Grand Committee
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Arrangement of Business
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green) (CB)
My Lords, if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, this Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes.
National Empty Homes Strategy
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Lord Bird (CB)
As someone who lived in social housing and whose eldest daughter was a squatter in Brixton and who got into social housing through squatting empty buildings and being involved in the squatting movement in the 1970s, I am very interested in using resources that are never used correctly. In the early days of the Big Issue, when we set out on the road not only to get people off the streets but to get them into housing, we found that one of the big stumbling blocks, under every Government, including the wonderful Government in which the noble Lord, Lord Young, then Sir George Young, was Minister of Housing, was that there were so many legal reasons why we could not grab hold of the thousands of empty units of social housing that could be used for social good.
When we move forward 35 years—because it was our 35th anniversary last week—we come to the realisation that we have this absolutely brilliant means of helping the Government to meet their target of providing as many people as possible with social housing, but the stumbling block is planning, local authorities and ownership. There is a plethora of reasons why we cannot just say, “Here is a person in need”, or a family in need, “and here is a property in need”, in the sense that it is empty, it is vacant, it is not carrying out any social purpose, and melding them together. There are so many impediments to this actually happening.
When the Big Issue started, 35 years ago, we were very involved in the empty homes movement because we could see, not just from our own experience, that this was a completely wasted resource and that society should grasp it and do two things. One is to house people, and the other is to get rid of waste, get rid of redundant property, and get rid of the idea that there were people out there who, as much as they needed housing, could not use the opportunity to take over these properties. In the early days, the Big Issue was a pain in the rear. We were doing things and occupying places, we were shouting and we were demonstrating in Parliament Square and all sorts of things—but very little has changed, if you look at the problem. Whatever Government come in, they always tell you why they cannot achieve the simple thing of putting need with resources.
I will be campaigning at the various conferences at the end of the month and into next month to do something very simple around the problem of social housing. We know that, over the past 40 years, nearly 2 million houses have been removed from the social sector and sold on, because Margaret Thatcher and her acolytes wanted to spread middle-class values and property ownership into the working classes. I agree with that. I hate the idea that we still have a working class, 35 years after the Big Issue and 80 years after I was born in the slums of Notting Hill, where everybody seemed working class. I am disappointed that we have not dismantled our class system.
I can see why this Government and many others, including Tony Blair’s, have not done that. By the way, the idea of people buying their social homes was not a Conservative one. I had an argument with the present Lord Speaker, and he upbraided me when I said that this started in Callaghan’s Cabinet, which looked at the idea of buying social housing and was doing a big event—and we, as a Marxist-Engelist-Leninist-Trotskyist group, did our best to stop that Labour Government becoming too Conservative.
The point is that we have a problem, and I would love any help that we can get in bringing together need and resource. What can we do? Forgive me, but, while I love this Labour Government and Andy Burnham, who I have known on and off over the years, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor—they are all brilliant, and we are all singing off the same hymn sheet—they all point to what happened to the last Government and the one before that and the one before that and say that there are imponderable reasons why we cannot just put need with resource.
I should say that, last night, I was out celebrating, and I did not get back to my hotel until about 5 am. I was celebrating that my son, who works with me, is going off to India, and celebrating my daughter. It was a wonderful opportunity, but I will not take up too much of our time with that. But here I am, to ask what we can sensibly do—and cut the blether and the impediments—to match need and resources. There are so many resources available in this country. I believe that one of the problems for every Government is that they have never been able to step back and do a social audit of the advantages and disadvantages in society, and grasp the opportunity. I am calling for us to get behind the idea that there is enormous resource, but every Government always put their hands in the air and say that they cannot do it, or can do only a limited amount about it. Let us end that and solve this problem. Need and resources—put them together.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, this seems a strange, intimate place for us to have these formalities, but I am delighted to add my words to the debate on the Question before us. One of the first things I want to do is use this occasion to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for the extraordinary work that he has done in his own extraordinary way over so many years. If that goes on the record as part of my contribution to the debate, I will be very pleased indeed.
The Library briefing gives all kinds of information; I will not repeat it here because others have read it too and we can see it for ourselves. One of the difficulties is defining exactly what we mean by an empty home—that is, a home with nobody in it. For how long and under what circumstances has it been empty? What factors are involved? They are not just all of a kind.
I did pick up from the briefing some words that the noble Lord, Lord Bird, may be comforted by. It suggests that the Government are
“setting out plans to ‘make it easier for empty homes to be brought back into use and expect[ed] councils to use the powers we’ve already given them to ensure that this happens’”.
It also said that the Government
“noted that local authorities can access funding associated with bringing empty homes back into use”.
As an opening statement, as often happens with this kind of issue, I feel the need to start from the other end of the spectrum, having been homeless. I have never owned a home. I live in a little two-up two-down terraced house provided by the Methodist Ministers’ Housing Society. That is the extent of any expertise I might bring on the question of home ownership.
I remember a key moment in my early life. When I was 10, my mother suffered domestic abuse of an awful kind, which I remember graphically to this day. She had been pursued through the divorce courts and declared the guilty party. She was evicted from the family home with her two small boys, and we were homeless for an indeterminate amount of time—I was too young to have counted or kept a record. Neighbours put the three of us up. Finally, my grandparents, who were caretakers in a factory and lived within its confines—they had two rooms plus a scullery, and they were very proud of their scullery—said, “Well, we’ve got two rooms. You’d better have one of them”. I was brought up in one room in a factory in Burry Port, so I inevitably come at the question of homelessness from my own experience of being homeless.
I spoke in a debate on another issue about the smell of panic. That was about school meals and my mother having to feed her two boys when the school holidays were on. I still associate those words with my memories when I remember, as I do, the smell of panic in my body and my jeans as my mother asked yet another neighbour if they could put us up for the night. These are not things you forget. In 1952, at 10 years of age, I faced stigmatisation, eviction and homelessness. We had been living in one room in a brickyard within a factory. All of that was part of my very being as I grew up, and I cannot for the life of me address this issue without that coming to the surface.
As the noble Lord, Lord Bird, noted, 35 years ago, the Big Issue first came out. It has been 40 years, just now, since I took charge of the west London homelessness mission at Seymour Place, which was open 365 days a year. I slept in Lincoln’s Inn Fields with the homeless. I tried to get as close to them as possible to see the range of issues that end with homelessness. Therefore, talking about how to bring assets into use makes most sense to me when I think of how far away they seemed from me in my day.
I passed the 11-plus and entered a bourgeois world—the bourgeoisie and I were now one. I visited so many of my friends’ homes in my teenage years, but never once could I invite any one of them to mine. Therefore, it seems such a natural thing to ask that a way be found to deal with the problem and crisis of the moment, especially if lazy and unused assets are in question. We must find a way to do that.
The matter has become a little complicated for me, because I have just had the most wonderful holiday in Burry Port, at 8 Silver Terrace, which is just round the corner from where I was brought up. It was the most bustling place; it was our Tiger Bay in those industrial days. But now, the whole of Silver Terrace—20 terraced houses—has been taken over by the Airbnb industry. We were there on that ticket and enjoyed it wonderfully, but it has become such an empty, ghost-like experience, at the hazard of whoever is living in houses there at the time. There was no community—and nor could there be a community—and so I became aware of 20 houses in a row that could be used in a different way, if we found a way to do it.
For all that, it is a human right for people to have a home—a roof over their heads. I have lived long enough in the company of homeless people to know what wretchedness casts them into the street. If it combines with personal failures of their own, it can be absolutely disastrous. So I am very happy to speak in this debate. I had hoped to speak a little lower down the list, so that those who know the facts and figures and the trends and policies could get in first, but here I am, having to be autobiographical right at the outset, to set the tone. For me, it is a matter of still being able to smell the panic that comes from not having a roof over your head and being desperate to do my little bit to make the world a better place where people do not have to endure that degree of degradation and destitution. Expecting the Committee’s kindness and forbearance for such a note to be struck, I now yield my place to others with facts and figures and with tendencies and policies.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green) (CB)
My Lords, despite my suggestion that the noble Lord, Lord Bird, could sit down at the beginning of proceedings and the informality of the Room, we are standing in this Room unless one cannot.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, it is a real pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, with his very moving personal story of the impact that homelessness had on him as a child. It is worth placing on record that 175,000 children today are living in temporary accommodation and going through what the noble Lord described.
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bird, on his choice of subject and share his frustration that so many homes lie empty when there are so many people in housing need. Like the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, I pay tribute to his work on tackling homelessness over 30 or 40 years.
The speech of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, took me back about 30 years to the first time I met him. I visited the new distribution centre for the Big Issue in inner London—I think it was legally occupied then—and made a speech, which probably lasted more than eight minutes, commending his initiative. After that, when I was Housing Minister, I always bought the Big Issue when I met a seller on the streets. In those days, it cost 35p; today, it is £5 and still a bargain. However, I did not always read the editorials because, when I did, I found some searing criticisms of the Government’s housing policies. As such, I tended to give the content a miss.
I will briefly mention three initiatives that I launched over 30 years ago to deal with empty homes. I do so not to seek commendation but to make the point that this issue has been with us a long time and many Ministers have had a go at tackling it. In 1992, I launched the Empty Homes Agency—now called Action on Empty Homes—in response to exactly the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Bird, including the sheer waste of homes lying empty. At that point, it was 700,000. That was driven forward by one Antony Fletcher, who launched me into a series of turf wars with my ministerial colleagues because it was the Department of Health, the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office that were the guilty parties. But we also worked with local authorities—they were in many ways easier to get on with—and we got their numbers of vacancies down by 40,000 over a five-year period. Action on Empty Homes is alive and well, doing valuable work under the leadership of Rebecca Moore and Chris Bailey. That was one initiative.
Another initiative that I launched in 1991 involved flats over shops. At that point, there were 100,000 empty flats over shops. We embarked on a three-year campaign to bring them into use, putting £25 million on the table for local authorities to adapt the schemes, in many cases providing separate entrances to the flats above the shops. Again, that had a big impact.
Many of the solutions either existing or suggested by noble Lords involve an element of compulsion—empty dwelling management orders, CPOs, works in lieu, enforced sale—or they involve public expenditure. Being a Conservative, cautious about increasing public expenditure and about more regulation, the third approach I tried was different: making the owners of empty properties a deal they could not refuse, but with no compulsion and no extra public expenditure. It was called Housing Associations as Managing Agent, or HAMA. The deal was that a local housing association would say to somebody who owned an empty property, who did not want the hassle of renting and did not want the risk of a tenant who did not pay or who might trash the property, “We will manage the property for you. We will find a tenant, we will guarantee the rent, we will return the property to you in the same condition as we found it, and we will remove the tenant at what point you want the property back”. If the property needed some work, and some of them did, the housing association would do the work then recoup the money from the rent. The rent that the owner received was below market rent because it was a fantastic deal, as there was no risk. The lower rent saved money for the housing association or the local authority, which might otherwise have had to pay a market rent for a similar property.
We launched five pilot schemes with housing associations, and I recall going to the first property in Paddington, in conjunction with the Notting Hill Housing Trust. I was then either sacked or promoted, and I lost sight of the scheme. I did some googling yesterday, and it seems to have sunk without any trace at all. The Minister, whose heart I know is in the right place on homelessness and empty properties, might just ask her office to look through the records and see whether this is something that might be resuscitated. If it is, I would like to go to the first launch of it.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, it is great to be back speaking again. It has been some time since I have made a contribution in this House; I have had some challenges. It is wonderful to speak on a topic secured by the noble Lord, Lord Bird. I join the chorus of congratulations on his 35 years tackling homelessness, dealing with successive Governments and being frustrated. We are now at the beginning of a new Government, and the noble Lord is giving huge praise to them and the current Prime Minister—he sees huge opportunities. I am sure the noble Lord is drawn to the fact that this Prime Minister has made it his very first pledge to see the end of rough sleeping. He wants to ensure that everyone is in by Christmas, which is a very noble endeavour.
However, I hear echoes: I have heard this before. In January 2009, when I was council leader in Hammersmith and Fulham, the then Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, summoned me to the Broadway centre in my borough, in Shepherd’s Bush, to launch his campaign to end rough sleeping. At the time, Boris set the ambitious target of ending rough sleeping in London by 2012. Some years later, that pledge has been met by neither him nor successive mayors. When he was Prime Minister, he made the same pledge to end rough sleeping in England. Unfortunately, we did not see the end of rough sleeping by 2024, and we are not going to see it by 2027, by which time Theresa May wanted to end it. These challenges are here for some time, and it is important to come up with concrete policies that address them.
This is a timely debate. I am interested in data and statistics, and the numbers are not good. The number of homeless people, whom we owe a duty to help, has increased from 269,000 in 2019 to a record 330,410. My noble friend Lord Young mentioned the number of children in temporary accommodation. The number of households in temporary accommodation has hiked from 95,000 to 135,000. The number of rough sleepers is now at a record level, at 4,793 in autumn on a single night, up from 2,443 in 2021. The numbers are going up, and it is not for lack of housing support. The amount of money going on direct housing benefit and the housing element of universal credit is ratcheting up all the time. It is now at £39 billion, up from £27 billion in 2018-19.
It is right to set challenges. It is right for the noble Lord, Lord Bird, to set the challenge of bringing need and resource together. It is right for the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, with his personal experience of homelessness and “smelling the panic”, as he put it, to ask how we bring in assets to find a way through this. I am delighted that my noble friend Lord Young went back into the far reaches of history to come up with specific policies that might make a difference. I would like to add a few to the three that he mentioned.
First, if we are to do something about addressing the challenge, we have to recognise the problem that we are dealing with. I would zero in on one number, not many numbers. Let us look at the number of homes that have remained empty for more than six months; I think we can all agree that bringing those homes back into use is the policy challenge. The number remained stable for five years from about 2012 to around 2017-18, but it has now risen from 248,000 in 2022 to 309,000, so it is up by about one-third since those stable years around a decade ago. Let us focus on that.
Why are those homes empty? Let us be clear: they are not all private homes; a number of homes in social housing remain empty for long periods of time, and there can be very good reasons for that. The problem of long-term vacancies is irrespective of tenure. We have only anecdotal data about this, but sometimes it is due to a lack of funding to refurbish and renovate a home. Sometimes people invest in and hold an asset and do not use it, just to see a return on investment—the so-called buy to leave. Other times, family members die and there is no clarity about who the beneficiary is, so a home remains empty.
Whatever the reasons, let us think of specific policies that can help. This is where I turn not to the 1980s and 1990s but to the coalition Government. They initiated the empty homes programme, which involved a direct amount of money, not a general housing grant, which was successful in bringing more empty homes back into use. So the first thing I would call for is a dedicated pot of money, recognising that we are all in favour of long-term empty homes being brought back into use.
Secondly, if we agree that that is a good thing, can we have a progressive, far-reaching and generous Treasury that realises that there is no benefit to it of a long-term empty home? It is not securing any tax revenues. How about thinking about not charging VAT on long-term empty homes for refurbishment? That is the same as a new build. With a new build, no VAT is payable. What about removing VAT specifically for long-term empty homes? There might be homes that are vacant for more than six months. Perhaps we could create a threshold for that. Why not look at stamp duty? You have to pay that if you transfer ownership of empty homes yet, with new builds, no stamp duty is payable. So, specific things can be done.
I ask the Minister if she would consider these three things: can we go back to the idea of a dedicated pot of money to bring long-term empty homes back into use? Can we come up with creative mechanisms that incentivise? A carrot is often better than the stick, as my noble friend Lord Young has said. Let us look at whether there can be a waiving of VAT or stamp duty to bring this resource back into use for social good.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, I am not particularly comfortable talking about my own experiences of homelessness, and I am not going to, but the comments we have heard today prove that it can happen to anybody. I am patron of a brilliant charity in Watford, New Hope, where we know that all too well. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for introducing this debate and for his lifelong persistence in keeping homelessness firmly on the agenda. I, too, start from a position of agreement and entirely share his aspirations behind the call for a national strategy. Like all of us, we also share your frustrations.
At a time when we have over 100,000 households living in temporary accommodation in England and councils are spending extraordinary sums simply managing the consequences of homelessness, it is entirely right that we look at homes standing empty. The costs are eye-watering. I am not usually one for statistics, because I can never remember them, but some figures are too striking to ignore. We are spending £2.29 billion a year on temporary accommodation, while more than 300,000 homes stand empty. Frankly, that is bonkers. We are paying a fortune to manage housing failure, while leaving one of the most obvious solutions gathering dust.
We are also reliably informed that for the public investment needed to deliver one new-build home, we could apparently bring 5.6 empty homes back into use. If any investor were offered that return on their money, they would snap it up without a second thought. Why are we not doing it?
There is also a human cost. For a family living in temporary accommodation, homelessness is not an abstract policy principle or problem. It is a child travelling miles to school or changing schools. It is a parent trying to hold down a job while living out of a suitcase or losing that job. Families are then cut off from the communities and support that they probably used to rely on. There is a neighbourhood cost, too, and you do not hear much about that. Empty properties become eyesores; they attract vandalism, fly tipping and anti-social value, and they certainly undermine pride in your neighbourhood. So, I am very much with the noble Lord, Lord Bird, on the destination, but perhaps I disagree a little about the route—perhaps I am more in tune with the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh.
In my former role as an elected mayor and now here, one of the lessons I have learned is that it always looks much simpler from Westminster than it does at the other end of the telescope. Bringing back empty homes sounds relatively simple and wonderful, and the noble Lord, Lord Bird, made it feel that way. However, in practice, it does not work like that.
When I first entered local government, I assumed an empty home was an empty home, but years later I realised that it came with a back story—complications, all the things the noble Lord has said. Usually on some poor officer’s shelf there is a lever arch file several inches thick, and he is trying to wade through it. Properties can be tied down in probate. Owners cannot be traced. Buildings require extensive repairs and families disagree over inheritance. Councils can spend months and sometimes years untangling legal and practical obstacles before any progress is made, and that is where there is a real will. I am proud to say we took on this agenda and the flats above shops agenda from the noble Lord, Lord Young.
One instance comes to mind that really was a lightbulb moment for me. A housing officer spent nearly a year pursuing action against a long-term empty property. I had had a petition and everything about it. Notice had been served, everything had been followed but just as we got a court date, the owner, having been notified of the court date, returned. The utilities were off, the property was virtually uninhabitable, but he went round the neighbours, persuading them that he was going to come back and do it up. The judge was convinced—we were not—and the council’s action ground to a halt. I still remember the look of absolute disbelief and total disappointment on that officer’s face. It was very demoralising.
That experience taught me a lesson. The problem is not always lack of powers, as I believe was said; it is often the gap between having the powers and being able to use them effectively. We already have a range of powers, and it might be interesting to see what the noble Baroness feels about how we can beef those up. The problem is that they are slow, complex, resource intensive, and require a lot of evidence-gathering, legal processes and definitely officers’ time. Time is important, when councils are facing immense financial pressure, enforcement teams are often smaller than they once were and capacity is restricted, if there is any capacity at all.
At the same time, nobody should pretend that 300,000 empty homes are irrelevant to the housing crisis. We should be careful not to think that one more bit of legislation will do the trick. The noble Lord outlined very practically, I have to say, things we could do. I ask the Minister: first, could we make it easier for councils to identify and contact owners? Far too much time is spent on this. Secondly, could we look at speeding up the probate process, which seems very slow, particularly with homes getting trapped following bereavement? Thirdly, we should perhaps adopt a more use it or lose it approach. I am not advocating confiscation, but where a property has stood empty for years, owners should occupy it, rent it out or sell it, or at least demonstrate that they are making genuine progress towards this. A few nights on a camp bed should not be enough to undo many months of hard enforcement work. But fourthly, we need to help owners who genuinely want to do the right thing. Not every owner is a villain. Some have inherited property they cannot afford to repair, some are elderly, and some are simply overwhelmed by the costs involved. That is why I was interested to read the case studies from the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and to learn about the work being undertaken in Greater Manchester. I think the common focus there has been practical delivery, working across a larger patch, and dedicated officers working alongside lease and repair schemes to bring homes back into use and, at the same time, reduce temporary accommodation. What appeals to me about that approach is that it is encouragement and enforcement. It is carrot and stick. Some owners need a helping hand; some, quite frankly, need a firm boot. Good councils know the difference.
Empty homes are not the whole answer to homelessness, of course not, but they are part of the answer. I support the noble Lord’s intentions wholeheartedly, but my plea to the Minister is: what can be done now to improve the effectiveness of the powers we already have?
Baroness O'Neill of Bexley
My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for raising this very important debate and for his impressive work helping homeless and vulnerable people over 35 years—I must admit that it shocked me when I heard that it was 35 years. The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, shared with us his experiences, and I thank him for that. My father was a bus conductor, and I experienced as a youngster my parents being able to buy their social housing, so I am going to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Bird, on that because, at the end of the day, many people such as them stayed in their properties; they were long-term tenants, they did not go anywhere, so actually the homes were not lost as a result of them buying.
On the doorstep of No. 10, the Prime Minister pledged to end rough sleeping by Christmas. I do not think anyone in this room would disagree with that pledge, and we would all love to see it happen. My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham recalled his interventions to address the issue many years ago, and I want to continue in that vein. I remind people about the previous Government introducing the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which came into force in 2018. That included the duty to prevent homelessness, moving it to the other side, and the duty to relieve homelessness into the statutory housing duty. It saw 740,000 families helped into housing and long-term accommodation between 2018 and 2024. I saw the benefit of that scheme as a council leader.
I know my colleague here, my noble friend Lord Greenhalgh, who it is lovely to have back again, served us well through that period. These things made a big, big difference, but the previous Government’s rough sleeping initiative provided over £2 billion to help rough sleepers find work, access services and secure accommodation. It was a long-term fix; it was not just a revolving door. What is more, they allocated £11 billion to the affordable homes programme from 2021 to 2026, and met the promise to build 1 million new homes over the last Parliament.
However, when the new Prime Minister’s pledge was made, there was no detail on how it would be achieved, how much it would cost or where the money would come from. These are not just technicalities to be ironed out further down the line. Furthermore, it is not the first time that the Prime Minister has made the pledge. He did the same as Mayor of Manchester, where the number of rough sleepers proceeded to rise. He set up the Bed Every Night scheme and then a Housing First scheme. How exactly will the Get Everyone In for Christmas scheme differ from and work better than those two schemes? Is the national plan to end homelessness, published only last December by the Government, still being followed, or has that now been shelved?
In addition, the Prime Minister has called for the biggest council housing programme since the post-war period, then backtracked on his proposal for the Government’s £10 billion 10-year affordable homes programme to be spent entirely on social housing. Can the Minister clarify exactly how many social homes they are planning to build?
During the passage of the Social Housing Act—of course, many of your Lordships in this Room were on that journey—we on these Benches made constructive proposals to enable the building of more social homes and reduce waiting lists. For example, an estimated 148,000 social homes may be fraudulently occupied; that is a big theme that I have and an issue that I feel needs resolving. The Government themselves estimate that 5,800 social homes may be illegally sublet through short-term letting programmes, and we heard some comments earlier about some short-term lettings. Yet in 2024-25, there were just 476 evictions for illegal subletting. When there are people out there on the streets in genuine need, this is unacceptable. Those are British people for whom the welfare state should be there. I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify this Government’s plans, how they will be funded and exactly what the Government will do to achieve the numbers. I look forward to hearing her response.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for opening this debate in his usual powerful way. I echo the tribute that other noble Lords have paid to his fantastic work on homelessness and rough sleeping over many decades. The noble Lord has an enormous record of supporting those who have to sleep on our streets or who are facing homelessness, as the powerful testimony from my noble friend Lord Griffiths demonstrated.
I also welcome back the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh. I remember meetings with him when he was leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Council, and it is great to see him back. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for all her work with the Watford homeless charity—she does marvellous work—and the noble Lord, Lord Young, for his constant contributions to housing.
Today’s debate has shown our shared determination to tackle homelessness and make better use of existing housing stock. There is never any argument about that among any of the political parties. Everyone should have a safe, secure and affordable home, and we should make the best possible use of the homes we already have. But there is still work to do. Our Government inherited a profound homelessness challenge. Rough sleeping and households in temporary accommodation have more than doubled since 2010. As my noble friend Lord Griffiths highlighted, one of the issues causing this is that there are people fleeing domestic abuse. There are many issues, and this Government have had to introduce a raft of legislation to start tackling the causes and finding solutions to the homelessness problem.
The situation is unacceptable, and we need urgent intervention. That is why we have invested more than £4 billion for homelessness and rough sleeping services over the next three years, including funding for our national plan to end homelessness and the rough sleeping programme, which is certainly not in abeyance, I would say in response to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. We are investing £950 million through the local authority housing fund and offering the biggest boost to social housing in a generation through the £39 billion social and affordable homes programme.
Preventing homelessness fundamentally depends on having enough suitable homes. That means building new homes and, of course, making the best possible use of those we already have. The noble Lord, Lord Bird, is right about right to buy, and our recent Social Housing Bill is starting to action the loss of social homes. We have not decided to abandon right to buy, but we have said that when a social home is sold, we must build a replacement. That is why we have decided that 100% of the receipts from those homes should go back to councils, and that new homes that councils build should not be sold for 35 years after they have been built, so that councils have a chance to recoup through the rent the money spent on them.
This brings us to the role of empty homes. Homelessness and empty homes are distinct challenges, and bringing an empty property back into use will not always provide a swift solution to those in immediate need of housing. But where we can bring previously empty properties back into use, it can provide temporary or settled accommodation and help to relieve pressure on local housing markets. The noble Lord, Lord Young, mentioned a number of initiatives from local government and housing associations. These continue to evolve and I see them all the time when I go around the country visiting our local councils.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for bringing this question before the Committee and for highlighting in his speech the frustration felt by everyone in this sector and by everyone who cares about housing that we have empty homes, sometimes long-term empty homes, at the same time as we have people sleeping on our streets and an enormous temporary accommodation bill, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. There are around 303,000 long-term empty homes in England. The Government want to see more of these homes brought back into use.
That brings me to the proposal at the heart of today’s debate: a national empty homes strategy. Let me first be clear that our Government share the objective of the noble Lord, Lord Bird; bringing empty homes back into use can provide homes for people who need them, support regeneration and help to relieve pressure on local housing markets. But recognising the importance of the issue does not necessarily mean that a new national strategy is the right response.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, identified, empty homes arise for many different reasons. Properties vary in their condition, ownership and the cost of bringing them back into use. Local housing pressures and property markets also differ considerably. A single national approach could, therefore, be overly prescriptive and may not reflect what will work in each area. It could create additional reporting and administrative requirements for councils, which would in itself draw resources away from the practical work of identifying empty homes, engaging owners and returning properties to use.
We already have national strategies that address the wider challenges to which empty homes contribute, including our National Plan to End Homelessness. Crucially, councils are already taking action. They are best placed to understand why homes are empty in their areas and to decide which course of action will be most effective. Many councils already have their own empty homes strategies, reflecting local circumstances and priorities; I commend them and hope that those councils that have not yet considered an empty homes strategy will do so.
The central challenge is, therefore, not a lack of recognition or another layer of strategy but making sure that councils can make effective use of the tools available to them and match the right intervention to the right property. For some empty homes, financial incentives, such as the council tax premium, may encourage home owners to bring their property back into use. Where owners are unwilling to act, stronger enforcement powers, such as enforced sale, compulsory purchase or empty dwelling management orders, may be used. As we outlined in the English devolution White Paper, we intend to strengthen the ability of local authorities to take over the management of empty homes. We will provide further detail in due course; I hate that term, but I assure noble Lords that in this case “in due course” means very soon.
Where the objective is to use empty homes to provide accommodation for people who are homeless, funding is often required. Councils can access a range of funding opportunities for this purpose. Every part of the toolkit has a role. By encouraging, enabling or requiring more empty homes to return to occupation, these levers can improve the use of the existing housing stock, increase local supply and help ease wider housing pressures.
I want to make some specific comments about funding because a number of noble Lords—everybody who spoke, actually, but in particular the noble Lords, Lord Griffiths, Lord Young and Lord Greenhalgh—mentioned it. Local authorities and registered providers can access funding, such as through the local authority housing fund or the social and affordable homes programme, to bring empty homes back into use. Both can use SAHP funds to purchase market housing for affordable housing, and bids are assessed on individual merit by Homes England and the GLA.
The £950 million fourth round of the local authority housing fund is for councils in England to increase their supply of better-quality temporary accommodation. It also provides safe and suitable housing for some families, such as those on the Afghan resettlement programme. Councils can partner with registered providers to use LAHF funding to purchase existing properties, including empty homes; that is a big resource.
In some areas, empty homes can help reduce reliance on expensive and unsuitable temporary accommodation by quickly bringing existing housing back into use. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, commented on the nearly £3 billion spent on temporary accommodation. We want to make sure that we return long-term vacant properties—empty homes—to occupation in order to increase the housing supply. This will vary from area to area, of course.
The noble Lords, Lord Bird, Lord Griffiths and Lord Greenhalgh, referred to the rise in the numbers of children in temporary accommodation. It is an absolute scandal; it is unacceptable that those numbers are increasing. I should say, though, that the number of children in the most harmful form of accommodation—bed-and-breakfast accommodation—is decreasing each quarter. Since the peak on 30 June 2024, the number of families in bed-and-breakfast accommodation over six weeks has fallen by 75% to 1,000 households, as of 31 March 2026—but that is 1,000 households too many for me; I want to see that figure down to zero. This encouraging progress follows our £30 million investment over three years in the emergency accommodation reduction programme.
I am running out of time so let me conclude by saying that I am sure that the purpose of this debate is to draw attention to the importance of empty homes. Let me be unequivocal for the noble Lord, Lord Bird: our Government believe that bringing suitable empty properties back into use is an essential piece of this puzzle. However, we believe that the most effective approach is to empower and encourage councils to act locally, supported by appropriate national powers and funding, rather than imposing what might appear to be a one-size-fits-all national strategy. We will respond formally to the policy paper sent by the noble Lord to the department.
In closing, I thank all Members across the Committee for their very important contributions to this important debate.
Sports Clubs: Special Enterprise Zone Status
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Lord Mann (Lab)
My Lords, I had the privilege and honour of serving in the Blair Government under Richard Caborn and Tessa Jowell for five years and being in the private discussions around the Olympic legacy and the Olympic Park. The one thing more than anything that I took from that was that the creation of a sports park was itself an economic generator. I do not think that we have learned the lessons from that for what it could mean now.
I will take just one sport, but this could apply, albeit not in as big a way, to any sport and at any level. The financially and economically most successful part of UK sport is the English Premier League. According to the Forbes list, five of the top clubs in the world, in terms of wealth, are from the English Premier League, as well as 11 of the top 30. On Deloitte’s list of the most successful clubs financially, which is calculated on a different basis but using the same kinds of principles, six of the top 10 in the world are in English Premier League, as well as nine of the top 20 and 15 of the top 30. Interestingly, the clubs on the Forbes list and the Deloitte list do not totally overlap. If we take the Premier League clubs, as well as some clubs that aspire to it and those that are in and out of it, as business entities, we are talking about a huge amount of money within the transfer window. For the past two years, the Premier League won assets of £1.5 billion just on players.
What we have not done is see this in the wider economic sphere, in which the stadia are a key part. I was over at the World Cup, seeing the way the Americans have configured this. I do not think that they have done it very cleverly, and I do not see what the community benefit is of their new stadiums. There is an economic regeneration model, but it is not a sports park model. There is a way we could have a sports park model in this country really effectively and quickly, and, in doing so, leverage in a huge amount of additional capital as investment into the country.
Football is big money. Investors, through various different means, are keen on our football clubs and on investing. Getting money into the sport of football, particularly at the higher levels, has been relatively easy. Indeed, there are many people seeking to buy low-level clubs at the moment, and doing so with investments, often from overseas, that have the same aim. They think they can at least break even or perhaps make a bit of money.
However, we are only getting in sports money. There are sports stadia that want and need to develop for the Premier League all over the country. I will take an example that I know the best: Leeds United Football Club. The investors there are also building a small amount of housing—well, 2,300 units is not that small—on the land in the development area that the club controls. Let us take the economy of the city and its potential and look at what was done, in a very different model, by the investors behind Manchester City and the City of Manchester stadium. It is a different model because the stadium was already there—the club inherited the Commonwealth sports park and then developed economically beyond it—but it is good synergy to compare it with the Olympic Park, which is also a sports park.
There is no sports park proposed in Leeds, as the land is not sufficient, but the land between the city centre and the football stadium, as the major arena, which is going to be developed and increased in capacity by about one-third in the immediate future, is seen as a stadium development, with all the complexities of transport, et cetera, rather than a community development or a city development. A club such as that should have the option of having some kind of special enterprise zone status, in the way we have done elsewhere. I worked on deals in the past with Nissan and Komatsu, and we have done others for major industries elsewhere. Critically, we gave the master planning powers to the investors, in co-operation not least with mayors, to sign off the overall plan but then allow the detail to go through. If we did that, I think far more investment would go into those sports villages economically, in housing and industry, and in community and social benefit. It is the old Section 106 concept, but without building roundabouts.
The ideal place to have community football facilities in the city of Leeds would be under the banner of Leeds United Football Club. That goes for all our big football clubs. We do not do that. The obvious place to have GP facilities would be precisely there, and we could build a health village as part of it. To get people in, in the way the Olympic sports village does, has been proven to work, so we are denying that capital possibility. If we put money into Leeds United, it is into the stadium and is on a restricted basis. That goes for most of our other clubs, even those that have managed deals. We should bear in mind that the clubs in Manchester and Birmingham, with large city councils, employ lots of planners and can afford to get the top planners. The capacity in planning around the rest of the country is far less, even in big cities such as Leeds.
In Nottingham, again, it has taken seven years to get the stadium through. We hope it goes through this month, but then there will be further problems. There is no way of drawing in inward investment to one of the successful parts of our economy and building community assets alongside as part of the deal.
Look at where the world is going and the Leeds example again. Take driverless cars and driverless multi-purpose vehicles. We want to move people to a large stadium, be it for football or concerts—a big venue in a big centre. Outside London, the way to do that in the future will include driverless vehicles moving large numbers of people. That cannot be done by the sports club owners because they do not have the economic powers.
I put it to the Committee that there are many examples, from clubs the size of Leeds in cities the size of Leeds to clubs the size of Port Vale, with huge amounts of development land around the stadium, and much smaller, lower-level clubs such as Worksop Town, where this possibility would drive investment into the country and benefit the community and our sports clubs.
Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Mann, makes a very good case and I hope that what I say is interpreted as supportive of it.
My support for Brighton and Hove Albion is well known, and I declare it as a relevant interest in this debate. In fact, I have often thought that I should see if it is possible to change my title to Lord Bassam of Brighton and Hove Albion—I think it would be a novel thing to do. However, there is a serious point behind all this. It is a delight that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, is replying to this short debate, because I know from our many conversations that she loves football like I do and is a big Stevenage FC fan. She understands the economic benefits that football clubs bring to an area.
The noble Lord, Lord Mann, asks about recognising the economic benefits of sports clubs and linking them to enterprise zones. These, as we know, confer several advantages to the businesses which choose to operate within them, as do freeports and investment zones. Most of the advantages are related to tax and business costs, and it is possible to get 100% business rate relief. Other tax reliefs and easier and simplified planning permissions make a very strong case. Major beneficiaries of enterprise zones are usually SMEs, which make up some 99% of businesses generally and some 60% of the private sector workforce.
There is some debate about the relative merits of enterprise zones, with some observers believing that the estimated number of jobs created by them is lower than was originally anticipated. However, in 2025 the Government claimed freeports and investment zones had attracted over £64 billion in private investment; in 2024 it was thought that some 100,000 jobs had come directly and indirectly from freeports and investment and enterprise zones.
We know that Sport England believes that the combined social and economic benefits of sport and physical activity in England is valued somewhere in the region of £125 billion, and DCMS in 2024 also reported that sport contributed £20.6 billion to the economy and 0.8% of GVA. Taking the Premier League as a case study, it believes that the combined value of the clubs operating in that league was worth nearly £9 billion in 2023-24 and contributed over 100,000 jobs and £4.4 billion in tax benefits. The Government acknowledge this and have stated that they also deliver indirect economic benefits to the local communities that the clubs serve, attracting visitors and bringing increased footfall to the hospitality, retail and transport sectors.
There are downsides, particularly if you are a football fan and have to suffer the benefits of losing and winning—mostly winning in my case, but there we are. The Brighton and Hove Albion case is an interesting one. Had the club lost its league status in the 1990s, the impact on the city would have been, in my view, catastrophic. As it was, we were able to rescue the club with the local authority, and I was happy to play a part in bringing the club back to Brighton from Gillingham and ultimately helping it secure its new home of Falmer.
Rightly, the club has undertaken over the years economic impact studies on its impact on the city’s economy. After its first year in the Premier League, it was calculated to have brought an additional £20 million to the local economy and to have created 1,000 jobs directly and indirectly. That was back in 2018, and I have little doubt that if the study was repeated now, those figures would be bigger, not least because the club itself has invested heavily in training facilities, merchandising and hospitality. Now the figure would probably be closer to £500 million a year. When the club brings back the women’s team from Crawley to our new stadium, which is going to be designed with women in mind and for women alone, I think those figures will grow again.
I am very much in favour of creating centres of sporting excellence and, so far, the city of Brighton and Hove has argued that there is potential to add that second women’s stadium adjacent to the Amex and alongside the successful Brighton Aldridge Cricket Academy on the other side of the stadium to the west. There is an opportunity in my city to create a sports zone along with the Falmer academic corridor. We already have a major sports centre there and the sort of benefits that the noble Lord, Lord Mann, talked about of bringing sports science and physical sciences in alongside of that would be tremendous. It begs the question: would they or could they benefit from being designated as an enterprise or investment zone? Clearly, they could, particularly if the planning process was speeded up—and no doubt, being the good entrepreneur he is, Tony Bloom would very much welcome a reduction in his business rates. I think that football clubs outside the Premier League and the Championship that are essentially SMEs, alongside rugby, rugby league and professional cricket clubs, and perhaps some of the other track and field sports discipline stadia would get considerable benefit too.
I am tempted by the idea of the noble Lord, Lord Mann, and I can see a particular benefit to football clubs and other sporting institutions where the economic margins can be tighter. It would work well, particularly for those clubs in the leagues below the Championship and those in non-league football—the National League North, the National League South and so on. This idea is well worth exploring. The benefits that it would bring to many of our harder-pressed communities would be well worth having and could unlock substantial extra investment. As the noble Lord, Lord Mann, says, there are plenty of entrepreneurs and investors seeking now to invest in the lower league clubs, Wrexham being a particularly good example. That regenerative effect has a multiplier that benefits communities much more widely.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Grand Committee for allowing me to speak in the gap. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Mann, for this disappointingly short but important debate. It is important because it is clear how much sports clubs contribute to civil society, our health and our economy. The noble Lord mentioned the Premier League, and obviously it is my dearest hope that Wrexham will be promoted from the Championship to the Premier League soon. Thanks to the patronage of Ryan and Rob, the whole town has benefited from that regeneration and the money that they and football have brought into the town.
In 2022, DCMS estimated that the sports sector contributed £18.1 billion to the UK economy, supporting 550,000 jobs and outpacing the growth of the national economy. The previous Government invested more than £1.5 billion in grass-roots, school and elite sports, as well as a sports survival package during the Covid-19 pandemic, which provided £600 million of emergency funding to sports clubs and organisations impacted by spectator restrictions. However, this Government have hammered businesses with higher business rates and higher employers’ national insurance. The Sport and Recreation Alliance, which represents more than 100 national governing bodies, has highlighted the damaging impact of business rates across the sector, both for grass-roots groups and larger facilities. The chair of the Culture, Media and Sports Committee in the other place has warned that business rate rises translates to rising participation fees, some by as much as 85%. Do the Government recognise that higher business rates are making sport less accessible to those who cannot afford these increases?
We have consistently warned the Government about the negative impacts that their economic policies are having on the sports sector. During debates on the Sporting Events Bill, we highlighted the calls from stakeholders to address increasing employment costs and higher business rates. What impact has the Employment Rights Act had on sport where work is often seasonal and contracts need to be flexible? Can the Government give an explanation why they gave a 20% cut in business rates to pubs, clubs and live music venues but failed to include sports venues? What assessments were done to analyse the impacts?
The noble Lords, Lord Bassam and Lord Mann, mentioned the enterprise zones. We currently have 48 such zones in England, which allows businesses to benefit from incentives such as business rate discounts. Furthermore, all business rates growth above an agreed baseline are retained by the local authority to be reinvested in the local area. The Chancellor has said the autumn Budget will introduce greater fiscal devolution with greater business rates retention for local councils and strategic authorities. Can the Minister provide any further detail on these plans? In addition, what plans do the Government have for any new and existing enterprise zones more broadly? Businesses benefit from certainty, and those in existing enterprise zones will want to know which benefits will continue or if there will be changes.
We must all be on the side of businesses, including our sports clubs, large and small. I would be interested to hear from the Minister what action the Government are taking to support those clubs and what impact assessments have been taken of their economic policies so far.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, when I first saw the title of this debate, I immediately asked myself, which sports clubs? My reflex was to think of small amateur sports clubs, which are the backbone of many a social structure. They are microstructures for employment and so on. Then, after two seconds I thought that we must be looking at senior sports clubs. Then I remembered those heady and wonderful days in Committee and Report on the Football Governance Bill and said, “This man will definitely be talking about professional football”. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Mann, did—and I should have remembered it was Leeds that had the special place in his heart.
Having done that quick bounce-around, which I am afraid took me all of about two or three minutes, I started thinking about what this actually means. It is undoubtedly true that professional sports clubs have an inherent advantage, in that they have a core of people who feel attracted to them. That is true of virtually all professional sports clubs that attract any form of regular audience—you have your fan base and people who associate with it. In the case of football, and possibly rugby league in the right parts of the north of England, you have guaranteed support. Even rugby union has started to develop that—as a professional game it is not that old, and it has taken time to develop that crowd, but it is there. It applies to cricket as well, to an extent. So they have the potential to do things.
However, my mind kept being drawn back to some of the discussions we had on the football regulation Bill. Our clubs tend to be built in specific areas in inner cities and fans do not like them being moved. Classically, clubs can be walked to in an urban environment, and they do not like moving. Indeed, there are many cases going back many years of people trying to do a deal to get a bit of ground for redevelopment and fans resisting. There are pressures around economic development, but the history of these clubs, which are so important, must be remembered in any project.
