully, planning decisions for all but small developments is democratic vandalism.
All these issues were raised during the consultation, which resulted in 68% of individuals opposing the devco, as well as nearly half of local government organisations. A significant concern of all those who were consulted was the protection of the natural environment. The Government’s response is to commit to establishing what they have described as structured forums to allow direct engagement with residents. The question the Minister must answer is what influence the views from those forums will have on decision-making. If these forums become no more than talking shops, they will rightly be derided.
What is not clear is why the Government have not chosen to use a different model, such as the regional development agency model. The one in Yorkshire with which I was involved enabled significant development across the region by negotiating a strategic plan and providing funding that enabled the private sector to implement it—but, importantly, without bypassing local planning authorities. Can the Minister agree that plan-making powers will be deferred until the draft local plan being developed is adopted, and then only following evidence-based reasons being provided? The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, was right to table this regret amendment, with which the Liberal Democrats totally agree.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I make the House aware of my potential interest as a councillor in central Bedfordshire, which neighbours this area. I support my noble friend Lord Lansley in his amendment. I was going to say how important Cambridge is to the economy of the UK, but I think the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Finsbury, has done a far better job than I can. It is an absolute critical part if this country is going to be successful and have the growth that it desperately needs. However, Cambridge is hamstrung by a lack of housing, infrastructure and commercial space for biolabs, technology and so forth. You have a town of around 150,000 which every day, according to the 2021 census, has 55,000 commuters coming in—bearing in mind that that was during Covid, the actual number is probably far higher—largely by car.
The Government are right that Cambridge needs to grow. That is why I was pleased that the last Government progressed with east-west rail, the A14 dualling and the A428 Caxton Gibbet to the A1, but there is much more to do. Cambridge, as I said, needs more housing, lab space and commercial space. It also needs to work with other areas of the wider geography. It is not just the Ox-Cam arc; it is the golden triangle, spanning Oxford to Cambridge to London, which is a global powerhouse in technology and biotech among others. It encompasses the Minister’s Stevenage, and it has central Bedfordshire at its geographic heart.
A DCO can be a useful delivery mechanism, but it needs to be one built on local support, functional geography and democratic accountability. It must have clear outcome-based objectives, with resources and powers linked to those outcomes. The Minister mentioned the negative instrument which is to come that will outline those, but I feel that is very much the cart coming before the horse. If you are going to look at the organisation, you need first to know what it will do and what its powers are. Then there is the question of local government reorganisation, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned. We may set up a geography here only for it to change completely in a few months’ time.
The issue of geography is very important. Major projects and developments just outside the proposed area could have huge impact. Tempsford new town is potentially almost as large as Cambridge itself. Around junction 13 of the M1, we have the new town in Milton Keynes, we have a large data centre, we have Universal and we have the Marston Vale development, which will have a huge impact, particularly on east-west rail, the M1 and east-west corridor travel. Then we have things such as the A1 realignment. That needs somehow to fit all together as a package.
Several noble Lords talked about planning powers. Clearly we need to know what the geography is when we look at the planning powers. If you are going to have a much bigger strategic overview, you should not have detailed planning powers. If you are going to have detailed planning powers, that raises the question: why can it not just be based on a council-led DCO rather than a centralised national DCO, or even a mayoral DCO?
I talked about resources. We have heard about a lack of water and we have talked about a lack of electricity. I know from my experience that development in Biggleswade could not go ahead until we had additional power, and there is a constant refrain of a lack of water. What powers will this DCO have over things such as Great British Railways, Anglian Water, highways and the electrical and power companies, not to mention east-west rail? Will it have defined outcomes and targets? Will it have a clear division of responsibilities between the DCO organisation, the local councils and others? I want to be clear on this because the Minister talked about strategic sites, and we discussed this during the passage of the planning Bill. Is “strategic” above nine houses? Is it above 500 houses? What size of development is it? I think many people have a different view of what strategic is.
Many have mentioned democratic oversight. How does central planning in government centralised body fit with the new Prime Minister’s promotion of devolution? I believe the answer will be the creation of so-called structured forums for local residents, but what are the details? What will their statutory status be? How will members be selected? What powers will they possess? How will their views influence decision-making? How will Ministers be held accountable if those views are ignored? It is for these reasons that I support my noble friend Lord Lansley in his amendment and look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in a very interesting debate on the future of Cambridgeshire and the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for his contribution to Cambridge. We had a visit there and I could see his involvement in how Cambridge is developing. I thank my noble friend Lord Smith for setting out the benefit to the whole UK economy of the growth and innovation that is taking place in Cambridgeshire and how important it is to continue investing in that—not just for the local area but for a national purpose. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for welcoming the development corporation approach to these major growth areas.
All the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, with her slightly negative perspective on the development corporation, were made in the 1940s and 1950s about the development corporation for my town. We need the growth that Cambridge offers. The Green Party may want our country to stand still, but this Government will not let that happen. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, as usual, for her thoughtful comments about the engagement of local people in this project.
I start with the boundary issues, which are the subject of the regret amendment and are important. The boundary proposed for the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation covers a broad geography which will enhance the ability to maximise funding and enable land value capture, increasing the viability of strategic infrastructure projects. The boundary aligns with the existing boundaries of South Cambridgeshire District Council and Cambridge City Council, simplifying governance arrangements and allowing the development corporation to support the emerging local plan. This boundary is considered of a suitable scale to allow the development corporation to respond flexibly and adapt to the emerging constraints within Greater Cambridge.
The Government recognise that the boundary does not always align with the location of essential strategic infrastructure. This will require the development corporation to build strong relationships and carry out proactive engagement with neighbouring authorities and transport and utility providers beyond its boundary. The example the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, gave of mass rapid transit between Huntington and Cambridge is very relevant here. The development corporation will also hold influence beyond its boundary. This could even include acquiring land outside the boundary, so long as it is in line with its functions and is deemed necessary. The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, referred to the golden triangle. I am very aware of that—my home town sits in the middle of it. The whole area is very important for the UK economy.
Moving on to planning powers, the development corporation will be granted development management powers for sites of strategic importance. We will be defining that through the function and powers SI. If an application exceeds the proposed threshold set out in the consultation but is not deemed to be strategic, it is expected that the development corporation will delegate decision-making to the Greater Cambridge shared planning service to determine the application in the usual way. As a result, we expect the vast majority of planning applications to continue to be determined by the existing planning service. Plan-making powers will be essential to developing that long-term spatial vision for Greater Cambridge that delivers nationally significant growth. The Government are clear that the plan-led approach must remain the cornerstone of the planning system.
Laying the functions order later in the year gives us time to build a planning service capable of delivering its objectives. The development corporation will be granted development management powers once the statutory instrument is approved, but the intention is that a phased approach will be taken to the exercising of plan-making powers, and that those exercising the powers will be limited by Secretary of State direction. We anticipate this direction being lifted once the draft local plan has been adopted, subject to the public examination. The Secretary of State may choose to lift it sooner if, for example, it becomes apparent that the draft local plan would not deliver development at the scale and pace necessary.
I was asked some questions by the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Jamieson, on the scope of the planning powers for the development corporation. As a proxy for a definition of strategic sites, the development corporation will use the following minimum thresholds to provide certainty about the sites it intends to examine for their strategic importance with a view to exercising its development management responsibilities. This will include all sites proposed with a minimum of 250 houses, flats, or houses and flats, 5,000 square metres of floor space for all other development, and an infrastructure development which occupies more than 1 hectare of land.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, asked about the impact of local government reorganisation on this programme. The development corporation’s boundary did not pre-empt or prejudice the recent consultation on local government reorganisation, which is a fundamental change. Given the significance of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough for national economic growth, it is important that we take the time to get this right. We will make a decision by October this year at the very latest. We are still committed to the existing timetable, with elections to new authorities in May 2027 and a “go live” date in April 2028. The boundary of the development corporation will be kept under review to ensure that it continues to meet its objectives. Any such review could also take into consideration the new administrative boundaries resulting from local government reorganisation if that is necessary.
A number of points were made about water. Water is a key issue in the whole of the east of England, as we know, but particularly in the Cambridgeshire area. My noble friend Lord Smith rightly raised the new Fens reservoir. No new reservoirs were built for 30 years in this country. That has caused some of the problems we are now experiencing, so we want to get on with that as quickly as possible. The Government are committed to ensuring adequate water supply and wastewater capacity to support sustainable growth in Greater Cambridge and to protect the natural environment. We have very rare chalk streams in this area, which we must look after.
No new homes in Cambridge are currently blocked due to water scarcity issues. Our work with the advisory water scarcity group has unblocked planning applications totalling over 9,000 homes and over 500,000 square metres. In December 2024, the Environment Agency lifted its objections to remaining blocked development following improvements in Cambridge’s water resource management plan and progress made by the water scarcity group. In addition, the work undertaken by the Government’s water delivery taskforce to resolve wastewater constraints means that over 18,000 homes across East Anglia, Lincolnshire and the home counties are now a step closer to being built.
The Government will continue to work closely with partners to ensure that water scarcity is not a constraint on development in Cambridge. The development corporation will have powers to directly plan, fund and deliver essential infrastructure to support regeneration, including utilities such as water. This includes the ability to lay connecting infrastructure for water mains and sewerage on sites delivered by the development corporation. There will be an opportunity for the development corporation to trailblaze across sites ambitious water efficiency approaches that can inform wider policy development and approaches in Cambridge over time.
There were quite a few comments from the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Pinnock, on consultation and how that has taken place. MHCLG, supported by the Cambridge Growth Company, undertook a series of engagement and publicity events throughout the consultation period, engaging residents, businesses and councils. This was supported by communication about the consultation and public participation through community-led events, MHCLG-hosted webinars and a wider programme of media and digital publicity, including local and regional press coverage, interviews, podcasts and social media. Social media coverage was amplified by local authorities, businesses and organisations.
The Government recognise the very complex challenges facing Greater Cambridge. They require a bold, long-term approach and a genuine step change in how infrastructure is planned, co-ordinated and delivered. The magnitude of these challenges cannot be met through incremental change. I know that change can feel unsettling for local residents, so it is not surprising that their reaction to the plans coming forward is sometimes negative. However, importantly, the centrally led development corporation is the most effective way to unlock nationally significant growth at the pace and scale needed.
My noble friend Lord Smith referred to the rail link that has been promised before—it must now happen. I think he will get the sense from both the new Prime Minister and the former Prime Minister of how we see this as urgent and want to deliver it.
If I have missed any points, I will respond using Hansard, but I am running out of time, so I will just say, in conclusion, that this order delivers the establishment of the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation. We think this is absolutely the right way to generate the growth that will be both locally and nationally important for Cambridge. I hope noble Lords will welcome the order.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who took part in this really interesting, albeit short, debate. We have to understand that this is the first of what will necessarily be further debates at some point later in the autumn in relation to the order setting out what the planning functions of the development corporation will be.
I thought what the Minister had to say about maintaining a review of the boundaries was a really helpful and important thing to say, but it has to be understood that there is no legal requirement that the development corporation’s boundaries should align with the administrative boundaries of local authorities. They can differ. Perhaps we ought to give ourselves the freedom to think that they should differ in this instance, because we do not know what the unitary council is going to look like, and it is not absolutely necessary that the development corporation aligns with the unitary council when it comes.
When the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Finsbury, explains how well Cambridge has succeeded, he is, in a sense, reinforcing the fact that the place I represented and the local authorities which I supported—South Cambridgeshire was a Conservative authority for years—worked together to enable the Cambridge Biomedical Campus to be established by releasing green belt. We worked together to allow Trumpington Meadows to happen, and Cambridge City Council worked with the university to enable Eddington to be built, which is an award-winning development to the west of Cambridge. These things happened at pace and are examples for the rest of the country. So, the point of the development corporation, which I think we all support, is to do more and to add value; it is not to take over the responsibilities and the powers of the local authorities in so far as they are delivering.
I think we can agree that, if a local plan did not meet the need, you would have to step in. But I do not think there is any evidence that the Greater Cambridge local plan does not meet the need. There is plenty of evidence that East Cambridgeshire is not undertaking a local plan process at all, and the development corporation is not planning to step in there. Some parts of East Cambridge abut Cambridge city, and they are some of the principal areas for potential development in the future.
I will finish on this point. When the Minister looks at boundaries, and particularly when she and her colleagues look at planning functions, if they look at the possibility of having development management powers for major sites—I do not mean 250 homes; I mean the really big sites where the development corporation can add value to what is happening already—then fine, go for those sites, but just put a red line around them. You do not have to define strategic sites in the legislation. You can just put a red line around where those strategic sites are. As they come forward, maybe outside the area—in Huntingdon, or even, I say to my noble friend, at Tempsford—you could put a red line around those, make them part of the development corporation and give them the development management powers in that place. One does not need to take plan-making powers for the whole of a local authority area. That would be a step too far. We have enabled this debate this afternoon to put down that marker to the noble Baroness and to the Government, so they can think about that before we return to this in the autumn. With all those points made, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance (Decisions and Appeals) (Amendment) Regulations 2026
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
19:20 - Division on Baroness Stedman-Scott’s Motion - Ayes: 64 / Noes: 95 - Motion disagreed.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
That this House regrets that the Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance (Decisions and Appeals) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 will result in claimants receiving payments without the appropriate reviews having taken place and fail to reduce the overall benefits bill.
Relevant document: 2nd Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
May I start by saying how delighted I am to see the Minister in her place?
My Lords, these regulations make a significant change to the way in which personal independence payment awards are reviewed. They allow the Secretary of State to extend an existing fixed-term PIP award whenever Ministers consider that necessary to safeguard the efficient administration of the benefit. The department’s stated intention is that, for most claimants aged 25 and over, initial awards should generally last four years and subsequent awards six years, with reviews taking place after three and five years respectively. Formerly, according to the department, 77% of awards were made for periods of two years or less. The effect is therefore not simply to prevent awards expiring during an emergency, but to make substantially less frequent reviews the normal approach for a large proportion of the PIP case load. That is why I have tabled this regret Motion.
A properly functioning welfare system must ensure that people receive the right support at the right level and for the right length of time. Reviews should never be treated merely as an attempt to remove support or catch claimants out. They provide an opportunity to establish whether somebody’s needs have remained the same, improved or deteriorated. Indeed, I might say to some of those noble Lords on the Labour Benches that fewer reviews will not only mean that some people whose functional capacity has improved continue to receive an award that no longer reflects their circumstances; it could also mean that people whose conditions have deteriorated remain on an award that is too low.
The Government cannot therefore present this as an entirely claimant-friendly change. Reviews provide protection in both directions. Nor can Ministers simply rely on claimants to report every relevant change themselves. Some people will report changes promptly, but others may not recognise that a gradual improvement in their functional capacity is relevant. Some may not fully understand the reporting requirements. Others may be reluctant to report a change that could reduce their income. The Government’s own statistics underline the danger of placing too much weight on self-reporting. In the financial year ending 2026, the estimated PIP overpayment rate increased from 1.3% to 2.3%, or from £330 million to £660 million. The department found that improvements in functional needs that had not been reported were the largest cause of PIP overpayments, accounting for more than £7 in every £10 overpaid. There were also more than £1 billion-worth of cases in which the claimant had been overpaid following a change in functional needs but was not reasonably expected to have known that the change needed to be reported.
We should also consider the breadth of the power being created. The regulations allow the Secretary of State to extend a fixed-term award whenever the Secretary of State considers it necessary to safeguard the efficient administration of PIP. But what precisely does this mean? I therefore ask the Minister to tell the House the following. What is the maximum period by which an individual award may be extended using this power? Will the department publish the guidance used by decision-makers? Will Ministers publish regular figures showing how many awards have been extended, for how long and for what reason? And will the Government commit to reviewing the operation of this power once the current backlog has been brought under control? Without these safeguards, the instrument risks transforming what is supposedly an emergency administrative power into a permanent alternative to conducting proper reviews.
The Prime Minister has spoken of a more preventive, supportive welfare system that intervenes earlier and helps more people to move forward. Yet these regulations do precisely what the Prime Minister says he wishes to avoid: they are a short-term administrative workaround for a backlog, not a long-term reform.
The Prime Minister also inherits the Timms review, which concluded that the current PIP system is not fit for purpose and requires radical overhaul. That review emphasised the need for assessments that are accurate, timely and rooted in proper evidence. Yet these regulations move in the opposite direction: they make timely reviews less frequent, not more robust; they risk leaving people on awards that are too high or too low for years at a time; and they do nothing to address the underlying drivers of rising caseloads, rising costs and rising error rates. If the Government wish to align themselves with the Prime Minister’s stated principle of a welfare system that is fiscally responsible then they must confront the operational challenges in PIP directly.
The department says that younger claimants are more likely to see improvements in their functional capacity and that prolonged unemployment and inactivity early in life can have lasting scarring effects. It therefore does not want young people whose circumstances have improved to remain on PIP longer than necessary. But that raises an obvious question: why does that principle cease to matter on somebody’s 25th birthday? The Government cannot argue that reviews are important in preventing young people from being trapped in the system while simultaneously arguing that the same principle should carry considerably less weight for everybody else.
A central purpose in the working-age welfare system should be to support those who can work towards employment. PIP is not itself an unemployment benefit, but it sits within a wider health and disability benefits system that must promote independence, recognise changes in circumstances and avoid writing people off. Compassion does not mean abandoning people to years of passive benefit receipt without meaningful contact, support or review.
The Government have claimed that these changes, alongside related reforms to assessment capacity, will reduce spending by £1.9 billion over five years. Will the Minister provide the House with a detailed and clear breakdown of that figure? Can she confirm that an impact assessment has been undertaken and produced?
More fundamentally, when does the department expect the present backlog to be cleared, and what is the long-term plan for restoring sufficient assessment capacity? The Government are responding to a backlog by weakening the mechanism that identifies whether awards remain correct; they are relying more heavily on self-reporting at the very moment when their own statistics show growing losses resulting from improvements in functional needs not being reported; they are granting Ministers a broad power without adequate statutory limits; and they have failed to provide Parliament with full information about how the power will be applied. Above all, these regulations fail to answer the central question facing the Government: how will they bring the welfare bill under control while helping more people towards independence and employment?
For those reasons, I believe that these regulations represent less oversight, weaker accountability and a further retreat from the urgent task of creating a welfare system that is compassionate, accurate, sustainable and focused on helping people fulfil their potential. I beg to move.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
My Lords, I speak in favour of these regulations. Despite the case made by the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, there was much in what she said about the purpose of reviews with which I agree: they are in the interests of the claimants and of the public, in that they fund these payments. They are clearly an important element of the system.
What was not mentioned is the reason for the backlog. Of course, we know about Covid, and that was out of our hands, but the problem with the number of assessments being undertaken at the moment is because of straightforward capacity constraints, which are a result of decisions made by the previous Government: they let contracts with an inadequate number of assessments, whether face to face or online, and they sold off too much of the estate needed for face-to-face assessments, which most people seem to prefer. To complain about the backlog takes a bit of nerve, to be honest, when it is very much their responsibility: it arose on their watch.
I also fundamentally disagree with the weight placed on the significance of these changes. Given the physical situation of the ability to undertake assessments, something needed to be done. There was a problem. It is possible to highlight potential problems with allowing the Secretary of State the discretion, but there was a real problem that needed to be addressed and was causing problems here and now. To me, this is a relatively narrow and sensible change to the process so that the problems faced by individuals could be addressed. It is a problem not so much for the Government and the DWP to undertake these assessments but for the individuals, who were losing their benefits in certain cases and certainly faced extreme concern and worry about their personal situation. That is the problem these regulations are intended to address. Talking about it in administrative terms is all very well, but the pressure and the effect that it had on individual claimants should be our major concern and why these regulations—which, as I say, are narrow—are required.
Here is what the regulations say, just to be clear to new readers. These changes are only required
“to safeguard the efficient administration of personal independence payment”.
You can ask what it means as many times as you like, but it means what it says. The Secretary of State cannot do it for any other reason; it is purely for “the efficient administration”, and we have already established that the assessments are good for both sides of the process.
When the assessment is made, the decision-makers will retain their existing discretion to set longer or shorter periods, including the 10-year light-touch awards when they think this is justified. Nothing in these regulations removes that judgment; they simply make their exercise more flexible, strictly—to repeat the point—for administrative simplicity. The practical case for this is straightforward: we had the backlog, and it needed to be dealt with for the benefit of claimants themselves. It is a fact that, in the worst cases, payments have been interrupted while a reassessment was pending, so I fully support providing the department with this discretion.
It is worth quickly highlighting two safeguards. Individuals have the right of appeal against the lack of an assessment: if they think their circumstances have changed sufficiently to warrant a further assessment, rather than being rolled over, they can make an appeal.
The question was raised about the under-25 year-olds. It is a clear fact, based on the experience of those who are undertaking the assessments, that under a given age there are far more changes in circumstances, and hence more need for reassessment, than in old age. That is simply a fact. It could have been 25, 26 or 24, but an age was practical and sensible.