Whether or not the enterprise zone is a thing of yesterday shall be confirmed later, but are we going to adapt the idea of using these very good brands for developing business and social impact? Everybody agrees that we should, it is just that the environments are so varied that you probably will not have one model. Devolution—whatever it means—may be an opportunity to go through this. I found myself taking part in discussions about the proposed tourist levy and tying this in. How do you work these things in together? How do they work properly? How do they come together? Can there be exemptions? It is not an easy, one-size-fits-all project because all the people and institutions involved have individual stories to tell.
For instance, what Manchester City did with the Commonwealth Games legacy or what West Ham did with the Olympic stadium should probably be considered for some form of zoning—it does not really matter what you call it. But they are specific examples. Most of the clubs we have do not fit this model, but they are trying to do something with it. I was brought up in Norwich. As I have said, I am not a great football fan, but the club manages to have a very successful hotel stuck at the back of the stands. You can do it.
There is opportunity here, and you can do stuff like this, but it is a case of how you encourage it without overburdening or impinging on the traditions that make something attractive. That is the great challenge to everybody. Let us face it, the primary objective of a football club is to win matches and provide entertainment, or at least try to and give the promise of it. In our system, we have embraced the fact that you can lose your status and be demoted, and that is all part of the drama we have accepted as being intrinsic to most of our sporting traditions, even if it is incredibly inconvenient and certain sporting bodies try to get out of it—I would talk about rugby union, for a start.
If you have all this going on, how you work it all in together is an interesting idea. Where could it work? Does the enterprise zone have to be attached to the actual playing zone? It would be better if it was, but it may well have to be removed. To declare an interest, I remember being taken to Brighton & Hove Football Club last time the Liberal Democrats were at our conference down there a couple of years ago—I am afraid I will not be there this year—and being told that we had to get on a bus to go and see it. There is, I believe, a long story, which I got halfway through before the dessert arrived, about the history of why it ended up out there. It is probably not ideal.
How do you create a model that gets the best out of this? Have the Government given it any thought? That is what we can try to get out of this today. It is about recognising the fact that there will be so many different stories, and that you will have to have a flexible structure—it will not always be football in all places—around how you are going to work through this and encourage it.
In addition, are we going to encourage people to play sport in these structures and environments? That means bringing in smaller clubs without taking away their identity. Maybe it is, shall we say, a legal nicety, with a linkage which means you do not have to sell up your ground—which in many places people have actually bought over the years and is a genuine asset to that group and that community; it may be several miles away but the club takes some benefit from it. These are things which we must always think about. If we do not, we are in danger of causing damage to at least some of them.
This is a complicated situation which has many threads pulling across, and sometimes against each other. How do the Government propose—if indeed they have given any thought to it—to get the economic benefit out of something with the great brand awareness and status of a big sporting club? It is something which everybody has had a look at and had great ideas about but then backed away from. That is my experience, having covered this for several decades now. Nobody quite knows how to do it. If the current Government have some ideas on this, I, for one, would be very interested to hear them.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, I am very pleased to respond to this QSD. I thank my noble friend Lord Mann for securing this debate and opening it—because it gives me an opportunity to talk about football, which is never a bad thing as far as I am concerned, but also because it is an important issue. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions.
My noble friend Lord Mann raises an interesting Question. Sports clubs have not been given special enterprise zone status. Enterprise zones were not designed as a designation for individual organisations; rather, they were place-based interventions, intended to support economic growth and regeneration within defined geographic areas. However, my noble friend’s Question raises a broader and important issue: the contribution that sporting institutions can make to economic growth, regeneration and community development, and I do not think we should ever underestimate that.
According to DCMS’s Sport Satellite Account, published in September 2024, the sports sector contributed an estimated £53.6 billion direct to the UK economy in 2021, equivalent to 2.6% of total UK gross value added. That is a fantastic contribution which demonstrates the significance of the role that sport plays as an economic sector in its own right.
Professional football has a particularly strong relationship with place. Unlike many other major economic sectors, football clubs and stadiums are distributed across cities and towns across the country. Clubs can support employment, local businesses, visitor spending and investment, while stadiums can provide a focal point for wider regeneration. That sits at the heart of what my noble friend Lord Mann is discussing.
That important contribution is here, both for the opportunities it provides and for volunteering, participation and community cohesion. Sport makes that important contribution right across the United Kingdom. I have seen this close at hand in my own area. My noble friend Lord Bassam has already kindly mentioned my own football team. If he made himself Lord Bassam of Brighton and Hove Albion, that would be probably a first in your Lordships’ House. I am lucky enough that my team and my town share the same name, so I can have both designations in my title. My football club makes an enormous contribution to our community, across all ages, from youth football to walking football, and across our community, through social events. It has opened a nursery, and recently an all-weather training facility. During Covid, our club played an absolutely key role at the heart of our community. The first-team players took lunches to our older residents, which brightened people’s days so much. It plays a key role.
The government position today is that sports clubs have an important role to play in supporting growth, but the most effective approach is to integrate sporting assets within broader plans for regeneration and local economic development. The Government are already acting on the opportunity presented by stadium-led regeneration. The Prime Minister has reaffirmed his commitment to a stadium regeneration accelerator, through which the Minister for Growth and the Minister for Sport will work with mayors to help major sports-led projects bring jobs, investment and housing to local areas.
The accelerator is bringing together government departments, local leaders, sporting bodies and investors around viable projects, helping to identify and address barriers to delivery. It is not a capital fund for stadium construction; stadium redevelopment is led and funded by clubs and private investors, while the Government use their convening role to help realise the wider benefits for places. As the noble Lord, Lord Mann, pointed out, Leeds illustrates the scale of the opportunity here. The expansion of Elland Road is being taken forward by Leeds United, while the Government and local and regional partners are working to support the wider regeneration potential around the stadium.
This approach recognises that major sporting assets can act as anchors for regeneration and place-making. It also reflects the Government’s wider local growth agenda, which seeks to empower local leaders and support regeneration that responds to the needs and ambitions of individual places. In some places, mayoral development corporations can complement this work by co-ordinating planning, land assembly and infrastructure delivery across complex regeneration areas. The appropriate model will depend on local circumstances and must support a broader plan for the place, rather than simply the commercial interests of an individual club. That does not mean that football clubs and other stakeholders are not key players with mayors and local councillors in driving that regeneration forward.
Alongside support for regeneration and growth—I know that the noble Lord, Lord Addington, is particularly interested in grass-roots sport—the Government continue to invest in grass-roots sport and community facilities. At least £400 million will be invested in new and upgraded grass-roots sports facilities over the next four years, while Sport England invests more than £250 million each year through Exchequer and National Lottery funding to support participation and to tackle inactivity in communities across the country.
There are also forms of support available to many community sports organisations through existing tax, business rates and funding arrangements. Community amateur sports clubs that meet the relevant eligibility criteria can benefit from charitable rate relief providing 80% relief on their business rates bill, and sports clubs may be eligible for the lower retail, hospitality and leisure multipliers where they are open to visiting members of the public—this probably answers the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield.
I know that the noble Baroness will not expect me to comment specifically on any Budget proposals that are coming forward—she would not have done that when she was a Minister either—but we are already undertaking a lot to support sport, including the new, permanently lower multiplier for eligible retail, hospitality and leisure properties, and the wider support package with a budget of £4.3 million. The small business retail, hospitality and leisure multiplier is set at 38.2p in 2026-27, 5p below the national small business multiplier, and the standard RHL multiplier is set at 43p, 5p below the national standard multiplier. They are also eligible for the other benefits that I spoke about earlier.
I also wish to challenge the issue around NICs again, as I have had to do many times. The NICs rise does not apply to young people. Businesses, whether sport businesses or others, do not need to pay the additional charges on NICs for young people who are employed.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, and the noble Lords, Lord Mann and Lord Addington, referred to the lessons the Government have learned from previous enterprise zones and how these have informed current local growth policies. It is important to say that the experience of enterprise zones has directly informed what we are doing in government around newer special economic zone programmes. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, mentioned freeports and investment zones; they have all been informed by the enterprise zone experience.
Officials identified five factors as critical to success in any such zone: a clear strategic sector focus; a compelling value proposition for investors, including infrastructure and skills; strong local governance; genuine integration with the surrounding local economy; and co-ordinated investment promotion. These were all built into the freeports model. To address displacement directly, freeport tax reliefs apply only to new investment, and business rates relief can be subject to a displacement test—a direct response to the evidence from enterprise zones. It was felt that enterprise zones were often just moving people locally, not bringing in investment from outside. Freeports and investment zones have been brought together as industrial strategy zones now, offering potential investors a more streamlined and coherent package. I hope that answers Members’ questions.
Mayoral development corporations are developing all the time, and they can enable mayors to use significant private sector investment in world-class sports facilities to unlock that wider regeneration potential, including housing, jobs and facilities for local residents and communities, utilising powers such as planning, CPO and infrastructure provision. I probably should not mention Manchester at the moment—I think Manchester United is having a bit of a tough time, so I will not step on any toes there—but there is a big project in Manchester, and the Old Trafford Regeneration Mayoral Development Corporation is acting as a driving force.
The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, referred to planning. The steps we have taken both through the revised NPPF and the Planning and Infrastructure Act—which we recently took through the House to introduce a clearer, rules-based process for planning—will help with some of this regeneration, whether it is for football grounds or any other sports facility.
In closing, I thank everyone in the Committee for their very important contributions to this debate. Our thinking is emerging on this, so I have listened with interest to what all noble Peers have had to say.
Civil Service: Impartiality
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Baroness Falkner of Margravine
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they intend to take to strengthen impartiality in the civil service and the delivery of public services.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)
My Lords, I begin by thanking all noble Lords who are due to speak, as I will not have an opportunity to thank them later; I promise to take careful note of everything that is said today.
There is much evidence of polarisation across the country in recent years. This is not about politics or parties. I refer to something much more pervasive: a sense that the state itself, exemplified by our public services, is not there for all of us and that, irrespective of what a party’s manifesto says or what voters expect, nothing much changes. “They’re all the same”, is the mantra that is used to describe being let down. Here in Parliament, the only sameness that we all want is to do better by the country; that is why we are here.
This may apply to our public servants, too, but it is not evidenced in public trust. The OECD’s most recent public trust survey, which was conducted across more than 30 countries, shows Britain falling behind on the trust table. Only 33% of us have moderate or high trust in government, a term that incorporates all public services. The OECD average of 40% is low, presumably as newer democracies are still rebuilding after authoritarianism. Another domestic survey, Two Britains, describes how divergent public servants’ views are from those of the public—something I have mentioned before.
Currently, we have the largest number of public inquiries under way to establish wrongdoing. Too frequently, they find that public servants did not do their jobs properly, ostensibly because some internal value or culture led them to believe that appearing racist or Islamophobic had to be avoided at all costs, including the cost of justice for victims. The groupthink that distorts professionalism is what I call “progressive conformity”. It is a state where, in order to be accepted in the prevailing culture of an organisation, individuals do not speak their mind, are not sufficiently curious when they should be, or hold back, as they could be denied advancement if they had a different approach to the culture pervading that body.
I saw this at the ECHR, which I chaired, on my appointment in 2020. Without breaching confidentiality, I can say that, within three months, I had to commission impartiality training across the whole organisation. There was enormous pushback on policy agreed by commissioners, and individual commissioners had to show great resilience for the board’s decisions to prevail. My experience is that there is a real and serious problem in delivery, as well as downstream from Parliament and policy-making, when it comes to accountability in our public services.
I welcome the new review of the Civil Service and its much-needed focus on more effective delivery, which will, I hope, prevail. So far, so good. I am hopeful that what previous Prime Ministers have not achieved—a significant shift in capabilities, culture and outcomes—will transpire. We are told that the Cabinet Secretary is to be guided by an advisory group. Has that been established? Is its composition in place? It should be, for accountability and transparency.
Dame Antonia Romeo needs to take a hard look at the Civil Service Code. Its core values of integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality appear worthy but are irrelevant. Let me explain. Integrity requires, inter alia, accurate record-keeping, for accountability and transparency. However, we are told in written exchanges in the Commons that the records relating to the recently announced policy on anti-Muslim hostility, which will apply right across government, have been destroyed. So, evidence for a controversial policy has no audit trail in terms of who was involved and what was said. This smells, and I predict that it will end up in court at some point.
Honesty requires that staff are not influenced by improper pressure from others. Yet we know about the reach of advocacy groups across government. An example is the influence of Stonewall. The charity Sex Matters has produced an entire dossier about EHRC staff improperly allowing Stonewall to influence decisions, without the knowledge of commissioners. This was of course before my time. Government departments themselves apply what is known as Stonewall law instead of equality law, which adds considerable costs to the public purse in settlements. The Cabinet Office does not appear to have changed its policy advice across government after the Supreme Court ruling of 17 months ago to protect single-sex spaces. Can the Minister confirm that its policy is still in breach of the Equality Act? A new code should emphasise that conformity with the law is not an optional extra but mandatory. Will the Minister restate that it applies to local government as well?
Impartiality, as described in these values, is most contradictory. It is overly narrow, in that personal political views are not permissible but it is silent on non-political views. For me, all personal views should be impermissible if they influence decisions. Some of the most contested debates in recent times are not political in an ideological sense. Racism, sex-based rights and speech are not culture wars; they go to the heart of expectations of what is legal, fair and just. Those latter values—fairness and justice—are described as a requirement for staff in the code, yet they are not defined, so we have a situation where individuals are allowed to be the adjudicators of what is fair and just. It follows that some staff networks use their beliefs to advocate for certain causes, whether at home or abroad.
Another problem is the code’s reach. It permits individual departments and related ALBs to adopt their own values alongside it. While the intention is that different service providers translate their own specific functional needs into their corporate ethos, this allows dilution of the overarching duties and ends in legal settlements in departments, without any apparent learning across government.
For me, it is essential that the duty of impartiality should stand above the other three core values. It should be clarified, strengthened and made an overarching requirement across all public services, with stronger sanctions for disregarding it, irrespective of the independence of the NDPBs. Where taxpayer pounds are spent, high standards of behaviour should follow. Our tribunals are replete with cases of members of the police, the NHS and even government departments flouting impartiality and accountability for their actions.
The problem is here and palpable and it needs resolving. This is an opportunity for a proper reset, so that the public can have confidence that they will be treated as they should be—impartially, objectively and, to use a word missing from the code, professionally—so that we can all be sure of getting the service we deserve from our public services.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I am indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, for securing this important debate. For full disclosure, I worked with civil servants as an elected Member of Parliament and special adviser in DExEU between 2016 and 2018 and found the private office I worked with exceptional and exemplary. That said, the notion of a Rolls-Royce Civil Service machine and the era of complacency arising from the exceptionalism of the Northcote-Trevelyan dispensation is long gone.
I will concentrate on two areas, efficiency and effectiveness and political impartiality, and make some suggestions for change. Despite endless reviews and of course a plethora of delivery units, no Government in the past 25 years have got a grip on the Civil Service, including its poor productivity, its ideological groupthink, its paucity of innovation and imagination, its lack of delivery and its incremental, self-interested expansion over the years, rather than any implementation of changes. Add that to the proliferation of quangos and we see a depressing picture of senior civil servants sometimes using the system to obfuscate the clear instructions and democratic mandate of Ministers and Parliament as intercessors and arbitrators.
In the area of recruitment, for instance, we have seen the concept of results-based performance management marginalised. Even the Institute for Government described Civil Service headcount as “unplanned and uncontrolled” in a paper in 2025. The facts speak to a focus away from delivery. Largely front-line administrators have had their numbers reduced by 45% since 2010, while grade 6 and 7 policy roles have increased to 78,000, up 121%. Overall, the Civil Service workforce has risen by 35% in the last 10 years, while the public sector remains chronically unproductive and too large.
Others will no doubt elucidate on the lack of impartiality and the issue of bias. Suffice it to say that the misuse and abuse, in terms of ultra vires actions, of the Civil Service diversity strategy from 2022 and the Civil Service Code; the pernicious influence of campaigning activist groups in the wider public sector; a liberal groupthink on things such as gender ID, Brexit, net zero, patriotism, capitalism and multiculturalism; and woke recruitment practices, do nothing but damage the Civil Service’s reputation for impartiality, esprit de corps, fairness and efficiency.
The leadership of the Civil Service, particularly the Cabinet Secretary, must radically reform with alacrity, with: a proper long-term workforce plan, as the IfG has suggested; minimum terms of service; targets for reducing turnover; a greater focus on performance management; all Civil Service jobs to be advertised externally; an end to routine working from home in mission-critical Civil Service functions; more specialist roles; and more transparency in respect of HR data, including disciplinary issues and absence management. My favourite, I think, is public confirmation hearings in Parliament for senior civil servants in leadership positions.
Without these radical changes, a future Government with a big or even just a small parliamentary majority will use that and Orders in Council to close departments, sack senior civil servants and bring in their own partisan supporters. The Civil Service should seize the opportunity voluntarily to move towards urgent reform before it is compelled so to do.
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, it will not surprise your Lordships that the subject of my noble friend’s debate caught my eye. As my noble friend Lady Falkner has recognised, the new Cabinet Secretary has initiated a review, at the centre of which are the subjects in her Motion—that is, political impartiality and the delivery of public services. Cynics may say, “We’ve seen all that before. We know that those are the ideals, but we haven’t seen much improvement”. However, I really believe that Dame Antonia Romeo means it, and I am very confident that the review that she has initiated will have an effect for good on the Civil Service.
It seems to me that recent history has demonstrated how damaging to effective government are leaks to the media of disharmony at its centre. In this respect, the new Administration has made a better start. The absence of leaks in the period leading up to the formation of the Government was impressive. I think that the review initiated by Dame Antonia has also started well.
However, I want to add this—and I think I am recognising what previous speakers have already said. The concept of an impartial Civil Service, which followed the Northcote-Trevelyan report 150 years ago, is in greater danger than ever before. Times have changed but the ideal should be maintained.
Like any organisation, our Civil Service needs to be continuously improved, particularly as times are changing so quickly, but this is most likely to be achieved in an atmosphere of mutual respect, not one of mutual recrimination. The summary dismissal of a series of the most senior civil servants, the noble Lord, Lord Sedwill, Sir Tom Scholar, Sir Olly Robbins and the noble Lord, Lord Wormald, was unprecedented, and in my view quite wrong. None of these people was incompetent.
In the period ahead, as has been said, the Civil Service faces further threats, not least from the policies of Reform UK, enunciated by its spokesman, Danny Kruger. Where these policies are aimed at improving the efficiency and accountability of the Civil Service, I support them. Where they are aimed at politicisation of the Civil Service, I cannot. I believe that a politically impartial Civil Service is a feature of our government which we would lose at our cost. I therefore hope that Dame Antonia’s review produces a successful outcome, and that the apparently harmonious relationship between political appointees and civil servants, which I see in the new Administration, continues and flourishes.
Baroness Spielman (Con)
My Lords, I recognise the problems that the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, describes, and will illustrate with some examples. I led Ofsted, a non-ministerial department with some 2,000 staff, for seven years until 2023. I was a Crown appointee and my staff were all civil servants. We had statutory obligations and were bound by the frameworks for all government departments, including the public sector equality duty and Civil Service HR policies, and I saw at first hand that the principle of Civil Service impartiality has, very sadly, been eroded over the years and urgently needs restoration.
Much of the decay has been driven by the worthiest impulses, especially the impulse to do all we can for those with any kind of disadvantage. Yet, in practice, this means that activism has been embedded at many levels, in many ways. As chief inspector, I was acutely aware that I did not have democratic legitimacy and must always act within the spirit as well as the letter of my powers. Early in my tenure, I ordered a review of our framework equality plan and was relieved to find just a couple of small areas of overreach, which were immediately adjusted, but some staff were visibly puzzled. In their eyes, it was virtuous to overreach if it felt morally right. I had to do a lot of explaining, but I will say that my staff respected my lead.
A little while later, I became aware of activist pressure in relation to various protected characteristics. Some came from external lobby groups, some from our own staff networks and some from within government. For example, our London landlord, the Ministry of Justice, wanted to make our lavatories mixed-sex. After polling staff anonymously and finding strong opposition, I refused, but I realised that MoJ officials probably wanted to score Stonewall diversity index points, and I do not think that that push came from Ministers. I then ordered a full review of our HR policies to identify any overreach, and the main culprit was a long-standing gender identity policy that was pure self-ID. It was little used, but it clearly took a position that had been twice rejected by Parliament. I challenged this and was told that it was good practice to go beyond the law, but I did not accept this and withdrew the policy, which I had the authority to do. Again, I had to explain my view. This was not about my views about trans-identifying individuals, but about the principle that the Civil Service sits downstream of Parliament and should never make policies that may appeal to the senior Civil Service and staff but which sit in contradiction to decisions of the legislature.
I must make clear that this was not about Ofsted. The Civil Service, at its centre, was a powerful driving force for this kind of thinking. For example, the current Civil Service diversity strategy says:
“We will use positive action where needed in relation to training, support, recruitment and promotion to ensure the broadest range of diversity is achieved”.
In other words, there is a strong push to produce equality of outcomes, not just of opportunity, which goes beyond the current legal framework. That pressure has consequences. I know of a Permanent Secretary who told their senior team that they should prefer an appointable candidate from an ethnic minority, even if the candidate was not the highest performing. More generally, the concept of “bringing your whole self to work” has encouraged both senior and junior officials to believe that they are entitled to sway policy or its implementation to fit their personal political preferences. This is critical, because it blinds them to their loss of impartiality. All this is corrosive and must end. The Cabinet Secretary is famously grippy, and she has some gripping to do here.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (CB)
My Lords, I welcome today’s debate and register my interest as the First Civil Service Commissioner. The commission is an independent statutory body and plays a key role in safeguarding the impartiality of our Civil Service. The Civil Service’s professional standards are underpinned by the Civil Service Code’s four core values: honesty, integrity, objectivity and impartiality. Impartiality is fundamental; it means to be ready to serve the Government of the day, whatever their colour.
I am supported by commissioners who have experience of private, public and charitable sectors. We serve five-year, non-renewable terms of office. The commission provides oversight and assurance across the entire life cycle of a civil servant’s career. We ensure recruitment is open and fair, and that decisions are based on merit, so if a Permanent Secretary—as the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, mentioned—instructs a panel to not appoint on merit, they should let us know because that should not happen. We act as the final appellate body for complaints raised under the Civil Service Code and, at exit, we offer independent advice to departing senior officials and special advisers under the Business Appointment Rules. Our purpose and mandate is to safeguard an impartial Civil Service.
I thank the House of Lords Library for its briefing. The briefing describes how the commission handled a fundamental breach in the recruitment principles in one department and the subsequent steps we took to ensure it does not happen again.
The commission is also the appellate body for Civil Service complaints. Our expectation is for departments to have adequate processes in place and for them to resolve the complaints internally. We have consulted all Permanent Secretaries, including those of Scotland and Wales, to understand how they consider complaints and to give us details on their numbers and outcomes. We value the question in the annual people survey, because it enables us to check awareness of the code and of mechanisms to raise any concerns under it.
I am consistently impressed by civil servants’ professionalism and ability to deliver policy with total impartiality. But impartiality is not having no opinions; it is about the discipline of setting them aside. This is not an unusual request and it applies to many professions. If a civil servant’s disagreement with any aspect of government policy or action is profound, the ultimate recourse is to resign from the Civil Service. This is an honourable course, but it is a profession that can and should insist on professional standards.
We see ourselves as constitutional guardians of the Civil Service Code’s application. The code already extends in some areas beyond a civil servant’s time in post, in the form of the Business Appointment Rules, which are designed to protect against improper influence and information use in post-government employment. We will soon be publishing a review of the Cabinet Office’s Business Appointment Rules as they apply to Civil Service leavers on their subsequent appointment.
As an independent constitutional guardian, we operate at arm’s length. We know that the Government value the independence of the commission and have given us increased responsibilities. We will play an active and supportive role in any steps the Government intend to take to strengthen impartiality in the service and delivery of public services.
Baroness Prashar (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, for securing this short but important and timely debate.
As we have heard, impartiality is the bedrock of our Civil Service. We have also heard that it is fraying, and that has been well illustrated. My experience as the former First Civil Service Commissioner from 2000-05 convinced me that, while the Civil Service needs to constantly change and evolve to meet the challenges and changes in society, its values of honesty, objectivity, impartiality and integrity, allied with flexibility, sensitivity and commitment, remain crucially important, perhaps even more so at a time of enormous upheaval. They must remain the guiding principles.
These principles not only root the Civil Service but engender trust, a word more important than ever before when change runs deep in the environment of the Civil Service and in the very definition of public service. Development of policy, delivery of services and explanation of policies are taking place against low levels of trust in government, politicians and institutions, and in a less cohesive society. Integrity of the process is therefore crucial. It is for this reason that these values are essential and not an impediment.
The Civil Service, while by no means perfect, has come under a great deal of criticism and scrutiny. It is an organisation and institution under strain. Reforms, particularly since the 1980s, have been driven in response to external pressures, perceived dilemmas and political drivers, rather than any continuous systematic assessment of the organisation. The Civil Service is a national asset. It is held in trust by the Government of the day for the next Administration. Capability, capacity and the constitutional position of the Civil Service should not become just the domain of the Government of the day; it is a matter of national interest.
Over the past four decades, a view has developed that the values of the Civil Service are a hindrance to reform. This is a misconceived view. Reform of the Civil Service and these values are not incompatible. Understood and applied properly, they enable change and do not hinder it. These concerns led to the publication in 1995 of the Civil Service Code, which has been updated several times and will, I understand, be updated against the background of the review that has been initiated. This update should not be a paper exercise but an opportunity to clarify, reaffirm, reinforce and reassert these values, and explain what they mean in practice. It should be an opportunity to convey to the politicians, civil servants and public servants their utility and how they assist in restoring the self-worth and identity of the Civil Service as a professional and impartial service.
I hope the Minister is aware of the Governance Project report, which was published in 2024. I should declare an interest as a member. The report recommended that the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 should be amended to make explicit that civil servants have a legal obligation to act in compliance with the responsibilities under the code and that Ministers cannot direct them to act in opposition to the code. This recommendation should be acted upon, to ensure that we do not have the sort of issues that have been raised in the debate today.
Lord Young of Acton (Con)
I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, for giving us an opportunity to discuss this important issue. I declare my interest as the director of the Free Speech Union. In the past six years, in its caseload, the Free Speech Union has taken on 167 cases in which a Civil Service body—a Whitehall department—is the recorded other party. Those are cases where employees have been put through disciplinary processes, and in some cases dismissed. The largest single category in that caseload is female employees who ran afoul of institutional orthodoxy on issues such as access to single-sex spaces.
To bring home what kind of case the Free Speech Union typically deals with, I thought I would tell the Grand Committee about one particular case: namely, that of Anna Thomas, a mother of one who was employed at the time, in 2020, by the DWP. She was employed as a coach at a jobcentre in Portsmouth. She was alarmed when she was directed to an anti-racism hub on the department’s intranet which encouraged civil servants to treat racism like Covid-19 and to
“assume that you have it”.
This was in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minnesota. The hub was prefaced with a statement by Peter Schofield, then the DWP’s Permanent Secretary, telling staff they were
“responsible for being actively anti-racist”,
and asking them to
“make the DWP an anti-racist organisation”.
I am sure that noble Lords are familiar with the fact that anti-racism is a central concept in critical race theory. In case they are in any doubt that the DWP was embracing critical race theory, learning resources on this hub included a diagram from the American activist Ibram X Kendi, one of the authors of critical race theory, and that diagram asked staff to
“admit that you deny racism is a problem”
and to
“promote and advocate for policies and leaders that are anti-racist”.
Staff were also directed to the work of Robin DiAngelo—again, this in a hub that they were referred to by the Permanent Secretary—who, as noble Lords may know, is a critical race theorist who claims that white people, including children, are “inherently racist”.
Anna Thomas raised the alarm. In the context of a whistleblower, she discussed this with various senior members of the department. Initially, her complaint was taken seriously and upheld. The DWP’s own behavioural science expert advised that the anti-racism hub was political, and Mr Schofield should not have gone down the road of anti-racism. Nevertheless, the culture endured and Anna Thomas’s fears about political bias within the DWP materialised when she was asked to promote an event in Portsmouth for people interested in a career in the Metropolitan Police, and straight white men were explicitly excluded from participating in this particular recruitment opportunity—an example of what my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough refers to as a woke recruitment practice.
In due course, Anna Thomas was placed under investigation because she would not keep quiet about these concerns, and in November 2021 she was dismissed for gross misconduct. The Free Speech Union took on her case; we brought a case in the employment tribunal against the department claiming that she was the victim of unfair dismissal, belief discrimination, victimisation as a whistleblower and harassment. I am pleased to say that after three preliminary hearings, the DWP settled and paid Ms Thomas £100,000—an example of the kind of expense that the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, was talking about.
If the Minister would like to convey to Antonia Romeo that I am certainly available to give evidence to her inquiry into impartiality, among other things, in the Civil Service, I would be very happy to share some of our data with her.
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho (CB)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, for this important debate.
I will come at impartiality from a slightly different angle, because technology is changing what we mean by an impartial state. There used to be a reasonably clear idea of where policy stopped and delivery began. Ministers made decisions; the Civil Service implemented them. Technology is making that distinction much less clear, because the design of a digital system is itself a policy choice.
For example, let us quickly take fraud. When you build a system to identify suspicious claims, someone has to decide what looks suspicious. If technology helps determine access to a public service, somebody decides what information is important, who is important and who is not. Those choices may be buried inside software but they can have a profound effect on an individual life.
One of the lessons we learned when we were building GOV.UK was that you could not just take an existing process and put it online. You had to rethink services around the user. I would argue that services have improved enormously, but technology and policy are now more closely linked than ever. AI takes this much further. Systems can assess information and recommend what happens next. The Government should use these tools—our public services desperately need better technology—but we need to be alert to what is happening.
A biased decision no longer requires a biased person. The problem might sit in the data or in software bought from a supplier. It might be an assumption that nobody has noticed. It might be built into a system, and it can be repeated across thousands of cases. Impartiality in a world of increasing digitisation and transformation cannot be left just to the technologists.
More than 20,000 civil servants took part in the Government’s generative AI trial last year, and there is now training aimed specifically at the senior Civil Service. These are good initiatives. The harder question is whether understanding AI becomes part of the ordinary professional competence of being a civil servant and how the parallel skills of scrutiny and critical thinking are developed. You do not need to be able to build a model; you need to know how and when to question one. How will working in an increasingly AI-first world become part of the everyday expectations of civil servants rather than a training course that people complete?
Finally, I turn to the Government Digital Service. Last month, when DSIT was abolished, GDS was moved into an expanded DCMS. Like many Members of this House, I believe that that is completely the wrong home for it and that the decision has consequences for the capacity of the Civil Service to act impartially across government. GDS is not simply an IT function; it builds the services through which millions of people experience the state. It is the front end of policy. The choices made in designing those services—such as who is eligible, what evidence is required, how decisions are explained and when a person can reach a human—all determine how policy works in practice. These questions are not merely technical. In my opinion, the only home that makes sense is the Cabinet Office. When digital systems shape how citizens experience the state, those who build them must be near the centre of power.
Lord Pack (LD)
My Lords, when the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, talked earlier about protecting people from improper pressures, I thought that there is a different aspect to that from that which we have heard in the many varied speeches so far, which it would be helpful to explore a bit: the importance of ethical standards and processes to protect impartiality, for Ministers and lobbyists.
Good Ministers, just like good leaders in any sort of organisation, inspire and lead, and they see challenging advice and robust critique of their ideas as a strength, or even as being essential to them to do their best. Weak leaders or poor Ministers can get annoyed by it and can feel threatened when not surrounded by compliant yes-people. Sadly, we have had a series of scandals, particularly those involving allegations of bullying, which highlight the problems of the shortcomings in the Ministerial Code as an effective safeguard both for impartiality and, frankly, for treating people decently and well.
The Ministerial Code is a slightly unusual document in that it is not a law; it is not even in that more nebulous but important category of a constitutional convention. As the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee of the House of Commons described it earlier this year, it is very much “the Prime Minister’s document”. At its heart, it is very dependent on the Prime Minister to decide what it says, when to change it and how to apply it. Indeed, as that House of Commons committee complained earlier this year, albeit when talking about it in a slightly different respect, it seems to be possible for people to break the code, sometimes with impunity. That was not a partisan but a cross-party conclusion.
It reminds us of the importance of having stronger foundations for the Ministerial Code in future, and stronger enforcement, because protecting the Civil Service’s impartiality is in part about protecting civil servants from improper behaviour by Ministers. There is a similar risk with lobbying. The examples I have given so far have highlighted the risk of civil servants perhaps deviating from impartiality because of the threat of the stick. With lobbyists, it is perhaps more a case of the carrot—the lure away from impartiality.
As we heard in the debates earlier this year on the Private Member’s Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on the regulation of lobbying, we often talk about the significant loopholes in the current protections in the context of Ministers and lobbyists, but the interaction between lobbyists and civil servants can be just as important as an area of risk. The Ethics and Integrity Commission’s report earlier this year set out a very good road map for improving the regulation of lobbying.
I say this as somebody who, in a previous role, was for a period covered by the existing lobbying regulations. I have to say that they were very light-touch. At the time, I quite enjoyed the fact that I did not have huge amounts of paperwork to fill in or hugely detailed records that needed keeping. Unfortunately, however, we have seen from practical examples the risks that come from that very light-touch approach and from the exclusion of in-house lobbyists and lobbying firms that are not VAT-registered. If there is an improper conversation between a lobbyist and a civil servant, the questions of whether the lobbyist is in-house or out-house, or whether the lobbyist firm pays VAT, are not really germane to whether there is something in that conversation that is a risk from which we need protection.
I hope that, in due course, we will hear from the Minister what steps the Government are taking to continue the initial progress they have made—to be fair—in improving the regulation of lobbying and strengthening the Ministerial Code.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, I too begin by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, on securing this important debate and on her informative, impressive speech.
This was the view of the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House—I was a member of it at the time—in its 2023 report on Permanent Secretaries:
“The impartiality and perceived impartiality of the civil service is a central and uncontested tenet of our constitution”.
The two-part principle remains uncontested. The Civil Service cannot afford merely to act impartially: it must avoid any perception that it is falling short of that expectation.
In 2014, my noble friend Lord Maude of Horsham and the late Lord Heywood of Whitehall jointly wrote:
“The Civil Service is sometimes said to be ‘independent’ or ‘neutral’. It is neither. It is wholeheartedly committed to serving the elected government of the day in devising and implementing its programme. What is internationally unusual and often envied is the service’s ability to preserve its impartiality so that it can transfer seamlessly its expertise, commitment and loyalty to a government of a different political make-up tomorrow”.
That paragraph remains as true today, but there were and are conditions to preserve that ability. Civil servants must act in a way to earn and retain the confidence of Ministers, and, once a Minister has made a decision, they must make that decision a reality. They must also sustain the skills and capability of the Civil Service to serve future Governments equally well. Time and resources are scarce so, if there is a conflict between ministerial priorities and the organisation’s professional capability, the accounting officer should seek a ministerial direction. Civil servants should not pursue their own politically partial objectives at the expense of doing their job.
The Civil Service Code has correctly anticipated the ever-present risk in any permanent bureaucracy. It states that civil servants must not
“deceive or knowingly mislead ministers, Parliament or others”
or
“frustrate the implementation of policies once decisions are taken by declining to take, or abstaining from, action which flows from those decisions”.
If there were no risk of either behaviour occurring, there would be no need to prohibit them, but there they are on the public record. These are the true risks to Civil Service impartiality: misleading those whom officials are appointed to serve and frustrating decisions once they have been taken. Too often, we have seen the will of Ministers being frustrated rather than facilitated by their departments. When Ministers pull levers, all too often the machinery of government fails to respond. The Civil Service must police these risks properly. It must not reward, through promotion or appointment to key positions, those who exemplify the very behaviours that its own code prohibits.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased to answer this Question for Short Debate on what steps the Government intend to take to strengthen impartiality in the Civil Service and the delivery of public services. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, and noble Lords for their contributions to what has been an interesting debate, and I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, that it is a timely one.
Before I move on, I draw noble Lords’ attention to my ministerial declaration of interests. I also ask noble Lords to note that my husband is a serving civil servant in the Government Digital Service. Like the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, I have nothing but praise for the private offices with which I have worked and which have supported me since 2024; it is probably universal across Ministers that we rely heavily on our private offices to help us navigate the Civil Service.
The key aspect here is how the impartiality of the Civil Service is a vital component of our constitution and of how we run government business on behalf of the public. As the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, stressed, the basis of our politically impartial, permanent Civil Service goes all the way back to the Northcote-Trevelyan report of 1854, which urged a move away from recruitment based on patronage and set out the standards that laid the foundation for the modern Civil Service that we have today.
The Armstrong memorandum of 1985 set out:
“It is the duty of civil servants to serve their Ministers with integrity and to the best of their ability”
and said that
“the British civil service is a non-political and disciplined career service”.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, highlighted, this was codified in 1996 with the creation of the Civil Service Code—a vital document that sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants to this day. The code’s importance is such that it is now based in statute, as set out in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. It is a contractual obligation for civil servants to abide by the code.
The code sets out four key values that should be demonstrated, which underpin those standards. Those core values are integrity, honesty, objectivity and, of course, impartiality, including political impartiality. These values largely stem from the Nolan principles, established in 1995, which civil servants and all public office holders are expected to adhere to, meaning that civil servants are also expected to demonstrate selflessness, accountability, openness and leadership. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, that these values are still relevant and appropriate, and I look forward to reading the report she referenced, which is on my pile of reading but which I have not read yet.
Impartiality, as was noted by a number of noble Lords, is fundamental to the code. In order to serve effectively, it is essential that civil servants do so impartially. Impartiality means faithfully and fairly serving the public as a whole rather than any particular group or interest. It also means loyally serving the elected Government of the day—a point referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn—whatever its political persuasion and no matter what their political beliefs may be. That essential requirement ensures that the Civil Service can gain and retain the respect of Ministers, Parliament and the public and maintain the highest possible standards in everything it does. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, in how she described what this means in practice and how impartiality applies. I also agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, that both impartiality and the perception of impartiality are key in this regard.
The noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, asked about civil servants seeking to influence based on identity. It is civil servants’ duty to provide honest, objective advice to Ministers which presents options and takes account of expert advice. Good advice should be informed by understanding and awareness. However, advice should never be determined by a civil servant’s own personal or political views. Civil servants must also speak up and take action if someone is acting contrary to the code.
The Government are keenly aware of the need to protect this important constitutional principle and the importance of the Ministerial Code. The Ministerial Code includes a requirement that Ministers must uphold the political impartiality of the Civil Service and not ask civil servants to act in any way which would conflict with the Civil Service Code.
I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Pack, turning the debate on its head, in a way, and looking at the behaviour of Ministers but also the issue of lobbying reform. It is right that we look at lobbying, and the Government are considering the recommendations of the EIC following its review, so I look forward to reporting back on that to your Lordships’ House. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Pack, that I will be very happy, when we have our long overdue meeting, to pick that up as well.
In turn, civil servants are required by their code to act in a way which deserves and retains the confidence of Ministers. It is a clear and established part of our democratic system that it is for Ministers to decide government policy, operating within the legal frameworks which apply. Ministers are accountable to Parliament, and civil servants are accountable to Ministers.
On the point from the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, on the enforceability of the Civil Service Code, as part of the contractual relationship between civil servants and their employer, civil servants are obliged to abide by the Civil Service Code, including its requirements on impartiality. Departments take these matters seriously, and breaching the code can result in a range of disciplinary actions being taken, including dismissal in severe cases.
As noble Lords are aware and as has been mentioned, the Cabinet Secretary set out her intention to refresh the Civil Service Code to ensure that it is up-to-date, well understood and adhered to across the Civil Service, including on the importance of impartiality. She spoke about this in her oral evidence to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee on 15 June. This work is ongoing, and the Government will communicate further on the subject in due course.
The issues of diversity and groupthink were raised by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Falkner and Lady Spielman. The latter suggested that bringing your whole self to work is a potential issue, as it could, in her view, blind civil servants to impartiality. I strongly feel that a diverse Civil Service ensures that we truly reflect the communities we serve; in my view, this leads to better policies and stronger public outcomes. I feel that, rather than contributing to groupthink, diversity can actually help us avoid it, but noble Lords may wish to debate that matter with me in future.
I want briefly to talk about the subject of the future of the Civil Service in the UK. We must ensure that the Civil Service is equipped and supported to meet the challenges of the future. This Government are committed to that, including safeguarding its impartiality and core values so that we can enhance trust and confidence in the institutions of government. The Cabinet statement Rewiring the State set out that devolution by default will lead to good growth in every postcode and a more strategic Civil Service that is focused on the challenges that can best be dealt with at a national level.
The review into the organisation, performance and transformation of the permanent Civil Service, led by the Cabinet Secretary, will define a clear vision for the Civil Service as a world-class organisation, delivering a once-in-a-generation transformation. Like the noble Lord, Lord Butler, I and the Government agree that she means it. The review will consider, among other things: the size, shape and structure of the Civil Service; the impact of artificial intelligence and technology on the service, which was highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox; our ability to attract and retain the best talent from across the country; and the statutory footing of the service. The review will draw on a wide range of expert advisers from academia, the private and public sectors, civil society and international spheres.
The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, made a specific point about the review’s expert advisory panel. It will be constituted in due course to inform the review. A report will be published before summer next year, and any decisions will be for the Prime Minister to make.
On the offer from the noble Lord, Lord Young, to provide evidence to Antonia Romeo, the review welcomes input from across Parliament, so I can certainly take that offer back to the Cabinet Secretary.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)
May I ask for some clarification before the Minister concludes? I fear that she is coming to a conclusion, and I do not want to stop her mid-speech. The most significant question I asked was: does the Minister believe that teams across the Civil Service are now compliant with the clarification of the Supreme Court on single-sex spaces on 16 April 2017? Can she either say that they are compliant or, if they are not, write to me and place a letter in the Library explaining when she expects them to be?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I thought I had an insert on that. I have been going a bit fast because I am running out of time; if I have skipped over an insert, I apologise. I would be happy to write to the noble Baroness on that point. I am now over time, but we have a short amount of time—
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
I should have asked this earlier, but, because the Minister has not mentioned productivity, can she say whether the Cabinet Secretary review will look specifically at Civil Service and wider public sector productivity?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
We are generally interested in public sector productivity, but I would be happy to write to the noble Lord.