I recognise that this measure gives the Secretary of State a discretionary power, and hence it is right and proper that we should give it detailed consideration. But this power is needed to extend support, not to curtail it, and it has to be exercised for administrative reasons not because of a change in policy in relation to personal independence payments. For that, we have to await the outcome of the Timms review. Let us not be overoptimistic, but I think that that review is very much heading in the right direction and will address the problems highlighted, as I said, by the failure of the previous Government.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and to join the, I am sure, widespread view around the House in welcoming the continuing presence of the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, in her position. Personally, I consider that a delight, even though I am often pushing her on the departmental decisions for which we hold her responsible.
For the second statutory instrument in a row, I find myself thanking the Conservative Benches for securing this debate while disagreeing by 180 degrees with the position they are taking.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
If Hansard did not catch that, the comment from the Opposition Front Bench was, “What is new?”
I begin by making a very simple point. The way in which the outcomes of the reviews of all the payments we are discussing have been conducted, particularly the personal independence payments, are causing a great deal of unnecessary distress, fear and the wrongful withdrawal of essential benefits. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, set out, this is a modest, short-term, limited measure. But we cannot discuss this situation without looking at the broader context, which, indeed, is what the Conservative Front Bench did.
I make a call here for realism. We have an ageing population, healthy life expectancy that has declined by two years in the past decade and one in 10 local areas where the healthy life expectancy is less than 55 years. We have a mental health crisis and a lot of focus on benefits for mental health issues. We need to tackle the issues behind that: schools forced to become exam factories; inequality; insecurity; and child poverty. We need to take the focus away from individuals, and trying to crack down on individuals, and acknowledge that we have a societal problem that we need to tackle as a society, and the Government need to tackle as a Government, rather than continually pounding away rhetorically at individuals.
In that context, I do not think there is enough awareness that the Timms review, to which the noble Lord, Lord Davies, referred was given guidance that it had to stick within the currently predicted future spending levels of PIP—and there is talk of reductions. Let us be realistic about this. I refer to the reactions to the Timms review from organisations that would not be considered radical. The British Psychological Society, with which I entirely agree, said:
“Those that apply for PIP should not feel demeaned and deterred from applying”
by the process. We are talking about reviews here, but people get so fearful about the reviews that they just give up. The British Psychological Society also said:
“Everyone who has been signed off with long-term sickness, including those living with a mental health condition, deserves support”.
It rightly points out that, for those with financial difficulties, the stress of reviews can cause further mental ill health. That has to be taken into account. It is awful for the individuals concerned and also very bad for the whole of society.
An organisation with which some in your Lordships’ House may have even more sympathy is the RNIB, which says that PIP assessments and reviews
“fail to properly understand the realities blind and partially sighted people face. Too many are then forced to challenge decisions that are later overturned”.
I finish by referring to a report in the Times last week, which I urge noble Lords to look at if they have not seen it. The Times sat through a full day of a hearing of the social security and child support tribunal at Swindon magistrates’ court. Problems with PIP now make up about two-thirds of that court’s caseload. In the first three months of this year, more than 27,000 PIP decisions were appealed, and 67% of those appeals were successful. For all those who were saying, “Isn’t it terrible that this is being done by remote assessments and these remote assessments may be wrong”, many of them are wrong in a way that the court later finds is clearly detrimental to the individuals who need that support.
I cite one case from that report. Appearing before the tribunal was a 63 year-old retired GP practice manager. He was
“there for his 22-year-old nephew who has a neurological impairment, learning difficulties, epilepsy, a severe tic and Tourette syndrome”,
and had
“loss of mass in his brain on the left side, responsible for language comprehension, analytical skills and controlling the right side of his body”.
A phone assessment took away his benefits. The tribunal took a very brief look at the medical evidence and restored those benefits. We have a huge problem here. This SI will possibly do a little bit of cleaning, tidying and sorting, but there is far more to do.
Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I support the regret Motion tabled by my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott for the reasons that she set out so clearly in her excellent introductory speech. But before I go into that, I too want to say what a delight it is to see the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, on the Front Bench.
As has been said already, these regulations look like they are just simple administrative regulations. They look like they might be just fixing the backlog and look like they might be benign. Of course, nobody wants vulnerable claimants to lose their entitlements to those really important benefits because the department has not conducted a review on time. But that is not what we are debating here today. What we are, in effect, saying, is that it is acceptable for the Government to respond to a system that is failing by suspending one of the few safeguards that exists within it.
If we all cast our mind back to when the personal independence payment—or PIP—system was introduced, it was never intended to be a benefit that just rolled on indefinitely after it had been awarded. When Parliament debated and agreed the PIP system, the whole point of it was supposed to be based on the fundamental understanding that conditions can change over time and can get worse but can also get better, so you should not just lock somebody into a system of benefits and never look again. That is a fundamentally pessimistic way of looking at human lives.
I listened to the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and he was obviously very critical of the former Government. I am sure that he is probably right on a lot of those points—I am not an expert so I cannot possibly go back over 14 or 16 years of that history—but, at the end of the day, the current Government have been in power for more than two years, so there must come a point when they now need to take the responsibility for fixing what is currently presenting in the system and looking at the things that have happened on their watch.
If the department does not have the capacity to conduct the reviews, the answer cannot be to abandon them. We need to look at the root cause. Why do we have this backlog? Why do we have so many more claims in the system and this lack of capacity? It is due to the unprecedented rise in the number of people claiming disability and benefits. The growth, as has been said, is particularly striking among younger people claiming on mental health grounds. We have a social security and welfare system that is increasingly being asked to compensate for not just severe disability, which we all agree it should do, but a large and growing number of mental health conditions, such as anxiety, mild depression and ADHD, which would not have been recognised as disabling just a generation ago or even more recently.
Before I came into the Chamber, I saw somebody putting a comparator on X. I do not have the citation, but it is very interesting and I urge the Front Bench and everyone to look at it. The rise in mental health conditions and mental health disability is proportionately much greater in this country compared to about 40 other developed nations. We in the UK are not biologically different or biologically more likely to be disabled because of mental health than people in countries such as France, Germany, Canada, Korea, China, Singapore and so on, so we need to start asking ourselves some of those hard questions. I have spoken in this House on a number of occasions—
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
Does the noble Baroness acknowledge that we should look at our society and ask why we might be suffering from higher levels of those conditions, and why people are not able to find a place in our society, as well as looking at biology?
Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)
I am sure the noble Baroness is right, and I thank her for that point. She has posed a very broad question, and I fear I would detain the House for much too long if I tried to answer it with the seriousness it definitely deserves.
I want to touch on a few themes. I have spoken in this House on a number of occasions about what I and a growing number of others regard as the growing medicalisation of ordinary human experiences—just life experiences. We do not do people any favours if we do not distinguish between severe and enduring mental illness, and the very broad spectrum of distress and difficulty that finds its way into our welfare system in one way or another. This is at the root of my worries about these regulations, because every change that reduces scrutiny or delays reassessment sends a signal that says to that person, “Now you are in this system, we expect you to remain there. Just carry on. You are getting the benefits. We have decided that this is the thing that is making your life difficult, and we are going to support you”. It is not saying. “We are looking at you through an optimistic lens about what we can do to help you move off this system”.
Reviews are not just a mechanism for saving money, but that is important. People have mentioned the Timms review, and I am sure it is an excellent piece of work. There are many good points in it. My real worry is that the Minister, when interviewed about this, said that he did not have any worries about the level of welfare spending. That is completely unrealistic; it is fantasy. We should be concerned about the level of welfare spending in this country. It is completely unacceptable, unsustainable, wrong for the taxpayer and wrong for people who are on welfare.
This debate and these regulations risk masking the true scale of the problem. We should be expecting Ministers to explain why they think this is acceptable. It is great that the Minister is here today, but we should be having a much more in-depth debate. We should be asking much bigger questions. Why do we have so many young people, in particular, in this system? Why are we diagnosing them with these mental health conditions that mean they are receiving welfare, PIP and other benefits? Why are we allowing this welfare system to reinforce itself and reinforce a life on benefits for some of these people?
I support my noble friend’s regret Motion, and I will certainly vote for it if she divides the House.
Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Maclean of Redditch. I want to take a slightly a bigger picture view to explain why I support the Motion. My greatest fear, as a severely disabled person, is that the overall benefits bill, particularly the cost to the taxpayer of those benefits mentioned in the Motion, becomes so big that the welfare system itself collapses. That would be catastrophic for the most disabled people in our society.
I recently asked the noble Lord, Lord Livermore, what advice the UK Government were giving to the Scottish Government about managing the growing devolved benefits bill in the event of our being at war by 2030, which is what many commentators are saying is likely. In his reply, the noble Lord said that he did not agree with the assumption underlying my question and that while, of course, we must spend more on defence, we must also continue to support those who need that support the most. I say to the Minister, whom I, too, welcome back to her place, that I do not criticise her noble friend for the well-meaning desire underlying his answer, but I also say to her that the current level of benefit spending would not survive contact with the enemy.
One only has to read the fascinating wartime diaries of Chips Channon, edited by my noble friend Lord Blackwater, who is no longer in his place, to realise how much taxes would have to shoot up overnight were we to find ourselves in a wartime situation. It is worth noting that Chips Channon was penning his diaries before the creation of the welfare state and without the crippling backdrop of £3 trillion of national debt and an annual bill of around £130 billion in interest payments. Which one of us could argue that those figures are not astronomical? I do not even know how many noughts there are in a trillion. It is absolutely mind-boggling—so mind-boggling, it might as well be meaningless.
Only, it is not. The situation we have got ourselves into is dire, particularly for disabled people. We fool ourselves if we think that raising taxes in a wartime emergency will be enough; it will not. It will have to be accompanied by an urgent shift of resources to defence—defending our country, of course, but also defending the NHS, the welfare state, national infrastructure and our freedoms. For us to be able to defend them will inevitably involve a recalibration of resources, which is why today’s debate is so important; because right now, not only are we nowhere near being able to fight a war, but we are in denial about the implications for disabled people of our having to do so.
Unless and until we ask ourselves the question as to how we got into this hole—the root cause, as my noble friend has just described it—and how we plan to dig our way out of it, including through appropriate reviews as called for in this Motion, disabled people will remain in grave danger, because it is they who will be most vulnerable to the recalibration of resources that I mentioned.
Yet the answer to that question is, I suggest, relatively simple. Politicians of all persuasions uttered warm words but did not respect disabled people enough to tell them the truth. They implied that the system was too big to fail when, actually, we have allowed it to grow so unsustainably big that it is, I fear, doomed to fail. Indeed, I would argue, in sorrow, in fear and as a stakeholder, that the very viability of the welfare state is threatened by the exponential growth in benefits.
If I respect someone, I level with them. They may not like it, but I will not lie to them just to make my life easier. As we dig ourselves out of this hole, we urgently need to reflect on what respect looks like for disabled people. I suggest that it involves taking a number of practical steps, as well as being straight with them about the scale of the challenge and the fact that there will be casualties of any changes. That is unavoidable, but we can plan now to mitigate the impact on those whose disability means that they depend most on the system. We can take steps to convey respect, build trust and give hope, including combining any recalibration of resources with measures such as ensuring that the existing anti-discrimination legal provisions are upheld and enforced; I will shortly write to the chief executive of the law firm CMS on this very question.
This will also include the Government honouring their manifesto pledge and mandating disability employment and pay gap reporting through the introduction of the equality (race and disability) Bill in this Session. The IoD backs mandatory reporting. The 300-plus signatories to the Disability Employment Charter, the brainchild of Professor Kim Hoque of King’s College London, back it—as does, I am delighted to say, the Business Disability Forum, which today has committed to signing the charter. All that remains is for the Government to do likewise by introducing the Bill in this Session.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, we all recognise that the control of public spending matters. It is right that Governments examine whether money is being spent effectively and whether benefits are achieving the purpose for which they are intended, but that must not be the starting point for today’s debate. It is about not simply whether the Government can reduce expenditure but whether the Government can use the system to better and more effectively support those who genuinely rely on it.
I do not recognise the negative views expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, and some of her colleagues. The personal independence payment is a lifeline, not a luxury. It exists because disabled people face additional costs in their everyday lives—costs that most of us never have to think about. It was never designed as simply an employment support payment, yet in practice it often enables disabled people to remain in work, maintain their independence and contribute to society. Surely that is an outcome we should all welcome.
It follows that any changes to the way in which PIP awards are assessed or managed must place the needs of the claimants first. Administrative convenience for the department can never be the overriding objective. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, gave examples of appeals, which are probably an example showing that the system does not work. It is about administrative convenience, which should not be the overriding objective. Does the Minister, whom I welcome to her position, agree that the guiding principle should always be ensuring that disabled people receive the support they need, rather than designing processes primarily around departmental efficiency?
I would also welcome some clarity from the Minister on the wider narrative surrounding welfare spending. Much public debate proceeds on the assumption that there has been an unsustainable explosion in the benefits bill—we recognise that—but that is not borne out by the overall figures. Welfare spending amounted to around 10.6% of GDP last year, compared with approximately 12.4% in 2009-10. Although spending on the state pension has increased, this has been accompanied by reductions in the share of spending devoted to working-age and housing benefits.
The real driver of increased expenditure has instead been disability-related support. This reflects a troubling reality, rather than an accounting problem. We have seen growing numbers of people, in particular younger people, experiencing poor mental health and other conditions that require additional support. Those trends should concern us because of what they say about the health of our society, not simply because they affect departmental budgets. What is the Government’s long-term strategy to address these underlying causes? If more people require disability benefits because of deteriorating mental health, delayed treatment, inadequate early intervention or barriers to employment, simply tightening employment cannot be the whole answer. The better approach is to reduce the need for support in the first place by investing in health services, mental health provision, employment support and early intervention. We on these Benches believe that disabled people deserve dignity, security and confidence that the support on which they rely will be there when they need it. We should judge any changes to the benefits system against that standard. I hope the Minister will be able to assure the House that this remains the Government’s guiding principle.
I see no merit in the regret Motion. There is obviously work to be done—I know that the Minister and her department know that—but we must not get away from the underlying principle that when people need support, that support should be there. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said, we are not talking about going to appeal and winning there; we should be able to deal with this problem at the source. I therefore do not support the regret Motion.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Sherlock) (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, for introducing her Motion. I am also grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions, and I appreciate their many kind words. If I had even a moment’s thought that they meant I would get away with anything at all, this debate has made clear that I definitely will not—but I would not expect to. I enjoy our discussions too much, and they are too important, for me to expect to get away with anything.
I am going to do my best, but we have had a pretty broad debate that has taken us from the nature of our society and demographic changes through to Chips Channon’s experience of wartime. I am not convinced that I will manage to cover the whole territory—it is a lot of weight for a relatively small measure to bear—but let me see what I can do.
The measure we are discussing today relates to how we assess eligibility for benefits, but the context of this change does matter. The fact is that the system of sickness and disability benefits that we inherited was simply not fit for purpose. This Government have begun taking steps to address the structural problems. We have legislated to rebalance the support provided in universal credit. The Timms review, which was mentioned, is looking in detail at the way in which the personal independence payment, or PIP, works; its final report is due in the autumn.
In the short term, we need to take steps to help repair the system we have. This measure grants the Secretary of State the ability to extend awards to make the most efficient use of resource. In doing so, it provides a much-needed safeguard against potential future challenges in order to protect payments to vulnerable people. The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, is right that we have to make the right choices about how to use resources; that is key to what we are doing today.
Under the contracts with assessment providers, which were negotiated by the previous Government, the reality is that we can call on only a finite volume of assessment capacity. We could carry on using a large part of that capacity on frequent reassessment of PIP claimants whose circumstances will most likely not have changed, as the previous Government did. However, we want to use that finite resource in a more productive way.
These regulations enable us to administer the system more efficiently and do more work capability reassessments, clearing that backlog and thus delivering savings down the line.
Secondly, we want to increase substantially the proportion of assessments carried out face to face. They used to be pretty much all done face to face; then came the pandemic and, for reasons we all understand, they were switched to being phone-based, with some video assessments. But once the pandemic went, face-to-face assessments were never properly switched back on again. As my noble friend Lord Davies pointed out, telephone was retained as the main channel, with just a few face-to-face assessments starting back in 2021. We just do not think that is good enough.
At the time of the general election, only about 7% of WCAs and PIP assessments were carried out face to face. We want to do better. I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean of Redditch, that we absolutely have to address the problem, so we are going to do that. We have already started to rebuild the capacity. We have begun to increase the proportion of WCAs and PIP assessments carried out face to face, on our way to a target that at least 30% of both will be so. To achieve that, we will need additional assessment resource; this measure will help us to obtain it.
The assessment system simply was not equipped to do the job. There were contractual limits that, at most, 20% of assessments would be done face to face, but the fact is that there was not nearly enough capacity even to do that, so we are having to fix the system to be able to do it. Before this amendment, a decision to extend an award of PIP meant there had to be one of: a new claim; evidence of an error or mistake with the decision; evidence that a claimant’s circumstances had changed; or a report being completed by a healthcare professional appointed by the Secretary of State, which in many cases would involve an assessment.
As my noble friend Lord Davies pointed out, where such a decision could not be taken before an award expired, claimants would simply cease to be entitled to PIP until a further decision was completed. This amendment to the legislation grants a specific discretion, enabling only the length of an award to be extended, and only where doing so is necessary for the administration of the benefit. That protects vulnerable claimants who risk losing entitlement to PIP when circumstances threaten to limit the capacity to administer it. We saw that during the pandemic and we see it now, when assessment supply simply cannot meet demand.
Initially, this Government will use this new power to increase the length of a large number of existing awards in line with the policy on award lengths for new awards, for which the Secretary of State already has the power, and in doing so to improve efficiency and ease the burden on the health assessment system. Existing claimants’ awards will be extended, so that most first-time awards for those over 25 are for three years’ duration and most subsequent awards are for five years. Only awards deemed appropriate for these durations will be extended.
Let me look at some of the questions that have been asked. First, on the size of the benefits bill and the increase, it is worth pointing out that while PIP is going up—there is no question about that—in fact, the rate at which it is going up has fallen under this Government. It fell from around 13% a year for the period 2019-20 to 2024-25 to the current forecast of around 7% a year from 2024-25 to 2029-30. It is still going up, and that is a huge pressure, but the rate of increase has declined and we are working on that. I have explained why we believe this measure will help us to do a better job.
Briefly, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, I cannot get into the whole issue of defence spending and where that takes us for taxation, but we simply do not think it is a zero-sum game between social security and defence—between welfare and warfare. The defence investment plan will provide a significant increase in defence funding and we have set out our targets for increasing defence spending. But our aim for welfare reform is actually designed to help long-term sick and unemployed people to get back to work; that is the game of this.
If I have time later, I will talk a bit more about the Milburn review, but my Secretary of State has looked at what is happening with young people and the very large numbers of them who are economically inactive. He has said, “Look, the system at the moment says to a young person in this situation, ‘What benefits do you need?’, when what we should be asking is, ‘How do we help make your life better? What do you need to turn your life around?’” That may be services or support; it may well be a job, work experience, training or skills. With the Milburn review, we are looking right across that to see how we bring together all that support to give people the opportunities that they really need.
In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, this power is limited, as my noble friend Lord Davies said, by considerations such as that it must be necessary for the efficient administration of the benefit. These are strong legal terms and show that it can be used only in limited circumstances where necessary. As I explained, the policy on minimum awards will apply to most claimants aged 25 or over, but exceptions to the policy will be applied to those expected to recover or make significant improvements within a shorter timeframe, who will therefore get a shorter award. Longer review periods can still be made for individuals with the most severe or long-term conditions. We do not want to be having unnecessary reviews; we want to be reviewing the right people. There is no maximum period and the regulations will continue to give longer awards where appropriate, as I said, and shorter ones where necessary.
I was asked: why younger people? Given that spells of unemployment and inactivity at a young age have clear long-term scarring effects, we do not want young people whose functional capacity has improved to be on PIP any longer than necessary. We are therefore not applying the wider policy change or these regulations to young people, who will continue to be assessed as now.
There was a question about whether claimants are going to lose out by this. Obviously, we are absolutely committed and, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, we want disabled people to have the support they need to live independently. If a claimant’s condition is to deteriorate or improve, they should still report a change of circumstances for their award to be reviewed. Claimants have a duty to report a change of circumstances; that is something they must do. Whether the condition deteriorates or improves, they have a duty to report it. That could result in an award review at that stage, and they can report a change at any time.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, talked about the experience of people in PIP. I can tell from what she said that she has read the Timms review interim report. In the responses to the call for evidence put out by Timms, people told the steering group that while PIP is widely valued, they found the assessment process dehumanising and stressful, and that it causes anxiety. We have heard that very clearly. The review’s interim report sets out what the steering group has found and heard to date. In the next stage, it is going to carry on gathering evidence and engagement while developing and testing recommendations over the coming months. The Government will then have to look at that and make some decisions. It became quite clear that the assessment process is not fit for purpose.
However, we have to make sure that we do all we can to support people who can work to get into work or back to work—and where they cannot work, we must give them the appropriate support. Our job is not simply to focus on getting benefits out. It is also to make sure that, as we are doing now, we invest in the health service, bringing health and employment together so that we can support people. We are taking action, for example, through connect to work to stop people falling out of work when they first get sick, so that we do not end up with them on PIP for long periods in the first place. We are doing all those things.