Let me return to where I was heading at that point in my speech: the work of the Cabinet Secretary in not just waiting for the review but trying to get on with improvements to the Civil Service as we move forward. With their indulgence, I remind noble Lords that, earlier this year, the Cabinet Secretary launched the Future Civil Service programme, which is a collective movement to build a world-class Civil Service that better delivers for Ministers and, more importantly, for the public. It will be more productive—to answer the question from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson—and high-performing, and it will harness technology and AI to be fit for the future. This amounts to the most fundamental reset of the state and how it works in decades, and will focus on how the Government are organised and simplified to promote greater productivity, efficiency and accountability. The Future Civil Service programme is delivering a broad range of interventions, owned by Permanent Secretaries, to drive forward the change to build a world-class organisation that delivers for the public.
In conclusion, the Government will continue to protect the impartiality of the Civil Service. It is a central tenet of our constitution—one that we believe has stood the test of time. We will continue with our work to rewire the state, ensuring the effective delivery of public services.
Healthcare Development: International Partnerships
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Lord Crisp
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that their international partnerships with organisations in African and Asian countries support the development of healthcare in those countries.
Lord Crisp (CB)
My Lords, first, I thank noble Lords for participating in this last sitting before our Recess. I declare an interest as patron of Global Health Partnerships, GHP, formerly known as THET, which is what people probably know it as. GHP has received some funding from the FCDO over several years to support these sorts of partnerships; I will refer to one in Myanmar that it currently contributes towards.
I understand that my noble friend Lady Prashar will refer to a recent important report from Global Health Partnerships on the recruitment of health workers from low and middle-income countries. I am delighted to know that the noble Lord, Lord Oates, and others will be referring to some of the many different sorts of partnerships, and I believe that the right reverend Prelate will be talking about his personal experience in this area.
My purpose in this debate is to think a bit more strategically about this issue. I want to ask the Minister about strategy and encourage him and the department to think about how health can contribute more extensively to development and foreign policy—this is why I wanted an FCDO Minister to respond, rather than a Health Minister.
The context is that the UK is one of the great leaders in health globally, second only to the USA, for example, on medical research. The UK is extremely prominent in professional education, with many innovators in biomedicine and medtech, and great not-for-profits such as Global Health Partnerships and, of course, the much bigger Wellcome Trust. I and others will be publishing a report in the next year about the global footprint of the UK in health.
The UK has extraordinary reach in health, and this is the fundamental underpinning point. In our last report, 10 years ago, it was shown that 63% of peer-reviewed medical journals where there was a British author had a foreign second or third author. There is extraordinary partnership. Even as we sit here, there will be emails whizzing back and forth between researchers all over the world. We have extraordinary reach, partly because of the Commonwealth. I am sure this is true of other sciences, but I am talking about health.
Let me get to my conclusion at the beginning, just to make sure that I do not get carried away by talking about the examples. The sort of things that I am talking about here cover the ordinary overseas development agenda, if I can put it like that, which relates to the benefits of supporting low and middle-income countries with their health issues. It deals with the ODA goals and the global goals. The UK also has great influence in global health policy. There is a whole set of development agenda.
Another set of issues here involves how that development is delivered, and it is something that I will come back to in the case of Myanmar. It is about the ability not to go Government to Government but to use civil institutional links that exist to provide support and ultimately help to rebuild countries and rebuild peace.
The third area is about UK values, and our health professionals carry those with us. That is not just about soft power. People talk quite softly about soft power, but this is about some real leverage that comes with this. Of course, we need all the friends we can get at the moment in this dangerous world. The fourth area is the commercial benefits of partnerships. I forget what it is called now, because it keeps changing, but NHS Global, I think it might be called these days, sponsors partnerships between commercial organisations and our brilliant innovators.
Finally, there is the whole area of support for the NHS. It can be extraordinarily valuable to work in overseas countries and then to come back to the UK with different ideas, to see one’s own health service in different ways and to develop. I know that is outside the FCDO remit, but it is part of what I am talking about here.
I invite the Minister to tell us where he thinks health fits into the wider partnership strategy of the department, and whether he thinks, as I do, that it could play a much more strategic role in foreign policy, whether we could leverage health much more effectively in foreign and development policy, and whether it would be useful for him or colleagues to meet a few people from the sector—I would gladly bring them together to discuss how the health sector could provide more leverage and support.
In the last three minutes, I turn to two examples, including one that I know I have circulated to noble Lords about the awful situation in Myanmar, five years on now. Health workers were among the leaders of the original civil disobedience movement. They were targeted and they retreated to the countryside, and they needed new skills—people had to learn how to deal with bombs and bomb fragments, and nurses had to deal with bullet holes and such like, and of course health deteriorated. There has been an extraordinary response, which has come, in part, from Burmese/Myanmar health professionals in this country. It was very good that the Government allowed them to work here professionally—some of them were here already but some subsequently came. I think that is tremendous.
It is also good that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has supported the approach here of dozens of Myanmar and UK health professionals providing training, with something like 290,000 consultations, training, mentorship and education activities. Over 1,600 health workers have had training or support in the past two years. A new nursing school has opened, sort of behind the lines, because we have moved on from purely a coup to a civil war—it is now a really difficult situation. There are monthly medical training webinars, with 16 groups of educators from 12 ethnic health groups and four ethnic medical schools receiving technical support. It is a tremendous voluntary effort, with some support for its underpinning from the FCDO. It is a one-off example—I hope it is a one-off example—but it shows how important this is. It is clearly important to the UK, not least because of the great history and relationship between our two countries but because the UK is the penholder for Myanmar at the UN.
My second quick example concerns a group of anaesthetists. In 2012, I got some funding from DfID, as it was in those days, to support a training programme for anaesthetists in Zambia. Zambia had no way of training anaesthetists, who had to go abroad to be trained and did not necessarily come back—they stayed in South Africa or wherever. We set up a programme in 2012 which is still going, under its own steam now and its own funding, where anaesthetists from this country go out to that country for short or longer periods. These are often anaesthetists in training, and they work with the local anaesthetists, train them and, of course, gain so much themselves.
In conclusion, I invite the Minister to tell me how he thinks health fits into the wider partnership and whether he believes, as I do, that we could leverage it more effectively in foreign and development policy.
The Lord Bishop of Leicester
I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for securing this debate, and it is an honour to follow him. I thank him sincerely for his sustained work over a number of decades to show how medical partnerships with low-income and middle-income countries bring benefits both to those countries and to our own NHS.
This is something very dear to my own heart. My wife is a paediatrician and, together, we worked for a number of years in west Africa. My son has just graduated and started his first job as a doctor in Derby. Earlier this year, he did his medical elective in east Africa and, because he studied at the University of Newcastle, he was able to do the whole of his second year at Newcastle’s campus in Malaysia, an advantage he did not know about when he applied to that university. In a number of ways, cross-cultural medical work has been a big part of my family’s experience.
More than this, the principles that in giving we also receive and that we have much to learn from those with whom we differ—culturally, socially, economically, religiously, or whatever it may be—have shaped my experience of Church ministry in various parts of the world and in the multicultural context of Leicester, where I now serve. Indeed, I have written about my learning on gift exchange in different contexts.
So there is a lot that I could say on the benefits to our own NHS of UK-based healthcare workers spending time working in low-income and middle-income countries. A quick list could include: increased awareness and knowledge about cultural differences and similarities; increased cultural sensitivity, which is so important for the NHS today; the ability to work with limited resources, which, again, is critical for the NHS today; the ability to deal with the unexpected and work towards solutions; improved flexibility and adaptability; and the ability to innovate in overcoming challenges. The list goes on. Importantly, these skills and attitudes are hard to pass on in classroom settings or familiar clinical contexts. Working overseas is a particular learning experience that really does have a lifelong impact.
However, I also want to speak of something that is, I believe, a major barrier to healthcare partnerships, particularly where lower-income countries are concerned: the attitude that we know best and have nothing to learn from these countries. As one chief executive is recalled to have said in a report by NHS England, “What on earth are we going to learn from these poor countries?” This air of superiority—assuming that, because of our technological advances in this country, we are also culturally superior—was, of course, core to colonialism and, sadly, is still present today. We have it in the Church, and we see it in academic studies and so many other areas.
There is, therefore, a need to develop what I call “cultural humility”—that is, an approach to interacting with people of other cultures that says, “We always have something to learn”. This is linked to the concept of “reverse innovation”, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, whereby higher-income countries learn from and adopt practices developed in their lower-income counterparts. Kangaroo care in neonatal units is one example; oral rehydration sachets are another.
The lack of cultural humility is also, I suggest, a factor that explains why UK healthcare professionals working in other countries do not always have the local impact that they would wish for. People can sense whether we have a genuine desire to serve them or are simply in it for our own gain. Good partnership working requires cultural humility—both the willingness of the individual to learn from the other and the willingness of the other to receive the gift that is being offered them. In other words, it is a form of gift exchange; as I say, there is a whole body of literature on that.
I ask the Minister: what are the FCDO and the Department of Health and Social Care doing to encourage genuine partnerships with overseas healthcare bodies and to equip staff to work well within these partnerships? It is not simply a case of having formal partnership agreements, important though they are; there is also a need for the training and development of staff to work well within these partnerships. For instance, I am struck that my wife, who works in the NHS, has protected time for teaching and learning, quality improvement and clinical governance—all of which are recognised as statutory requirements—but it is much rarer for any NHS employee to have protected time to support global health. This means that it has to done in evenings and weekends, or during annual leave, thereby restricting it as an option for many—particularly those with caring responsibilities.
Perhaps most surprising of all is the fact that there is little recognition of those who have spent time working in other countries. Indeed, research with some of those who volunteered abroad found that., because it means deviating from the typical training pathway, it is sometimes considered career suicide. Some returning healthcare professionals report difficulties with professional revalidation or securing permanent employment on return because, more generally, they lack experience in this country. This could be addressed, as participants in the NHS England report mentioned, by having national bodies, such as the DHSC or NHS England, recognise the benefits of global health partnerships and encourage executive buy-in. If this were more common across the NHS—indeed, if every trust had an enduring partnership with a hospital overseas—the two-way positive impact would be greatly magnified, and the obstacles that some individual volunteers face would be done away with.
Finally, just before the matter of costs is raised as a possible barrier, let us remember that by recruiting healthcare workers from overseas, it is estimated that the NHS has saved £14 billion in training costs. That saving should surely come with a responsibility to offset the loss to these countries’ own healthcare systems.
Baroness Prashar (CB)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for securing this debate. He has made a unique contribution in this area, and characteristically he has situated this today very strategically in terms of what we can do about developing partnerships. He has given a powerful account of the benefits of partnership working in health and how these support the development of healthcare in those countries.
These partnerships embody the Government’s new approach to development, as stated by the new Secretary of State for Health: from paternalism to partnership. As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, these arrangements are highly cost effective and give NHS staff insights that improve clinical practice, leadership and efficiency. They are equitable and country-led, and UK and overseas health services can invest in, learn from and mutually benefit from them. The noble Lord also mentioned the values of the National Health Service, which I think are extremely important.
Partnership working was introduced in 2008. Now, nearly two decades on, there is an opportunity to breathe new life into this approach. This means moving away from voluntary arrangements to some formal partnerships supported by predictable and multi-year funding, and obviously by looking at them much more strategically as well.
Renewed investment in global health partnerships following the recent cuts would not only enable the Government to reinforce their commitment to partnerships but would be mutually beneficial for the UK and other countries. Such partnerships can be further enhanced if we take a different approach to the international recruitment of the health workforce.
In this context, I draw the attention of the Committee to the report published in March that the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, referenced, which was published by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health and Security, entitled An Honest Account of the Benefits and Costs of International Health Worker Recruitment. The report was prepared by Global Health Partnerships, an organisation which has not been mentioned but which acts as a secretariat for this APPG and has done some excellent work to promote health partnerships. The noble Lord, Lord Crisp, and I were members of this inquiry, so we both declare an interest.
The report argued that international recruitment will remain a necessary component of the National Health Service workforce for the foreseeable future and it would neither be responsible nor fair to continue with ad hoc recruitment, which in the long run I think is detrimental to the sending countries and often not fair to those individuals who are recruited. Source countries often lose health workers faster than they can replace them. These include countries such as Nigeria, Zambia and Zimbabwe which are currently on the red list, which means that no recruitment from these countries should take place.
Evidence from Kenya and Uganda captured in this report describes the loss of doctors, nurses and clinical educators, with serious consequences for patients and overstressed health services. This has become such an important issue that the WHO’s guidelines were updated this year for the first time in 16 years, adding an expectation that countries recruiting from abroad also invest back into the health systems that they recruit from.
The report proposed recruitment through deliberate partnerships that deliver mutual benefit and strengthen systems globally, an approach which is responsible, ethical and in our self-interest. International recruitment is a structural feature of the National Health Service, and the report estimated, as has already been said, that over the years the UK has saved approximately £14 billion in training costs. The inquiry concluded that the UK must move from a reliance on massive overseas recruitment to a more structured and responsible approach.
As I said before, international recruitment will continue in the short to medium term. Reducing dependence on overseas recruitment as proposed in the 10-year plan will take time, and recruitment from overseas in the short and medium term will remain a necessity. This report recommended replacing the ad hoc recruitment drives with transparent government-to-government partnerships, aligned with national health workforce plans and priorities. This approach would align self-interest and practical gain for both parties. A connected, responsible global health force will strengthen us, support partner countries and enhance global health security, an issue that is high on the Government’s agenda. Minister McNeill, in a speech on 14 September, named health as one of the five securities that will define the UK’s approach through its G20 and G7 presidencies.
The logic of the argument that this report advances is compelling and deserves serious consideration. Today, the Government have not responded to the report, but it merits serious considerations here and in international fora such as the Commonwealth and the upcoming G20 presidency next year. I urge the Government to discuss the report’s recommendations with the members of the inquiry and its authors. Further, the Government should demonstrate global leadership by putting this issue on the agenda of the forthcoming G20 meeting in 2027. Health worker mobility is exactly the kind of cross-border risk-sharing issue that the G20 under the UK’s leadership should be addressing.
The Global Health Partnerships, the organisation that supported this publication, organises the health summit each year. The summit in 2027 would be a suitable vehicle for promoting these partnerships. I attended the summit this year and can speak from experience about its value and impact. I remain hopeful that the Government will give serious consideration to health partnerships highlighted in this debate. I look forward to a positive response from the Minister.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)
My Lords, it is a great honour and privilege to follow my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for securing this debate and for the briefing he so generously shared with all of us taking part. His long-standing record on global health and international partnerships reminds us that our commitment to international development is beyond the significance of finance. It is about co-operation between people, institutions and nations—a partnership capable of building sustainable capacity and strengthening development systems at country level.
Yesterday, a number of noble Lords listened to the right honourable Speaker of the Parliament of Uganda. It was clear from that conversation that many African nations continue to value Britain’s partnership in economic development, education, health research, technology and defence. But we must acknowledge honestly that our bilateral relationship across Africa and the global South have historically included an approach too often defined externally. Development assistance has rightly supported vaccination, literacy, maternal health and other services, but these relationships have existed alongside different co-operation cloaked historically as international development assistance and the extraction of valuable natural resources, sometimes without sufficient attention to the priorities and aspirations of local people.
Today, we face an increasingly complex environment, with wars and conflicts and infectious diseases, including Ebola, in our daily view. Dengue and malaria continue to threaten communities, while famine and hunger remain realities for many millions. At the same time, international development funding is under extraordinary pressure with the reduction by the US and the changes in the UK’s defence priorities.
The consequences, with receding resources, are fewer health services and less support for women and children, which communities have come to rely upon for decades. In these circumstances, we need a collaborative response. I would welcome the development of a stronger coalition between international funding agencies, national Governments, respected local organisations and experts. Such co-operation would pool scarce resources and help donor organisations design services more effectively, reduce duplication and improve service delivery. It would put the people who understand local circumstances at the heart of determining priorities.
That includes women. The UK has an honourable tradition of supporting women’s organisations across the world, yet in societies afflicted with conflict, displacement or economic instability, women’s voices and influence often diminish precisely when they are needed most. In the face of these existing and emerging crises, how do the Government intend to ensure that the basic needs of vulnerable women and children in Africa and Asia are reflected in the way that development programmes are planned, designed and delivered? I seriously question whether women themselves would prioritise defensive military training within the framework of international development over feeding and educating their children, securing clean water, accessing healthcare and ensuring the safety of themselves and their families.
The UK’s modern approach to development is very welcome. It recognises the importance of local leadership in defining country priorities, but the principle must be lived in practice. We need to ask what happens to well-established programmes when international NGOs withdraw offices because of funding cuts. Have we done enough over the years and decades to ensure that locally created organisations and solutions have the capacity, resources and confidence to respond when international support diminishes? I sincerely hope that we will not sacrifice the good work that is already under way.
Nevertheless, Britain retains significant strength and influence. As has been mentioned, our universities, financial institutions, the NHS—as was mentioned—research and technological capabilities and strong civil society have all contributed to the relationships and co-operation built over generations. They are assets which readily enable Britain to remain a trusted international partner with humility as well as expertise. I recognise that practice can sometimes fall short of the principles we espouse, and we must remain vigilant and willing to improve at all times.
I say this having visited UK-supported programmes and spoken to Rohingya women in Bangladesh who had experienced rape, torture and ethnic cleansing, and to women from Syria, Lebanon, Sudan and elsewhere facing equally devastating circumstances. It is impossible to overstate the hopelessness of such experience and of how far removed women are from the decisions made about development assistance that directly affects their lives. We should therefore be cautious about imposing burdensome conditions that, however well intentioned, can unintentionally undermine the well-being and dignity of the very people the programmes are intended to support.
Of course, at the same time, we must keep in mind the legitimate expectation of British taxpayers that public money is properly governed and accountable. Transparency, therefore, should not become disconnected from upholding humanity. We need a balanced approach that recognises the realities of people who have endured extreme hardship, lost homes and livelihoods, been deprived of basic choices and, in many cases, fled unimaginable violence. In the current financial environment, this is undoubtedly a difficult balance for all countries and Governments, who are managing competing demands while families in their own nations experience pressures and bear the cost of living crisis. This is precisely why locally led solutions can be more sustainable, responsive and cost-neutral, particularly when we place women as partners at the heart of development decisions.
Women’s organisations across Africa and the global south possess practical experience in all the areas that development assistance intends to address. A similar principle applies to young people. As usual, I have written far too much to read out, but I want to say that I am encouraged to see the shift in the Government’s approach towards Africa, which places greater emphasis on mutual respect and the long-term relationship, encompassing trade, investment and education. I believe that that approach can inspire a new generation of young women and men to see Britain not as a donor but as a partner and help build towards a better international development space and a more balanced and equitable world.
Lord Oates (LD)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for securing this debate and for his long-standing leadership on global health. I also pay tribute to the work of the global health partners with which I have had the opportunity to work in the past. This is the first time I have taken part in a debate with the noble Lord, Lord Wood, since he has become a Minister, so I welcome him to his ministerial position and congratulate the Prime Minister on making such an excellent appointment.
I have spoken in previous debates about my experiences earlier in my career: teaching in a rural school in Zimbabwe and, later, working in South Africa for a few years. Although I hope that the contribution I made in those roles was valuable to the communities in which I worked, I know that it was absolutely priceless to me. I learned about living in a resource-constrained environment, about the ingenuity and commitment of the community and about the perspectives of people with very different life experiences and cultural backgrounds from mine.
Those experiences shaped my life. They taught me how much we have to gain when we are prepared to listen and learn. That is why, this afternoon, I want to speak in particular about the contribution of NHS England’s Global Health Volunteer Fellowships programme, which puts that principle into practice. I want to make what seems to me to be the overwhelming case for continuing the modest financial support that enables the scheme to operate, allowing doctors from the UK to contribute overseas and bring valuable skills home. The programme deploys doctors for four to six months in health facilities in a number of low and middle-income countries, including Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. These doctors are paid a small stipend to cover travel and living expenses. More than 450 have been deployed to date, making a significant contribution to the communities they have served but also gaining new skills and experiences, to the benefit of our National Health Service.
An independent evaluation of the programme by Hughes Hall, Cambridge, found that 94% of fellows responding reported improved clinical skills, while 92% reported better problem solving and decision-making. One doctor described returning to British general practice calmer, more confident and more aware of how poverty shapes patients’ health; working with limited diagnostics had sharpened his skills of observation, examination and clinical judgment. Another explained how they managed presentations of which they had little or no prior experience, including trauma, burns and snake bites, building confidence and a practical skill set that they would not have developed in the UK. Another described learning from highly skilled South African doctors and incorporating those skills directly into NHS practice. These are benefits that they can provide to the NHS and their patients throughout their careers.
Secondly, the programme encourages a more thoughtful use of resources. Doctors described learning to weigh decisions carefully, adapt to constraints and avoid waste. An Oxford radiology registrar who worked at George Hospital in South Africa’s Western Cape explained how the experience better equipped him to allocate limited resources, avoid waste and appreciate the resources that are available in the National Health Service.
Thirdly, there is the benefit to morale and retention. One participant described rediscovering the joy of practicing medicine. The evaluation records testimony that the programme can help retain GP trainees and renew their commitment. We invest heavily in training doctors; helping them remain motivated and committed to NHS practice should be part of protecting that investment.
The benefits to the partner hospitals were also clear. In Mitchells Plain, a highly deprived community outside Cape Town, fellows are described as integral members of the emergency team. Both fellows and local medical staff reported learning from each other.
At George Hospital, the partnership has helped sustain patient care while developing future healthcare leaders, and the Tshemba Foundation, which supports volunteers at Tintswalo Hospital and surrounding rural clinics in north-eastern South Africa, describes the Global Health Volunteer Fellowships programme as invaluable and explains why continuity matters so much—a regular flow of fellows allows it to plan.
Finally, there is the benefit of the personal relationships that are built, which contribute to the kind of personal diplomacy that is important for the UK’s relationships abroad. I know that myself from the time I spent working in South Africa and Zimbabwe; I built enduring relationships which remain to this day. Lots of those personal relationships contribute to how the UK is seen.
Despite all these benefits, there is deep concern that the programme may be discontinued. I very much hope that this will be reconsidered. Ministers should consider what will be lost: training opportunities, clinical contributions and relationships built through years of co-operation. Can the Minister tell us what the Government’s position is in this regard and explain how the benefits to NHS training and partner hospitals are being assessed?
I understand the pressures on resources, but we are talking here about very modest funding. A small stipend can make possible months of service and learning, with benefits that last well beyond a placement. We should have the judgment to recognise that value and the commitment to sustain it.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for securing this important debate on what the NHS can learn from partnerships with hospitals in Africa and Asia. It was particularly interesting to hear his description of the situation in Myanmar, and I learnt much from the noble Lord’s speech.
I should also declare an interest, like the right reverend Prelate. My daughter did her elective in Kerala, India, and she spent a year after the pandemic teaching at Warwick Medical School. She was only too aware of the importance of British doctors—people living in England—actually going to help and teach people coming from overseas, and of course there is much evidence of that at Warwick Medical School.
As the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, said, we are a leader in this field. Partnerships between the NHS and healthcare providers abroad have been recognised as mutually beneficial by successive Governments. Under the coalition Government, Healthcare UK was launched as a joint initiative between the Department of Health, the NHS Commissioning Board and UK Trade & Investment to increase the profile of UK expertise in healthcare and the trade in healthcare goods and products overseas.
Indeed, successive Conservative-led Governments provided funding for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Governments have also signed agreements on healthcare with India and Kenya, and the previous Government published the two-year global health framework in 2023. All this work has helped to strengthen the UK’s reputation internationally as a global leader in healthcare. That is a reputation that has been hard won, and we will support the Government where they seek to improve healthcare provided through the NHS. We will work with Ministers to deliver these improved outcomes.
This is slightly outside the Minister’s brief, but for these arrangements and partnerships to work, we need a functioning NHS. Unfortunately, as all noble Lords will be aware, the NHS has too often been brought to a standstill by industrial action, with patients bearing the costs. Can the Minister briefly say what Ministers are doing to protect patients from the damaging effects of strike action in future?
Turning back to international partnerships between the NHS and healthcare services, can the Minister say what particular efforts are being made to engage with healthcare providers in Africa in the light of the ongoing Ebola outbreak? It would be useful for the Committee to hear what the Minister can say on this issue. I was also particularly interested to hear the report from the noble Lord, Lord Oates, of his time in South Africa and Zimbabwe. The fact is that partnerships help places experiencing so much undue suffering very much; it was interesting to hear about the noble Lord’s connections there.
Once again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for bringing this debate forward. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Wood of Anfield) (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for securing this debate. I pay tribute to his work on strengthening global health partnerships and championing collaboration, as well as to his role as a patron of Global Health Partnerships; I will come back to his Myanmar example later. I echo his words on how our health sector is world-leading with extraordinary reach, as I think he said. That is the foundation of the development partnerships, which we and—to go back to the point from the noble Earl, Lord Courtown—the previous Government have pursued with such principle and vigour; I pay tribute to them as well.
I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. So many of your Lordships have such valuable experience in the area of health partnerships—experience that I have not had. I wish the son of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester good luck, and I thank the right reverend Prelate for his story about his son’s experience.
Our approach to development is having to modernise, as noble Lords know, with the aim of having a greater impact abroad and achieving better value for money at home. That is not an easy combination. It is based on four shifts: from donor to investor; from service delivery to system strengthening, on which I very much take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, about the sustainable development of new systems, rather than just transitory ones, being crucial; from grants to expertise; and from international intervention to local leadership.
In health, this means an approach that is increasingly rooted in partnership by listening to countries, responding to their priorities, combining UK expertise with local knowledge and building relationships based on mutual benefit—as we have heard about today from various noble Lords’ experiences—in order to strengthen health systems, build sustainable capability and support locally led approaches. I refer again to the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester about the gift relationship and cultural humility—I, too, am a Richard Titmuss fan—as well as the idea that knowledge transfer is not just one-way. The noble Lord, Lord Oates, spoke very movingly about how it changed his life; I will come back to the programme that he talked about in a minute.
Unless exceptional circumstances or a crisis require a different approach, we see our role as not to deliver services on behalf of others but to work alongside partners in order to strengthen their own institutions, capabilities, and systems. To support this, the Foreign Office has established a community of expertise for health, which brings together expertise from across the UK and around the world and makes it available to our international network. Its purpose is to help partner countries strengthen their health systems, improve health security and deliver better health outcomes, particularly for women and girls—another thing that the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, rightly highlighted as an oft-neglected dimension of development work. A fundamental principle of this community is that it is demand-led and not donor-driven.
This brings me to today’s Question. Let me answer the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, directly on what we are doing. We support healthcare development by working with Governments, health ministries and local organisations. We focus on the priorities that countries have identified for themselves, rather than imposing our own. We focus on areas where the UK has expertise to offer, while drawing on local knowledge.
Of course, there are occasions where more direct support is required, and one such example is the current Ebola outbreak, which the noble Lord asked me to comment on. The outbreak on 15 May has been declared an Ebola outbreak—the 17th. We are allocating up to just under £80 million to support an Africa-led response, and we are helping the WHO, the United Nations and NGO partners to strengthen surveillance, support front-line workers, improve infection prevention and control, and support access to life-saving care. I thank all those who are taking part in the collective effort to respond to this crisis as we speak.
The UK was among the first international partners to commit funding to the Africa-led response and is providing up to £80 million through the WHO, Africa CDC and the United Nations. Together, we are helping to strengthen surveillance, support front-line workers, improve infection prevention and control, and accelerate access to vaccines, treatments and diagnostics.
In all our activities, we are working through a range of partnerships, including partnerships at home with the NHS, universities and professional bodies. We supported health system partnerships in countries including Ghana, Malawi, Nepal, the Philippines, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, which draw on UK expertise, including from NHS England, and create opportunities for health professionals to improve their quality of care and experiences. We have heard today many examples of successful partnerships supported by this and the previous Government.
The noble Lord, Lord Oates, discussed the Global Health Volunteer Fellowships programme and gave some quite moving examples. He responded to some of the challenges put forward by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester of embedding training in specific contexts rather than expecting skills to be transferred without bespoke training. I want to thank the doctors who take part in that, who provide their valuable time and skills on a volunteer basis. As explained by the noble Lord, Lord Oates, the programme provides clinical support through placements for doctors in partner countries but also encourages mutual learning between practitioners from different countries.
I am not aware of DHSC financial plans for this programme but I will make it my business to try to find out for the noble Lord. The experience and evidence that it generates will clearly be valuable, whatever programme develops in the future. I will get back to the noble Lord, Lord Oates, on anything I can discover in advance of the spending review.
We also provide flexible technical assistance. We help partner Governments access the expertise they need to address their priorities and strengthen their health systems. Good examples include Bangladesh, also brought up by the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, where we are supporting efforts to improve services for women and girls, and Somaliland, where we are helping the Ministry of Health strengthen health financing and planning. Alongside this, a recent £19 million DHSC programme has operated in several countries across Africa, linking NHS organisations, universities and royal colleges with counterparts overseas, helping to strengthen the health workforce through learning and collaboration.
The noble Lord, Lord Crisp, mentioned Myanmar and the fantastic work done by what I think became known as the UK Health Partnerships for Myanmar after the military coup five years ago. This involved a UK coalition, which the noble Lord mentioned in some detail, of more than 50 institutions, including royal colleges, NHS bodies, universities, parliamentarians and local clinicians, which developed teleconsultations, GP support, quality improvement, a nurses’ college and virtual clinical support—a real flagship example of what health partnerships can do.
I also want to draw attention, parochially, to my own department, the FCDO, whose principal health partnership programme since 2023 is the Health Systems Connect programme. The noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, rightly pointed to the importance of having multiyear programmes rather than single off-one grants or more fleeting forms of financial assistance. This is a four-year initiative, delivered through the NHS Consortium for Global Health, which connects partner Governments with expertise from NHS England, UKHSA and other bodies. The partnership work aims to accelerate progress toward improved healthcare systems and universal access.
The noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, asked an important question about the impact of recruitment in the UK on the supply of health professionals in low-income and middle-income countries. This is obviously a complicated question. As she pointed out when talking about the GHP report that she discussed, the Government’s health plan aims to reduce reliance on international recruitment by reducing it to under 10% by 2035. That said, a continuing reliance on overseas recruitment will still be there. It is important, therefore, that we approach this in an ethical and sustainable way that supports, rather than undermines, the UK’s wider development objectives. As the noble Baroness knows, our code of practice for the international recruitment of health and social care personnel is the foundation of these ethical standards, which prohibits active recruitment from red-list countries, as she mentioned. We will continue to invest in partnerships that strengthen national health workforces in countries facing the greatest health system challenges.
All these efforts sit alongside our major investments through multilateral institutions and global health initiatives. Through partnerships with organisations such as the World Health Organization, the World Bank, Gavi and the Global Fund, we are helping to strengthen health systems more broadly. The Government seek to ensure that their support for healthcare in partner countries starts by listening to partners and supporting their priorities. We work alongside the Governments, civil institutions, organisations and local workforces on which health outcomes truly depend.
Lastly, I again congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, on this debate and the work that he and the GHP have championed. I thank all noble Lords for the experiences that they have shared today.
House of Lords
Introduction: Lord Wormald
Introduction: Lord McCobb
G20 Summit 2027: Objectives
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale
To ask His Majesty’s Government what objectives they have set for the G20 summit in 2027.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
I beg leave to ask the Question standing in the name of my noble friend.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)
My Lords, the process for determining the UK G20 presidency objectives is under way. Next year’s presidency is a valuable opportunity to demonstrate effective UK international leadership and reinforce global economic stability, which is essential for working people in the UK. In the near term, our focus is on engaging with the US G20 presidency ahead of the Miami summit in December. In line with standard practice, we will communicate our objectives following the Miami summit.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for her Answer. Could she say what we will be looking at in particular around the rights of women and their needs?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The UK is very committed to the rights of women and to addressing this issue on an international level. However, the process for determining the UK G20 presidency policy agenda is currently under way. In the near term, our focus is on engaging with the US G20 presidency ahead of the Miami summit in December. In line with standard practice, we will communicate our policy priorities following the Miami summit.
Lord Pack (LD)
Could the Minister tell us what progress the Government are aiming to secure at the G20 summit on tackling international fraud and, in particular, bringing greater transparency over who really owns and benefits from offshore companies, especially in the light of the decision of the Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands to implement only a legitimate interest, rather than a full public access, register of beneficial interests?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I am pleased to report that the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, is leading a summit on this issue. I am happy to write to the noble Lord with further details.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, can the Minister tell us what priority will be given during the G20 summit to the nearly 120 million people who are displaced in the world today, and in particular whether the war in Sudan, which has led to another 12 million displaced people, will be discussed?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The Government are doing as much as they can on the issue that the noble Lord raises. It has been a priority of this Government since we came into office.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, I got the message from the Minister that she is not able to tell us what is going to be on the Government’s list on priorities, so can I just make a suggestion? All I am asking is that she will at least say she will go away and consider it. Given the leadership we have demonstrated since 2023 on artificial intelligence, and the global respect for the AI Security Institute, this would be a great opportunity for the UK to show international leadership on regulating AI globally. I urge the Minister to think about that as we put our policy objectives together.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I am very happy to take the noble Lord’s suggestion away. As he will be aware from the debate we had on this earlier in the week, the UK is already demonstrating international leadership on this issue. We are considering all policy areas, particularly those on which we can show considerable international leadership.
The Lord Speaker (Lord Forsyth of Drumlean)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is taking part remotely; I invite him to speak.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]
My Lords, with the whole G20 economic agenda being overshadowed by the prospect of escalating conflict worldwide, are we not uniquely placed, with our Foreign Office’s substantial hinterland of expertise in diplomacy, to help reduce turmoil in the world by acting as brokers in the resolution of conflict? Why not develop, as an objective, a new peace agenda? We could start with at least considering proposals as set out on Tuesday during the Statement on Ukraine. Let the Labour Government lead the way on these matters.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My noble friend will not be surprised to hear me say that we continue to steadfastly condemn Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. In relation to peace across the globe, we continue to work through international fora, such as the UN, on agendas around peace.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, climate change is a world problem. Where is that going to stand on the agenda, or is it, in fact, going to be threaded through virtually every topic, as it affects every area of our life and security?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I agree with the noble Baroness that the issues relating to climate change should be threaded through all our discussions on an international scale. I am happy to feed that back with other issues that noble Lords wish to raise on the policy agendas that are currently being worked through. We will report back on the overall presidency policy agenda in due course.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the UK presidency of the G20 is a historic opportunity for action on debt? Will she consider the call to champion changes to the common framework laid out in the African Union’s common African position on debt?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The UK already has an existing ask of other countries in relation to strengthening the G20 common framework. I will feed back the suggestion, as with other suggestions from noble Lords.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, further to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis, in Sudan, was not mentioned in the Government’s agenda for the G20 presidency. Surely, as the UN Security Council penholder for the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, we will raise this. What are our ambitions in the G20 presidency for that crisis?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The UK has displayed its ambitions in relation to this in Geneva and at the UN. I apologise to your Lordships’ House for not being able to say exactly what will be on the agenda for the UK G20’s presidency. We intend to use our presidency in an ambitious way. However, specific policy and operational details remain under active review, and I look forward to updating the House in due course.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, does the Minister feel that our national credibility at this very important summit will be greatly enhanced if by then we will have reached the promised 3% defence target?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The UK has a clear target in relation to defence spending, which, from memory, I am not sure that His Majesty’s Opposition necessarily did when they were on these Benches. We continue to be committed to increasing defence spending along the lines that we have previously committed to. Ministers from His Majesty’s Government will update your Lordships’ House on progress on that.
Baroness Verma (Con)
My Lords, on the first question that was put, on the women’s agenda, given that there has been so much rollback on women’s rights, particularly in Afghanistan, would the Minister please make sure that that is at the forefront of our agenda, that we are able to have the wider discussions, and that we hold the conference that my noble friend Lord Cameron did when he was Prime Minister?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
We are committed to improving the rights of women on the global stage. This issue has been raised at the UN General Assembly and it will be one that the Government return to regularly.
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)
My Lords, although we have, sadly, reduced our overseas development aid budget, we nevertheless have this leadership role. Would the Minister at least consider joining with other countries to pool our resources to make sure that we look after the most needy places in the world—whether it is Afghanistan, Sudan or, in particular, Palestine and Gaza—or at least commit to, in the long term, returning to 0.7% commitment? It also benefits our defence and security when we invest in overseas development aid?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The Government are committed to the 0.7% commitment on a long-term basis, when fiscal circumstances allow. We will continue to work collaboratively across international partnerships to ensure that our spending is focused on where it can have the greatest impact, supporting the most vulnerable and advancing our modern development approach.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, on 9 September, the Prime Minister said that national security
“cannot come at the expense of social security”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/9/26; col. 1036.]
What kind of message is that to our allies in the G20?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The noble Baroness has taken something completely out of context. We are committed to the G20 and to increasing our defence spending and global security. We will play a full part in this as a member of the G20 and through other international fora.
Defence Funding
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Baroness Foster of Oxton
To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they plan to reduce the welfare budget to fund defence.
The Parliamentary Secretary, HM Treasury (Lord Pitt-Watson) (Lab)
The Government’s commitment to the defence of this country is absolute. We have the third-highest absolute expenditure on defence among our allies. We will honour our NATO commitment of 3.5% by 2035. In direct answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham, we will set the target date in the spending review for 3%. We are also committed to bear down on the welfare bill, but not by arbitrarily punishing those who depend on it. Finally, I note, and I hope the House understands this, that these two issues are not inextricably linked and that it is a danger if politicians suggest that we need to make false choices.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, but the fact is that the welfare bill is heading towards £350 billion. The total income tax take last year was £330 billion, with public sector debt reaching 94% by mid-2026. In the last Government, Sir Keir Starmer could not persuade his Back-Benchers to reduce the welfare bill by £5 billion per annum. So, I ask the Minister: can we assume that this Prime Minister will also continue to put social security before national security in order for his Members of Parliament to hang on to their parliamentary seats?
Lord Pitt-Watson (Lab)
My Lords, that is exactly the sort of false choice that we need to guard against. We want to be clear that we spend the welfare budget well. That is why we have the Timms review on PIPs and why we have the Milburn review on NEETs and getting a system for getting people back to work.
Since it was quite a long question, I would like to tell noble Lords about fraud. By the end of this Parliament, the Government will be saving £4.3 billion on fraud in the welfare system that they inherited. I think they learned from the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, a Conservative Peer and one of my predecessors, who stood at this Dispatch Box and said that it was arrogance, indolence and ignorance that was stopping us bearing down on it and that he hoped his resignation would make someone do something about it. We are and we will.
Lord Beamish (Lab)
My Lords, first, I apologise to the House for sounding like a broken record, but does my noble friend agree with me that the Benches opposite should have a bit of humility? When they were in government, from 2010 to 2016, they cut the defence budget by 16%, made members of our Armed Forces compulsorily redundant, leading to the smallest standing Army since Napoleonic times, and, in collusion with their Liberal Democrat coalition partners, delayed the implementation of the replacement of the nuclear deterrent, adding billions to the cost. Does my noble friend also agree that the choice they are putting forward between defence and welfare is a false one and that they need to explain how they would get money out of the welfare budget, not in the future but today, to reinforce the defence budget?
Lord Pitt-Watson (Lab)
I completely agree with those statements. Let us recognise that in 2025 this Government committed to the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War, after years, as my noble friend pointed out, of decline. I hope I will have an opportunity to come back and talk about the welfare budget and the Conservative proposals for it later on in Questions; I should allow time for that.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
Is it not unfortunate that the Conservatives, who are in no way blameless for the parlous state of the public finances, are arguing the case for defence on the basis of saying that the people who should bear the burden of topping up the defence budget are the poorest, the most disabled and the most disadvantaged? That, of course, is the Conservative Party in a nutshell. Does the Minister recognise that the sooner the Government deliver clearly how they are going to achieve the 3%, so that procurement can start now, the sooner we can have a sensible debate on benefit priorities?
Lord Pitt-Watson (Lab)
As I said, the 3% timing will be declared at the spending review. I do not want to do all the criticising of other parties, actually; I am trying to maintain a collegiate House. But I do remember, a couple of weeks ago, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry talked about old people, who she said were of “immeasurable worth”. Everyone is of immeasurable worth. Of course we need to talk about big numbers for defence and welfare, but real people depend on welfare and those real people are of immeasurable worth. That should inform our debate.
Lord Altrincham (Con)
How should our adversaries interpret the Treasury’s defence stance?
Lord Pitt-Watson (Lab)
That the Government have an absolute commitment to the defence of this nation; that we already have the third-highest absolute expenditure among our allies; that we will honour our NATO commitment of 3.5% by 2035 and set a target for 3% on defence at the spending review; and that in 2025 we committed to the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War. That is not bad.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, it is the turn of the Cross Benches.
Lord Dannatt (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that progress towards the 3% and 3.5% targets for defence spending can best be described as glacial? Will he undertake that the Treasury will look at imaginative ways of funding defence, in particular the innovative contribution that small and medium-sized enterprises can make, along with their access to private funding? It does not all have to come from the Treasury.
Lord Pitt-Watson (Lab)
I think the reference to private companies and what defence spending can do for the economy is very important. If I have my figures right, the additional investment we will be making will create 60,000 more jobs in the private sector. So we are aware of this important point and I thank the noble and gallant Lord.
The Lord Bishop of Leicester
My Lords, the best causally identified route of the rise of populist parties and extremist groups in this country is poverty, alongside deindustrialisation, austerity and perceived community decline. Does the Minister agree that the duty of a Government to protect their citizens includes protecting them from internal threats as well as external ones?
Lord Pitt-Watson (Lab)
I think I have made the Government’s position on that reasonably clear. Let us just look at the proposal we have, for example on housing benefit, from the party opposite to take £4 billion off the budget, which is something like £13.5 billion or £14 billion. Have we thought about how many people that would make homeless? Have we thought about how many of them would then turn up, of course with the right to be housed if they have children? Noble Lords can hear where I am coming from.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, could my noble friend and fellow Scotsman give us a few examples of sensible savings that the Government are making to our welfare budget?
Lord Pitt-Watson (Lab)
Yes. I would answer that by saying that £4.3 billion will be saved as a result of the biggest crackdown in a generation. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, for his passion on that when he stood at this Dispatch Box. We are responding to his call to take action.