This change is, none the less, a small but specific and pivotal question that will make a difference to our ability to manage things in the short term. As I have said, it would simply allow us to make more efficient use of limited assessment capacity, reduce assessments where they are not needed, so that we can focus them where they are, and allow PIP awards to be extended in a crisis such as the pandemic. It is a measured amendment to ensure the effective administration of the system.
Finally, I will say a word on young people. We will continue to press into this area. I know that this House as a whole believes we should not be leaving our young people without opportunities; we all agree on that. We have made sure in the past to share information with the House about the important work that the Milburn review has done for its interim review. We are looking forward to having the final report soon. We will make sure the House is informed about that and knows what this Government are doing.
Our job is to get the right support to the right people. Everybody who can work should be given the help and support they need to do it. Those who can work should work; those who cannot work should be supported. The system has to get that right, and this instrument is part of trying to do that.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken, and I thank the Minister for her response. I agree completely with the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, that disabled people need to be treated with dignity and respect. On these Benches, we completely sign up to that. My noble friends Lady Maclean and Lord Shinkwin rightly raised the cost of the current welfare system. A welfare system has to be affordable, sustainable and effective. I say this with a heavy heart: it may not worry this Government how high the costs go, but believe you me, it worries the public and it worries us. That does not mean that we would not be prepared to spend money to do the right thing by people. I also agree that the priority is to help people into work. It would be helpful if the Government took action to reduce the cost of employing people, because that has had the single biggest impact on there being no jobs about.
As I have said, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate, but the central concerns remain the same. These regulations reduce the frequency of reviews, place greater reliance on self-reporting and grant the Secretary of State a broad power without sufficient safeguards or parliamentary oversight. They risk leaving some claimants on the wrong award, whether too high or too low, and do nothing to address the underlying growth in the benefits bill or the urgent need to help more people towards independence and employment. For those reasons, I am not content to withdraw my Motion, and I wish to test the opinion of the House.
National Savings (Remediation Scheme) Regulations 2026
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Baroness Neville-Rolfe
That this House regrets that the National Savings (Remediation Scheme) Regulations 2026 were introduced only after a prolonged delay affecting up to 37,500 bereavement claims; and that failures by National Savings and Investments have given rise to a substantial liability for the taxpayer.
Relevant document: 6th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument)
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, this instrument provides National Savings & Investments with the legal powers it needs to establish a compensation scheme and to return money that should have been paid to the estates of deceased customers, in some cases many years ago. That remediation must now proceed as quickly and comprehensively as possible.
However, it would be wrong to allow this negative resolution instrument to pass without formally noting the harm that has been caused and the serious failures that have surrounded this entire saga. It is significant that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee drew the regulations to the attention of the House because they raise significant public policy issues and because Ministers have not answered important questions. Moreover, the Commons Statement of 26 March on the problems at NS&I was not repeated in our House because we had broken for Easter.
I add that this is not the only problem we have heard about in relation to probate. There were terrible delays, especially during Covid—sometimes of years—and I have personal experience of lost submissions to the probate office.
As recently as 6 July, we debated my noble friend Lord Mackinlay’s amendment to force financial institutions, which would include NS&I, to use the IHT423 scheme to allow executors to source funds to pay inheritance tax in advance of the unrealistic six-month deadline for probate and to avoid the punitive rate of interest: 4% above base rate, so that is 7.75% at present. All this makes you weep for the poor bereaved already going through an emotional upheaval.
The wording of my regret Motion is intended to highlight two matters: first, the prolonged delay that has affected tens of thousands of bereavement claims, and, secondly, the substantial financial consequences arising from the failures of National Savings & Investments. I also have a number of questions for the Minister, and the responses may provide reassurance. I recognise that some of the failures to which I will refer will have occurred under Conservative Administrations and, indeed, previous Labour Administrations. This is not only an administrative or a technical problem; it has had a profound human impact. Bereaved families were entitled to receive the savings of their deceased relatives but, through no fault of their own, were denied access to that money.
The search process used by NS&I when handling bereavement claims did not always identify every product held by the deceased customer. As a result, estates were repaid only part of what they were owed. The Pensions Minister said on 19 May that around 34,000 estates may have been affected, with a total value of some £367 million. I hope the Minister will tell us how many estates are now believed to have been affected, how much money remains outstanding and how confident the Government are that they have identified the full scale of the problem.
Behind these large numbers are individual families and executors who suffered real distress. Some bereaved relatives have spent years trying to recover what belongs to them, facing uncertainty and obstruction. As a government-backed savings institution serving more than 24 million people, the fundamental attraction of NS&I products is their security and the fact that the savings are backed by the Government. When NS&I fails to locate customers’ holdings, fails to unite estates with their money and leaves families pursuing claims for years, trust in that important institution is damaged.
I hope the Minister can tell us when the Government first became aware of the full scale of a problem affecting tens of thousands of families, why action was not taken sooner and whether there were earlier warning signs within NS&I that were missed or not escalated. For how long had the defective search process been operating before the failure was identified? I believe that some cases date back as far as 2008. Why did internal and external audit and Treasury oversight fail to identify this earlier? Were there letters from MPs that should have woken Ministers up to the problems facing such a vulnerable group? The departure of the former chief executive, Dax Harkins, and the appointment of Sir Jim Harra, with his long-standing experience at HMRC, are welcome and are clear indications that the Government recognise the seriousness of what occurred.
Turning to the substance of the regulations, we welcome the decision that NS&I will act proactively. However, there is also the important question of funding. The money held in these accounts plainly belongs to the estates. Returning that principal sum is not a new cost to the taxpayer; it is the repayment of money that should never have been withheld. However, compensation, additional interest, professional fees and the administrative costs of identifying and contacting affected estates represent additional expenditure. The Treasury was unable to give the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee an assurance that no further support from the public purse would be required. So I ask a simple question: will NS&I funds need to be increased to meet the extra burden or not? Can the Minister tell us now what the cost of compensation, additional interest, professional fees and the operation of the scheme will be? Will these costs be met entirely from NS&I’s existing budget? If additional funding is required, will Parliament be informed promptly and transparently by the Treasury?
The Government have said that NS&I aims to complete the remediation process during the first half of 2027 and will publish quarterly progress reports. That commitment is welcome, but those updates must contain meaningful, detailed information. The House should also be told what happens if the target of completion in the first half of 2027 is missed. Who will be accountable and what external oversight will there be of the scheme?
In conclusion, these regulations are necessary. Those relying most on NS&I products tend to be those who are less sophisticated financially than perhaps in other ways. In short, the vulnerable have been those most affected. This is an unhappy situation. Hundreds of millions of pounds were not reunited with the estates entitled to receive them. Some bereaved relatives were forced to struggle with NS&I for years and incurred costs simply to recover their family’s own money. We will allow the instrument to pass because delaying remediation would only compound that harm. However, we cannot allow it to pass without demanding accountability and transparency and extracting an undertaking that the Government keep on top of delivery of this vital remediation scheme. I very much look forward to hearing from the Minister, and I beg to move.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, has clearly explained, the estates of deceased customers of NS&I were not always repaid money from all their accounts following a bereavement claim. The operational failure was identified in December 2025 but reported to Ministers and publicised only in March 2026. The issues were resolved for current and new bereavement claims from January 2026, but I understand that the revised process is proving hard going and, in and of itself, is causing more delays. Can the Minister update us?
As the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, said, some 34,000 estates, with a total value of £476 million, were affected by the original failure. Can the Minister tell us how many of the families of the bereaved have so far been reunited with their funds in full and have been compensated for the delay? What are the costs of compensation and associated fees that will fall on the taxpayer?
I understand the pressures to resolve this issue, but frankly, when the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments reports an SI as “requiring elucidation” on quite a number of points and for “defective drafting”, we really are talking about sloppiness, and that is not acceptable. NS&I is one of our most trusted financial institutions, holding over £240 billion belonging to some 24 million customers. It is crucial that it retains trust, which means that the response by NS&I and the Government needs to be both accurate and swift.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Wilson of Sedgefield) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses for their comments on what is a very important issue. To put it in some context, in March, the Minister for Pensions announced that National Savings & Investments had identified serious failings in its bereavement claims process, affecting thousands of estates. NS&I has rightly apologised to the families of the bereaved who were impacted and the Government have acted swiftly to ensure that those estates are reunited with the money they are owed.
As the Minister for Pensions and NS&I set out in May, NS&I will reunite affected estates with the funds owed to them by mid-2027 and ensure that those estates receive compensation where it is appropriate to do so. The process of issuing letters, repayments and compensation to affected estates is now under way and Parliament has passed the necessary legislation to ensure that NS&I has the powers to undertake its remediation scheme.
I turn to the details of the regulations referenced in the regret Motion. These regulations enable NS&I to pay compensation to affected estates above the de minimis. Specifically, they give NS&I the power to pay interest to estates for the entire period that their funds were wrongly disconnected from them. The funds will be adjusted upwards to include the higher of either the interest accrued since the error occurred or the Bank of England base rate plus one percentage point, in line with Financial Ombudsman Service principles. The regulations also give NS&I the power to make additional payments for other financial losses—for example, legal fees incurred because estates needed further administration as a direct result of NS&I’s error.
The regret Motion tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, covers two areas: the process for establishing the remediation scheme to repay claimants and, separately, the cost of that scheme. I will address each in turn, starting with the process for establishing the scheme. After the Treasury was notified about the serious failings in the bereavement claims process at NS&I in mid-December last year, officials worked at pace with NS&I to identify and address the root cause of the issue, to establish which customers were affected and to develop plans to reunite estates with the money. This was a substantial task, and NS&I, the Treasury and external advisers have worked closely to design and implement a remediation scheme which is effective, fair and meets regulatory standards. The parameters of this scheme were set out in May and the necessary regulations were then made on 10 June.
NS&I, supported by independent external advisers and expertise from across government, reviewed over 34 million customer accounts. Up to 34,000 estates have been affected, with a total value of approximately £367 million. These figures are likely to reduce and NS&I will provide an update in its quarterly progress report.
As for the root cause of the problem, as the Minister for Pensions set out in March, NS&I tracing processes failed to comprehensively trace accounts for some customers who passed away. The result of this failure is that not all savings were identified and paid to estates. NS&I has received written assurances from its customer-facing supplier and its previous supplier, Atos, that the cause of this underlying issue in their tracing of customer accounts has been addressed and will not affect customers going forward.
Several questions were asked, and I hope I can cover them all. I was asked when the remediation scheme will be delivered and how long it will take. NS&I aims to return holdings to their rightful owners as swiftly as possible and expects to complete its remediation programme in the first half of 2027. I was asked about the Treasury’s assessment of the overall cost of this programme. As NS&I is in the early stages of delivering the scheme, the expected costs to taxpayers are uncertain at this stage. Further information on expected costs will be included in NS&I’s annual report and accounts in the autumn. NS&I will be able to develop a clearer estimate as the programme progresses and more data becomes available on the average volumes and amounts of additional payments. The overall cost will also depend on the feasibility of recovering public money. NS&I will publish an update on progress, including payment of outstanding holdings, against its delivery plans on a quarterly basis.
The point of introducing the statutory instrument is to provide a clear, fair and consistent framework for customers to be reunited with the funds as quickly as possible. Without a scheme in place, the costs of handling potentially thousands of individual complaints and legal cases could significantly increase the operational burden, costs and legal fees for NS&I, and put pressure on the public finances. The Minister for Pensions said there will not be a cost to taxpayers as a result of the remediation scheme. In his Statement to the Commons, he challenged inaccurate reporting in the press that implied that the cost from returning money owed to estates would impact the taxpayer. This money is owed to these estates and will be repaid using funds provided through the National Loans Fund in the same way that funds would be transferred to a customer of NS&I wishing to make a withdrawal. These repayments are simply the return of customers’ funds and do not create any additional liability for the taxpayer.
I was asked about the existing budgets. As NS&I is in the early phase of delivering this scheme, the expected costs for taxpayers are uncertain at this stage, with further information to be provided in the NS&I annual report and accounts in the autumn. The Treasury and NS&I will together assess the feasibility of recovery costs associated with the scheme, but this is an extensive process and it will take time to make this assessment. There will also be operational costs of running the scheme and costs of compensation to affected estates where appropriate. This will be paid from NS&I budgets in the first instance and NS&I is expected to manage pressures within its budgets set at the spending review last year.
I end by reiterating the Government’s commitment to deliver redress for all those impacted by the serious failings in the NS&I bereavement claims process. The Government and NS&I have taken action to address these failings, to develop a plan to reunite customers with their money and to ensure that these failings can never happen again. The process of issuing letters, repayments and compensation to affected estates is now under way and the Government will continue to ensure that those impacted receive the support that they deserve. We take this very seriously and we want to see the money given back to those estates and the individuals who have been affected. This is an important issue and one that we want to solve as soon as possible.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, for her support and to the Minister for his helpful response. I do not think he answered my question about when the first signs of this scandal first emerged—for example, in MPs’ correspondence. I recognise that that is a difficult question to answer, but I am grateful for the regular reports that he has promised.
I do not wish to delay the establishment of the remediation scheme for vulnerable and bereaved families, which I obviously support. The money belongs to the affected estates, as the Minister said, and must now be returned, together with appropriate compensation and interest. It would therefore not be appropriate to divide the House. The important thing is to proceed with the mediation as quickly and comprehensively as possible. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Trade Unions (Permissible Means of Voting) and Employment Rights (Unfair Dismissal) (Amendment) Order 2026
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Lord Leong
That the draft Order laid before the House on 22 June be approved.
Relevant document: 8th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade (Lord Leong) (Lab)
My Lords, I shall also speak to the accompanying Code of Practice on Electronic and Workplace Ballots for Statutory Trade Union Ballots. I also note the regret amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, and I am glad of the opportunity to debate these important reforms. I will address the concerns raised by the noble Lord during my remarks.
This statutory instrument and the accompanying code of practice were laid before Parliament on 22 June 2026. This instrument has a clear and straightforward purpose. It modernises the statutory framework governing certain trade union ballots by allowing secure electronic voting and workplace ballots, while preserving the integrity, secrecy and independence that are fundamental to every statutory union ballot. Alongside these reforms, it makes a minor consequential amendment to Section 105 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 to ensure that the legislation remains consistent following the changes made by the Employment Rights Act 2025.
These are measured and practical reforms that update how statutory ballots may be conducted. They do not alter the legal framework governing industrial action or trade union democracy. The legislation governing statutory trade union ballots was developed in an era when postal voting presented the most practical way to conduct nationwide ballots. That is no longer the world in which we live. Today, people routinely undertake secure and sensitive transactions online. Yet, under the current law almost all statutory trade union ballots must still be conducted solely by post. That approach has not kept pace with the way people live or work; it can be slower, more expensive and more administratively burdensome than modern alternatives.
The Government made a clear commitment in their Make Work Pay manifesto to modernise statutory trade union ballots by allowing secure electronic voting and workplace ballots. This instrument delivers that commitment. It introduces three additional methods of voting for statutory trade union ballots, with the exception of statutory recognition and derecognition ballots, which will be addressed separately in 2027. First, it permits electronic voting, allowing eligible members to cast their votes securely online using personal authentication credentials. Electronic voting will be available only when a union member has provided a personal email address or telephone number to the union. This ensures that voting materials are issued through personal channels and remain outside employer-controlled or union-controlled workplace communication systems.
Secondly, the instrument permits hybrid voting. Under this model, members will receive their voting materials by post but may choose whether to return their vote electronically or by post. No one will be required to vote electronically if they prefer not to do so.
Thirdly, the instrument allows workplace voting for industrial action ballots. This option is available only when both the employer and trade union agree, and the ballot is conducted under the supervision of an independent scrutineer in a suitable secure workplace location. Workplace voting reflects the fact that industrial action ballots concern workplace issues, while maintaining the same statutory safeguards that apply to every other lawful ballot. None of these new methods is mandatory. Postal voting remains available. Trade unions will decide which lawful voting method best suits their membership. The purpose of these reforms is to extend choice, not remove it.
Alongside this instrument, the Government have laid a draft code of practice on electronic and workplace ballots. The code provides detailed practical guidance on how these new voting methods should operate in practice. It complements the legislation by setting clear expectations on accessibility, administration, security and transparency.
I now turn directly the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe. The amendment raises concerns about ballot integrity, cyber security, verification, auditability, resilience and the operation of workplace ballots. I want to be clear that this instrument does not make industrial action easier to authorise without safeguards. It does not weaken ballot integrity, or ignore cyber security, verification, auditability or resilience, and it does not ignore the position of employers on consent, operational disruption, cost, privacy or security. The use of independent scrutineers remains mandatory. Cyber security certification for electronic methods, secure voter authentication and ballot secrecy are mandatory. Far from weakening confidence, these reforms strengthen participation while preserving the safeguards that Parliament has long regarded as essential.
This instrument brings statutory trade union ballots into the 21st century. It modernises the methods of voting without changing the fundamental principles of trade union democracy. It preserves the integrity, independence and secrecy that are essential in every statutory ballot. These are balanced, proportionate and carefully designed reforms. They make participation more accessible while maintaining confidence in the legitimacy of statutory ballots. I therefore hope that noble Lords will support both the instrument and the accompanying code of practice. I beg to move.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom
At end to insert “but that this House regrets that the draft Order introduces electronic and workplace voting for statutory trade union ballots which risks making industrial action easier to authorise without sufficient safeguards for ballot integrity; that it does not provide adequate assurances for cyber-security, verification, auditability and resilience against interference for electronic voting; and that its workplace-voting provisions do not address employer consent, operational disruption, cost, privacy or security.”
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for explaining and introducing the statutory instruments, to the first of which, as he has noted, I have tabled a regret amendment. The instruments risk making it easier, quicker and cheaper for unions to secure a mandate for strike action, while leaving too many questions unanswered about ballot integrity, cyber security, workplace disruption, employer costs and the ability of employers to challenge defects in the process.
I want to start by asking the Minister a number of very specific questions. First, paragraph 5.14 of the Explanatory Memorandum sets out the Government’s reasoning against piloting electronic balloting. Whether or not one accepts that reasoning, at least the Government have attempted to explain their approach. However, I do not see the equivalent justification for workplace balloting. Workplace balloting is an entirely new voting method for industrial action ballots. It creates practical questions for employers about space, security, access, staff release, supervision, privacy, CCTV, safeguarding, operational disruption and cost—I could go on. Yet, as I understand it, the impact assessment does not even cost workplace voting, nor has there been a pilot to test how it would operate in real workplaces, particularly not in complex environments such as hospitals, schools, care settings, secure sites, manufacturing sites, multisite operations and shift-based workplaces. Can the Minister therefore explain why the Government are introducing workplace voting without a pilot and costed evidence of the likely impact on employers?
The impact assessment also states that the policy is expected to deliver net benefits overall, primarily through reduced costs to trade unions from the use of electronic balloting compared with postal methods, with estimated annual savings of between £2 million and £8.2 million. Why is reducing the administrative costs of trade unions now a priority for the Government? What is a small business meant to think when it reads that its margins are being squeezed by higher taxes and employment costs, regulation and endless compliance burdens yet it never sees this level of ministerial enthusiasm for reducing its costs? However, when it comes to trade unions, the Government appear willing to redesign statutory balloting rules to save them money and make industrial action easier to organise. That says a great deal about the priorities behind this order.
Secondly, the instrument designates the trade union itself as the responsible person for determining which voting method or methods are used for its own statutory ballots. The union has an obvious interest in the outcome of the ballot. Can the Minister therefore explain why the trade union rather than the independent scrutineer has been designated as the responsible person for determining the means of voting, and how they intend to avoid a conflict between the union’s interest in securing a mandate and its judgment on the practicality, accessibility, security and integrity of the voting method that has been selected?
Thirdly, who is responsible for enforcing the required cyber security standard? What happens if a system is compromised during a ballot and what information will employers be given if they are expected to assess whether a ballot mandate is valid? Paragraph 38 of the code of practice says only that the union “may want”—I stress, “may want”—
“to appoint the independent scrutineer as a first step”,
so that the scrutineer can advise on the balloting plan. That is not a hard-edged safeguard. It still leaves the initial strategic decision on whether to use electronic, hybrid or workplace voting with the union itself.
Paragraphs 39 to 41 are similarly weak on cyber security. They acknowledge that some ballots may be more sensitive, including where there is a risk of attempted interference, hacking or even hostile state activity. Yet the code says only that the union and the scrutineer “may want”—that phrase again—to seek advice from the National Cyber Security Centre. If the Government are serious about the integrity of electronic strike ballots, why is that advice optional rather than mandatory in sensitive ballots, in particular those affecting critical public services? Public sector employers have particular reason to be concerned. In hospitals, care settings, schools and other essential public services, the concern is whether staff can be released safely, whether patient, pupil or service user care is affected and whether safeguarding arrangements are maintained.
These instruments form part of the Government’s wider Employment Rights Act package. That package reduces the notice employers receive before industrial action, extends the life of mandates, removes previous restrictions and strengthens union access to the workplace, as well, of course, as adding billions in administrative costs. Taken together, these measures reduce employer flexibility and tilt the balance of power further away from employers, who are trying to maintain services, productivity and investment.
It is also striking that paragraph 9.5 of the Explanatory Memorandum says that these measures
“may improve participation and the representativeness of ballot outcomes”.