Climate Change: Food Supply Resilience
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Earl Russell
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the implications of climate-related extreme weather for the resilience of the UK’s food supply.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)
My Lords, the United Kingdom Food Security Report of 2024 suggests that rising temperatures will increase the likelihood of extreme weather events, which do of course represent significant risks to UK food security. So we are investing in resilience by spending £200 million up to 2030 through the Farming Innovation Programme, and £65 million to support farmers, given recent drought conditions, including an extra £50 million for sustainable farming incentive agreements for short-term and long-term resilience to our changing climate.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, the National Audit Office is concerned about our food security: 2026 is on track to be our worst harvest, and our five worst harvests have all been since 2020. A major El Niño event will make matters worse. Add in global conflict, and we have a recipe for food inflation and possible shortages. A freedom of information request reported in the Guardian found that just 20 of Defra’s 6,613 staff are working on climate adaptation. Is safeguarding our food security receiving adequate consideration?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
In looking at where staff work, it is important to take into account that many staff work across different briefs in the organisation. While people may not be specifically working on something, there are implications across other parts of the department which are also involved in that work. Food security is a critical part of the work Defra does. We are looking at ways to increase resilience in the face of the increased effects of climate change.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the NFU says that there is an urgent need—
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, it is the turn of the Conservative Benches. Can they please make up their minds and get a question asked?
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the NFU has declared an urgent need for on-farm reservoirs. The Minister has stated frequently that she is in favour of on-farm reservoirs. However, there is an inconsistency in the guidance and planning for permitted development rights. Will she urgently speak to her colleagues in the housing department to ensure that the planning guidance permits on-farm reservoirs to store the water for when it is needed by farmers and horticultural growers?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
As the noble Baroness says, I am extremely supportive of on-farm reservoirs. They are very important, which is why we have announced funding of up to £15 million through Defra to build on-farm reservoirs as part of the drought package. We have also offered two rounds of water management grants so far. That has provided £8.8 million of funding towards management, including for the construction of reservoirs. We are speaking to MHCLG about a number of issues where we need to improve planning and make it more reactive to requirements.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, to adapt to future climate and weather, we must develop new genetic varieties of the crops we grow. Gene editing will be a powerful tool to enable this. When I recently visited the Wellesbourne research station, I saw field trials of gene-edited soya plants that will be suitable to grow in the UK. Corteva, the company running these trials, is passionate about the fact that our legislation is more permissive and proportionate, and particularly beneficial for research and development. When negotiations to finalise the SPS agreement are reached, can we be assured that we will protect the advantages we have compared with the EU system?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
Noble Lords will not be surprised to hear me say that I cannot comment on the negotiations, which are taking place ahead of the summit, but we hope to have a date finalised soon. But I can assure the noble Lord that we understand the importance of this. It has been critical to the work we have been doing to have that flexibility. We are discussing very seriously with the EU how we can protect what we are doing in this area.
Lord Deben (Con)
I remind the House that I am a small organic farmer. The Minister must understand that in the farming community as a whole, there is a real feeling of abandonment. She can say what the Government are doing, but there is a real feeling that there is no commitment. The new Secretary of State has begun well in trying to build this up, but can she explain to the rest of the Government that farming matters and is crucial for the future, particularly when farmers have to face these terrible weather effects? In the last five years there have been the worst harvests ever, two because they were burnt out and one because it was flooded out. Can she help the rest of the Government to talk about agriculture and the countryside in a way that sounds as if they are committed?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I am very pleased that the noble Lord thinks the new Secretary of State has made a good start: I agree. It is very encouraging that the new Prime Minister has also been talking about farming, rural businesses and rural communities in a very positive way, understanding that we need to better ensure that rural communities are properly represented across government. Defra takes this very seriously, and we will continue to work with other departments to stress that point.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, it is essential for domestic food production that we have a healthy population of pollinators, yet our pollinators have declined since the 1980s by a quarter, particularly certain bee species and hoverflies. What are the Government doing about that issue as it applies to the sustainable farming incentive and biodiversity net gain? We must solve this problem for the future.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
One of the things the Government are doing is working to promote more sustainable farming, because sustainable farming will turn this around and make the difference. We must support our pollinators by looking at how we farm and what we spray on our farms. That is why I am very pleased to have recently been given the pesticides brief, and I will be working to see what we can do in that space.
Also, we have threats from non-native invasive species—the yellow-legged hornet is causing all sorts of problems. We are working very hard to tackle that as well, because there are threats from all sides, as the noble Lord says.
Lord Trees (CB)
My Lords, at the moment there is little we can do to mitigate climate change and severe weather events, which this year are likely seriously to deplete our UK food production, both for arable crops and livestock. In these circumstances, does the Minister agree that the policy proposal in the Land Use Framework, published in March, to take 9%—a tenth—of our agricultural land out of food production is inconsistent with the Government’s avowed commitment to food security?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
It is also important to point out that in the Land Use Framework, the Government did make a clear long-term commitment to maintain overall food production in England by increasing farm profitability and productivity, and to develop particular sector plans, which is what farming was asking for. Through those sector plans, we can better underpin our food security and drive economic growth. We have a number of things in place to support that ambition. We are going to start with horticulture and poultry on the sector plans. We have set up, as the Batters review recommended, a farming and food partnership board. We are also looking at agricultural land classification data to protect our most important agricultural land.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I commend the Minister for persisting with questions today despite her awful throat braxy.
Two weeks ago, the National Audit Office published a highly critical report on Defra’s lack of preparedness for food shortages, the failure to test the emergency plans in place, and the lack of the legal powers and specific asset tracking to maintain food supplies during a deep emergency. A key recommendation was that Defra must work more closely with farmers and food businesses to ensure that the food supply is maintained. To work more closely with farmers, will the Government call off the Treasury attacks on farmers, farming and the countryside that are driving farmers to quit in record numbers? No farmers means no food, no security and no countryside that we love.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The noble Lord mentions the National Audit Office report, which shows that risks to food supplies are becoming much more complex. That is why we are working with farmers, producers and the drinks industry to strengthen our food security. We are looking at the findings and recommendations and will be discussing them with the Treasury.
Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor: Citizenship
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Baroness Chakrabarti
To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they have made representations to the government of Israel regarding the citizenship of documentary film directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Wood of Anfield) (Lab)
My Lords, we support freedom of expression, including artistic freedom. We have not made representations to the Government of Israel, but we expect any action affecting an individual’s citizenship or civil rights to be conducted in accordance with the rule of law and with due process. Democracy and the rule of law are among Israel’s founding values. These are vital to a secure Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister, not least because I know of his long-term commitment to the arts in general and filmmaking, I think, in particular. I wonder how we remind ourselves, let alone persuade friends and allies, that in a democracy dissent is not disloyalty but the test of democratic values. Given the excellent debate on the first Question, on G20 priorities, can my noble friend say a little more on Foreign Office work and priorities around promoting rights and freedoms in general?
Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for that question and pay tribute to her long-standing commitment to rights, freedoms and the rule of law for many years. She is absolutely right that dissent is the test of the health of democracy, and we remain concerned about reports of threats and intimidation directed at journalists, filmmakers and others. I am pleased to say that the Foreign Office takes media freedom extremely seriously. We chair a coalition on media freedom. My ministerial friend Chris Elmore talked about this issue to the Foreign Affairs Committee in recent months. It is going to continue to be a priority, not just in the Middle East but elsewhere.
Lord Polak (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, should know better before submitting such Questions. Any revoking of Israeli citizenship requires the Interior Minister, the Attorney-General and a court to independently agree, and the noble Baroness knows that no such proceedings have been opened. Does the Minister agree, as the film itself received a 25-minute standing ovation in Venice, and the filmmakers were free to make and screen a film fiercely—and I say fiercely—criticising their own Government, that this episode shows the strength and well-being of press freedom and democratic debate in Israel and should be praised by all noble Lords and His Majesty’s Government?
Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)
I start by wishing the noble Lord and all other Jewish Members of our Chamber a happy new year. He is right that Israel, for example, is a signatory to both the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, as we are. I note that the Israeli Prime Minister last night made remarks about possible future legislation, but we do not comment on that; we will see what transpires. The noble Lord is also completely right that there is a venerable and admirable tradition of robust free speech and exchange, and we hope that that tradition remains in place.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, I hope the Minister will agree that it is indeed inappropriate to focus on a state where there is a stringent judicial process—we do not want discrimination. On the international front, things are even worse. In a few days’ time, the United Nations Durban conference will be marking the 25th anniversary of the World Conference against Racism, which turned out to be an antisemitism and anti-Israel conference. Can the Minister confirm—because I have written to the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister about this—that Britain will not participate in the upcoming Durban conference?
Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for that. I will have to return on the question of participation in future conferences. On the broader question of government action on antisemitism, I explained in the House last week that over £300 million has been committed to attacking and addressing antisemitism at home. Antisemitism is unacceptable. It is a scourge of any society, especially democratic society. At UNGA, in our upcoming event hosted by the Foreign Secretary in New York, we are going to focus more on this, and there will be more to say from the Government in due course on antisemitism.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, the Israeli military initially responded to “NAZA” by saying that it categorically rejects the allegations, but, in a later statement, it said that
“the allegations required a detailed, evidence-based response rather than a blanket dismissal”,
which I think most people would agree was the correct response. But is there not a danger for Israel in having a Minister who has suggested that he is going to move to remove citizenship? If that happened and it was challenged in court, would there not be a real danger that the personnel in the movie, who are anonymised at the moment, would be identified, and that would discredit the process and, indeed, embarrass the Government of Israel?
Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)
The noble Lord raises a number of complex hypothetical issues around this, and they may or may not transpire, but they are matters for Israeli courts, Israeli politics and Israel in general rather than for me.
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, building on the question from my noble friend Lord Polak, as the noble Lord acknowledged, Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. It has robust rule-of-law provisions. I wonder what steps the Government are taking to establish those exact provisions in the rest of the Middle East, including Iraq, Iran, Syria and all these other Arab countries.
Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for that. I am not sure whether he remembers the announcements made last week about taking extremely robust action: sanctions against the financing arm of Hezbollah, and further sanctions actions against Iran in the transport, energy and other sectors supporting its attempted nuclear programme, and on vessels that transport materials for it. In other states where there is terrorism and hostility to the UK and our allies, we are taking robust action in the hope that, in the future, democracy may take root.
Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)
My Lords, last month, the union of Palestinian journalists documented 108 attacks by Israeli forces and settlers on journalists and media workers in the occupied West Bank. Those attacks included detention, beatings and seizure of media equipment. Will my noble friend the Minister support the Palestinian trade union of journalists in calling for all media workers to be able to work free from intimidation and violence and for those responsible to be held accountable?
Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for that. She is absolutely right that attacks on all journalists are a matter of grave concern. We are very concerned by the high death toll of journalists in Gaza. Reporters covering conflicts should be and must be afforded protection under international humanitarian law. Access to conflict zones is vital for the media to carry out their role effectively—a role that we all depend on.
Lord Pannick (CB)
My Lords, the Minister rightly recognised that, in Israel, independent filmmakers can and do produce work that is highly critical of their own Government. Are the Government taking any steps to ensure that independent filmmakers can do precisely that in Gaza, the West Bank or any other state without suffering appalling consequences? Can I also recommend to the Minister and, indeed, to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, the new fifth season of the award-winning Israeli drama “Fauda”, which deals with the appalling events of 7 October and their aftermath?
Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for that. I am a “Fauda” fan, and I have not got to the fifth season yet, but I will do; I appreciate the pointer. On establishing freedom for artistic expression and freedom of speech in the West Bank and Gaza, there is, unfortunately, limited ability for us to influence what is happening at the moment in Gaza, but in the West Bank we are working with the Palestinian Authority to help cement reforms and support the development of democracy and the rule of law.
Lord Cashman (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I am non-affiliated, so it is my turn. Notwithstanding the due process referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Polak, does the Minister agree that, when a senior member of a Government threatens to withdraw citizenship, that can have a chilling effect on freedom of expression and, indeed, artistic expression? I would like to widen this slightly further: will he now take action against the Turkish Government for arresting LGBT activists and LGBT people merely for expressing their right to live and exist?
Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)
I thank my noble friend. I have raised the issue on LGBT activists with my Turkish counterparts. On the general question, I do not think it is appropriate to respond to individual comments of politicians in other countries. At this stage, I will leave it at that.
Draft Conversion Practices Bill
The Senior Deputy Speaker
That the Commons message of 14 September be considered and that a Committee of six Lords be appointed to join with the Committee appointed by the Commons to consider and report on the draft Conversion Practices Bill (CP 1604) presented to both Houses on 25 June and that the Committee should report by 22 January 2027;
That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the following members be appointed to the Committee:
Browning, B, Brown of Silvertown, B, Hope of Craighead, L, Isaac, L, Prentis of Banbury, B, Scriven, L.
That the Committee have power to agree with the Committee appointed by the Commons in the appointment of a Chair;
That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records;
That the Committee have power to appoint specialist advisers;
That the Committee have leave to report from time to time;
That the Committee have power to adjourn from place to place within the United Kingdom;
That the report of the Committee be printed, regardless of any adjournment of the House;
That the evidence taken by the Committee be published, if the Committee so wishes;
That the quorum of the Committee shall be two.
Tourism: Overnight Visitor Levy
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to see the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, at the Dispatch Box, but it was curious that this Question was not answered by the Tourism Minister in another place and is not being answered by any of the now three Ministers at DCMS in your Lordships’ House. Will she, on behalf of the Government, answer a question that was not addressed when this was taken on Tuesday? This new holiday tax will apply to all domestic stays. Does the Minister think it is fair to charge people who are staying in a hotel to attend the funeral of a loved one, visit somebody in hospital or undergo specialist medical attention in places far away from home?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)
My Lords, if that was the intention behind the levy, I would have something to say. I am delighted to tell the noble Lord that there will be exemptions. For example, we have many places that have big hospitals where parents or relatives have to stay, so there will be sensitivity at local level. It will be for the local level to decide where those exemptions apply so that it is done in the fairest possible way to protect people who have legitimate reasons and needs to be in a particular area.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, will the Minister take this opportunity to confirm that this should not be seen as a way of boosting income for normal expenditure but as a bonus on top? It should be set locally. What happens in Bath, for instance, will probably not be applicable in Barnsley. We should make sure that we do something that is appropriate for people in local communities and that it is a bonus for communities that make something out of tourism.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
The noble Lord raises an important point. It is about putting trust in local areas to work with their local partners and business community to make sure that the benefit comes back into those areas to help promote tourism. We are committed to supporting the tourism industry. I reassure the noble Lord that there will be non-statutory guidance and it will be taken very seriously. We look forward to looking at the plans from local areas that will be coming forward in due course, building on plans that are already in place. A levy is already in place in parts of this country, not to mention around Europe and the world. There are some positive examples to look to in bringing enormous benefits to wider local communities.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, further to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, a key proposal of the Cultural Policy Unit is a city tourism charge that would be ring-fenced for cultural infrastructure, including theatres, museums and heritage sites, which would in a cyclic way help the hospitality sector through encouraging tourism and redressing regional inequalities. However, that will not happen if this charge is squandered in other ways.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
There is no intention for the funds raised to be squandered, but a ring-fenced approach smacks of centralism. It is critical that local areas can determine their needs. I come from an area that has benefited enormously from investment in cultural and sporting events that have brought huge benefits, not least round-the-clock coverage from an aerial perspective of the beautiful sights of Yorkshire, for example. There are so many ways that this can be done. We are not ring-fencing because it would not be in the spirit of devolution, but we are very mindful of the comments that the noble Earl has made.
Baroness Keeley (Lab)
My Lords, Italy raises €1.3 billion per year from tourist taxes, with more than 1,400 municipalities implementing the tax. They have a different approach. They earmark the funds to support local tourism, protect cultural heritage and manage the environment. Given that tourists who visit the UK benefit greatly from our cultural offerings, including free entry to our museums, does my noble friend agree with my hope that mayors and strategic authorities—it is right that they should decide these things—will channel the funds for culture as well as other support for tourism?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
My noble friend raises a point on a similar theme. From my experience of working with the business rates retention pilot back in the day, I know that the most important thing is that we get the right partners around the table in those localities. The businesses and enterprises that my noble friend refers to need to have a voice around that table. It is critical that events and opportunities that attract more visitors have full representation and encourage investment that will make visitors feel welcome, looked after, safe and all those things that matter on a wider perspective.
Lord Houchen of High Leven (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as one of the mayors who is going to receive the power to implement the overnight levy. Let me put on record and be extremely clear that, for as long as I continue to be Mayor of the Tees Valley, there will be no overnight levy implemented within my region, specifically because it has a significant impact on relatively socioeconomically poor families who decide to holiday within the UK. It is an additional tax on holidays, but it is also a tax on business. We have contractors, white van men and businesses who rely on overnight stays up and down this country. It is an additional tax on business. Devolution seems to be a one-way street with this Administration. Devolution means an ability to increase taxes. Can the Minister tell me where we might be able to see devolution of the ability to decrease taxes?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
The noble Lord and I have worked together on many occasions in the past. That is entirely in his remit, and that is why this is not being imposed. It will be a devolved matter. Local mayors and strategic authorities can make their own decisions. That is the fundamental point of why we are doing it this way. Evidence from around the world does not support the noble Lord’s thesis, but of course there is concern. We need to make sure that everything is analysed and addressed and that we have a full picture of the impact as we go on.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
Will care be taken to study the levy in Edinburgh, where it has been in force for quite some time, as to both its administration and the effect on businesses and the wider effects across the city?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
My understanding is that the Edinburgh scheme is relatively new. It was introduced this summer and the estimate is that it has raised £50 million. We will be looking carefully at Edinburgh’s experience. It has not reported any decrease in visitor numbers, and we expect a positive programme of how it is going to invest that money. Edinburgh is home to many artists over the summer; I am sure it would want to make it clear that they are very welcome to go to Edinburgh and will be supported.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, is the Minister aware of the Merseyside mayor’s proposals to lever in private sector money using this levy for some exciting schemes that will create wealth, growth and jobs? Does she not think that the mayor of Merseyside will know more about generation than the Tory party, which abandoned lots of these areas for a long time?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I am absolutely convinced that Mayor Rotheram knows what is best for his local area. He is a passionate advocate of everything to do with Liverpool. Liverpool and Manchester have already introduced a flat-rate levy at the behest of the business community in their areas. It is the businesses that have worked with the leaders to bring forward those levies. I am pretty sure that I will be in Liverpool fairly shortly, so I look forward very much to finding out more about it.
Lord Fuller (Con)
My Lords, UKHospitality has calculated that this tax will cost 33,000 jobs, raise £1.6 billion and reduce GDP by £2.2 billion. That is its assessment. What assessment have the Government made of the financial impacts of this proposal and will they publish it?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
It is fair to say that we do not recognise the figures that UKHospitality has put out. We have been working with it incredibly closely through the consultation and will continue to do so. This is a vital part of our economy and we are here to give the support that is needed to make sure that these areas thrive. The conversation is ongoing, but I suggest the noble Lord looks at the wider evidence from around the world of how successful such a levy can be.
Education and Skills Reform
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Baroness Cash (Con)
My Lords, as ever, I thank the Minister for bringing this Statement to the House. Last week’s PISA results placed English pupils in the top 10 in the world for reading, maths and science. That is down to the dedication and hard work of our teachers in executing almost 30 years of reform begun under new Labour and continued by the Conservatives. I am delighted that this Statement acknowledges that success, but it makes the dismantling of the system which has given generations of children greater life chances much harder to justify. It is laudable that the Government wish to address what is not working and to do more for those not in education, employment or training. We on these Benches share that desire. But good intentions are not the same as good decisions. The parts of the system which are working so well should be left alone.
Since 2016, schools have been judged on the progress every pupil makes between the ages of 11 and 16. We know this measure as Progress 8. It is a reliable measure because it adjusts for intake, so it quickly weeds out the schools coasting on good results in affluent areas without significant improvement and reveals the schools with remarkable outcomes for children in our most deprived communities—top schools like Tauheedul girls’ school, Mercia in Sheffield and Michaela. It is such a good measure that the Government’s own independent reviewer, Professor Francis, recommended keeping Progress 8 completely unchanged. But the Government have overruled her, and we know from the February consultation what overruling her means. It means broadening the subjects for lower-attaining pupils to “reward inclusion”—if ever there were words to make the heart sink. Can the Minister assist us here? What evidence did the department possess to justify overruling its own expert reviewer?
There is a very bold claim about NEETs in this Statement that the overfocus on academic pathways is a major factor driving the growing NEETs crisis, which has produced the current 1 million NEETs. Now is not the time for an economics debate, so I am going to resist that temptation, but we have data on this. Wales has been rolling out precisely the kind of skills-based, less exam-focused curriculum now proposed by this Government for England. On the results published on 8 September, Wales scored well below England in maths, reading and science. The Institute for Fiscal Studies tells us that 11% of Welsh 16 to 18 year-olds are NEET against 5% to 9% across the rest of the United Kingdom, and that disadvantaged children in England score 30 points higher than disadvantaged children in Wales.
The Statement also cites 1.5 million persistently absent children as part of its reasoning against the current academic curriculum. I am delighted to talk about school absence; we do not talk about it enough and the toll it takes on children’s outcomes, and parents need to know more about that. The Education Policy Institute has found that the widening of the disadvantage gap since 2019 is entirely explained by higher absence rates among poorer pupils. Again, there is no causal link with the academic curriculum. We have the data. Persistent absence is 18% in England, 28% in Scotland, and 37% among Welsh secondary pupils—20% higher in Wales under the same skills-based, less academic curriculum the Government now propose for England. While absence rose across every UK nation after the pandemic, in England, with its boring old academic curriculum, the rate is the lowest and falling.
We have heard a lot this week since the Statement about the abolition of resits. None of us wishes children to resit exams for the sake of it, but, again, we have data on this. Solid LSE research cited by Alan Milburn comparing students of identical ability who fall just either side of the grade boundary finds that just failing as opposed to just scraping a pass in English GCSE makes a young person more likely to be out of education and work by 18. At 16, 35% lack the grades, but by 19 it is only 22%, so resits help almost a third of those to transform their life chances. Can the Minister tell us what happens to that group if resits are abolished, and what is going to replace resits?
Vocational pathways are the centrepiece of the new Prime Minister’s and Secretary of State’s education reforms, but, regrettably, from this Statement we are none the wiser as to what these will look like. We still do not know what qualifications we are expecting and when, which means real uncertainty for children and their families. It supposedly launches in two years, but the qualifications are just existing technical awards with any new ones yet to be explored. There is no plan for the specialist teachers, and colleges cannot fill technical posts today. There is no plan for work experience when T-levels already struggle to find placements. There is nothing on who decides which children will take this route, no guarantee of what it leads to and no budget. I ask the Minister: which qualifications will a child starting in September 2028 take? When will we know? Who will decide which children go down this route? Will completing it guarantee a place on a T-level or V-level course or an apprenticeship? And will the Minister guarantee that a child who starts it can return, complete academic GCSEs and go on to A-levels if needed?
I must press the Minister on a few other questions about the timetable. The review was published in November 2025. The Government promised the first teaching of the new curriculum would happen in September 2028, with the final documents by spring 2027 and four terms for schools to prepare. The draft curriculum and the Progress 8 consultation response were due this September. It is now 17 September, the Commons has risen, this House rises this afternoon, and nothing has been published. Can the Minister tell us on what date the draft curriculum will be published? Does the four-terms pledge still stand? And if so, what does that mean for the implementation date? Finally, will the Progress 8 consultation response come before or after schools must set their options for 2027? I thank the Minister in advance for her answers.
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful for this debate on education and skills policy because ultimately it comes down to one question: are we giving every young person the opportunity to build a good-quality life regardless of where they come from?
There is much in our education system of which we should be proud. As we heard earlier, the latest PISA results show that the United Kingdom remains one of the highest-performing education systems in the world, particularly around science, mathematics and reading. Our performance in science has improved since 2022, and we need to acknowledge these achievements. However, we also have to recognise that academic success alone is not enough. The ONS has estimated that more than 1 million young people aged 16 to 24 are currently not in education, employment or training—a figure that has increased over the past year. Alan Milburn’s review, which many of us have spoken about, warns that, without action, one in six young people could be NEET within the next five years. That should be a wake-up call to all of us.
We need an education and skills system that works for young people who want to go to university, but equally for young people who want to become engineers, electricians, nurses, technicians and skilled professionals. The Government’s reforms to post-16 pathways have the potential to provide greater choice, including V-levels and occupational certificates, but choice exists only if young people have access to a genuine range of choices. My concern is that technical education must not become a second-tier route, disproportionately taken by children from poorer backgrounds while affluent families continue to choose the traditional academic pathways. There must be parity of esteem between academic and technical education and, crucially, the ability to move between the two pathways.
A 16 year-old should not be expected to make a decision that permanently determines their future. That is why careers advice is so important. Every young person should have access to high-quality careers guidance and meaningful work experience—an issue that I have often mentioned in your Lordships’ Chamber—so that choices are informed by aspiration and opportunity rather than postcode or family income. We also need to ask whether the system has the capacity to deliver these ambitions. Technical education requires teachers, lecturers, specialist facilities and strong links with employers, yet colleges are already under pressure to recruit and retain staff with the specialist skills required. How will the Government ensure that colleges have the workforce and the funding necessary to deliver these reforms? Will the Minister commit to addressing the disparities in pay and conditions that are making recruitment and retention more difficult?
Apprenticeships must be central to this debate. They can provide a powerful bridge between education and employment, but employers, in particular small and medium-sized businesses, need a system that is simpler, more flexible and financially viable. I welcome the Government’s move towards greater flexibility in the apprenticeship levy, but we should go further: make apprenticeships more attractive, ensure that apprentices are properly paid and give smaller businesses practical support to take on more. We also need regional flexibility. A young person in a rural community should have access to the same breadth of opportunities as someone in a major city. That would require proper workforce planning and greater involvement from regions and employers.
We cannot discuss education and skills reform without mentioning SEND. Too many families are still fighting for support while councils struggle with the financial consequences of a broken system. Reform must put children and families at its centre. That means early identification, sufficient specialist and mainstream provision, a properly funded workforce and meaningful rights to appeal for parents.
Skills are not simply about filling vacancies; they are about giving people the confidence, knowledge and opportunities to shape their own future. If these reforms are to succeed, we need an education system that does not divide young people into winners and losers, academic or vocational, advantaged or disadvantaged. We need a system that says to every young person: your background does not determine your future, and, whatever route you choose, we will give you the opportunity to succeed. That should be the ambitions of education and skills reforms.
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their questions. I will turn to the specific points that have been raised in a moment, but, before I do, it is worth briefly reiterating the context of the Secretary of State’s Statement last week. At its heart was a simple proposition: every young person should be able to see a clear pathway from education into further learning, skilled work and adult life.
Our education system has many strengths. The latest PISA results confirmed England’s strong performance in reading, mathematics and science. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, that that should be reflected in our thanks to the hard-working staff in our schools who have helped to deliver that, but it also builds on the work of successive Governments. I am very proud of the role that I played in the previous Labour Government, alongside some of my noble friends here today, in the focus on numeracy and literacy, the introduction of phonics and the support to ensure school improvement across the system. I recognise that many of those elements were built on successfully by the previous Government.
However, there is a slight flavour in the Opposition’s response to this Statement, both in this House and in the other place, that somehow we should now place in aspic the education system and not recognise the areas where, notwithstanding the progress, there is more work to be done. I am afraid that a disadvantage gap still exists for our children, and it is stubbornly wide. A gap between regions is widening. We have a growing SEND crisis, 1.5 million children persistently absent from school at the last general election, a doubling of those educated at home since 2019 and now 1 million young people, all educated during the last 16 years, not in education, employment or training. Simply standing still and resting on our laurels will not be good enough for our children.
The purpose of these reforms is therefore to build a nationally coherent, locally responsive education and skills system that supports opportunity, responds to local labour market needs and creates stronger progression routes for young people. Central to that ambition is a new approach to technical and vocational education. Academic, technical and vocational routes should be complementary parts of a single high-quality offer with stronger connections to employment. New technical pathways from age 14 will combine technical qualifications alongside GCSEs, careers education and meaningful work experience, helping young people to progress into further study, apprenticeships and skilled careers. Alongside that, mayors, local leaders, schools, colleges and employers will work together to develop those high-quality technical and vocational routes for 16 to 19 year-olds, aligned to local economic opportunities and the Government’s industrial strategy.
These reforms are designed to widen opportunity, not to narrow it, ensuring that technical excellence is recognised and valued alongside academic achievement, and that every young person can see a clear route to success. That is why I have to rebut the suggestion by the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, that this Government are dismantling the system. Actually, we are aiming to ensure that the high standards we can achieve for a lot of children—although not all—in our academic education are matched by high standards for those who want to take a more technical or vocational route, and that the opportunity to do that at the age of 14 by combining GCSEs with technical qualifications is made much more widely available to young people than is the case at the moment. That is not a dismantling of our system; it is building on what is good but ensuring that technical and vocational education has the support and the priority that many people in this House think it should have.
Furthermore, we are not talking about abolishing resits. We are talking about abolishing the situation where young people, without the additional support that they need, resit in a way that simply promotes their feeling of failure. That is why we are investing in teaching in further education, and it is why we are introducing a new level 1 stepping-stone qualification in order to enable young people to get the foundation that will then enable them to go on to successfully resit their GCSEs.
On some of the detailed questions about the 14-16 technical route, first, as I think I have made clear, this is not about separating pupils into academic and vocational groups or narrowing choices. All pupils will continue to study a broad and balanced curriculum. We are drawing on evidence from the interim Milburn review, the Curriculum and Assessment Review and engagement with strategic authorities, employers, schools, colleges and other partners as we develop those pathways. They will be rolled out using the existing level 1 and 2 technical awards that are already available. We will also work with Ofqual and other key partners to develop top-quality vocational and technical qualifications, which support—to respond to the noble Baroness—progression to T-levels, A-levels, V-levels, apprenticeships, university and beyond. Those qualifications will continue to sit alongside GCSEs and provide a high-quality option at key stage 4.
As that work progresses, the DfE will consider how to use its existing budgets to best support delivery, including through reprioritising budgets to ensure investment in high-quality education and clearer routes into skilled work. We are already making a difference to the number of teachers we are recruiting but, of course, we recognise the challenge to ensure that the expertise is there to deliver on this.
The noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, is right about careers guidance and work experience. He is right about apprenticeships, which is why we are already going further with support for employers. He is also right about reform of the special educational needs system, which is why we will bring forward the results of our consultation. We are already investing in the SEND system. We will have plenty of time in this House to discuss this Government’s reform programme.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Hyde of Bemerton) (Lab)
My Lords, before we move on, I remind the House that the next 20 minutes are reserved for questions from Back-Benchers only. I also remind noble Lords of the importance of brevity when asking questions. This will ensure that as many noble Lords as possible have the opportunity to ask their questions.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, I know that the Minister has taken a very positive attitude towards strengthening the status of kinship carers. The Government have also introduced pilot programmes. Both have a capacity to help in bringing forward the work which is spoken of in the Statement. Could she give a rather fuller account of what the Government are doing on kinship carers? If that takes more time than we have available today, could she write to me? She and her colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Blake of Leeds, have played a very positive role in this important area.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord. He is right that we are seeking ways to support kinship carers, to strengthen the opportunity for children to live with those who are close to them in those arrangements. We are also taking action to support the educational outcomes of children who are in kinship care. I think I am right in saying that we are expanding the role of virtual head teachers to those children. I will certainly write to the noble Lord with more detail about our plan.
Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)
My Lords, I very much welcome the emphasis that the Government are placing on work experience. Might the Minister like to say a bit more about how the Government plan to deliver this? It is clear that work experience will be available both to students below and post-16. With the two funding streams that will now cover those areas and the extra responsibility that will be put on schools, can she give an absolute assurance that there be equality of opportunity for children from all backgrounds and that the extra work will not fall merely on schools? I think back to something which was called the business education partnership, which offered a brokerage service which meant that greater access for everyone was available and schools were not overburdened.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend is right. The opportunity for high-quality work experience is a very important theme in these reforms. The Government are committed to offering two weeks of work experience for every child pre-16, starting from an early age, with different ways to engage with employers. It is an important part of that work. She is also right that, given the ambition we have post-16 for T-level placements and other work experience opportunities, we need to support, for example, our mayoral and strategic authorities to be able to broker those links locally. My noble friend’s ideas about support for brokerage are very important and something we are reflecting hard on.
Lord Redwood (Con)
Given the need for more work experience, more apprenticeships and other support from the private sector, will the Government look again at the very damaging tax rises and regulatory changes they have introduced, which have driven down vacancies in a big way and driven up unemployment? They impede success for this programme.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Of course, we will keep the business environment under review to ensure that it provides as many opportunities as possible. I note that, in his interim review, Alan Milburn argued that it was not, for example, changes to national insurance or to the national minimum wage that have caused the numbers of young people to be out of work. The biggest increase in those numbers, of course, happened in the two years in the run-up to the last general election.
Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)
My Lords, I refer to my entry in the register of interests as regards City of London College. Within the Statement, the Government commit to transferring responsibility and finance for 16 to 19 year-olds to mayors and, presumably, to strategic authorities, but, to date, local authorities have sometimes been quite inconsistent in their support and taken a very differential approach, for instance, to young people who are in danger of becoming NEETs but do not reach the level of an EHCP. How do the Government intend to move forward while ensuring that there is consistent and full access to pathways for all pupils and that equal opportunities are provided for every young person, irrespective of where they come from?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
If I am completely frank, this is one of the big challenges of the very welcome devolution that this Government under the new Prime Minister are engaged in. We are discussing with mayors and others the relationship between national entitlements and the flexibility, for example, to bring in work experience opportunities, to work with local employers and to tailor education so that it suits the types of work and opportunities that might be available to young people locally, while ensuring there is equality of access. A key objective of this Government is to close, not to worsen, the disadvantage gap. As we develop the devolution proposals, we will keep thinking hard about how we can ensure that that happens.
Lord John of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, even in the world where we are ruled by robots, it is entirely likely that genuine human creativity and culture will have an important part to play in the future of our economy. In her Statement last week, the Secretary of State mentioned drama, but can my noble friend tell us about the wider cultural opportunities that these reforms might bring forth, perhaps in music, dance and film?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
An important part of our Curriculum and Assessment Review was finding time within a curriculum, that still focuses on the knowledge necessary for children to succeed, for broader opportunities to undertake music, drama and PE—some of those human skills and opportunities that are so important to our children, as my noble friend says. In this House, we have discussed a range of ways in which we are supporting the development of opportunities for music and dance.
I will also respond at this point to the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, about accountability measures. In removing the requirement for children to study within the straitjacket of the former EBacc accountability measures, we have freed up schools to reintroduce some of those music, drama and other qualifications that had been squeezed out by it. Of course, at the moment, while we consult about the changes that we want to make to Progress 8, it remains in place.
Lord Willetts (Con)
My Lords, there clearly is a tide of opinion in favour of devolving funding. The Statement in the other place was absolutely clear. It said:
“For the first time, mayors will have control of the 16-19 education budget”.
This is causing some concern. Can the Minister tell the House whether that includes control of the expenditure of the apprenticeship levy for 16 to 18 year-olds, and does it extend to classroom-based provision for them?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Obviously, we are still working on the details of that but no, it does not extend to the growth and skills levy provision for apprenticeships for 16 to 18 year-olds. It will cover the 16 to 19 budget as it applies, for example, to post-16 qualifications, including classroom provision in colleges.
Lord Hampton (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a working teacher and I beg the House to wish me luck in teaching jollof rice to year 8s tomorrow. I broadly welcome this Statement and its ambitions, but I am slightly confused. The Becky Francis review promised us “evolution not revolution”, while the new Secretary of State has said there will be “an education revolution”. Has the curriculum review been superseded and are we evolving or revolting?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I have no doubt that, with the noble Lord’s skills, year 8 will thoroughly enjoy jollof rice and come out of his class with renewed enthusiasm for cooking and, I hope, a whole range of other things.
As I made clear in my first answer, we are building on the successes of the last 30 years in our education system but we are recognising, as Becky Francis did in the Curriculum and Assessment Review, where we have overly narrowed the curriculum. In some cases, we have forced out things that many people would consider to be important skills and opportunities for young people. We will reintroduce those, but we are also determined to do something that many previous Governments have expressed a commitment to, yet none has really delivered so far, including me in my former incarnation: genuinely good, high-quality, high-standard technical and vocational opportunities for young people. That is one of the opportunities that we have through these reforms and it is an important part of the focus of the work that we are doing.
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, while I welcome many of the aspects of this Statement and much of what my noble friend the Minister said, I still feel that it lacks an overall strategy in relation to future changes of demands on the employment and skills markets. In particular, will the Government produce a strategy which is central to their economic policy and deals with the impact that AI will have on the employment and skills requirements in the medium term? One does not have to be a total pessimist and say that AI is going to destroy millions of jobs, but it will change millions of them dramatically, not least entry-level jobs. Will there be a strategy from the department for dealing with AI and its impact on the needs of our education and skills system?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
It is precisely in order to equip children to respond to the changing needs in the labour market that we are making some of these changes, but those build, of course, on the introduction by this Government of Skills England. I hope that my noble friend will have seen some of the important work that Skills England has done on the way in which AI skills will be necessary for the future workforce, and how they are likely to change the nature of the skills that young people and, in fact, adults need. The Government have responded to that through additional skills training to support not just young people but people throughout their lives to develop those AI skills. I agree that this is a wide-ranging challenge to both the labour market and our education system and that more work needs to be done, but we have certainly made an important start.
Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)
My Lords, I draw attention to my interest with respect to Access Creative College. Only last month, the Government implemented substantial reforms to the apprenticeship levy by transforming it into the growth and skills levy, increasing the amount that employers must contribute to adult apprenticeships and reducing the amount of time they have to use their levy funds. We read in the FT recently, though, that the Government’s own reviewer is minded to recommend the abolition of the apprenticeship levy. Are the Government minded to go down such a path? If so, how do they plan to backfill the £4 billion or so that the apprenticeship levy, now the growth and skills levy, brings into our training and skills system?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord knows as well as any of us that you cannot necessarily believe everything that you read in the newspapers. As I suggested to the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, there may well be further changes to the growth and skills levy, but we have been clear that we want to pivot it to young people to put right the 40% fall in them starting apprenticeships that we saw in the last 10 years. We also understand the role of apprenticeships, and of skills training more widely, in supporting people who are currently in work. I ask the noble Lord to wait, for example, until the final publication of Alan Milburn’s recommendations and the Government’s response to them.
Saudi East-West Oil Pipeline
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interests as chairman of Buckthorn, Amey and Acteon. I will concentrate on fuel prices in the Question. Since UK imports of Saudi oil stand at 2.5% of our total oil imports and the UK’s share of overall Middle Eastern gas supply is well under 1%, why are our domestic electricity bills predicted to be £300 more per annum from January next year—a distant £600 more than the promised reduction in the Labour Party manifesto—when wholesale electricity prices, the only element which gas heavily influences, contribute just 38% of our domestic bills? Would the Minister not agree that one way to reduce bills is to remove the clean power 2030 policy costs, which are fleecing British consumers in the Government’s headlong rush to net zero and decarbonisation of Britain’s electricity generation by 2030, which everyone knows will not be achieved, and will continue massively to impede household and industrial affordability?
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Antrobus) (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his points and his questions. He will recognise that in talking about percentages of oil and gas coming from certain regions—he mentioned Saudi, obviously—we understand that our energy security in the UK is reliant, in a positive way, on a diverse range of supplies from around the world, including the Netherlands and the US, as he will well know.
On domestic bills, clearly, the Government review all the time the volatility that is happening as a result of not just those most recent attacks on the pipeline and facilities in Saudi Arabia but the wider issues across the Middle East and Iran, and in other areas of volatility. As a Government, we continue to review what we can do to help people but, as many will know, we are removing VAT on electricity bills from 1 October, which was recently announced. There are also other discounts to be made, with £150 off bills in the last Budget and, for those 6 million households most in need, the warm home discount, which I encourage noble Lords to ensure is widely communicated.
Lord Hain (Lab)
My Lords, this is my first opportunity to welcome my noble friend to the Benches. As a former wing commander, she adds real expertise and stature to the Labour Benches and indeed to the House. I welcome her response, but does this terrible attack on the pipeline not also indicate that the White House is responsible for terrible blunders of diplomacy in the Middle East? The Conservative leader asked us to back this; the consequences have been appalling, and the Government are now wrestling with that.
Baroness Antrobus (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for his kind words—and it is lovely to be able to call him my noble friend. He refers to the action against Iran by the US and Israel combined. As he will know, our former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer made an excellent judgment call in those early days, under a great deal of pressure from both outside groups and the Opposition. As a Member of this House and a former military officer, I commend the way he handled it.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the damage done to the Saudi installations originated from a rogue general in the Iraqi republic? Are we satisfied that that will not be repeated? Can she also address whether it is all that helpful for the President of the United States to say that he does not expect anything much to happen to alleviate the supply problems in the Gulf until after the US mid-term elections?
Baroness Antrobus (Lab)
The noble Lord makes an excellent point about the fact that the drone attacks that hit the Saudi pipeline and installations generally came from Iraq—from IRGC-supported militia. I cannot give a guarantee that this will not happen again. The IRGC is clearly active in various parts of the Middle East, and that remains of significant concern to our Government and to our allies in the region. Can the noble Lord repeat the second part of his question?
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
I asked the Minister whether she thought it helpful that the President of the United States said that he did not expect anything very useful to happen to improve the supply of oil and gas from the Gulf before the US mid-term elections.
Baroness Antrobus (Lab)
We do not know how long it will take for Saudi Arabia to repair the pipeline. Reports are varied, but some are optimistic that it will be sooner than that. I will, respectfully, take advice from our Saudi Arabian allies first and foremost. As the noble Lord would expect, there are conversations going on between our allies, particularly Saudi Arabia, and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, I too welcome the Minister. Again, it is fossil fuels that prove insecure in supply and volatile in price. The attack on this pipeline, carrying 4% of global oil, will pile further pressure on prices already inflated as we head into winter. We can ill afford another fossil fuel crisis. How robust, therefore, are our energy supplies? As the Prime Minister has promised to take the difficult decisions, will a social tariff be introduced this winter so that families can afford to heat their homes?
Baroness Antrobus (Lab)
I thank the noble Earl for a very important question. The UK clearly continues to have a robust and secure supply of gas, oil and other fuel products to meet demand, through a mixture of domestic production and imports from a diverse range of countries, some of which I have mentioned. We know that worry about energy prices is at the forefront of people’s minds, and I understand that. We will keep looking at what we can do to protect families from unaffordable bills. I have already mentioned some of the areas in which we have been trying to make their lives better. We are also helping the homes most in need, such as those in rural communities that need heating oil. This is the top of the agenda, and we will continue to review it.
Lord Redwood (Con)
My Lords, does the disruption in the Middle East not prove that we need to get the Jackdaw gas out as quickly as possible for domestic use? Does that not bring a tax bonanza, which surely the Government need?
Baroness Antrobus (Lab)
The noble Lord raised this very question with my noble friend Lady Curran, my colleague in the ministry. He will have heard the answer last week. I cannot comment on that project at the moment, given that it is currently subject to a live regulatory process.
Lord John of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome and congratulate my noble friend on her appearance at the Dispatch Box. This issue underlines the importance of Britain achieving fuel self-sufficiency going forward. Can she tell us more about how the Government’s work is going in that regard, in particular, giving communities power over energy self-sufficiency?
Baroness Antrobus (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for his question. We know that people are worried about the cost of bills, as I said to noble Earl, Lord Russell. The Government are transitioning to clean energy to get off the fossil fuels rollercoaster and take back control of our energy bills. Today, a new grant package of £30 million was announced to support community energy projects. It is backed by Great British Energy, and will roll out a wave of local projects, allowing communities in every postcode to decide what they would like to invest in, be it solar panels on their local library or a community wind farm. I commend this project to the House.
Lord Grayling (Con)
My Lords, I refer Members to my entry in the register. This attack is simply part of a mounting threat to the Red Sea, which is far more than an energy route: it is one of the world’s most important trade routes. As part of the international community, the United Kingdom has previously played an active role in helping to keep that route open. Are we planning to do the same thing now?
Baroness Antrobus (Lab)
The noble Lord, Lord Grayling, makes an excellent point about the importance of that region. I speak as someone who, on an exchange tour with the Royal Navy, served in and sailed through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and into the Gulf, so I know the region well. The noble Lord is absolutely right about its importance to this country. But it is almost more important to other parts of the world, not least Asia, given the current crisis and the difficulties in getting through the strait to the south of where the incident took place. We must think of our allies around the world, some of whom will be more affected than we are. The best way to resolve such threats and activities is through diplomacy and working alongside our allies. I assure the noble Lord that we will continue that work.
Independent Schools: Tax Changes
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Lord Lexden
That this House takes note of the impact of VAT and other tax changes on independent schools since 1 January 2025.
Lord Lexden (Con)
My Lords, in the autumn of 2024, when I was in better health, I introduced two debates on the imposition of VAT on independent school fees, due to come into effect on 1 January 2025. Most speakers in those debates referred to the grave difficulties independent schools and the families of their pupils would face as a result of Labour’s education tax—the first to be introduced in Britain and, apart from a disastrous experiment in Greece, the first in Europe. The Government added further to the costs of independent schools last year and, in the process, helped jack up their fees—after five years during which fee rises had been lower than wage inflation—by scrapping the exemption from business rates that most of them enjoyed by virtue of being charities. Just like the VAT exemption, both were scurrilously misrepresented by Labour as tax breaks.
Independent schools were hit again by the increase in employers’ national insurance contributions. State schools received additional public funding to off-set the higher NIC bill; independent schools did not. The object of today’s debate is to consider how independent schools, of which there are some 2,500 in total, are faring in the face of Labour’s unprecedented financial assault upon them.
I declare my interest as a former general secretary of the Independent Schools Council and the current president of the Independent Schools Association, one of the ISC’s constituent bodies. The ISC represents some 1,400 schools, in which around 80% of the pupils in the independent sector are educated. The Independent Schools Association has some 700 schools, a large slice of the total, in its membership. As I have stressed on previous occasions, it is among these 700 schools that many of the small schools, so prevalent in the independent sector today and so valued by their local communities, are to be found. Large, well-known schools that fascinate the public and the media are the exception, not the rule.
Article after article and survey after survey have provided evidence of the strain that the Government’s education tax is placing on hard-working families. The latest survey by Parentkind found that 40% of parents with children in independent schools have been forced to cut back on household spending to meet the cost of their children’s education. These are the people who work extra hours, forgo holidays and put off replacing the family car because they believe an independent school is right for their child. The education tax increases the sacrifices that they have to make.
The independent sector’s contribution extends far beyond this country. Independent schools are a major export success story and an important source of British soft power, helping attract talented young people to the United Kingdom and enhance Britain’s reputation overseas. This is something the Government should be championing, not chipping away at. Together, independent schools generate more than £3 billion annually through education, exports and transnational education, despite intense international competition.
At home, independent schools stand ready to use their expertise to help raise standards and deliver national education priorities. One clear opportunity is for them to work with state schools in meeting the Government’s new enrichment benchmarks. These expect pupils to have access to civic engagement, arts and culture, outdoor adventure, life and future skills, and sport and physical activity, but the Government have confirmed that no dedicated funding will be provided to schools to deliver this ambition. Independent/state school partnerships already make a major contribution in these areas.
In the past year, more than 1,000 ISC schools have worked with state school colleagues in nearly 10,000 partnership projects across sport, music, the arts and academic collaboration. These range from sharing facilities and running joint lessons and events to seconding staff and helping state school sixth-formers with university applications. All represent invaluable opportunities for children at no cost to the state. Sadly, the Government have shown remarkably little interest in supporting and strengthening this work, even as they place greater expectations on schools to broaden pupils’ opportunities.
The Government claim that falling pupil numbers in England’s independent schools reflect the wider decline in the school-age population. The figures do not bear this out. Pupil losses in independent schools have been more than triple the decline in the school population as a whole. The Government also trot out the line that more independent schools have opened than closed since the introduction of the education tax. This disguises the importance of the loss of mainstream independent schools, many of them centuries-old centres of academic excellence. Mainstream schools account for 82% of the 106 school closures so far under the impact of the education tax.
The schools that have opened, though numerically larger, are for the most part very different. The independent sector now has many more special schools, catering for children with acute and complex special needs, which account for some 90% of the newcomers. The growth of specialist provision is both welcome and necessary at a time of rising demand for SEND support, but the Government failed to acknowledge the change in the character of the independent sector that this trend represents. Many places in special schools are commissioned and funded by local authorities. Where an independent school is named in the child’s education, health and care plan, the local authority can also reclaim the VAT.
The Government may argue that closures are in line with long-established trends, but the average capacity of the schools that have closed since the introduction of the education tax has been almost double that of schools which closed in the preceding 10 years. The casualties of the Government’s education tax include Malvern St James in Worcestershire, which closed after 133 years. Durham High School closed after 142 years, Ruthin School in Denbighshire closed after 742 years and Thetford Grammar School in Norfolk closed after nearly 1,400 years.
Labour have been in government for little more than two years, yet the damage they have done is considerable. Every school closure means lost jobs, disrupted local supply chains and children losing a community that may have impacted their lives for years. The effects are often particularly severe in rural areas. Reports on closures refer to distraught teachers, anxiety among parents forced to find a new school at short notice and children having to move midway through their A-levels.
Mr Campbell Harrison, head of St Gerard’s School in Bangor, which closed in July after more than 100 years, told me:
“VAT, the loss of business-rate relief and higher national insurance pushed us over the edge. More than 30 members of staff lost their jobs, with some unable to make mortgage payments and few comparable posts available locally. We gave families as much notice as we could so that the children had a chance to find places before September. Some families have struggled to find suitable places, while some children now need to travel an hour and a half each way to get to school—an exhausting three-hour daily commute for a child. In an area where employment is already scarce, the closure has taken more than £1 million a year out of the local economy”.
That is what Labour’s education tax means in practice.
Ministers have called the VAT exemption a subsidy, but of course the truth is the reverse. Independent school parents subsidise the state by educating their children at no cost to the taxpayer. Every child who moves into the state sector will cost the taxpayer more than £8,500 a year. The more children are forced by the education tax to leave independent schools, the higher the cost will be, and the proceeds of the tax will drop dramatically.
The evidence from Scotland is stark. The introduction of VAT there is already estimated to be costing more than it is raising. Analysis by BiGGAR Economics, commissioned by the Scottish Council of Independent Schools, estimates that VAT on independent school fees will cost the Scottish taxpayer some £16 million this year. Over time, the annual cost is projected to rise to a staggering £181 million.
Labour claimed that this policy would help fund the recruitment of 6,500 new teachers. Ministers may well try to shift the manifesto goalposts to suit their current communication strategy, but the stark reality is that the number of full-time equivalent teachers in state schools has fallen by 2,322 since 2023-24. With teacher numbers down, where is the money going? The former Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, even suggested that the education tax had enabled the Government to make
“the largest investment in … affordable housing in a generation”.
Labour may dislike independent schools, but the public take a different view. Opinion polls show that more than half of respondents believe that independent schools have a positive impact nationally and in their local communities, with fewer than one in 10 believing that the impact is negative. Independent schools are part of our cultural heritage, a source of educational excellence, a great British success story and a powerful instrument of soft power around the world. The Government should recognise that they are a national asset worth protecting.
The sad truth is that the Government will not admit that this policy was never driven by economics. It was driven by ideology—by the old prejudice that independent schools are an enemy to be overcome rather than a national asset to be supported. They are taxing families to the hilt, placing an impossible burden on some of our finest institutions and adding pressure to a state system which is already at capacity at secondary level. The stark consequences are now before us.
In assessing the effects of their education tax, the Government continue to rely on HMRC’s tax information and impact note, which was drawn up almost two years ago—before the policy took effect. It must be reviewed. The Government may point to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s slightly higher revenue forecast in 2025, but that revision largely reflected schools having to pass on more of the tax than the Government originally expected. It does not take account of the subsequent fall in pupil numbers, further school closures or the additional costs falling on the state sector. A review is essential. There is also a need for a clear and robust methodology for estimating the revenue raised by VAT on independent school fees in each tax year.
Last weekend, the Secretary of State said:
“My interest is in the 93 per cent of kids who are educated in the state sector”.
Does she have no interest in the more than half a million children educated outside of it, and in their families? Does she have no interest in the hundreds of teachers who have lost their jobs, or the countless supply chains that have been affected? Does she have no interest in the wider economic consequences of this policy, or the damage to our international education exports? She should begin to show some interest, because surely every child and every school matters. I beg to move.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, not least because we have missed his well-informed and always wise and measured voice. It is good to see him back in his customary place. I supported him when he spoke in September 2024, and I do so again today. I especially endorse what he said at the end of his remarks about the need for an independent review of the assumptions that were made in introducing this policy. It does not concern only this issue, but we do not do enough post-legislative scrutiny. We push through legislation and new policies, and too often we do not go back to see whether they did what was on the tin and what was expected of them. I ask the Minister to comment on the specific figure, which the noble Lord cited, of the cost of placing a child in the state sector. I think the figure we have been given in the past was £7,690 for each additional state school pupil. How was that figure derived and applied? Do the Government still stand by that figure?
For the record, I did not attend an independent school. At the end of the Second World War, my father was a demobbed Desert Rat who married my mother—an immigrant whose first language was Irish. I am a typical grammar school boy, whose family was rehoused to a council flat on an overspill estate. My parents and wonderful teachers were the reason Iusb became a beneficiary of the Education Act 1944. I was the first from either side of my family to enter higher education. I believe it is the duty of the state to facilitate quality educational opportunities for all, not for 93% or for 7%.
As a teacher, I taught in the voluntary-aided and state sectors, and I have been a governor of schools in the voluntary-aided and state sectors. My children and grandchildren have had a mixture of voluntary-aided and independent education. In another place, I fought general elections with a commitment to increase income tax based on the ability to pay by a penny in the pound to improve state education. I have never seen this as a binary or ideological issue, and I have always supported the independent sector and challenged the ideological caricature of independent schools as mini-Etons, replete with straw boaters, top hats and tails. The noble Lord, Lord Lexden, referred to exceptions not being the rule, and I agree. That caricature is simply not true and does not lead to considered debate.
It is simply wrong to suggest that all parents with children in independent schools are wealthy. That is why I opposed the targeted VAT tax, which takes little account of the ability to pay or of individual circumstances. Some middle-income families stretch their finances significantly and make great sacrifices, and they feel the 20% increase acutely. Some children in independent schools come from straitened circumstances. That money should be an impediment is one of the reasons why, when I was in the House of Commons, I broke ranks and voted for the assisted places scheme. I would like to see more assisted places instead of none.
In our 2024 debate, I pointed out that 168,000 children were receiving financial support from independent schools, often through bursary schemes, while 10,000 were paying no fees. In 2026, the Independent Schools Council’s census established that ISC schools provided £538.5 million in means-tested fees assistance to pupils, with more than half of pupils receiving means-tested bursaries having over half of their fees remitted. That is remarkable and something to celebrate, not denigrate. Pushing schools to the brink of financial ruin jeopardises the good that these schools can do, and it is often the beneficiaries who suffer, not those with ocean-deep pockets.
I will illustrate what I mean. Last Friday, I had a conversation with a bright young woman who told me that her grandfather had won a challenging custody battle to bring her up. He used his resources to provide a stable and fulfilling education in an independent school for his granddaughter. In parentheses, where such schools have boarding facilities, a really committed pastoral team can literally be a lifeline. In reply to a Written Question I tabled to the noble Lord, Lord Livermore, which was answered on 19 September 2024, the Government confirmed that a 20% VAT education tax would
“also apply to boarding services”.
It is hard to see how pricing families out of such services meets the Government’s worthy objective that every child should get the best start in life.
A Cabinet Minister recently discussed her decision to send three of her own children to independent schools. In putting her children’s needs first, she is doing the right thing and should be defended for doing so. Being able to exercise choice, and not defending ideology, should be axiomatic.
Let us also be clear that, in interrogating the economic justifications advanced in favour of this policy, we muddied the waters too much. The statistics are worthy of intense scrutiny. For example, the excellent Library note that we have been provided with for today’s debate says that
“published figures do not fully capture the impact of the tax changes because they include independent special schools, which are largely unaffected by the new measures”.
Simon Hyde, CEO of the Heads’ Conference, said this is creating “a confusing picture”.
Yes, there have been some new schools, but 90% of new openings have been special schools, while 106 mainstream schools—some of which the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, referred to, and which have long and historic roots—have been closed. According to the department’s own figures, since 2024 the cohort of children in independent schools has fallen by 33,231—double the estimate of 14,000 that your Lordships were given back in 2024. There are now 560,300 pupils in independent schools—nearly 4% down on the previous year. The largest reductions were seen in the key intake years: 5.2% in reception year, 5.6% in year 7 and 6.6% in year 12. It is dissembling to suggest that the loss of 30,000 places is attributable to demographics. Unprecedented pupil losses in independent schools are triple the decline in the school population as a whole.
To inform the debate, can the Minister please tell us the average annual cost to the state sector of educating children who have had to leave independent schools? What assessment has been made of the educational consequences of disrupting a child’s education and moving them from one school to another? Can she tell us how many more independent schools she expects to close? How many children will be displaced? What are the current estimates of the revenues being raised this year by extending VAT on school fees and removing business rates charitable relief?
In summary, taxing education is simply wrong in principle. It is a breach of human rights and, in the EU, it would be a breach of Article 132 of the EU’s VAT directive, which exempts education from tax. Our starting point should be that encouraging diversity and parental choice is a good. Suggesting that all schools would be able to absorb punitive taxes was clearly wrong. Where schools have done so, it has been at the cost of services to parents, including bursaries for the less well off. Let us also note that this has disproportionately hit low-fee faith schools. Where schools have closed, there has been heartache, disruption, a loss of jobs and of revenue into the local economy, and sometimes heritage buildings and community assets. The noble Lord, Lord Lexden, was therefore right to ask the House to consider all this again, and to reiterate the need to value all schools, state or independent. I hope we will have a review of this policy that he rightly called for.
Lord Redwood (Con)
My Lords, I declare that my son teaches in the private sector, but I will not be drawing on his experiences or the views of his school in my remarks; I wish to be broader than that.
Jealousy is not a great emotion. It produces bitterness and unpleasantness. If it gets woven into politics, it usually ends up damaging the people and parties pursuing it, rather than helping them. I remember that a previous Government did not like grammar schools very much, and they decided that the parents of children in the surrounding area of a grammar school, where a big majority would not have children attending the grammar school, could be given a vote on the future of the grammar school. I think they thought that that would result in the abolition of grammar schools. However, when they held a vote, they discovered that the parents of pupils who had not got into the grammar school had no problem with the fact that very bright pupils had got into the grammar school; they saw that as a good for the wider society and the local community, not as a bad. There is a warning there.
We are fortunate in this country that we have some outstanding private sector schools, some of them very famous and well known. Some of them deliver a high quality of education. Labour will point out that they are able to do that partly because they have more income per pupil going into the school because they can charge much higher fees, and there is some truth in that. But there is also truth in the energy and the standards that they set, and what they expect, which also contribute to their great success. So, when we have a great success such as that, clever Governments want to build bridges, not create barriers. They wish to see how we can allow those well-endowed schools still to flourish, but also how more of us can benefit from that process.
My parents were not rich enough to send me to a private school, but I benefited from the fact that my local state primary put me in for a competitive examination to get a place in a direct grant school. I was fortunate enough to pass that exam, so I was able to attend as a day pupil what was primarily a boarding school paid for by richer parents who sent their children there. It worked harmoniously; we benefited from the exchanges between us, our different backgrounds, our different aptitudes and the different contributions we could make to that school.
A previous Government thought that that kind of thing was wrong, so the direct grant school idea disappeared and those schools had to become fully fee-paying schools or perish. But then there was the assisted places scheme, which was a similar kind of operation, and that too is an excellent idea, because it gives people from low-income backgrounds, who would respond well to the ethos of the school offering the place, that opportunity. Again, it blends the excellence of the private school with opportunity for those who can compete for the places.
Quite a lot of our great public schools, as endowment charities, are aware of their need to pursue wider charitable purposes in the educational area. So some of those great schools help the surrounding state schools by offering lectures and specialist tuition, organising joint events and being good members of the local community. Again, that is something we should value. Of course they should do that as charities, but it is there and it enriches the wider experience.
We have some extremely good state schools, and I am very proud that they should be there. But we also have some state schools that could do considerably better. That is where having both great state schools and some great private schools, which can act as mentors, guides or lighthouses to illuminate a better future, can be so valuable. So the Government should look again at the opportunity for social and educational enrichment that can come from more sharing of facilities, more joint venturing and more cross-feeding of good ideas from state sector to private sector and from private sector to state sector.
This unfortunate policy experiment that the Government have unleashed on private sector schools is very revealing about the wider debate on the impact of certain policy interventions. One of my persistent themes, as noble Lords have probably picked up, is that tax is usually very damaging and that it is usually something you impose to stop people doing things rather than to encourage them to do things—because it very rarely does that. The Government decided to unleash three very big tax rises on these private schools: the VAT that we are describing, which directly has to be paid by the families of the pupils going there, as well as the very big hit on business rates and the very big hit on employee costs. Of course, the main item in a private school’s budget is employment, not just of the teachers but of all the support staff, some of whom are not that well paid. These jobs are at risk the higher you put up national insurance, along with the other two taxes.
We have seen, and have heard already in this debate, that the result of this treble tax attack has been a substantial number of school closures, as predicted. It is not good enough to say, “Well, there have been openings on the other side”, because we know that those openings are of different kinds of schools, often with different revenue streams. You cannot get away from the fact that you have lost quite a lot of good schools, which just found the treble taxes too much.
We also know that some 33,000 places have had to be found in state schools as a result of the displacement. That is 33,000 families and individual pupils whose lives have been profoundly changed. It is not easy for a child to change school at an unusual time—other than when everybody is changing school, going from primary to secondary—because you lose all your friends. You go into a new school and maybe nobody wants to be friends with you, because groups of children can be cliquey and difficult. The Government seem totally insensitive to those kinds of issues. They think it is worth while to change the lives of 33,000 young people and their families for some greater good, which just seems to be the idea that they do not really like people being able to buy a decent education for their children.
I would imagine that the cost of those children transferring is around £300 million a year, applying a very rough multiple to the number of children. A Government who are very short of cash are not well advised to invent a policy that immediately imposes an additional £300 million a year of public spending. We wait to see how much extra revenue growth there has really been because, as we heard in the Scottish example, you can end up worse off when you take the balance of disappointing revenue into account with the extra costs.
One of the social consequences of imposing a tax on the schools, which means higher fees for parents to pay, is that many of the schools will not close but will change the people they educate. So we will see a pattern where these schools will be for very rich foreigners—that is, an export—and for very rich people at home, but all the other strivers who would like that are priced out of the market. Surely that is the opposite kind of social change to the one that Labour should want. It should not want the schools to be only for the children of billionaires or multimillionaires. Would it not be better if they reflected more widely and offered education to a wider number in the community? So please, Government, think again. Understand that these schools can be a great bonus for our society.
Baroness Laing of Elderslie (Con)
My Lords, what a pleasure it is to see my noble friend Lord Lexden back in his place this afternoon and to hear from him in his usual erudite fashion on a subject on which he has the experience and expertise of many decades. We have all benefited from hearing him this afternoon. I agree with everything that he said and all the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and my noble friend Lord Redwood, so I will not repeat those points.
I ask just one question: who is the most damaged by this policy brought forward by this Government? There is no point in asking who benefits most, because nobody benefits. The Minister will undoubtedly say that the Exchequer benefits to a very small amount in tax take and that some of that tax take can be invested in education generally, but that is not a strong argument. The fact is that our children’s education is the responsibility of everyone in our society, because we all want the coming generation to have the very best start and opportunity in life. The better educated our population is, the better the economic hope for future generations. We all want to see a better education system, but dividing it into 93% and 7% and pretending in some way that these are separate is simply nonsense. The education system is one system as a whole. It affects every young person and every child in our society, in every part of our country. If you damage any part of the education system, logically, you damage it all. So, my question is: who suffers the most?
The answer is not the families who are genuinely wealthy and who are despised by this Government but who will go on paying for their children in independent education. The people who suffer are, as ever, those who are at the margins. First, there are the 33,000 children who have had to be removed from independent schools and sent to other schools. Clearly, they suffer. However, that means that 33,000 other children have been displaced from other schools. In any given geographical catchment area, one usually finds that there might be an independent school, possibly two independent schools, and three or four really good state schools—many of our state schools are excellent and provide an excellent education. Then there will be seven or eight state schools that do not provide an excellent education, because they have some disadvantages and some difficulties; they possibly do not have the parental support or they are possibly in an area that suffers from some other disadvantages. The children who most benefit from attending an excellent state school are those who are at the margin, lifted out of an area of disadvantage, taken away from a school where they would not have flourished and have the opportunity of going to an excellent state school that will give them a truly good start in life. Those are the children who will suffer most from this Government’s policy.
The children who have left the independent schools are likely to live in the catchment area of an excellent state school and are likely to have parents who know what you have to do to get your child into such a school. A child who has parents who understand the education system and who contribute to the education system is likely to succeed and to have a good opportunity, regardless of whether they go to an independent school or an excellent state school. Those who will suffer are those who would have had the chance of a place at an excellent state school but have lost that place because it has now been taken by a child who had previously been at an independent school but who has vociferous middle-class parents who know what to do to get the best education for their children. The children who will suffer are those whose parents are not involved in the education system, are not well educated themselves and do not know how to get their children into the excellent state schools.
I am not making this up. This is fact. When I was a constituency Member of Parliament—I know that your Lordships do not like one mentioning being a Member of Parliament and representing a constituency, but when you have done so for 27 years, as the Minister knows very well, it is in your heart and in your being—I personally dealt with hundreds of families who were trying to get their children into the best schools. I know what is now happening. Places at the excellent state schools are being taken by children who were previously at independent schools but whose parents can no longer afford it. The people who will be most damaged by this policy and the direction in which the Government are taking the education system are those children who are now being denied places at excellent state schools. They are the people who we should be lifting up in life, not putting down. They are the people who deserve every bit of help that we as a community as a whole can give them.
It might be that whoever devised this government policy—they did not do it to raise more money for the Exchequer because that, as we know from the simple arithmetic, is incidental—thought that they were going to damage the despised middle classes. That is not who is being damaged. The people who are being damaged are the children who would have had an opportunity that has now been taken away from them. The Government say that they care about the 93%; I care about 100% of children in this country, and I hope that the Government will recognise that they are failing those at the margin and should change this policy.
Lord Caine (Con)
My Lords, I support every word spoken by my noble friend Lord Lexden in his fine and typically erudite opening speech, and indeed the words of all other speakers so far in this debate. It is telling that the Government Whips have not been able to muster a single Back-Bencher to support the political choice to impose VAT on independent schools. I also note the lack of any speakers in this debate from the Liberal Democrat Back Benches. For the Minister today, it really is a case of herself alone. I also say what a pleasure it is to see my noble friend Lord Lexden back in his place today. There are many noble Lords on these Benches who have had reason to be indebted to him over many years, not least due to the fact that he gave a number of us our first job. It is very good to see him back.
For the avoidance of doubt, and like a number of others in this debate, my entire schooling was spent in the state sector, in my case in the predominantly working-class constituency of East Leeds, where the local MP, a chap called Healey, was for five years in charge of the nation’s finances, when he presided over a severe debt crisis and bankrupted Britain. I am talking about 50 years ago, but it does seem like today. My final school, Temple Moor, was a fine grammar school that turned comprehensive some six years before I attended, although it retained some of the grammar school ethos during my time there. In supporting my noble friend, therefore, I am clearly not defending anything from which I have ever personally benefited. Like my noble friend, however, along with others on these Benches, I utterly deplore and condemn the nasty, spiteful and vindictive war being waged against the independent sector by this Labour Government.
As has been pointed out, since it became clear that VAT was going to be introduced following the 2024 general election, 106 mainstream independent schools have closed and there has been a net loss of 79. According to the Department for Education’s own 2026 census, the number of pupils educated in the independent sector has fallen by over 33,000 in the past two years, as we have heard. That is well over double the 14,000 estimated by the Government in the short term and is rapidly approaching the 35,000 they said would be lost in the long term, although some studies predict the final total could be as high as 90,000. If anything epitomised the heartless approach of this Labour Government, it was the decision to impose VAT in the middle of an academic year, with the inevitable consequences and traumas for schools, teachers, parents and, above all, students. Will the Government now commission a credible independent review of the evidence, assumptions, modelling and forecasts that underpin these policies, tested against experience since their implementation?
In my own area of Yorkshire, some particularly fine independent schools have been forced to close their doors. Fulneck, part of an historic Moravian settlement in Pudsey, which opened in 1753 during the reign of King George II and educated, among others, Herbert Asquith and Diana Rigg—Mrs Peel to some— as well as one of my closest friends, shut in July last year due to rising operational costs and falling numbers. I well remember my friend texting me on hearing the news to say how “devastated” he was, a reaction shared by many others. An institution that was at the heart of the local community and a unique part of the heritage of the West Riding of Yorkshire is now gone for ever. As the heart-wrenching statement issued by Fulneck put it:
“This isn’t just the end of a school—it’s the end of a community, a history and a home for so many”.
At the same time, Queen Margaret’s in York, educating girls since 1901, was forced to shut, citing mounting financial pressures from the introduction of VAT, increased national insurance and pension contributions, and the ending of charitable status business rates relief as major contributory factors. The site has recently been sold to a developer for a reported £5 million. It was followed last December by the oldest independent prep school in Leeds, Moorlands, after 127 years. It too pointed to VAT, national insurance and business rates relief. It is a similar story with Wakefield Independent School. If I can briefly stray outside Yorkshire, like my noble friend Lord Lexden, I was very sad this July to see the closure of Durham High School for Girls after 142 years, not least because that is where my partner Emma’s three hugely gifted daughters, Imogen, Olivia and Libby, each received an outstanding education. They are full of sorrow that the institution which has hopefully set them up for life is no more.
I am the first to accept that there are a number of factors at play which can lead to school closures, such as falling numbers. What is, however, now undeniable is the devastating financial impact of the policies pursued by this Labour Government. As my noble friend Lord Redwood pointed out, they have hammered the independent sector with a triple whammy of increased national insurance, the removal of business rates relief and the imposition of 20% VAT, the first ever tax on education. For many independent schools struggling with tight margins, this has been enough to finish them.
As we have heard, the Government seek to justify all this by arguing that that their focus is on the 93% educated in the state sector. Given my own history, I will take no lessons on the importance of providing good state schools for everyone. Yet the argument that state schools will be improved by waging war on the independent sector is little short of madness. As my noble friend Lord Lexden pointed out, the education tax was supposed to help pay for 6,500 more teachers, but teacher numbers have fallen, at a time when more students from independent schools that have closed have to be accommodated within the state sector, leading inevitably to higher class sizes for many. Then in June last year we were told by Keir Starmer on X, as my noble friend stated, that the money was being used invest in affordable social housing—so which is it? Of course, Labour’s attack on the academies that they once championed risks the huge progress in the state sector which under my party saw English students soar to the top of international league tables in reading and maths, and the number of schools rated as “good” rise from 68% to 90%.
Labour Governments, rooted in socialist dogma, undermined academic excellence in the 1960s and 1970s, and now this “back to the 1970s” Government are doing the same today. They should be utterly ashamed of themselves for the damage, disruption and distress that their policies have caused and continue to cause. I look forward to a future Conservative Government reversing their nasty, cruel and vindictive policies.
Lord Blackwell (Con)
My Lords, I should declare my interest as a governor of an independent school, the Yehudi Menuhin School in Cobham. Like others, I thank my noble friend Lord Lexden for initiating this debate and I share his views, and those of the other speakers so far, on the damage that this policy has done to the independent sector in general. The Government should recognise that parents who send their children to independent schools are, in effect, paying twice. They pay once through their taxation to support the state sector and then they pay again. They would not do that unless they believed that they could achieve a better education, or meet some special needs, through paying double to send their children to an independent school.
If the Government are in pursuit of fairness, rather than trying to bring down these high-quality schools through additional levies it would be much fairer to focus on bringing up the standard of education in state schools so that we had a better education system overall for the 100%.
I will focus my brief remarks on the specialist music and dance schools. These schools offer a unique and focused education for a relatively small number of highly talented children. These children are supported and inspired by being in peer group of other talented children who share their passion for music. That environment and support is simply not available in normal schools. This handful of specialist music schools is shaping the next generation of musical leaders, who are a vital national resource for a sector that is important not only culturally but economically.
Like other music schools, the Yehudi Menuhin School attempts to operate a needs-blind admissions policy. It seeks the most talented children who are capable of achieving the highest standards, regardless of their social background, their economic status and the ability of their parents to pay fees. With only 93 pupils in that school, providing a full academic education alongside specialist music training means that costs are very high. The full fees for a boarder amount to some £50,000 a year. As a result, alongside a needs-blind admission policy, only around one in 10 parents pays the full fees. The rest need financial support to reduce the fees to a level they can afford.
VAT at 20% adds up to £10,000 on a £50,000 fee, and is proportionate, depending on how much the parents contribute. Since parents who are being supported by bursaries and scholarships are already paying as much as they can afford, they cannot simply pay another 20%. This will inevitably increase the demand for financial support to maintain their children at the school.
We are fortunate in this country, as the Minister knows, to have the Government-funded music and dance scheme, which offers means-tested support to support UK residents at these schools. But that has not kept pace with inflation over the years and has not been raised to pay for the VAT levy. These schools attract talented children from all around the world, many of whom are not eligible for the MDS grant. For those coming from overseas, all the burden of funding bursaries and paying the additional VAT the parents cannot pay falls on the school and the limited funds that schools are able to raise from charitable donations.
As others have said, there have been other financial pressures on these schools, from inflation, the national insurance increase and the loss of business rates relief. There will be further costs from implementing the loss of zero-hours contracts for staff, many of whom are part-time music teachers. The VAT levy now poses a real danger to the financial viability of these specialist schools, which play such an important role in maintaining the UK’s cultural leadership.
I would prefer the Government to think again about the wider application of VAT to private schools across the board, as many other speakers have urged. If they are not prepared to do that, I ask the Minister whether the Government would at least reconsider whether the unique specialist music and dance schools should be exempted from this policy.
Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Lexden on securing this debate and on his powerful speech. It is very good to see him in his place after a challenging few months.
This is an important debate. As the Government, frankly, bury their head in the sand, wilfully refusing properly to monitor the impact of this dreadful policy, it falls to this House to do so. I declare my interests as chairman of governors at Brentwood School and honorary president of the Boarding Schools’ Association.
I have three points, the first a general one about the implementation of this spiteful policy. When the Government were elected, Keir Starmer made a great deal about restoring trust in politics. Before the King’s Speech in 2024, he said:
“The fight for trust is the battle that defines our political era”.
Well, trust is founded on honesty but, with this policy, Labour has always been far from honest. It said there would be limited impacts on the numbers attending independent schools. It was not honest. The number of pupils has fallen by over 33,000—as we have heard, double the 14,000 it glibly estimated. It said there would not be significant school closures. It was not honest: some 106 mainstream schools have shut their doors, destroying jobs, displacing pupils and wrecking communities. It said it would use the money raised to fund new teaching places. It was not honest: the number of teachers has fallen.
The Government said they were closing a loophole, knowing full well this was no loophole. It was not honest. Education has never been taxed and, by introducing one, the Government have created a glaring anomaly. No wonder they did not want to undertake a proper consultation before introducing this policy. They knew they would be found out, and so they have been. This is not an education policy but a class warfare policy, which has hit children and hard-working parents hard, and it is fraudulent. How can the Government claim to want to restore trust in politics when they so brazenly introduce a policy, knowing they are perpetrating a con trick on the public? It is breathtaking hypocrisy. It is little wonder trust in politics is still so low.
Nowhere has the impact on this policy been more harshly felt than among our boarding schools, which is my second point. The UK’s boarding schools are the best in the world, a powerful tool of soft power contributing significantly to our economy. They are a jewel in the crown of the sector, with schools like Brentwood School attracting pupils from across the globe: 33 nationalities are represented among our boarders.
VAT has hit boarding schools hard. The number of boarders at independent schools dropped by 12% to around 65,000 pupils between 2024 and 2026, a rate double that of the sector as a whole. More than 25 independent boarding schools have either closed, announced their impending closure or stopped boarding entirely. In the three years before the imposition of VAT, that figure was only nine—a third of the current rate—destroying the Government’s erroneous assertion that closures are simply part of a long-term trend. That is nonsense. This has disrupted children’s education, put teachers and support staff out of work and had a profound impact on local communities, where local boarding schools are a vital part of the fabric of local and community life. Given these stark statistics, can the Minister tell us how she plans to stop this deeply damaging trend and protect the remaining boarding schools in the sector?
There is also an international aspect to this issue. The Government’s own international education strategy, published only in January, aims collectively to
“grow education exports to £40 billion per year by 2030”
and
“promote the UK as a preferred destination for study”.
Well, to do that, the UK needs a healthy and competitive boarding school sector, yet the Government’s policies are deliberately undermining it. The number of international students in independent schools is down 12% since the imposition of VAT. If the Government are to stand any chance of meeting their own ambitions, they will have to revisit this policy.
Following on from my noble friend Lord Blackwell, my final point is about music and the arts. I declare an interest as chairman of the Royal College of Music. The case has frequently been made in this House about the tragic decline of music education in state schools, which this Government, despite their promises, have absolutely failed to reverse. That has put a huge burden on the independent sector, both to protect the future of music as it dies out in the state sector and to do what it can to support those in state schools who are desperate to learn an instrument or take part in an orchestra, or even just to sing, but who have no opportunity to do so.
The role of independent schools in this area is vital. It is not something we have to do; it is something we absolutely want to do. In the last year alone, the Independent Schools Council has recorded almost 10,000 partnerships between independent schools on academic collaboration and enrichment. About 2,500 of these are centred on the arts, with over 600 schools providing over 2,200 partnerships to support state schools with joint musical events, participation in music lessons, dance events, access to concert halls and many other areas.
Schools like Brentwood, which has one of the finest music departments in the country, provide an excellent example. This year, we are committed to an amazing project to offer all local state primary schools the opportunity for their pupils to participate in a mass concert performance of Rutter’s “Mass of the Children” at Brentwood Cathedral, part of an ongoing commitment to local partnerships. One of the reasons we are doing it is that, tragically, even singing, so crucial for young lives, is dying out in primary schools and we want to help. That takes time and money—something which is now under real pressure as a result of the imposition of VAT and the impact on revenues.
Elsewhere in the country we see other shining examples of partnerships to ensure children from state schools get access to arts education that their own schools cannot provide. King’s College School in Wimbledon partners with local schools to deliver an annual community drama production. For more than 20 years, Lichfield Cathedral School music partnership has enabled over 30,000 pupils in 500 schools across the West Midlands to benefit from high-quality music education. The King’s School Canterbury has for seven years provided pupils from Canterbury city centre schools with free access to orchestral instrument tuition. The list goes on and on. Yet the Government’s misguided policies have put all that at risk, and I cannot understand why they do not see that. As revenues come under pressure it becomes increasingly difficult to provide such partnerships, and bursary funding is increasingly in demand, particularly for quality music education. Who loses out? It is the children who lose out from this policy.
Time is running out. This debate has revealed the appalling impact of the education tax on the sector. I hope that the Minister will reflect on it and at the very least commit to a fresh review of the impact of this policy—including the withdrawal of business rates relief—with clear methodology and an open mind. Preferably, that would mean a credible independent study. I also hope to hear from my own Front Bench a clear commitment to repeal this cruel tax when we return to office, although I suspect that I may not.
I have no doubt that the Minister will again say that she is interested in the 93% who go to state schools. Of course she is right to be so, but I believe a Minister of the Crown must be interested in the 100% and not ignore 7% of children. Great damage has been done to our world-class independent schools. It is time to put dogma aside and put the interests of parents and children first.
Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood, although I probably cannot match his passion and clarity. I join others in congratulating my noble friend Lord Lexden on securing this debate. As someone who benefited from an independent school education as a scholarship boy with parents on the staff, I thank him for his leadership on this issue.
It seems incredible that almost two years have passed since we last debated this issue in this House and since I pleaded with the Minister to urge the then Secretary of State and the Chancellor to take the SEN and disabilities of the 99,000 pupils without an EHCP into account and exempt them from the extension of VAT to independent schools. I said that they and I looked to this Labour Government to show them some understanding and compassion and to give them hope. But hope there has been none. Instead, the policy was implemented regardless of the harm caused, especially to those pupils and their families. They were simply collateral damage in the wider ideological and, to quote my noble friend, dogmatic crusade against the so-called privileged class. No matter that many attended independent schools only as a result of huge sacrifices made by their families and at a time when the system underpinning state SEND provision is on the verge of collapse.
In a series of Questions for Written Answer two years ago, I asked the Minister, among other things, what measures had been put in place to support children with autism and neurodiverse conditions, as well as their parents, who are required to move schools as a result of the education tax; what assessment the Government had made of the capacity of local education authorities to accommodate and meet the needs of children with autism and neurodiverse conditions required to move schools; what processes the Government had put in place to evaluate the impact on their mental health and educational attainment; and what stakeholder groups had been involved in developing such processes and at what intervals the evaluations would be conducted.
I would be very grateful if the Minister could answer those questions today, as I am afraid that her response almost two years ago came nowhere close to addressing any of those points. The pupils with SEN and disabilities and their families still deserve answers. What she did say in response was that the Government did not anticipate that the VAT change—the education tax—would
“prompt notable movement into the state sector and any movement is expected to take place over several years”.
Listening to what has been said in today’s debate, I am not sure that that has been borne out. According to the latest DfE figures, as we have already heard, the number of pupils in the independent sector has fallen by 33,231, or 5.6%. To put that in context, it is already greater than the total movement into the state sector that His Majesty’s Government projected by 2029-30.
These figures are not just notable; they are unprecedented. I think it is fair to say that the Minister’s Answer to my Written Questions has therefore failed the test of time. Can she say whether the original cost-benefit assumptions and forecasts cited by Ministers—including, as we have heard, the then Prime Minister—as justification for the punitive education tax still stand? If they do, where is the monitoring and evaluation of the assumptions and forecasts to back them up? I am sure we all look forward to seeing the results of the evaluation, which the DfE has no doubt carried out in preparation for today’s debate. I would be grateful if the Minster would confirm that she will write to me to say when the results of the evaluation will be published and place the findings in the House of Lords Library.
Unless and until the Minister does so, she should not be surprised if we reiterate the simple point that the education tax is not only disrupting SEND provision but undermining the Government’s ability to fix the SEND system, which is bankrupting local authorities as we speak. Surely, an unintended consequence of the policy is that more families are understandably seeking an EHCP for their child, thereby exacerbating pressure on the state because the state has, bizarrely, made private and independent school provision less affordable. How does that make sense?
This counterintuitive policy reminds me that, however much I respect individual Members on the Labour Benches, and I do, I could never subscribe to socialism. This policy demonstrates that deep within its soul lurks a self-righteous spite and envy that blinds it to the tragic consequences of its actions. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the case of pupils with SEND attending independent schools. They and their hard-pressed families deserve not just an answer but a rethink. I hope the Minister will show that the Government are listening.
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
My Lords, the sixth of the first steps for change—remember them?—in Labour’s 2024 manifesto, read:
“Recruit 6,500 new teachers … paid for by ending tax breaks for private schools”.
This remains an incensing canard. As we have plainly seen, it is not the case that the number of teachers in state schools has increased by 6,500. In fact, it has fallen.
The worst of it was the idea, frequently peddled, that there were tax breaks for private schools. What rot. Step back and look at the system as a whole: parents of children at private schools who pay tax—I declare my interest as one such parent—not only pay handsomely for the educational places used by their children but are not using the places to which their children are entitled in the state sector, funded, of course, by their taxes, a point made so ably by my noble friend Lord Blackwell. Those places not taken up in the state sector can then be used by other children. All this is very far from being a tax break for private schools. The former system was a system of mutual benefit, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who is my friend, so correctly said during his speech.
Our national neighbours do not tax education. In fact, it would be contrary to EU law for them to do so, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said during his speech. The ability to impose VAT on school fees was a Brexit benefit. The United Kingdom seems to be the only country in the world that chooses to tax charities that provide education, a factor which speaks for itself.
This Government should learn lessons from the sensible, civilised and mutually beneficial approach to private education taken by the Irish Government—an approach that recognises the benefit to the child and the state itself of a flourishing fee-paid education sector. The Irish Government have a system that recognises the fact that parents have paid, by taxation, into a state education system that they have elected not to use. Ireland has roughly the same proportion of pupils in fee-paid education—6% to 7%—yet in the Republic of Ireland the state pays the salaries of all teachers and special needs assistants working in recognised private schools. Fees are set each year by the school; they are much reduced as a result of the policy. Therefore, fee-paid education is much more widely accessible. The justification for this system was pithily stated by Norma Foley, then Irish Minister for Education, in a response to a Question in the Dáil on 16 April 2024.
“If the parents of children in the fee-charging sector chose to send their children to the schools in the free education system, the State would have to fund those school places”.
Quite so.
Here, as my noble friend Lord Blackwell pointed out, parents pay twice, and they now pay VAT and other additional levies on education charged by this Government. This extra tax revenue is used for what? It is not for more teachers, as promised. Presumably it is spent on the ballooning welfare budget and the interest on the ever-increasing national debt. As we heard from my noble friend Lord Lexden, we have had 33,231 fewer pupils in the fee-paid sector over the past two years, 106 mainstream schools have closed, and of those that have opened, 90% have been specialist schools which benefit from government funding, not least via EHCPs, and are largely exempt from VAT, a point already made but which certainly bears repetition. There are certainly many fewer mainstream school places. There are no winners from all this. As my noble friend Lord Lexden said, in Scotland, analysis from BiGGAR Economics published in April 2026 showed that the VAT rise there was costing more money than it was raising, and the same will surely be shown to be true in England.
British private education is a world leader. Why damage something we do so well, undermined only for the sake of dogma? Over 100 schools have closed, thousands of staff have lost their jobs, and thousands of children have had their education disrupted at a formative time in their lives. State pupils have lost the benefit of the use of facilities which they would have been able to use as a result of partnerships between the fee-paying and the state sectors, as set out by my noble friends. This is a trend which will surely continue and accelerate. No one wins from this policy. As my noble friend Lady Laing so eloquently said, the whole community suffers. Can the Minister point to a single child who has benefited from the policy, remembering that not a single extra teacher has been hired? Very many have been harmed by it.
Lord Fuller (Con)
My Lords, I attended a boarding school in the 1980s and was the governor of another one for 10 years in the 2010s. I spoke two years ago at the debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lexden. It hardly seems like two years ago, but it was, and it is great to see him back in his place. I regret to say that things are even worse than the warnings that we issued at the time, with more children impacted, more schools closed and none of the revenue to pay for more state-school teachers, who are now having to work harder than ever.
The damage has been not just to the charities that run these schools, to parents who are ambitious for their children, or especially to the twice as many displaced children as the Government expected, with disrupted schooling, subjects not taken to examination, peripatetic activities curtailed and friendships broken. No, the collateral damage has spread much further than we foretold. It has spread to the staff. Back in 2024, I bumped into a man wearing a Langley School polo shirt. It turned out that he was responsible for running the minibus enterprise, comprising 27 vehicles, together with drivers, himself, assistants and mechanics—a 35-person sustainable transport business, all under threat. His colleagues—cooks, cleaners, matrons and groundkeepers, not just teachers—are the working people engaged in that education, and I want to speak for them.
The damage has spread to the market towns, where these schools not just support the economy; they are the local economy. In the shires, 106 mainstream schools have closed in places such as Banbury, Bedstone, Haslemere, Windlesham and Warminster—lovely places with wonderful high streets and a much wider range of pubs, cafés and shops than their populations would normally sustain. These are not just market towns; these are factory towns. The schools are factories of education and learning. They underpin those economies, not just with their directly employed staff but with a local ecosystem of contractors and tradesmen in areas with few alternative employment opportunities. They are damaged.
The damage is also to the national economy, where education has been a valuable, invisible export—not that Labour understands these things. We have heard about the additional burden of business rates and £100 million in national insurance. It is hard to quantify the impact on the 93% of children who are state educated, whose classes are now more crowded or who are forced to travel further as their natural catchments have been filled up. Surrey is a case in point—a county where the parents, to echo the noble Baroness, Lady Laing, are born with sharp elbows.
If you start to treat these charities as businesses then why should they behave as charities? We have heard about the impact on music and the arts. Cancelling bursaries for the child prodigy or scholarships for exceptional sportswomen from disadvantaged families helps nobody and only drives social inequality, as well as harming our national sporting life. We are all poorer for this. Why should these charities have bursaries, scholarships, and public access to facilities in the evening and during the school holidays if there is no incentive or regulatory reason to do so? This Government have failed the public interest test.
I will not echo the important points made by my noble friend Lord Shinkwin about SEND, but these schools are the solution to that, not the problem. I visited the headmaster of a public school in Norfolk where 30% of the roll need SEND support or are children of families in difficult situations. That is truly in the public interest—something that this Government have swept away. They have not raised any money. Labour’s class obsession has resulted in a net cost to the Exchequer.
The Government have displayed a financial ignorance of the dynamic impacts of this policy because, if schools are forced to close, we are looking at the loss of PAYE and the payment of benefits. The fundamental premise that this is a revenue raiser is a false one, because the really rich have just shrugged it off while the striving children of police officers, nurses, firefighters, soldiers and airmen—working people with aspiration and ambition for their children—have felt the full force. It has benighted so many with their own challenges who just cannot thrive in the state sector and for whom at least specialist private classes have been an option—but that has been pushed out of reach. Well done, Labour, attacking those with the quietest voices who need the greatest help.
It is not hard to see why this has been worse than expected. I was a governor of a school with just 450 places. It typically made a surplus of about £250,000 a year to fund reinvestment. It did not have a lot of fat on its back. It was a charity and, as in all these cases, the fees from about half a dozen boarders made the difference between profit and loss, surviving or failing. The finances were finely balanced. The fees from just five boarders amounted to the entire profit of the charity. If just five families found they could not afford the extra five grand a year or so, all the 450 children in that school fell on the state. I warned of this leverage, which has tipped these schools over the edge and spoiled the life chances and exam success of hundreds of others while adding to the burdens of the 93% educated by the state, throwing thousands of lower-paid staff, journeymen, local suppliers and, yes, teachers on the dole.
That was always going to be the case. This policy has failed in its objective. It was dishonestly framed as a money spinner but has just been a class war pursued by the honourable Member for Sunderland, who is pursuing her personal obsession with class, with children paying the price. The Prime Minister said that things were going to be different, but it turns out he is just the same—jealousy, envy and grievance perpetuating the class war, not providing the social mobility that a scholarship or a bursary can unleash.
There is so much more that I could say, but these proposals, born out of populist electioneering sloganning, have resulted in more elitism and social inequality; less opportunity for those with talent from the most modest backgrounds; less charitable purpose, for which the local communities will suffer; slipping down our national and international sports rankings; less choice; fewer exports and stunted economic growth; a catastrophic effect on the economic base of our market towns and their small tradesmen; working people in isolated areas put out of work; struggling parents; additional burdens on local authorities; listed buildings left to moulder; and driving even more children to oversubscribed state schools. The real victims here are among the lowest paid and most educationally challenged, while our economy is weakened and the soft power that helps earn our place in the world is damaged, alongside our global reputation, by levelling down that export for which the world used to beat a path to our door.
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, back to his rightful place and thank him for securing this debate. I declare the interest, as other noble Lords have done, that I did not go to an independent school. I went to Park House comprehensive school, which sadly is no more; it was demolished many years ago.
I was not here two years ago when the debate around independent schools and VAT took place, but I suspect that those who were here have probably heard some of the old speeches being brought back in. I thought today’s debate was about the impact of VAT, so I am going to stick to that.
The more important questions are about its impact and how properly to evaluate whether the assumptions on which it was based were correct. My understanding is that, since January 2025, private school fees have been subject to VAT at 20% while, from April 2025, most charitable independent schools in England have lost their 80% business rate relief. The Government estimated that VAT would raise £1.5 billion in 2025-26, rising to £1.7 billion by 2029-30, while the business rate measure was expected to raise a further £70 million to £90 million a year.
As Liberal Democrats, we believe profoundly in equality of opportunity. A child’s educational opportunities should not be determined by the wealth of their parents or the postcode in which they happen to be born. The long-term answer must be a state education system in which every child can access an excellent school with properly funded SEND provision, excellent teachers and genuine opportunities to progress. But we should not confuse that long-term ambition with the immediate question of whether this particular policy is delivering what was promised.
There are approximately 560,000 pupils in independent schools in England. The latest figures show that that number fell by about 3.8% in the year to January 2026. Total pupil numbers across all schools also fell by 1.2%, reflecting wider demographic changes. This distinction matters. Before implementation, HMRC estimated that VAT would eventually lead to 37,000 fewer pupils in independent schools, of whom approximately 35,000 would move into the state sector. It estimated that the additional cost to the state sector would eventually reach around £270 million a year. The OBR similarly estimated around 35,000 fewer private school pupils and around £300 million in additional state school spending.
There are important unanswered questions. How did the modelling move from 37,000 fewer pupils in independent education to approximately 35,000 additional pupils in the state sector? What assumptions were made about where those children would go? At what ages would they transfer? Would they enter primary schools, secondary schools or sixth forms? How would the impact vary geographically? How many would be home educated or leave the UK education system altogether? These are not technical details. They determine the actual cost and consequences of the policy.
I am particularly interested in the figures used for the cost of an additional state school pupil. If we are going to assess whether the policy represents good value for money for the taxpayer, we need to know whether the estimated cost captures the real marginal cost of additional pupils, including buildings, capacity, teachers, SEND and high-needs provision, and post-16 education, or whether it is essentially an average funding figure.
There is another issue that deserves much greater attention: the children and families behind the statistics. I have spoken to parents in my home city of Sheffield, and to a few friends here in London, who have made enormous sacrifices to pay independent school fees. They do not necessarily regard themselves as wealthy. Some have given up holidays, delayed moving house or made other financial sacrifices because they believed that their child’s education was worth that commitment.
Some families who have historically just managed to afford fees may now be unable to do so. The impact may be particularly significant for children receiving bursaries or scholarships. We should not assume that the consequences of higher fees fall equally across the independent sector. A very wealthy family may be able to absorb the substantial increases, but a family already stretching its finances to keep a child at a particular school may not.
I also want to raise the question of teachers. One of the arguments for the policy is that revenues raised will support state education. This is entirely legitimate, but if we want to improve educational outcomes, we need to ask what happened to the teaching workforce? I hope that, when the Minister rises, she will address this issue.
The independent sector employs teachers who could work in state schools. If independent schools respond to higher costs by reducing staffing, while state schools simultaneously struggle to recruit and retain teachers, the consequences deserve careful examination. The Government’s original modelling assumed that schools would absorb some of the costs, pass on some through higher fees and make efficiencies. The OBR estimated an effective VAT rate of 15.4%, with roughly two-thirds of the cost passed on through fees. HMRC estimates average fee increases of around 10%, although it recognises substantial variation between schools, so what has actually happened?
The Independent Schools Council reports that among schools responding to its survey average fees increased by 4.4% between January 2025 and January 2026, before VAT and nursery fees. We now have the beginnings of evidence but not yet the complete picture. That is why I believe the Government should commit to a proper post-implementation evaluation. I am grateful to the Association for Families of Independent Schooling for drawing attention to this issue for me.
I do not suggest that this analysis should simply be accepted; indeed, the same principle applies to every source of evidence in this debate. The answer is not to commission a review designed to reach a predetermined conclusion; it is to commission an independent and credible assessment of the evidence, assumptions, modelling and forecasts and test them against what has happened since January 2025. We need to examine pupil numbers, destinations, school closures, fee increases, bursaries, staffing, geographical effects, SEND provision and additional costs to the state sector. We should also assess the combined effects of VAT and the removal of business rate relief rather than examining each measure in isolation.
The Government made a significant policy intervention in education and taxation. It is entirely reasonable for Parliament now to ask whether the evidence is matching the forecasts, so I have two questions for the Minister before I sit down. First, what monitoring and evaluation of the original assumptions and forecasts have taken place, who is responsible for that work and when will the results be published? Secondly, will the Government consider commissioning an independent review of the evidence, assumptions, modelling and forecasts underpinning these reforms, tested against the evidence emerging since implementation?
If these measures are to be justified by the benefits they are intended to deliver for state education, we owe it to taxpayers, parents, teachers and, above all, children to ensure that those benefits are measured properly. We should follow the evidence, wherever it takes us.
Baroness Cash (Con)
My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for securing this debate and I welcome him back to his place. As I am also relatively new to this House, I have not had the pleasure of spending time with him and am glad that that opportunity may now arise.
I want to start by quoting from what the Minister said in response to questions from me on the repeat Statement earlier today. I had been asking about preserving all that was good in our education system and sought a reassurance that we would do that. The noble Baroness challenged that, saying that there was more work to be done. She said that we should now not
“place in aspic the education system and not recognise the areas where, notwithstanding the progress, there is more work to be done. I am afraid that a disadvantage gap still exists for our children, and it is stubbornly wide. A gap between regions is widening. We have a growing SEND crisis, 1.5 million children persistently absent from school … a doubling of those educated at home since 2019 and now 1 million young people, all educated during the last 16 years, not in education, employment or training. Simply standing still and resting on our laurels will not be good enough for our children”.
Noble Lords might wonder why I have quoted the Minister in this debate. It is to identify that this change was made at a time when there was no possibility of providing the children who were removed from the private system as a result with an excellent education elsewhere in the state system. I will come back to that.
I want first to thank my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for their contributions today. I am grateful that they saved me from repeating the numbers in detail, and my thanks go in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for his comprehensive summary of the facts and the data around the impact of this measure. I even find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, in challenging a review of this policy and the effects that were predicted versus what has since taken place.
Two significant facts have emerged in today’s debate. The first is the data produced around Scotland, and the fact that—as we can already see in England—this change has not had the predicted effect and is costing the Scottish Government a great deal more. Indeed, that cost is predicted to increase. The second point of note is the anomaly created by this Government in making the change, as identified by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, with respect to EU law. We have heard plenty about the Government’s predictions and how wrong they were. I will not repeat those, but I have them in mind as we continue.
I hope that the Minister will have heard the collective cry of pain and loss from the speeches on the Opposition Benches today. Real children are at the heart of this, as are real families, and there are hard consequences for all of them. Even if one agreed with the principle of the policy, its timing and implementation were at best indifferent, indiscriminate and punitive. For 50 years since VAT was introduced, education in this country was exempt. That exemption was not removed in a September, at the beginning of the school year, but in the middle. Worse, it was half way through some children’s GCSE and A-level courses. As we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, it was removed before anything had been done about a special needs system that the Minister has said today is already under extreme strain, with tribunal appeals taking up to 14 months.
The exemption was also removed before a single one of the promised teachers had been recruited, and we have heard from a number of my noble friends about those numbers. There was unquestionable indifference. The Government knew what would follow, not only via debates here and in the other place but from their own policy note: we know that they accepted in advance that children with special needs who moved schools would suffer disruptive impacts, to say the least. The wealthiest absorbed it, and a number of my noble friends have identified this today.
The noble Baroness, Lady Laing, called attention in her very powerful speech to the unfortunate and regrettable Statement by the former Secretary of State for Education that she was interested in 93% of children in the education system. Whatever her intent, it is a message that landed a body blow on the 7%. The families who could not absorb the tax are those we have heard about today. More than 96,000 children at independent schools receive special needs support without a plan. Every one of those families now pays this tax in full. Tim Barrow, a father of three from Hertfordshire—two of them with special needs—withdrew his sons from their independent school to keep his 10 year-old daughter, whose needs were the greatest, in hers. He is quoted as saying that the policy forced him and his wife to determine
“which of our children’s educational needs takes precedence”.
No parent with children with special educational needs should face that; I would never have imagined facing such a thing under a Labour Government. Leanne Gunn, whose son Charlie uses a wheelchair and will be in one for life, took the Government to court alongside other families. She says that she will work all her life to pay his fees because
“there is no other option for him”.
Those are the families who lost. To families of modest means, whose children were at low-fee faith schools, the Court of Appeal observed that they would and could still resort to home education when it found against them and sent the problem back to Parliament.
It was punitive. There is no doubt, from what we have heard today, that it was punitive. No one in government weighed what these schools give to the communities around them and the value of that—not just the economic value, but the human value. I will give some examples of what these schools do. Christ’s Hospital is 470 years old. Of its 900 pupils, 650 hold means-tested bursaries and it provides 15% of all full bursaries in the independent sector. The London Academy of Excellence in Stratford is a free sixth form sponsored and staffed with the support of independent schools. It has produced more than 150 Oxbridge offers in eight years, over one-third of them to pupils on free school meals. I could go on. Every closure extinguished that giving, that community outreach, permanently punishing the children who benefited.
We have seen the beginning of the transition, with applications by independent faith schools to come into the state sector. A very serious issue has arisen at Barnet Hill Academy, where the state system now appears to be allowing and funding a school which mandates the wearing of the hijab for children as young as seven. When this was revealed during the week, the school said it changed its policy. It said it would not be mandated for non-Muslim girls. In this country, it is unlawful to mandate religious dress for any girl of any age and any faith. It is a complete breach of the Equality Act. I hope that, as this has been exposed—perhaps the one silver lining of the whole policy—the Minister will reassure us that this will be addressed promptly.
No Government should have contemplated moving tens of thousands of children and taxing the education of the rest unless and until they could provide every child with a place in an excellent school; until special needs provision worked; and until the teachers they promised were standing in classrooms. At the very least, the Government should set out how they will replace the loss of the community contributions. I support the call from a number of Peers today, including the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, for a review into this policy.
To add one last thing, I can reassure my noble friend Lord Black that we will—and have pledged to—repeal this policy.
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for securing this debate and for the long-standing interest he has taken in independent schools and the families they serve. It is very good to have him back on the Benches, and I wish him well.
I will respond fully and with evidence to the points raised. Before I do, I will comment that, while I understand there are very strong views about this issue, I cannot help thinking that, more characteristically for this House, it might have been better with a bit less questioning of the character and motives of me and my colleagues—verging in one case on unparliamentary language, in my view.
The Motion before us asks this House to take note of the impact of VAT and other tax changes on private schools since 1 January 2025. It is right that we should do so. These were significant reforms, debated extensively inside and outside Parliament before their introduction, and it is entirely proper that we continue to scrutinise their effects. The Government’s position, however, remains clear. Education is central to our mission to break down barriers to opportunity. We want every child, regardless of background, circumstance or where they happen to live, to have access to an excellent education. That means ensuring that public funding is directed where it can have the greatest impact and that difficult decisions about taxation are taken fairly and responsibly. It was for that reason that the Government ended the VAT exemption on private school fees from 1 January 2025 and removed charitable business rates relief from private schools in England from April 2025.
As the Government set out at the 2024 Budget, these measures combined would raise more than £1.8 billion a year by 2029-30 to help support investment in public services, including education. The Government remain confident in these costings, which were certified by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. In November 2025, the OBR revised the expected yield up slightly by an average of £40 million per year, so these measures are raising more than was expected when they were announced. This was, of course, also a manifesto commitment.
The Government set out in their manifesto a range of ways in which the revenue earned would be used. While it is not possible to directly link this spending, as it is non-hypothecated, it is appropriate to identify some of the links between those areas identified in the manifesto and increased spending and provision. We are spending more than has been raised to improve our schools and deliver on our commitment to the 94% of children who attend state schools. We are increasing our overall core schools budget by £2.3 billion in 2026-27. We have now achieved 71.6% of our target of recruiting 6,500 additional teachers. There are now 4,654 more teachers: 3,008 more teachers in secondary and special schools in 2025-26, and 1,646 more teachers in further education than in 2024-25. This year, we are investing £18 billion in post-16 education and skills. That includes funding for careers and work experience, with over £86.4 million of funding for careers-related activities.
In July 2025, we announced that funded support for the Nuffield Early Language Intervention programme would continue for a further four academic years. We are building and expanding nurseries in schools by providing £82 million of capital funding to over 600 primary and maintained nursery schools across phases 1 and 2 of the school-based nursery programme, which will create over 11,000 new nursery places by September 2027. As of March 2026, 60% of pupils in schools and learners in further education in England are covered by a mental health support team. As part of the national youth strategy, the Government are committed to establishing 50 Young Futures hubs by March 2029. These are all things that we said in our manifesto we would do, and we have done them.
I say at the outset that the Government recognise the valuable contribution many private schools make to our national life. Private schools educate hundreds of thousands of children, provide specialist provision, deliver bursaries and scholarships, and work in partnership with state schools and local communities. Nothing in these reforms was intended to undermine those contributions, and nothing in the Government’s approach seeks to remove parental choice. I also understand the international impact of our private school sector. That is why, in Saudi Arabia earlier this week, I raised it and pushed for further opportunities for our private schools.
The question before us is not whether private schools make a contribution; they undoubtedly do. The question is whether it is right that private education should continue to benefit from tax breaks that are not available to most other goods and services. This Government concluded that it was not. It is important to place recent changes in their proper context. The Government always expected that applying VAT to private school fees would lead to some movement of pupils into the state sector. That was explicitly factored into our analysis before the policy was introduced. Our estimate remains that around 35,000 pupils may move into state-funded education over the course of this Parliament. That represents fewer than 0.5% of the state school population.
At the same time, we must recognise the wider demographic picture. Falling birth rates are affecting pupil numbers across the education system. The latest available data show that overall pupil numbers have fallen across all sectors, not solely within private schools. It would therefore be wrong to attribute every change in enrolment solely to the introduction of VAT. The evidence points to a combination of factors, including demographics, local market conditions and broader economic pressures. As Ministers have consistently stated, the trends seen thus far remain broadly consistent with the assumptions underpinning the original policy.
It is, of course, sad when any school closes. I understand the impact on parents, children and communities. School closures, however, can be influenced by a range of factors, not just the VAT policy. Although we accept that VAT may have compounded pressure already on private schools, closures cannot be attributed to it alone. Private schools, like other organisations, can close for a number of reasons. Demographic change, financial sustainability, governance issues, regulatory concerns and mergers have all contributed to school closures long before these reforms were introduced. Given my understanding particularly of the history of Malvern St James, I thought that at least a couple of the examples used by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, were perhaps not the best examples of the impact of VAT and possibly had more to do with the new ownership of those schools.
The Government’s assessment remains that closure rates are within historical patterns and do not demonstrate systemic failure across the sector. On average, 75 private schools closed per year over the 20 years before the tax changes. A total of 60 schools closed in the 2024-25 school year and 67 closed in 2025-26—below the average of previous years. We also note that private schools have continued to open. The picture is therefore considerably more nuanced than some commentary has suggested.
The Government have continued to monitor place availability closely. There remains substantial spare capacity across the school system, with hundreds of thousands of unfilled places nationally across primary and secondary schools. In England, overall pupil numbers have declined by 1.2% between 2025 and 2026, so state-funded primary and secondary schools have fewer pupils and sufficient capacity. For the new school year, 98.7% of applications to primary school led to an offer from one of the preferred schools, and the same is true for 96.4% of secondary applications. Both those figures represent an improvement on last year.
Local authorities retain statutory responsibility for securing sufficient school places and continue to plan effectively for local demand. To date, no authority has suggested that pupil movements associated with these reforms have created pressures that cannot be managed within existing arrangements. The Government therefore remain confident that the state sector can accommodate any additional pupils arising from the policy. That reflects the position that Ministers have consistently set out to Parliament.
Concerns about children with special educational needs deserve careful consideration, and I recognise the points that the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, made, not only in his contribution today but in previous debates and, as he says, in his Questions. The Government have always recognised that children with SEND can require highly specialised provision and that stability of placement is particularly important. That is precisely why protections exist for children whose private school placement is named in an education, health and care plan and funded by a local authority. In such circumstances, local authorities are able to reclaim the VAT incurred. Those arrangements remain in place and continue to provide protection for some of the most vulnerable children in our education system. We will continue to monitor outcomes closely and remain committed to improving support for children and young people with SEND wherever they are educated.
I note that the tax changes in fact have not led to fewer pupils with SEND at private schools. Indeed, the number has increased slightly. That includes those without EHCPs, the number of whom at mainstream independent schools has grown from fewer than 98,000 in January 2024 to over 101,000 in January 2026.
The majority of children with SEND attend state-funded schools, and we want every child to have the best start in life, with help available earlier and locally when families need it. Every Child Achieving and Thriving, the schools White Paper published in February, set out our intentions. We will ensure children get the right support in their early-years setting, school and college. We will invest in new training for all staff and better buildings and equipment and make sure that every setting has access to expert professional support when it is needed. We will create a new offer for children who need additional support, called “targeted” and “targeted plus” layers. Children in early-years settings, mainstream schools and colleges can benefit from education and health professionals without long waits for assessments. For children and young people with complex needs, we are developing new specialist provision packages, designed with experts and tested with parents, to set out exactly what support and resources are required for specific needs. Parents should of course be able to choose where their children are educated, but we must move away from a system that forces the parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities to feel they have to move their children, where they can afford to do so. We will restore parents’ trust in the SEND system. These changes will be introduced gradually, but we are investing £7 billion more on SEND compared to 2025-26.
What matters now is that we continue to examine the evidence carefully, as noble Lords have called for today. The Government have done so throughout implementation and will continue to do so. We will keep monitoring pupil movements, school capacity, school closures, SEND provision and the wider health of the sector. Where concerns arise, they will be considered seriously and responsibly. However, after more than a year of implementation, the evidence available to us does not suggest that the fundamental assumptions behind the policy were misplaced. The education system continues to function effectively, state schools continue to have capacity, the independent sector continues to educate hundreds of thousands of pupils and the reforms continue to support the Government’s objective of raising funding to improve opportunities for children and young people across the country.
Once again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for bringing this important issue before the House and allowing me to respond with evidence and a commitment to ensuring that we continue monitoring this policy.
Lord Lexden (Con)
My Lords, as is customary, I thank all speakers. The contributions today have been, I think, for the most part, especially powerful, with many rooted in personal experience. We have had almost total unanimity of voice about the devastating impact on independent schools of the education tax. It was notable that, as my noble friend Lord Caine, pointed out, not a single voice was heard from the Labour Benches in defence of this policy.
A range of important topics have been covered: bursaries; the impact on local economies; partnerships; the impact on state schools; loss of opportunity; the vindictiveness of introducing VAT mid-year; the closure of historic institutions; music education and the threat to specialist music schools; special needs; the impact on boarding schools; and the doubts around the economics on which this policy is based—that really is the central issue that has been brought out. There is a widespread belief that at the heart of this is not economics but a vindictiveness towards independent schools.
The Minister is so confident in her policy and the figures and data that she has used that she will surely have no reluctance in putting the issue to the test by establishing the independent inquiry review for which so many speakers have so rightly called. I end by thanking all those who have contributed. I beg to move.
Agriculture: Mental Health Pressures
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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The Lord Bishop of Hereford
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of economic uncertainty, regulatory change, and environmental pressures on the mental health of those working in agriculture.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this issue in your Lordships’ House. I declare my interest as a patron of the Agricultural Chaplains Association and bishop of the most rural diocese in England. Clergy and agricultural chaplains across my diocese, and indeed the nation, are on the front line of the pastoral response to the mental health crisis among agricultural workers. They are so often the ones who show up in times of crisis and sit with people at their moments of greatest need. They provide comfort to the families of the recently bereaved and take funerals.
Although it is imperfect, evidence suggests that British farming communities experience mental health concerns and likely rates of suicide disproportionate to the general population of Britain. The Royal Agriculture Benevolent Institution’s 2021 Big Farming Survey found that almost a fifth of respondents knew someone who had attempted suicide in the last five years. Indeed, 94% of British farmers agreed that poor mental health is the biggest hidden problem facing farmers today, according to the Farm Safety Foundation’s 2025 report.
There are multiple reasons for this. Farmers are the worst affected by the recent turbulence brought on by climate change. In only the last 18 months, we have experienced our two hottest summers on record and an extremely wet winter. Farmers are devastated by the loss of their crops due to wildfires, flooding and extreme heat, and the pests and diseases they bring. They have been forced to eat into their winter forage reserves, rework irrigation systems and add flood defences. The threat of extreme weather and climate change is keeping farmers awake at night. They are faced with tackling the worst bluetongue outbreak the nation has faced and bearing the costs of veterinary bills, vaccines and other associated expenses. The financial burden is considerable, but so too is the emotional strain of dealing with disease, uncertainty and livestock losses.
I will take a moment to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu—I hope she will forgive me if I have pronounced that wrong—for her written support ahead of today’s debate. She drew my attention to the extraordinary pressures being felt across the wider agricultural support network. She told me that kennels collecting fallen stock in her area have at times visited as many as 140 farms in a single day—a stark illustration of the enormous strain that climate-related pressures are placing on the wider industry.
Secondly, as farmers consider their approach to the future, they do so against a backdrop of continual policy and regulatory change. The 2023 report from the Defra Select Committee in the other place on rural mental health highlighted the stress caused by changing regulatory frameworks and support schemes. Farmers must necessarily take a long-term view of their business, yet find themselves navigating a constantly shifting landscape of environmental incentives, land management requirements and biodiversity obligations. Farmers are resilient and, even if they disagree with policy, they will make it work if they have consistency. The current challenging environment in food security suggests the need for significant cross-party collaboration for a longer-term stable regulatory and policy framework.
Alongside this uncertainty sits intense financial pressure. Rising costs for fertiliser, fuel and machinery have squeezed already tight margins. For many, concerns around their farm’s long-term viability remain a constant source of anxiety. A remarkable farming support charity in my diocese, We Are Farming Minds, reports growing numbers of farmers struggling with money worries, insecure tenancies, family disputes over farm succession, legal issues and the challenge of keeping businesses afloat amid volatile markets—paperwork and administration add a further burden.
A fifth of those living rurally report poor mental health due to social isolation. For agricultural workers, this is exacerbated by long hours working alone and the increasing closure of farmers’ markets, which are places of community as well as commerce. Many also express a sense that farming is undervalued by wider society, despite the essential role that farmers play—a point well made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, in his supplementary question earlier today.
At the same time, cultures of resilience within farming communities can create a stigma around discussing mental ill-health, discouraging people from seeking support when they need it most. Of course, in times of mental crisis, many farmers have access to firearms and agricultural chemicals, making timely and preventive support critical.
Yet there are also reasons for hope. Across the country, communities, charities and front-line organisations are developing innovative ways to reach those who might never walk through the door of a traditional mental health service. Some organisations choose to bring life-saving community to farmers, such as the monthly butty van—a joint project between the diocese of Hereford and the Methodist Church which offers a breakfast, hot drink and conversation to farmers. Others organise pop-up well-being clinics at livestock markets and agricultural shows, such as health huts, which offer both mental health advice and medical assistance. Still others train the people who farmers already trust. The DPJ Foundation equips industry professionals to spot mental health symptoms and runs a “share the load” counselling service.
I am grateful to have met the Minister earlier this week to discuss the well-being of farming communities, and I thank her for her sustained advocacy on behalf of farmers and the careful attention she has given to the many interconnected pressures affecting the sector, from mental health and welfare support through to the practical regulatory challenges that shape everyday life on farms. I warmly welcome the Government’s farmer welfare grant—a timely commitment of £1.5 million over the coming three years. It is heartening that the Minister recognises that behind every harvest and herd are men and women carrying burdens of isolation, anxiety and financial pressure that too often go unseen. Through this funding, projects such as the butty van will be better equipped to continue their vital work.
Of course, I recognise the financial constraints under which the Government are operating and the difficult choices Ministers face across public spending. In that context, this funding is a welcome and valuable investment. However, grants are a precision tool: their scope is limited, their budgets finite and their duration temporary. While this funding is due to run until 2029, charities and support organisations need longer-term certainty if they are to recruit and retain skilled staff, build trusted relationships within communities and plan effectively for the future. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will consider how this promising start might be developed into a more sustainable funding settlement.
However, as the Minister and I discussed in person, improving mental health in farming is not simply about responding to crisis; it is about creating the conditions in which farmers and farming can thrive. The Minister has rightly been engaging with practical issues such as on-farm reservoirs and water storage, and I welcome efforts to reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens where possible.
Prevention and early intervention should be at the heart of the Government’s approach. If awareness of mental health challenges becomes second nature across the sector, we can identify problems sooner, connect people with support earlier and help prevent avoidable tragedies. In doing so, we can build a healthier farming workforce and more resilient rural communities.
Baroness Shephard of Northwold (Con)
My Lords, we are indebted to the right reverend Prelate for so graphically describing the often-ignored problem of mental health in rural communities and the part that uncertainty and unpredictability play in that problem. This issue is a deeply serious matter. Problems of access, transport links and availability of professional help for health problems are all more difficult in sparsely populated rural areas. The prosperity and, above all, the confidence of the farming sector are at the very centre of the whole rural economy, from jobs to sales of seed and fertiliser, machinery, food processing and livestock, veterinary services, and retail and hospitality. If farmers prosper, so do our rural communities.
Farmers produce 60% of our food. They care for our environment and are frequently leaders in rural communities, taking part in local government, school management, and our churches and chapels. But isolation, long working hours and financial pressures, often unpredictable, make theirs a lonely job. Farmers have to make their decisions alone, as we all know. As the right reverend Prelate said, they have access to firearms and pesticides. I fear that some noble Lords here today will have had first-hand experience of suicides within their rural communities. I certainly have, and my noble friend Lord Fuller, who comes from the same county, will also have had that experience. The right reverend Prelate has graphically described the situation.
A RABI survey found that 47% of the farming community experienced high anxiety rates—much higher than in the rest of our community. Many organisations have been set up across the country over time to help. I recall that when I was at the ministry of agriculture in the early 1990s we worked with RABI and the Royal Show to promote better access to help with mental health for farmers. In 2008, the agricultural community in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex set up the organisation YANA: You Are Not Alone. It continues to provide a full-time, dedicated and confidential helpline with trained advisers and access to counselling. This statistic speaks for itself: alarmingly, its helpline calls and the durations of those calls have increased by nearly 40% in the last year alone.
Climate change, floods, drought, storms, the extraordinary international situation, supply shortages, ever-increasing energy prices and massive uncertainty surrounding future food supplies have combined to create an unprecedentedly difficult time for the whole agricultural sector and, importantly, the very high anxiety rates for those working in it. Uncertainty regarding your livelihood is one of the principal causes of depression. We all understand that uncertainty is built into farming. Farming is all about planning ahead: what to drill, when to harvest, when to invest in irrigation systems, machinery and livestock, and how to find new markets, all in constantly shifting circumstances. Farmers have to plan not just for one year but for several seasons ahead, taking account of the whole farm and those working on it.
This is why the Government’s shock inheritance tax announcement—taxing not only our very means of food production but its future—was received with disbelief by the whole rural community. There have been other sudden shock changes in support for agriculture from this Government, frequently at short notice, as was the case with the SFI, smashing to smithereens forward planning within the sector. I accept that the Minister has taken every chance to make improvements for the farming community where it has been possible. However, that kind of uncertainty within your own livelihood can be very difficult to handle in an industry already fraught with uncertainties, especially if it is caused by government, as has regrettably happened during the past couple of years. It is particularly serious—indeed, unacceptable—because, at this time of global uncertainty, a safe, affordable and sustainable food supply is central to our national security.
Professor Tim Lang, in his 2025 report for the National Preparedness Commission, stated that strong and resilient productive capacity is essential in facing global climate events, geopolitical disruptions, wars and blockades, and fragile food supply chains. He added that food security should be treated as part of our national infrastructure planning, as it must. The mental health of those who produce our food, their success and productivity and that of those who live in rural communities, is of key importance. They already live with the anxiety and uncertainties that are part of their way of life. The Government should not add to these uncertainties with sudden cuts or policy changes. The Government should instead recognise the vital role that these people play in the very survival of our nation.
A Minister in the other place recently advised that, in the light of the current situation geopolitically, we should be stocking up our food cupboards. That we need to make our own food supply secure and healthy before we can follow that Minister’s advice will be obvious to the noble Lords taking part in this debate and, I hope and believe, to the Minister.
Lord Fuller (Con)
My Lords, I also thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford for tabling this debate. It is an important subject which is very much at the forefront of many people’s minds.
Even the Prime Minister has agreed that the war on the countryside has gone too far. It is not his fault that so many in the countryside choose to end their lives before their time, but the constant and cumulative attacks on the way that people choose to live their lives in the sticks cannot help their mental health. It is not easy when you are underappreciated, misunderstood, isolated and under financial attack from low prices, high costs, discriminatory tax and evermore burdensome regulations. Oftentimes the city dweller looks down on the country mouse who lives in the sticks: “Well, they’re just so provincial, you see”. That attitude is a problem, because nobody should be taken for granted or patronised in this way. It demeans them and the governing party that promotes that notion.
I play a leading role in the fertiliser industry. I have a degree in agriculture and am a director of a large farming business. I have grown up among the landowners, farmers, contractors and all those who work among them for as long as I can remember. I know more than most that, if you are an outsider, it is easy to misunderstand how these rural communities function. Close social ties formed over generations make it hard for outsiders to get in. However, out in the countryside the economy is based on small businesses. So many are one-man bands. Unlike in the cities, where larger firms are split into basic commercial functions, directorates or departments, the farmer is simultaneously the sales director, purchasing director, head of finance, health and safety co-ordinator, head of operations, contracts manager, HR executive, regulatory affairs officer and government relations adviser, all by himself or herself.
That is bad enough, but there are other weighty risks that do not affect other businesses. There are weather risks. Three bad harvests on the trot, corn prices down and input costs high have left cash tight. A farmer who did everything right this year still found yields down by 30%. We have heard that livestock farmers are already feeding winter grub. These are uncertainties over which none of us, and none of them, have any control. There is a particular issue among tenant farmers on the rent quarter day. I am delighted to see that the noble Baroness, Lady Rock, who produced the Rock report into farm tenancies, is in her place. She knows the pressures too. When the best you can achieve financially is a black zero, and relying on imports to fill the gap is uncertain, what is our Government’s solution to this growing crisis?
Well, I am afraid the Government are harming the social life in the countryside, which, more than anything, helps people unburden their thoughts and share the pressures they are under. The country pub has been closed down by new taxes on glass bottles, sky-high electricity bills, national insurance and the need to offer guaranteed hours—and now, new taxes on overnight stays in pubs with rooms are going to add to that burden. The agricultural show societies, which do as much as anything to improve the social glue for those who live outside the M25, are at risk because HMRC is failing to follow its own rules by docking £20 million of VAT, when the matter was clear and determined by the Upper Tribunal. Country sports, which are a big social support and driver of the local economy, are to be banned, curtailed or subject to onerous licensing restrictions imposed by townies who think that milk comes from Tesco, not cows.
With BPS financial support a distant memory, so many SFI subsidies and grants are restricted to hobby farmers rather than the ones who really feed us. Of course, I am not so churlish as to say that £65 million for new reservoirs is not welcome, but, frankly, it is not a drop in the bucket. Then we have Natural England’s regulatory ignorance on stocking rates, wilfully misunderstanding the vocation of being an upland farmer. This morning, those villains again at Natural England have perpetuated a nationalisation of nature, with a predatory pricing scheme on nature levies that, at a stroke, destroys the equity in the private nature markets by using a made-up discount rate of 2.05% when the Government are borrowing at nearly 6%. These are the nature schemes that those under pressure have personal solace in creating, but the government agencies chop them off at the knees.
We have a Government who have spent two years putting our English farmers at a competitive disadvantage against EU competitors. We are to have new taxes on fertiliser in January, yet in the EU, those taxes are now recycled back to the farmers in a pointless money-go-round that demonstrates they had no place in the first place. Where we have technical advantage in genetic breeding, black-grass chemistry, or even bioethanol, our Government seem content to trade those advantages away in late-night phone calls to the White House or an SPS deal that is sleeping rather than dead.
The farmers and the people who work in the countryside have to be concerned—as we should all be—by a land use framework that contemplates fully 20% of the productive farmland in our nation being applied to solar and other non-farming uses. Vibes alone will not feed us when Norfolk’s breadbasket is converted to forestry, as the map in that land use framework contemplates. It is not clear where these productivity gains are going to come from. One thing is for sure, though: we will get that 20% productivity gain only with new investment. When you are down on your luck and feeling sad for yourself, where is the incentive to invest in not just your business but our national food security?
Worst of all, as my noble friend Lady Shephard said, is the hammer blow of these taxes that apply only to family businesses that apply generational principles and long-term patient capital but do not apply to pension funds, hedge funds or sovereign wealth. You have to feel for people who do not even have seven years to go, who have been recklessly placed under an intolerable burden, having taken the best advice to hold on to their farmland, and are now feeling that they are a burden to their families because, sad to say, Labour has removed the English farmer’s safety net.
Now we get to the crux. When you are on your own, and it seems that everyone hates you and you are facing global headwinds unsupported, no matter how professional you may be, no matter how many qualifications you have attained, no matter how large the financial mountain you have to climb to break even, still less make a profit, you can see why many cannot see a way out. The fact is that instruments of death are all around these people: the shotgun, the veterinary medicines, the rat poison, the chemicals and the loneliness.
It is not the fault of Ministers that some individuals have come to take these things, but the Government, having brought us to a place where the cumulative impact of abandoning food security, attacking our cultural ways of life and failing to recognise that farming is in trouble and must be dealt with, have instead pursued a war on the countryside that has gone too far. There is hope that the new Administration in Downing Street, the pie-and-pint successors, will recognise that this war will be reversed, not just for the farmers but for the social life of Britain and the security of our nation. Like my noble friend, I pay tribute to the NFU, the CLA, Your Are Not Alone and any number of other charities and programmes that allow people to lift their eyes from the gutter. They give hope and a sense of value to those who live in the sticks, and where there is hope, salvation will follow. That is the route to healing minds, not terminating them.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford for securing it and for the compassion and clarity with which he opened it. Combined with his rural knowledge, it gave us a very good introduction. I must admit that the butty van sounds like a good way of helping to make things better, as best we can.
The first debate I had in this House in my name was on children’s mental health and I have the climate change position in my party, so I come to this debate with those two threads very much in mind. In truth, they are part of the same thing. I thought the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard of Northworld, said it very well: if farmers prosper, so do our rural communities. I do take issue with one point that the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, made in his speech. I would like this debate to concentrate on what we can do to help our farmers with practical solutions to the unique set of problems that they face. To my mind, to frame this as city against country is too easy a dichotomy, and one that I do not feel is particularly helpful in moving this debate forward.
There is no doubt that our farmers face a blizzard of competing and unavoidable pressures, and many of them have been named by previous speakers, including climate change, the increasing unpredictability of extreme weather, growing financial strain, social isolation, long working hours, regulatory upheaval and a historic stigma based in self-reliance that keeps too many of them from seeking the help and support that they deserve.
Research consistently shows that UK farmers have worse mental health than the general population. I was going to go through some of the statistics from RABI, GHQ-12 and the Farm Safety Foundation, but those figures have been mentioned. What is true is that farmers face greater rates of mental ill-health than other comparable workers. These rates are unacceptable. This is not a new problem. Friends in the other place have raised it. This issue has been raised across parties. I am also struck by the fact that we do not have enough research on the scale of the problem. A lot of this work is being done by charities and a lot of the statistics we have are now a bit historical.
My question to the Minister is: what actions might the Government take to try to improve their understanding of the rate and scale of these problems? Will they do more now to widen access and help provide support directly to our farmers?
The Question names three pressures. It would be a mistake to treat them as separate. They are all intertwined and compounded, and they interact. I will look at them as separate threads, but I think it is important that we understand that.
The first pressure is economic uncertainty. We have had a big change in government policy, and that process has been slow and uneven to say the least. We have had the basic payment scheme and the move to ELMS. This has left farmers with a great deal of uncertainty, and they tell us time and again that that uncertainty creates the greatest stress and pressure points. Will the Government look again at what more they can do to commit to a proper multi-year funding settlement so that farmers can have greater certainty for long-term planning and budget cycles?
I strongly believe that solar presents a real opportunity. The noble Lord, Lord Fuller, talked about 20% of solar on farmland. I do not recognise that figure at all. The figure I have is less than 1% by 2050. A quarter of our farmers already use alternative forms of stable income to offset the increasing losses from climate change. There has been an announcement on GB Energy and community energy today, which is welcome, but I ask the Minister what more could be done to help provide renewable energy to farmers as a stable source of income.
The second, obviously related pressure is regulatory change. I am not against regulatory change. We need this, but it needs to be better communicated and signposted; and it needs to be done with farmers, not to them as an afterthought. It is uncertainty and rapid change that causes them anxiety and leads to these tragic situations. Better communication and the Government doing much more to use trusted intermediaries to help deliver and communicate those messages is something we heard about in the Environment and Climate Change Committee.
The third pressure concerns the environment and climate. We are increasingly moving to a cycle of extreme flooding—if your fields are flooded, you cannot plant your crops—and extreme heat, and heat and sunlight destroy the crops in the field. We have talked about the worst harvest. The Minister is well aware of that, but I will give this figure. The Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit estimates that cumulative harvest losses across 2024-26 amount to £5 billion in real terms for our farmers. Our farmers are very much in the front line of climate change, and we need to do more to support them.
Warm thanks have been given for the farming welfare grant, particularly the work the Minister has done on this, and I recognise that as well. But we need to take that further. There is a need for more support. We need more imaginative ways of reaching farmers. It is quite a hard community to get into to have these difficult conversations. I want to put on the record my support and the support of our Benches for the various charities and organisations: the Farming Community Network, the DPJ Foundation, RABI, and the Farm Safety Foundation’s Yellow Wellies campaign, all of which are working extremely hard to support farmers. It is important for all of us to say that if anybody knows farmers who are struggling, it is essential that they get the help and support they rightly deserve.
My final message to the Minister is that the changes we make need to be made with farmers, not done to them. For me, that is one of the most important things the Government can do to help improve this situation.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford for highlighting what we know to be an incredibly serious issue for the agricultural sector. I highlight my entry in the register of interests as receiving rental income from an agricultural grain store.
It is unclear to many why the Government do not appear to understand the farming industry and those whose livelihoods are connected to agriculture. The president of the National Farmers’ Union summed up the situation:
“The human impact of this goes way beyond the economics. It is something that just is not being considered by the Government, and it is so sad”.
Self-inflicted UK government borrowing costs at 28-year highs, hurting hard-working people, have been coupled with punitive taxes specifically targeted at those in agriculture. It is a fact that those are choices made by this Government. It should therefore be no surprise to noble Lords that only 15% of rural residents believe that this Government care about the countryside, while nearly half feel that the Government have actively waged war on their communities. The Countryside Alliance has identified 27 harmful policies since 2024 that negatively impact rural communities, the most significant being the Government’s changes to agricultural property relief and business property relief.
The actions of the party opposite suggest that they are simply not listening to farmers, who repeatedly explain that most family farms do not have liquid assets to sell. Since the family farms tax was announced, investments in their businesses were either paused or cancelled in order to save for inheritance tax costs. As a direct consequence, as my noble friend Lord Gardiner put so well during a recent Oral Question, that means lower investment in innovation, food production and the very reservoirs that so many people want to see. Almost one in four family farms and businesses has a reduced head count. It is absolutely no surprise that the frightening question being asked in so many quarters is: do this Government care more about social security than national security and food security?
The noble Baroness, Lady Batters, former president of the National Farmers’ Union, has warned that our food self-sufficiency is plummeting. It was only yesterday that the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, rightly spoke from the Government Dispatch Box about mental health support for prisoners on licence. His Majesty’s loyal Opposition would say absolutely; of course; yes—but what about mental health support for farmers who have committed no crime but have lost their livelihood due to this Government’s policies?
My noble friend Lady Shephard highlighted YANA, the You Are Not Alone helpline. Its calls are up 40%, and this is just one example. So why did the Government close the £10 million mental health support fund for farmers—the farming resilience fund, which came in under a Conservative Government—and what will now replace it?
The 2025 McCain Farmdex report found that 90% of farmers felt the UK economy was negatively affecting their farm’s financial position, with 86% feeling pessimistic about the UK’s long-term food security. Some 51% considered leaving farming altogether due to financial constraints. Forty per cent believed they might be forced to exit the industry within the next decade.
These are not the actions of a responsible and decisive Government. Do any noble Lords disagree that we need to ensure our long-term food security and, as a result, have a duty of care for both the physical and mental health of our farmers, who work every possible hour of the day? The right reverend Prelate reminded us that behind most pieces of food that we eat is a human being—a farmer. My noble friend Lord Fuller was entirely correct when he said that the farmer is the chief executive, the chief financial officer, the human resources director and the compliance director. These are immense pressures for just one person or one family to navigate.
Last month, Members in the other place signed a letter to the new Prime Minister calling on the Government to reverse the farming inheritance tax changes in full. The response was: “We will look again.” The noble Baroness the Minister said:
“I will ensure that the new Chancellor is aware of the strength of feeling on this matter”.—[Official Report, 7/9/26; col. 441.]
Actions speak louder than words, and the entire farming community is waiting. It is not just the family farm tax; it is the increased employer national insurance, the higher energy costs and the accelerated decline of delinked payments—the cumulative wrecking ball of this Government’s policies.
As my noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton put so well at the Campaign for the Countryside launch on Monday, we have
“no national security unless you have food security”.
It is surely crystal-clear that we should be looking after our farming communities, not destroying them.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford for securing this debate and for coming over to Defra to discuss these issues more broadly earlier this week. I am grateful for this opportunity to discuss what is a really important topic.
As the right reverend Prelate and other noble Lords have rightly said, farmers are facing challenges and pressures on multiple fronts—financial, economic, regulatory and environmental. Anyone who lives in a rural community, as I do, cannot fail to be aware of the problems that farming has been facing. In recent years, there has also been a growing awareness of the importance of mental health support in the farming sector. We are fully committed to safeguarding the mental health of people in our agricultural and farming communities. We are working closely with the sector to understand the pressures and to ensure that our farmers are supported as best they can be. The Government recently announced £343 million for up to 159 new NHS mental health centres. They will be opening across England from this autumn, bringing crucial support directly into neighbourhoods.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, asked a really important question about better data and evidence about mental health issues. He may be interested to know that the suicide prevention strategy for England sets out an ambition to commission and conduct research on data linkage projects. That includes how to support Defra to look at agricultural workers to understand the unique challenges and to respond appropriately.
We have also been looking at how people across England can benefit from faster and better mental health support. There have been 8,500 additional mental health workers recruited since the end of June 2024—that meets a key government target which we had set—but also, if we focus specifically on agriculture, we are tripling the previous funding that was available for farmer welfare, mental health and well-being support. That comes through the new farmer welfare grant of £1.5 million, which was available over three years and builds on the success of the previous grant, with the funding supporting targeted interventions to strengthen personal and business resilience in the agriculture sector.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford mentioned the grants, the fact that they are only temporary and that charities need certainty to plan beyond that. As part of the farmer welfare grant, we were particularly interested in receiving applications which could prove longevity. We have been engaging with the sector and understand that some organisations plan to use funding to launch initiatives which can become self-sustaining when the grant period ends. We are interested in looking at how we can do more work on that, because the grant applications closed last week, and we will look at all those outcomes shortly.
In addition, we continue to fund the Farming Community Network, which provides bTB-affected farmers and their families with a national free-to-access business and pastoral advice service. In his introduction, the right reverend Prelate talked about the importance of prevention, while the noble Earl, Lord Russell, talked about the need for practical solutions. I think it really important that instead of us talking about “We’re doing this, we’re doing that and we’re doing the other; we are putting a sticking plaster on here”, we really need to understand the root causes of the stress, anxiety and poor mental health that farmers are suffering from so that they do not reach crisis point. We have to focus on that and there are a number of ways we have started to do it.
One of them is to make the supply chain fairer so that farmers are protected in contracts with supermarkets. Fair dealing rules, as the noble Earl opposite will know, have already been introduced for dairy and pigs. We are now looking to do the same for eggs, combinable crops and fresh produce sectors because, as we have heard strongly today, farmers need certainty. It is also one of the reasons why we published the farming road map: so that farmers have a clear direction towards a future for farming, underpinned by the four priorities of profitability, productivity, sustainability and resilience. We have to build in resilience because of the changing climate challenges and the global conflicts that farmers are facing through climate change.
Supporting British farmers and boosting the nation’s security are key priorities for the Government, because the most resilient farms are profitable precisely because they are able to work with the environment. That is why we are backing this shift towards lower-input and more sustainable farming systems.
One thing that came across strongly, though, was the issue around isolation and loneliness. We know that accessibility of mental health services is more challenging in rural communities, and that poorer accessibility can further undermine the well-being of those who need that mental health support, so we have included tackling loneliness and isolation as an objective for the farmer welfare grant. Also, the farming collaboration fund will enable local farmers to come together not just to share costs and reduce risks but, importantly, to socialise and meet their peers.
The noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, talked about fallen stock. We have met to discuss fallen stock recently and will be working with the fallen stock sector to understand current pressures and look at how we can support farmers who are struggling with their stock, particularly regarding bluetongue.
It is also important to remind noble Lords that we published in June our response to the independent Farming Profitability Review, led by the noble Baroness, Lady Batters—that review was mentioned. We are implementing a number of her recommendations to take proper action to grow profitability.
We know how hard this summer has been for farmers: dry conditions have clearly placed huge pressures on farming businesses. We have had reduced grass growth, lower forage availability and lower crop yields. We know that farmers have been feeding what should have been the autumn and even the winter food early; this adds pressure as we go through the year. I was pleased that the Prime Minister announced the £65 million package of support in August to support farmers affected by those conditions and to look at how we can further build resilience.
We are also looking to invest £2.4 billion over the next two years to improve flood resilience, and we have a new Floods Resilience Taskforce. We have been concentrating on drought, but we know that we are likely to have a stormy and potentially very wet winter, so we need to look at support ahead of time. There have been real issues for farmers around wildfires, too, which have been much worse this year than last, and can have a devastating impact on farms and farming. This is a national security issue. Defra funding embeds proportionate wildfire risk assessment and mitigation within land management activity, but we are trying to better understand as a Government the impact of this year’s fires. This involves not just what we must do to better support recovery but also building greater resilience for the future.
In July, we published the Future of Rural England Report. The report sets out key recommendations for government action to help rural communities unlock their full potential. These recommendations were informed by the work of the Rural Taskforce, which is a group of external rural stakeholders and departments right across Whitehall that have been convened to identify how government can support rural businesses and communities to tackle rural disadvantage, and also to unlock the potential of the rural economy. At Defra we are looking at that report and working out how we can best implement those recommendations, many of which will help to unlock some of the support mechanisms we need for farmers and others living in rural communities.
I am about to run out of time, I am afraid, but I want to close by thanking all those who have made a contribution. This is an important issue and we must take it extremely seriously. I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford for bringing us together again, and I thank everyone who has contributed. I hope that we can continue to work together to improve both mental health support and prevention.
Prison and Probation Service
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Lord Farmer
That this House takes note of the state of the prison and probation service in England and Wales.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, I thank all who will contribute this afternoon. It is an impressive list, and I am looking forward to hearing some valuable contributions to what is, at the present time, a very important subject. I thank you for making time after a busy week. I particularly welcome the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, who is making his maiden speech here. I am looking forward to hearing his wisdom, of which he has much in this regard. I received a very supportive email from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, who is prisons Bishop. She is at the College of Bishops this week and is unable to attend, but she wants us to know that she would have been here if she could have been.
This is a highly relevant debate to the public. The current state of our Prison and Probation Service constantly plays out on front pages of newspapers and online media sites. One of my pleas today is for politicians to resist the media drama, particularly of a single case, and keep rehabilitation at the forefront. The fact is that punishment is deprivation of liberty, not grim conditions. On today’s news, we heard that temporary prefabricated cells, sized for one, are now being fitted with bunk beds. Ten years ago, or more, former Chief Inspector of Prisons Nick Hardwick described such circumstances to the Commons Justice Committee, saying that many prisoners are now effectively living in toilets. Headlines about prison spaces running out should not be ignored.
In August 2026, the total prison population was 86,843, which is 97.6% of the usable capacity. As around 96% are men, it is unrealistic to treat the women’s estate as a readily available solution to male overcapacity. The Government’s female offender strategy admits that some have committed crimes of such gravity that custody is the only sentencing option. Of course, women should be in prison if they have committed serious offences.
The range of contributors to current major capacity pressures includes the increase in convictions for sexual offences. Many are historic, but their devastating effects on victims do not expire. There has also been sentencing inflation of 45% over the past 15 years. A response in no small part to penal populism has also clogged up our prisons and today’s need for early release of prisoners is a predictable consequence.
It is ironic that a “lock them up and throw away the key” mentality necessitated the proposed earlier release of heinous criminals at the top of the new Prime Minister’s in-tray of wicked policy issues. Early releases started under the previous Conservative Government, with their end of custody supervised licence emergency response, which allowed eligible prisoners to be released up to 18 and then 70 days before their automatic release date. But eligibility excluded many serious offences. During the 2010s, the Government found money for new prison places, which will only become available under this Government, and this Government will get the credit—whatever. Short-termism does not work in penal policy. Even when a prison has opened under a highly experienced governor, it takes time to fill up gradually. We are building a community, not stocking a warehouse.
The current scheme of early release cannot be characterised as a continuation of end of custody supervised licence. Moving the standard release point from 50% to 40% and now 33% represents such a significant change in the proportion of the custodial sentence spent in prison that sentencing is becoming increasingly meaningless. This is very worrying for public confidence in the courts and judiciary when they are under exceptional strain. We need sentences that are understandable and reflect the seriousness of the crime but also recognise the possibility and need for rehabilitation. Given the Independent Review of the Criminal Courts by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, I hope he will comment on this, and I will say no more.
One of my main points today is that the issue of prison capacity took the previous Government’s attention away from rehabilitation, and that trend has continued. The terms of reference for the Rudd review barely mention it. While it is a theme in the call for evidence, it does not look like a priority. Neither document mentions the importance of good relationships, despite them being essential to rehabilitation and to many other Rudd review priorities, such as safety, decency and strategy for future prison build. Yet I find HMPPS staff are very committed in this area. Their transforming prisons directorate is creatively building the importance of relationships into future prisons, but it is hard for them to build this culture without the oxygen of ministerial and political support.
The 2016 White Paper, Prison Safety and Reform—in which my first review for the Government was announced—was also focused on Rudd review emergency issues, such as safety, security, new-build prisons and staffing pressures. However, it treated rehabilitation—prisoner reform—as equally important and called for
“a huge cultural and structural change within our prisons—a transformation away from offender warehouses to disciplined and purposeful centres of reform where all prisoners get a second chance at leading a good life”.
The MoJ’s own data showed the powerful positive rehabilitation effects of contact with families and significant ties. They exceed those of, say, education and employment, and provide the motivation for the latter—hence my reviews said that relationships should be the golden thread running through all the processes of prison and probation. Narrowly seeing this as only good family visits misses the fact that everything is mediated through relationships—relationships between governors and their officers, officers and the prisoners, prisoners and other prisoners, the prison and the community that surrounds it, and the prison estate and the society that it is part of—however difficult it might to define and cost them. The culture of prisons and probation needs to change so that a relational approach becomes business as usual, working with the grain of what it is to be human rather than against it. That is how professionals in the Youth Custody Service strive to operate. Yet when young people make the transition to the adult estate, too often they still fall over a cliff edge into a relational desert.
It is 10 years since the Government commissioned my first review and accepted all its recommendations, but its emphasis on relational culture is frequently cut across by policy decisions. In response to understandable public outrage over non-attendance at sentence hearings, prison rules have been changed so that, as a general sanction, governors can remove all social visits for up to 27 days and restrict social visits to one visit in every 28 days for up to 84 days. Prisoners’ children can still visit, but that sanction rules out a very large range of other potentially prosocial visitors. When relationships wither, as they can quickly do when you are in jail, this might remove a key reforming influence on a troublemaker.
One of the most extrovert prisons I visited, HMP Norwich—with its tourist café run by prisoners in open conditions—holds a surgery for family members every week so that the deputy governor can hear their concerns. The deputy governor told me about the mother fighting her teenage son’s corner after he had given her a sob story about how badly he had been treated, and how she turned that mother into an ally by saying, “He’s doing himself no favours. You need to help us help him get through this as well as possible”.
I am also concerned about fathers in prison who might lose parental responsibility when the Courts and Tribunals Bill abolishes the rebuttable presumption in the Children Act 1989 that children’s best interests are typically served by both parents’ involvement. Being in prison does not automatically make someone a bad or damaging father or mother, but removing the presumption will make it easier to argue that they are not needed. Can the Minister confirm whether any guidance will be issued to mitigate that possible unintended consequence for these parents and their children—who are at a profound legal disadvantage—if the Bill becomes law?
Such examples suggest that the culture is still punitive rather than rehabilitative. The problem with culture is its apparent intangibility for policy purposes, but its effects are anything but intangible. Where there is a culture of each government department or public service working separately and territorially, people fall through the cracks between operational silos. That still happens, despite the duty to refer when people released from prison are at risk of becoming homeless. Some local housing authorities work very well with prisons and probation and secure accommodation for prisoners, despite similar pressures on their housing stock as less integrated local councils. According to Nacro, last year in the north-west, 12% of people leaving prison were released into homelessness, compared with more than 20% of people released in south-central. If agencies in every region collaborated as well as they do in the north-west, there would be 3,700 fewer people released to homelessness every year, potentially preventing 1,500 reoffences.
The proven reoffending rate of those released homeless—76%—was more than twice that of those released from custody into settled accommodation, at 36.4%. Some 4,500 inmates will be released early in 10 tranches between 1 October and 1 June next year, in addition to the 4,500 regular releases that take place each month. Prisons and probation are on the front line of the Prime Minister’s pledge to end rough sleeping. Almost one in six are released homeless, and the most recent snapshot found that half of all rough sleepers had been in prison at some point and that 15% of them had been released within the last year. This Government’s national plan to end homelessness calls out the deficiencies of the duty to refer and promises to legislate for a duty to collaborate as soon as parliamentary time allows.
I tabled amendments to the Social Housing Bill to seize that legislative opportunity, but unfortunately to no avail. I was even told by the responding Minister that the duty to refer was working fine, so my amendments, which would have brought the Government’s own proposed reforms into statute, were not needed. It was rather an Alice through the looking-glass moment. Can the Minister report any new progress on bringing the duty to collaborate into law? What is being done to ensure that prisoners have good relationships and that someone is there when they are released, not just accommodation?
One of the most effective ways to prevent homelessness after release is to maintain existing family and other relationships, or enable prisoners to build supportive connections both inside and outside prison. Effective peer mentoring schemes are creating valuable communities of support that start in prison but go beyond the gate for prisoners who have no contact with their families and cannot hope to have. Sex offenders, for example, lumped together as a universally heinous, also need to be given a second chance. Programmes such as these should become business as usual. When well supervised, they can be powerfully therapeutic.
Trusted relationships can bring home to a prisoner the criminogenic influences they have to shrug off if they are to change. They create a sense of agency and dispel despair. Peer support can be game-changing for the 25% of male and female prisoners who are care experienced. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act requires prisons and probation to share corporate parenting responsibilities as part of a new, highly relational approach to care leavers. Peer support is key to fulfilling this. Can the Minister provide an overview of the spread of peer mentoring in prisons and support in English and Welsh prisons? Are there are any plans to integrate them into the Probation Service?
The 19th-century social reformer Elizabeth Fry branded our violent and squalid prisons the “nurseries of crime”. She said:
“The better the actual state of our prisons is known and understood, the more clearly will all men see the necessity of these arrangements by which they may be rendered schools of industry and virtue”.
I will finish on one neglected relationship that I have already mentioned: between the prison and probation system and wider society. Most prisoners will be released back into that wider society, which needs to know and understand what it takes to reform someone who has transgressed, how to prioritise rehabilitation and how to prioritise good relationships while still being appropriately tough on crime. I beg to move.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, on securing this debate and I am grateful for how he opened it. I thought he was going to be a little more critical and, in turn, I have written a counter speech. I want to speak primarily about rehabilitation, which he mainly focused on. As he said, one of the big influencing factors has been 30 years of sentence inflation, with more and more, and longer and longer, sentences being handed out. I too look forward to the maiden speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, with great interest in what he may say on this.
There have been 30 years of underinvestment, by all Governments, in the courts, prisons, the probation services and of course rehabilitation, which has been the Cinderella right at the end of the line. However, services have been particularly hollowed out since 2010, when George Osborne’s austerity programme was introduced. Then there was the calamitous, I believe, social experiment of the part-privatisation of the probation service by the Conservative Government, as well as a failure to build new prison places—we are still waiting for new ones to come on stream, as has just been mentioned.
In 2024, Labour inherited a demoralised and understaffed workforce, with prisons almost full to capacity. We were almost at a point where, without radical action, the country faced the prospect that courts would not be able to send criminals to jail, because there were no places to incarcerate them. I am glad to say that we have not shied away from that challenge. I congratulate all those who have been involved in trying to right the wrongs, especially the now departed Prisons Minister, my noble friend Lord Timpson; he did outstanding work, which was recognised across the whole Chamber. He did it with enthusiasm and endeavoured—this particularly appealed to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, and me—to re-energise the work on rehabilitation of prisoners, especially those with addiction problems relating to drugs, alcohol or the recent growth in problem gambling, on which the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, has done such valiant work. I am sure that we will hear more on that from him today.
My noble friend Lord Timpson also recruited Professor Dame Carol Black. She was brought in, with her particular expertise, to assist with these long-standing addiction problems and with rehabilitation. The rehabilitation of offenders whose crimes are driven by drug or alcohol addiction is a crucial part of any strategy to reduce reoffending. Currently, services are still not fit for purpose. For example, half of all people on probation have a drug or alcohol problem, and over half of those arriving in prison are assessed as needing drug or alcohol treatment. Intensive drug or alcohol rehabilitation programmes in prisons were delivered to 11,000 people in 2012. We do not keep the figures now on what is being done, but the guess is that is in the order of as low as 2,000 a year—that is a terrible fall-away.
The Sentencing Act envisages increased early release, or community sentences instead of short periods of imprisonment, for offenders addicted to drugs or alcohol, but there are no plans to ensure that these people get adequate treatment. If their addictions are not treated, we will see high rates of reoffending and licence breaches. Dame Carol will be giving an update on progress in her report entitled From Hope to Delivery: Drug and Alcohol Treatment Under a New Government. She will be doing this in Committee Room 5 on Wednesday, 14 October. I hope that many of us present today, and others, will be there to hear about the work she has been done to try to address, in particular, addiction issues linked to rehabilitation so that we can then, in turn, look forward to a more detailed programme of action on rehabilitation and recovery. I would be grateful if the Minister could give us an indication of how the Government are likely to respond to the report that will be coming from Dame Carol.
I am also involved in some rehabilitation work being trialled shortly in a Kent addiction recovery centre that welcomes prisoners in its numbers. We are endeavouring to develop an AI companion linked to the 12-step recovery programme—I assure noble Lords that it will be entirely safe—so that prisoners there will be given a companion 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, if they are in need of someone to give them advice that has been based on the 12-step programme. We have managed to interest Stanford University in the USA in this, and we are hoping that King’s in London will also be associated, to validate a doctoral research project that is being set up alongside it.
We also have enthusiastic support from the charity Forward Trust, which I am sure the Minister will know does valuable work in recovery and rehabilitation within, and for those leaving, prisons. We see this project as having considerable potential in assisting with rehabilitation. I wonder therefore whether the Minister can give an indication of whether, if we get this off the ground, there may be a possibility to trial it in prison. It has great prospects of meeting some of the many deficiencies we currently have from not having the numbers around to help people with rehabilitation.
Lord Foster of Bath (LD)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, and I join him in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, not only on the tremendous work that he has done in this particular area but for securing the debate and his excellent opening speech. I also look forward to the maiden speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson.
Just over a year ago, the Justice and Home Affairs Select Committee, which I chair, published Better Prisons, Less Crime. We quoted witnesses who described the prison service operating in, or on the verge of, crisis. We acknowledged the failures of successive Governments, but our purpose was not to catalogue failure: it was to identify practical ways forward. Echoing what the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, said, our starting point was simple: we ought to understand the role of prisons.
We said that punishment for the prisoner is the loss of liberty and the role of prisons is to protect the public by reducing reoffending. We said that required purposeful activity, education and training, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke said, treatment for mental health, drug, alcohol and gambling problems, and preparation for life after release. It also requires relationships, as again the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, said, particularly family relationships. They are really important, yet distance from home, restrictive visiting arrangements and limited digital access can make contact unnecessarily difficult. Family contact cannot and must not be treated as an optional extra.
Our report found that purposeful activity was woefully inadequate overall, with prisoners spending up to 23 hours a day in cramped cells with little help for them to lead constructive crime-free lives when they leave. The consequences are predictable: boredom, frustration, self-harm and violence. With a cost to the taxpayer of approximately £54,000 per prisoner per year, we get very little benefit from that expenditure.
It is not merely a failure of prison management; it is a failure of public policy. Of course, overcrowding is a major cause, but it is not the whole explanation. We identified longer sentences, which have already been mentioned, excessive use of custody, bureaucracy restricting governors’ autonomy, inadequate recruitment and training of staff, poor assessment of prisoner needs, a backlog of repairs and, frankly, complacency within the MoJ and HMPPS.
For each of those problems, the committee made recommendations to release capacity for work on reducing reoffending and public protection. Yet, little more than a year later, the picture remains deeply troubling. Charlie Taylor, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, in a newspaper article only this weekend described the system as awash with drugs, with organised criminals operating with impunity, serious violence going unpunished and prisons struggling to control, let alone rehabilitate, those in their care. A prison system which cannot maintain order cannot properly rehabilitate prisoners. One which fails to rehabilitate stores up more crime for the future.
The impact of all this on staff is equally serious. In the last 12 months to July, prison officer numbers fell by the equivalent of seven officers per prison and sickness absence rose to 12.4 days per officer per year, compared with a national average of 4.4 days for all other workers. We cannot expect officers to deliver rehabilitation in an unsafe, understaffed and demoralising environment.
Overcrowding will not disappear quickly. Recalls are adding substantially to the pressure. Ten years ago, one person was recalled for every three or four released. In the first quarter of this year, for the first time ever since records were kept, more people were recalled to prison than released. Recalled prisoners now account for approximately one-seventh of the prison population, at a cost according to Nacro of £750 million a year. These figures raise all sorts of questions about whether the system is operating intelligently or just recycling people through custody at enormous cost. I urge the Minister to revisit the committee’s recommendations with much greater urgency than there has been so far.
I have just a few quick suggestions in the time that remains. We must reduce the number of people sent to prison unnecessarily. We know that well-run, probation-led community sentences cost less and can produce lower reoffending. I welcome the replacement of short prison sentences with community sentences, but I believe we can go much further, which means doing other things. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, referred to the issue of gambling disorder. It is a ridiculous situation that the courts can currently make changes to the sentence they give to people with drug and alcohol problems by linking treatment orders to a non-custodial sentence, but there are no similar treatment orders in relation to gambling disorder. I urge the Minister to look at that issue.
I hope we will also look at the way in which we are funding and developing our Probation Service. We will hear all sorts of fine words from the Minister about the Government’s £700 million, but I point to the simple fact that, since the day our report was released to July of this year, the total increase in the number of probation staff has been 11. The Government are now using an ad agency to try to find additional people, at a cost of £150 million. I hope the Minister will tell us whether that is true and whether he believes it is good value for money—and, in particular, whether that is coming out of the £700 million, which would be a very expensive way of filling staffing gaps. We also know that the huge pressure on probation officers is one of the key causes of the recall of prisoners, because it is so much easier if there is a licence infringement to send people back to prison rather than taking up more time to deal with them.
I hope the Government will also look at our recommendation about the importance of prison education. They accepted our recommendation and said that prison education was vitally important, yet since our report was produced the budget for education in prisons has been reduced by at least 25%, which has meant that some 300 people who deliver that service have now lost their jobs. We can do other things, too, by looking at the way we help prisoners when they leave prison. I urge the Minister as a final point to look at the work being done at HMP Doncaster, where Nacro is bringing together all sorts of different agencies to help prisoners from the day they walk out of prison.
There is a lot that needs to be done. Only today, the unions have written to the Prime Minister about the piecemeal approach to dealing with the multiple problems in the justice system. They urge a more joined-up approach. I hope the Minister will look at that letter; it gives a lot of good advice as to how we could move forward, with the Government working more effectively together on these issues.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and his most interesting speech. This is an excellent debate on crucial issues, and I am so glad that the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, has managed to bring it forward. I also say how glad I am that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, has joined us. He will add a great deal to this House with his expertise on criminal law.
I have been looking at another report: one by the Justice Select Committee of the other place called Ending the Cycle of Reoffending. It sets out, in stark terms, the present state of the prison estate: the lack of adequate education of prisoners or purposeful activity, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Foster; the failure to educate children and young people; the lack of sufficient health and welfare provision, particularly for those with mental health or behavioural problems; gross overcrowding; and, as has been said, prisoners being in cells for most of the 24 hours. There is a disrepair of prisons. Princetown was closed very shortly after the last Government renewed the lease, even though they knew that the prison would have to be closed. There are problems with recruitment and retention of prison officers, and I am not surprised. There is a lack of training of prison officers, not only initially but on promotion. It was suggested in the Justice Committee report that governors needed some training. It points out that there is a lack of involvement by governors and opportunity for them to make decisions on who should be employed in their prison. This background from the Justice Committee is a sad introduction to this much-needed debate.
One might ask: who on earth would want to be a prison officer? We have heard not only from me but earlier from other noble Lords what happens to them. The need for rehabilitation of prisoners is obvious, for their sake and the sake of the public. If we just bang people up—mainly men, as we largely do—they are obviously more likely to offend and fill the prisons again. It seems a vicious circle.
Many years ago, as a judge, I visited Exeter Prison. I saw an absolutely splendid workshop training prisoners how to make and repair furniture. I went back about three years later and asked about the workshop. It was closed. I asked why. The present officer said that they were so busy taking people to the courts that they did not have time to look after the workshop—oh dear.
In the present circumstances, with overcrowded prisons and a lack of resources, it seems difficult to resolve rehabilitation, but the prevention of reoffending and some training of those inside is crucial for the benefit of prisoners and, much more importantly, the public. In the past, there have been some very successful drug and alcohol magistrates’ courts working on addict offenders. Surely, there should also be more residential units for drink and drug offenders under probation orders. If the offender did not finish the course, he would go to prison, but at least some might not reoffend.
The female prison population is, as we all know, very much smaller. Many, if not most, women who offend have been victims of abuse. I am not suggesting that no woman should go to prison, but many would be better off out of prison with appropriate probation orders and, of course, support and help to live in the future. The 2007 Corston report gave very good advice on women offenders. I do not know how far her recommendations have been implemented, but she recommended, among other things, that there should be a woman-centred approach in the judicial system, early diversion and efforts to identify and address the root cause of offending. There are excellent initiatives dealing with women, and they should be encouraged and increased.
Another problem, of course, is how to deal with prisoners upon release, which has already been referred to. I gather that the early releases are leaving prisoners without the help to prepare for time out of prison. There seems little point in release if there is insufficient help both inside and when they are outside. There are too many offenders who commit offences on release in order to go back to prison—because, where else can they go? Of course, we also have a serious lack of housing. What I do not know is where the overwhelming need to improve the prison estate should start, so I shall listen with great interest to the Minister as to how something, at least, can be done. Both the prisoners and the public require it.
The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, raised the issue of the deletion of parental responsibility in a coming Bill. That, as I understand it, would require a judicial decision. I would hope that judges would not remove parental responsibility as a matter of course, but only if the person in prison is unsuited to exercising it. The noble Lord perhaps is worrying too much about that particular proposal.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I also express my appreciation for the outstanding speech of the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, and thank him for introducing this debate.
I propose to address only one point, already raised by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath: the question of recalls to custody. Let us concentrate on that for a moment. In the past four years, recalls to custody of prisoners released under licence have more than doubled. As has already been pointed out, in the last year there were 51,000 recalls to prison; that exceeds the number of persons sentenced by the courts to prison, which was 47,000. For the first time, recalls now are greater than persons going to prison in the first place. A recall rate of 50,000 represents a rate of about one in five of those under supervision. As the charity Nacro points out, in 2017 the rate was about one in 13. Have we seen an increase in risk in the last 10 years? What is going on here? There is no evidence of increase in risk, but now, according to Nacro, for every 10 beds freed up by the release of a prisoner, nine are refilled by recalls to custody. This highly regrettable situation threatens seriously to undermine the Government’s early-release scheme. As has already been pointed out by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, what is the point of early release if it is followed by a recall?
Clearly, the present situation also greatly complicates the management of prisoners within the prison system. As already mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, it is costing the prison service around £750 million a year—surely money better spent on supporting prisoners on licence in the community. But the most devastating effect recall can have is on the prisoner concerned, including perhaps the loss of employment, loss of accommodation and, most importantly, destruction of any progress there may have been towards rehabilitation. This total interruption of the process of rehabilitation was rightly emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, and by all noble Lords who have so far spoken.
Those of us who have been around for a while will remember that 20 or 30 years ago, in admittedly very different circumstances, the culture of the Probation Service was that recall was a last resort. Indeed, it could be regarded as a sign of professional failure to have to recall someone who was under one’s own supervision. Today, for whatever reason, the culture seems to have swung 180 degrees in the other direction: recall has become the first resort, not the last.
I fully accept that the problem is very difficult, but there are only three possibilities. The first is that the prisoner was not properly prepared for release, was not properly looked after once released, or that post-release support was inadequate. An important case in point is if the prisoner is recalled because of homelessness, a point already raised by noble Lords. That seems to be a major factor. According to Nacro, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, last year 15,000 released prisoners were homeless on the day of release. What hope have we got? What hope do they have of remaining out of the prison sphere? So, lack of preparation or lack of support for prisoners in the community is the first thing.
The second possibility is that the licence conditions are too tough, inappropriate or not tailored to the needs of the prisoner concerned. Are we holding prisoners to licence conditions they are not capable of achieving—that are too heavy, that are not properly designed—given the lack of support, the mental health problems and the drug problems? These were emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke. In all these circumstances, the Chief Inspector of Probation has criticised “excessive licence conditions”, imposing on people obligations they cannot meet. Both those points amount to setting prisoners up to fail. What chance have they got if they are not properly prepared and the licence conditions are too onerous?
The third possibility, however, is risk aversion in the Probation Service. It is right to bear in mind that the service has, over the years, lost many experienced staff, is understaffed and is managing huge caseloads in very difficult conditions. Some 73% of recalls are for breach of licence conditions. There is widespread concern that those recalls are often triggered by minor or trivial breaches of licence conditions. Recalls should be primarily for reasons of public safety and not for minor breaches of licence conditions. There should be stronger rules and clearer guidance on this point. I ask the Minister: is the dramatic increase in recalls in recent years a matter of concern for the Government? What are the reasons for that increase, and what are the Government doing to tackle those underlying causes?
Finally, I add my own welcome to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson of Liverpool, to whose maiden speech we are much looking forward.
Lord Leveson of Liverpool (CB) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, it is with real diffidence that I rise just three days after my introduction. But the way in which we treat those convicted of crime, and in particular what happens to them when both in custody and in the community, has been a real interest of mine for some 60 years. It stems from my time as an undergraduate visiting Oxford prison and being involved in organising camps for children from approved schools; and later on in relation to the mental health of those in custody—an interest encouraged in me by my late father, who was a consultant psychiatrist. This was in Liverpool, which for over 40 years I was proud to call my home. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for initiating this debate and thus allowing me the opportunity to express some views on this critical area.
I must first, however, express my thanks to my two splendid supporters, the noble and learned Lords, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers and Lord Burnett of Maldon, who were both Chief Justices for whom I worked, along with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, the late and very much-lamented Lord Judge, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, to whom I also pay tribute.
I would also like to thank the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and those in the convenor’s office for their kindness and encouragement and express my real appreciation to the Clerk of the Parliaments, Black Rod and all those who work in this House and who have been so generous with the time they have given to a new boy—that is not a phrase I would have used of myself very recently. It is an inestimable honour for me now to be part of this House, although I am concerned whether I can live up to the expectations which have been expressed by most of the speakers this afternoon.
Let me start with the number of remand prisoners in custody. On 30 June 2026, of the 85,858 in custody, 10,242 were untried and 5,144 were convicted but not sentenced. For those awaiting trial, presumed innocent, their lives are on hold; for those awaiting sentence, they cannot start to engage with a sentence plan; many may wait months, if not years, for a co-defendant to be tried so that all convicted can be sentenced together.
What of those who have been sentenced? Rehabilitation is identified as a requirement of Section 57(2) of the Sentencing Act 2020 for adults and is mandated by Section 37 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 as the principal aim of sentencing for those under 18. These are core requirements getting lost as prison and probation officers seek to contain and provide such support as they can to the unsustainable number of people with whom they have to deal in custody and in the community.
There have been far too many reports into prison conditions. I still possess a copy of the Woolf report, which followed the prison disturbances in HMP Manchester in April 1990. I was then responsible for the prosecution of prisoners for conspiracy to riot and other offences. The average prison population that year was about 45,000, and on 1 June 1990 there were 20,785 prison officers and 994 auxiliaries. On 7 September 2026, the prison population was 86,868, of which 67,652 were in public sector prisons which, as of 30 June, now employ 22,001 full-time equivalent prison officers and 5,661 operational staff. For just under 1,300 extra prison officers, there are roughly 50% more prisoners. I quote from the overview by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf:
“members of the Prison Service as a whole, against heavy odds, have managed over a number of years to contain an almost impossible situation by showing immense dedication, courage and professionalism”.
With over twice as many in custody, that is even more so today.
As for activity in prison, the recent annual report of the Chief Inspector of Prisons identifies that, in many prisons, services have been cut—his word was “brutally”—with many teachers, as we have heard, made redundant. With few exceptions,
“Attendance in education, training and work is often appalling”
and insufficiently prioritised, with short working days. Similarly, the annual report of the Chief Inspector of Probation speaks of
“an organisation grappling with serious systemic challenges, an increasingly large and complex caseload … and an increasing proportion of the caseload … in the community”.
In short, he says there are
“too few staff, with too little experience, managing too many cases”.
The report of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, Better Prisons: Less Crime identifies that reoffending represents around 80% of offending. It is therefore important to examine the challenges facing those who are serving sentences, the vast majority of whom will rejoin the community, whether sooner or later.
Your Lordships may be familiar with the figures but, with thanks to the Howard League for Penal Reform, I shall summarise. In 2024-25, assessment in England identified 57% of adult prisoners as having a learning difficulty or disability. More than half of men and almost three-quarters of women identify with mental health problems and, as your Lordships have heard, in 2021, Dame Carol Black published an independent review which identified one-third of prisoners as having a serious drug addiction. In a survey undertaken by the chief inspector, 41% referred to the ease with which illicit drugs could be obtained in prison; in category B training prisons, it was 57%.
In large part, that is the cohort which society has to address. Education, along with support and treatment for mental health and drug issues together with training to allow those released to be able to aspire to obtaining work are all critical if we are to prevent the revolving door of repeated offending. I agree with and fully endorse the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, in which he emphasised the importance of maintaining family relationships. As your Lordships have heard, the recent Nacro report revealed that more than 15,000 people were homeless on their first night out of prison.
In short, it all requires a move away from simple containment in prison to active measures to assist those in custody to find a bed and work towards living a useful life in the community. A plan is essential. Of course, there will be some who are so dangerous that this is not an option, but they are not the bulk of those in custody. Support both while in prison and then in the community is critical, and the Prison and Probation Service must be equipped with the personnel and resources to do so. That will be expensive, but nothing like as expensive as receiving them back into prison or keeping them there.
There are other great benefits of promoting rehabilitation. The prison population crisis is very real. If more can be supported in the community and reoffending minimised, there will be more room for those who should be remanded into custody and those who are dangerous. Remand prisoners will be kept nearer their court of trial. The police will be able to provide greater focus on offences that cause great public concern, including violence against women and girls, other serious sexual and violent offending, phone, petrol and shop theft and more.
It will be clear that, although this debate is about prisons and probation, the crisis is much wider: every aspect of criminal justice requires urgent attention. Some courts are listing trials for 2030. Criminal justice reform could be my “Mastermind” specialist subject, but I would not dream of testing the patience of the House by going through my recent review. It is sufficient to say that there are solutions that I look forward to discussing with and urging upon your Lordships, working with all to address the challenges that it faces.
I end by observing that we must not forget the human beings behind all these issues: the victims, the witnesses and the offenders. The state must facilitate the early identification and detection of crime. It must, within a reasonable time, ensure its prosecution, and it must do all it can to promote the rehabilitation of convicted offenders. If it does not, it is failing in one of its most important responsibilities.
Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)
My Lords, it is a very special privilege first to have listened to the speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Leveson of Liverpool and now to have the chance to add a few remarks. I wish first to convey the apologies of my noble and learned friends Lord Burnett and Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers. Events elsewhere have detained them, and they are unable to be present, but I have that pleasure.
It is now more than a quarter of a century ago that, as what I still think of as youngish judges—though, alas, no longer so, I think I can safely say—we started to work together with responsibility for the circuit system and, in particular, for the way in which criminal justice was administered by the courts under the leadership of that great Chief Justice, Lord Judge. Lord Judge would have been especially proud and delighted to have been here today because he would have seen this as an inevitability.
Like Lord Judge, my noble and learned friend Lord Leveson had enormous experience of the common law across all its aspects, but particularly in criminal justice, and he brought that experience to bear both in trials and on appeals, and, as importantly, in the leadership he gave in the successive appointments he held to improving the criminal justice system, and in the many reports and reviews he has conducted to that end. But his experience is much wider. I have not the time to go through it all, but one particular example occupies the time of your Lordships’ House from time to time, and that is his work as the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. He is a man of enormous talent and will bring huge benefits to this House.
I need have said none of that, because the proof of what he will bring is in all your Lordships’ expectations, which were amply justified but which, modestly of course, he said he was a little worried he might not live up to. His mastery of the criminal law and the criminal justice system is enormous. Indeed, I found over that quarter of a century that I almost always agreed with everything he said. I can take the opportunity of saying so today because I do not wish to add to, and could not possibly improve upon, his analysis of the difficulties facing the criminal justice system.
Like other noble Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for obtaining this debate and for the many speeches that have been made about what needs to be done. The list is almost endless. I want to address one overarching problem, and that is what we can best do with what money we get.
I recall some years ago that this was exemplified by the first matter we have to address, and that is rigid discipline over money—no doubt noble Lords will fear that I have gone over to the Treasury’s side, or should I say the dark side? But it is important to have discipline. In the last Labour Government in the early 2000s, I remember that when reforms were thought of, you had to prove what effect it would have. This was then checked by the Home Office. There was something called the Home Office model, which showed that if you created an offence, it would need so many more prosecutors, so many more judges, and so many more prison places.
I deeply regret that we do not do the same now on the most important aspect, which is at the heart of today’s debate: the massive increase in prison sentence lengths of which everyone has spoken. The first thing we must do is bring back a fiscal discipline so that we know what money we have, because only with knowing what money we have can we do things properly. The late Lord Judge and I were bitterly critical of the constant increase in sentence lengths without consideration of how this was to be paid for without either putting prisoners into squalid conditions or cutting the really good things that are done in prison—in particular, education. That is the first fundamental question. We need to work out what we can pay for with the money available.
The second fundamental question is then to explain to the public what we are capable of doing. This is a shared endeavour of us all because we cannot go on as we are. It seems to me that we must return to, first, truth in sentencing. If the judge says, “You get five years and you spend half of that in prison and half in the community”, that is what we should deliver, but we have had to go away from that because we have not told the public the truth—that there is only a limited amount of money available and we can do only so much with it. I hope this fundamental question will be grappled with by us all.
I warmly commend the Government on what they have said about IPPs. It has taken huge courage and a sense of justice to do it. The greater task ahead is to adopt the same attitude to explaining to the public that if this is the money available, this is all we can do, prison sentences must come down and we must use prison spaces more effectively, and they will be better for that. That is the next task facing this Government.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, not for the first time, I am feeling a bit outclassed and overawed by the legal and judicial expertise in this place that has produced so many excellent speeches. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for inviting us to talk about the state of prisons and probation services.
However, I want to start by making some broader points about context. During the week, we have had the extraordinary sight of 92% of the citizens of an Oxford village, Piddington, population 358, voting in a symbolic referendum to become independent from the United Kingdom. In interviews with residents, there has been a common theme: the state is exposing them to danger. Housing 1,250 young male asylum seekers in nearby Bicester garrison means:
“Our safety, our security and our freedoms will be under threat”.
To paraphrase one woman: “If these men need government leaflets to explain that sexually abusing children or raping women is wrong, I’m frightened to go out alone. I will become a prisoner in my own house”. That is my theme, in a way.
The sentiment of being a prisoner in your own house is not confined to leafy villages but is felt in towns and cities throughout the country. It is not confined to asylum policies. One key issue that has been a lightning rod for worries that state policies are indifferent to public safety is the early release scheme—for example, those women who now feel frightened in their own homes as victims of domestic abuse, worried that their early released tormentors may show up on the doorstep. Somehow the law-abiding are unfairly becoming the victims of failed state policies.
I would normally want to use today’s debate to talk in detail about prison reform, because I am passionate especially about improving educational initiatives in prison and I hate the lack of purposeful activity available that has been so well described by other noble Lords—I thought the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, made a magnificent speech—but it is also true that it has become particularly difficult to convince the public that the MoJ should prioritise improving the treatment of prisoners in jail when so many are being released out of jail before they have served their time. Discussing rehabilitation feels meaningless when the very purposes of prisons—at least in the sense of punishment and deprivation of liberty, not cruelty, or of protecting the public, let alone rehabilitation to reduce reoffending—are made a mockery of by successive Governments’ failure to deliver prison expansion and now the makeshift solutions to deal with the fallout.
Early release schemes outsource the problem into our communities, literally dumping it on our streets. The public are rightly furious that criminals will not now serve the sentences that the law, which we make here, thinks is appropriate for their crimes. Recent polling shows that 69% of those questioned are against the early release scheme. More troubling, 68% say they have lost faith in all Governments’ handling of criminal justice per se. At the forthcoming annual Battle of Ideas festival organised by the Academy of Ideas, which I run—I declare an interest—one of the panel debates is entitled: “Letting abusers out early: solving the prisons crisis”. It is proving to be an unexpected festival sell-out hit.
When I talk to people, four recurring themes are raised. There is a perception that the early release scheme, alongside the Sentencing Act, has a presumption against prison in favour of community sentences. With the even further reductions in release dates to a third of sentences served, people just feel that sentencing has become a joke and that it is less a pragmatic response to a lack of prison space than an official ideological turn against incarceration as punishment. This is happening without public debate or consent.
There is also a worry that the prison crisis is diminishing the diligence of policing in pursuing certain crimes. What is the point of arresting shoplifters or burglars if they cannot be threatened with the prospect of prison?
A third concern is that early release is a lazy reaction to the crisis. Why are there no other emergency options—perhaps the prison equivalent of NHS Nightingales? Maybe the thousands of empty prison cells currently out of action could be renovated, or even the shocking facts about those kept on remand, which we heard from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, in his brilliant maiden speech, could be tackled. It is a disgrace that this is such a large percentage of the prison community.
A final concern is in response to the Government’s reassurance that early release prisoners are not being released freely but will be under close supervision. Yet probation services admit that they are not equipped to cope. The whole paraphernalia of control and surveillance in the community—curfews, electronic tags, formal restriction zones, the wearing of high-vis vests—can only result in whole swathes of local areas feeling more like open-air prisons for all, rather than a free society.
Possibly the only good thing to have come from the prison crisis is Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s commendable announcement that he will, at last, end the injustice of IPP prisoners. I confess that I got emotional hearing an ex-IPP prisoner, Marc Conway from UNGRIPP, declaring that it was,
“a day that thousands of families have spent years fighting for”.
He also stressed that implementing the decision needed to be swift and transparent, and that is where the euphoria is dampened.
Last week, I received this message from Stacey Clough of the Injustice of IPP campaign. It is worth listening to her words. She said:
“I think it’s great what Andy Burnham has said, but he has left IPP prisoners and their families with a different mental torture by not making it clear what it’s going to look like … and they still have no definite date to count down to. My partner said all the IPPs in Wayland have gone downhill, as the hopes were raised by the announcement, but as there’s no time-frame… they’re all worried it’s false hope. What if there’s an election and Labour are voted out—then back to square one. They have now been left with uncertainty. If the Government don’t end it, there is going to be more suicides”.
I gulped at that. Stacey continued:
“The thing is he could order probation to release the recalled prisoners without any new requirements—and no new legislation is needed because of executive powers created in 2012—powers they’ve never used. They should also be recommending that anyone going up for parole, with no new crimes or charges on a recall, should be granted release and have their licence terminated and give them a supervision order instead”.
My advice to the Minister is to recommend to the MoJ that Stacey is given a job, because she has got it all completely right, as far as I am concerned. There are so many inequities in the way in which IPP prisoners continue to be treated. It is not just that we need to have these things happen more quickly. For example, we hear that, even when IPP prisoners are granted parole, they are often kept in prison for months and months, due to a lack of approved accommodation on the outside. There are things that need to be done fast.
While the Minister defended the principle of recall at Questions this week, the fact that the number of IPP prisoners recalled without any criminal charge has gone up from 70% in 2023 to 77% in 2025 should worry him. I hope that noble Lords have a good recess, but I will be at No. 10 North on Monday, along with anti-IPP protestors—
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)
Order. The time limit is eight minutes.
Lord Garnier (Con)
I congratulate my noble friend Lord Farmer on introducing this debate and thank him for doing so with his usual calmness and analysis. Every time he speaks on this subject—and he is a renowned expert—the House listens with great care, and we did so again today.
I also welcome and congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, both on his arrival here and on his maiden speech. He should not feel in the least bit embarrassed about waiting only two or three days after his introduction before addressing the House. He should have done so on the first day, and on the second and on the third, and I hope that he will on many days after this because, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, so correctly pointed out, he was a judge and will be a Member of this House who will provide great wisdom and analysis and a great sense of justice on anything to which he brings his mind to bear.
Whilst I have them sitting there, I want to thank both those noble and learned Lords for helping me, just over 16 years ago, with the introduction of the deferred prosecution agreement. They, as successor Presidents of the Queen’s Bench Division, assisted me in my political guise, with them in their judges’ role, to bring that criminal justice tool into fruition. It seems a little strange that, when I last appeared in front of the then Sir Brian Leveson, when he was sitting in court, he was about 20 feet above me; the layout of this Chamber allows me to be 10 feet above him. I shall savour that.
As the noble Lord, Lord Foster, mentioned a little while ago, the Justice and Home Affairs Committee of your Lordships’ House has produced a report on the state of our prisons and, to some extent, it mirrored the report made by the House of Commons Justice Committee. It is fair to say that neither report was complimentary about what they had looked into and found. Equally, it is fair to say that nor did they say anything that we did not already know before. Until prisons become a politically important subject of real and regular interest to Prime Ministers and Secretaries of State for Justice, very little can be achieved, despite the hard work of junior Ministers in the other place and on the Front Bench here.
Now, I am a cracked record in human form: for years, I have been complaining about the state of our prison estate, what we do to improve the lives and prospects of those in prison, and the provision of education and employment opportunities for those in and those about to leave prison. We recycle offenders on an alarming scale, into and out of prison and then back again. The reoffending rate varies marginally from time to time, but the general picture is deeply depressing.
For a hard-pressed prison governor, a good day is when nothing happens. It is when no one—and by that I mean both prison staff and prisoners themselves—dies and no one gets stabbed or punched; the infrastructure of the prison functions; the movement of people from the accommodation wings to the places where out-of-cell activities are supposed to happen takes place without incident and on time; no one throws drugs over the walls or flies them in by drone; and the provision of food and medical supplies is efficiently administered and delivered without mishap. That is a good day, but they are very rare.
Sadly, there are not many good days for prison governors, nor for their staff or for the prisoners and, as I say, this is not a new state of affairs; it will continue, as it has done for decades, under both Labour and Conservative Governments, and it will get even worse as we overcrowd the prisons and create or permit the continuance of squalid and uncivilised living and working conditions within them. They are hopeless places, in so many respects.
When I was a Member of Parliament, I once said to a local journalist that obviously prisons should have walls, both to keep the prisoners in and to keep the public out. But those walls should have large windows in them, so the public could see into the prisons and know what is being done on their behalf, and the prisoners could also see out, so they could see there was a community out there that would welcome them back if they were rehabilitated, if they could learn to read and write, if they could get off drugs and if they could become social, employable beings. The local journalist looked at me and said, “You clearly haven’t thought of the public expenditure implications of building all those windows”. I think he was being serious, which is rather depressing.
I suffer from analysis paralysis, and I accept that reciting what is wrong is easy; doing something about it seems to be impossible. This scandalous injustice must stop. The tiresome blame game played by successive Governments is unproductive and does us no credit, still less achieves anything. I have recently written to the new Prime Minister and I gave a copy to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Lemos. I hope that he has read it and I am sure he has; he probably keeps it by his bed and is setting it to music.
We do not need, as the justice unions have indicated today in their statement, a royal commission to investigate our prisons and to make robust recommendations. We know what is wrong: what we require is a Government to do something about it. We need determined action, led by a Prime Minister and a Secretary of State who are politically motivated and able to command the system that they oversee to do what is required. Everybody who has spoken has indicated what is required; it just requires leadership and action. I urge the Minister to run round to No. 10 this evening and say that he is ready for action.
Lord Winston (Lab)
My Lords, I too have very little experience in this area, but I felt I did have something worth saying from a professional point of view. My experience of prisons is not personal but, while I was on call at Hammersmith Hospital, I did go inside prisons to see sick patients when they were quite seriously ill. It was being ignored, but finally there was no doctor present.
I was the obstetrician on call at the hospital and ordinarily I dealt with deliveries and surgeries. However, there was nobody else to see the male inmates at Wormwood Scrubs. I saw the absolute squalor, the appalling circumstances, the lack of hope and the complete negligence in people’s understanding of what was behind these people’s suffering. When one such patient was brought to Hammersmith Hospital still handcuffed, so I could not actually examine his abdomen, I realised how far we had sunk as a society.
There was another patient who was in custody for several years. His wife was a patient of mine who had been desperate for children; she had been trying for a child for almost 10 years and she was getting older and older. Her husband had recently been sentenced and was in prison for, I think, four years. I had spent a year trying to persuade the authorities, who were completely indifferent, including many people in the Home Office, that we needed to get some sperm from this man. We did not need to do in vitro fertilisation; simple artificial insemination was all we needed. It was the most difficult tussle but, at the time, they broke a rule, finally, because of the persistence. It got into the newspapers, and nobody in the newspapers understood the suffering behind that. However, as has been said in this debate, it made a difference later on to the cohesion of that family when the child was born, and I am quite proud of that moment.
Letters I have had from prisoners, sent to me by the Howard League for Penal Reform, show some of the terrible lacks we have been talking about. Overcrowding is massive. There is one prisoner who is clearly autistic—he points this out—and obviously has other mental health disorders. He says he is surrounded by constant noise and cannot sleep. He is unable to express his mental condition. As an autistic person, he is extremely sensitive to noise. This is not at all atypical; it is simply that nothing can be done about it in that environment. Another inmate talks about the lack of training and rehabilitation. He says that sometimes it might finally be available when you are ready to be released for the first time, and there is no chance of learning trade skills. What is interesting about all those letters is that they are not hysterical; they are very calm and limited in what they complain about, but they come to the point very well.
We have a human brain, which is one of the most complicated objects in the known universe. It has about 100 billion neurons. Each of those neurons will be connected up to 2,000 times to other areas of the brain. What we know is that, as the neurons develop and as we learn, new connections are found as a result. You can see this now under a microscope; I have wonderful photographs of this happening. When there is a change in the environment, you can see how the synapses connect up other nerves. If the stimuli in that environment are constantly repeated, you end up learning more and more. You inherit the fixed learning that you need as you get old. What we have in prisons is exactly that; we have an environment which is constant, but constantly against the right kind of learning. Inevitably, we end up with people who are already damaged being damaged more. Their brains are damaged by us. This is something we should recognise. It is essential. The environment is absolutely critical and it is absolutely appalling.
I cannot leave without saying briefly how much I valued the contribution from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, in his wonderful maiden speech. It is not the custom to keep on going on about new Members, but it was an exceptional speech. It is wonderful to see Cross-Benchers of his calibre coming into this House to improve the knowledge and experience that we desperately need in this Chamber. We should be so grateful that he is here. His speech today was a very good start.
Finally, I want to say that this is not a private matter to be sent away. We discuss all the time in this Chamber schools, defence and healthcare. Again and again, we ask the same questions at Question Time. How often do we talk about the shame of prisons? We think that the prisoners are ashamed—but no, we should be ashamed. This is our shame as a society. We need to change this and we need to do a colossal amount about it. As these prisoners know, the prison system is collapsing at the moment; it is seriously threatened. Therefore, there is a threat to us—not to our safety, but to our well-being as people. Let us remember our humanity and try to do something about it.
Baroness Sater (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Winston. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for securing this important debate, and I pay tribute to all the work he does on this subject. I also welcome the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, and congratulate him on his excellent maiden speech. As the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, spoke about so articulately, the pressures on our Prison and Probation Service are stark. We have already heard that the Government have announced up to £500 million of additional funding for probation and community services, alongside at least 1,300 additional trainee probation officers in 2026-27. However, as we heard from many today, the strain on probation has been building for a long time, and many in the justice system have raised serious concerns about whether even this substantial investment will meet the scale of the challenge.
Finding and retaining workforce is a major challenge, while case loads continue to rise. The latest workforce figures, published in August, show that the Probation Service is almost 2,000 full-time equivalent officers below its target level; that is a significant gap. The changes to early-release arrangements next month will mean that probation has even more on its plate, especially with the increased emphasis on intense supervision, electronic tagging and monitoring, alongside the increased casework. Where does that leave effective and meaningful rehabilitation, especially when reoffending rates remain high? If we are increasing the demands of probation, we must also ask whether we are giving it the capacity to deliver the rehabilitation that reduces reoffending.
Perhaps there are more important lessons that we can learn from the youth justice system. Last Friday saw Second Reading of the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (Restoration of Powers and Responsibilities) Bill, brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Oates. Concerns were raised about the Government’s proposed changes to its functions and responsibilities, and the extra burden placed on the MoJ. I am not certain that the MoJ needs any more responsibilities or work. As a former youth magistrate and former member of the board, I have seen at first hand what the youth justice system has achieved. The marked fall in youth offending and youth custody is an extraordinary achievement. It is not always how you spend the money but where you spend it.
Perhaps one of the most important lessons that can be learned is the holistic approach taken in youth justice. As His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Probation, Martin Jones, said of youth justice earlier this year,
“we have all the building blocks of success, and we need to ensure that we carry that across into the adult system”.
As the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, mentioned, those building blocks could also help us address the challenges faced by young adults as they transition into the adult system. As we know, those aged between 18 and 25 have some of the highest rates of reoffending. Crucially, that is a period in which effective intervention can change the trajectory of young people’s lives. If we get the right interventions, it will mean fewer victims, fewer people returning to prison and, ultimately, a better use of taxpayers’ money. We know that this age group is an important stage of development: education, employment, relationships and independence are still taking shape, while maturity is still developing. Therefore, we should think of the 18 to 25 age group as more of a coherent end-to-end cohort, with much greater continuity between the youth justice services and adult probation—an issue that the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, has also spoken about today.
However, rehabilitation is not only about what happens after someone leaves prison; it also depends on what happens while they are in prison. As the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, highlighted, this is where purposeful activity matters. Education, skills, training and physical activity can all contribute to a purposeful prison regime and an effective rehabilitation. As the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, highlighted, for many people entering prison with existing health needs, access to the right support plays an important part in their rehabilitation, and yet purposeful activity remains a serious weakness in our prisons. As His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, has highlighted, of the 38 men’s and women’s prisons inspected in 2024-25, 28 were rated poor or not sufficiently good for purposeful activity. This matters not only in prison but through the gate too.
Probation needs the resources and time to build partnerships with employers, charities, training providers, families and communities. This is fundamental to the success of rehabilitation. The noble Lord, Lord Timpson, said:
“By tackling the root causes of offending and giving people the second chance they need, we can help them rebuild their lives and stay on the straight and narrow”.
Therefore, how can we expect the Probation Service to have the capacity to tackle the root causes of offending when there are so many other pressures on the system? We know that the true test of probation is not simply whether it can monitor someone when they leave prison; it is whether it can help them turn their lives around and build a better future. Once again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for securing this excellent debate.
Baroness D'Souza (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for providing the opportunity for such a vital debate. I am delighted to see the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, sitting on the Cross Benches. I thank him for his excellent and wise but very sobering maiden speech.
I speak as the honorary president of the Zahid Mubarek Trust—ZMT—which was founded some 25 years ago following the murder of Zahid while on remand in a young offender institution. He was placed in a cell with a known racist who had a history of extreme violence. The subsequent public inquiry uncovered 186 missed opportunities to protect Zahid and exposed institutional racism within the Prison Service. The ZMT exists to promote racial equality in prisons and runs innovative programmes to enable greater racial equality and programmes on leadership.
In the 25 years since the murder of Zahid, there has been a series of initiatives and reviews to improve racial equality in the Prison Service and the criminal justice system. Despite this, there is worrying evidence of significant racial disparities in both prisons and more widely in criminal justice. Some 27% of the prison population in England and Wales comes from ethnic communities. However, if the prison population were to reflect the UK’s ethnic make-up, there would be 9,000 fewer men and boys in prison.
Offenders from ethnic minorities have a disproportionately higher likelihood of receiving custodial sentences, even after taking higher not guilty plea rates into account. Defendants from minority-ethnic groups are far more likely to be remanded in custody, and Black prisoners serve a far greater proportion of determinate sentences. The use of force against Black prisoners is much higher. The most recent figures show 409 incidents per 1,000 Black prisoners, compared to 209 incidents for white prisoners. The prison inspectorate’s annual report for 2024-25 aggregated the data from sample surveys, broken down between white prisoners and all other ethnic groups. Those in the latter category consistently expressed more negative experiences than their white peers. On 69% of the topics covered, the “other ethnic group” category was significantly more likely to report negative experiences. These included access to jobs, the library, medical appointments, education and training opportunities, and help in preparing for release.
So there is no denying that there continue to be racial disparities in prisons. The question is: what more can be done? A commitment by the Minister to work with voluntary organisations, including the Zahid Mubarek Trust, to monitor, for example, the implementation of the progression regime that will be introduced by the Sentencing Act 2026, would be very welcome, since there is genuine concern that ethnic-minority prisoners will not benefit to the same extent as white prisoners.
Finally, it is disturbing that there is no national plan or strategy to promote racial equality in prisons. His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service has nominated senior civil servant race champions and has a national team with a brief to advance racial inclusion. However, a letter to the co-director of the Zahid Mubarek Trust on 1 May from the briefing and correspondence team of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service stated that
“there is no single, overarching strategy or action plan focused specifically on reducing racial disparity within prisons, nor is there a centrally held budget dedicated solely to race equality … at a local level, prisons are required to maintain their own Diversity and Inclusion plans, which are tailored to local needs and are not consolidated into a single national document. Budgetary responsibility for related activity sits locally, rather than being captured within a single, centrally held budget”.
That is real Civil Service language. Of course, it makes sense for local initiatives to be tailored to the local situation in a particular prison, but it is difficult to see how continuing racial disparities can be tackled effectively without an overarching national strategy and action plan to promote racial equality in the prison system.
Lord Reay (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Farmer for introducing this debate and all noble Lords for their speeches today, with congratulations to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson of Liverpool, on his excellent maiden speech.
The capacity of prisons across the country remains a concerning problem, with the prison population expected to reach between 92,400 and 100,000 by November 2032. Although the Government have pledged 14,000 new prison places by 2031, serious progress is needed to meet that target—progress that is not yet apparent. The Government have delivered 700 fewer prison cells than last year and no new prisons have been planned or approved since the Labour Government took office in 2024. These new prisons will be essential to increasing prison capacity, so I hope there will be evidence as to how they will reach that pledge.
There is also a problem now. The problem of immediate availability is similarly severe. As was discussed only last week on the criminal justice reform Statement, there are
“4,000 operational prison places not in use”.—[Official Report, 8/9/26; col. 568.]
The Minister did not set out what steps the Government were taking to ensure that these existing places could be utilised, so I pose the same question: how will the Government address the issues of officer shortages to allow those places to be used? We have heard from the sector that retention is a huge problem among prison officers. What specific steps are Ministers taking to improve retention?
I turn to the probation system, where serious concerns have been raised about the electronic tagging system. In July, the National Audit Office expressed concerns regarding public safety if the electronic tagging system was rapidly expanded to reduce the prison population. Its report noted that between 10% and 50% of alerts resulted in breach notifications being sent to the relevant officials. Further to that, serious and minor breaches were both treated the same. Will the Minister ensure that all tagging breaches are dealt with?
Last week, my noble friend Lord Wolfson asked about the barriers posed by Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights and targets for the number of foreign national prisoners being deported, to which the Minister said that he would come back. Will he do so now and share how they intend to address these barriers? I look forward to his response.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for securing this debate and his excellent opening speech. The noble Lord has campaigned tirelessly on prison reform as he has on family life, so he unsurprisingly stressed, with others, the importance of prisoners’ contact with their families. We have heard a brilliant, sympathetic and far-reaching maiden speech from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson—our “new boy”, as he modestly described himself. We, for our part, are honoured to have such an extremely distinguished new boy and will continue to benefit greatly in this House from his wisdom, incisiveness and humanity.
This Government inherited a crisis in our Prison and Probation Service. Along with the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, for the progress he made in tackling this as Prisons Minister. His presence in the Government will be missed. As the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, said, until the Sentencing Act the threat of our criminal justice collapsing for want of prison space was all too real. The last Government recognised this problem far too late and introduced a haphazard series of crisis early-release schemes, but without offering any long-term solution.
We have at last put the management of determinate sentences on a more organised footing, moving towards an earned progression model and restructuring such sentences in an orderly way, with the first third of sentences to be spent in custody and the second third, barring bad behaviour, to be served under intensive supervision by the Probation Service in the community. For this second stage, offenders would be subject to tagging and a series of tailored restrictions as necessary, designed to address concerns among victims and the public on security and safety grounds following prisoners’ release from custody. Stage 3, the last third, will then be spent on licence. I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, that we must be clear with the public about what we are doing and why. We must hope the new system will work, with the aid of extensive use of better technology. There is evidence from Texas and elsewhere that gives grounds for optimism, although I would have preferred to see earned release with more emphasis on rewarding good behaviour in custody rather than simply punishing misbehaviour.
Moreover, many have pointed out that the length of prison sentences has doubled in recent decades. Our sentences are longer than almost everywhere else in Europe and there is no evidence that longer sentences reduce reoffending or aid rehabilitation. On the contrary, offenders serving long sentences in overcrowded prisons become institutionalised and lose hope, suffering increased mental damage over time, as the noble Lord, Lord Winston, pointed out. Overcrowding is made worse because there are too many unconvicted people in prison on remand and for far too long, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, said, and too many are unnecessarily recalled for inadequate reasons, as my noble friend Lord Foster and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, argued. Far too many people receive prison sentences rather than community sentences, which would genuinely address their difficulties. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, spoke of treatment of addiction within the community, which prison cannot realistically replicate, and she was right.
I invite the Government to continue along the path of the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, of according a greater priority to developing a more humane and effective penal system, prioritising reducing reoffending and rehabilitation and moving away from the wasteful and ineffective use of ever-longer sentences of imprisonment in response to ill-advised press and public demand. End the media drama, as the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, put it.
We must improve conditions in many of our unhealthy prisons. We must continue to increase staffing levels and help dedicated staff in assisting prisoners to turn their lives around. Instead of aggravating drug addiction, mental health issues, appalling violence and criminality in our prisons, and a lack of education and training and consequently unemployability, our prisons and probation services must be dedicated to addressing and overcoming these issues. That was the essence of the argument made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, with which I agreed fully. These issues are often worse for Black prisoners, as the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, said. My noble friend Lord Foster and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, spoke of gambling addiction, also needing urgent action which cannot be provided in prisons.
Furthermore, release from prison is not the end of the story. The Probation Service has a huge challenge to be effective in continuing the rehabilitation of prisoners on release. While tagging and the enforcement of restrictions on released prisoners’ movements, exclusion orders and the like are very important as safeguards for victims and for the public, the Probation Service is about much more than tough offender management. Our probation officers do a fantastic job. However, to reduce reoffending, the Probation Service must have the numbers, the space, the resources and the training to be able to assist clients with accessing mental health and addiction services, education, training, employment, and of course housing, as the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, stressed. To train a new probation officer takes at least 15 months, and the application process adds a further six months.
Therefore, we worry that the extra £700 million for probation services, welcome as it is, may not cover both the extra work needed for rehabilitating offenders and coping with the increased demands of intense supervision of many more prisoners released into the community, a point well made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sater. So, I repeat the question I asked the Minster last Tuesday, to which I had no answer: what contingency plans are in place to provide further funds should this allocation of £700 million prove inadequate?
Even with the implementation of the Sentencing Act and increased work by the Probation Service, the shortage of prison space will not go away. Even the most optimistic predictions suggest that the prison population will rise again. Add to that the need to replace many of our older and unsuitable prisons in crying need of replacement, and we will inevitably need more space. The Government are optimistic on prison building, but we cannot build ourselves out of this crisis, so clearly more—and more suitable—space is necessary.
I am concerned that the proposal to build more cells into existing prisons may increase pressure on other facilities within those prisons. Furthermore, building more new prisons involves long delays. The Minister says the Government have acquired suitable land and that they can mitigate the delays inherent in designing and building new prisons. I hope he will forgive me for being sceptical about that. Recent experience of planning applications for prisons and local objections to such applications gives no reason for optimism.
It is therefore very important that we consider a realistic assessment of the demand for new prison places and test it against a realistic programme of acquisition and building of new prisons. Furthermore, any prison building programme must allow for sufficient headroom to allow prisoners to be housed in prisons located with their needs and rehabilitation in mind, including, as the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, said, the need for prisoners to be close to their families and communities.
Shuffling prisoners around an overcrowded prison estate throughout the UK is a recipe for failure of rehabilitation and for failure in the drive to cut reoffending, and for increased public expense—a point which follows from the analysis of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. That means more crime and the public continuing to be let down by a penal system that is not only inhumane but continues down a road that has failed in the past and threatens to fail us again unless we genuinely concentrate on developing and funding an approach which works, which will ultimately bring benefits in falling crime and in reduced public expense.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Lemos) (Lab)
My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for securing this important debate and all noble Lords who have contributed this afternoon to what has been a sober but very humane debate. Noble Lords will know that not every debate about prisons has those characteristics, so I very much appreciate that.
For many years, the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, has brought sustained attention to the purpose of imprisonment and to the vital role that families and strong, stable relationships can play in rehabilitation. We are very grateful to him. I declare my own interest: I was the lead non-executive director of HMPPS until 2025. I chaired its agency board and had the pleasure and the privilege of meeting the noble Lord and talking with him, particularly about the work my then colleagues at HMPPS were doing on the relational model, which he was a champion of and is at the heart of what we are all discussing.
I congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, on a magnificent maiden speech. I am proud to say that I have read both parts of the noble and learned Lord’s court review, twice. He looks shocked, but I have, and I look forward to working with him very closely, as does everyone at the Ministry of Justice.
I will start with the most immediate pressure on prison capacity. I take the challenge from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, not to indulge in the blame game very seriously, and I will try not to. I will also try not to recite lots of things other people have said before and that your Lordships already know. I am all too conscious that I alone stand between noble Lords and Recess, so I shall be concise but thorough.
On all these comments about prison capacity, I am not, as I say, going to indulge in the blame game. In two regards, the comments many noble Lords have made highlight the heart of this problem and the theme we will return to again and again. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, mentioned the great increase in sentence length. This is at the heart of the long-running difficulty with prison capacity. Noble Lords do not need me to tell them that, in the context of a prison capacity crisis, many if not all the things noble Lords have said they value in prisons—such as education, regime, healthcare and rehabilitation—are the first to suffer in overcrowded prisons with overstretched staff. So, we have to get the capacity crisis under control.
I am not going to bandy figures around, but we are providing 14,000 additional prison places and we will continue to make a commitment to prison building. On that, I just say to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, that we are not suggesting that the prison numbers will come down or that the prison building programme may, in the end, not prove adequate. We recognise that this is an ongoing thing and will go on for a very long time, perhaps even for a decade. I entirely agree with the comment by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, that we cannot build our way out of this capacity challenge, though build we must.
On sentencing, measures already in force include the presumption to suspend prison sentences of 12 months or less. The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, talked about short sentences, and those are subject to important exceptions. Our view is that short spells in custody disrupt housing arrangements, employment and drug treatment. They are not good for mental health and, crucially, as the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, said, the family ties that are at the heart of preventing further offending.
Where offenders can be punished and managed safely in the community—I do not apologise for the use of the word “punishment”—we should use that opportunity to both supervise them effectively and tackle the underlying causes of their offending, reserving prisons for those who most need to be there and from whom the public need to be protected. Over the coming months, we will implement the progression model that was at the heart of David Gauke's recommendations and at the heart of the Sentencing Act. I have had the opportunity to discuss that with many noble Lords before today. This is almost the most important building block to a changed landscape for prisons.
I make this offer to noble Lords in the spirit of my noble friend Lord Timpson; noble Lords can consider me a sort of polyester version of my noble friend. We need to make sure that the whole approach of the Sentencing Act—a third in custody, a third under intensive supervision—is understood much better by the public, as the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and others have said. I would be very happy to arrange a presentation from our officials on exactly how this is going to work and how we are preparing for it.
It means a tougher probation service. I was very mindful of the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, who I am working with on youth custody, as well. We are asking the Probation Service to do something really quite difficult, as the noble Lord, Lord Marks, made clear. We are asking it to improve itself after a long history of troubles that started with the failed privatisation, and to take on many new responsibilities under the intensive supervision model. We know that is challenging.
I have talked about the money. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, has asked me again about contingency planning. The question of government funding and the need for more funding is something we talk about all the time in the Ministry of Justice, as noble Lords can imagine. We will approach the spending review in the usual optimistic spirit.
I want to recognise, finally, on this question of the progression model, that we listened to some of the concerns of victims and their families about the changes. As noble Lords know, we changed some of the exemptions, but we recognise that changing release arrangements can cause victims and their families a great deal of uncertainty and distress. That is why stronger supervision and support for victims are so important in the Government’s approach.
I now turn to prison safety and security, which a number of noble Lords have mentioned. Prisons must be places of safety, security and order, where staff can do their jobs, prisoners can engage in a constructive regime—particularly in education and training for employment—and genuine rehabilitation can take place. As I have said, all this is made much more difficult by serious overcrowding, overstretched staff and inadequate facilities. Drugs, illicit mobile phones and drones fuel violence, criminal activity, debt and intimidation; they undermine staff authority and make turning lives around substantially harder.
At the heart of what we need to do is ensuring effective security. It is essential. That is why we are investing in both the fabric and the security of our prisons, including an additional £35 million this financial year—we get some money out of the Treasury—to strengthen counter-drone security in prisons where there is the greatest threat. We are also working closely with law enforcement partners to disrupt those bringing drugs, weapons and other contraband into prisons.
Our prison officers perform a demanding public service and I take my hat off to them. They need the confidence, training and support to maintain order and build the constructive relationships that help offenders turn their backs on crime for good.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Reay, as of June this year, prison officer staffing stood at 92% of our target level and prison officer resignation rates are at their lowest in five years. It is obviously a difficult labour market, as the noble Lord, Lord Foster, highlighted. Many pressures remain, particularly in hard-to-staff prisons, but we have made an enormous effort—going back to my days in HMPPS—on recruitment, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Foster, would recognise.
Many noble Lords have highlighted that a safe prison must also be a purposeful one. Most people who enter prison, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, highlighted, will eventually return to the community. This is a simple statement of fact that is too readily ignored. Nearly 80% of offenders are reoffenders and therefore we have a responsibility to use the time spent in custody as effectively as we can, as many noble Lords have emphasised. Our approach is to help individuals develop skills and secure employment and stable accommodation, and to provide access to treatment for substance misuse and mental health needs.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, we meet regularly with Dame Carol Black and are working with her on the findings of her report. My colleagues and I would be very happy to meet the noble Lord and his colleagues to discuss the AI tool he was describing. All these efforts in health care and accommodation go to the heart of the proposition of the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, that through all these things we are trying to maintain positive relationships. That is a good and humane thing to do, regardless of anything else: it is a good in itself. Effective rehabilitation nevertheless sits alongside punishment and robust supervision as an essential part of protecting the public. Every offence prevented means one fewer victim.
I recognise the comments made by my noble friend Lord Winston, which were utterly compelling, about the effect on the brain. I have seen research along those lines, and this is a very important area for us to develop. The noble Lord, Lord Foster, will know that we have discussed previously the whole question of gambling and gambling addiction. My noble friend Lord Timpson made some progress on that, and I hope we can continue that. I have no doubt that I will have many opportunities to discuss that with the noble Lord, Lord Foster.
Purposeful activity can have a transformative effect. We are expanding vocational training and apprenticeships and improving links with employers and access to education. Our track record on getting prisoners into jobs when they leave has improved. My noble friend Lord Timpson put a great deal of emphasis on that. We are seeing progress. The proportion of prison leavers in employment six months after release increased to 36.5% in the year to March 2026. We know we have a long way to go, but we are making some progress.
I turn to the question of family and other relationships, which the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, described as the golden thread. The evidence bears this out. Research shows that prisoners who received visits were three percentage points less likely to reoffend within one year of release. But as I have said, I regard that as a good thing in itself, whatever the statistics are telling us. I am delighted that they confirm my view. The prison gates should not be a cliff edge, for all the reasons I have set out. Prisons, probation, local authorities, health services and employment support must work as one system. Of course, there are many difficulties and that is why, alongside MHCLG, we have committed to halve the proportion of prison leavers released to no fixed abode and to increase the proportion in settled accommodation by the end of this Parliament.
I want to say a few words about probation. I thank probation staff for the vital work they do every day to protect the public and support rehabilitation. It is easy to be critical, but we also need to recognise their efforts and their achievements. They have been asked to carry too much for too long. We are responding with the investment that a number of noble Lords have referred to. We have already recruited 2,300 new probation officers over the past year and are recruiting at least 1,300 more in 2026-27. We are rebuilding the service and asking it to take on new responsibilities. Probation officers will have more on their plate, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, said. There is much to be learned from the experience in youth custody—I entirely agree with her about that.
Moving part of a sentence from custody into the community, as we are, does not mean the end of punishment. We are giving probation the toughest range of tools ever to manage offenders, including tough licence conditions, electronic tagging on a scale never seen before, curfews, restriction zones, and recall to prison where those conditions are breached. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, spoke about recalls, and I answered a question yesterday from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, on IPPs and recalls. I am very happy to take that away and get back to the noble and learned Lord and everyone who has spoken in this debate about exactly what we are doing to address that trend.
One of the things we are already aware of is that, once someone has been recalled, the time taken to get to a parole decision before they can be released is something we need to address. But I do not at all demur from the general challenge, and I will return to it. Again, as I have said about this progression model, my officials will be very happy to arrange a session on the changes to probation so that noble Lords can feel more confident, at least, of the steps we are taking to build a Probation Service for the future.
I will say something about women offenders and female offenders, as raised by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. Female offenders often have distinct and complex needs. Many are victims themselves, with histories of trauma, abuse, mental health and addiction, and many are mothers. That is why our long-term aim is to reduce the number of women in prison and, in particular, pregnant women and mothers of young children. That is a particular commitment of ours, to which we shall be addressing ourselves with energy. We have announced—this refers to what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, was talking about—the expansion of intensive supervision courts for women, which will use a multi-agency approach to address the root causes of offending. This is an important development, which we shall watch very carefully to see if it may help in other areas too. We are also investing in voluntary and community sector provision to help prevent offending and divert women away from the criminal justice system in the first place. The Sentencing Act’s presumption to suspend sentences is expected to reduce the number of women entering prison by about a third. However, custody will, of course, remain necessary when the seriousness of the offence or the protection of the public requires it.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, and one or two other noble Lords mentioned the Government’s decision on IPPs. I am very proud of that. We are continuing the regular meetings with interested Peers. Indeed, the Lord Chancellor himself is attending the next one—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, looks very impressed. The independent review of the prison system, chaired by Amber Rudd, will examine the long-term reforms needed to build a prison system fit for the future, as the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, has challenged us to do. She will report later this year, and I and my ministerial colleagues will be working closely with her on that.
We must protect the public, and we must stand with victims. Serious offenders must be punished appropriately. Those released into the community must be robustly supervised, and we must reduce the likelihood of further offending. If we succeed in this, that will mean fewer crimes and fewer victims. I note the comments noble Lords have made on foreign national offenders and on remand. This is all part of the approach we need for getting prison numbers to a more sustainable future.
I hope I have addressed the principal points raised, but I will read Hansard with my officials carefully and write on points I have failed to address. I will say this: in my short time in this job, and indeed before, I have worked with many noble Lords in this House on these issues. I regard this as a collaborative, cross-party venture—I was going to say adventure; it is certainly a venture. I know noble Lords from across the House are working with us on IPPs, but I hope we can continue to work together more widely.
In closing, I reiterate my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for tabling this Motion and giving us the opportunity to have this debate. None of the problems that noble Lords have highlighted should prevent us paying tribute to those who work tirelessly across our Prison and Probation Service. They undertake, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, noted, difficult and demanding work on behalf of us all. I wish noble Lords a very good Recess. I hope you do not go to too many conferences, but before that the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, will respond.
Lord Farmer (Con)
I am the barrier between everyone and Recess.
This has been a good, valuable and collaborative debate. We have worked together. There has not been partisanship. That is important because this is an important and, to be quite frank, depressing subject. The reasons for depression have become apparent from many of the speeches today. I compliment every Member who has contributed today. There have been excellent contributions. I hope that the Hansard of this debate will get some publicity because it needs it. People need to see clearly the problems that are going on in the prison estate, but they also need to see how we can work together and co-operate. I very much liked the emphasis on the prisoner as a human being, which was mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, and the noble Lord, Lord Winston, but also came over in many speeches. I concur with everybody that it was an honour to have the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, make his maiden speech in this debate. It was a hugely valuable contribution.
I am not going to go on and on because we need to get to Recess and it has been a long day. I thank noble Lords for their valuable contributions. I hope the debate gets widespread impact across Parliament, into the departments of government and out there to the wider public so that they understand the problems in the prison estate at the moment.
Motion agreed.
Lord Katz (Lab)
My Lords, we are about to go into Recess, so I take this opportunity to thank all the staff of the House for their hard work and support and wish them and, indeed, all noble Lords a restful Recess. I hope noble Lords enjoy their party conference, if they are attending.