But this is in contrast with what Jonathan Reynolds said last year, which was that aligning the removal of the 50% turnout threshold with the introduction of e-balloting would
“ensure that industrial action mandates will have demonstrably broad support”.—[Official Report, Commons, 4/3/25; col. 13WS.]
The removal of the 50% ballot threshold was set to happen in April this year, but it has not yet happened. I hope that is because even the Treasury has begun to understand the consequences that repeated militant strike action in critical public services would have for taxpayers, who would be forced to fork out millions for pay rises for the public sector—indeed, they already have. Can the Minister tell us whether the Government still intend to remove the 50% strike threshold, and if so, on what date will Section 68 be commenced? If Ministers cannot give a date, is that because they are concerned that removing the threshold, alongside electronic voting, would increase the likelihood of industrial action in schools and other public services?
The Government seem to have discovered a very selective enthusiasm for technology. Technology to help unions secure strike mandates is called “modernising industrial relations”, yet, according to recent reports, the new Prime Minister is considering scrapping Palantir’s work with the NHS, despite the fact that better data and technology are exactly what the NHS needs to improve efficiency, productivity and patient care, and in spite of the fact that it is widely reported to be working. At a time when critical public services, especially the NHS, need reform, investment and innovation, the Government should be backing technology that helps patients and taxpayers, not prioritising cartel behaviour from the BMA, which has warned that it will behave more militantly in the future. I beg to move.
Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe. However, I oppose the regret amendment and support these measures, which bring statutory union balloting into the 21st century, modernising an outdated postal-only system. Our primary purpose must be to make it easier for members to participate in their own union democracy. Higher turnout strengthens workers’ collective voice and ensures that votes are more representative of the membership.
All democrats should welcome these reforms; they have been a long time coming. Back in 2016, the then Conservative Government commissioned a review from Sir Ken Knight on union electronic balloting. However, the then Government never published a response. Even Sir Ken’s report acknowledged that a postal-only system disproportionately disenfranchises people with mobility disabilities and visual impairments, as well as young members, who are much more likely to rent and change address more frequently.
It also disadvantages significant groups of union members who spend long periods working away from home, such as offshore energy workers, seafarers, lorry drivers, cabin crew and air pilots, and construction and creative workers. So, I have no doubt that, in an age when we increasingly live our lives online, and, particularly post Covid, when growing numbers work online too, this reform will widen democratic participation.
Of course, it is right that concerns about cyber security and audits regarding e-ballots are taken very seriously. For unions, this will be addressed through the code of practice, and requirements such as ensuring scrutineers are Cyber Essentials Plus-accredited. I only wish that as stringent protection was required for company shareholder e-ballots, or indeed for e-ballots conducted by political parties—which have been running for years—given that the impact of any potential security breach for those organisations is at least as significant as for those conducted by trade unions.
The instruments in themselves do not change strike ballot thresholds or substantive legal tests, although of course this should pave the way for repeal of the 50% threshold which the Employment Rights Act ties to the introduction of e-balloting. Any update that the Minister can provide on how soon this will be progressed would be welcome.
It would also be helpful to have clarity on when phase 3 is going to happen and what could come from it. For example, unions want to be able to send ballots safely and securely to members’ workplace emails. Around a third of union membership databases can include workplace email addresses, so that change could help maximise participation too.
Finally, I would welcome reassurance from my noble friend the Minister that the extension of e-balloting to union recognition ballots will take place as early as possible in 2027.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as the chair of ACAS, as set out in the register. I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his detailed introduction to these two SIs.
As we know, these proposals are part of the rollout of the Employment Rights Act reforms, which are being introduced in line with the road map published at that time, and there has been detailed consultation and stakeholder involvement in shaping the code of practice. ACAS has also been closely involved with DBT officials to shape that code. So, there has been plenty of time for employers and unions to prepare for these changes and they do not contain any surprises. In fact, in a recent YouGov survey, 62% of employers reported feeling very or fairly confident about the upcoming changes to trade union rights, with only 21% not feeling confident.
These proposals bring the balloting regime into the modern age, with the provisions for electronic, hybrid and workplace voting being similar to decision-making in many other areas, including political parties and shareholder votes. So we welcome the fact that this SI will enhance the democratic process and increase participation, giving employers and unions more confidence that the outcome fully represents the views of those consulted in the ballot.
It has been important to ACAS that the code uses clear, plain and unambiguous language. This reduces the potential for misunderstandings, non-compliance and disputes, particularly at the early stages of implementation when parties are unfamiliar with the new rights and responsibilities. It is also important that the code strikes the right balance between principles and detail and is properly tailored to those who will actually use it.
For example, ACAS-administered voluntary ballots, particularly in recognition negotiations, are a useful tool in dispute resolution. We are grateful that, following feedback, it has now been confirmed that these are out of scope of the code. This underlines how the department has listened and amended the code to reflect the practical needs of users.
Finally, although we welcome the increased participation in decision-making that the code will deliver, we urge parties to keep their focus on resolving disputes through partnership—and, of course, ACAS conciliation services are just a phone call away.
Sadly, the latest ACAS research shows that 44% of people experienced conflict at work in the last year. This has a cost to businesses, individuals and the economy—in stress, time off, presenteeism and many more effects. Your Lordships have previously discussed the fact that the number of employment tribunal cases is rising, causing a growing and unacceptable backlog of hearings. There are clearly rising levels of discontent and unhappiness in workplace relations.
ACAS already provides training and guidance on working effectively with trade unions, but we need to do more. So I hope my noble friend the Minister will say what more could be done to encourage parties to prevent and manage disputes so that the need for ballots does not arise. I hope he agrees that where disputes do arise, the parties should be encouraged to make use of ACAS collective conciliation services, or other informal resolution, rather than resorting too quickly to a ballot. I look forward to his response.
Lord Frost (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I support the regret amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe. The strength of this country over the past 20 or 30 years has been in its very flexible labour market. Those of us, like me, who have, from time to time, managed staff in European labour markets know what the difference is: endless consultation, inflexibility, disputes and reluctance to employ people. The significant role for social partners and trade unions is a big part of that. Now we are bringing that home to this country and we already see the effects in the employment statistics.
The SIs that we are debating are just the latest phase in that. They obviously build on what was done in the Employment Rights Act: the extra rights for trade unions, which have been much debated and I will not go into now, but include the extra right to workplace access, easier recognition, rights for union officials on employer time and, of course, lower thresholds for ballots of all kinds, including strikes—which brings us to today’s SIs.
As we heard from the Minister, the main thing that these SIs do is extend the types and arrangements of ballots that can be carried out before a strike. This is presented—indeed, the Minister did present it—as modernisation of the system. Whether deliberate or not, the effect is going to be to make it easier for politically motivated union officials to make strike action happen.
The trade union reforms of the 1980s were brought in for a reason, as were postal ballots. It was to stop intimidation and to make ballots secure as to both process and the reliability of the result. These SIs risk beginning to undo that process. Workplace ballots obviously make potential intimidation of workers easier. We know that electronic voting is insecure. We would not do it in our own general elections. The Government’s own impact assessment is doubtful about the ability to provide security about such ballots. To add to that, trade unions themselves are made the responsible persons for such ballots, rather than independent third parties.
I imagine the Minister will point to other organisations that have used such methods—the Conservative Party, the National Trust, financial services institutions, and so on—but I suggest gently that such organisations do not have the same record of questionable behaviour, bullying and threats that unions have done from time to time. We know that happened in the 1980s but it did not happen only then. There are credible reports of such threats during the Post Office dispute in 2022-23; the Birmingham bins dispute, where the High Court itself was involved; and many other such cases. This is the problem with bringing insecurity into strike ballots. We risk bringing back some of the forces that made problems for this country in the 1980s and which we have not seen much of in the past 20 or 30 years.
I finish with some questions for the Minister. Does this record not give him any pause for thought? He is a very successful businessman himself: does he not worry about some of these consequences? Does he not worry, since most unions are in the public sector nowadays, that these rules will come back to bite the Government at some point very soon? Why, as the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, asked, have pilot arrangements been rejected? Finally, when we look at the unemployment figures over the past year or so, does the Minister not have any qualms about what has been done with the Employment Rights Act—the additional costs to labour in this country? Would it not be better for him and the Government to think again while they still can?
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
I need to declare an interest because yesterday morning, in the post, I received my ballot paper for the election of the general secretary of my union. I looked at it. Of course, I will be voting —I will not tell your Lordships for whom—but it seemed absurd that I could do it only by post.
I can pay my income tax online. I can tax my car. I can book airline tickets. I can pay my gas bill. I can—regrettably—pay my speeding fines. I can vote in building society elections. I can check I am registered to vote—so online is involved in elections. I can apply for a postal vote. I can correspond about any responsibility I have to participate in jury service. I can undertake DBS checks—highly sensitive, highly secret. I can do all these things online, so why does this particular ballot that I have on my desk at home have to be done by post?
Famously, gamblers have a “tell”—someone blinks and you can tell what is happening. The Opposition have kindly put their tell in the amendment and in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom. What they are against is the exercise of democratic rights by free associations. They want to make it harder, they want to slow it down and they want to make it more expensive. That is the tell. This is antiquated, old-fashioned anti-trade union prejudice. That is at the heart of it, and that is what we learned from the noble Lord’s speech.
I will comment briefly on the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Frost. He talked about a “flexible labour market”. We know what that is code for from the Conservative Party and former members of it. It is about making life tough for trade unions and for rank-and-file employees, who wish simply to exercise their democratic right to run their own free association in the way they want. The more we facilitate that, the better.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I have been a trade union member for just over 67 years. That is longer than my membership of the two political parties put together. For the past 13 years, while I have been in this House, at different times I have been the president of the British Dietetic Association—a TUC-affiliated union—and BALPA, the pilots’ union, which is also TUC-affiliated. The image that people try to give that these are somehow illegitimate organisations is totally wrong. Most of their executive time is spent sorting out the day-to-day problems of members—that is what they are there for.
The debate over balloting has gone on for years. Both unions of which I have been president, and the union of which I am a member, have suggested to government that we should sit down and find a way out of this problem. We have not had any encouragement at all. At the time of the 2016 Act, David Cameron almost conceded that there would be a consultation, but it never happened. The fact is that it has become more and more time-consuming and costly for unions to stay within the law. I asked the Certification Officer’s office whether it had had any complaints about balloting procedures; it could not produce any. All it would say to me is that the Certification Officer’s job is to uphold the law, not to make it, and that he was satisfied that the law had been upheld.
Where are we going to go? I suggest that we could try to get a more realistic view of trade unions. There are about 5 million union members in this country, and 2 million of them vote for the Conservative Party. Noble Lords would be surprised at how seldom politics came up in the two unions of which I was president. The unions were about looking after the workers and their rights at work. A strike was not something looked forward to; a strike marked the fact that you had not managed to negotiate your way out of a problem. No one said, “Oh goody, let’s go and have a strike”. Most people said, “What else could we possibly do?”, and then it was done.
Mention has been made—I will repeat it—of the huge number of people who use balloting to elect people. I served as the finance chairman of my own club, the Reform Club, for some years. I was elected by a postal ballot, but people could also vote electronically. No one ever raised any questions about whether it was fair, because it manifestly was.
I say to this House: get real about trade unions. Two million of their members vote for the Conservative Party. They do not believe they are joining some insurrectionist left-wing party; most of them believe they are trying to improve their standards at work.
Finally, if you ask our union what the most popular services are, they will tell you: free legal advice and motor car insurance policies being reduced. That is the reason why lots of people join the unions. Long may they last. I say to the Conservative Party: please do settle down and come into the real world.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, today has been “Frank Sinatra day”—regrets, there have been a few—and we are thankful to the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, for this last one; it is the last but by no means least. It seemed a short time ago that we were discussing the issues raised by this order in the Employment Rights Act 2025, but when I look at the calendar, I see that it was nearly a year ago—I guess it still looms large in my life. To an extent, this debate is something of a rerun of what we discussed then.
In that spirit, I reiterate that the Liberal Democrats believe that free association is a fundamental right, and that of course includes the workplace. Employees should be free to join, or not to join, a trade union, and they should not face penalties either way. To participate in a union and to associate freely, there needs to be votes from time to time. The Government’s urge to update the process of voting is entirely sensible and one that we support.
As we have heard, this order extends the possible ways of voting. As I expected and as we have heard, some noble Lords have set out concerns about coercion. I fail to see how changing the voting system would change the level of coercion. The examples that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, used, whether rightly or wrongly, have happened when there was no electronic voting; that has nothing to do with the issue of coercion. As I understand it, if there is coercion—I am sure that in some cases there is coercion, as in every form of life—there is an Act in place to deal with that. The Employment Relations Act 2004 already contains the necessary legal requirements to guarantee that ballots are cast in secret and free from intimidation. That is a starting point.
The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, came up with a rather long list of potential disasters that could befall an electronic vote. Perhaps his regular experience with Tory party leadership online elections has made him suspicious or sensitised him to this issue. In this case, his list of concerns for union votes fails to recognise the provisions in the order for any union to consider a number of important safeguards: ballot security and secrecy—that was kind of what he was talking about—risks associated with each voting method; members’ preferences; accessibility; and equal opportunities to vote. Those are the issues we have discussed today. To be honest, I think that debunks a lot of what the noble Lord spoke about.
I also refer him to the “Monitoring and Review” section of the draft Explanatory Memorandum, which sets out some of the safeguards. Paragraph 10.2 states:
“Monitoring of the use and effects of non-postal balloting will also contribute to the Government’s wider consideration of participation”.
As we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, the issue around the 50% turnout—which the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, brought out—is dependent on the Government laying a report on the process of electronic balloting. Paragraph 10.1 mentions
“monitoring this legislation … through ongoing engagement with key stakeholders and existing … oversight mechanisms”.
The noble Lord seemed to imply that this has just been cast into the workplace and there is no regime for covering it; I do not accept that, and it is wrong.
In sum, the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, were raised at an earlier time, and I believe that some of the measures in this order have come, as I recall, as a result of some of his interventions during that earlier debate—it is both a long time ago and yesterday. I leave this with your Lordships: I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, has a few regrets, but I do not think he needs to regret this order.
Lord Leong (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful for the support across the House, especially from the noble Lords, Lord Balfe and Lord Fox, for the Trade Unions (Permissible Means of Voting) and Employment Rights (Unfair Dismissal) (Amendment) Order 2026 and the Code of Practice on Electronic and Workplace Ballots for Statutory Trade Union Ballots. Today’s scrutiny and debate have been constructive and light-hearted, at some points. Noble Lords have raised interesting points on dispute resolution, workplace ballots and the next phases of delivery for the measure. They have also raised points on the 50% threshold, intimidation and dispute resolution, as I mentioned earlier. I will address these points briefly.
First, I will respond to the point raised by my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch on dispute resolution. Industrial action should always be the last resort. It is costly for workers, employers and the wider public. That is why the Government are committed to a new era of partnership. We want employers, unions and government to work together, through co-operation, negotiation and meaningful engagement at workplace level. We intend to develop a new overarching industrial relations framework, working with stakeholders, such as employers and unions, to promote partnership, reduce conflict and support productivity and growth. That is a noble ambition.
I will now respond to the points raised by my noble friend Lady O’Grady. My noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, asked about the 50% threshold for industrial action ballots. To be clear, the order does not repeal that threshold, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, also mentioned that. To commence Section 68 of the Employment Rights Act 2025, the Secretary of State must first lay a Statement before Parliament. This must set out how he has had regard to the impact of electronic and other non-postal voting methods on participation in industrial action ballots. The instrument delivers on our commitment to permit electronic and workplace balloting. The review of their impact on participation will then follow and inform the repeal of the 50% threshold.
My noble friend also asked about the use of workplace email addresses. Following implementation of the instrument, we plan to establish a senior oversight board, comprised of key stakeholders, to help assess how the new voting methods are working in practice and consider future enhancements, including the secure use of workplace email addresses. As it stands, we are not doing that now.
My noble friend also raised recognition and derecognition ballots. We are committed to extending electronic and hybrid voting to the Central Arbitration Committee-run recognition and derecognition ballots as part of phase 2 of delivery. We will deliver this as soon as practicable in the second half of 2027.
I will now turn to the various points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe. On workplace balloting, employers will not be forced to allow workplace voting. It can take place only where an employer agrees. Employers remain free to consider operational disruption, privacy, security and practical arrangements before giving that agreement. The union will continue to bear the cost of running the ballot itself, with no cost to the employer.
On the role of the responsible person, in practice this will be the trade union. That is because the union is best placed to understand its membership and communication methods when deciding the appropriate voting method or methods. It would not make sense to outsource this role to a third party, who will not have the information to make this determination.
I want to assure the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, that this decision is not unfettered. The instrument sets out clear factors and criteria that must be applied before a voting method can be chosen. On cyber security, responsibility rests with the independent scrutineer. Scrutineers conducting electronic ballots must hold a valid Cyber Essentials Plus certificate for the networks and systems they use, and I have personal knowledge of how laborious it is to apply for the Cyber Essentials Plus certificate. It is something that one has to go through, and it is quite rigorous in its application. They are also responsible for operating the platform securely and ensuring that the legislative requirements are met. There will be extensive audit logging and monitoring throughout the ballot, and any security incident must be recorded. If the legislative requirements are not met, the union will not be able to rely on that ballot, and it must be rerun. I hope that provides reassurance to the noble Lord.
I want to be clear about what the order does: it steps away from the current bureaucratic and expensive requirements that all statutory union ballots must be held by post. It will bring the voting system for trade union ballots into the 21st century, and it delivers this change in a manner that ensures secure, secret and safe balloting. It will not, as we have heard today, weaken the safeguards relating to industrial action ballots. It will not weaken ballot integrity, and it will not leave questions of cyber security, verification, auditability, employer consent and costs unanswered.
Lastly, as I have already made clear, workplace voting can take place only where the employers agree. Employers remain able to consider operational disruptions, privacy, security and practical arrangements before giving that agreement. This is an overdue reform.
Before I conclude, I will touch on a couple of points raised by noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, asked about organising a pilot. It is not necessary to pilot workplace balloting for statutory union ballots. The instrument is informed by detailed engagement with key stakeholders, including businesses, cyber security experts, unions and independent scrutineers, as well as public consultation on the draft code of practice on electronic and workplace ballots.
The noble Lord also asked about cost, and I did mention that there is no cost to the employer. The Government expect that individual unions will determine which voting arrangements best meet the operational needs and will bear the cost themselves.
The noble Lord also touched on the doctors’ strike. The Government will continue to engage closely with the BMA, ensuring that the NHS remains a place where doctors can develop rewarding and long-term careers. The Government are committed to building on the good progress that has already been made, cutting waiting lists and continuing to improve conditions for the staff who make their NHS work, in partnership with them.
The noble Lord, Lord Frost, made a point about pressure and intimidation. The Government fully recognise the importance of protecting members from any undue influence. That is why the statutory safeguards governing ballot conduct remain in place, regardless of the voting method. The company code of practice provides guidance on maintaining ballot secrecy and integrity, and independent scrutiny remains an important safeguard throughout the process. This legislation sets out clear safeguards and technical standards, ensuring the integrity and confidence of the ballot process while making it meaningfully easier and more convenient for working people to take part in the decisions that affect them.
I conclude by wishing all noble Lords who will not be here tomorrow a fantastic, restful Summer Recess.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I am enormously grateful to the Minister, who actually answered my questions. I hope that that is not a bad sign. Is that a bad sign? I think that we should be told.
That was a spirited and enjoyable debate, and I thank everybody who took part in it. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, because he said that the Liberal Democrats believed in free association. I am delighted to hear that they believe in something; it is a first. The noble Lord also made parts of my arguments for me. I will not labour the point, but he referred to the consideration of various safeguards, as opposed to the enactment of them. That was precisely the point I was making and I am very grateful to the noble Lord for reiterating it.
I thank my noble friend Lord Balfe for his insights on the unions. I am particularly intrigued by the free legal advice, which I fear I may need fairly soon if I carry on like this. The noble Lord, Lord Frost, made some excellent points about historical context, and we should pay attention to him. The Minister did not say whether he had been given pause for thought, but perhaps we can discuss that outside the Chamber.
One thing that seemed to be said on the other side of the House about this side of the House is that in some way we are against the exercise of democratic rights and that we are interested in making life tough for people who are in unions. I assure the House that that is not the case; what we are pro is making jobs and, unfortunately, a lot of the activities that this Government have put through have made that very difficult. This point was made very clearly by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, perhaps inadvertently. The fact is that the 44% of employees who are experiencing discontent are the lucky ones—they have jobs. Let us not forget the 14.8% of NEETs whom we heard about yesterday in the latest statistics.
Finally, I and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, found common cause in two areas. She can probably think of only one, which was Section 68. I am very pleased that she agrees with me on that and am grateful to the Minister for his answer. I think he said we will hear more about this in the second half of 2027: if I am wrong, perhaps he could correct me. The other area the noble Baroness and I agreed on was how important democracy is—which is why it is such a shame the new Prime Minister has taken power after a bloodless coup.
It is very late. I do not see the point in having a vote. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Code of Practice on Electronic and Workplace Ballots for Statutory Trade Union Ballots
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Lord Leong
That the draft Code of Practice laid before the House on 22 June be approved.
Relevant document: 8th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee