House of Commons
Oral Answers to Questions
(2 days, 22 hours ago)
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Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Shabana Mahmood)
Small boat returns under this Government are at a record high, and our Immigration and Asylum Bill will help us to remove people faster than ever before. This Government are dealing with the small boats crisis left by the previous Government. Small boat crossings are down, and removals are at record highs.
Greg Smith
If small boat crossings were down by enough, the Government would not have to stand up asylum camps at places such as Ministry of Defence Bicester site A, which is just over the Oxfordshire border from my constituency. With 85,000 small boat crossings since the general election, the situation is at crisis point. MOD Bicester site A does not even offer value to the taxpayer; new modelling shows that over three years, the cost would come in at £385 per person per night—nearly double that of the equivalent asylum hotels. Will the Home Secretary actually get on and deport those who have come to our country illegally, rather than using sites like MOD Bicester site A?
Shabana Mahmood
Under this Government, small boat returns have increased. This is a crisis that began on the Conservative Government’s watch and got worse under the Conservative party; this Government are fixing the mess that they left behind.
Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)
We inherited a situation in which gangs were profiting from our out-of-control borders and hotel operators were ripping us off, making the most of a backlog that had built up far too high. We have taken some welcome steps, but it is clear that more needs to be done. Returning people with no right to be here is a crucial part of that. How can we step up the processing of cases, and form closer links with other countries, so that we get strong returns agreements and finally get the costs of this out-of-control system down?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend is right that we need to maximise the numbers we are returning from this country. He will know that asylum-related returns are at their highest level since 2010. This Government have made excellent progress on getting returns up and back to levels seen in previous years, and we will make more progress.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Some people, including the Prime Minister, argue that the small boats crisis was caused by our leaving the EU. It started in 2018. In the two years before Brexit, only 289 small boat people were sent back under agreements. What is the solution? The only solution, surely, is to detain and deport. As the Home Secretary will not leave the European convention on human rights, will she at least consider creating return hubs in a distant Council of Europe country, so that we can have a genuine deterrent?
Shabana Mahmood
The Father of the House will know that there is a distinction between the rules of the European Union and the European convention on human rights. The ECHR is not an EU instrument, although most EU countries are signed up to it. We have discussed the ECHR across the Dispatch Boxes before, and he knows our view, which I think is the right view, about simply leaving the ECHR, as his party has suggested it would. That is not something his party ever did when it was in office, and that is because it would put at risk all sorts of other agreements that we have with other countries—agreements that we depend on. We have been able to make more progress on returns as a Government while remaining within the ECHR, and we will continue that going forward.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
As a Portsmouth MP, I know how important it is that people living in ports along the south coast have confidence in our border security. Will the Minister outline the progress this Government are making in tackling dangerous small boat crossings and the criminal gangs behind them, and reassure my constituents that we will continue to take action? Will she also thank all the emergency services that have helped in this situation?
Shabana Mahmood
Let me take this opportunity to pay tribute to all our partners in Portsmouth—the local authority, the police and all others—for their co-operation in dealing with the crossings launched from further west in France, which are coming into Portsmouth and seeking to come elsewhere, too. We are seeing a displacement of activity; the gangs have seen that the law enforcement response in the north of France has been stepped up, so they are now trying other routes and tactics. I assure my hon. Friend, the people of Portsmouth and everybody else that this Government will chase down those gang members, using every sinew, and will ensure that we get the number of crossings down further. I fully recognise the pressures in her community.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
We heard the Home Secretary make the claim that her changes to indefinite leave to remain would somehow act as a disincentive to people who sought to arrive in the UK on small boats, but she has failed to convince her Back Benchers and some of her Cabinet colleagues. Who has the upper hand on this in Cabinet, and would changes to ILR make a scintilla of a difference to people coming on small boats?
Shabana Mahmood
It is absolutely right for a Government seeking a system based on order, control and the principles of fairness and contribution to look at both the legal and illegal migration systems. We inherited an almighty mess from the Conservatives, and we are resolving all the issues. As the hon. Member well knows, the policy on indefinite leave to remain will be settled in due course. We had a consultation, we have considered the responses, and the Government will have more to say on this in the not-too-distant future.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)
Up to June this year, the returns rate was 35% higher than it had been in the 12 months previously. Does the Home Secretary agree that this is in part due to the improved co-operative relationships that this Government have managed to forge with other countries around the world? Should that not give our constituents greater confidence that this Government take the issue of small boat crossings seriously?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend is right: not only are small boat returns up and asylum-related returns at their highest level since 2010, but in our first two years in office, this Government have managed to get returns of foreign offenders up 41% from the last two years of the Conservative Government. That is because, in addition to all the other work we are doing, we are also unlocking greater returns co-operation with countries of origin, so that we can more smoothly return people from this country. Appeals reform is also absolutely crucial, and is something that this Government are pursuing.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Stamford) (Con)
Ministers tell us that small boat arrivals are vetted, so we need not worry, but Mohammed Yaseen—who, as we all know, joined al-Qaeda at 16, was convicted as a Daesh terrorist in Germany, and, a British court was told, was a danger to the British people—was put by the Home Office not in a detention centre ready to be deported to Iraq, where the Iraqi people deserve to see him face trial and justice, but instead in a hostel in Windsor. He was free to roam British streets during daylight hours, along with too many of the 95% not yet deported. He is now back in prison, thanks to the newspapers. How can we have any confidence in the Government, when they allow a convicted Daesh member to be released on to our streets while his deportation is pending, and will the Home Secretary today give the commitment that he will be held in detention until he is on a plane, and that his ticket has been ordered?
Shabana Mahmood
The hon. Lady knows that given that there are outstanding issues to be considered in this case, I cannot comment on the facts. She should know that, as a principle, anyone who receives a sentence of 12 months or more and is a danger to our community will have their asylum claim rejected.
Mr Joshua Reynolds (Maidenhead) (LD)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Shabana Mahmood)
I have an excellent working relationship with EU partners, particularly with France, which has helped prevent over 50,000 crossings since the election. The EU asylum pact has yet to resolve the challenges of returns within Europe, and currently those returns are not happening at scale, so the pact is not a silver bullet.
Mr Reynolds
The Prime Minister has said that he wants access to the Eurodac database. How does the Government propose to negotiate that without breaching their EU red lines?
Shabana Mahmood
I am not going to conduct a negotiation with the European Union from this Dispatch Box. The hon. Member will know, as I have said to Liberal Democrat Members before, that we are of course always thinking about how we can work more collaboratively with our partners in Europe on law enforcement co-operation and data sharing. I am sure that will be the subject of much discussion at the UK-EU summit.
Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)
Illegal immigration is by definition a cross-border phenomenon, which is why we are required to work with our friends and partners across borders. The Home Secretary has already talked about the 50,000-person reduction from France; we increasingly hear reports that for those in the camps in northern Calais, smugglers are hard to find. That is a far cry from the situation under the previous Government, who could not even decide if France was a friend or a foe. Does the Home Secretary agree that it is by working with our allies on international challenges that we can address the problems of illegal immigration, which is what the public are asking for?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend is right. That is why this Government have been working to reset our relationship with the European Union. Of course, our co-operation with France is central to our being able to deal with the challenge of the small boats, and I was pleased to make the recent deal with the French—the successor to the Sandhurst agreement. We have set aside money that we will spend only on measures that we know have an impact on small boat numbers, which are down by 43%.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and we are indeed flattered to see the Prime Minister discussing improved relations with the EU as a way to solve issues in the asylum system, but when the Government say that they will negotiate access to various agreements, including Eurodac, without dropping their red lines, they are engaging in Brexit delusion of the type we saw under the Conservatives. If we want useful co-operation on asylum and a good deal for taxpayers—because it will cost less if we are in the pact—we will have to join the EU migration and asylum pact, and that means dropping the Government’s red lines, doesn’t it?
Shabana Mahmood
The delusion here is the hon. Member assuming that the EU asylum pact is up and running, and that it is a silver bullet. He will know that across Europe, while there is greater co-operation on data sharing and so on, everyone wants to remove people from their country, but nobody wants to receive them. On returns under the pact for the countries that are in it, those returns are not happening at scale. He knows that was also the case under the Dublin regulation, of which we were part; in our last five years in it, we did not deport as many people as we managed to under our agreement with France.
Max Wilkinson
We await more on the agreement with France, and perhaps with Belgium and many other countries. It might just be simpler to have an agreement with the entire EU.
It grieves me to say this, but internal difficulties have arisen within the Labour party over migration. Cabinet members seem to be struggling to defend the Home Secretary’s position, and Government Back Benchers have a wide range of opinions. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has called for an “honest discussion” about EU freedom of movement. Will the Home Secretary back down and get behind the Prime Minister, who is open to freedom of movement, or will she stay loyal to her Back-Bench allies in the blue Labour faction, who are so hostile to it?
Shabana Mahmood
Honestly, what absolute piffle from the hon. Gentleman. He will know that the Prime Minister has been discussing having an open debate; that is not the same as settled policy, as the hon. Gentleman is well aware. The Prime Minister has also observed that there were very significant issues with freedom of movement when we were in the EU. Having an honest debate means actually being honest about all aspects of the issue, not cherry-picking, as the Liberal Democrats so often do.
Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)
The Minister for Border Security and Asylum (Anna Turley)
Anyone coming to the United Kingdom knows that doing so is a privilege, not a right. Any foreign national who breaks our laws is not welcome. All foreign national offenders who receive a prison sentence or suspended sentence are now eligible for deportation. Since this Government came to power, we have removed over 11,700 foreign national offenders; that is up 41% on the two years before then. We are determined to ensure that more foreign criminals are removed from our shores.
Sarah Pochin
Gift Oladele successfully appealed his deportation, after sexually assaulting a woman in Manchester. He then went on to rape a 19-year-old young woman in Wrexham. Can the Minister explain exactly what changes her Government have made to article 8 of the European convention on human rights to make sure that this does not happen again, and when they will take effect?
Anna Turley
I appreciate the hon. Lady raising this case, and look forward to her supporting our Immigration and Asylum Bill, which is going through Parliament. We are determined to build on the progress we have made, and which I have just outlined. Our asylum Bill will fix the broken appeals system and close the human rights loopholes, so that they cannot be exploited. From early next year, we will be able to remove offenders immediately after sentencing, allowing us to scale up deportations even further. We will be relentless in ensuring that all who break our laws are removed.
Ben Goldsborough (South Norfolk) (Lab)
Nearly 6,000 foreign national offenders were returned in the last year—12% more than in the year before. Clause 20 of the Immigration and Asylum Bill strengthens the measures on circumstances in which it is in the public interest to deport foreign criminals, particularly where their offending is more serious. Will my hon. Friend explain how these changes will build on the progress that has been made, and further strengthen public security?
Anna Turley
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We remain firmly committed to the ECHR and the protections it gives us all, including the prohibition on torture, a right to life and protections from the state. However, we are determined, through this legislation, to protect its principles from over-interpretation, both domestically and internationally, and to ensure we have an immigration and asylum system that has the consent of the British people.
Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)
There are 21,000 serious foreign criminals still in the UK. Today, a foreign criminal jailed for four years or more cannot use family or long residence exceptions to avoid deportation. Last week, the Government voted down our amendments in Committee to keep that rule and extend it to terrorists, making the Immigration and Asylum Bill softer on the worst offenders than current law. Will the Home Secretary admit that only leaving the ECHR will guarantee us that foreign criminals are deported?
Anna Turley
It is sad to see the Conservative party so spooked by the far right that they are trashing some of the finest work of their greatest Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. When he said, “Never again,” and led the way in building a European convention on human rights, he knew the protection it gave everyone from tyrants, despots, torture and death. This Government will defend Churchill’s legacy—even if the Conservatives will not—by reforming both the ECHR, internationally, through co-operation with our European neighbours, and its domestic application through the forthcoming Bill, to ensure that its protections and principles are fit for the modern world.
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)
Abuse and violence against retail workers ballooned under the last Government. The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers and others campaigned for action. We promised to take action, and we have: the Crime and Policing Act 2026 introduces a new offence of assaulting a retail worker, punishable by up to six months’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine, or both.
Kirsteen Sullivan
In 2021 my colleague Daniel Johnson MSP introduced landmark protections for Scottish shop workers, following a campaign by USDAW and the Co-operative party, but legislation is not enough. Community policing has declined in Scotland, and my constituents in Winchburgh, Armadale and Bathgate report rising retail crime and abuse of shop workers. Ahead of legislation commencing in England, what discussions has the Minister had with the Scottish Government to learn from Scotland’s experience, and what investment has she made in frontline policing to protect shop workers and communities?
Sarah Jones
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that alongside legislation, we need to ensure that we have the police in our communities and neighbourhoods to tackle crime. We have put 3,800 new police—extra police—in our neighbourhoods since we came to power. The collaboration between police and shop workers is having really good results in a lot of our town centres, and I encourage the Scottish National party Government to look at ensuring the same in Scotland.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)
We all recognise the concern about the illegal use of e-bikes and e-scooters. We have taken action through the Crime and Policing Act 2026. Police no longer need to issue a warning before seizing vehicles that are being used antisocially. We have also reduced vehicle disposal timeframes to seven days, so we are taking action, but we are very much in the market for seeing what else we can do.
Helen Maguire
I welcome the new police powers to seize illegal e-scooters and e-bikes that, quite frankly, are out of control. In Epsom and Ewell, Operation Scramble seized 15 vehicles and made six arrests in two days, but some police are hesitant to engage in pursuits because of concerns for wider public safety. It is clear that the police cannot address this issue alone. With Christmas approaching, will the Minister commit to a national awareness campaign to ensure that the general public understand the law around e-scooters, and appreciate that they are legal only if they are part of a rental scheme or are being used on private land?
Sarah Jones
I thank the hon. Member for her thoughtful question. We hear what she says about e-bikes. We are having conversations with the College of Policing and others about how we can ensure that the police can respond in the way that they want to. In a big operation last month, the Met arrested 187 people and seized 157 vehicles in a crackdown on e-bikes, and Met police are using Sur-Ron bikes in that operation, so we are very much having conversations with colleagues to see what more we can do.
Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)
Cumbria police do really good work tackling the use of illegal e-bikes, but with ever-growing numbers of them hitting our streets every single week, Cumbria’s police, fire and crime commissioner and I believe that the single biggest help that we could give the police would be to ban the sale of illegal e-bikes, as my ten-minute rule Bill proposes. What discussions has the Minister had with colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade about regulation to achieve that?
Sarah Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for her work on this issue. We are talking to the Department for Transport about exactly what we need to do to tackle the scourge of e-bikes and e-scooters. Every MP in this place will be facing the same challenge, and I hope that everybody would agree that we cannot allow this kind of behaviour to continue. We are looking at what else can be done. We have changed the powers in the Bill to move us in the right direction. I am talking to the police about what more support they need, and we will continue to have those conversations across Government.
John Grady (Glasgow East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Shabana Mahmood)
Since the general election, knife crime is down by 11%, knife homicides are down by 25% and knife-enabled robberies are down by 18%. That is huge progress, but we must do more. That is why I recently launched crackdowns in more than 230 of the areas most affected by knife crime. We will be tough on knife crime, through increased patrols, but also tough on the causes of knife crime, by undertaking prevention work to prevent these crimes.
John Grady
I am concerned about young people and knife crime in my home city of Glasgow. Victim Support Scotland has asked the Scottish Government to carry out a comprehensive review of why young people become involved in knife crime and how effective Scottish programmes are at preventing it. This is backed by my constituent, Neil McCrimmon, and his family. Their beloved son Kory was stabbed to death, and the family has campaigned with great courage against knife crime. I fully support Victim Support Scotland’s call for a comprehensive review. Will the Home Secretary confirm that she would support the Scottish Government, were they to carry out such a review?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend has told me how much he admires the family for their campaigning efforts. We know from our own work how powerful it is when those who have suffered because of knife crime join in the effort to tackle it. As he knows, policing is a devolved matter and the question of a review is therefore one for the Scottish Government, but this Government stand ready to support them where we can.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Home Secretary for her answers and for her commitment to trying to stop knife crime. One of the greatest ways of stopping knife crime across this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is to ensure that people cannot buy knives. What is she doing to ensure that access to knives, whether through sections of the media or industry, is stopped? If we stop the knives, we stop the crime.
Shabana Mahmood
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is imperative that we get knives off our streets, and he will know that we have already taken 63,000 knives off our streets and banned ninja swords. We will make more progress, including on a consultation that we have recently carried out looking at a wider regime for the sale of knives, and we will update the House on that in due course.
Graeme Downie (Dunfermline and Dollar) (Lab)
Gill German (Clwyd North) (Lab)
Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)
The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)
This Government are determined to tackle antisocial behaviour across England and Wales. From today, we are calling time on persistent offenders of ASB with the introduction of respect orders, honouring our manifesto commitment and cracking down on ASB.
Graeme Downie
Around 1,000 constituents in Dunfermline recently told me in a city centre survey that they were concerned about coming into the city centre, to places such as the bus station and the Kingsgate shopping centre, because of antisocial behaviour. Will the Minister agree to work with the Scottish Government on the respect orders to ensure that lessons can be learned on both sides of the border, so that people can feel safe in Dunfermline and across England, Scotland and Wales?
Sarah Jones
I am very happy to work with anybody who is committed to tackling antisocial behaviour. The Government have introduced not just respect orders, but extended dispersal directions. We have raised the maximum fixed penalties for public spaces protection orders from £100 to £500. We are passing legislation, putting neighbourhood police into our neighbourhoods and tackling antisocial behaviour.
Gill German
My recent Pride in Place survey in Rhyl found that antisocial behaviour such as street drinking and fly-tipping is putting many people off visiting their own town centre. With respect orders coming into force today, what guidance is being given to police to make good use of them against repeat offenders so that people want to visit their own town centre again?
Sarah Jones
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I suspect that a lot of similar conversations are happening on Pride in Place boards across England and Wales. In north Wales we have seen an increase of some 60 officers in neighbourhoods since 2015, which will make a very big difference. I have talked to every police force across the country, written to all the chief constables and met all the different agencies that are part of respect orders, and everyone is lined up to do this work. Guidance has been published, and I look forward to seeing the first court cases—hopefully this week.
Alex McIntyre
Far too many residents in Gloucester tell me about persistent antisocial behaviour in the city centre, and they are fed up with it. We are seeing a situation where people get off the bus and are immediately confronted by street drinkers, and the local corner shop is selling alcohol to them when they can barely stand up. The police are doing what they can but, given the challenges facing Gloucestershire constabulary, can the Minister outline what more can be done to tackle the antisocial behaviour blighting our city centre?
Sarah Jones
I went last week to Newcastle-under-Lyme, Southall and Hemel Hempstead, and I have been talking to all the police forces across the country. I expect my hon. Friend’s police force to take these powers in the manner in which they are intended—as a useful tool to help the police, local authorities, housing associations and other agents to tackle antisocial behaviour and introduce respect orders. We are increasing funding across the country. Importantly, we are also reforming policing to put local policing at the heart of everything we do, so that the public get the service they expect.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
Illegal car cruising is a real blight on communities, causing noise pollution and terrifying local communities, including pedestrians and legal road users alike, on private and public roads. Will the Minister look again at the legislation to see whether this particular crime—it is a crime—can be penalised in a different way? At the moment, the generic legislation for antisocial behaviour is not catching enough people and is not a deterrent.
Sarah Jones
I am happy to look into whether respect orders might cover the crimes that the right hon. Member talks about and help in this space. Of course we need to ensure that we have more police in our communities, and we will always look at the legislation to see whether there is more that we can do to come down hard on these kinds of behaviours, which make our constituents and our communities really not feel safe in their own environment. We will continue to work on that.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
I would like to add to what the right hon. Member just said about car cruising. Along the A2300 approaching Burgess Hill, car cruising is causing misery to residents, with noise waking people up through the night. It is really intimidating more rural residents as they try to come from rural lanes on to the A2300. I am told by one local farmer that people are coming from as far afield as the Netherlands to get involved. A public space protection order is in place and Sussex police are doing what they can. Please, what else can the Government do to deter and break up illegal car cruising?
Sarah Jones
I recognise what the hon. Member describes. I have talked to the police about what more we can do in this space. I encourage everybody to report crimes as soon as they see them, because the police can put automatic number plate recognition cameras in place to retrospectively give people fines if they are breaking the law by car cruising. I know the police are looking for the resources to ensure that they can tackle these things. More neighbourhood policing, looking at shift times, and all these things can help.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
Too often, antisocial behaviour on our streets comes with a racist edge, and tackling it starts with naming it, something that shamefully the wannabe Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick)—I have informed him that I would be referring to him—could not do this weekend when asked whether calling the Leader of the Opposition a “Nigerian scammer” is racist. Will the Minister say what he could not, and outline what the Government are doing to tackle racist antisocial behaviour?
Sarah Jones
Of course that comment is racist. We know that race and religious hate crime is rising and we are very concerned about that. We have taken some legislative action when it comes to protests, around things like cumulative impact and places of worship. We have our social cohesion plan, “Protecting What Matters”, and we have invested record amounts of money—sadly, we have had to do so—to protect religious spaces for the Jewish community, the Muslim community, and those of other faiths including Sikhs. We have put in £250 million to protect our Jewish communities. There is more to do, but we are certainly in agreement that that was racist, and we need to tackle all forms of hate crime.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
This month has tragically seen a fatal shooting in East Acton. I know that, as they used to say on “Crimewatch”, these things are incredibly rare, but at a community meeting I went to, which also involved the council and the police, it still felt very raw. There is consternation that the gangs, violence and exploitation unit, which has been instrumental in solving previous murders, is being wound up. I wonder whether the Home Secretary, or one of my other hon. Friends in the Department, could meet me and the borough west commander to find a way forward.
Sarah Jones
My hon. Friend is right that statistics are not the answer to everything, but gun crime has gone down in the last year in the new stats that have come out, so we are making progress. She is right, of course, to be concerned about the awful incident in her constituency. I am always happy to meet her and others to talk about such matters. We are putting funding into tackling county lines, into knife crime concentration funds and into our violence reduction units. All that funding is helping us to make progress when it comes to both knife crime and gun crime.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
Businesses, constituents and pets in Tunbridge Wells suffer from destructive and often cruel catapult attacks. It is a problem that many of us across this House have seen in our inboxes. Kent police and Tunbridge Wells borough council are working together to manage the problem, including looking at public space protection orders. Can I ask the Secretary of State whether she has considered restrictions or a ban at a national level in order to strengthen the hand of local police forces and local authorities such as mine in Tunbridge Wells?
Sarah Jones
The hon. Member cannot ask the Secretary of State, but he can ask the Minister for Policing. He raises a legitimate problem. We recently had a roundtable on catapults and the harm that they are doing, and we are looking at what more we need to do. Respect orders will work in this space as well, and it is worth him talking to the police on that front, because we want to ensure that we are doing everything we can. We have seen some particularly nasty catapult attacks in particular areas of the country, which we want to see an end to. Respect orders might be an answer.
Mary Creagh (Coventry East) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Policing Minister for her visit to Coventry last month to see the brilliant work done by the Labour council’s trading standards officers, in partnership with Coventry police, to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour on Foleshill Road, and the public spaces protection order for Edgwick Park, which has cleared that park, which is next to a school, of the drug dealers who used to blight it. Will she say what more respect orders can do to tackle this level of low but persistent antisocial behaviour that blights our streets?
Sarah Jones
It was a pleasure to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency and see the good work being done and the partnerships being forged. She asks what more respect orders can do. They are there to help tackle vandalism, public drunkenness, aggressive begging, irresponsible dog owners—I think all of us agree that is very irritating—and noisy or abusive behaviour. The Environment Agency can also use them for fly-tipping and persistent fly-tippers, so there is a whole raft of measures for which we can use respect orders. I look forward to seeing the results.
John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
Following recent changes, police are now able to seize vehicles that are used antisocially without first issuing a warning. This is potentially a way for police in my constituency to deal with illegal street racing meets on the A24 and the A264 from Kilnwood Vale down to Southwater. Can the Minister confirm whether this new power is proving to be effective, and how many vehicles have been seized thus far?
Sarah Jones
It is very early days, so I am unable to give the hon. Member the numbers at this point, but they will be collected by constituency. I encourage him to keep in touch with his local police to see what the numbers are. He is absolutely right that the power to seize a vehicle without giving warning is a powerful tool.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)
My hon. Friend is a persistent campaigner on this issue and I salute him for his work. We are committed to a review of the funding formula. We have started internal work on it and I will be updating the House as soon as we have considered the recommendations from the independent review of police force areas.
Tom Hayes
I thank the Minister for that response. I want more funding for policing, as well as the fairer allocation of it, to tackle the issues blighting Bournemouth, whether illegal e-bike use or ketamine use. I thank the Minister for agreeing, in writing today, to meet constituents whose lives have been deeply affected by that drug. I understand why police reform and funding formula reform go hand in glove, but can I urge the Minister, as we move forward with those reforms, to do everything she can to minimise the number of consultations needed to achieve fairer funding for Dorset? The longer we have to wait, the longer Dorset is at a disadvantage.
Sarah Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. It was a delight, as a Minister, to get a letter from the Cabinet Office saying, “You don’t have to do as many consultations as you used to.” Hopefully, we can get things moving a bit quicker than the previous Government managed. I think they promised police reform for over 10 years and never delivered, so I hear what he is saying and we will keep working as fast as we can.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
The Metropolitan Police Commissioner is clear that, despite recent welcome funding increases from the Government to the capital city grant, to be able to police protests and events in London he has two pretty invidious choices on his hands: he either has to take police officers out of constituencies like mine—and the Policing Minister’s—to police those protests and events, or he has to cut back on just-in-case police officers, so there is a huge risk if an event flairs up. Which does the Policing Minister think is the better option?
Sarah Jones
I meet the commissioner regularly and we talk about these issues all the time. I should point out to the House that this Government are funding the police to record levels. Hundreds of millions of pounds extra are going to the Metropolitan police, with £2 billion extra going into policing since we came to power. The National Police Chiefs’ Council has just agreed rules on abstraction rates, which I know is a big challenge. I have had a lot of conversations with the commissioner about managing the risk of protests and maintaining officers in our communities. I think he has got the right balance at the moment, but we will, of course, continue to monitor that.
Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)
It has been an incredibly hard few months for Cleveland. Local people are not interested in point scoring, but they do want answers. Cleveland has the highest recorded crime rate in the country, yet the latest Home Office data reveals that it has 17 fewer police officers than it had a year ago. Can the Minister explain why?
Sarah Jones
The hon. Member knows of, and shares, our horror at what happened to the two Cleveland police officers recently—it was an honour to attend their funerals, which I know he did as well—and I will therefore not respond with a political point.
We have been talking regularly to both the chief constable and the police and crime commissioner in Cleveland. Following that incident, we agreed to give an extra £2 million to contribute to tackling serious and organised crime, and today we agreed to provide a further £3.2 million to meet the additional costs that have been incurred. We are also considering Cleveland’s application for exceptional funding. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will welcome that additional funding for Cleveland and will work with us to ensure that it has the resources it needs.
Damien Egan (Bristol North East) (Lab)
The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)
Our police reform plans will embed highly localised policing. We have already delivered 3,800 extra neighbourhood police to our communities, and in Avon and Somerset we have delivered 71 since 2025.
Damien Egan
In recent years shoplifting has become an increasing issue for many of the high streets in my constituency, and our shop workers are having to deal with increasingly frightening and dangerous situations. In the light of that, we look forward to seeing meaningful progress towards the Government’s ambitious targets for the expansion of neighbourhood policing. What practical steps are the Government taking to boost local police numbers and neighbourhood policing in the Bristol area?
Sarah Jones
As I have said, neighbourhood police numbers in Avon and Somerset have risen by 71 since 2025. We are also introducing a raft of measures to deal with shop theft, such as the removal of the £200 threshold, and investment in new technology to help the police and retailers to work together so that crime can be reported and people can then be charged. There has been huge progress in many parts of the country where retailers and police are working together. During the two years in the run-up to the general election, shop theft went up by 60%, but it is now on the turn, falling by 2% this year. We are making progress with those extra police, but there is still a great deal more to do.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
West Mercia police have changed the hours of police community support officers, introducing an 8 pm finish in order to save money. Unsurprisingly, that has led to an increase in antisocial behaviour in my constituency after 8 pm. The police are very thin on the ground: Ellesmere’s safer neighbourhood team consists of one police officer—who I do not think works 24/7—and just two PCSOs. Our officers and PCSOs do a fantastic job, but they are far too thinly spread. Will the Minister meet me so that she can understand the challenges facing rural policing and the resources that are required in places such as Shropshire?
Sarah Jones
We are delivering more neighbourhood police to our communities, and we are encouraging the police to use data as much as they can to determine where they go, which means that, as often as possible, they go to the areas where crime is occurring. The purpose of our police reforms is to answer some of the challenges that the hon. Lady has raised. At present we have 43 forces who are having to look up towards serious and organised crime, international and national fraud and online crime, and having to look down towards their local communities, and they are doing neither very well at the moment.
Samantha Dixon (Chester North and Neston) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Satvir Kaur)
Violence against women and girls is one of the biggest challenges of our time, and this Government have made a commitment to halve it. Progress towards achieving that includes rolling out dedicated VAWG teams in every police force, specialist rape and serious sex offence courtrooms, and the introduction of domestic abuse protection orders. We are teaching children in schools about healthy relationships, and we are preparing legislation to make it impossible for children to take, share and view nude images.
Samantha Dixon
I pay tribute to Chester Women’s Aid, which continues to campaign hard for victims and survivors of domestic abuse in my constituency. Can the Minister update the House on the roll-out of the new domestic abuse protection orders, which enable support services to apply for a protective order on behalf of a survivor?
Satvir Kaur
I thank my hon. Friend for her continued work in this space and Chester Women’s Aid for its vital work in supporting the community. Supporting victims is at the heart of the Government’s strategy, which is backed by £1 billion of cross-Government investment. Domestic abuse protection orders already exist in five areas, and more than 2,000 police-led DAPOs have been issued. DAPOs will be rolled out across England and Wales by the end of the year, providing stronger protection for victims, widening the scope and, as my hon. Friend says, enabling applications from the police, victims themselves and third parties such as Chester Women’s Aid.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
Cheshire constabulary was named the best police force in England and Wales for the highest charge rates for crimes against women and girls—specifically, sexual offences, violence against the person, stalking and harassment. The chief constable, under whose leadership this has happened, is retiring next week. Will the Minister join me and fellow Cheshire MPs in congratulating him on his dedicated life of service, and is she, like me, surprised that the police and crime commissioner for Cheshire did not seek to extend the chief constable’s tenure when he offered to remain in service?
Satvir Kaur
I extend my congratulations to the chief constable on his dedicated service, and join Cheshire MPs in congratulating Cheshire police force.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
Foreign nationals, including illegal immigrants, make up 23% of sex offenders. The Home Office knows that, and even hands out leaflets asking illegal immigrants nicely not to rape. That is why mothers in Piddington are now terrified that over 1,000 young male illegal immigrants are about to turn up. In order to protect women and girls, rather than allowing 95% of illegal immigrants to stay and accommodating them in Piddington or anywhere else, should the Government not leave the European convention on human rights and deport them?
Satvir Kaur
The right hon. Gentleman will know that returns are up, and we will accommodate that in any way we can.
Tom Rutland (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Shabana Mahmood)
Last December, Henry Nowak’s life was cut short in a horrific and senseless act of violence. My thoughts today are with Henry’s family and friends, who have shown extraordinary courage and dignity. Today I can announce an independent review, led by a former Lord Chancellor, the right hon. Alex Chalk KC. It will investigate what was known about the perpetrator, including any missed opportunities to intervene. It will look at the Nowak family’s experience of the criminal justice system and whether they were supported in the manner they should have been.
Once the Independent Office for Police Conduct has concluded its investigation into the police response, the review will also consider the actions of the IOPC and, if necessary, the police. The full terms of reference have been published today, and an initial report will be submitted to me within five months. We must get to the truth of what happened before, during and after that awful night, and we must do everything in our power to ensure that no family suffers the same fate. We owe that to Henry and to all who loved him. They deserve answers, and this review will provide them.
Tom Rutland
Many of my constituents have raised the issue of antisocial behaviour and dangerous riding by people on e-bikes, particularly in Southwick, Shoreham and Lancing. What is the Secretary of State’s Department doing to crack down on such behaviour, which is blighting the lives of many people in my constituency?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend will know that we have made it easier for the police to seize e-bikes on the spot, and we have cut the timeframe for disposal to just seven days. Police forces are already making use of these powers so that dangerous and illegally used bikes can be taken off our streets. Where appropriate, they can also be destroyed.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
In a speech in March, which I thought was rather good, the Home Secretary said that failure to implement her proposed changes to indefinite leave to remain in full would be “an affront” to British citizens, and would cost hard-working taxpayers £10 billion for care workers alone. Given how strongly she clearly feels about her policy, will she confirm to the House that she will implement her own plans in full, or are the Housing Secretary and the Energy Secretary now in charge of immigration policy?
Shabana Mahmood
I do not need notes from the shadow Home Secretary on any of my speeches; he can keep them to himself. Let me confirm for the House that settlement will be earned, not be automatic. He knows we have conducted a consultation on those proposals, and we will set out our policy in due course.
Chris Philp
The Home Secretary is clearly not standing by her own plans.
Several times this year, the Home Secretary has used her power to prevent entry into the United Kingdom on the basis of individuals’ views, including people opposing mass migration. I recently asked her to prevent entry by Randa Abdel-Fattah, who planned talks around the anniversary of the 7 October massacre. Abdel-Fattah has glorified terrorism and said that massacre was “exhilarating”. Is it not shameful that the Home Secretary allowed this antisemitic supporter of terrorism into our country, where she likely radicalised our citizens?
Shabana Mahmood
As the right hon. Gentleman is well aware, it is long-standing policy not to comment on individual cases. He often brings such individual cases to the Dispatch Box, so he should know that we cannot always go into all the specifics. He knows that all individuals who seek entry to the United Kingdom must meet the requirements of the immigration rules, and I will always enforce them as strongly as possible.
Abtisam Mohamed (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jo White)
The Government have consulted on our proposals for a reformed earned settlement scheme. We received more than 200,000 responses, which are being reviewed and analysed. The Government’s response will be announced in due course.
Rishi Sunak (Richmond and Northallerton) (Con)
The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)
I join the right hon. Member in recognising the important work that our police do in rural communities. It is exactly because we want to tackle these problems that we are introducing police reform to embed highly localised policing in our rural areas as well as our urban areas.
James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)
Sarah Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing these awful cases to my attention. We have changed the law to make it easier to seize those bikes, and we are looking at what more we can do. We are working with the Department for Transport to see what changes it needs to make, and we will continue to do that.
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
Jo White
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this case. As she will know, we received over 200,000 responses, and we are now in the process of carefully considering the feedback received. The proposals set out a fundamental reform of the settlement system, and it is right that we take the time needed to consider the impacts. The House will be updated in due course.
Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)
Sarah Jones
We support the police with the powers that they need. I am looking at training to make sure that enough people are being trained in what we need.
Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
Mears, acting for the Home Office, is acquiring properties to accommodate asylum seekers in small, rural communities in the Scottish Borders, where GP surgeries, schools and transport are already stretched. Scottish Borders council tells me that it is not being properly consulted by either the Home Office or Mears before these properties are acquired. Will the Minister meet me, together with representatives from Scottish Borders council, so that we can discuss how engagement can be improved?
The Minister for Border Security and Asylum (Anna Turley)
I would be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues. Home Office officials continue to engage with Scottish Borders council and other local partners on asylum accommodation. We value and recognise the importance of working with those local authorities, taking account of local circumstances when considering accommodation requirements.
Jeff Smith (Manchester Withington) (Lab)
Sarah Jones
I have noted that piece of work. We support drug diversion schemes, which are part of the respect orders that we have announced today, part of our rough sleeping programme and part of lots of the work we do to help people get off drugs, but they are not a substitute for the right punishment where necessary.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
When the Minister announced new refugee pathways in September, we were told that Afghan women and girls would be prioritised. I have since received correspondence that says there will be no prioritisation. Can we get clarity on what is correct?
Shabana Mahmood
I am surprised by the correspondence that the hon. Member has received. She is welcome to share that with me. That is absolutely not the case for the announcements made in September.
David Williams (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
In Stoke-on-Trent, whether it is Kidsgrove or Tunstall, residents tell me that they are fed up with being terrorised by off-road bikes that tear through our parks and our streets. Will the Minister please reassure me that Staffordshire police will have the neighbourhood officers, the funding and the powers available to them to deal with those who are making life a misery for others?
Sarah Jones
We will make sure that there are more neighbourhood police in our communities and in his communities. We will make sure that the legal powers are there for the police to take the action that they need, and we are working to see what else needs to be done about the scourge of e-bikes, of which everyone in all our constituencies feels that we have had enough.
Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)
In our inquiry looking at the impact that serious and organised crime has on local neighbourhoods, we have heard evidence from Trading Standards that organised criminals are now using online second-hand marketplaces to sell stolen goods and launder money. What conversations are the Government having with those online vendors to try to stop such sites being used by organised criminals to make money?
Sarah Jones
The right hon. Lady asks a very good question, and we are grappling with this issue. I have asked PoliceAI to do a piece of work on how we can look for and act on stolen goods across all the different second-hand sites. It is very much a live issue in the Home Office.
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
I recently ran a local campaign calling for a ban on illegal e-motorbikes. It is clear they are being used by criminals, and yet police are often powerless to pursue them. Will the Minister look again at guidance for police forces and ensure they have the resources they need, including drones and off-road bikes, to take enforcement action against those dangerous bikes?
Sarah Jones
My hon. Friend raises a good point that has not been mentioned yet, which is the power of drones in this space. Using more technology to ensure that we can go after the people who are using those illegal bikes is a good idea.
Sir James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
The asylum accommodation centre at Wethersfield has blighted the local community and made it impossible for people to sell their homes. The number of pupils in the primary school is declining, putting the school’s future in question. When I was Home Secretary there was a cap on numbers and a commitment to a closure date in spring next year. The Government have reneged on both of those. When will the asylum centre in Wethersfield close, and when will my constituents be able to get back on with their lives properly?
Anna Turley
The Wethersfield centre, which was opened under the right hon. Gentleman’s Government, has operated for years with robust security arrangements to maintain the safety and security of both residents and the wider community. The chief constable has said that the centre is not having a negative impact on crime. This Government are proud to put fairness at the heart of our approach by moving to alternative accommodation, including former military sites, which reduce the burden on communities because they are self-contained, with 24/7 security and CCTV.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Policing Minister for her confirmation that £5.2 million will be sent to Cleveland police to help to deal with the mutual aid bill—that is most welcome—but she will recognise that the police funding formula is simply not fit for purpose, especially when Cleveland has the highest level of crime and the poorest level of resources devoted to it. Although I welcome her indication about exceptional funding, does she agree that the situation will not be resolved until there is a complete reconfiguration of policing in this country? The people of Cleveland cannot wait for police restructuring.
Sarah Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for the numerous conversations we continue to have about this issue, which are important. We have confirmed the extra funding, and we are looking at the funding for next year as part of an exceptional request made by Cleveland. We have sent the request to the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, which will go through the figures to ensure that we have a robust response for the next year. We will then prioritise the funding formula, which my hon. Friend is right to say is no longer fit for purpose.
David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)
Following their convictions for LIBOR manipulation, Jay Merchant and Christian Bittar were deported from the UK and barred from returning. Earlier this month, their convictions were comprehensively quashed by the Court of Appeal. With their convictions thrown out, the reason for their deportation is completely invalid, but the deportation order will remain in place until removed by the Home Office. Will the Home Secretary look into those cases, accelerate the decision-making process on their applications and have their deportations revoked, so that they do not receive any more unearned punishment?
Anna Turley
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising those cases. I would be happy to meet him to discuss it further and will look into it.
Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab)
MPs’ safety is paramount. After my speech in the Black History Month debate on Thursday, a shadow Minister posted a racially charged tweet online that has resulted in more abuse against me. Do Ministers accept that MPs are bound by the code of practice, and, at the very least, that they should not be racist online?
The Minister for Security (Dan Jarvis)
Let me give my hon. Friend an absolute assurance on how seriously we take those matters. The defending democracy taskforce provides the fulcrum point for us to respond to those threats across Government, and I know my hon. Friend will have heard and welcomed the protective security review that the Home Secretary announced a week ago.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
Sally Rooney is a writer, not a terrorist, yet her books are being withdrawn from shelves up and down the country. Under a new Prime Minister, will this Government reverse course, or does the Home Secretary see any author she disagrees with as a terrorist?
Shabana Mahmood
The hon. Gentleman should be much more responsible about the way in which he makes his point in this Chamber. He will know that there is a world of difference between someone selling books and enjoying the fruits of their labour and saying that they will use that money to fund a proscribed organisation. The organisation was proscribed through a vote in this House; it is the subject of a legal case at the moment, but all of the appropriate legal safeguards and thresholds in law were followed.
Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Government give consideration to supporting police forces and integrated care boards to restore 24/7 independent domestic violence advisers across police stations, and perhaps emergency departments, too? Will they also consider mandatory trauma-informed training and supervision for Devon and Cornwall police?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Satvir Kaur)
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. As she will know, there are dedicated teams in every single police force. The Health Secretary has announced the steps to change in our local GP practices, and we are working across Government to halve violence against women and girls.
Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)
There is wide consensus across the House on the need to tackle modern slavery. The Modern Slavery Act 2015 went a long way towards doing that, but fails to have any real teeth to stop slave-produced goods being sold in this country. The Immigration and Asylum Bill presents this House with an opportunity to give that Act some real teeth. Will the Secretary of State or the Minister sit down with me to discuss the options to give that Act teeth?
Shabana Mahmood
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising such an important point. As he will know, our modern slavery arrangements are subject to strengthening in the Immigration and Asylum Bill, which is currently going through this House. I would be happy to ensure that he can speak to either myself or one of my Ministers to discuss whether further changes need to be made.
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s progress in reducing those perilous and often exploitative small boat crossings, but aside from the misplaced idea that asylum seekers have significant recourse to public funds or mainstream benefits, we must still be honest that a lot of human behaviour ultimately boils down to incentives. What consideration have Home Office Ministers given to the Danish model in terms of narrowing any incentive gap for migrants between coming here for work and doing so by other, irregular means?
Anna Turley
I appreciate my hon. Friend raising that question. He will be aware that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has visited Denmark. This year she announced that we would introduce a new approach to refugee protection in the UK called core protection, which marks a shift to a more streamlined approach that meets our international obligations without going beyond them. We are committed to upholding our international obligations, but we no longer want a system that is seen as over-interpreting those obligations or that is open to abuse, and that is what my right hon. Friend is ensuring through the Immigration and Asylum Bill.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
The Home Secretary talked positively about reducing the number of illegal migrants coming in by small boats. Could I ask her, though, what actual steps the Government are taking to thwart illegal migration to the United Kingdom across the open border from the Republic of Ireland into Northern Ireland?
Shabana Mahmood
The hon. and learned Gentleman will know that I discuss this issue regularly with my counterparts in the Republic of Ireland. We are committed to working closely together to ensure that we do not allow any illegal entry, either from the United Kingdom into the Republic or vice versa.
Jonathan Hinder (Pendle and Clitheroe) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Policing Minister for her answer to my written question on the Police Federation’s accounts, which have not been published since 2023. In that answer, she made reference to the police reform White Paper, saying that the “Government stands ready” to act. As she knows, seven senior officials from the Police Federation have been arrested since then, so I do not think it is going in the right direction—it is going in the wrong direction. It is time to act, is it not?
Sarah Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for the many conversations we have had about this issue; he certainly has a strong view, and we completely agree that there is a problem. Police officers deserve to have high-quality representation, and I hope to update him soon.
Patrick Spencer (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
Last year there was unanimous objection in Parliament and across the country to plans for aligning section 1 and section 2 forms for gun licences, mostly because it would make shotgun ownership more onerous for farmers. The Home Office has still not ruled out making those changes. Will the Home Secretary guarantee to this House now that she will not make life any harder for farmers by changing the way that we license gun ownership?
Sarah Jones
We have committed to introducing consultation, which we will do. Most deaths from legal guns are from shotguns, so we are always in the market to consider what more we can do. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have had lots of conversations and lots of debate about the value that gun use can bring to our sporting industry, our farmers and others, so we will get the balance right.
Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)
The police funding formula disadvantages towns such as Dudley. We know that visible policing in town centres is essential when rebuilding public trust. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the formula needs updating to deliver fairer funding to Dudley, and that residents in St James’s should vote on 29 October for our Labour candidate Caroline Reid, who champions safer streets?
Sarah Jones
I agree with my hon. Friend; those residents should, of course, vote for Caroline Reid. We are putting more police into our neighbourhoods, and my hon. Friend’s area has received increased funding for the police. We understand the priorities of the British people, which include tackling the epidemic of everyday crime in our communities.
Stuart Andrew (Daventry) (Con)
The villages of Crick and Flore in my constituency are two small rural communities with few amenities, but both have hotels housing asylum seekers. The previous Minister responsible for asylum, in fairness, recognised that they are not suitable and said that they would be temporary, but all the communication I get now says, “It will be done by 2029”. Can I invite the Minister to visit these villages and see for herself how unsuitable they are for those hotels?
Anna Turley
I would be more than happy to meet the right hon. Gentleman to discuss that and hear more about his local area. As he knows, we have made great progress in closing asylum hotels, and we are committing to doing that by the end of this Parliament. We have saved over £1 billion since inheriting the chaotic and disastrous hotel accommodation situation from the previous Government.
Chris Ward (Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven) (Lab)
October marks the first anniversary since the appalling arson attack on a mosque in Peacehaven in my constituency. I will forever be grateful to the Home Secretary and the Policing Minister for coming to Peacehaven in the immediate aftermath and standing with me and the local community. I am also grateful to the Home Office for the extra security measures it has given to my community. A year on, what more does the Home Secretary think we can do to stop this kind of appalling hate crime and rebuild community cohesion so that something like that never happens again?
Sarah Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for the work he has done to support his community in Peacehaven. We need to make sure that the right policing is in place. Our £40 million fund for mosques is there to protect those buildings, but we also need to bring back cohesion to our communities, and our social cohesion plan “Protecting What Matters” is designed to do that.
Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)
The PEEL—police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy—review into Surrey police recently found that my local force requires improvement on a range of matters, including how it investigates crime, how it responds to serious crime and the leadership itself. What steps is the Home Secretary taking to ensure that Surrey police improves and that we tackle crime in Woking?
Sarah Jones
We are increasing funding to police and introducing more neighbourhood policing. We are also reforming a lot of the structures within policing to ensure that we have good quality leadership. Lord Blunkett and Lord Herbert did a big piece of work for us looking at how we ensure that we have good leadership across all our forces. We will be looking at their recommendations and bringing them forward.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
Ealing Southall is unique, as two thirds of our rough sleepers have overstayed their visas. Many would go home voluntarily but are often stopped at the airport because the police national computer says that there is a pending case against them, when in fact it has been closed. Will the Minister look at how the police national computer can be updated more regularly so that these people can leave a life on the streets in Southall and go home with dignity?
Sarah Jones
I was pleased to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency last week, where I saw for myself the struggles that those rough sleepers are having. We are trying to go through the piece of work to update the creaking infrastructure that was left to us by the last Government. I have certainly taken that issue away.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I am concerned that recorded crime figures in York Central reached an 11-year high this summer. About a third of those were antisocial behaviour offences, and retail crime reached its highest level, with around 15,000 offences in August alone. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that places like York are properly funded and have all the resources that they need to tackle crime so that we can get on top of this rising level of offending?
Sarah Jones
We are increasing funding and putting more neighbourhood police into our communities. I have seen some really good examples of town centres where retail crime has plummeted because the police and retail are working together to target persistent offenders. We are also looking at introducing a new pilot on persistent offending. I would be happy to talk to her more about that.
Baggy Shanker (Derby South) (Lab/Co-op)
Earlier this month I met reps from East Midlands airport who were telling me about the abuse that their staff face. Some 42% of cabin crew nationwide have experienced physical assault. Does the Minister agree that, as in retail, no airport worker should face abuse just for doing their job?
Sarah Jones
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. We have introduced an offence of assaulting a retail worker, which was deliberately and intentionally narrow. There are other crimes that these people can be charged for, but he is absolutely right to call it out, and we all should.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Ind)
I warmly welcome the £722,000 investment that the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly integrated care board will receive as part of the new steps to safety programme, which will train GPs’ staff to spot the signs of domestic abuse and provide referrals to specialist support. Does the Minister agree that trusted local services such as GPs’ services have a vital role to play to identify victims earlier?
Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for confirming that the contract for the Cladhan to be used as asylum accommodation signed by the previous Government will be cancelled this year. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that that was enabled only by significantly falling small boat numbers and the lowest backlog since 2019, and that claims that people are just being moved around are not borne out by the numbers?
Anna Turley
My hon. Friend is right. We are extremely proud of the fact that we have reduced the numbers of those crossing by boat by 40%, and deportations are up—we have removed over 80,000 people. Those numbers continue to bring down the pressure on the asylum system.
Dawn Butler
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I need some clarification. After I posted my Black History Month speech last week, I received thousands of abusive messages. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O'Brien), posted:
“If you want to tax my constituents more to fund random handouts to your mates overseas then yes, that is ‘stolen wealth’—their money is not yours, they have done nothing wrong, and you can do one.”
That resulted in a racist pile-on, and I am troubled and concerned by the phrase “your mates overseas”. What exactly does the Member mean?
I am deeply concerned by this. It is not about the reparations debate—I can handle people disagreeing with that—but “The Code of Conduct” states that Members are required to “treat others with respect.” I have emailed the Member to ask for an explanation, but none was given. Mr Speaker, could you advise me on how I can obtain an explanation for what was meant?
Mr Speaker
Debate is very important in this House, but how we treat each other matters. We should think about the language and the words we choose. In the end—this is what worries me—how we treat each other in here is replicated, as has been shown in the number of tweets that followed. It has been raised and I am sure that everybody can learn from what has happened. Please, I hope that we will consider what we say to each other and the tone we use.
Civil Service Pensions
(2 days, 22 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Sally Jameson)
I wish to provide the House with an update on the administration of the civil service pension scheme. I must declare my own interest as I hold a civil service pension with His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service.
As we know, the previous Government awarded the contract to Capita in 2023. Earlier this year, in response to significant performance issues, the Government intervened to increase scrutiny and oversight of the scheme’s administration. Capita committed to recovery milestones for April and for June, both of which it failed to meet. In June, we exercised our contractual rights and mandated Capita to produce a rectification plan and—at Capita’s expense—appoint a remedial adviser to assess the plan. The Government also appointed an independent auditor to assess the effectiveness of Capita’s operational arrangements up to July.
Capita committed to the House to deliver recovery milestones in September, which it states it has achieved. However, I want to be clear that that does not reflect members’ lived experience or my own correspondence. Those were self-imposed, self-determined and self-assured targets. Many hon. Members, unions and scheme members have written to me asking why, if Capita has met those targets, they still do not have their quote, their pension remains unpaid and they are struggling with no income despite years of commitment and public service. Building on the good work in holding Capita to account undertaken by my predecessors, my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) and my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Test (Satvir Kaur), I have taken further clear and definitive action to continue that work and ensure that Capita has its feet held to the fire.
We have seen some small improvement on priority cases, with Capita now processing more than it receives, and I acknowledge that Capita staff on the ground are working hard in difficult conditions. We are also seeing some slow improvement on technology, with Capita confirming that increased volumes are being managed through automation. It is also rolling out new tools that allow eligible spouses and dependants to view pension payslips and make online inquiries.
However, the question remains: why has it taken this scale of Government intervention to force Capita to act? Since taking up this role, I have met the CEO and his senior team twice, and on both occasions expressed in no uncertain terms my outrage at their performance throughout this contract. We were promised
“the most AI-enabled Pensions service”.
It is fair to say that Capita has comprehensively failed to deliver on that commitment. The progress overall has been abysmal. Complex issues remain unresolved for too long—1,800 cases for more than a year. Although some individuals have more than one case, too many members and family are still left waiting in limbo. The administration issues have also had a knock-on effect on the progress of Capita’s work on the McCloud remedy. I will update the House on that issue next month.
The House will be aware that my predecessors rightly directed Capita to appoint a remedial adviser and Cabinet Office to appoint an independent auditor through the Government Internal Audit Agency. My officials have this month received the remedial advisory report and the auditor’s interim report, giving independent and objective perspectives. It will not shock this House that the independent adviser’s report clearly shows that Capita’s rectification planning was wholly insufficient, its technology was weak, and its ambition was falling well short of restoring the quality services that members deserve. Poor performance has been evident, but the reports now provide detailed and actionable recommendations, including a new recovery plan for the whole service, with a road map for technology and a focus on data.
The remedial advisory report concluded that, in a service whose success firmly relied on automation, Capita did not deliver the promised technology, that it had not been applying the right techniques to understand demand, productivity and capacity, and that it had not put in place effective mechanisms to detect and escalate failure. Well, I have certainly detected a lot of failure, as have many in this House. For the sake of the dedicated people who are waiting for their pensions, we must not allow the service to fail them further. It is clear that Capita cannot do that on its own. A new plan is needed.
I agreed with Capita executives that Cabinet Office officials would work with Capita to develop a credible, workable and realistic recovery plan for which Capita alone will be held to account. I can confirm that, for the first time, Cabinet Office officials now have full access to Capita systems and data. I have put in place expert teams to work alongside Capita to agree priorities, improve quality and processes, and ensure that pensions are paid correctly.
The new recovery plan is made up of five workstreams. The first three workstreams look at cases of differing levels of complexity, the fourth ensures that significant exercises such as the McCloud remedy are not overlooked, and the fifth, on technology, tackles issues around infrastructure that support delivery. We will require Capita to evidence its focus on fixing complex cases, ensuring that this plan makes the difference that Capita’s original plan could not. Capita has committed that every member with a complex case will be written to in the next month, ensuring that they understand where they are in the system and how they will be supported. Old cases will no longer be allowed to sit on backlogs without progress. Any stuck quote or payment will be actively managed through revised complex case management.
Capita’s new plans will be further supported by challenge and advice from a new group of senior experts, drawn from across the civil service and led by the Cabinet Office. These problems were not created by civil servants, but it will be through the expertise, commitment and perseverance of the civil service that operational delivery is supported and we shape the solutions with Capita. Capita must be open and transparent. We will be publishing fortnightly scheme updates on the pension scheme website, with the number of outstanding complex cases broken down by age, the service levels for straightforward cases and the number of other tasks that are outstanding. We will do so until performance has been stabilised.
I want to be clear that while we are leaning in with expertise, Capita remains absolutely accountable for service delivery. It will need to deliver its contractual obligations and pay for its failures. We will continue to apply commercial levers to recover costs incurred, including holding back nearly £10 million of statements. Throughout this crisis, hon. Members have shown why they and their teams are so valued by their constituents. To support that, we have delivered over 1,300 surgeries for more than 320 MPs. I will provide further updates on the progress of our recovery plan in the coming months.
In addition to the immediate ongoing recovery plan, I want to update the House on the longer-term strategy for the scheme. Following our previous commitments to Parliament, my officials have led an extensive programme of engagement with trade unions, practitioners and experts. The evidence from those sessions was clear: restoring operational resilience and member trust must be the approach. I have instructed my officials to evaluate the viability of a range of future delivery options, including insourcing all core business operations.
There are a number of different insourcing models in operation across the public sector that we will learn from, and we will consider which is the best approach to take for the civil service pension scheme and all the other schemes that it interacts with. Once those assessments are complete, I will return to the House to provide a further update, but in the here and now, Capita must deliver.
This Government inherited a broken, outsourced administration. We cannot replace a complex pension operation overnight, but let me be clear: this Government will hold Capita to account and continue to apply the most stringent commercial levers, and we will not rest until every civil servant receives the pension they are entitled to. I commend this statement to the House.
Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)
I thank the Minister for the briefing she gave last week to me and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart), and for early sight of her statement. I note that it arrived in unusually good time and hope that other ministerial offices will learn from her good example.
The latest figures in the Government’s 5 October update are deeply concerning. As of the end of last month, more than 1,900 cases in four priority categories were more than 100 days old. Of those, just over 1,500 were labelled non-workable, with a further two death-in-service cases in data triage. That includes 1,049 bereavement cases and eight ill-health retirement cases, all classified as non-workable. That is not acceptable.
Recent reporting also raised the prospect of bereaved families facing severe tax consequences because of delays to death-in-service benefits. Reports have suggested that the Government plan to make those bereaved families claw back this money via the Pensions Ombudsman, rather than preventing His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs from taxing delayed claims. To make matters worse, the Pensions Ombudsman itself estimates an 18-month wait to resolve cases. Will the Minister reassure the House and all those watching outside that this is not the case and that bereaved families will not have to proactively claw back that tax?
The Minister mentioned the delivery of surgeries to many Members of this House. Last month, my casework team had a surgery with a member of Capita staff. They were expecting to come away with updates to pass on to affected constituents, but for all the cases that were discussed, there were no updates whatsoever, leaving them feeling that the surgery was a total waste of time. I know that other hon. Members have reported similar experiences. What hope do affected constituents have when reaching out to Capita if it is prepared to tell our teams that nothing has been done on their cases?
The warnings about Capita were there in black and white, and not only from earlier this year, as the Minister suggested. The contract of Capita’s predecessor, MyCSP, was extended to December 2025 to allow a two-year transition nearly 18 months of which was under the current Government. There were several milestones during those 18 months that Capita failed, but the new Government chose not to act. The National Audit Office’s June 2025 report identified many missed milestones and risks around operational readiness and data transfer. The Public Accounts Committee subsequently warned of further missed milestones and the need for contingency plans, but still the new Government chose to allow the new contract to go ahead and gave it that final go-ahead.
Issues with Capita have been reported across several Government contracts. Under the new provisions in the Procurement Act 2023, the Government could refer Capita to the Debarment Review Service for investigation to prevent it from winning further similar contracts. Does the Minister plan to do so?
The people affected by these failings did everything asked of them. They paid into the scheme, and they served this country as civil servants. They should not have to chase their own pensions, borrow for basic bills or wait months for basic updates. I ask the Minister to give the House clear deadlines and to set out how every affected member will receive their payments, and to explain why she is so confident that the assurances that Capita now gives her will deliver results when the assurances of improvements so repeatedly given to this House by her predecessor have amounted to so very little for those retired public servants, who cannot wait any longer.
Finally, I agree with the Minister that Capita should be made to put things right. Cancelling the contract would result in more disruption, but surely there is only so long for which she will put up with failed targets and broken promises of improvements, so what preparations and contingencies will her Department put in place if it is necessary to cancel this contract, and what criteria will she use for deciding when we reach that point?
Sally Jameson
I thank the Opposition spokesperson for his questions. Let me start by saying that I am not making excuses for Capita, and I am not here to defend its triaging of workable or unworkable cases. I made it very clear to the Capita CEO when I met him on two occasions that I do not recognise those categories—it is either done or it is not, frankly. I will not make excuses for that.
In relation to the cases of bereaved families, particularly the families of those who have died under the age of 75, the Cabinet Office has identified that a very small number are at the 18-month point. There is huge focus on ensuring that those cases are resolved before the two-year point, and we will continue to do that with any cases that might fall into that bracket, so that we do not find ourselves in a position where anyone would end up paying tax as a result of having to wait two years for these pension issues to be resolved.
In relation to the casework surgeries, I understand that sometimes the answers people get back are not satisfactory, and that is because Capita’s performance overall is not satisfactory. All the casework surgeries can do is let people know where they are in the system. For a lot of people, that is not good. We are continuing to work to improve the service through the rectification plan. Over time, that should mean that people have a better experience with casework surgeries—as, frankly, the answers should be getting better.
I think this rectification plan will be different from previous plans that Capita has set out because this time the Cabinet Office has access to all the data and to the Capita systems. It has taken the advice of the remedial adviser and worked alongside Capita to help produce this rectification plan, meaning that it is of a better quality. We can now hold Capita to account in relation to that plan, using its systems and using the numbers and data in the correct way, and we will not be quoting things like “unworkable cases” or having all sorts of different triaging mechanisms that make no sense to anybody else.
On the “go live” issues referenced by the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood), by November 2025 assessments indicated that Capita had made significant progress since the Public Accounts Committee hearing in July. The only alternative would have been extending the contract with the incumbent, MyCSP, but anyone who had any involvement with MyCSP would have known it was equally abysmal. The comparative risk assessment conducted in October 2025 concluded that an extension would have been commercially and operationally unacceptable, and presented a significantly greater risk than transitioning. Let me gently say that if, in the 14 years prior, the Conservative party had not stripped our public services to the point where we were reliant on companies like Capita all the time, we might have found ourselves in a different position.
On the question of other contracts in the future, the hon. Gentleman rightly identified that the Procurement Act 2023 will allow Government Departments to look at previous poor performance. It would not be right for me to comment at this time on whether anyone is subject to, or being looked at in relation to, debarment.
Finally, as with any contract of this size, the Cabinet Office always has contingency plans in place should they be required.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for initiating this statement on civil service pensions and for her strong commitment to hold Capita to account, because we are still getting no updates or progress even on the cases that we were told were a priority, particularly those relating to the bereaved. I know she knows the hardship and anxiety this is causing out there, so in the short term will she push those priority cases harder? I join other hon. Members in supporting her to sort this out.
Sally Jameson
I will indeed be holding Capita’s feet to the fire every single step of the way on the rectification plan. Now that we have access to the Capita systems, we will be able to track its progress every single day, as I know Cabinet Office officials are doing. As I said in the statement, we will be publishing figures every two weeks so that people can see for themselves how Capita is performing. If it is not up to scratch, I will return to the House.
Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement and for the briefing last week. Since the last ministerial statement in July, Capita is reported to have met its own September target on priority cases, but as the Minister has said, that does not match lived experience and hon. Members have heard promises of improvement before.
Capita missed both its April and June targets, and months later it is being propped up by a Cabinet Office taskforce. I welcome the news from the Minister that Capita is improving its technology, and I am glad that it has been deploying additional resources to support improvements to its dashboard so that it can get through more cases. Time will show us if that work actually results in Capita working through its backlog—there are still too many people across the country waiting.
My constituent, Diane, who lives in Offerton, applied for retirement at the end of August last year. She finally received her formal quote this month—a full 14 months after applying. It was a whopping £14,000 less than she was informally quoted, which may well have changed her decision to retire had the quote been received in a reasonable timeframe. There are 1.7 million current and former civil servants who simply want to know that their pension will be handled competently, fairly and with dignity. I heard the Minister’s statement on holding Capita to account, but will she say, in terms that our constituents will relate to, exactly how she is planning to do that and what the impact will be on families around the country?
I note the Minister’s comment on debarment, but, given the absolute shambles Capita has made of this situation, can she truly say that she would be happy for it to bid for future Government contracts? Will the Government finally commit to inflation-linking payments for all outstanding cases in order to ensure that those affected by Capita’s mistakes do not pay even more for Capita’s delays?
Sally Jameson
I am sorry to hear about the experience of the hon. Lady’s constituent, Diane. It is just one of many, many cases that we have heard about where the outcome is totally unacceptable. The Chief Whip was on the phone to me this morning about her constituent, Lisa, who is also facing similar problems in getting anything out of Capita.
The hon. Lady asked what I am doing to make sure that Capita lives up to its promises on the most recent rectification plan. As I said, Cabinet Office officials are now in the Capita systems every single day, which has given us the ability to challenge the organisation in a way that we have not been able to do before. If we do not start to see progress each fortnight, as we publish those results, I will have the Capita CEO back in and I will continue to hold Capita’s feet to the fire. All options remain on the table contractually. It is in Capita’s interest, frankly, to pull its socks up and do a better job.
On debarment, I really cannot comment on anyone that may or may not be subject to consideration or investigation under the Procurement Act. However, I think that most hon. Members would recognise that Capita has done a pretty poor job. It is not its first rodeo either—I will leave that there. I will take away the hon. Lady’s point about inflation-linking and write to her, and I am happy to meet her to discuss it further.
Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow West) (Lab)
I have no doubt that Members across the Chamber have an extremely regrettable constituency postbag on this issue, as I do. I thank the Minister for her statement. I do not plan to rehearse the cases that I have seen, but, needless to say, they are all marked by the fact that timescales seem to be ignored, while people are being left in financial hardship. People are finding it very hard to understand why this is the case with a Government body—or, at least, with a body that they think is a Government body. How long will Capita have to deliver on the latest rectification plan, and how will the Minister judge it on that plan? Does she have a timeframe for all that work?
Sally Jameson
In terms of the timelines, I do not want to set a date here today and end up with there being disappointment. However, now that the figures are going to be released every fortnight, if we do not start to see pretty rapid improvement over the next month, I will come back to this House and explain the next steps that might be taken.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (North Cotswolds) (Con)
I thank the Minister for her statement, but the situation is worse than she has outlined. We have had four PAC inquiries into Capita’s administration scheme this year, and it has missed virtually every single one of the deadlines that it set out in each of those hearings.
The latest revelation I have discovered is that if Capita does not pay out the lump-sum payment due to bereaved relatives within two years, those relatives will have to pay tax at the highest rate. I wrote to the Minister about that issue; she very kindly replied and had a meeting with me, and she told me that there were not likely to be more than 10 such cases. I find that improbable, given that the scheme has 1.7 million members. Indeed, The Guardian has published an article saying that 1,600 members have been waiting for over 100 days, so it is likely that many of these people will get up to the two-year deadline. Can she guarantee to the House today that she will either enforce Capita paying compensation for any lost money, or change the law so that none of the people in that very vulnerable position, waiting for their payment, will be worrying about whether they will pay tax?
Sally Jameson
I thank the hon. Member for meeting me last week to discuss this really important issue. The relatively small figure of around 10 that I gave to him is in relation to a very specific category of families who are at or beyond the 18-month point. Cabinet Office officials are working to ensure that they are dealt with as quickly as possible, but if it ends up looking like the rectification plan is not going fast enough and more people will fall into scope, I will of course take further action. I have also liaised with His Majesty’s Treasury on this issue.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I am the chair of the Public and Commercial Services Union parliamentary group. I think we all appreciate that my hon. Friend has inherited a scandal, and I thank her for the access that she has given to the unions and for working with them closely. In her statement, she mentioned the independent audit report. Will the Grant Thornton report be published and, if so, when? The trade unions are willing to work with the Minister on bringing this service in-house—first the front operations, then eventually the computer systems—in a gradual but, I hope, fast way. Let me ask her this. The Government went ahead and outsourced to Capita the payment of salaries in three Government Departments under the Synergy contact. If there is any delay in wage payments at all, will that contract be brought in-house immediately?
Sally Jameson
Due to some commercial and legal sensitivities, we will not be able to publish the Grant Thornton report. However, we will make it confidentially available to the Public Accounts Committee and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. I will work with the trade unions on any future plans that we might have for the scheme, and I am happy to work further with the PCS parliamentary group. The Synergy contract did not fall in the remit of the Cabinet Office—it was with the Department for Work and Pensions—but I am sure that my right hon. Friend’s comments have been heard.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
Like many MPs across the House, I have a number of constituents who have been affected by this issue. I thank the Minister for her comprehensive response, but there is an issue that concerns me more than anything. When the procurement process happens, it seems that officials come to us and assure us that a series of decision points have been gone through, and that the options before us are the best ones available—as a former Minister, I recognise that. However, when these things go wrong, nobody is individually accountable. What would the Minister say to our constituents, who are alarmed at the fact that nobody is apparently responsible for such a dire outcome?
Sally Jameson
Of course, the contract and the procurement were done under the last Government. In relation to accountability, the immediate priority for me and the Cabinet Office is getting this crisis resolved and making sure that all constituents get the pensions they should have. There will of course be lessons learned, and I will look into that personally, but the priority at the minute is getting people their pensions.
Jon Trickett (Normanton and Hemsworth) (Lab)
The right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) says that people should be held accountable for their actions, but let us remember that the Conservatives allocated this contract to Capita, knowing that it was a recidivist, continually breaking contracts that had been outsourced.
It is totally unacceptable that a woman living in Upton in my constituency who gave 40 years of her life to public service has been left with no response from Capita for over 300 days since we contacted them. Since then, she was diagnosed with cancer. We can imagine the problems that people affected by this issue face in any event; pile on the problems that she has with illness, and we can imagine the personal anguish. Has the Minister been able to establish whether Capita is in breach of contract? Finally, let me say this: bring it back in house.
Sally Jameson
I am sorry to hear of the experience of my hon. Friend’s constituent, which is particularly terrible. I encourage him to write to me about it, so that I can look into it. As for bringing the scheme back in house, we are looking at all the different in-house options at the minute; we have a team doing that. We are working with the trade unions and other experts on it, but I am really clear that Capita needs to clean up this mess; it will not be the UK taxpayer who pays to do it. We will make sure that we recoup any costs of the additional support that we have provided.
Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)
I thank the Minister for her statement. I, too, am on the Public Accounts Committee, and as the hon. Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) mentioned, we have done our best to get reasonable responses from Capita. My constituent Jane has been failed time and again by Capita; there has been a five-year delay to her pension payments, poor communication, an unexplained suspension of her pension, and now an outrageous demand that she repay £8,000 because of Capita’s mistake, not hers. Will the Minister condemn that treatment and reassure my constituent that the Government will ensure that she is treated fairly following those serious errors? Will they ensure that Capita, as a contractor acting on behalf of the state, is properly held to account for its failures? That has not happened so far.
Sally Jameson
I am sorry to learn of the terrible experience of the hon. Member’s constituent; there are many more like it. If she would like to write to me about that, I would be happy to look into it. I will continue to hold Capita to account. We have withheld nearly £10 million of contractual payments, and Capita is voluntarily invoicing a 10% reduction in its fee until the service is restored to an appropriate level.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
As the Public Accounts Committee Chair said, we have had Capita before the Committee on many occasions. In all my time in the House, I do not think I have seen a worse example of incompetence, failure to deliver to deadlines, and a company seemingly just not caring about its effects on people and the distress it is causing. Every time Capita’s representatives come along, I simply do not believe a word they say. Does the Minister really have any confidence, even with all the guardrails that she is putting in place and all the connections to the Cabinet Office, that Capita is capable of delivering a scheme that actually works and delivers pensions on time?
Secondly, I congratulate the Minister on what she said about looking into bringing the scheme in house; it is a pity the previous Government did not think about that before they let the contract. Will she commit to updating the House regularly on how far she is progressing with those possibilities? In the end, bringing the contract back in house may be the only option for giving pensioners a proper scheme, given Capita’s failures.
Sally Jameson
I agree with my hon. Friend that Capita’s performance has been absolutely abysmal. There are no excuses for it, and I will make no excuses for it and its terrible performance. I have more confidence in the rectification plan I outlined today, purely because of the involvement that Cabinet Office officials and experts have had in it, and because they now have access to the Capita systems and data, which they did not have before. That will allow us to properly hold it to account. On bringing the scheme in house, it is a manifesto commitment that we will have the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation. I am committed to that, as is everyone on the Labour Benches. I will continue to update the House on progress made on this policy.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
I recognise the Minister’s efforts to resolve this issue, and I am grateful to her for meeting me recently, but far too often, Capita remains completely unresponsive. Sadly, trying to get an appointment at the MPs’ surgeries is proving very difficult. Last week, I wrote to her about four outstanding cases in my constituency. Will she commit personally to reviewing those cases and securing me a detailed update, so that my constituents know what to expect and when to expect it, and when they will get the money that they are owed?
Sally Jameson
I thank the right hon. Member for meeting me recently and raising her constituency cases. I will ensure that I identify those four cases, follow them up personally, and get back to her as soon as possible. I am sorry to hear that she struggled to get an appointment at the surgeries. I will work with my officials to see if there is any way that we can increase capacity, so that everyone can get the appointment that they need.
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
Only on Friday, I spoke to a constituent who gave notice of retirement in March and still has not had his pensions quote. I commend the Minister very much on the very hard work she put in over the summer, after the actions I took and the statement that I made to the House in July. Looking to the future of the scheme, can she assure me that she will direct officials to do the preparatory work to make sure that the different insourcing options are viable ones that we can put to the House?
Sally Jameson
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question, for all the work he did up to the summer on appointing the remedial advisers, and for all the help he has given me since. I will absolutely make sure that the right preparation work is done on any insourcing options, so that when people in the civil service retire, they can have confidence that the scheme we end up choosing is the right one for them.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
I have to say that I found the Minister’s statement extraordinarily complacent and singularly unhelpful. It is a damning indictment of successive Governments’ failure to get to grips with a full-blown pension crisis. It is not good enough to simply criticise Capita. We know how bad it is. People want real and decisive Government action, so will she commit to bringing the scheme in house, ensuring that meaningful emergency payments are paid out to people who are in real trouble, and get to grips with solving this issue, once and for all?
Sally Jameson
I do not accept at all that this is not a meaningful plan. I set out in some detail the measures and the resources that the Cabinet Office is putting in to get this whole process back on track, so that it delivers for scheme members. Many former colleagues of mine have been affected. Everybody is working night and day to try to rectify the situation. As I said, we are looking at all options for insourcing, but we do not want to do anything that will bring further disruption for scheme members. Everything we do must be member-led and in their interests, but of course we are looking at all the options. Significant work is going into contingency planning and future options for the civil service pension scheme.
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for her update. I appreciate the focus on complex cases—Members across the House are dealing with many of them—but can I ask that she also looks at the paid-for fast-track services? I have a constituent who paid almost £700 for a pension valuation in order to finalise his divorce. It was expected within 10 working days, but it took nine months; the wait cost him several times the original amount. Does the Minister agree that that is entirely unacceptable? What action will she take to ensure that Capita refunds any payments taken for so-called fast-track services that are nothing of the kind?
Sally Jameson
I am sorry to hear about the experience of my hon. Friend’s constituent. It is absolutely disgraceful that they have been treated that way by Capita. If she could write to me with the details of that case, I am happy to look at it, and to see if there is any further assistance that I can provide.
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
My constituents will welcome the robust tone of the Minister’s statement, but what difference will this make for constituents such as John Carroll from Annan, who worked at Dumfries prison and who has been waiting since February to hear anything meaningful from Capita? What difference will it make to the likelihood of a response?
Sally Jameson
I believe that Cabinet Office officials are now working in lockstep with Capita to ensure that it delivers against the new rectification plan, which was recommended by the remedial adviser. As I have said, we will be able to see on a fortnightly basis how Capita is doing in bringing down the case numbers, and that should give some indication of the service recovery level. If it is not up to scratch—we will know whether that is the case in the coming weeks—I will of course update the House on any further action that we can take to improve the service.
Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)
Communications with Capita did get better for a time, but I am afraid they have dropped off a bit now. Let me share with the House the sad case of a constituent who came to us in May 2026. She had spent two hours on the phone to Capita; she could not get through, and she had two pensions unpaid. She had retired from the Department for Work and Pensions with breast cancer. In June, she was contacted by another scheme member—a completely different person—who said that on two occasions, she had been sent my constituent’s details, both the annual benefit statement and some other details about the scheme, which was an appalling breach of GDPR. Can the Minister please help me to resolve that case, as it is still outstanding, and will she consider compensation for those who have waited for more than two years, and from whom I have many emails in my inbox?
Sally Jameson
I am sorry to hear of the experience of my hon. Friend’s constituent. There are no excuses for that. According to the deadlines that Capita sets itself, the case should have been resolved by now. If my hon. Friend will write to me, I will take it up with the chief operating officer of Capita. I would be happy to have a further conversation with my hon. Friend about what we are considering in respect of compensation, but the Pensions Ombudsman is obviously aware of what is happening with Capita, and a number of people will want compensation for their loss of income and the impact that has had on their life.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
A constituent of mine from Somerton applied for retirement nearly a year ago, but has had to withdraw her application twice because she has not received her pension quotation, and she obviously cannot afford to retire with no income. My caseworkers have been attending the fortnightly casework meetings regularly, but there has been no resolution of this issue and many others like it. If neither Capita or the Cabinet Office can resolve my constituent’s problem, will the Minister intervene personally and tell my constituent when she will finally be paid?
Sally Jameson
If the hon. Member writes to me with the details of that case, I will look at it myself and ensure that it is passed to my private office as well. I am sorry to say that this is the experience of many scheme members because of the failure of Capita. It is not acceptable, and we are working day and night to ensure that Capita is held to account and the service is improved.
Tom Rutland (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Lab)
I have raised in the Chamber previously the appalling delays that my constituents are experiencing in gaining access to their civil service pensions. Those delays continue. Another problem they are experiencing is that if they do not agree with the amount that they receive when they finally receive it, there is no response to their concerns from Capita and, indeed, no response to my correspondence on their behalf. Will the Minister raise with Capita the need for it to respond, as a matter of urgency, to my constituents who are receiving lower amounts than they expected, and to make corrections where necessary?
Sally Jameson
I will continue to challenge Capita about that. I have already done so, particularly in relation to correspondence from Members to which its responses have not been acceptable. If my hon. Friend will write to me about any specific cases, in particular the one that he has mentioned, I will happily put that in front of Capita myself.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
Let us not sugar-coat this: the contract has been a complete flop. Yes, it was awarded under a past Government, but now it is under the current Government—but of course the Prime Minister is setting the standard of not playing the blame game, although I have heard a lot of that today. What my constituents want to hear is when this will be sorted out. Ministers have talked about a recovery plan in April—fail. They talked about a recovery plan in June—fail. They talked about a recovery plan in September —fail. There has been failure after failure after failure. Will the Minister answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood), and tell us whether Capita will be given any other Government contracts? Will my constituents be compensated? This Government wanted to be in government, so now that they are, may I ask when the Minister and the Government will take responsibility for this, take control of the contract, and get it sorted out, because my constituents are suffering?
Sally Jameson
I set out in my statement how we are taking responsibility, holding Capita to account and ensuring that it fulfils its contractual obligations. For legal and commercial reasons, I cannot discuss other Government contracts in the House right now, or who might be subject to debarment under the new procurement law—I made that clear in response to earlier questions. We are now moving to a member-led approach and dealing with the most complex cases first. We will be able to see that on the fortnightly update to the website, where members will be able to see cases going down. We will mark progress against that by looking at the cases on the website and the updates that Capita sends me, and by seeing the improvements. If those improvements do not start to materialise in the coming weeks, I will return to the House with what further actions we may take.
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
I declare an interest, as I hold a civil service pension. I thank the Minister for her statement. Like other Members of the House, I have a number of constituents who provided years of service in the civil service. They have retired yet have had to wait months to be paid. Could the Minister say more about the pressure she is putting on Capita and the options for taking the whole matter in-house?
Sally Jameson
We have already withheld nearly £10 million in contractual payments, and Capita is voluntarily taking 10% less in its monthly payments. On bringing the service in-house, it is important that we get this right, do it at the right time and ensure that we pick the best model for the scheme, so that service members do not have to suffer any further. We are liaising with trade unions, pension experts and others to look at the options for different types of models, and I will return to the House when I have further updates on that.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
Like many right hon. and hon. Members, I have constituents who have not had their pensions paid. In the worst case, a constituent has waited for 11 months without a pension. My question is twofold. First, what compensation will the Minister force Crapita—sorry, Capita—to pay those constituents who have missed out? Secondly, there are tax implications for the sequencing of payments, so payments can fall in different tax years, among other things. Will that all be squared away with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, so that our constituents do not overpay tax?
Sally Jameson
We are committed to ensuring that no member is left financially worse off, and Capita has committed to paying interest on late payments. All complaints will be handled with reference to the Pensions Ombudsman standards. Compensation can be awarded following investigation under the internal dispute resolution procedure—first by Capita and then by the Cabinet Office. If members are not satisfied, they can then refer to the Pensions Ombudsman. On tax, it is difficult to comment on individual cases. If the hon. Gentleman is aware of a specific case and would like to raise it with me, I will liaise with His Majesty’s Treasury to ensure that no one is negatively impacted.
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on getting a grip of this issue. I am a member of the Public Accounts Committee and, as we have heard, we have had repeated undertakings from Capita that improvements were imminent. Despite that, many of my constituents are still waiting for quotes and pension payments. The Minister has set out clearly that Cabinet Office officials are effectively taking over the delivery from Capita. Does she agree that this is a shambles and that Capita should pay for its failures?
Sally Jameson
The Cabinet Office is leaning in, but I want to be absolutely clear that Capita is still responsible for the contract and is still accountable for the delivery of any rectification plan. All options remain on the table and, as I have said, we are looking at different in-house models for this scheme, in line with our manifesto commitment to have the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
I thank the Minister for updating the House. I have had so much casework on this, as she will know, with some really heartbreaking stories. The fact is that the backlog, including the growing number of cases over 100 days old, is just continuing to grow. One of those in the backlog is my constituent Ann, who had to leave work with a life-threatening pulmonary embolism and severe pneumonia, and five months later she is still waiting to receive her money. She will be very disappointed with what the Minister has said today. I think she is looking for some really hard facts on the timescales. When will this be sorted once and for all? Are there meaningful sanctions? When will we hear whether Capita can be prevented from bidding for other Government contracts? Could there be some clawback of all the money her Department is spending on trying to put this right? When will there be compensation for my constituents who have had to wait so long?
Sally Jameson
I thank the hon. Member for raising her constituent’s case, and I am sorry to hear of Ann’s experience under Capita’s own self-imposed deadline. That case should have been resolved by now, and if the hon. Member wants to write to me about it, if she has not done so already, I will ensure that it is looked at. On further contracts for Capita, this Government brought in the Procurement Act 2023, which allows us to consider poor performance in giving out other contracts. As I have said, I cannot discuss whether Capita, or any other organisation, is subject to an investigation or anything in relation to debarment, but there is now a lever at the Government’s disposal.
Kate Osborne (Jarrow and Gateshead East) (Lab)
Like many other MPs, I am still being contacted by constituents about their civil service pensions and the unacceptable delays. It is deeply concerning that my constituent Julie, who retired from the civil service in February, had her pension finalised only in September, and these delays are causing huge distress and financial hardship. If we are going to pay compensation, should it not be paid by Capita, not from any pension pot, and will that be done without having to navigate any lengthy or tiresome claims process?
Sally Jameson
I am sorry to hear about the experience that my hon. Friend’s constituent has had, as have the constituents of so many in this House. On compensation, as I have set out, we are absolutely determined that no member will be worse off as a result of Capita’s failure. The Government are determined to recoup every single penny we have had to spend helping Capita to resolve the failures, which it should have been able to do itself. On her constituents being able to claim compensation, I will come back to this House at a later date once we have this under control, and I will be happy to answer further questions on that. However, as I have set out, complaints will be handled in reference to the Pension Ombudsman standards.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
In North East Fife, civil service pension delays are not the only issue. I have previously spoken in this House of the “Jobs Forgotten” campaign for retired former police officers who are dealing with the failings of the Scottish Public Pensions Agency, so I found the comments from the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) interesting.
My question to the Minister is this: one of the things my office is finding is that, just as they manage to sort out somebody’s case, a new one comes in, so I appreciate the interest and focus on complex cases, but are we not just firefighting if we are not stopping new cases emerging in the first instance?
Sally Jameson
There is a focus on complex cases, but alongside that Capita is working to do incoming cases on a live basis, particularly those relatively easy to resolve. It is actually processing more cases than it is getting in, but because of the significant backlog and the high number of complex cases, it still will not feel like a good service to many members.
Frank McNally (Coatbridge and Bellshill) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for her statement. As I have mentioned in the House before, my constituent Mr Fraser served as a prison officer until he retired in 2020, yet six years on he is still waiting for his accurate pension. Like many impacted by the McCloud remedy, he has been met with barrier after barrier, with little to no explanation—as have I, when I met Capita as recently as the summer. Can she update the House on what specific steps are being taken to clear the McCloud cases so that Mr Fraser can receive what he is entitled to?
Sally Jameson
I thank my hon. Friend for raising his constituent’s case. As I said in my statement, I will come back to the House in the next month or so to give an update on the McCloud remedy. Capita has completed the discovery phase, but due to delays and the identified complexities in the remaining cohorts, it is not clear whether the initial date is achievable. I will come back and update the House on what more we will be doing to ensure that his constituents and others get the pension they are entitled to.
Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)
I thank the Minister for her statement. Elizabeth from Carpenders Park served as a Ministry of Justice usher for 23 years before retiring in January. Months later, she has still not received a single pension payment. That is despite spending more than two hours sitting in queues on the phone while simultaneously being prevented from using the pensions portal due to the high volume of inquiries. I am conscious that the Minister is encouraging casework to be brought to her via her good offices, but I am mindful that there will be a lot of casework across the House. What effort is she putting forward so that both Capita and the Cabinet Office increase capacity to deal with the backlog, as well as new cases?
Sally Jameson
I am sorry to hear of Elizabeth’s experience. It is totally unacceptable, as are so many of the cases that we have heard about today—and so many that we will not hear about, too. As the hon. Member will know, the Cabinet Office supplied nearly 150 staff in a surge team to help support Capita in processing the backlog. We also now have senior Cabinet Office officials working every single day with Capita to ensure that it is dealing with the complex cases that need serious expertise to be processed. We will continue to support Capita in any way we can. The remedial report noted that the technology let Capita down in a big way. It has now put some further resource and money into the technology, so automation should help process some cases faster. The biggest learning from the report is that while Capita said it would be an AI-enabled pension scheme, that just was not the reality.
Douglas McAllister (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab)
West Dunbartonshire has one of the worst backlogs for civil service pension cases in the country. Although taskforce meetings help me keep constituents informed, the delays remain unacceptable. On top of that, I have found that many pension quotes are incorrect, requiring manual recalculation by Capita, whose revisions team is overwhelmed. My constituents are waiting too long for quotes that are often undervalued, or omit service years, or use incorrect pay rates. Is the Minister aware of these particular issues, and what steps will the Government take to address them?
Sally Jameson
I am sorry to hear of the experience that my hon. Friend’s constituents have had. It is totally unacceptable, and Capita has been totally unacceptable. As I said in my statement, its performance has been utterly abysmal, and those at Capita should hang their heads in shame at how they have treated dedicated public servants in this country. I will take up the issue that he raises with my officials to ensure that we are improving that part of the service, so that his constituents can get the correct quotes that they need.
Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
Another weekly surgery, another Capita complaint—this time, a constituent was told on one of her many calls to Capita that she would have to wait while they accessed the spreadsheet because someone was already using it. When the Minister talks about some slow improvements in technology, one can only imagine that Capita’s starting point was a typewriter and abacus. Even with the support of officials, does the Minister really trust Capita to safely deliver an AI-enabled service to our constituents?
Sally Jameson
I agree with the hon. Member. I am not a tech expert, but I certainly know there is nothing AI about the system that Capita has been using. It is totally unacceptable that Capita suggested that the system would be AI, when clearly it was not ready to take on this level of automation. The technology was not available to Capita at the time. Cabinet Office officials are working on the Capita systems day in, day out to make sure that we are holding Capita to account and challenging it. As I have said, there have been some improvements to the technology, and I have told Capita that those improvements need to continue. Whatever it is putting in, there is more it can do, and I continue to tell Capita representatives that every time I meet them. As far as I am concerned, things will never be good enough until every single person affected has the pension that they should have and the compensation to which they are entitled.
Gordon McKee (Glasgow South) (Lab)
My constituent Denise lost her husband in September last year, and in the more than a year since she has been passed from pillar to post by Capita, as have many of my other impacted constituents. Now Capita tells me that it has lost the form that Denise submitted in January. Does the Minister share my disgust at this rank incompetence? Will she do everything she can to help Denise and my other constituents?
Sally Jameson
I share my hon. Friend’s disgust. I will look into that case to ensure that Capita finds the paperwork, or if it must be re-sent, that it is actioned immediately. As my hon. Friend said, it is indicative of Capita’s total and utter incompetence. We need to bear in mind that this is why it is important that we stick to our manifesto commitment to have the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
What should I say to my constituent, a stage 4 cancer patient, who applied for his civil service pension in April and has heard nothing? What should I say to him about the fact that, as his Member of Parliament, I wrote about his case to the Cabinet Office on 26 August—two months ago today—and have equally had no reply and heard nothing?
Sally Jameson
I am sorry to hear that the hon. and learned Member has not had a reply from the Cabinet Office; I will chase that as a priority when I leave the Chamber. I receive correspondence daily from Members across the House and I get on with them as quickly as possible, so I am unsure why something sent on 26 August has not come to me yet. I will chase that immediately. According to Capita’s own deadline, the case the hon. Member describes is something that should have been resolved by 1 September, so when I receive the correspondence, I will ensure that it is chased appropriately.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for her robust work in this area. Capita’s handling of the civil service pension is nothing short of a disgrace. I have seen people taking out loans, falling into debt, having bailiffs sent to their houses and suffering serious mental distress because of this sham. That cannot be how we treat people who have dedicated their lives to public service. While I welcome today’s statement, the Government changes and the much-needed action that the Minister is taking, my constituents want Capita to face consequences. What consequences has Capita already faced? Will she guarantee that further failure will mean further consequences?
Sally Jameson
I agree with my hon. Friend: Capita has been abysmal, as I have said a few times now. It is for that reason that my predecessors in the role held back nearly £10 million in contractual payments to Capita—a move that I supported. Capita, on a voluntary basis, is now receiving 10% less on its monthly payments because it recognises that its service is wholly inadequate. All other options remain on the table. I will monitor the outcome of the new rectification plan on a fortnightly basis and return to this House if it is not good enough.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
Pat’s father died in September last year. It took eight phone calls between October and May to be told that everything was in place. It then took another three months to be told that the claim was accepted and literally awaiting dispatch. We are now four months further on. Does the Minister think that it is acceptable for it to take four months to put a stamp on a letter and send it?
Sally Jameson
No, it is not acceptable, and if the hon. Member flags that case with me, I will ensure that it is chased. I will not make excuses for Capita’s poor performance; it is accountable for its performance, and frankly it should be ashamed.
Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)
I have taken up 11 constituency cases about the civil service pension this year alone, and only three have been resolved. I was pleased to hear the Minister’s strong statement, because my constituents are fed up of being told by Capita that things are improving when they are simply not. The most heartbreaking case is that of a gentleman I started helping at the beginning of the year, who has since died. His widow is now having to fight Capita, and I am doing everything I can to fight alongside her—I am sure she will be glad to know that the Minister is with her too. What can the Minister say to give my constituents confidence that the situation will finally improve?
Sally Jameson
I hope that Capita is listening to the pain and hardship that it has caused so many thousands of dedicated public servants up and down this country. The new rectification plan that is being done with Cabinet Office officials means that we should hopefully see some improvement. We will be monitoring that on a fortnightly basis, since Capita will now be publishing the numbers. I will keep a close eye on that and ensure that the House is updated.
Susan Murray (Mid Dunbartonshire) (LD)
I have been contacted by constituents whose complaints Capita has closed without resolution and whose pension quotes have disappeared. I heard the Minister say that old cases will not be allowed to sit in backlogs without progress, but my constituent, who served 43 years in the Department for Work and Pensions, alleges that this is an example of Capita manipulating closure figures. Will the Minister say how the Government are monitoring Capita to ensure that complaints are closed only once they have been resolved and that quotes do not disappear?
Sally Jameson
I myself was not confident in the numbers previously given by Capita, as I said to its face after 1 September, when it claimed to have met its self-imposed deadline, which did not reflect the experience of scheme members. We have today heard about cases that should have been resolved by that deadline, but which clearly were not. I agree that Capita has been, let us say, flaky with the truth on the reality of the numbers. The difference now is that Cabinet Office officials have access to those systems; they can go in, see for themselves exactly what is going on, verify the numbers and figures that Capita is providing and report back on that. The transparency of the new fortnightly updates means that we will be able to see those cases in all their glory and see whether or not the figures are coming down.
Katrina Murray (Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for this statement. Like everybody else, I have cases that I have contacted the Minister about, but today I want to raise something else—something that has been consistent across all the cases that my office has dealt with on a regular basis, which is how my constituents are being treated when they call the Capita helpline.
My constituents describe being laughed at and being told that, regardless of what happens in this House, it will be up to Capita to decide when they actually get their pensions. These individuals—people who have served this country well for many years—are getting increasingly desperate, as they have often had no income for up to a year. Nobody should be treated without dignity or respect by anybody acting in the name of this Government. I ask my hon. Friend to engage with her officials to ensure that the message that this is completely unacceptable is driven through to Capita.
Sally Jameson
I am absolutely disgusted to hear about the experience of my hon. Friend’s constituents with the Capita hotline and will be taking that up with Capita myself. It is totally unacceptable. No one in Capita right now should have the time to laugh, frankly; they should be spending every waking minute working to resolve their failures and the crisis that our retired civil servants are facing.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
I have many constituents who are caught up in this hell—this limbo. Some of them have been waiting for more than a year. However, I also have teachers writing to me concerned about the transfer of the teachers’ pension scheme from Capita to Tata that is now under way. Thinking about lessons learned, what advice would the Minister offer to her counterpart in the Department for Education?
Sally Jameson
I will be discussing with the Department for Education the lessons that we have learned from this transfer. Capita has shown publicly how terribly it has been—you do not have to look far to find a constituent who has been affected by this. We absolutely must improve these services going forward, which is why we are exploring in-house models. We want to have a big wave of insourcing, because we can no longer be totally reliant on these companies that let us down time and again.
Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for her update and recognise that she is working hard to try to resolve what is a heartbreaking situation for so many pension recipients. I have seven cases currently open with the Department, including the case of a constituent who retired on 1 May but, despite repeated correspondence, has received no payment since then. Another constituent, whose case I first raised with Capita in January, ahead of his retirement in spring, finally received a quotation, with payments expected, only for Capita to decide that the quotation was wrong. He is now back to square one, and is still not receiving any payments. Will the Minister undertake to investigate those two particular cases, as well as others that my office has raised with the Department, and ensure that they are resolved?
Sally Jameson
If my hon. Friend writes to me with the detail of those two cases, I will, of course, be happy to look at them. What he raises is just another example of the poor service that Capita has provided—an indictment of its incompetence.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister very much for her understanding of these issues and her perseverance in trying to deliver results. Everyone in the House can understand her annoyance. The facts are deeply concerning. While the Government and Capita point to putting in place specific milestones for what they count as “workable stock”, the hard data shows that hundreds of priority bereavement and death-in-service cases remain completely trapped, some over 100 days old. Given that the independent remedial adviser and technical audit reports are due this month, will the Minister outline exactly what robust commercial penalties or legal enforcement measures are being prepared against Capita if it fails to restore full contractual service levels immediately?
Sally Jameson
Some of Capita’s classifications for cases—“workable cases” and that sort of carry-on—are not something that the Government ever recognised; that classification was not in the contract, and it is something that Capita has made up. I was very clear when I first met the CEO of Capita that I do not recognise that. Capita said that those bereavement cases would be resolved by 1 September. If any of those have not been resolved, then frankly that is a missed deadline.
In relation to what further action we could take, as I have said, my predecessor already withheld £10 million in contractual payments. Capita is receiving 10% less each month on a voluntary basis while the service remains as poor as it is. The Government now have at our disposal the Procurement Act 2023, which allows us to take into account poor performance when regarding other contracts.
Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)
Capita has missed its deadlines and failed in its obligations to my constituents. Supposed priority death-in-service cases, such as Derek’s, are unresolved, and people have been left grieving for over a year without having received what they are entitled to. Quotes such as Anne’s, who retired from the Scottish Prison Service nearly seven months ago, have still not been provided, and annual benefit statements have been delayed, leaving people concerned that they will not be paid accurately when they finally are paid. We should insource this scheme. I appreciate the Minister putting that option on the table, but my constituents deserve transparency as well as action. If not the full report, will the Minister publish just the recommendations from the independent remedial adviser’s report?
Sally Jameson
My hon. Friend has raised a number of issues related to Capita and fought for his constituents on many occasions in the Chamber. As I set out, it will not be possible to publish the full remedial adviser’s report for legal and commercial reasons. However, we will be providing it confidentially to the Public Accounts Committee and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. I will discuss with officials the possibility of bringing out a smaller version of it that can be made public, but the rectification plan that we have put in place is based on the recommendations of the remedial adviser.
Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)
Several of my constituents are in financial hardship as a result of Capita’s failings. This appalling company has even sent out financial statements and letters with figures deliberately obscured so that former civil servants do not know what they are entitled to. MPs across the House have clearly lost confidence in Capita, so will the Minister agree for the Cabinet Office itself to set up a hotline for MPs to raise cases and hold regular surgeries so that we can ensure that our former civil servant constituents get the money that they are entitled to?
Sally Jameson
I appreciate the points that the hon. Gentleman raised. The Cabinet Office is working with Capita on existing cases from MPs’ surgeries. The only hesitancy I would have is that the priority is to make sure that the service Capita is providing is improving. I could put lots more resources into this, but unless Capita is able to provide answers, produce a quote, and deliver people’s pensions, we will not see an improvement in the output that people are getting. We will absolutely keep under consideration what more we can do to help people, but I really want to hold Capita’s feet to the fire on this rectification plan so that we can get to a position where the surgeries are not needed any more because people are getting what they deserve.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
I thank the Minister not just for her statement but for the tone of her statement, which I am sure will be very much appreciated by many of my constituents, including Kathy, who has given 26 years of her life in service to the Ministry of Defence and the Prison Service, yet Capita’s failure means that her retirement has been blocked three times in just over a year. A fortnightly dashboard is welcome, but what guarantees can the Minister give that Kathy and thousands like her will receive their pension payments on time? Will the auditor’s report be published in full for MPs and the unions?
Sally Jameson
I am sorry to hear of Kathy’s experience. What has happened to her and many scheme members up and down the country is not right.
As I have said, we will not be able to publish the audit report in full for legal and commercial reasons, but we will provide it confidentially to the PAC and PACAC for their scrutiny. The remedial adviser’s report recommended the rectification plan that we have put in place. That has only just been put into place. In the coming weeks, we will monitor whether it is working. If it is not, we will take further steps. Nothing is off the table.
Mr Joshua Reynolds (Maidenhead) (LD)
Stuart is 83. He lives in a care home in my constituency, which his pension pays for, but that pension stopped for four months over the summer, and even after my constituency office intervened he has had less than a quarter of those arrears paid back.
Anna, another of my constituents, is in her 80s. She has just come out of hospital, and she is owed a staggering 17 years’ worth of widow’s pension. In July, Capita told me that the payment would be made within two weeks. In August, it said that it had no notes on file from that July meeting. In September, it told me that payment would be made within 10 days. On the 15th of this month, it said that it was still awaiting human authorisation. Last Friday, I was told that four members of Capita’s staff were working directly full time on her case. Would the Minister like to join me this Friday at 11 o’clock for my next weekly Capita casework call to try to ensure that Anna finally gets some of those 17 years’ worth of pension payments?
Sally Jameson
The situation that the hon. Member highlights for his constituents is totally unacceptable. I understand why he is so angry about it; I am, too, as I am about so many of the cases we have heard about. I am not sure whether I can make 11 am on Friday, but I will follow up after the statement to see if we can get any further progress.
Rough Sleeping and Good Growth Funds
(2 days, 22 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Homelessness, Democracy, Communities and Faith (Florence Eshalomi)
With permission, I would like to make a statement on the Government’s plan to tackle rough sleeping and homelessness and to deliver good growth in every part of the country. On the Prime Minister’s first day in Downing Street, he made ending rough sleeping his first priority. He did so because having a safe and secure place to call home matters to almost everything else in life. It affects our health and how children do at school, whether people can find and keep a job and the opportunities that come their way in the future.
Security is about much more than a roof over our heads; it is about whether the place we call home gives us the chance to succeed. That means putting the foundations in place for strong local economies and thriving places, because, ultimately, the economic growth we want is created by people, and people are better able to get on in life when they have a decent home, a good job and a community with the tools to shape its own future. For this Government, that means backing local leaders, too, giving them the freedom to invest in the homes, high streets, jobs and infrastructure their communities need, rather than making them bid for funding from Whitehall pots.
Today, I am updating the House on two important steps in our work: new investment to tackle rough sleeping and prevent homelessness, and the roll-out of good growth funding across England. Both stem from the same belief: national Government should provide the backing while local leaders who know their communities have the freedom to get on and deliver.
Earlier today, the Prime Minister brought together local leaders, charities, businesses and other partners in Downing Street to drive forward the pledge he made on his first day in office. Our immediate commitment is to offer everyone sleeping rough a route off the streets this Christmas and to bring forward new accommodation and the right support to help people move ahead with their lives. We are backing that commitment with an extra £432 million from next year, so that local areas can continue to provide a route off the streets over the rest of this Parliament. That takes the total funding supporting the Prime Minister’s pledge to £874 million.
This immediate help matters enormously, particularly as the winter approaches. This weekend, the first two named storms of the season brought severe weather across the country. Tragically, two men lost their lives after being struck by falling trees in Dumfries and Galloway and in north London. Our thoughts are with their families and loved ones. For anyone sleeping rough on the streets, that is a stark reminder of the dangers that winter can bring.
Getting people somewhere safe is urgent, but just as important is what happens next. It is not enough to offer somebody a bed for a few nights and then see them return to the streets. People sleeping rough may need help with their physical or mental health, finding a job or other complex needs. A route off the streets, then, must come with the support that people need to rebuild their lives, regain their independence and, crucially, find lasting security away from the streets.
This programme is designed to be led locally. Rough sleeping does not stop at council boundaries, and neither do many of the services that people rely on. Whether funding goes directly to local councils or through mayoral strategic authorities, local leaders will have the flexibility to bring partners together and respond to local pressures.
However, we need to break the cycle of crisis altogether. We cannot wait until someone has lost their home before stepping in. That is at the heart of our national plan to end homelessness: public services working together, intervening earlier and preventing homelessness wherever possible. That is why we have already moved to ban no-fault evictions, repeal the Vagrancy Act 1824 and reform right to buy to protect our social housing stock. We are bringing long-term empty homes back into use and tackling unsuitable bed-and-breakfast accommodation for families. Temporary accommodation should be temporary. All too often, it is anything but.
The principle of trust in local leaders brings me to good growth. In our “Rewiring the State” Cabinet statement in July, we committed to supporting mayors to establish good growth funds across England, putting more investment and decisions in the hands of local leaders. Today, I am updating the House on the first steps towards delivering that commitment, ahead of the Chancellor confirming the plans at the Budget.
The people best placed to help their communities should be given the freedom to invest in their future. For too long, local leaders have had to navigate a patchwork of Whitehall funding pots, making it harder to plan for the long term and use public money effectively to unlock the most important projects for economic growth. Good growth funds are designed to change that.
Today, we are confirming funding of £285 million for 2027-28, comprising good growth funds and transitional capital funding for other areas progressing towards mayoral devolution. That will give local leaders more freedom to invest in the projects their places need, from homes and town centre regeneration to infrastructure that connects people to jobs and opportunities. Importantly, when money goes back into that fund, it can be used to back new projects. That creates a virtuous cycle: public money goes further while mayors gain greater independence to plan and deliver for the long term.
I am proud to be a product of local government, and I want local government to have the means to deliver. That is why we are working with mayors to design a new £1.5 billion borrowing facility from 2028, giving them access to finance to back major local projects. We will provide strategic authorities with an additional £150 million in 2027-28 to strengthen their capacity and capability as the range of powers and responsibilities they hold grows, because devolution cannot simply mean giving local leaders more responsibility. If we expect them to take on that responsibility, they need the people, expertise and resources to deliver properly. These are first steps. The Chancellor will confirm these plans at the Budget, alongside the fiscal devolution road map, which will set out the Government’s plan for a new funding system for regional and local government in England.
I began with the commitment the Prime Minister made on his first day in Downing Street. Today’s summit at Downing Street was about keeping the momentum behind that promise—getting people off the streets, ensuring that the right help is there for them afterwards and breaking the cycle of crisis that leads people into homelessness in the first place. The Prime Minister also talked on his first day about a Government who invest in people’s successes rather than paying for failure, and that underpins all I have set out today. People can get on in life when they have a decent home, a good job and a community with the confidence and means to shape its future. That means giving people the security they need. It means giving local leaders the powers and investment to create opportunities in the places they know best. That is how we build a country where no one is written off and where every part of the country has the chance to succeed and to share in that good growth. In that spirit, I commend this statement to the House.
Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of the statement.
Over the weekend, we heard yet another policy announcement made through the media, with the Prime Minister taking time out of his very busy reality TV schedule to brief the press that he will apparently end rough sleeping by Christmas. That is a laudable aim, which I think will be shared across the House by parties of all colours—I am sure everyone in this country wants to see rough sleeping fixed as an issue once and for all—but the pledge reminds me of a similar one, made almost a decade ago, in 2017, by the then Mayor of Greater Manchester, to end rough sleeping in that city region by 2020. Again, it was a nice idea, sold in a nice, upbeat way, but sadly it did not reflect the reality. Rough sleeping still exists in Greater Manchester; in fact, the numbers have risen from 2021, and the rate even doubled in 2025-26.
The Prime Minister may be in his new job—and perhaps he took inspiration from another reality TV programme, “The Traitors”, to kick out his predecessor with the help of his new Chancellor—but the Labour party is not new in government. It has been in charge now for well over two years, exactly the same period during which rough sleeping has continued to rise in Greater Manchester. The Prime Minister asked us to judge him on his record as the Mayor of Greater Manchester, so that is precisely what we are doing.
Failure in Manchester is one thing, but on a national scale the numbers are even bigger. So far, the Prime Minister has said that he will put another £432 million of taxpayers’ cash towards this approach, bringing the total commitment to £874 million. The Government themselves estimate that there are around 4,000 rough sleepers on an average night, which means the policy will cost in the region of £200,000 per rough sleeper. Will the Minister confirm that and tell us where all the money will go?
At the same time, the Prime Minister refuses to rule out tax rises or to upset his left-wing Back Benchers by cutting benefits, so the Government need to be honest about where all this money will come from. He has talked about bringing hope, he talks about positivity, and we all know his fondness for “good vibes”, but what really matters is the delivery and the detail. In the past, the Prime Minister has failed to deliver on this issue precisely. He talked a good talk, he made the grand promises, but he could not keep them on rough sleeping. We see this time and again from Labour Members, because they believe they can solve a problem just by throwing more money at it, as if money grows on a magic money tree. They need to accept that it is not their money; it is taxpayers’ money—taxpayers who are increasingly being squeezed for all that they have; taxpayers who deserve to know where their hard-earned cash is being spent and that it is being spent wisely.
I am sorry, but taxpayers are being completely let down by this Labour Government. The deficit is out of control, and rather than making the necessary cuts, they are coming back with even more spending commitments. We have a Budget later this week, and the Conservative party has been clear that the Chancellor must use it as an opportunity to properly deliver for working people across the United Kingdom. The benefits bill has to be cut, the tax burden needs to be eased on businesses and workers, and the net zero nonsense that makes our electricity and heating more expensive has to go.
Of course, all of us on this side of the House want to see rough sleeping ended, but that will only be achieved through action, not through empty promises made by a Prime Minister with a track record of failure on this issue. We need to see delivery.
When this Labour Government pledge to deliver, they fail to deliver. Perhaps the Minister can remind me how they are getting on with building the 1.5 million new homes they promised to build, as housing supply and rough sleeping are clearly linked. Why should anyone believe that they can deliver when the Prime Minister has repeatedly failed on this precise issue?
When the Labour party fails—as it always does, every time it is in government—it is always someone else’s fault. It is always someone else’s money. Labour Members can come out with all the pledges and promises they want, but at the end of the day it is the British people who have to pay for their repeated failures.
Florence Eshalomi
It is always good to see the hon. Member in his place.
We have to look at the facts of what we are dealing with. This Government inherited a homelessness and rough sleeping crisis; both rough sleeping and homelessness in temporary accommodation have more than doubled since 2010. I mentioned that I have just come from a summit earlier this morning in Downing Street, where the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and I convened a range of organisations, charities, faith leaders, civic societies and groups, and council leaders working on this important issue.
To understand the challenges of rough sleeping, we have to recognise that it is not about just putting a roof over people’s heads. For many people sleeping rough, it is about the wraparound support. It is about the long-term interventions on substance misuse. It is about support to help them manage their finances. This is what, crucially, that funding will go to. It is not about handing out £200,000 per person; it is about the many organisations who fundraise on an annual basis to address this issue. We on this side of the House are proud that this Government are committed to that, given that, to our shame, we are seeing people still sleeping rough in England in 2026.
The shadow Minister outlined the figures and statistics from Manchester. What he failed to realise and mention is the fact that the then Mayor of Greater Manchester inherited that crisis from the then Government, and that there was not enough funding to support some of the key initiatives. So the then Mayor of Greater Manchester took on that initiative, working with many charities to bring forward a programme which we are now looking to replicate in order to be able to meet this commitment.
When looking at investment and intensive support for people sleeping rough, we must listen to their lived experience—the lived experience that was shared with us this afternoon and at that summit—to ensure this is an issue not just for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to solve, but working across Departments, across Cabinet, showing that there is real commitment. Now we have a Prime Minister, Secretary of State and Minister who are really focused on looking at how we can end rough sleeping, I hope the Opposition will get on board.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.
Ms Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
I warmly welcome the Minister’s statement. I had the opportunity to attend the summit, and I agree that prevention is the key to ending rough sleeping. I ask the Minister to implement all the Committee recommendations from the rough sleeping inquiry—I know the Government have implemented some of them. I have a specific further question: what assessment have the Government made on identifying people likely to become at risk of homelessness if the local housing allowance remains frozen at this Wednesday’s Budget?
Florence Eshalomi
I thank the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee for her participation in this morning’s summit. She highlighted the Committee’s statement and recommendations: I hope that she agrees that this Government are going further and faster than previous Governments in addressing rough sleeping. This new cash injection will make immediate provision to address the Committee’s recommendations, help to ensure people are off the streets by Christmas and, most importantly, provide long-term and intensive wraparound support to ensure that no one ends up back on the streets. She knows that the local housing allowance is close to my heart. We continue to raise it with Treasury colleagues and I ask her to continue to press the Treasury on the matter, in the same way that I will continue to do so.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
The Liberal Democrats welcome the Government’s commitment. We want to see an end to rough sleeping, but we have heard such pledges before. The last Conservative Government promised to halve rough sleeping by 2022 and end it by 2027, then brought that forward to 2024, but they achieved neither, leaving 8.5 million people in England with unmet housing needs. This attempt must do better—a catchy pre-Budget headline needs a plan behind it.
Somerset council has identified 142 bed spaces, but given that it will not know its share of the money until Wednesday, that will leave only around eight weeks for the council to deliver the spaces before Christmas. Rough sleeping is not just an urban problem: in Somerset, 80 people were found rough sleeping on a single night at the last count. In Glastonbury, 131 vans and caravans are being lived in at the roadside by people who have been priced out of a home by rents that they simply cannot afford. They do not show up in the rough sleeping count, but they are homeless in all but name. The County Councils Network warns that more than 23,000 children in rural England are growing up in temporary accommodation. None of this will be fixed without more social homes, so the Liberal Democrats would build 150,000 of them a year.
I have three questions for the Minister: is eight weeks a realistic timeframe for councils to deliver? Will the funding reach rural areas, not just our cities? And will it be backed by long-term investment in social housing, or will people be forced back on to the streets come January?
Florence Eshalomi
I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for her important questions. Local councils, strategic authorities and charities are working hand in hand with the Government to address rough sleeping. At the summit this morning, I heard people excited by the plans and the additional funding, and willing to play their part because they recognise that Government cannot do this alone. Solving this issue will take a whole-of-society approach and everyone coming together. The National Housing Federation has been working with its partners to bring forward and offer over 2,000 properties across the country, although we need many more and this is just a start.
Local councils are up for the challenge and they are working with the Government. I hope that the additional funding offers them the guarantee that the Government are committed to the issue in the long term. They had funding guaranteed only until March, but now they have funding for the next three years. We are putting our money where our mouth is to show that we are working on the issue and we are offering support in the long run.
The hon. Lady asks about rural local authorities. Rough sleeping comes in many different forms and guises across the country, and it is important for us to take a place-by-place approach. There are a range of complex reasons why people end up rough sleeping. We know that rough sleeping in urban areas is totally different from rough sleeping in coastal or rural areas, so any approach must be led by local councils, strategic authorities and local organisations who know what works best in the area.
The hon. Lady asks about our long-term building ambitions. We know that the only way that we can address the vicious cycle of people finding themselves homeless again and going back to sleeping rough is by having safe, secure and affordable social homes, like those that many hon. Members grew up in. Through the social and affordable homes programme, we are making the biggest cash injection to build those homes, and equally protecting the homes that we currently have. We have set out those plans in the Social Housing Bill, which I hope the Lib Dems will continue to support.
Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)
I thank the Minister and the Secretary of State and congratulate them on securing additional funding for this important initiative—not least because, on the basis of the submission from the shadow Minister, the Conservative party thinks that we should not be doing anything at all. I am pleased to see this Labour Government doing the right thing.
We have seen street homelessness increase in our constituencies over the years, not just in the areas where we might normally expect to see it, such as in Bristol city centre, but in vans, on the downs and in the church gardens in Shirehampton in Bristol North West. The prevalence of street homelessness has increased to unacceptable levels. Will the Minister tell us how the Department will decide how to split the pot of money it has received from the Treasury between different councils and communities across the country to ensure it gets directly to the people who need it most this winter?
Florence Eshalomi
I thank my right hon. Friend for his support and for recognising the work that we are trying to do and areas where we are working to get additional funding from the Treasury. He is right about ensuring that funding goes out as quickly as possible, and we are working with a range of different councils and strategic authorities to look at how best to get that funding out. Discussions continue to go on with my officials, the Local Government Association and other council leaders to ensure that the money goes out in the most appropriate ways.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
Can the Minister clarify something for me? Over the weekend, it was revealed that criminals released early from prison under Labour’s appalling Sentencing Act 2026 were provided with tents, because no accommodation was available for them. Those are criminals who are now out on the street and homeless. Can the Minister let me know if some of the £874 million for homeless people goes to finding accommodation for those early-release criminals? If there is no accommodation for those criminals, where is the accommodation coming from for homeless people?
Florence Eshalomi
One of the key pressures that we see is the revolving door of criminals being released with nowhere to go. This is about how we tackle and address the stigma with criminals coming out from prison. We are working closely with colleagues in the Ministry of Justice to identify and ensure that before prisoners are released, they have somewhere safe and secure to go. Ultimately, this is about looking at where the funding is going. With regard to the right hon. Lady’s comment about the tents, I am not aware of that, but I am happy to provide her with additional information.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome this statement and the commitment of the Prime Minister and the Government. I note that in the Minister’s statement, she talked about the commitment being to offer everyone sleeping rough a route off the streets this Christmas. We know that during covid, some people were offered accommodation who were so used to living on the streets that they were not able to take it; in Hackney, the excellent lead on homelessness took a really pragmatic approach to dealing with that issue in the short term. Does the Minister have any idea of the percentage of people who will be affected by that issue and how they will get wraparound support if they refuse to take accommodation?
Florence Eshalomi
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that really important question. The Routes off the Street initiative has to be tailored to a person’s individual circumstances—that could mean accommodation, support or both. Support could include things around mental health, substance misuse, employment or training, or support to access and maintain accommodation. One comment I heard at the summit was about someone who had been sleeping rough for many years who, even when offered accommodation, chose to sleep in a sleeping bag. We have to recognise that for many people, this is not just about securing accommodation; we have to take a tailored and individual approach to how we help people, with many of them suffering long-term trauma and needing additional support. It is vital that we continue to work with colleagues across the NHS and the Department of Health and Social Care in looking at the additional support that will help people to stay off the streets.
Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)
The Prime Minister has said that wider society, especially the faith and voluntary sectors, will need to play their part in ending rough sleeping, but voluntary groups such as Woking’s homeless shelter, the York Road Project, are already overstretched and underfunded. How will the Minister ensure that the voluntary sector is supported and funded to end rough sleeping both this year and in future years in the long term?
Florence Eshalomi
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that important question. He is right that many voluntary groups, including faith groups, have been doing this for many years, with little or, in some cases, no funding. Many have been driving national fundraising campaigns, many have been crowdfunding, and especially as we get closer to Christmas, many will be asking their members, their congregation and their supporters to campaign and donate. What we are doing with this national drive is bringing together different resources and perspectives to share those best practices and learning, and looking at how we can unlock more progress by building an alliance and healthy coalitions. As I mentioned, this issue will not be solved by the Government alone; it is also about working with groups that have a long history in this area and ensuring that they are adequately supported. That is one of the areas we will be looking at.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Over the years we have worked incredibly hard in York, across multiple agencies, to end rough sleeping by looking at the holistic needs of people who were out on the streets. I am pleased to say that we have cracked that nut. However, we have a challenge in the way the funding works for people with no local connection. Will the Minister say a bit more about how we can ensure that such people receive funding in the place where they are choosing to stay and that there is a proper transfer of resources?
Florence Eshalomi
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that important point. It shows that where local councils are working really well to tackle this issue, they are coming together and working with different community groups, faith groups and voluntary organisations. It is that kind of example that we want to learn from and replicate right across the country to address this issue.
With regard to my hon. Friend’s specific question on people who may not have any local connection, we are introducing legislation to provide for a duty to collaborate, and looking at how we can help people who are identified as being at risk of homelessness; identify them earlier so that the right support pathways can be provided to them; and connect them to other services, if the local council cannot support them.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I welcome the ambition of the Minister—and the Prime Minister—and I hope that she will succeed. The visible signs of homelessness are people sleeping rough on our streets, but in any one day there are 300,000 people sofa surfing who may end up on the streets tomorrow. Anyone who is rough sleeping now will be suffering in their mental and physical health. They may be addicted to drink or drugs, or they may be on the streets because of gambling—every case is unique. As the Minister rightly says, it is not just about putting a roof over someone’s head; it is about building a network of support around them.
There are two things that I would ask. First, we know what works. Housing First works—building a network of support around the person to enable them to rebuild their life. The second issue is those rogue landlords who will exploit vulnerable people. The Minister knows what is coming next. When can we get my Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 in place so that we can stop those rogue landlords exploiting people, and potentially taking much of the money that the Government are offering?
Florence Eshalomi
I commend the hon. Gentleman for the work that he had done on this issue over many years, and the work that he led to push the then Conservative Government on their manifesto commitment to end rough sleeping by 2024. I declare that he and I briefly co-chaired the all-party parliamentary group for ending homelessness. We have to work together cross-party to address this really important issue.
The hon. Gentleman knows the principles of Housing First, which involve inclusive, up-front support so that people who have been sleeping rough for a long time can move away from the streets into safe, secure accommodation where they feel valued, listened to and loved—and feel hope—and can look at how they can support themselves, before they go on to independent living. That is a key initiative that many successive Governments have known works, and it is something that we want to build on as we expand it. With regard to his second point, this is an area that, again, is very close to my heart, and it is something for which hopefully he will not have to wait much longer.
Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)
My constituency consistently has the highest number of rough sleepers in the country. This is not a statistic that we welcome. I was grateful for the opportunity to attend the Prime Minister and the Minister’s rough sleeping summit today, and to visit The Connection at St Martin’s in my constituency, where I spoke to people who have been sleeping rough and the frontline workers who work every single day to help people off the streets. This sustained funding will make a real difference, and we cannot overestimate the impact that it will have. Will the Minister comment on how local authorities should collaborate in the future on local connection, in relation to how that issue prevents some people from finding a sustainable home, and on the commissioning of detox and recovery services, which have been fragmented for far too long? The fact that these things are so fragmented is holding people back from the recovery that they so desperately need.
Florence Eshalomi
I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for her comments and support. We were able to visit an organisation in Victoria in her constituency a few weeks ago, a fantastic charity called Change Please, to speak to people who have been helped. It offers people who are sleeping rough and facing homelessness an employment opportunity and vital skills so that they can provide for themselves and secure their rent and accommodation. We want such initiatives rolled out across the country, giving people who are sleeping rough and facing homelessness another chance. On her question about people with no local connections, this is an area that many local authorities continue to raise with us. We are having more discussions with them, especially with colleagues in the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office. On her question about the funding package, this is an area we will continue to explore. I hope she will continue to engage with Ministry officials on that.
Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)
I invite the Minister to join me on a tour of the beautiful town of Stone in my constituency. As we walk down the high street, she will see the grade II* listed Crown Hotel, which is sadly slowly degrading because the owners are not putting in the investment that is required. To me, the good growth fund sounds like a brilliant opportunity for Stafford borough council to look at compulsory purchasing that building and ensuring that the investment required to bring it back to life is put in. However, we do not have elected mayors in Staffordshire, so how can authorities such as Stafford borough council access this money to deliver growth and investment in our town centres?
Florence Eshalomi
The right hon. Gentleman raises a valid point about areas without mayoral strategic authorities. We are ensuring that we can work with local councils. We continue to engage with areas without mayoral strategic authorities so that they, too, will not lose out on this vital funding. I ask him to continue to engage and ensure that his authority gets that funding.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. I want to get in as many Members as I can on this statement, so can we have shorter questions and shorter answers, please?
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
I welcome today’s additional £432 million to tackle rough sleeping. With reoffending accounting for 80% of offending in England and Wales, securing stable accommodation on release from prison is absolutely central to reducing reoffending and making our communities safer, yet last year around 1,000 people a month left prison homeless. Will the Minister work with the MOJ to use this investment to go beyond the target of halving homelessness among prison leavers? As we seek to accelerate progress on preventing homelessness, I am concerned that the Ministry intends to replace quarterly accommodation figures with annual reporting, so will the Minister press for quarterly publication to continue to be tracked?
Florence Eshalomi
I thank my hon. Friend for that important question. I highlighted the fact that, for many people leaving prison, a secure and safe accommodation may not be waiting at the end, so we are looking at working more closely with colleagues in the MOJ and across the prison estate to ensure that people leaving prison go to somewhere safe. The Secretary of State continues to press that with other Cabinet members and it is something we regularly discuss at the interministerial group, where all colleagues come together to discuss that. With regard to her question about reporting and the figures base, I will take that back to officials.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
Stonepillow is a local charity tackling homelessness on the streets of Chichester. One of its most vital services is the day hubs, where people can engage if they are at risk of, or are experiencing, homelessness, importantly without any judgment. So much of the Government’s previous funding has been crisis funding, but prevention work, as the Minister knows, is a key part of tackling the root causes and cycles of homelessness. If this programme is designed to be locally led, does the Minister see value in encouraging local leaders to direct some of the funding to outreach services such as the day hubs, which are currently working on an annual cycle and do not have the structure to know that they will survive?
Florence Eshalomi
The hon. Member has given a crucial example of where this works well, but, as she says, some charities and other organisations have been working with very little funding. I ask her to engage with her council to ensure that the vital funds that every area will receive are going to the right organisations. I will be happy to provide her with more details in that regard.
Andrew Ranger (Wrexham) (Lab)
I welcome the measures that the Minister has announced. However, over the weekend volunteers have reported to me that homeless people from Wrexham, in Wales, are being put up in temporary accommodation over the border in Chester, where they are being exposed to significant drug abuse and similar problems. Housing is devolved, but this matter crosses the border. What work is the Minister doing with the Welsh Government on safeguarding standards of cross-border care, and what funding will flow to Wales as a result of what she has announced?
Florence Eshalomi
My hon. Friend raises the important issue, which comes up often, of out-of-borough placements in temporary accommodation. We continue to discuss that with the devolved Administrations and representatives of other local areas where we are seeing an increase in the number of people being placed out of borough and the pressures that it is causing in local communities. Issues relating to community cohesion fall within my responsibility and I continue to monitor that closely.
Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)
I think that all Members will support these proposals and hope that they succeed, but in order for new plans to be successful, it helps to understand why previous schemes might not have been. Given that last year the national homelessness strategy promised to halve rough sleeping over the course of this Parliament, with an uplift in funding, why does the Minister think that in the year to June this year homelessness was up compared to the previous year, and why is she confident that her plan will do better?
Florence Eshalomi
What we are seeing with this new focus on homelessness is support, from the very top: support from the Prime Minister, who made it his mission, on the steps of Downing Street, to ensure that this country would not continue to watch people sleeping rough. That support is now being backed by crucial funding to help local areas to design schemes to ensure that people come off the streets. However, we are not stopping there, because it is not just about the street and a bed for Christmas; it is about long-term support. The hon. Gentleman referred to what failed, and why homelessness went up. He will find that more people will gravitate towards an area where a project or initiative has been successful. We are trying to ensure that there is support across the country, so that every area is helped to deal with rough sleeping and homelessness.
Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
This year I have convened a taskforce in Stoke-on-Trent with key service providers and people with lived experience to tackle the issue of homelessness for those who experience substance misuse. A particular challenge is enabling them to receive mental health treatment concurrently with drug and alcohol treatment. Does the Minister agree that it is absolutely vital for those providing mental health support to work concurrently with all other service providers to provide a sustainable pathway to recovery for this vulnerable group, and will she take me up on my offer, visit my constituency, and perhaps attend a taskforce meeting?
Florence Eshalomi
My hon. Friend has asked me to visit her constituency and, diary permitting, I will look at that. She is right: many people who are sleeping rough and experiencing homelessness face a number of complex challenges and needs which, in some cases, fall to very stretched mental health provision and substance misuse services across the country. We want to continue that vital partnership work with colleagues and the NHS to ensure that those local services are helping people by providing the right pathway of support before they are housed.
Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)
While the Minister’s statement is laudable, it seems that her Department is working against the Ministry of Justice by moving in what is clearly a different direction. May I point out that when prisoners—dangerous criminals—are released early on to our streets with no fixed abode, they cannot be tagged? If they are sleeping rough, they cannot be tagged. Will the Minister make it a priority to house those criminals, those early-release prisoners, so that the public can be protected?
Florence Eshalomi
I will take that back to colleagues in the MOJ, but we cannot force anybody into housing. We have to assess people on an individual basis.
Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab/Co-op)
The mission of social justice runs through all faith organisations in this country, and nowhere is that greater than in the work of churches in tackling homelessness and helping to give people a second or third chance in life. It was a privilege to attend today’s rough sleeping summit alongside my hon. Friend and so many faith organisations from across this country. In my constituency, projects such as the Salvation Army, the Light Project and Hope into Action have worked on this agenda for years. Can my hon. Friend reassure us that faith organisations, and the expertise, care and love that they provide in our communities, will be central to the new strategy going forward?
Florence Eshalomi
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments, and I am pleased to hear that he found the summit inspiring, challenging, meaningful and purposeful as we came together to address rough sleeping. He is absolutely right: faith communities right across the UK have been doing a lot of work in this area, and they have provided charity and support for so many people. In some cases, people have turned away and shunned them. People have harassed and attacked them, but faith communities continue to open their doors. It is vital that we continue to work with faith communities and the voluntary sector in addressing this mission.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
One in six care leavers experiences rough sleeping, and last week I met representatives of Step by Step, which supports young people in Dorset and across the south. They told me that young people in supported housing and foyers dread the cliff edge of their 18th birthday because it can mean eviction, as benefits assume that young people are living at home. What will the Minister do with colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions to specifically support care leavers with the full rate of universal credit, so that they do not end up on the streets at the very moment they achieve adulthood?
Florence Eshalomi
This is a key area that we discuss, and I continue to discuss it with the Minister with responsibility. I hope that we will soon have some additional updates for the hon. Member. It is vital that we recognise that many young people might still not be able to live independently once they hit 18, and it is important that we look at support for them as they transition into adulthood.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for her statement, and for the £874 million investment into ending rough sleeping. I particularly welcome this Government giving local leaders the power to make decisions that work best for their own areas. Given the very different character of rough sleeping in Ealing Southall, where the vast majority have no recourse to public funds, will she work with Ealing council and Hope for Southall Street Homeless, based at St Anselm’s church, to give them the funding and powers they need, so that the very unique circumstances for rough sleepers in Ealing Southall can be addressed?
Florence Eshalomi
I thank my hon. Friend for making that important point. She is absolutely right: in many inner urban areas, we find a lot of people without recourse to public funds. It is vital that local authorities exercise discretion about local connections and people who have no recourse to public funds, which should not be a barrier to accessing support. Local authorities have to assess individuals based on their needs, including accommodation, and refer them to additional and appropriate services to help them.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I recently attended a veterans breakfast at HMP Berwyn, the huge prison that serves north Wales and much of north-west England. I was told by representatives of veterans charities that arranging housing across the border—particularly for veterans, many of whom do not have family associations with local authorities—is particularly difficult. Could the Minister look into cross-border issues in relation to prisoner release, particularly across the border between England and Wales?
Florence Eshalomi
I am happy to look into that and come back to the right hon. Lady.
Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)
Today’s announcement is a hugely important step forward, as is having a Prime Minister who has put ending rough sleeping at front and centre of the political agenda. As a patron of Doncaster Housing for Young People, I see the difference that wraparound support makes to people who are vulnerable to homelessness. Will the Government ensure that we measure success not just by the number of people helped off the streets, but by how many people are able to rebuild their lives and remain in secure accommodation for the longer term?
Florence Eshalomi
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that vital point. As I have highlighted, this is not just about giving people a roof over their heads for Christmas; this is about the long-term support, including vital wraparound support, to help people stay off the streets and make a meaningful contribution to society. A number of people who find themselves sleeping rough or in homelessness want to go back and offer their vital employment and training skills, so it is vital that we look not just at a bed for Christmas, but at the support afterwards.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Your Party)
I absolutely welcome the statement. To achieve the aims the Minister has outlined, could she please end the “intentionally homeless” rule, which is often cruelly applied to people who end up homeless; will she increase the local housing allowance to a realistic level compared with local rents; and, finally, will she intervene to stop housing associations selling off empty properties in areas of high housing stress when they should be housing people in desperate housing need, not sold on the open market?
Florence Eshalomi
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising those vital points. He is absolutely right about looking at the “intentionally homeless” terminology, which I know colleagues are continuing to look at. I and other Ministers press the matter of local housing allowance with the Treasury, and we will continue to do so. On housing associations and councils selling off some of their empty properties, it is vital that housing associations and councils have the capital funding to bring such properties back into use, and we will continue to work with them on how they manage those properties.
Tom Collins (Worcester) (Lab)
In Worcester, I recently hosted a summit attended by representatives of over 30 organisations, from the national Government to regional agencies and authorities, and all the way to local charities and churches, which all pledged to work together to end rough sleeping in Worcester. One outcome of that summit was that it was clear that we need not only more resources, which are incredibly welcome; we also need to change the way of working. When people are affected by long-term ill health or disabilities, or the effects of crime and trauma, they need holistic support delivered relationally. This cuts across all Government Departments and services. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how we might roll out, across Government, a change that wraps around people?
Florence Eshalomi
It seems as though my hon. Friend jumped the gun and held his own summit before we did at No. 10 today! It is good to hear about the lessons learned there. It sounds similar to what happened at the No. 10 summit, where organisations, charities, civic society, local leaders, local authorities and businesses all came together to make a pledge to work towards resolving this issue. It is vital that we learn lessons from such summits, and I would be very happy to meet my hon. Friend.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
I really recognise the Minister’s description of councils jumping through hoops to access a patchwork of funding pots. That is certainly the case for Mid Sussex district council, which was successful in accessing central Government money to buy temporary accommodation that is providing absolutely vital homes in our district. However, when it comes to regenerating Burgess Hill town centre, it does not matter whether it is a Conservative or a Labour Government; we have been unsuccessful in accessing levelling-up funding, and last week Burgess Hill town council wrote to me about its not receiving any Pride in Place money. Will the Minister visit Burgess Hill to see the work that we are doing?
Florence Eshalomi
It is good to make sure that I am getting out of south London, so I will look—diary permitting—at coming to see that work, which is right and important. This Government are removing some of the ringfence that comes with the vital funding that councils need. I hope the hon. Member’s council will be successful in the new round.
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for her statement, and indeed this Government for their willingness to grasp the nettle in order to end rough sleeping and homelessness. I am grateful that she mentioned temporary accommodation and the wider impact, particularly on children, of not having somewhere to permanently call home. The number of children living in temporary accommodation in Scotland has risen by 22% since 2022, despite the Scottish Government declaring a housing emergency in 2024. What conversations has she had with the Scottish Government about how, if both Governments are to be successful in meeting their goals of ending child poverty, they are tackling the number of families languishing in temporary accommodation?
Florence Eshalomi
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that vital point. It is really sad to see that increase of 22%, and it is a shame that no SNP Members are here as we try to hold their Government to account. We will continue to press the devolved Administrations, and work to closely with them, to ensure that no child is left behind.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister very much for her statement. It is good to hear that her voice has recuperated after Thursday’s debate on Black Lives Matter.
When it comes to the £432 million that has been allocated, churches across this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland do lots of work for homeless people, including in Northern Ireland. The Salvation Army that operates in my constituency of Strangford operates across this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as do veterans charities. In other words, the charities that work in Northern Ireland and here do the same work. What can be done to ensure that charities working in Northern Ireland can also receive some of this help, and will the Minister give an undertaking to work with the Minister for Communities in the Northern Ireland Assembly to ensure that delivery can happen across this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
Florence Eshalomi
It is always a pleasure to take a question from the hon. Gentleman, and I thank him for raising the vital work in his constituency and across Northern Ireland. This funding is new money, and an additional part of it will be agreed in the Budget process with the Treasury. He will be aware that, as part of the normal Barnett consequentials, this will apply to all the devolved Administrations, so they will also receive the additional funding.
Steve Race (Exeter) (Lab)
I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as I am very proud patron of Exeter’s local homelessness charity, St Petrock’s. I was very grateful for the opportunity to join the Minister this morning at the No. 10 rough sleeping summit to set out Exeter’s experiences, as we have one of the highest and increasing levels of rough sleeping in the country. The Prime Minister made the point that we need to treat people as people, not as numbers. That is absolutely the way of local charities, like CoLab and St Petrock’s, which know these people individually, and they should lead the way. Does the Minister agree that statutory services, like the NHS and the Prison Service, really need to step up and come on this journey with us, too?
Florence Eshalomi
It is good to see that many local areas are sharing their experience of dealing with this matter. We have to be honest: a person sleeping rough costs the taxpayer on average about £14,000 a year in public service use, so it is really important that we are working across different Departments. This is not just an issue for MHCLG. There has to be a whole-of-Government approach, and I am really pleased that we have a strong interministerial group to address this.
David Williams (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
Having worked for our local YMCA in Stoke-on-Trent for nearly two decades before entering this place, this issue is personal to me, so I warmly welcome the statement. I was also so pleased to attend the homelessness summit at No. 10 earlier today. At that summit, the Prime Minister rightly talked about seeing people—getting to know their names—and not treating them as numbers and statistics. This is about giving people what we all need in life: it is about love, hope and dignity. We have heard today about the important role played by the voluntary sector. Does the Minister agree that voluntary and community sector partners are absolutely critical to getting this right, as they are they are rooted in the communities they serve? Can I offer her a visit to meet some of our fantastic organisations up in Stoke-on-Trent North and Kidsgrove?
Florence Eshalomi
I thank my hon. Friend for the expertise and knowledge he brings to these matters, and for some of the comments he shared with me today about how we can address them. He is absolutely right about the work led by many voluntary and charity groups right across the country, working hand in hand regardless of which Government are in control. These groups continue to work with people who, in some cases, society has said are too hard to reach. They are not hard to reach; we just do not know how to reach them.
Sean Woodcock (Banbury) (Lab)
In the Thames valley, as with much of the south-east, the key driver of homelessness is high house prices. Many of the measures announced today and over recent months, while welcome, are focused in areas with mayors. In the south-east, however, devolution has stalled, meaning that some of these levers will not be available. Can I urge the Minister and the Secretary of State, who was sitting next to the Minister earlier, to get on with delivering devolution across the south-east so that we can tackle the issue of homelessness in areas with high house prices, including the Thames valley?
Florence Eshalomi
I thank my hon. Friend for that important question. He is right: this is our devolution revolution, and we are working hard to ensure it happens across the country.
Gordon McKee (Glasgow South) (Lab)
One person sleeping rough is one person too many, but recently published figures show that 793 people have been left to sleep on the street in Glasgow this year alone. I agree with the Minister’s assessment that the best way to tackle this is with properly empowered and properly resourced local government. Will she restate and expand on the Prime Minister’s offer to work with the Scottish Government to empower local governments, so that together we can ensure that no one is left to sleep rough in Glasgow or anywhere else in the country?
Florence Eshalomi
That was a key statement from the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and me, as the Minister with responsibility for this area. We have to work across the aisles, we have to work with devolved nations and we have to work with charities and businesses. A range of people at that summit today were stepping up to that mantra, and it is important that our local authority leaders take on that challenge.
Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)
I applaud both the Minister’s ambition to get to zero rough sleeping and the money on the table to get there, but does she agree that the key to achieving that objective is the Government, councils and third sector organisations working together to provide a pathway off the streets into sustained accommodation, with support on every step of that journey for the homeless person? Will she join me in paying tribute to Porchlight in my constituency, which has been working across Kent over the past 50 years to get rough sleepers off the street? It does fantastic work with the NHS and St Edmund church to support rough sleepers in Dartford.
Florence Eshalomi
I join my hon. Friend in supporting Porchlight’s 50 years of work. May it continue with that support for many more years. He is right that we need that wider programme, working with different organisations, groups, charities, faith groups, civic society and businesses to look at that long-term, tailored support to help people off the streets.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for her statement. As someone who worked for a homeless charity, the wonderful Streets2Homes in my constituency of Harlow, this statement and this Government’s ongoing commitment to tackling rough sleeping are hugely important to me. The Minister has recognised the importance of the charity and voluntary sector to tackling rough sleeping in some of the answers she has given so far. That is not just Streets2Homes, but organisations such as Open Road, which helps to tackle alcohol addiction in Harlow. Often the funding for the VCS is sporadic, not long term and postcode dependent. What will the Minister do to ensure that brilliant charities such as Streets2Homes and Open Road get the long-term support and funding they need to tackle rough sleeping and the causes of rough sleeping?
Florence Eshalomi
It is always good to see my hon. Friend from Harlow recognising the many charities across his constituency. Many charities and voluntary groups right across the country are working on this important area. The hon. Gentleman and other Members will have seen many organisations saying that they wanted certainty in that funding. I hope that this increased funding will give those organisations that certainty, ensuring that this work continues not just up to Christmas, but after Christmas. This is a key commitment from the Prime Minister, and we will honour it.
Work-based Immigration
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
We come to the Select Committee statement on behalf of the Home Affairs Committee. Dame Karen Bradley will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of the statement, Members may ask questions on the subject of the statement. Those should be brief questions, not full speeches.
Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)
I am grateful for this opportunity to highlight the Home Affairs Committee’s new inquiry on work-based immigration and to explain the innovative approach we have used with this inquiry. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for this statement. I know that the Chair of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), was staying just for that thank you; he is welcome to leave now. [Laughter.]
When I was elected Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, one of the things I talked about was wanting to have a more informed and considered debate on immigration that recognises the distinction between legal migration—visas for work, family, study and humanitarian purposes—and irregular migration, which primarily means small boats nowadays, where the numbers are much lower but the attention much higher. We want a debate that digs into the reasons why net migration numbers have followed the path they have and how reducing those numbers, which is the stated aim of successive Governments, can be achieved in a fair way that serves our economic and national interests.
To do that, the Committee decided to commission a series of deliberative workshops. Instead of relying on opinion polls or surveys, which can only give a snapshot of views, we partnered with the think-tank Demos to design and deliver a rigorous deliberative process, and I thank the Liaison Committee for supporting us financially. This process is one where ordinary people, selected to reflect the make-up of the local population, learn about the issue, discuss it with one another, and work towards agreeing conclusions.
We chose work-based immigration as the focus of these workshops because it is an area of ongoing contention, the policy is constantly under review and therefore open to influence, and, importantly, the Government have effective levers to determine who is allowed to come to the UK on a work visa. So that people could better understand the complexities and the trade-offs in policy making, we wanted to hear from people in different parts of the country. We chose North Tyneside, Leicester and Renfrewshire. We wanted to share with them the kind of conversations that go on within Whitehall.
We know these questions are hard to resolve. I have been a Minister in the Home Office, and I know that it is hard—I sympathise with the challenges faced by the current Minister, the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Jo White). Earlier this month, the Home Secretary revealed that she gets almost weekly requests from other Ministers to provide visas for foreign workers in different sectors. This is at the heart of the issue: the extent to which we want to rely upon migrant labour and skills, and the weighing up of the economic and social factors that influence the decision.
The report produced by Demos on the results of the workshops was published on 7 September, and it is available in the Vote Office. I hope it will be of interest to hon. and right hon. Members and to other Select Committees whose remit includes areas affected by immigration.
Between them, the 89 participants at the three workshops produced a list of 13 principles that they thought should underpin policy on work-based immigration and ranked them. It was striking that the No. 1 priority at all three workshops, in three totally different parts of the country, was that the Government should focus on training, upskilling and employment opportunities for UK residents, especially young people, before relying on migrant labour. The second-highest ranked principle was the need to ensure that local infrastructure can support migrants and existing residents. The third and fourth principles were the need for better workforce planning and for migrant workers to be protected from abuse by employers.
The fifth principle was about promoting an honest and balanced public conversation about immigration. That was our intention when we started this work, and I am pleased that the members of the public who participated at our workshops agreed with that aim. It is now up to us, in this House, to help promote that honest conversation. I am pleased that the Prime Minister has now joined us in calling for an honest discussion on this subject, although freedom of movement was not a question on the table when we started this work.
We are also reliant on the media to move away from the soundbites, simplistic characterisations, misleading memes and social media disinformation that only serve to polarise and infantilise. While there was more support for restricting numbers of low-skilled migrant workers than higher skilled, there was also some support for restricting neither. Similarly, there were differing views on whether we should prioritise short or long-term work visas. The most common view was that we need both, but the discussions revealed interesting nuances. For example, participants who prioritised greater integration found themselves arguing for longer-term work visas, which was not necessarily their starting position. They saw how policy design can have wider impacts and considered the interaction between competing objectives in reaching conclusions. That is the value of this deliberative approach.
When we received the report on the results of the workshops, we considered how best to use the conclusions to inform our future work on immigration. At the launch event for the report in Portcullis House on 7 September, I announced our intention to hold an inquiry based on the principles identified through the workshops. Our inquiry will focus on the top principle agreed in the workshops: to focus on training, upskilling and employment opportunities for UK residents, especially young people, before relying on migrant labour. We announced the full terms of reference on 15 September. These outlined the detailed questions that need to be answered in order to deliver an outcome that respects that principle.
The Government have undertaken to link their immigration policy to skills. We will scrutinise how they propose to do that. We will also examine the role that migration does and should play in responding to labour shortages, and how that can be more firmly linked to skills. We will look at the Home Office’s approach to managing the skilled worker visa, and how that links to wider skills policy. We plan to scrutinise the Labour Market Evidence Group—the agencies that advise on work-based migration policy—and test how the different objectives of different Departments are managed and how judgments relating to shortages and skill levels are made. We also plan to hear the views and voice of the public throughout our evidence sessions—both through the evidence we gather and from what we learned from the workshops.
Artificial intelligence is affecting pretty much every aspect of life and will continue to do so. Consultations are no exception. Most of our inquires attract large volumes of written evidence. We value that evidence and draw heavily on it to inform our thinking, conclusions and recommendations. We depend on it to do our work, but there are signs now—I am sure that colleagues are seeing this in their constituency correspondence and in other Committees—that AI is increasingly being used to generate lengthy submissions that do not necessarily add anything new to the evidence base. There are resources implications for handling large volumes of written evidence, and questions around its value.
Work is going on among Select Committees to look at how we can secure high-quality contributions to our inquiries: the experiences from those at the sharp end of policies and, when warranted, the considered views of an informed cross-section of the public. There are of course resource implications here as well, but I hope that the Liaison Committee might consider how best we allocate resources to best support our scrutiny of difficult policy issues in the age of artificial intelligence.
Those of us who observed the workshops and spoke to the participants learned that, even on a subject as sensitive and divisive as immigration, people are capable of having a reasoned, respectful and constructive conversation. Not only that, but they obviously valued the opportunity to engage with each other—different communities that do not always mix—and with the political process, in a meaningful way. They valued being listened to, and at the end, their views on our political process were more positive.
I look forward to returning to the House with the conclusions of the inquiry, and the Government response to it, in due course. In the meantime, I am happy to respond to any questions.
Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)
As someone who served on the Home Affairs Committee for two years, I pay tribute to the Chair and the other members, who I can see around the Chamber. I am a partisan person, and I enjoy a partisan political fight, but in a Select Committee one works with people from other parties to get into the weeds of complex and difficult issues. I found that to be a rewarding experience that brings a lot to democracy, so I pay tribute to the members of the Committee.
The statement and report are important, because although immigration is one of the most divisive political issues, the report shows us that the public are nothing like as polarised as we would think. I attended the deliberation in Renfrewshire with the Committee, and on immigration the public are willing to engage with the trade-offs and find common ground between different positions. There is rarely someone who is 100% pro-migration or 100% anti-migration; they are much more open to persuasion.
Does the Chair of the Committee agree that the report shows economic migration is a tool of economic policy, but that we struggle to talk about it because it is occluded by discussions on the small boats? Does she agree that the public are willing to engage with complexity and the trade-offs involved, and that they are far more thoughtful and engaged than social media and the press would have us think?
Dame Karen Bradley
The hon. Gentleman—who I will call my hon. Friend—will be very much missed on the Committee. He is officially discharged this evening, along with the Minister, and it is a sad day for the Committee to lose his expertise. All of us who attended the workshops found that the conversations became sophisticated. People started off with polarised positions and opinions—they spent a day and a half together, hearing from experts and talking about the issues, and each of the workshops made 10 recommendations, which could be distilled into 13 recommendations in total—but from some very different places we finished with remarkably similar recommendations. The hon. Gentleman is right that the level of conversation and debate was heartening to hear and showed that those conversations can happen in an adult way.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I thank the right hon. Lady and her Committee for the report. She will be aware that many agricultural sectors rely heavily on migrant labour, and that the Home Office is telling us that we need to upskill our own workforce to take the place of those workers. I draw to her attention the situation concerning foreign sheepshearers, who come to this country for a short period of time—three to four months every year. They come here, they shear the largest flocks—we reckon they do an excess of a million sheep in that short period of time—and then they move on and shear in other parts of the world. They take a number of our local shearers with them, which is a great opportunity for young people from farming communities. Nobody is going to train to the level that those people need to operate for work that is only going to last three or four months of the year. Can I encourage the right hon. Lady to bring some pressure to bear on the Home Office to take a more realistic view on the position of sheepshearers?
Dame Karen Bradley
The right hon. Gentleman makes his point eloquently. There are many skills that we simply do not train people in. Welding is another example: the pay is so good, why would anyone teach it on a much lower salary when they could be a welder themselves? That is why we have the problem with training welders in this country. The right hon. Gentleman makes a valuable point about sheepshearers. As an MP for a rural area, I do not have the sheepshearing problem, but I am sure that issues on dairy will be raised with me.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate the Committee on this innovative work, as I would expect from the right hon. Lady as Chair, leading that team. What work has she done with the Migration Advisory Committee? It is an important committee that examines jobs that sometimes do not have names yet—certainly, that was an issue in Shoreditch, the tech part of my constituency, a number of years ago.
We move from sheepshearers to high-end chefs: my constituency is the hub of some of the best international cuisine and attracts people from around the world. However, one emerging issue is that it is difficult to get chefs in through immigration rules, even if they have studied in universities in Japan, for example, and worked in high-end restaurants around the world. Will the right hon. Lady consider the work of the Migration Advisory Committee and how it can keep up with those trends?
Dame Karen Bradley
I thank the Chair of the Liaison Committee for her support allowing us to conduct this work. She makes an important point, and I am sure that many of us have enjoyed eating and drinking in the high-end, excellent restaurants in her constituency. We ensured that experts in the areas were involved in the evaluation committee, but it is a point that we will come back to during our work.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Chair of the Committee for her recommendations and for the hard work that the Committee does. When it comes to work-based immigration, has the Committee had the opportunity to look at seasonal visas for those in the fishing sector? The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and I have been pushing the Minister for some time to agree seasonal visas for the fishing sector. Previous meetings with Ministers would seem to suggest a way forward. I am ever mindful that this life is about solutions and opportunities. These people do not want to come to live here; they just want to come for a short period of time, earn money and send it home—and go home as well. Has the right hon. Lady had the opportunity to look at that?
Dame Karen Bradley
I would have been disappointed if I had not got the chance to respond to the hon. Member, so I appreciate his question. The Committee has just started work on the inquiry, but I note his comments and I am sure that evidence will be given to us on that issue, of which we will take account.
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
I also commend the Committee for its deliberative work and the innovative way it is taking evidence on this subject. When the Public Accounts Committee, of which I am a member, did an inquiry into the skilled worker visa scheme, we found that it was particularly problematic for care workers, as a migrant’s right to remain in the UK is dependent on their sponsorship by a particular employer, and where that is revoked workers are often left vulnerable to exploitation. Is it the Select Committee’s intention to take evidence from overseas care workers and care providers as part of its deliberations? Will the Committee also consider the benefits of sector-wide sponsorship for care workers and look at how we can promote careers in care work to young people, in particular those who are not in education, employment or training?
Dame Karen Bradley
The hon. Lady is an esteemed member of the Public Accounts Committee, and I note the comments she has made. In my previous incarnation as Minister for modern slavery, tied employment was always an area where there was concern about potential abuse by the existing employer; as she says, there is also the question of what happens to the individual if their employment ends, as their immigration status makes them more vulnerable to exploitation. We have not yet had a chance to go through all the evidence we have received. We are open to receiving evidence—the inquiry is open, and we would really appreciate having that evidence. We will then make decisions about who we will get in to give oral evidence. I have noted the hon. Lady’s comments.
Securing Scotland’s Future: Defence Skills and Jobs
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
We come to the Select Committee statement on behalf of the Scottish Affairs Committee. Patricia Ferguson will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which time no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of the statement, Members may ask questions on the subject of the statement. These should be brief questions, not speeches.
Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow West) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for a statement on the publication of the Scottish Affairs Committee’s report, “Securing Scotland’s Future: Defence Skills and Jobs”.
As the House will know, significant increases in defence spending are anticipated as the UK works towards our commitment to spend 3.5% of GDP on defence by 2035. Our inquiry therefore examined a simple but important question: how can we maximise the positive impact of this spending in Scotland?
Scotland already has a world-leading defence sector, from shipbuilding on the Clyde and in Rosyth to aerospace, advanced manufacturing and cyber-capability. Growth in the sector has the potential to create more highly skilled jobs and support economic growth across Scotland—including, importantly, in rural and island communities.
The strategic defence review, the defence industrial strategy and the defence investment plan provide the framework for delivering these ambitions and for ensuring that Scotland is well placed to benefit from increased investment. However, our inquiry has shown that it is not a given that increased defence spending will benefit Scotland. We cannot afford to be complacent: ensuring that Scotland benefits will require long-term planning and co-operation between the UK and Scottish Governments to support jobs, skills development, innovation and growth.
The clearest message we heard throughout our inquiry was about skills. Employers, colleges, universities and trade bodies across Scotland repeatedly told us that the defence industry faces skills shortages, including in engineering, fabrication, welding, software, cyber and advanced manufacturing. This is despite major defence programmes such as for the Type 26 and Type 31 frigates and the Dreadnought-class submarines, which will require a sustained pipeline of highly skilled Scottish workers for years to come. This will be all the more important as the UK Government continue to win and sign deals for the export of Scottish-made defence products such as frigates.
We have heard similar messages about skills shortages in our inquiries into other sectors, including offshore wind, civilian shipbuilding and space launch, to name but a few. Many of those sectors, which are key to our economic prosperity and to the UK’s strategic interests, are competing for the same pool of skilled workers. Without investment in training and apprenticeships, there is a real risk of one sector solving its skills shortage by poaching workers from another sector.
That is why apprenticeships are such an important focus of our report. During our Committee’s visit to BAE Systems—part of which I am proud to say is located in my constituency—we met young people whose expertise and enthusiasm demonstrated the enormous potential of apprenticeships and early career routes in the industry. However, demand for apprenticeship places far exceeds supply, with engineering programmes often attracting many thousands of applicants for a very limited number of places.
Our report highlights the importance of that talent pipeline keeping pace with future demand. This will require the UK and Scottish Governments to work together effectively, as policies impacting the sector span both reserved and devolved responsibilities; defence policy, as we know, is reserved, while education, skills and apprenticeships are devolved. Our report calls on both Governments to work together to increase defence-related apprenticeships in Scotland.
Our report also welcomes direct investment through the defence industrial strategy skills package, through which Scotland will receive a share of the £20 million allocated to the devolved nations. While this funding is absolutely welcome, £20 million is a small fraction of the full £180 million UK-wide package, and it must be shared across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, meaning that Scotland will receive a disproportionately small share of the total UK fund. Our Committee questions whether such a limited share of funding can really shift the dial on skills shortages and calls on the Government to explain how the funding is commensurate with the size, importance and potential of Scotland’s defence sector. We look forward to the Government’s response on that point.
Moving on from apprenticeships, our report also looks at the defence technical excellence colleges, or DTECs, which are specialist colleges designed to provide advanced technical training for defence careers. These colleges will help to develop the skills that employers tell us they need. The Committee heard overwhelming support for DTECs, and we believe they could have the potential to address persistent skills shortages.
The UK Government have proposed two DTECs in Scotland—one in the east and one in the west—and have provided funding for one of them. The establishment of both DTECs is subject to match funding from the Scottish Government. The Committee strongly supports the establishment of both colleges, and stated in our report, which was published last month, that we hoped to see the Scottish Government provide the funding required. We are very pleased that since the publication of our report, the Scottish Government have confirmed that they will provide the necessary funding, with both DTECs now going ahead. This is a positive outcome for Scotland, and reflects the joined-up approach that we need to see.
However, progress establishing DTECs in Scotland has fallen a little behind counterparts south of the border, and we are concerned that further delay risks Scotland being left at a disadvantage. We therefore urge both Governments to work with greater urgency to deliver those colleges, because the skills challenges facing the sector are too pressing for Scotland to miss this opportunity.
Our inquiry also examined the experiences of small and medium-sized enterprises. SMEs form the backbone of Scotland’s economy and play a critical role in the defence supply chain, too. The Committee heard from numerous SMEs, many of which told us that participating in defence procurement remains difficult and that complex bidding requirements, high compliance costs and financial risk are all burdensome barriers to growth.
Our report therefore welcomes the creation of the MOD’s Defence Office for Small Business Growth, which is designed to help SMEs and start-ups to access the defence supply chain and to scale up. It is too early to know whether the office will deliver meaningful change. To help to track its effectiveness, our report calls on the Ministry of Defence to publish clear metrics for success. We also call for the MOD to favour prime contractors that are committed to support supporting SMEs in their supply chain.
During our inquiry, we also heard about the particularly concerning issue of debanking. We heard first-hand accounts of SMEs struggling to access banking and financial services, despite providing products and services that directly support our national security. That is clearly unacceptable. These firms are helping to strengthen our nation’s security. They are creating skilled jobs and driving economic growth, yet some are still being denied access to basic banking services at a time when the Government are scaling up defence capability. Our report calls on the Government to engage directly with the financial services sector to put an end to this problem.
The report highlights wider challenges around public perceptions of defence. We heard concerns that misunderstandings about the sector negatively impact recruitment and discourage talented people from considering careers in defence. Too often, discussion focuses narrowly on weapons and overlooks the engineers, researchers, software specialists, manufacturers and innovators whose work contributes both to security and technological advancement.
The Committee therefore supports efforts to foster a broader national conversation about the defence sector, its role in protecting the country and the opportunities it creates for communities across Scotland. Ultimately, our report reaches a straightforward conclusion: Scotland is exceptionally well placed to benefit from increased defence spending, but unlocking that opportunity will require investment in our young people through apprenticeships, technical education and initiatives such as the DTECs. It will also require the Government to provide certainty for the industry and support SMEs, which are so critical to us.
I thank everyone who contributed to our inquiry and my fellow Committee members for their thoughtful and constructive work throughout. With that, I commend the report to the House.
Susan Murray (Mid Dunbartonshire) (LD)
I thank the hon. Lady for her statement and for leading our inquiry. There are around 40 applicants for every apprenticeship and engineering place in Scotland. The UK Government have offered funding for two defence technical excellence colleges, and the Scottish Government have agreed to match that funding. Does she agree that both Governments should continue to work together so that Scotland gets as many apprenticeships as possible?
Patricia Ferguson
I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. We are very grateful that the DTECs are going to happen—all credit to both Governments for working together on that—but apprenticeships will also come through our further education colleges, and it is important that they are given the resources to benefit from jobs not only in the defence sector but, for example, in clean energy, which our Committee has heard so much about.
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank my hon. Friend for her statement and her leadership in this wide-ranging inquiry. Our Committee heard from defence companies and, as my hon. Friend mentioned, they spoke of debanking. They also spoke about sites being vandalised resulting in significant costs. They talked about careers fairs being disrupted and sometimes forced to close due to direct action by protesters. Not only does this present barriers to recruitment but it undermines investment in a key sector. Does she agree that this further underlines the need for a national conversation about defence, security and the ever-evolving threats facing our country? Does she also agree that elected representatives and Governments should engage in such a conversation in a responsible way that is fully cognisant of the geopolitical realities that we face?
Patricia Ferguson
My hon. Friend is right to highlight that point, because it was raised with us by those in the defence sector. The right to peaceful protest is something that we all recognise the need to respect and uphold, but she is right to highlight the problems that there have been on some occasions in the sector.
However, I draw heart from my experience of speaking to apprentices at BAE Systems in my constituency, who to my mind are the best advocates for the work that they are doing and the purpose to which that work will be put. They were able to tell me in very straightforward terms—just like they do with their mates down the pub at the weekend, as a couple of them told me—about the importance of their work, why they were doing it and how proud they were of it.
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
I thank the hon. Lady for her excellent report. Was she as shocked as I was to learn about the difficulty that defence firms in Scotland face in accessing basic banking services? Does she agree that the interpretation of ESG often does not recognise that, without strong defence, we would have no environment, society and governance in this country?
Patricia Ferguson
I thank the hon. Lady for that question. She is right; there is a great deal of misunderstanding around the defence sector. It is very difficult for people to understand its importance not just globally and nationally but locally. If that importance were better recognised and understood, it would be much better for the firms involved, so I very much hope that the Government take our point that they need to engage with the financial services sector to address that.
Douglas McAllister (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab)
Figures announced last week confirmed that young apprenticeships have fallen by a third since 2016. We need greater regional control over skills and training. Decisions should be shaped by the people who best understand the industries in order to plug the defence skills gap and take advantage of defence shipbuilding investment. Does my hon. Friend agree that a successful example of this is the applied shipbuilding training academy—a £12 million facility at BAE Systems in Scotstoun, Glasgow, which has offered apprenticeship opportunities to many young people in my West Dunbartonshire constituency?
Patricia Ferguson
I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning that skills academy. It is in my constituency, so he will not be surprised to hear that I agree with him entirely about that. BAE Systems built the facility because it recognised that there was a skills gap coming and it no longer wanted to have to employ welders from the Philippines at extortionate rates and take on board all the financial responsibilities that came with that.
The academy is an inspiration, frankly. Its way of teaching changes ideas around skills that traditionally were regarded as being for men only, heavily industrial and, sometimes, dangerous. The myths about those trades have been busted by the academy. It is wonderful to see young people so enthusiastic about the jobs and the future that they know they will have because of the work that is going on.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
I thank the Chair of the Committee and all the team who pooled this together, including the Clerks who assisted on it. It is shocking that, as stated in the report, less than a tenth of 1% of MOD spend is directly for SMEs in Scotland. I have spoken to the Supplier Development Programme in Scotland and not only has it struggled to get the MOD to engage with it but the MOD’s tier 1 contractors have been unwilling to engage with it.
The Supplier Development Programme is all about training suppliers in how to apply for tenders. Does the hon. Lady agree that more could be done to encourage those tier 1 contractors and the MOD to engage with programmes such as the SDP so that more smaller contractors can get parts of defence contracts? I am talking about not just welding apprenticeships but cleaners, water fountain repairers and the people who do all the things we do not normally think about but without whom the buildings would fall down.
Patricia Ferguson
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for mentioning our excellent Clerks, who ensure not only that we are kept on our toes but that we get the best possible evidence for our inquiries. She is right about the problem that many SMEs have. It is easy to think of those jobs as being very technical in nature, as she describes, but we sometimes forget about the people who provide logistics and other services to these suppliers. It is important that the opportunities to benefit from the work in the sector spread across the range of roles, particularly in those areas where employment is perhaps more vulnerable or fragile. We want to see the Government do as much as they can to allow those jobs to filter down.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
I thank the Chair for the report, which is one of many valuable reports that have come from the Scottish Affairs Committee under her leadership. I welcome it in particular as it relates to unlocking the potential of SMEs in Scotland, which, according to the report, currently receive less than 0.078% of MOD spending.
I was pleased recently to see the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry launch Project Safari at the MOD Hebrides range, which will make it easier and simpler for SMEs to access test and evaluation facilities here in the UK. Does the Chair agree that the 50 highly skilled jobs at the Hebrides range and the vast area of the Atlantic that it offers for test and evaluation are an invaluable contribution to the defence capability of this country and will help unlock the potential of Scottish SMEs to grow?
Patricia Ferguson
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. As he knows, the Committee has visited many of the facilities in his constituency and adjacent constituencies —I was going to say “neighbouring” constituencies, but really there are no neighbouring constituencies in his part of the world.
Fifty sounds like a small number to some of us, but for a community like his it is a large number. Those are skilled jobs, and they will be there for a long time to come, so he is absolutely right to mention that. I agree entirely that Project Safari is a great opportunity, and it is also great to see—I will try not to use the word “great” too often—that his constituency, slightly remote though it is, can benefit from the defence contracts available now across Scotland.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. Members may wish to be aware that I will let the Select Committee statement overrun slightly to get everybody in. Please can we keep questions and answers concise?
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I very much welcome what the Chair of the Select Committee has put forward. If we removed the word “Scotland” from the report and replaced it with “Northern Ireland”, every recommendation would be the same for us. I think of some of the things we have done in Northern Ireland. For instance, Thales has organised apprenticeships where the students get their fees paid, and they also get a wage. Has the Committee had an opportunity to look at how that could be done in Scotland? Has it also looked to ensure that men and women—especially young girls and young ladies—can have opportunities in engineering projects for the future?
Patricia Ferguson
If all of Northern Ireland has the ingenuity that the hon. Member has in weaving his constituency into every debate, we will be doing really well. We have not looked at Northern Ireland in particular. I know Thales, because it used to be based in my constituency; it has since moved to another part of the country. However, he is right. It is very important, and it is wonderful to see so many young women working in skills that were traditionally thought to be for men only.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
As my hon. Friend highlights, there has been long been a skills deficit in this area. Does the Committee plan to revisit this work to hold the Government to account on the promises made? Over the years, we have heard promises from Governments about apprenticeships, but if we have a stop-start approach we do not get that long-term investment in skills that the defence industry so desperately needs.
Patricia Ferguson
I thank the Chair of the Liaison Committee for that question. She is right to say that it should be revisited. I suspect that we will revisit a number of aspects of our report. Of course, we look forward to the Government’s response to the report, but as we go forward during the rest of this Parliament I think we will come back to a number of points.
Richard Baker (Glenrothes and Mid Fife) (Lab)
Today, the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry visited the Methil yard in my constituency, which has already doubled its number of apprentices, and with the prospect of Programme Euston and new dry docks for Faslane being built at the yard, there could be hundreds more. Does my hon. Friend agree that the recommendations about apprenticeships show the need for apprentice availabilities to be increased at pace for the opportunities that lie ahead for Scottish yards?
Patricia Ferguson
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I was pleased to see that the visit went so well. It is encouraging to see such new opportunities. He makes the point, which we tried to make in our report, that there are great opportunities here, but it is up to everyone in Scotland—Governments, local authorities and manufacturers alike—to grasp them and make a success of them for our communities.
Backbench Business
Performance of Royal Mail
(2 days, 22 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call Chris Bloore, who may speak for up to 15 minutes.
Chris Bloore (Redditch) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House is concerned about the performance of Royal Mail; and urges the Government to work with Royal Mail to improve its performance levels.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for selecting the debate and the more than 100 hon. Members from across the House who put their names to the application. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson), who applied for the debate alongside me. May I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a member of the executive of the trade union group of Labour MPs?
Today’s debate is not an attack on our posties, the men and women trying to deliver a quality service with their hands tied behind their backs; it is about holding Royal Mail and Ofcom to account until the service that my constituents receive is the one they pay for. I called for the debate because in Redditch and the villages, the post—or the lack of it—is now one of the most common reasons that people write to me as their Member of Parliament. My constituency is a mix of urban, suburban and rural, from Batchley and Church Hill in the town itself to Inkberrow, Feckenham and Wychbold in the villages. The difference between postcodes can be stark.
Let me begin with the ordinary complaints from my casework, with the Radio Times arriving a week late, first-class birthday cards taking five days to cross Redditch, and Christmas cards arriving on 23 January. One Feckenham family always receives birthday cards due on 12 January five days late; it would be funny if it was not so sad. Some receive no post for days and then one bundle tied with the obligatory rubber band. One received nothing between 3 and 20 January. Another in Wychbold gets deliveries once every 12 days.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Member. Just last week we had a debate in Westminster Hall, and today hon. Members have a chance to ask the very same questions. What is happening to independent traders in my constituency, in Newtownards, Comber and the Ards peninsula? Delays are choking cash flow, ruining customer relationships and threatening their very survival. Royal Mail has got to grasp the nettle and get it right—now, not later.
Chris Bloore
I completely agree with the hon. Member. I will get to the impact on businesses later in my speech.
A letter from my own office sent on 11 June arrived on 25 August. Bills arrive overdue while people struggle to reach complaint lines or their local sorting office. The consequences can be far more serious: one constituent received a hospital letter on 6 October about an appointment on 17 September.
Julia Buckley (Shrewsbury) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is being generous. This is such an important debate. I have a constituent who had exactly that problem—they received delayed post for scans and cancer treatment plans. That is unacceptable and distressing. Does he agree that this is the worst type of post to be delayed?
Chris Bloore
I completely agree. Another resident of mine, whose husband has cancer, has had to wait anxiously for medical correspondence about a diagnosis.
Chris Bloore
Could I make a little progress? I am conscious that many hon. Members wish to speak, but I need to get through some of my speech.
A council letter about a husband in a nursing home took from 14 November until 3 March to arrive. His family had six months to appeal and almost four months had already passed. A Department for Work and Pensions letter dated 5 January required a response by the 14th, but it arrived on the 20th. My constituent’s benefits were withheld. She had done nothing wrong; her letter was late. Benefits withheld, appointments missed and appeal deadlines lost—all because the post failed. If my office cannot trust Royal Mail to deliver a letter, how can I assure constituents that their hospital correspondence will arrive in time?
One more thing struck me with this casework. Almost every constituent says that their parcels arrive on time; it is the letters that do not. Is that a coincidence, or is that what happens when a company chases the parcels market and treats letters as an afterthought while holding a monopoly on them?
Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
Will the hon. Member give way on that point?
Chris Bloore
I will give way to the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) as she asked first.
Carla Lockhart
I thank the hon. Member; he is making a powerful speech to which we can all relate. On hospital appointments, there was discussion that Royal Mail would engage with each of the different hospital trusts. Does he agree that that needs to progress and that there needs to be some screening process to ensure that hospital appointment letters are delivered on time?
Chris Bloore
The hon. Lady is completely correct, and I will touch on that issue.
Tom Gordon
I thank the hon. Gentleman for being very generous with his time. Earlier today, I opened the new Friends of Harrogate Hospital garden at the hospital. I spoke with the chief executive, who made the point that Royal Mail has told them that NHS appointments are meant to be prioritised, but the reality that we are all experiencing clearly shows that that is not the case. Does he agree that Royal Mail needs to pull its finger out, so that lives are not lost as a result of its negligence?
Chris Bloore
I agree.
The Government’s response to the Business and Trade Committee makes the point well: a lack of capacity that forces a company to prioritise some items over others is no justification for failing to deliver the expected service. Royal Mail must deliver 90% of its first-class letters the next working day. It is managing 85%. Against the target of completing 99.9% of delivery routes each day, it is completing just 70%. Those targets have been missed for five years running, while the price of a first-class stamp has risen by 137% to £1.80 and the price of a first-class medium parcel, where Royal Mail competes, has fallen by half. Where there is competition, prices fall; where there is monopoly, prices rise and services continue to fall.
What has the regulator done, really? Since 2015, Ofcom has investigated Royal Mail seven times and fined it four times. Last year, Ofcom lowered the very targets Royal Mail was missing and cut second-class delivery days, saving the company up to £425 million—“rewarding failure”, as Citizens Advice put it. More fines will not fix this, yet Ofcom has never come to this House seeking the powers it needs to hold Royal Mail to account. A regulator that can punish failure but cannot compel improvement must answer a fundamental question: what is it for? If Ofcom cannot do its job, a new regulator, with real teeth, must be considered.
Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is being so generous with his time. I echo what he said about my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson), who has led this campaign so strongly in Parliament. In Stroud, our Cotswold Vale Talking Newspaper puts news and music on USB sticks and sends them out to blind and print-disabled listeners in Dursley; the chairman says that those now take six weeks to arrive and that many subscriptions are being cancelled. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to take Royal Mail back into public ownership?
Chris Bloore
That is a cheeky question, and I might get back to it.
In May, the Business and Trade Committee called the service unacceptable and called Ofcom’s regulation into question. It demanded a road map to improvement. We are still waiting. Meanwhile, last Christmas, 16 million people experienced delayed letters, 5.7 million missed a vital letter and 19 million received bundled deliveries. Behind every statistic is someone let down by a service they have paid for and have every right to expect.
Royal Mail points to £500 million of investment and a promise to meet targets by April 2027. I welcome the investment, but a voluntary plan and relaxed targets are no substitute for accountability. No future promise can undo a missed hospital appointment or restore the time lost fighting for a loved one. That is why I joined my hon. Friends the Members for Lichfield and for Corby and East Northamptonshire (Lee Barron) in writing to Royal Mail’s chief executive, Alistair Cochrane, asking him to meet affected MPs in Parliament. Our constituents deserve more than a briefing from a distance.
However, we must also confront uncomfortable questions. When Royal Mail was privatised, we were promised flexibility, investment and competition. Instead, the taxpayer lost hundreds of millions of pounds through an undervalued sale, and performance levels fell. If privatisation was supposed to secure Royal Mail’s future, why are we now facing these challenges, and what needs to change to put the service back on a sustainable footing?
Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for the passionate speech he is making. I have heard similar issues from my constituents about delays from Royal Mail. One elderly lady, who is 96 years old, has been waiting for three weeks to get a replacement PIN from her bank. These are stories of real people across the country who are being let down by Royal Mail. Does he agree that its representatives need to come to Parliament and answer questions from MPs?
Chris Bloore
Yes. We are not going there; they should be coming here.
I understand that the world has changed. Letter volumes have fallen from around 20 billion at their peak to 5.6 billion, while Royal Mail must serve 4 million more addresses. The economics of the universal service do not shrink with the volumes. A postie still walks the same streets for 10 letters as they do for one. Around 1,000 delivery offices are changing how they operate in a compressed period. The answer cannot be another round of job cuts, which put more pressure on the very service we want improved. Other European countries subsidise their postal services. We must be prepared to have an open debate about whether further Government support is needed to protect the universal service and whether a new operational model is required
Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman is being kind in giving way. Does he recognise that the point about subsidies is really important in constituencies like Frome and East Somerset? We have fantastic, hard-working and very overstretched posties who are each trying to cover a large area. We also have people who may not have access to broadband, and who rely even more on the post that they are not getting.
Chris Bloore
I agree. That is incredibly frustrating and impacts so many different areas.
I am going to make some progress and finish. Recognising the need for change does not mean accepting the unacceptable. Before I turn to what must change, let me deal with the tired old narrative that we must pick a side between consumers and workers—the customer who wants their post and the postie who wants decent pay. That is a false choice, and the evidence contradicts it. Citizens Advice, the statutory champion of postal consumers, and the Communication Workers Union, the voice of postal workers, have reached almost the same conclusions from opposite ends. Both want a regulator that protects the universal service, the same rules for competitors and an end to bogus self-employment. A fairly paid, properly employed postie is how a customer gets their letter.
Chris Bloore
I am sorry; I have to make some progress.
When workers are squeezed, consumers pay the price—and squeezed they are. I do not blame the posties. I have spoken to a postal worker with 36 years of service, who told me that morale is at an all-time low. Staff are told to complete half a delivery one day and scramble to catch up the next. Overtime is restricted, yet posties work extra hours unpaid just to keep the show on the road. Royal Mail runs a two-tier workforce: new starters on £13.68 an hour against £15.50 for long-standing colleagues. Is it any wonder that the company cannot recruit or retain? All the while, parcel competitors undercut Royal Mail with bogus self-employment—paying nothing in employer national insurance, while Royal Mail pays £650 million a year—and cherry-pick the profitable addresses while passing difficult ones back to the national network to which they never contribute. That matters for Redditch’s small businesses, too. They rely on the post for invoices, cheques and supplies. For them, a late letter is not an inconvenience; it is a cash flow problem.
I have four clear asks of the Minister. First, I ask her to strengthen regulation: to ask Ofcom what powers it needs to hold Royal Mail to account, to tie above-inflation stamp prices to meeting service targets and to require transparent reporting of efficiencies to Parliament. If Ofcom cannot regulate effectively, we must question whether it remains fit for purpose. Secondly, I ask her to level the playing field: to tackle bogus self-employment through the employment status reforms, to extend minimum service and consumer protection standards to competitors, and to examine the case for a levy on operators that profit from the universal postal network. Thirdly, I ask the Minister to protect the workforce: to address pay inequalities, to work constructively with the CWU on the new delivery model and to build workloads a human being can actually complete. Finally, I ask her to convene an emergency national summit, bringing together the Government, Ofcom, Royal Mail and the unions to agree a sustainable future for this vital service.
We must acknowledge that the postal market has changed, and have an honest conversation about service standards and funding, but change cannot be an excuse for declining standards or intolerable pressures on our workforce. This House has not always got it right when making historic decisions about Royal Mail’s ownership, but we must learn from those mistakes. What matters now is that we act decisively to secure Royal Mail’s future, protect its workforce and safeguard the communities that depend on this vital national service.
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker; I was not expecting to be called quite so early in the debate. I congratulate my Worcestershire colleague, the hon. Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore), on so ably setting out many of the problems that we also have in West Worcestershire.
Having been a Member of Parliament there for many years, I have to highlight the fact that it has been only in the last year and a half that this has become a big issue in my postbag, if I can call it that—probably, by and large, in my email inbox. It has become the biggest issue that I hear about from my constituents, whether in Tenbury, Malvern, Pershore, Upton upon Severn or any of the villages in between. It is causing huge frustration to my constituents; the hon. Member has set out the issue, and many wish to speak in the debate, but I wanted to get that on the record. Whenever I write to Royal Mail about the issue, I never get a very convincing response. It often has to do with sickness in the sorting office or something along those lines, and that does not seem like a compelling reason for things going so badly wrong in the last 18 months or so.
I welcome this opportunity that the Backbench Business Committee has given us to get these concerns on the record. I look forward to hearing from the Minister about how she will deal both with Ofcom, the regulator, and with the company itself. Clearly, we must all aim to get a better service for our constituents. It is a service that has been running in this country for hundreds of years, and it has gone wrong only in the last year and a half.
Dave Robertson (Lichfield) (Lab)
Before I start, I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in relation to the Communication Workers Union.
It is over a decade since the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats oversaw the privatisation of Royal Mail, and it is clear to residents in Lichfield, Burntwood and the villages and—if this busy Chamber is anything to go by—to people across the country that the transition was grossly mishandled. Those parties failed to plan for Royal Mail’s long-term future in a market that was already showing signs of dramatic change. Now we see the results: late delivery after late delivery, leading to countless missed hospital appointments, GP appointments, court hearings, credit card bills—the list is almost endless.
The post remains an essential public service, and we need to secure its future. I am proud that Labour MPs up and down the country are leading on this, and I could thank countless Members for their hard work, I am especially grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Redditch (Chris Bloore) and for Corby and East Northamptonshire (Lee Barron), with whom I have been working closely to co-ordinate a campaign in Parliament.
I am sure that I speak for all Labour Members when I say that we understand the serious and complex challenges facing Royal Mail, but too often the response we get from the company when we raise concerns, and by extension its response to our constituents, is nothing short of dismissive. When we tell Royal Mail that yet another resident has missed cancer treatment or received a threatening message from a debt collector for an undelivered bill, we are too often told that there simply is no problem. Just today, I have had an email from Royal Mail assuring me that everything will be fine in time for Christmas, despite the fact that it has not met its delivery obligations at the Lichfield office at any point in the last five months. It beggars belief.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent contribution to this important debate. Does he agree that this seems to be a deep cultural issue within Royal Mail? Not only is it in denial, as far as I can tell, that there is a problem with the service, but when Members of Parliament visit their local delivery offices, it cleans house from top to bottom to present as if there is no problem, only for us to then subsequently discover that there continue to be serious issues with the service to our constituents.
Dave Robertson
I have experienced that at first hand as well. I went to one of the arranged visits to my local distribution office, with various people from the Royal Mail comms department there. By the time I got back to my office, I had had three emails from posties at that delivery office saying that every single postal worker went out that day with two routes on their back, just to ensure that the mail was out of the way and I did not see it. It is a real problem that Royal Mail does not want to grasp this.
Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) (Lab)
My hon. Friend’s leadership on this issue has been magnificent. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) for calling this debate, which I am grateful to contribute to, albeit briefly. To hear my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) talk about, “It’ll be okay for Christmas,” and to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch talk about the low morale of workers within Royal Mail, does he agree that part of this debate this evening—we started on a good footing with my hon. Friend—is giving thanks to posties for their incredible hard work? That is not only because they work under incredibly hard circumstances, but because they are the heart of our communities, often noticing any differences. When they see a person who normally gets letters not answering the door, they often are the ones who raise the alarm in the local community.
Dave Robertson
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the value that posties have in our communities not just in delivering post, but more widely. We saw it over covid where the only person a lot of vulnerable residents would see in a week would be their postie. She makes an important point about their importance to our communities.
Returning to Royal Mail’s inability to grasp the nettle and to the fact that it sends us emails saying, “Everything’s fine,” “Don’t worry,” and “Nothing to see here,” that is tantamount to telling every single MP it has sent that communication to that our constituents are lying. Royal Mail needs to change its approach radically and rapidly.
Dave Robertson
I will make some progress.
Royal Mail needs to own the true scale of the problem and the genuinely felt anger—that is essential. I look forward to discussing this with the Royal Mail CEO when he meets Labour MPs in Parliament next month. Labour Members do not want to stand up in this Chamber and attack Royal Mail, and we are certainly not attacking postal workers.
We recognise the scale of the challenge facing the industry. The number of letters sent in the UK has halved since the company was privatised, while the number of parcels has risen dramatically, fuelled in many cases by the growth in online shopping. Virtually all the parcel companies competing with Royal Mail, and oftentimes using its network, use a bogus self-employment model for their workers. That means Royal Mail is competing in a market where it has a fundamental disadvantage, and we should not want to encourage the model that these parcel companies are using—it is bad for workers, consumers and the taxpayer. Too many parcel companies pay a pittance for an unmanageable workload, exhausting drivers who cannot provide a quality service to customers as they race to complete rounds that are frankly impossible, and the public purse is ripped off in the process. While Royal Mail pays £650 million a year in national insurance contributions, many of these companies do not pay a penny.
The Government are now consulting on upgrading the rights of these parcel delivery drivers, and it is a start, but we need to go further. We need true parity between Royal Mail and its competitors, a level playing field where every company pays a fair price if it chooses to use the Royal Mail network. We need Royal Mail to take a long-term view of its workforce. New entrants get far worse terms, and that is fuelling a retention crisis with a staggering 400 posties leaving the company every week. It may help pinch a few pennies now, but if Royal Mail cannot keep its hard-working staff, the business is destined to fail.
I am sorry to say that we need to look again at the delivery model. Royal Mail is currently rolling out DM26, as it calls it, but our posties tell us the process is already chaotic, the workload is unmanageable and it is not a long-term solution. We need to heed the recommendation of the Business and Trade Committee to look at giving Ofcom stronger powers to regulate Royal Mail. It concerns me that the regulator has no solution beyond more fines for Royal Mail, which are clearly not working. We need to build on the Government’s “golden share” in Royal Mail and think about an ownership model for the future, with the voices of customers and workers right at its heart.
Hannah Spencer (Gorton and Denton) (Green)
Last Friday, I spent the morning with the brilliant, dedicated postal workers at my local delivery office in Denton. Yet people across the constituency regularly tell me they are not receiving post, despite the staff clearly doing everything they can to keep the service going under immense pressure. Does the hon. Member agree that the privatisation of Royal Mail has clearly failed and that the Government must take urgent action to restore a reliable postal service that also treats workers fairly?
Dave Robertson
The hon. Member makes an important point. As we have heard from many Members today, it is not the posties; it is the system that they are being asked to work in. We need to do a number of things; there is no single answer that will solve this. We need a suite of different responses that lead to a proper outcome.
We need to think about bringing Royal Mail and the Post Office back together and look creatively at opportunities for profit, such as Post Office banking hubs. We need to look at the pay and bonuses of Royal Mail’s senior leadership. We are already doing that with the water companies; I do not see why it would be inappropriate in this case. When a private company delivers a public service, it must be held to the highest standards. Just like with those water companies, we cannot see bosses’ pay balloon while workers struggle and customers are let down.
I am not arrogant enough to stand here and say that I have all the answers. These ideas are all born out of consultation with organisations across the sector, and that is why it is so important that we get all the parties around the table to share those ideas so we can turn them into action. Two weeks ago, the Communication Workers Union wrote to the Secretary of State calling on him to hold an emergency summit to discuss Royal Mail’s future. I am glad to hear that the meeting will go ahead, and I ask the Minister that my hon. Friends the Members for Redditch and for Corby and East Northamptonshire and I are included in those discussions. Back-Bench MPs and our constituents must have a voice in them.
Royal Mail was founded over 500 years ago. It is a great British icon and an essential public service. We cannot and must not be the generation of politicians who allow it to fail.
David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)
Back in March, following a growing number of complaints from people across my constituency, I led a Westminster Hall debate on Royal Mail’s performance. It was well attended, like this evening’s debate, and it focused on the fact that while prices have continued to rise, the standard of service has declined, undermining public trust in Royal Mail, an institution that has been around for 500 years. I know this is a theme that will come up repeatedly this evening.
Unfortunately, seven months later, I am still hearing the same complaints and constituents are still experiencing completely unacceptable delays. It is time for this House to act and for us to turn these debates into real action. It has been reported to me that people in Pinhoe in my constituency are receiving letters only once every two to three weeks, and I have heard similar accounts of households elsewhere in my constituency—Exmouth, Budleigh Salterton, Woodbury and Lympstone—going weeks without a delivery before receiving large bundles of post all at once. I know that many Members will have households in their constituencies who have had the same experiences.
Chris Kane
Last week I asked my constituents to tell me about their experiences of Royal Mail, and I was struck by how often people praised their own postie while expressing real frustration with the service. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Royal Mail’s leadership must take responsibility for giving postal workers the support they need and customers a service they can rely on?
David Reed
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and—to raise a point made by the hon. Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore), who introduced the debate—this is not on the posties at all; the posties do a fantastic job. From the numbers for Royal Mail, it looks like asset stripping is going on, so we can understand why those posties are having a difficult time.
There may be a perception that letters are no longer particularly important, but that is far from the case, especially in areas with elderly populations such as my constituency.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
Jane Austen’s Mr Knightley said:
“Letters are no matter of indifference; they are generally a very positive curse”.
But it seems to me that Royal Mail very much treats letters as a matter of indifference, and that is causing a huge problems for my constituents, such as those who have missed NHS letters, as has been discussed, and the farmers who are not receiving animal tags in time to get their livestock to market. It is a really serious issue. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Royal Mail needs to get its act together and treat the letter service as seriously as it treats the parcel service?
David Reed
I completely agree, and I think we will have a lot of consensus in the debate this evening, as we did in my debate in March.
Royal Mail clearly says that it is now a parcel company that still delivers letters, and that is an issue that affects countries very close to us. Denmark has PostNord, which has operated for about 400 years, and they are going through the exact same problems as us.
We have the universal service obligation, and we really need to work on that to make sure it is fit for purpose and there are repercussions for not fulfilling those roles.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
On the universal service point, there are huge disparities across the country. A Consumer Scotland report recently laid bare the deep divisions, with quality of service in HS postcodes—Na h-Eileanan an Iar, the Hebrides—standing at 59% whereas across the UK it is 76%, and of course the Royal Mail target is 90%. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a danger of fragmenting the service, and that commercial priorities take over and rural communities are left behind? If there is to be a service, it has to be a universal service, not a postcode lottery across the UK.
David Reed
Again, we will find consensus here. I have a very mixed constituency with some really urban areas and some very rural areas, and there is a significant disparity in service delivery. When we think about the reasons why, we realise that it takes more time for posties to go out and deliver in some areas, which costs more money, and for a company that is stripping back quite significantly, we can understand why those problems arise.
Going back to the point about those who have been waiting for NHS correspondence, financial documents and other time-sensitive information that they rely on, a constituent has told me that letters relating to their cancer treatment have been arriving late. For patients already facing the anxiety and uncertainty of cancer treatment, the added worry of not receiving important medical correspondence is completely unacceptable. For those people, many of whom do not use email or online services, these delays can have particularly serious consequences.
I would like the Minister to address, if possible, a Royal Mail product called economy access mail. It is a non-time sensitive product, and organisations like the NHS and local councils will use it because it is the cheapest option, but they are not informing their customers that they are using it and that that is why correspondence arrives late more often than not.
Particularly frustrating is the repeated cycle my office faces whenever we raise these concerns with Royal Mail, and we have heard very similar experiences tonight about poor communication. My constituents should not have to be reaching out to their MP just to receive their post, nor can we keep having the same debates in this House without seeing any meaningful improvement.
We have discussed some of the numbers, but according to Royal Mail’s latest quarterly performance figures, just 81.8% of first-class letters in the EX postcode of my constituency were delivered within the next working day, against a local target of 87%. Again, I could go into all the numbers, but I am sure that many other Members will be raising them. All this should be considered in the context of a first-class stamp now costing £1.80. My constituents are paying for a first-class service but too often receiving something considerably worse.
I recognise that Royal Mail faces significant challenges. We are going through technological change on a level we have not seen over the last 500 years, and there are financial implications for businesses trying to operate in that environment. Letter volumes have fallen, operating costs have increased and the business model needs to be modernised. Royal Mail recently informed me that it has begun implementing a new delivery model at Exeter, which it says is going to improve output and save costs, but they are just commitments at the moment and after years of missed targets the public can be forgiven for wanting to see results rather than another improvement plan.
It is important to look at the numbers to understand what is really happening. Royal Mail made a loss of £400 million three years ago and £200 million a year after and a £14 million profit last year. We have been seeing lots of fat being cut out of the business, from normal business operations that can cut away that fat, but we have cut into the muscle now, and it is starting to look a lot like asset-stripping.
As I made clear in my previous debate, none of this criticism should be laid at the feet of the postmen or postwomen.
Gill German (Clwyd North) (Lab)
I want to put my thanks on record to postal workers across Clwyd North, and in particular in Colwyn bay where there have been recent problems, and to say sorry that they have been left to deal with the consequences of failure that are not of their making. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that frontline postal workers should not be expected to shoulder responsibility for problems stemming from the organisation, and that it is Royal Mail’s responsibility to ensure that resources are in the right place to provide a good service?
David Reed
We have yet more consensus. This is where we have to really dig into the universal service obligation and make sure that there are significant penalties if Royal Mail does not do what it has signed up to do and what we have asked it to do as a company.
Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)
My hon. Friend refers to significant penalties. Ofcom has levied fines over the past few years, but that is clearly not leading to improvements in the service. Does my hon. Friend agree that it feels as though Royal Mail is treating these fines as part of the cost of doing business, and seeing it as cheaper to pay the fine than to address the problem?
David Reed
My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. If we look at those numbers again—losses of £400 million three years ago and then £200 million, followed by a £14 million profit—they show that Royal Mail is baking the fines into its operating model and cutting away more and more muscle. We have to make sure that there is a cost that is unacceptable to Royal Mail and its shareholders so that we do not see these problems again.
I am conscious that many Members want to speak in the debate so I will come straight to my questions for the Minister. Please will the Minister look at what the Government can do to address Royal Mail’s new delivery model? Secondly, on the imposition of significant fines, does the Minister believe that Ofcom’s current regulatory approach is effective, and what more can be done to hold Royal Mail to account?
Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Redditch (Chris Bloore) and for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) and others for securing this important debate. It is a pleasure to speak in it, but I am disappointed we are having to discuss this topic yet again, because we have been here before: the owners of Royal Mail prioritising profits over the public service requirements of the business they bought; the regulator seemingly unable to do anything at all about it; and postal workers once again being treated so badly when they are the ones who go out on the frontline day in, day out. The question we therefore need to answer is: why?
During my time as Chair of the Business and Trade Committee in the previous Parliament, I spent days and days of parliamentary time cross-examining Royal Mail bosses, the then Government and the regulator. I sought to give a voice to postal workers who, more often than not, felt voiceless in the workplace, and I was proud to support the efforts of the Communication Workers Union to give its members more strength in the power games that were being played between management and the workforce, but quite frankly, what good did that do? The then chief executive was asked to move on, albeit with a handsome exit payment, a new owner has taken over the business, and the regulator conducted its reviews, issued its fines and changed the universal service obligation, yet we find ourselves here in Parliament discussing the issue once again. The only conclusion I can draw is that the business model is not fit for purpose. We should not be shy in coming forward to say that the privatisation of the Royal Mail and its separation from the Post Office was a mistake. The coalition Government got that wrong, and I hope that this Labour Government will put that right.
As far as I can see, there are only two real options. The first is to facilitate the end of the public service provided by the Royal Mail, and to let the current owners turn it into a truly profitable business. We should not be surprised that the new owners of Royal Mail want to make the business profitable, and to focus on its profit-making services—that is the business they are in. However, the problem with privatisation of a public service is that profit making comes first. So it falls to us, as the guardians of public services in this country, to decide whether we will protect the public service functions of the Royal Mail or not.
Some might say the issue is not that binary. No doubt regulation of the parcels market to ensure fairer competition would go a long way to help, and the Government should ask the Competition and Markets Authority to conduct a market investigation into parcel deliveries irrespective of what happens next to the Royal Mail. However, the House should be clear-eyed about what it will mean if we continue with the privatised model. It will, in the end, be the end of the universal service obligation as we know it. That is important because, as we have already heard, the universal service obligation is not just about delivering letters: it is about having a human connection with the people of this country, at every doorstep of every house, in every community, across the width and breadth of the nation. The covid pandemic showed why the network of postal workers matters so much, and I believe that will become more, not less, important in the future. To those making an economic case about the drop in letter deliveries being the end of the universal service obligation, let me say this: think carefully about the end of this public service, because once it is gone, it will not come back.
That takes me to the second option. If Ministers agree with me that privatisation of the Royal Mail was a failure, the only other real option is to renationalise it. The House may be surprised to hear me, of all people, say that—I am not a natural fan of the Government borrowing yet more money to nationalise businesses that can be effectively run by the private sector. However, it has been proven that the Royal Mail is an example of a business that cannot be run effectively by the private sector, and an example of a business that I believe the Government can renationalise fairly easily within its fiscal rules.
When the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves), updated the fiscal rules in 2024, the debt definition became public sector net financial liabilities, or “persnuffle” among friends. That allowed the Government to borrow money to invest in assets while maintaining the debt rule target that Government debt should fall in the long term as a share of GDP. In practice, that allows the Government to use so-called financial transactions to pay for equity or debt financing of publicly owned assets. That could be done with the Royal Mail, and it would fall outside the fiscal rules.
That merely leaves the question of how to raise the money to do so. I am very conscious that our national debt has risen to above £3 trillion, and that the cost of that debt is expensive to the taxpayer, costing over £100 billion a year in interest payments alone, but I think there is a way through that Ministers should consider. When the current owners of Royal Mail, International Distribution Services, bought the Royal Mail in 2025, the deal was valued at £3.6 billion. We should therefore use that number for the purposes of today’s debate.
In the spending review that I conducted in 2025, we allocated £23.8 billion for financial transactions alone between 2025-26 and 2029-30, and we are told to expect the Chancellor to increase that budget further this week. However, financial transactions can only be used by Departments to finance deals where there is a suitable public financial institution—or “puFins”—and where the Office for National Statistics agrees that it is a genuine financial transaction, not an attempt to redesign normal Government spending so that it falls outside the fiscal rules. We have several well-established puFins, from the National Wealth Fund to the British Business Bank, which I am sure will spend their budgets well. The Government have also committed to establishing several new ones, some of which have yet to be fully established. In short, it is quite hard to spend the financial transactions capital budget and I therefore assume, with some confidence, that there will be underspends that could be reprioritised.
Finally, if that is not convincing enough, I am certain that there will be public interest in a more mutual form of ownership of the Royal Mail and, I would hope, its reintegration with the Post Office. A public share offering and a special scheme for Royal Mail employees could be a nice way to do that, with the Government merely underwriting the risk, while funds are raised by the public in the years it would take to undertake the action. Having looked at this issue for so many years, I believe that this is the only solution to protecting the Royal Mail and its future.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
Even if my right hon. Friend’s suggestion were to come to fruition, there would still be ongoing running costs. We know there is huge competition in this sector, so how would he propose to deal with that? Is he proposing an ongoing subsidy?
Darren Jones
I refer my hon. Friend to my previous comments about how the market needs to be better regulated, whether we own the Royal Mail or someone else does. That is why that work should be undertaken while a debate on ownership may continue with Government.
I believe that the end goal that we all want to see, that our constituents want to see and that the Government have the capacity and the ability to enable is a Royal Mail that is back in public hands, reintegrated with the Post Office network. That would be a tangible example of change in every postcode. I put that option on the table today for the Government to consider. I hope that Ministers will come to the same conclusion that I have and get on with doing the right thing.
Mr Tom Morrison (Cheadle) (LD)
I thank the hon. Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) for securing this important debate.
Six months ago, in a Westminster Hall debate, I talked about how bad the Royal Mail service in my constituency had become. I talked about how residents had missed medical appointments, bills and other important documents because of the service’s inability to get its primary job done. I also mentioned how contacting Royal Mail with these issues rarely led to a satisfactory response, or even a response at all. Members from across the House will be less than surprised to learn that following that debate, I immediately had an email from Royal Mail saying its representatives wanted to meet and were only too keen to engage with the issues that my constituents were facing. I met them and they told me all about Royal Mail’s plans to get the situation fixed, but six months on, clearly none of that has turned out to be true.
Since then, over 300 constituents have contacted me to tell me in detail how the problem has affected them personally. Wayne wrote to me about the struggles he has had managing his mother’s probate. He is still missing several documents and is worried about completing before the legal deadline. Susan’s husband has functional neurological disorder and has missed multiple medical appointments because of Royal Mail’s inability to deliver letters on time. Martin tried to remortgage his house, but the documents never arrived from his solicitor. Paul’s son missed a Department for Work and Pensions appointment because the confirmation letter never arrived. He was then sanctioned and will have no income for the month. These are real lives—these people are facing serious situations, all made worse because Royal Mail cannot do the job it is paid to do. How can we resolve this?
Samantha Dixon (Chester North and Neston) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman talks eloquently about the effect of the poor service on our working and personal lives, but there is also an effect on our democracy. As next May’s local elections draw closer, voters will be watching their letterboxes for the arrival of their postal votes. In May 2025, some 2.4 million people—nearly one in five voters—registered for a postal vote, so I am seriously concerned about the impact of the service on the delivery of our democracy.
Mr Morrison
The hon. Member makes a really important point. We have seen through door knocking in my constituency that people are now less willing to take a postal vote, which could have real implications for our democratic process going forward.
How does this situation get resolved? I want to make it clear that this issue does not land at the feet of our postal workers.
Claire Hazelgrove (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Lab)
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests regarding the CWU. On that precise point, does the hon. Gentleman agree that this really is not the fault of our dedicated postal workers? In fact, it is a real loss across the country, and certainly in my constituency, to see many dedicated and long-serving postal workers stepping away from roles that they have held for decades because of the uncertainty and the workload that they face.
Mr Morrison
The hon. Lady makes a really important point. Royal Mail used to be characterised by a really low turnover of staff, but that is changing rapidly, and the culture of the workplace is changing with it.
Following on from that point, I visited sorting offices in my constituency last year and talked through the issues that the postal workers faced. They work in incredibly hard conditions, but that is being made even worse, because senior management cannot get a grip. It is the so-called leaders at the top who are failing and leaving staff lower down to get the blame and angst from angry customers.
Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
I have also made visits to local sorting offices, and the super-frustrating thing to hear about the real issues we are having with services is that they were all foreseen. Colleagues in post offices across the country would have identified that they were going to be a problem. This issue was foreseen by the posties, so why did the management not listen? Does the hon. Member agree?
Mr Morrison
I completely agree. If we listened to the staff on the ground, a lot of these problems could have been foreseen.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
I spoke the other day to a postie who covers a large delivery round in Glastonbury and Somerton. He told me that the posties’ handheld device monitors their every move, alerting managers if they are stuck in traffic, if they are waiting for an elderly resident to come to the door, if they are too slow and even if they are using the toilet. Royal Mail has admitted to using the tracking data in conduct cases. Does my hon. Friend agree that posties should be trusted, not monitored by machines, and that we should recognise them as key workers?
Mr Morrison
I have nothing to add to that. My hon. Friend has made a fantastic point, and I completely agree.
Ofcom also needs to take responsibility. Years of fines and damning verdicts have done nothing to resolve poor levels of service. Royal Mail has been given a free pass. Ofcom has allowed the company to relax its targets, yet it still missed both reduced targets in the first quarter of 2026-27. In any other line of work, that would not be acceptable, so why are the Government not acting? I implore the Minister: let us just get this done. The Government have to step in and take meaningful action either through giving Ofcom stronger powers that actually bite or through other means. Royal Mail is an iconic service known across the world, but its legacy is being completely trashed by the management at the top.
Let me end with two examples of how Royal Mail’s failures have impacted on lives in my constituency. Kate, who lives in Cheadle village, wrote to me:
“I missed an important medical appointment in mid-March as the letter never arrived. I had to rearrange the appointment, creating a delay of over a month to commence my treatment, this also complicated my travel plans and insurance. My GP surgery had to waste time chasing this up and then the GP had to re-refer me…the expensive scanner plus clinical and admin staff are not being used efficiently. This costs us all.”
Laura wrote to me and said that she had been diagnosed with cancer for a second time. She received an important hospital appointment letter the day after the appointment. Letters from her oncologist for treatment frequently arrive late, which adds to her stress during an unbelievably difficult time for her and her family. It is clear in Laura’s case just how crucial the universal postal service is to people’s lives; it is absolutely fundamental.
I hope that Royal Mail management is listening to this debate and begins to appreciate just how important it is that they get this job done properly. Just in case, I will be personally delivering the complaints that I have received from my constituents directly to Royal Mail headquarters—after all, with a postal service this bad, I might as well deliver them myself.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. We have a number of people wishing to contribute. To get as many people in as possible, there will be a speaking limit of four-and-a-half minutes.
Sarah Edwards (Tamworth) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) and for Redditch (Chris Bloore) for securing this important debate.
Last year, Royal Mail, which is now owned by a Czech billionaire, was fined £21 million for failing to meet its delivery targets. In the same financial year, its chief executive received a £7 million bonus. That is a third of the cost of a fine paid while the service was failing the people who depend on it. The consequences are felt by my constituents. One resident in Hockley missed multiple hospital appointments because his letters were not delivered, and a resident in Shenstone village missed an insurance claim deadline because essential documents never arrived. Those are not minor inconveniences; they are barriers to healthcare, financial security and everyday life.
Rural communities are particularly badly affected, with some of my villages lucky enough to receive post twice a month, yet Royal Mail dismisses complaints, claiming that there are no problems in the relevant area. That is a stock response I receive that bears no relation to reality. Royal Mail divides areas into 118 overarching postcode areas, which mix dense urban centres with vast rural areas, meaning that the high delivery rates in town centres can hide issues and completely change the way in which we view the figures. We cannot allow Royal Mail to hide behind statistics that fail to reflect the lived experiences of residents.
Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)
My hon. Friend has spoken very passionately about the experiences of her constituents. My constituents have faced issues in which they have had mail only once every three or four weeks; one constituent did not receive 14 items of post. Does she agree that the Royal Mail’s treatment of Ofcom fines simply as a baked-in operational risk is one reason, among others, why we need a far more muscular regulatory regime?
Sarah Edwards
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We can infer that there is definitely a baked-in position here, and that is a big problem, as we will hear from many Members. I hope that the importance of Ofcom being able to regulate better will be a crucial part of what we hear from the Minister.
As a member of the Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee, I took part in our inquiry into Royal Mail’s performance. We exposed a frustrating cycle of pass the parcel: the Government say that they will strengthen Ofcom’s powers if asked, and Ofcom says that changes are for the Government to make. Meanwhile, Ofcom has admitted that fines against a loss-making company are entirely ineffective in improving services, yet its proposed response to continued failures is more fines. Those statements seem rather at odds with each other. Our Committee has recommended that if Royal Mail fails to improve within six months, the Secretary of State should consult on changing Ofcom’s powers and duties. Five months on, meaningful improvement is yet to materialise.
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
We have heard repeatedly that Royal Mail has failed for a number of years and that Ofcom has repeatedly fined Royal Mail to no effect. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should look not at how Royal Mail might go out of business, but perhaps at a new business model for Royal Mail to take over? That might just be the renationalisation of Royal Mail.
Sarah Edwards
It is absolutely crucial that we explore all the potential solutions. Members have floated a number of potential solutions, and we need to know that whatever solution is found will deliver the best service for constituents.
We have, for the first time in decades, a Government who have shown willing to stand up to the irresponsible chief executives who put individual profit over the people they serve—one example is taking action on water companies. Will the Minister commit to consulting on the regulatory changes needed to strengthen accountability at Royal Mail without waiting for Ofcom to request them? Will she ensure that Royal Mail meets directly with MPs to answer for its failures?
My constituents cannot afford another year, month or week of missed appointments, lost opportunities and letters from loved ones that never arrive. Our postal workers work incredibly hard, but they cannot be left to feel that no help is coming. I look forward to the Minister setting out a plan to deliver genuine change and restore this vital service for the communities who depend on it.
Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
Like other Members, I want to recognise the hard work of postal workers in my constituency. They are not to blame for management’s continued ineptitude and poor delivery of changes. Many are quitting, as fed up with the Royal Mail as we are.
Hundreds of my constituents in Thornbury and Yate have written to me about Royal Mail’s failures. One posted something to Australia and it ended up arriving at a neighbour’s house. Bundles of letters appear at their doors at once—weeks’ worth of magazines, NHS letters and post from friends and family. Mail is an essential service for some, particularly the digitally excluded, who rely on it for important correspondence like letters about their NHS appointments. One Thornbury constituent told me only this weekend that he got a hospital appointment letter the day after the appointment. The Government themselves depend on Royal Mail for sending out passports, driving licences and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs correspondence. Our own offices use Royal Mail.
Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)
The point my hon. Friend makes about passports and other valuable documents is a good one. I attended a meeting in the Polden Hills, where the posties are brilliant but the post is absolutely rubbish, arriving every three weeks or longer. The thing that really shocked me was that Royal Mail is advertising for more posties but applicants do not even need to provide a CV. These people would be expected to deliver documents of prime importance—very often personal things like bank cards. It seems pretty shocking that Royal Mail has decided it does not need to have somebody’s CV before employing them. Does she agree that is really poor practice?
Claire Young
I absolutely agree that is poor practice. I think it is a sign of the desperation Royal Mail finds itself in, with so many people quitting its employment.
Royal Mail’s response has not been good enough. It has moved the goalposts, decreased delivery times, and fiddled around with its staff numbers, but none of that has helped. Reports suggest that it is axing its head office numbers, and posties are quitting in droves. Clearly, that is not sustainable. When I raised my constituents’ concerns with Royal Mail directly, the right people did not even attend the first meeting, and subsequent ones have been little more productive. I am told that the Royal Mail complaints forms have been removed from the building it shares with Yate post office. That is not the behaviour of a business that cares about its customers.
That brings me to the regulator. I want to use this debate to call again for Ofcom to properly regulate the Royal Mail or be replaced. In correspondence, Ministers have confirmed to me that currently Ofcom cannot investigate local failures. As a result, when Royal Mail does not deliver and its complaints team cannot provide an adequate resolution, my constituents have no one else to turn to but me. In essence, the public look to Members of this House to be the regulators, but we do not have the powers of a regulator. Too often, our complaints are met with dismissive template letters asserting that the service is improving when it blatantly is not. Where is Ofcom? What does a fine here and there really do to a failing business?
I wrote to the previous Minister a few months ago, after I raised these issues in the Chamber. I asked what he had done to review Ofcom’s powers and why Ofcom cannot properly regulate at a local level. Disappointingly, he answered that Royal Mail is a private business and Ofcom is an independent regulator, so there is nothing really that the Government can do. I am not sure that is quite how regulation works.
This is simply not good enough. In answer to my written questions, the Government stated that they have not assessed moving responsibility for postal regulation away from Ofcom to a new regulator. Why? Surely even Ministers agree that Royal Mail has been failing to deliver for years now and Ofcom has not changed that. Either Ofcom needs more powers to investigate locally and tackle the issue, or we should remove its power altogether and give the responsibility of postal regulator to a whole new independent body that will focus on the issues properly. Why is Ofcom not performing its duties with vigour?
Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)
The hon. Member has laid out a couple of options on the table. What does she make of the assessment that no regulator will solve the problem and the service has to be brought back into public control? Is that something she would consider?
Claire Young
I do not think we can say that regulation has failed at this point, when effectively what we have been doing is using the same battering ram again and again. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and wondering why it leads to the same result. I think there are other things that we can explore first.
Last week during PMQs, the Prime Minister stated that if Royal Mail does not improve, further measures will be taken. Can the Minister now reveal what those measures are and assure the House that this company will face serious consequences for failing all our constituents?
Maureen Burke (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
Royal Mail was once widely respected and trusted, but it is now too often a cause of frustration and anger for our constituents. Year after year, Royal Mail is falling short of the targets it must meet by law, and the public’s patience is wearing thin. The danger is that at some point the business can no longer survive. While I have no desire to see that happen, we cannot keep making excuses or dismissing what my constituents are going through. They are missing appointments, receiving important news late, and being let down by a system that cannot be relied on to get the basics right.
Just over a year ago, the Scottish Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, held a session with Royal Mail, Ofcom and consumer groups. We were told then that work was under way to improve the service, but it is hard to see any sign of that on the ground. This year again, in most of Royal Mail’s Scottish postcode areas, it has missed its targets, and constituents continue to write to me about the problems they face. A late birthday card can be forgiven, but too often delivery delays affect more important mail. Royal Mail assured our Committee that a new NHS barcode would allow NHS letters to be picked out and given priority, yet NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has told me that it cannot use the barcode because it does not work with the Royal Mail system that is used for most of its letters.
Royal Mail presented the barcode system as an answer, but it is not working in practice. That has real consequences for my constituents. A disabled constituent recently told me that they no longer have the strength to complain. They have already been on to the sorting office and have seen no improvement. Right now, they are waiting on a letter about a home flu jab. Their post is so unreliable that they believe the letter will arrive late. Another constituent told me how they only realised that they had missed an NHS appointment when they spoke with the hospital directly. When they visited the sorting office, their letters were waiting there, still to be delivered, including one telling them about that appointment.
Phil Brickell
My hon. Friend is making a passionate contribution about the experience of her constituents and the real-life impact of Royal Mail’s failures. Does she agree that this is yet another prime example of why it is important to properly regulate a public service? Contrary to what some Members of this House may think, it is not bureaucracy or red tape; it is about securing the proper functioning of a public service.
Maureen Burke
I agree with my hon. Friend and thank him for his contribution.
Those are just two dreadful examples that show the heart of the problem. People are losing faith in the Royal Mail because it is letting them down when they need the service most. I know the postal world has changed. We keep in touch differently now, sending fewer letters and more emails around the world. Postal services are changing, but I do not believe that we want to end up in a situation like Denmark, where PostNord has stopped delivering letters altogether. I believe that the public want Royal Mail to have a future, but for that to be possible, management must take responsibility rather than just blame changes in how people use the service, or put the blame on posties.
People are being priced out, and Royal Mail is adding to their anger by putting up stamp prices. How can we expect people to use a service when research from Citizens Advice suggests that one in three adults would struggle to afford a book of first-class stamps? Equally, it will not be possible for the Royal Mail to meet standards with fewer staff, who feel undervalued, as the Communication Workers Union has said. When the previous board brought in lower wages, longer hours and poorer conditions for new staff, it made Royal Mail a less attractive place to work, with up to half of new staff leaving within the first year. Its owners must show that they understand what went wrong, or risk bringing the service closer to collapse.
I would like to sum up by saying this. I wish Royal Mail well and I pay tribute to Britain’s hard-working posties. Royal Mail is an institution and for many of my constituents it is a lifeline. That is why I hope that the promise from management to meet targets by early next year is signed for and delivered on time.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Stamford) (Con)
A reliable post service is not a luxury; it is an essential public service. For our communities across Rutland, Stamford and the South Kesteven and Harborough villages, the consequences of poor service can be significant, and also unfair on the posties who face the brunt of those frustrations.
In Carlby, some residents were left without post for 20 days in January, with many only receiving their post because they took the initiative to complain. One resident wrote her complaint on 26 January. The next day, a mammoth bundle of mail coincidentally arrived at her house, with some letters dating from 2 January—24 days late. In Ryhall, the village regularly goes without post for weeks at a time. It is not just an inconvenience; it is the norm. In Stamford, first-class post takes a minimum of four days to arrive, despite Royal Mail aiming to deliver the next working day. South Luffenham is no different. The Royal Mail comes once a week, or twice if locals are lucky. Indeed, I wrote to the residents of Cottesmore on 12 October and many received their letters only yesterday. One village resident has missed numerous medical appointments because letters arrive too late from the hospital—or she travels the 40 minutes to our local hospital to find out that the appointment has been cancelled. This is unacceptable.
We are not asking for special treatment. In the last 18 months since the 2025 sale, something has happened that has broken Royal Mail. Residents have consistently been told they can only complain after seven days—a whole week of non-delivery. Again, the significant delays residents face every week are perfectly demonstrated by the fact that when I posted correspondence first class from my constituency office in Oakham, it took two weeks for the letters to arrive. To arrive where? In Oakham—some just one street away. I want to be clear that, as all Members in the Chamber have said, this is not an attack on our postal workers. Many work incredibly hard under considerable pressure in all weathers. We recognise the contribution they make, and we are grateful to them.
I would like to turn briefly to a company called Enough, which uses the Royal Mail service to deliver its self-swab rape kits, despite having been publicly outed by me in this Chamber for sending SLAPPs—strategic lawsuits against public participation—to sexual assault survivors, rape charities and anyone who dares to speak out to question its motives or the claims on its kits. I have raised Enough’s use of Royal Mail services with Royal Mail, because I believe its use of Royal Mail is not compliant with Royal Mail’s own guidance on the transportation of human specimens. First, a kit has to be sent by a qualified medical practitioner or requested by them. This is not the case. Secondly, the labelling on the packaging required is not currently in place. Thirdly, the packaging requirements are also not being met. Royal Mail is not taking the concerns I have raised with it seriously. The Minister knows very well the issues relating to Enough and has promised to look at how we regulate to deal with the fact that this company should not be in operation. It is important that Royal Mail comes back to me and that the Minister also raises this issue with Royal Mail.
Rural communities cannot become an afterthought in the provision of essential services. Yes, distance and rural geography represent operational challenges, but they are not a permanent excuse for poor service. I am sure, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you have had the same issues in your very rural constituency. I urge the Government to take these concerns seriously and press Royal Mail for a clear and measurable improvement plan and improved powers for regulators. That plan must include: transparent local performance information that even I cannot get my hands on; an assessment of staffing and delivery arrangements; better communication with affected residents; and a straightforward process for reporting and resolving complaints.
We are all very grateful to posties for what they do, but accountability means more than just acknowledging a problem. It means taking action and demonstrating results. The universal post service is an essential part of our national infrastructure. Its value is measured not by the number of letters delivered nationally, but by whether our communities can depend on it when they need it—and for too many, they cannot.
Dan Aldridge (Weston-super-Mare) (Lab)
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in relation to the Communication Workers Union.
The anger about Royal Mail’s failure to deliver a reliable service for our constituents is palpable across this House and across our communities. My constituents in Weston-super-Mare, Worle and the villages are not just inconvenienced by these failures. Some are suffering genuine harm by not getting vital information when needed.
From the outset—this has been mentioned by many colleagues across the House—I want to be very clear that my concerns are not with postal workers and those keeping our postal depots going. Posties are facing incredibly demanding working conditions, as well as hostility directed at them by some members of the public. The abuse and targeting of our posties is utterly unacceptable and must stop. My local posties tell me that physical and verbal abuse continues to increase. No wonder so many of them are leaving the job. As the CWU identified earlier this month, 400 posties are leaving every week. Our posties and Royal Mail workers deserve proper support, staffing levels and working conditions to deliver the service people expect. Royal Mail is far more than a parcel delivery service, and it must not be stripped any further of its community value and its unique place in our national story.
Physical post is still a lifeline to many thousands in my constituency who do not or cannot manage essential services online. Many invitations to my own surgeries are being delivered to residents so late that the events have passed, even though we have posted them at least a month in advance such is the reputation of Royal Mail. Much of the casework I receive relates to older and disabled people being left at an intolerable disadvantage by a service they should be able to trust. We must answer the question: why are we allowing a service so fundamental to our communities and our public life to deteriorate while customers are left paying the price? I cannot help feeling that Royal Mail’s owners know the cost of everything, but ignore the value of what they put at such risk.
James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)
Earlier today, a constituent of mine contacted my office to say that they had received 22 items in a single delivery, only one of which was first class. Does my hon. Friend know that most items, including public guardian letters and NHS letters, come via Whistl and UK Mail, which means that they do not actually get included in the universal service data that we often hear about. Does he agree that we need to look at updating the way we measure the collection of post, because Royal Mail is failing more than a lot of people realise?
Dan Aldridge
Absolutely, I agree. The splintering of public services in this way is something we really need to take account of in this House. It is a sad statement that can be applied to the state of too much of our public common wealth that has been carved up and sold off to private interests.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sarah Edwards) mentioned earlier, I want to remind the House and the Government of the recommendations made by our Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee, specifically that the Government and Ofcom must act decisively if Royal Mail fails to make meaningful improvements within the six-month deadline we set. The current evidence gives serious cause for concern. I worry that carefully crafted and presented statistics, as well as polished corporate jargon, make it easy to present a story to decision makers that bears little relation to the lived experience of workers and customers. I am frustrated that our regulatory system has not evolved to deal with the level of corporate gaslighting that seems to run roughshod over worker and customer interests.
This is about what we value as a society, what we trust and the basic functioning of the state. With Christmas just around the corner, families and businesses need reassurance that their post will arrive when it matters. Longer term, Royal Mail must stop making excuses, do right by their workers, and deliver the service that our constituents—its customers—deserve.
Ian Roome (North Devon) (LD)
Ilfracombe, Lee and Combe Martin on the North Devon coast continue to stand out as areas where residents are suffering repeated problems with postal deliveries. I want to highlight the reality on the ground.
A constituent wrote to me on 17 September to say that, after weeks without a Royal Mail delivery, she had driven several miles to the sorting office to collect her own post herself. She collected no fewer than 16 undelivered letters, including—as we have heard from many Members —notification of an NHS appointment. That letter was already a full week behind not just the date on the letter, but the actual appointment. The oldest letter in the bundle was from 14 August—nearly a full month out of date! I have visited that sorting office myself. The staff I met there were hard-working and dedicated, and I really struggle to believe that repeated Royal Mail service issues like this are their fault when similar issues are being reported right across the country, as many Members have stipulated tonight.
Local residents in Ilfracombe found it especially frustrating that mail posted to engage people in the town’s successful nomination for the title of UK Town of Culture 2028 did not reach residents in time. There is a pattern of post going undelivered owing to short staffing, parcels being given priority, and bundles of overdue letters turning up at a later date. Missing post can have terrible knock-on effects if people miss GP appointments, or cannot act on important legal or financial letters. A reliable service is important for farms and remote rural communities, which often suffer poor internet access and where people cannot easily visit their local high street. Along the north Devon coast, the postal network is heavily dependent on vehicles, and relies on retaining posties with strong local knowledge.
Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)
From coastal Devon to rural Warwickshire, we have the same issues. My constituents are not receiving letters on time. They are missing NHS appointments—really important appointments—documents are getting lost, and letters informing people of fines to be paid are arriving too late. We know that our postal workers are doing their best, and are working very hard in very difficult conditions. Does my hon. Friend agree that both Ofcom and Royal Mail need a radical overhaul?
Ian Roome
I thank the hon. Lady for describing so eloquently what is happening in her constituency. I think that Ofcom needs a few more teeth to enable it to engage with Royal Mail and hold it strongly to account.
I have met representatives of Royal Mail who insist that these problems are being ironed out, but it is clear that the postal service is falling well short of its obligation to deliver post on time in areas such as mine. I hope the Minister can answer the following questions. Do the Government believe that Ofcom has the enforcement powers that it needs to push Royal Mail on its quality of service? Does the Minister have a picture of whether certain areas or postcodes are particularly badly affected? What assurances can she give us that Royal Mail is being held to account over staffing levels? I am being told by posties that staffing is a big issue. What remedy do service users have when Royal Mail persistently fails to deliver the service that customers have paid for and residents deserve?
Chris Curtis (Milton Keynes North) (Lab)
Like many others, I will start by paying tribute to our fantastic posties, particularly the one who delivers my mail to Richmond House—constantly reminding me, through letters from constituents, just how dreadful the service that they are experiencing from Royal Mail has become. I will not spend too long listing the many examples of atrocious service that Royal Mail has been delivering in my constituency, but let me give one example. A letter dated 7 July arrived on 4 August, five days after the recipient was supposed to have had an operation. Just in case that was not bad enough, Royal Mail also messed up on follow-up letters from the NHS about cancer checks. We have heard that Royal Mail is planning to get this service fixed by Christmas. I should like to know which Christmas, because in August one of my constituents managed to receive a very, very late Christmas card. I am not sure that we have got last Christmas fixed, let alone Christmas this year.
No one is going to argue that this is acceptable but, like many Members, I find it particularly frustrating that every couple of months or so I go to the delivery office and we have that conversation in which the people running it tell me that, yes, they have been facing challenges, but don’t worry, they are on track now. I go back two months later and it is just like groundhog day: we have exactly the same conversation. I am told, “Yes, there were problems when we last told you that we would fix them, but don’t worry, they are being fixed now.”
We have heard all the statistics showing that Royal Mail is completely failing to meet the targets that it has set, although those targets have been lowered. We have also heard that prices have been rising at the same time. I think people appreciate the challenges that Royal Mail is facing—there has been a dramatic drop in the number of letters, from the 20 billion that we saw years ago to just 6.5 billion today—but there is something fundamentally wrong with the idea that every time Royal Mail fails to meet the standards required of it, our response should be to lower those standards until they become achievable.
When investors bought shares in Royal Mail, they knew that they were buying into a business with certain regulatory obligations attached. Those obligations were part of the deal. While circumstances change and regulations sometimes need to catch up with them, we cannot have a system in which shareholders get to enjoy the potential rewards of private ownership while the public are expected to accept an ever-diminishing service.
Even if this is a difficult problem to solve, solving it should start with an acknowledgment that the decision by the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition to privatise Royal Mail was a mistake. The argument for privatisation is normally that the discipline of the market will drive improvements in efficiency and service. If a company does a bad job, customers can go somewhere else, and the threat of losing those customers gives the business an incentive to improve. But, as should have been obvious at the time, that mechanism does not work with Royal Mail. If my constituents do not receive their hospital appointment letters, they cannot just decide to have them delivered by somebody else. They do not get to choose which postal network the NHS uses to reach them. We have lost the accountability that comes with public ownership, without securing the competitive pressure that is supposed to make private ownership work.
There is a much bigger problem with the way in which we regulate many of these privatised monopolies. In the short time that I have left, let me build on the argument advanced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) about the options for renationalisation, which is certainly something that I believe we should look into. However, this challenge goes way beyond Royal Mail. We now have a problem across our economy with unaccountable, regulated monopolies that simply do not work. If you speak to Ofcom—I may be the only person here who has some sympathy with Ofcom’s position—it will tell you that Royal Mail, like so many other regulated monopolies, such as the water companies, is in financial distress. We cannot use fines as a way to stop those companies being in financial distress, but we still need to produce an incentive for them to improve their behaviour. I urge the Government to consider more innovative ways than just using the fines and the regulatory model to incentivise better behaviour. For example, they should be looking at using—
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
I thank the hon. Members for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) and for Redditch (Chris Bloore) for initiating the debate, and, in particular, I thank the right hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) for his incredibly thoughtful speech. I am not going to get political about this, but our position for ages has been that we should renationalise Royal Mail.
When I read that Royal Mail would be delivering second-class mail only every second weekday, I misread it as, “Royal Mail will be delivering second-class mail every second weekend.” I thought, “Oh, thank goodness! My constituents in Bridge of Don will be getting a better service than the one that they currently receive,” because every second weekend would be significantly better than what they are getting now.
I have visited the delivery offices in my constituency. There is Bridge of Don, there is Mastrick and there is Kittybrewster. I think there is a benefit in living in Scotland in this regard, because the central comms people do not come to these meetings, so I get honesty from the posties. I am wondering what happens when I send a letter, or rather an email, to Royal Mail—there is no point in sending a letter—saying, “Mrs Goggins is having an issue with her mail delivery. She lives in Bridge of Don. Here is her address.” Does Royal Mail Central actually contact the delivery office and say, “Mrs Goggins is having a problem. Please reply and let us know what is happening”? Or does Royal Mail just send me an email back saying, “Everything is fine, it is all great, don't worry,” without actually speaking to the delivery office?
The hon. Member for Lichfield talked about not having all the answers. Well, I will tell the House who has most of the answers: the posties. The posties know what changes need to be made. I went to one of my local delivery offices, and the staff were talking about the design of the cages and the design of the routes. They had asked Royal Mail whether they could change some of the routes and cages. Royal Mail took months to get back to them, but it turned out that they were not allowed to change the design of the cages—they were dangerous, with things falling off them—without the say-so of Royal Mail. It is an incredibly top-down organisation. The posties know how to fix this. The posties know how to improve their routes. They are making these cases to Royal Mail Central, who come back to them with, “I know that that street is off this street, but we are going to keep it on the other route, just because we are in charge and it may look quite good on Google Maps.” I do not understand why Royal Mail is not listening to the posties, who know exactly what they are doing and who know how to improve the routes.
As hon. Members have said, the issue is that Royal Mail’s leadership are trying to asset strip the organisation. It feels like they are not trying to improve the service. They do not care about improving the service; they just care about improving profits. We have been fighting on behalf of our constituents, but we have also been fighting on behalf of the posties, who are not being listened to and who feel like they are banging their heads against a brick wall.
It is not just about NHS letters, although one constituent got in touch to say that they had not received any mail between 23 September and 14 October. They got nine letters, seven of which were NHS letters, and they have been put at the bottom of a waiting list because they missed their appointment. I can tell which letters are NHS letters when they come through my door or when I see them at the sorting office. I know which ones they are, as do the posties, but they are not allowed to take them out and ensure that they are being put at the top of the priority list.
Dame Meg Hillier
NHS letters have come up a lot, and we are letting Royal Mail off the hook if we say that it is okay to prioritise them. That is a workaround for a failed service, and many other letters are important but, for various reasons, will not be branded. Benefits letters, for example, are often anonymous, and sometimes even health letters can be private. Does the hon. Lady have anything to say about that?
Kirsty Blackman
The workaround on barcodes, for example, works only in some areas, and some of the health boards cannot use that workaround. It is absolutely a workaround; it does not ensure that we have a universal service obligation or that the postal service, which people rely on, is actually working.
I do not know about the offices of other MPs, but my office often needs to get people’s wet signatures. Organisations such as UK Visas and Immigration or local councils will require us to get someone to sign a form, and many times we have posted that form to people but they have not got it. What are we supposed to do if people do not have a printer at home? A lot of people do not, understandably. If somebody, particularly in the Bridge of Don, does not have a printer at home and we post them a form, they will not get the letter. How can they get a democratic service, or get us to raise a complaint with the city council on their behalf, if they are not getting the letter?
We have had too many by-elections this year, and a number of people in Aberdeen told us that they did not get their postal votes—they did not arrive. In a council by-election, it is hard enough to get people to vote, but when someone does not get their postal vote, they just say, “I won’t bother.” People are missing out on the democratic process because of the failure of Royal Mail, which cannot even prioritise those letters. I do not understand how Royal Mail can repeatedly say to each one of us, “Everything is fine,” or “We’re working on improvements,” when this is an absolute disaster.
The post is a lifeline. It is a really important public service, and we need Royal Mail and Ofcom to step up, but we need the Government to put on as much pressure as possible to ensure they do.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
I could list all the issues that my constituents have raised about this issue, but we would be here all night. I concur with a lot of other Members, and I will give some examples.
We have a shortage of posties, so I am doing what I can to encourage young people to join the postal service, but clearly I am not going to solve that problem on my own. When I met Royal Mail’s leadership, they said to me, “Don’t worry—in one week, you’ll get a Monday, Wednesday and Friday delivery, and the next week it’s a Tuesday and Thursday delivery,” as though that is somehow okay. That is how the system operates in theory, but a constituent applied for a 60+ oyster card that took so long to arrive that they had to buy a monthly pass, costing over £200, while they were waiting. One constituent received divorce papers weeks late, and five constituents reported not receiving their postal vote for a recent by-election. Exactly as colleagues have said, people are just not bothering to vote because the postal vote is so inefficient.
As a canvasser, I panic when I ask someone whether they have voted and they have not posted it yet. If there is only a week to go, I get worried about them putting it in the post. I will start explaining how to go to the polling station to deliver it, and I will see immediately that they lose interest, even if they were going to be around on election day. One constituent nearly lost her home because of delays with their pension administrator sending information backwards and forwards. Letters were not received, and she experienced many delays in getting her pension in place.
I will give a couple of local examples. In Hackney Wick, post was delivered on 23 June, 27 June, 1 July and 9 July, and then nothing until mid-August. In Dalston in my constituency, one resident did not receive any post for three months, and another road had no post for eight days. I could go on with such examples.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
As a London MP, my hon. Friend is describing the experience of my constituents as well. When I go to Royal Mail to try to interrogate its poor performance, it is required only to give performance data on the basis of the first part of the postcode, so poor performance in SE24 is disguised by average figures for the SE postcode area. Does she agree that it would be a step forward in Royal Mail’s accountability if it had to report performance on the delivery office area, rather than the whole district postcode area?
Dame Meg Hillier
My hon. Friend saves me from having to repeat exactly the same point. We can all name roads in our constituencies that are not getting post, yet apparently it is being delivered in the wider area. There is one way we can all get our post. Guess what? If someone has a parcel delivered, their post will be delivered the same day, so it is more cost effective for some of us to get small, cheap things delivered and then suddenly receive our mail.
There is a bigger issue: the competitiveness of Royal Mail. Since the new owners took over, they have clearly been chasing the competitive parcel delivery market. We understand that how that would interact with Royal Mail was always going to be a challenge, but they seem to have completely junked the letter service. Other providers, some of which have been named, will send parcels. We can even email them our content, and they can mail merge it and put it in an envelope. Of course, in the end the Royal Mail delivers the last part, but we can do that at a discounted postal rate. The leadership at Royal Mail, which has a universal service obligation and the responsibility for delivering letters during the last stage of the journey, are not thinking ahead of the curve about how they could compete with the companies that are undercutting them. That seems utterly ridiculous.
I turn to the postal staff, because I have a number of constituents who are reluctant to raise their concerns. They want to raise them with me, but they say that they do not want to make a complaint because they like their postie. Who does not trust their postal worker? It is one of the most trusted professions. David Beckham, members of the royal family—although perhaps they do not get their mail delivered directly to their door—and top celebrities all trust our postal workers to deliver our post, and I have no doubt in my mind about their trustworthiness. This is a group of people who take huge pride in their jobs, and as we heard from the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), very often postal workers can tell us what the solutions are. Over the years I have interacted with Royal Mail, mostly in London for the past 25 years or so. Often the solution is described locally but not delivered by the central office. The new ownership are degrading our letter service, and if we are not careful, we will go down the path of the Danish service. We cannot lose this service.
There is a big challenge for the Minister. It is easy to talk about nationalisation, but that costs money. It could be that the leadership want to run themselves down so much that the Government step in, but we should not let Royal Mail off the hook. We need solutions, and we need them now.
John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
Royal Mail is a British heritage icon. Bright red post boxes crop up in millions of photographs taken by tourists every year, but what residents describe to me is far short of a postcard picture. This debate is starting to feel like a mass therapy session in which we all share our stories. I thought it was just me, but no, it is absolutely everyone.
Like others, I respect the incredible hard work of the posties and Royal Mail workers in my patch. I have visited the delivery centre in Horsham, and I have seen them at work. It is a hive of activity, and no one is standing still. Despite their energy, like many hon. Members, I have received messages from Royal Mail workers themselves who are distraught that the service they offer is being undermined by factors beyond their control.
Royal Mail wrote to me this month confirming that deliveries in Horsham had been affected by sickness absence and resourcing, that some letter deliveries had been rotated and that it is recruiting for nine vacant posts. It also told me that mail is being taken out six days a week, regular as clockwork. Unfortunately, that simply does not fit the lived experience of residents. They describe post arriving late, all at once or not at all. Yet as recently as August, I understood that the office’s own statistics showed deliveries running satisfactorily and that staffing was adequate. My constituents are living somewhere in the space between these two very contradictory pictures.
One constituent has written to me about going without post, sometimes for more than a month. Her son is medically vulnerable, and she has missed appointments, as have so many others we have heard about tonight. She asks a fair question: why can parcels be prioritised almost instantly, yet not letters? Meanwhile, Roundabout Talking News posts out to its users every Friday morning in bags marked “For The Blind”, but a volunteer told me that she has to visit the sorting office roughly once a month simply to sort out the problems with delivery. Royal Mail tells me it has introduced an NHS-specific barcode at no extra charge to protect NHS letters in times of disruption, but it cannot tell me how many NHS bodies in Horsham use it, because each buys its postal services separately. A safeguard that nobody can measure is not a solution, and it simply wastes valuable clinician time. We have a service designed for a pre-internet, pre-email world, and it must adapt, but it must have support in doing so.
Royal Mail’s own unions point out that, unlike other European countries, the UK does not subsidise the universal service. The regulator Ofcom now proposes to hold the second-class mail price cap for a further year. So I ask the Minister an honest question: does she think it is possible to run a universal service without any kind of Government support?
In my previous career I worked in advertising in Ireland, and the Irish Post Office, An Post, was one of my big clients. It was plain then, 20 years ago, where we were headed, and it is where we have arrived today. There is a fundamental challenge to the business model, and we have not yet solved it. I thought the words of the right hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) were very interesting on the various options that have been considered. That is the conversation we need to have, because the way we are going is not working. It feels as though we are seeing managed decline, and not very well managed at that. This is serving no one—not the residents, not the posties. Either we say we care enough to help this service, or we finally admit that we do not.
Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow West) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) for securing this debate. I will refer to a few things related to work done on the Scottish Affairs Committee, as well as briefly talk about the situation in my own constituency.
In June last year, our Committee looked at the work of Royal Mail, particularly the importance of the universal postal service to remote rural and island communities. We heard from Consumer Scotland, the Federation of Small Businesses, Ofcom and Royal Mail itself. The Committee heard how delays in the postal service can have particularly serious knock-on consequences for people in those communities. An appointment letter arriving late can leave someone without enough time to arrange transport to hospital, and that is often inter-island travel to hospital, and that can cause them to miss their appointment altogether. In an age when public services are increasingly accessed online, the postal service none the less remains essential for many Scots, because often our broadband connectivity and sometimes our digital skills can be limited.
We also heard how much people value their local postie, particularly where older residents in remote places have little other daily contact.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
The hon. Member has just described a village in my constituency called Kentisbeare. Royal Mail threatened to sack or rather move the postie to a different walk, and the village petitioned to maintain the postie on the same walk. Does she recognise that these postal workers do fantastic work and are crucial in communities for maintaining people’s wellbeing?
Patricia Ferguson
The hon. Member is absolutely right about that. As we have heard, if we are to make improvements, we really need to listen to the people who are doing the job on the frontline.
For Scotland’s rural and less well connected communities, the universal service promise of one price to every address is especially important, as many other couriers impose varying levels of delivery surcharge, which are often extremely high in these communities.
The latest published UK figures for the first quarter of this financial year show that 85% of first-class mail arrived the next working day against a target of 90%, and 91% of second-class mail arrived within three working days against a target of 95%. However, the figures for Scotland show why these UK-wide averages cannot be the only measure. In the same quarter just 54% of stamped and metered first-class mail reached the Outer Hebrides the next working day and the figure for Lerwick in Shetland was only 25%, so we cannot rely on these averages as a measure.
There are real challenges in reaching the islands, including weather and transport connections, but the postcode areas covering these islands also remain exempt from the additional local first-class performance targets applied elsewhere. I would welcome an assurance from the Minister that the Government’s work with Royal Mail will include regular reporting on whether Scotland’s rural and remote areas are benefiting. That should cover second-class deliveries as well as first-class post.
I would also welcome an update on a practical issue. As we have heard, Royal Mail told the Committee about its NHS barcode, which is intended to help prioritise health letters. Royal Mail subsequently confirmed to us that uptake depended on individual NHS boards. It expects NHS boards to obtain new envelopes with those barcodes on. How widely are those barcodes being used across Scotland? Are they helping patients to receive their letters in time? My experience and that of my colleagues suggests not.
Our Committee’s inquiry was based on rural and remote communities, but the issues are remarkably similar in my own very urban constituency. We have heard about those problems today, such as people not receiving birthday cards or important appointment letters from the NHS. I frequently hear from constituents about long periods—10 days, 14 days, sometimes a month—where they receive no mail and perhaps only know about a hospital appointment because the hospital called to confirm it or because they subsequently found out that they had missed an appointment.
Having visited a nearby sorting office over the summer, I was struck by the physical restrictions of many sorting offices. These offices were often built for a letter service, but they are now struggling to deal with the physical size of parcels. One postie told me that he had been expected to deliver car tyres that had been ordered online. That suggests to me that there are serious questions about the health and safety of our posties in these sorting offices, and the conditions in which they are being expected to work. Royal Mail must consider the situation of its staff and its customers.
I support the motion’s call for the Government to work with Royal Mail to improve performance and to ensure a reliable service for all of Scotland’s communities. I hope that the Government will be creative when considering the way forward and will not rule out looking at issues such as those raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), because they are at least worth examining.
Ian Lavery (Blyth and Ashington) (Lab)
I refer the House to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests of support from the trade unions. We have come to something with Royal Mail when the surest way of getting a letter delivered on time is by putting it inside a parcel, but that is the sorry situation we face. What a place to be in with this fantastic national British institution.
For years now, residents across my constituency have been contacting me about issues, and we have discussed things with the staff at the sorting offices, working closely with the CWU and the workforce. The situation we are seeing at the Royal Mail is undoubtedly a deliberate ploy to end the universal service obligation. If things are not halted and the private company is not reined in, we will probably see the end of the Royal Mail.
Like most other speakers, I pay tribute to the staff and the posties who have done a fantastic job. Did the posties not carry on through covid? These are fantastic public sector workers who at one time were so proud of being posties. That is not there any more. It has been bashed out of them.
I recognise that there are time constraints in this debate, but I will mention some of the issues facing my constituents. It is horrendous—it is chaos. We have hospital appointments being missed. We have medical correspondence being missed and delayed. We have financial hardship being caused by late bills and official documents not being received. We have postal votes for democratic elections not being received, and vulnerable residents left anxious and frustrated as they wait for important communications. We have an elderly man who received a fine of £600 because of a traffic incident; he was accused of not returning the letter, despite the fact that he had.
It is not just about receiving correspondence; it is about sending it. I am going to say something pretty coarse, but I make no apologies, because it is important. I had an individual who was taking his well man test; he sent a poo sample to the hospital, as you do. Weeks later, he got a letter from the doctor saying, “Sorry, can you do it again? Your sample lay in the sorting office for far too long.” For heaven’s sake, that is coarse, but it is the sort of thing that we are facing. I can see the grimace on Madam Deputy Speaker’s face, and she is right! It is horrendous to think that this is the case. We have got to look at it.
What about the people who are waiting anxiously by the letterbox for results of tests for cancer or other medical problems? What about the people waiting for their passports to go on holiday? It cannot continue. It is important to recognise that the speeches in this debate have been broadly in line with each other, apart from those Lib Dems who say that Ofcom should have more powers and will not accept that—perhaps, perhaps—the renationalisation of Royal Mail is the answer.
The postal service is not a luxury; it is an essential, critical public service. It should exist to serve the public interest, not simply the interests of the market. If private ownership cannot deliver the reliable universal service that people have every right to expect, then the Government must be prepared to act. I want the second option proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones): renationalise the Royal Mail and see how it develops. The message today is simple: the excuses and broken promises must stop; the services must be fixed; and if Royal Mail cannot fix them, we should give the public the opportunity to run it properly once again.
I am sure that I am not the only Member who received an email this morning from, I think, the director of communications at Royal Mail, telling me how things are going to be better tomorrow. I have met with directors of communications—regionally, nationally, next door—who promised the world and, as is typical for Royal Mail, did not deliver. When I have met them, they have all been genuinely decent people, but they have not had any grip on or understanding of exactly what is happening in Royal Mail itself.
I believe the hard-working posties; I believe the people who have been committed to that employment for a lifetime. Royal Mail was established over 400 years ago, and we need to ensure that it continues for another 400 years—perhaps with nationalisation.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. We have had a few people withdraw, so we have a few more minutes on the clock; Back-Bench MPs now have six minutes. I call Sadik Al-Hassan.
Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset) (Lab)
The performance of Royal Mail is a matter of serious concern across North Somerset, where delivery failures are having real consequences for residents and businesses alike.
The problem is long standing in my constituency. In February, following a steady flow of correspondence, I launched a survey asking constituents about their experiences. I have worked constructively with local CWU representatives ever since to understand the pressures that Royal Mail faces and find practical solutions, and I am grateful for their engagement. Earlier this year, I also hosted a town hall, which made the issue painfully clear when many of my constituents received their invitations by post only after the event had taken place—three weeks after I had sent them out.
That is part of a wider pattern of delays eroding confidence in postal services across North Somerset, with Portishead and Nailsea particularly affected. The results of my survey are stark. Some 87% of respondents reported experiencing delays, with nearly half having waited between one and two weeks beyond the expected delivery date to receive a letter.
In September, I visited the Portishead delivery office and heard the voices of our amazing posties and CWU representatives. It is clear that Royal Mail is going through significant change as parcel volumes grow and the nature of the service evolves, and our posties are being asked to bridge structural problems that are not of their making. Locally, the service is also struggling with high vacancy levels. Across Bristol and North Somerset, staff shortages are preventing Royal Mail from delivering a business-as-usual service.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend will appreciate that my constituency is some way from North Somerset. He will also appreciate that as a new town, Harlow has an intricate system of numbering houses on our estates, which means that having a regular postie who covers an estate on a regular basis is really important. Does he agree that when we lose posties in the way he describes, we also lose their experience of getting around an estate effectively, which adds to the increased challenges facing the postal service?
Sadik Al-Hassan
I have to agree with my hon. Friend, who is, as I hear often in the Chamber, a fantastic advocate for Harlow.
Royal Mail’s staff shortages expose the shortcomings of its new delivery model and the two-tier pay systems that are affecting retention, and help to explain—but not excuse—the delays that my residents are experiencing. We need a system that gives staff the time, resources and support to deliver reliably. That means enough workers, proper support for new starters, enough vans and hours, and delivery models that actually work in practice.
Although I would like to see tougher penalties when Royal Mail fails to meet its delivery targets, the fines issued by Ofcom have clearly not prompted change. This is not about faulting postal workers, who work amazingly hard; it is about holding the company accountable for a service that the public still rely on so heavily.
We cannot accept the current standard of service. Some 53% of respondents in my survey said that delayed deliveries had caused them to miss appointments or deadlines. As a pharmacist, I am particularly concerned about health consequences, as late letters increase the risk of missed appointments and put added strain on our NHS. For some people, a late letter is not simply an inconvenience—it is a health risk. Some steps that would make a real difference without placing undue burden on postal workers include notifying businesses when deliveries will not be made and providing for collection in exceptional circumstances.
Our posties are pillars of our community, working tirelessly in all weathers to deliver a vital service. I want to be clear that my concern is with the systemic problems in the postal system and not the amazing, dedicated individuals who deliver it.
I will continue working with local CWU representatives. Royal Mail must communicate better when deliveries cannot be made, consider local collection options and keep addressing the operational pressures behind these delays.
Frank McNally (Coatbridge and Bellshill) (Lab)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Redditch (Chris Bloore) and for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) for the work they have done on this issue over many months.
On 11 September this year, my constituents Helen and Joe lost their bank cards in Coatbridge town centre. They promptly cancelled their credit and debit cards, requested new ones and were told that they would receive them within three to five days. More than three weeks later, they had not received anything. They went down to their local sorting office to find not only their four bank cards undelivered but no less than 22 other pieces of mail. They collected them and returned a week later to see if there was anything else. There were 11 pieces of mail undelivered.
When they asked the sorting office for an explanation, they were told that parcels get priority. It seems that first-class letters, which should be delivered the next day, are not arriving for up to five days, and some second-class letters are not being delivered at all. Along with Helen and Joe, dozens of constituents have been in touch with me to say that they have missed interviews and failed to receive bank and other financial letters as well as legal documents due to the systemic issues.
Critical hospital appointments have also been missed, as has been a theme of the debate. Some of my constituents have waited months or years for critical treatment only for the appointment letter to fail to arrive in time. In Scotland, 30,000 people have been waiting over a year for critical NHS treatment. Imagine the stress they would feel to discover that they have missed a letter telling them that they have an appointment on a specific day. This is really consequential for people in my constituency. I have heard from local businesses who have missed payments or had payments delayed because they have not received documents in the post on time.
It is clear that we cannot go on like this. My constituents deserve better, and so do our postal workers. Over the last year, I visited Royal Mail delivery offices in Coatbridge and Bellshill and witnessed the excellent efforts of the dedicated staff there. Our posties are pounding the streets day in, day out in all conditions. The very least that they deserve is for those at the top of Royal Mail to get their bit right.
Earlier this year I met with the CWU to hear of the issues that their members are facing. They spoke of the two-tier employment of Royal Mail workers. While Royal Mail has committed to equalising terms and conditions for employees hired post 2022, full equalisation has been left to the ongoing review due to Royal Mail’s claims that it cannot afford it—that is in the context of the company making operating profits of £294 million in the last two years.
We know that there is a high staff turnover in the business. Indeed, since 2022 across the country half of new Royal Mail workers left the organisation within a year, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Maureen Burke) has said. Such turmoil in workplace terms and conditions has serious consequences for staff morale.
I met with the Minister’s predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall), to raise these issues, and I want to place on record my thanks to him for all his work in his area. I also thank the Minister for her attention to these matters.
I know that, like me, colleagues have taken their concerns directly to the chief executive of Ofcom, Dame Melanie Dawes. When she wrote back to me in March, she told me of Ofcom’s work calling on Royal Mail to publish a credible plan to improve quality and restore consumer confidence. That plan was published in April, with Royal Mail promising that it will meet Ofcom’s delivery targets by next April. That is far too slow. More so-called plans mean nothing to constituents like Helen and Joe, or the many others who have contacted me in recent months about missed mail, if they do not produce better outcomes.
It is critical that Royal Mail gives evidence to MPs and engages fully in the upcoming summit. It is also important that Ofcom and the Government use all the powers that they have to make this service better for our constituents. The service is simply not good enough, and urgent action is required.
David Burton-Sampson (Southend West and Leigh) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) for securing the debate and my hon. Friends the Members for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) and for Corby and East Northamptonshire (Lee Barron), and many other hon. Members across the House, for their work on this matter. My constituents in Southend West and Leigh, like those of so many other hon. Members, have been rightfully disappointed in the service provided by Royal Mail. I concur with much of what I have heard.
Southend was the original pilot area for the optimised delivery model, so we have been experiencing these issues locally for well over a year. It was deeply concerning that the clear indications that the ODM was not working in Southend did not prevent it from being rolled out nationwide. It is increasingly frustrating for my constituents, who feel that they are not getting the service they are paying for. For many people, the poor service has been not just inconvenient but disastrous, and we have heard many stories tonight about how it has been replicated across the country.
NHS letters are not the only urgent post not being delivered. One constituent lost a job opportunity when a Disclosure and Barring Service certificate failed to arrive in time and another man, who was terminally ill, experienced unacceptable delays in receiving the paperwork he had requested to arrange his own funeral. I heard many such stories at a public meeting I held back in April, which gave residents the chance to put their concerns directly to Royal Mail’s regional management. Improvement was promised at the meeting, but guess what? It never came.
In July, I held a consultation, which received 122 responses in just a couple of days. I am sorry to say that the feedback was overwhelmingly negative. Of those 122, 102 said that they were “dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied” with the postal service. Only one person considered the current standard of service acceptable.
Throughout this time, I have regularly met the CWU—the union that represents postal workers—and heard from it that postal workers in my constituency have been overworked, under immense pressure and unhappy with the standard of service they have been able to provide. They are equally unhappy at the massive variations between the old and new contracts, but I do not have time to talk about that.
I was heartened to hear—a bit of positivity—that after a visit in August, having requested my fourth visit to the depot, Southend sorting office, in partnership with CWU reps, was ready to trial a new system that would rebalance the round loads and help reinforce the local link between the postie and their area in an amendment to DM26 that is about to be rolled out. Posties are much more efficient when they know the layout of their rounds, so it is clearly not rocket science to have them on a dedicated round.
The trial took place in Leigh-on-Sea in my constituency. A month later, I was glad to visit the sorting office again and see the racks empty—but this time the CWU assured me that things had worked well and that, in that particular round, they were back in control. As of 19 October, the new system has been rolled out across our whole sorting office area. I will be keeping a watching brief, but it is showing real positive signs. I hope that those at Royal Mail will look at the success of the local pilot and roll it out across the rest of the country. If it is working, why would they not?
Kirsty Blackman
Does the hon. Member share my concern that Royal Mail bosses do not seem to want to improve the service? So many of my constituents are no longer posting anything because they do not believe that it is ever going to get there—the lack of service means that lots of people are turning away from the postal service completely. Does he feel that if Royal Mail continues down the route of putting DM26 in place without the amendments, people will give up on Royal Mail entirely and we will risk losing it totally?
David Burton-Sampson
I share those concerns. We have heard from Members across the House tonight that many people feel that Royal Mail is putting the service into a managed decline. We have to fight against that. The service is vital across the country, and we have to do everything we can to ensure that we do not lose it. Royal Mail has let people down for far too long, and it needs to work at speed to get things back on track.
It was great to see the Government’s announcement in September about cracking down on bogus self-employment. That is rightly a priority for the CWU. Delivery companies undercutting Royal Mail’s prices by mislabelling staff as self-employed to avoid statutory obligations—shifting costs on to workers so that nothing is covered—is unacceptable. Those companies do not cover sick pay, employer national insurance contributions, holidays or even the petrol used for deliveries. We do not want to see Royal Mail dragged down to that level. Our Government want everyone to enjoy security in their employment.
Chris Vince
My hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Bellshill (Frank McNally) also mentioned the inconsistency when it comes to Royal Mail staff contracts, and Royal Mail staff in my Harlow constituency are very concerned. Will my hon. Friend touch on what needs to change?
David Burton-Sampson
My hon. Friend makes a fantastic point. The CWU, too, is deeply concerned about the differences in contracts, and it is working with Royal Mail towards contract harmonisation. Royal Mail has shown some desire to move towards that, but, like many others, I am concerned about the speed with which that will happen—and whether it will happen at all.
Royal Mail faces challenges on several levels. Through better employment practices, a more efficient delivery model and, most importantly, listening to their posties, the unions and residents, I am hopeful that for the first time in a while, there is a possible route to improvement in Southend. I thank Ministers, past and present, for working with me and other Members across the House on the issue and for the continued focus on holding Royal Mail to account. I will continue to work on this issue as hard as I can to ensure that my residents are getting the service that they are paying for and, to speak frankly, the service that is absolutely essential to so many.
Sureena Brackenridge (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
On behalf of my residents across Wolverhampton North East, I put on record our sheer frustration and disappointment about the delayed post. One constituent, Terry, told me that he received letters six weeks late and that 48-hour mail was delivered over a month late. Residents are frustrated that a service they have relied on for decades is no longer delivering the reliability that they expect. Vital correspondence, such as NHS appointment letters, is arriving too late, and delays to letters relied on for finances, such as bank cards, are causing anxiety. Residents deserve a postal service they can rely on.
This situation is the fault not of posties and frontline workers, who are bearing the brunt, but of the decisions made by the bosses, who need to be held accountable. Recently, I visited Royal Mail’s Sun Street delivery office alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss). We saw some incredibly hard-working staff, but we also heard about the growing use of the five-day economy service by large organisations, including the NHS, banks and utility companies. That means that letters are being held and delivered together through residents’ letterboxes in large batches. That does not explain every delay, and it must not become an excuse for failing to deliver the service that people deserve. Residents need honest answers about what is going wrong and what is being done to put it right. Our posties, sorting staff and frontline workers must not be made the scapegoat. They work hard, often under immense pressure, to serve our communities.
The CWU has raised concerns about bogus self-employment in the wider parcel delivery sector, where some companies can cut costs while workers lose out on employment protections. We need a level playing field where companies compete on service and reliability, not by driving down workers’ rights. I welcome the Government’s consultation on employment status reform, but we need robust rules and effective enforcement to ensure that these protections mean something in practice. Royal Mail management must also take responsibility, and I will continue to work closely with local CWU reps and staff across the delivery and sorting offices to monitor performance, support our workforce and challenge management to deliver improvements.
Our postal service matters to every community, and I have heard that from across the House tonight. I ask the Minister a simple question: when residents are let down and frontline workers are under pressure, is this not yet another example of the failures of privatisation, and what will the Government do to ensure that the public interest comes first?
Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Redditch (Chris Bloore) and for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) on securing the debate and on their valiant campaigning in this area. Since my election, constituents across Basingstoke and the villages I represent have contacted me with stories similar to those we have heard from many hon. Members—stories in which residents, businesses and public services have been affected.
One constituent reported no letter deliveries to their road for over two weeks and items not delivered, including, as many others have said, a hospital appointment letter and a credit card. Another constituent reported that some Basingstoke postcodes were experiencing gaps of between 11 days and some weeks between deliveries. Another constituent informed us that they had only received two deliveries in a month, with first-class items taking up to two weeks to arrive. They also raised concerns about Royal Mail’s complaints handling, which we have now raised with Ofcom’s as the regulatory oversight body, alongside those concerns about local delivery delays.
As many other Members have said, this is not a trivial issue. Earlier today, I received an email from a constituent in Oakley, a village that I represent. In his words,
“Residents in the village are not receiving their post in a timely manner—not receiving doctor’s appointments, HMRC tax details, documents from the DVLA about road tax, bank and credit card statements. This is a total disgrace.”
I know that Members across the House agree. Indeed, he highlighted the fact that he recently purchased a new car but had to wait over 10 days because the document he needed was sat in the sorting office.
As many other Members have said, this situation is not the fault of our posties locally or across the country, who work exceptionally hard to get mail out to residents. They see themselves, rightly, as an important public service, and they—more than anyone—want Royal Mail to succeed. It is clear that what constituents in Basingstoke are experiencing is not a mere local blip, but part of a consistent national pattern that includes missed targets on first-class and second-class deliveries, and an estimated 220 million letters delivered late every year, according to Ofcom, which has fined Royal Mail £5.6 million for its performance in 2022-23, £10.5 million for 2023-24 and £21 million for 2024-25—successive years of failure. In June, Ofcom opened a fourth consecutive investigation, this time into performance during 2025-26.
Kirsty Blackman
I thank the hon. Member for talking about the statistics—it is really important to do that. I am concerned, though, that the statistics, particularly those provided by Royal Mail, are deeply inaccurate. My constituents say they are not getting mail for three weeks at a time very regularly, but Royal Mail has come back to me and said, “Everything’s pretty fine—don’t worry about it.” Is he concerned that Ofcom might not even know the full breadth of the issue, particularly as we have heard Members from Aberdeen, from the Western Isles and from Devon all raising the same issue? It is clearly happening everywhere.
Luke Murphy
Indeed, I was going to say that I would like to see the Government press Ofcom and Royal Mail to deliver much more granular data on delivery targets. That is really important, because the national performance —woeful as it is—does not represent the even worse performance that we are seeing locally. Indeed, Royal Mail has been set lower targets nationally, but it is not even meeting them. And behind these figures and statistics are the streets and lanes, like those in my constituency, where the post simply does not come. Members across this House recognise this; it is a cross-party concern about a service that the whole country depends on. The Communication Workers Union has highlighted this over and again: persistent delivery failures; a growing recruitment and retention crisis; and an unevenly regulated postal market which threatens the future of the universal service that we have heard so many Members speak about so passionately tonight.
Royal Mail has told all of us, I think, that it recognises the problem and is committed and is making promises for change but, frankly, all of us in this House and my constituents have heard these promises before. The test of any plan will not be what it says on paper; it will be whether hospital letters start to arrive before appointments.
I welcome the Government’s clear stance in response. Ministers have told Royal Mail’s leadership that its service has been unacceptable for too long and the pace of improvement must increase. The public deserve a reliable postal service and are right to expect better, and I welcome the Government’s commitment to keep holding Royal Mail to account. I hope the Minister will continue applying that pressure. In particular, I hope she will consider whether Ofcom is currently really up to the job of regulating Royal Mail and look closely at how Royal Mail handles complaints. As many Members have said this evening, our constituents find the way in which it deals with those complaints totally inadequate. The Government must also press for greater transparency on local performance, as we have just discussed, and look seriously at the recommendations of the Business and Trade Committee’s May 2026 report on the regulation of postal services and the proposals, as other Members have mentioned, from the CWU, including on a level playing field for the sector, a new regulatory framework and building on the Government’s golden share.
Royal Mail remains a vital national institution providing an essential universal service. We all have a stake in ensuring it succeeds, not least my constituents in Basingstoke, who have every right to expect better.
Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Redditch (Chris Bloore) and for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) for their steadfast work on this issue.
Ahead of today’s debate, my team and I spoke to Zoe from Hednesford—not by letter, of course, because it would probably still be on its way. Zoe told me that her parents rely on post for important correspondence such as, as we have heard from many hon. Members, hospital appointments, particularly for their daughter Emily, yet they often go weeks on end with nothing at all. Emily was diagnosed with a very long list of long-term health conditions. Because of the lack of post, Emily missed extremely important medical appointments on many occasions. As we know, missed appointments are a big drain on NHS resources, from GPs right through to hospitals.
There has also been a direct financial consequence for Zoe’s parents, who received a parking fine that would have been £60 if paid within 14 days. However, because the correspondence was not received, they were unaware of the deadline so ended up having to pay the full £100.
Zoe’s sister Emily has, very sadly, passed away since her family first got in touch with me, and I want to place on record my condolences to Zoe and her whole family. Sadly, stories like theirs are not unusual in Cannock Chase. I have heard from constituents who have missed court information and jury duty and have had Christmas cards arriving in January. My constituent, Julian, told me that he had to collect his post from the sorting office in Rugeley after receiving nothing whatever in July, and found 16 letters waiting for him.
I hear time and again from my constituents, particularly in Rugeley and Brereton—WS15 in Royal Mail-speak—that they are getting a month’s-worth of letters shoved through their door in one go. So to get emails from Royal Mail’s public affairs team like the one we had this morning that my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield referred to, telling us that things are going swimmingly in most of the country is, frankly, galling. I invite them to come to Cannock Chase and speak to the people I represent if they want to really find out how the service is doing.
Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
My constituency covers city and rural areas, and the villages I represent have the greatest problem with getting regular deliveries, and elderly constituents there who cannot rely on email are really struggling. Villages like Tean, Swynnerton, Oulton and Fulford must get the support they need, and it is interesting that you are experiencing the same issues in Staffordshire.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I am not experiencing these issues—well, obviously my constituency is, but I am talking about this debate—so I ask Members not to say “You” or “Yours” please.
Josh Newbury
I know that the Rugeley sorting office does not cover your constituency, Madam Deputy Speaker, or my hon. Friend’s constituency, but the story she tells about the particular difficulties of the service experienced by her rural constituents is echoed in my constituency. On Saturday, I held a coffee morning in Prospect Village, quite an isolated rural village, and I heard exactly the same concerns, so I am completely with her on that.
A constituent of mine—I will keep them anonymous because I do not want to put them in a difficult position—has shared with me some of the things that are happening to postal workers locally. I am told that overtime is rarely permitted, meaning that when a postie cannot finish their round, some of the post inevitably has to go back to the sorting office, where it builds up. Some workers are now doing what two postal workers would previously have done, with tracked parcels and first-class post taking priority. That inevitably raises questions about what is realistically expected of staff, and what happens to the letters that have to be left behind.
I am told that new recruits are being sent out alone very quickly, moved between unfamiliar rounds and put under pressure to meet targets, sometimes facing managerial meetings when they fall short. That is a considerable ask for someone who is still learning the job. In the past, new posties would spend months learning alongside experienced colleagues before being expected to manage a round independently. Many new starters leave within a short time, and I am told that the way some staff are spoken to by managers is completely unacceptable, with conversations that should be about helping people to improve instead leaving them feeling belittled or intimidated. I have heard stories of multiple managers waiting for posties to finish their rounds, only to tell them that they are too slow, even after they have faced wind and rain, or got held up by uncontrollable things like roadworks or livestock on country lanes.
Knowing a round takes time. Knowing that community, spotting when members of the public might need help and taking pride in getting the job done are all part of what made our postal service the envy of the world, and worthy of its royal moniker. What particularly struck me was my constituent’s description of postal workers as a tight-knit group who continue to look out for one another and pull together. That sense of solidarity is clearly still there, but it is being strained to breaking point by the pressure from management that workers describe and by the uncertainty around hours and rounds. I am also told that trade union reps are struggling to keep up with the number of staff seeking their help, such are the difficulties in many sorting offices.
Fixing the issues Royal Mail faces is far from straight forward. A lot needs to change, but that change has to work for the people delivering the post and those waiting for it at home. Given what all of us in this House are hearing, it falls to us to ask whether we are even on the right track. The consensus tonight is a resounding no. Royal Mail execs should meet with us here in Parliament, explain what is going wrong and set out what they will do to put it right. Our constituents deserve more than apologies and hollow promises. They deserve a reliable service and we need to see meaningful action, right now, to make that happen.
Dr Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)
In the summer of 1914, as Britain was on the brink of war, Mr Asquith, 62, the Prime Minister, was having an affair with Venetia Stanley, 26. They wrote several letters to each other each day, for there were multiple postal deliveries daily, at a cost of 1d each, the equivalent of 62p today, although as we all know the cost of a first-class letter is now £1.80. Asquith sensibly destroyed the letters, but his letters to Venetia Stanley—all 300,000 words—were retained. When the writer Robert Harris wrote the novel “Precipice”, he invented her letters and used Asquith’s originals. That was an amazing work of a novelist’s imagination, for as we all know letters tell magical stories.
We have heard many passionate contributions. I will call out particularly the amazing contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery), who is no longer in his seat. We have learned that times have certainly changed for this essential service.
From Beyton to Stanton and from Honington to Rattlesden, villages across my constituency have one thing in common: a completely unreliable service. As we have heard, constituents are missing hospital appointments, bank correspondence and other important communications. Does the Minister agree that that is simply unacceptable? I agree completely with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), who is also no longer in his seat, that the solution to this issue is to renationalise the service.
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the unenviable task of following my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Dr Prinsley).
When I talk to my constituents, they regularly tell me that Royal Mail is failing them, and I know that the Minister, my constituency neighbour, will have heard the same complaints. The issue comes up in surgeries and when we knock on doors, and when letters eventually arrive at my constituency office, it comes up in them too. In a world where we expect things to improve, our postal service is going backwards. That creates anxiety, as people miss bills and NHS appointments, and it pushes people further apart when a postcard from a loved one is lost or a birthday message arrives late.
I know that the Minister shares the frustration and is working hard to turn things around. She understands, as I do, that places such as Calderdale often feel the consequences of those failures first. Over the last decade, people in towns and villages such as ours have seen the steady erosion of services that they once took for granted. We have seen that with our buses, banking, department stores and high streets, and people increasingly see it in Royal Mail.
Calder Valley does not have a single urban centre; it is a network of towns and villages that stretches from Todmorden and Hebden Bridge through Mytholmroyd, Elland, Ryburn and Brighouse and all the way to Rastrick. When organisations start cutting costs, communities such as ours are among the first to feel the consequences, and it is communities such as ours that often feel the most isolated. My older constituents are more likely to rely on the postal service; it is how many of them hear from their hospitals, the DWP, their bank and the local council. While the digitisation of public services has brought a huge benefit, it cannot come at the expense of those who cannot get online. They are some of the most vulnerable people in our society and the most likely to be affected when post does not arrive on time. A missed hospital appointment, an unpaid bill and interrupted energy supplies can have serious consequences through no fault of their own.
What happened to Royal Mail is the story of a failed ideological experiment. For years, we were told that privatisation and market discipline would drive up standards and drive down costs. Instead, my constituents have watched services deteriorate while accountability has become harder to find. There is no real market; my constituents cannot shop around for someone else to deliver their appointment letter or switch providers because their pension statement arrived two weeks late. Like the water industry, it is a service that people depend on but have no choice over. That is why it is so frustrating.
This is not just another company; Royal Mail is part of the fabric of this country. Its origins can be traced back to the 16th century. It maintains our iconic red post boxes and the local postmen, who we all value, but in recent years Royal Mail has been treated like a commercial asset, rather than a public service. The Opposition spent years picking through some of our most valued institutions in the hope of making a quick buck, with an ideological trust in the market without properly considering the long-term consequences.
My constituents are looking for evidence that things are changing. Life is stressful enough, and we should not have to worry about whether an important letter will show up on time. I welcome the determination that the Minister has shown in holding Royal Mail to account and tackling the legacy that we have inherited, but the truth is that for far too many people in Calder Valley, things are still not good enough.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call Andrew Ranger to make the final Back-Bench contribution. Other Back Benchers who have contributed to the debate should make their way back to the Chamber.
Andrew Ranger (Wrexham) (Lab)
Like colleagues from across the House, my constituents have been telling me for months and months now—in casework emails, in surgeries, on street stalls and everywhere else you can think of—that the service they rely on is no longer the one they used to have. As has been mentioned many times, residents report important letters arriving weeks late, hospital appointments being missed, financial documents turning up long after they were needed, and businesses struggling with uncertainty over deliveries.
For communities such as Wrexham, this is not simply an inconvenience; it is a matter of fairness, connectivity and trust in a public service. While many people have embraced digital communication, not everyone can. Elderly residents, vulnerable individuals, rural households and those without reliable digital access continue to depend on the arrival of letters through the door.
Kirsty Blackman
On missed deliveries, and I suppose their emotional cost, the Chair of the Treasury Committee, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), asked the right hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) about the resource cost for Royal Mail. Does the hon. Member for Wrexham (Andrew Ranger) agree that the potential cost to the economy of Royal Mail not delivering these letters—the cost to public services, with NHS appointments being missed—could be rediverted in order to fund some of Royal Mail, were it to be renationalised?
Andrew Ranger
The hon. Member makes a really good point. That is definitely something we need to investigate, because it is probably a very valid point.
Postal services remain a lifeline for those who do not have digital connectivity, and any failures disproportionately affect the most vulnerable. As has been acknowledged across the House, Royal Mail is facing difficult circumstances. Letter volumes have fallen dramatically over many years and parcel volumes have grown significantly. That reflects changes across the world. Royal Mail is operating at a loss and faces significant structural challenges.
All that being said, understanding those challenges cannot mean accepting poor service. One of the most concerning issues raised with MPs by postal workers and their representatives is the widespread perception that parcels are increasingly prioritised over letters, and constituents say the same. That is despite assurances to the contrary. I have constituents who see parcels arriving promptly, on time, delivered by Royal Mail when they were supposed to be, but not letters.
Serious workforce concerns are also being reported. As we have heard, there have been retention problems due to changing terms and conditions, reports of 400 postal workers leaving the organisation each week, a culture of intense monitoring and an increasingly difficult working environment. It is clear that Royal Mail cannot provide a high-quality service without a motivated and stable workforce. At the same time, serious questions remain about the long-term sustainability of the current model, in terms of the universal service obligation, the delivery of letters, and the regulatory model.
My constituents and everyone else’s want three simple things: they want their letters delivered on time, they want transparency when things go wrong, and they want accountability from both Royal Mail and the regulator. Too often, MPs are told that performance is improving while residents continue to experience delays. Too often, complaints disappear into automated systems without satisfactory answers, and too often, local concerns are met with generic responses rather than meaningful action.
As has been said, Royal Mail occupies a unique position in our national life. It is not just another company; it is a vital part of the UK’s social and economic infrastructure, and it remains a public service even though it is a privately owned company. That is why this matters. I urge the Minister to continue engaging with Royal Mail, Ofcom, workforce representatives and consumer groups to develop a long-term vision for postal services. Any future reforms must protect the universal service obligation, while recognising the needs of communities, supporting a sustainable workforce, and ensuring that no part of the country is left with a substandard service. I wholeheartedly agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) on some of the options that he presented about a possible future for Royal Mail.
Our constituents do not expect perfection—they understand that times change and markets evolve—but they do expect that when a letter is posted, it arrives when it should. That is not an unreasonable expectation; it is the foundation of trust in a service that has connected communities for generations.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)
I thank the hon. Members for Redditch (Chris Bloore) and for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) for securing this very important debate.
As has been highlighted, the post is not a nostalgic luxury. For millions of people it is how the hospital tells them when their appointment is, how the banks send their statements, and how they find out about their benefits. People need to know that their post will arrive on time so that they can go about their lives. As the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn) eloquently put it, it is also about that human connection in a world where we feel disconnected. I am sure that many Members know the impact of a handwritten note, especially to constituents who are having a difficult time or facing difficult issues. It really does make a difference.
We also know, as so many Members have highlighted, that the posties are working hard to get us our post, but Royal Mail is letting them down. I have so many incredible posties, but I would like to give a special shout out to postman Paul. Members would not be surprised to think that Postman Pat had jumped out of the TV and arrived in Tring with Jess the cat in tow, because Paul delivers not only letters and parcels but joy to residents and visitors alike—a special thank you to him.
In Harpenden and Berkhamsted, I have Gordon and Evina from Jersey Farm who told me that they had gone 10 days without a single letter—so many Members have highlighted this—and then their postwoman arrived with a bundle of 12 or 13. Among them was an invite to my local surgery which—just as the hon. Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan) highlighted—had already happened. They had already complained about the postal service. They raised the issue with me too and I continue to raise it, but the problem has not been fixed. It clearly goes on.
Another constituent in Jersey Farm, Irene, had no post for seven days and then 35 items in one go, including a new debit card. She also had to face severe delays in receiving a letter relating to a recent hospital appointment on how to take certain medicines. When people such as Irene and her husband rely on letters about regular medical appointments, there cannot afford to be delays. A constituent in Sandridge said that they are lucky to get one delivery a week—the House has highlighted that, unfortunately, that is quite a good delivery service—and that should not be happening in 2026.
Those are not isolated stories. They are happening up and down the country. Citizens Advice found that over Christmas 16 million people had letters delayed. I cannot remember which Member it was who asked at which Christmas this issue would get sorted out, but it is a very good question. We have 5.7 million people who have suffered serious consequences, including missed health appointments, fines and benefit decisions. A third of people who use Royal Mail recognised exactly what Gordon and Evina described: no post for several weeks and then five or more letters landing at once. The sorry saga of Royal Mail delays has been going on for far too long and people are rightly furious. Royal Mail is simply not delivering the service it is required to provide. It has missed both its first and second-class targets every year since 2021-22. Last year, just 75.7% of first-class letters arrived the next day, against a target of 93%.
The regulator has not got a grip. As the Business and Trade Committee put it:
“Ofcom is failing as the statutory regulator of the postal service”.
It could not even tell Parliament how many letters were arriving late. Instead of holding Royal Mail to account, Ofcom lowered the bar. It cut second-class deliveries to alternate weekdays and relaxed the targets. The Liberal Democrats warned at the time that this was letting Royal Mail off the hook. In the first three months, Royal Mail missed even those lower targets. It now says it will not meet them until April 2027.
Somehow, people are paying more for less. A first-class stamp now costs £1.80. In 2022, it was 95p. That is seven price rises in four years for a service that keeps getting worse. Many have highlighted that parcels are getting delivered but I would also highlight, as someone who ran an online business and whose mother had an online business, that products are also sent in letters. Something that has not been touched on much is the impact this situation is having on small businesses. I know this from first-hand experience. The cost is extortionate and with small margins it is killing a lot of businesses. The terrible service is also killing small businesses, when they have to compete with online services such as Amazon. This is a key service for people and businesses, and they do not need excuses; they need action.
Will the Minister commit herself tonight to consulting on new powers and teeth for Ofcom? Will she ask Royal Mail to publish performance levels for every delivery office, so that residents such as those in Jersey Farm and the many others mentioned by Members can judge for themselves? We must hold Royal Mail’s owners to their promises and fix the frontline. The Government say that they have secured legally binding commitments from EP Group to invest enough to deliver the universal service. When the Minister does meet Royal Mail, will she put the failing delivery officers at the top of the agenda, ensure that the agreements with postal workers are kept, and report back to the House with a timetable?
When post does not arrive, people miss appointments, pay fines that they never knew about, and lose faith that anything works. Christmas, Royal Mail’s busiest time of the year, is only weeks away, so this must be sorted out before then—but we all know that it will not be, and we will keep standing up for residents until it is.
Let me again thank all our wonderful posties who will be working so hard to deliver. We must ensure that Royal Mail does not let them or our local residents down.
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
I thank the hon. Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore), my constituency neighbour, and the hon. Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson), who I know feels strongly and passionately about this issue. Indeed, we have spoken many times outside the Chamber about our mutual woes over the lack of performance on the part of Royal Mail.
We are all aware of the importance of a reliable postal service. It keeps isolated and digitally excluded people connected, sustains relationships between loved ones during special times, and serves as the foundational communication network for vital public services such as the NHS. Hearing Members on both sides of the House speak about Royal Mail with such great concern, I was struck by the fact that it has become a topic that unites the House.
Last week in Westminster Hall, Members heard about the array of problems that constituencies across the country are experiencing with Royal Mail. In my own constituency, residents of Bromsgrove and the villages are experiencing critical disruptions to their mail deliveries, the most prevalent being weeks of no post, only for them then to receive a bundle of outdated and expired letters. The problems range from missed NHS appointments and bank cards being reported lost to elusive household bills and overdue birthday cards. I think we also heard about a missed job opportunity as a result of postal delays. This is not just a matter of inconvenience; it is a matter of profound disruption that could and should have been avoided.
Shockingly, in a survey that I conducted in my constituency, 87% of respondents believed that the service they were receiving was not reliable, and 96% believed that Royal Mail's postal delivery service needed improvement.
Josh Fenton-Glynn
I wonder whether that 96% of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents would agree with me that perhaps his party’s privatisation of Royal Mail was a mistake in the first place. Perhaps he would like to apologise for that.
Bradley Thomas
We have heard a great deal about nationalisation this evening, but I am pretty sure that my constituents believe the state should not be the actor that, in the first instance, provides the vast majority of services. The state does not have the best track record of providing everything. In this instance, it is incumbent on the Minister and the Government to ensure that Ofcom and Royal Mail are held to account, and that we see a tangible improvement programme.
I know, as well as Members on both sides of the House, that people in north Worcestershire are experiencing comparable problems. Having made that further reference to my constituency neighbour the hon. Member for Redditch, I will cut across north Worcestershire to the other neighbouring constituency, that of my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier). People there are experiencing those problems as well—I know that, because I spoke to my hon. Friend today—resulting in financial losses for some of his constituents, and missed appointments as well.
I understand that Royal Mail, along with many other businesses, will be facing pressing issues, including surging bill costs and increased bureaucratic red tape. May I ask the Minister whether the Government have discussed with Royal Mail specifically the impact of soaring bills and employment costs on the company’s ability to deliver services, and, in particular, challenges relating to recruitment? It is clear, however, that, especially in recent years, the business has lost its way, and in the last 18 months that has become particularly acute.
Royal Mail has a rich history. It is a 500-year-old institution, but it has failed to demonstrate an ability to adapt in recent years to society’s changing needs. Royal Mail will undoubtedly press that demand has changed. This evening we have heard many instances of parcels being prioritised over letters, which should not be the case. Over the last decade, we have seen technological advances that have undoubtedly had a significant impact on the way that people and businesses communicate, but the stats for Royal Mail are not in its favour. In 2024-25, first-class post hit a 77% service level against a 93% target, and second-class hit a 92.5% service level against a 98.5% target. That was enough for Ofcom to deem that Royal Mail was in breach of its obligations. In 2025-26, we saw 75.7% of first-class items delivered the next day—short of the 93% target—and 90.2% of second-class items delivered within three days, against a target of 98.5%.
Luke Murphy
The shadow Minister points to the figures since 2024-25 and refers specifically to the last 18 months, but Royal Mail was fined £5.6 million in 2023 and nearly double that amount in 2024. Does he not recognise that the Conservative Government failed to grip this issue?
Bradley Thomas
What I recognise is that the problem is getting worse. As I have mentioned, it is incumbent on the Government to get a grip of the situation. I hope that the Government have heard loud and clear the concerns from Members across the House, regardless of political party, about what their constituents are facing, and that the Minister will address those concerns shortly.
Kirsty Blackman
Will the hon. Gentleman join calls for more granular data, so that we can ensure that every constituency is represented in the data? Some Members have talked specifically about towns and villages, where I appreciate that there is an issue, but there is also an issue in cities. A number of us who represent cities have said that we have problems.
Bradley Thomas
That is a point I will touch on with regard to transparency levels.
There have been seven stamp price rises in four years, with the price of a first-class stamp having doubled since 2022. It is clear that residents in my constituency, and those represented by Members from across the House, are paying a first-class price for a second-class service. If consumers are expected to pay higher prices for a service, they rightly expect such a service to deliver on its promises, yet residents face a much different reality from what Royal Mail claims. Its local performance target of 87% of first-class post being delivered the next working day was achieved in only 42 of the 118 postcode areas—a statistic that resonates with my constituents and those of many Members here today. Every industry has a level of standard that it is expected to meet, and Royal Mail should not be any different, but it is failing. It is time for accountability and material action in order to deliver tangible results.
Alongside the stark statistics that have been quoted, the House will have heard me and other Members express strong discontent in Westminster Hall last week about the report earlier this year that Royal Mail will deliver 219 million letters late. With NHS waiting lists already too long, we cannot afford for more appointments to be missed due to late letter delivery. With the cost of living already debilitating families across the country, they cannot afford missed payment charges due to delayed bill arrival.
To be clear, and in common with Members from across the House, I do not believe that the fault lies with the hard-working posties who serve our communities. We are grateful for all that they do to keep us connected, but action must be taken by the highest levels of management to quickly address the real-life experiences that are depleting customer confidence. Management are failing and, speaking from my own personal experience, I am sick and tired of the platitudes that come from Royal Mail. I echo and share the concerns of Members from across the House.
In Westminster Hall last week, the Minister shared that she has been frank in her meetings with the chief executive of Royal Mail and will continue to do so for as long as necessary. However, with Christmas, the busiest time of year for postal services, only 60 days away, it is time for immediate action, not more meetings and passing the blame back and forth. Something that needs to be focused on is transparency around local delivery data, as has been suggested in the Chamber this evening. Can the Minister outline the material steps the Government are taking, alongside Ofcom, to ensure an improved service is delivered as quickly as possible? Do they have confidence that Royal Mail’s improvement plan will deliver the needed changes promptly? At what point is the service so bad that the Government decide that further action is necessary?
Expecting what you paid for is a basic standard, not an unreasonable demand. The public are tired of a failing service that continues to worsen, disrupting daily routines and tarnishing its former reputation for reliability. This is a matter of national importance about a national institution, and I believe all our constituents would like to know specifically how the Government are working with Royal Mail and Ofcom to take concrete steps to correct these issues to restore public confidence.
The Minister for the Future of Work (Kate Dearden)
I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Redditch (Chris Bloore) and for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) on securing and leading this important debate and for their tireless campaigning on this issue on behalf of their constituents. I also thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions. Even if, as the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) suggested, it may at times have been a therapy session, Members have raised extremely important concerns on behalf of their constituents about the quality of service. We discussed this issue at length last week, and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas), referenced it as an issue that has united the House, and I think we have heard such reflections from all Members across the Chamber.
Royal Mail is one of our great national institutions. For generations, it has connected people and communities across our country. It is a lifeline for some of our more vulnerable members of society, our elderly included. For many people, their postie is a regular and friendly face. The public’s affection for Royal Mail is enduring, but patience with its poor service is not. We should not assume that the post matters only to the older generations, because it does not. Citizens Advice research published last week shows that younger adults are using postal services more frequently than older people—to apply for jobs, manage their finances, send letters to healthcare providers for appointments and access Government services. Post is not just part of our history, even though we have heard some very interesting reflections and historical stories. It is still part of people’s everyday lives, which is why it is so important to ensure that we secure a reliable service for the future.
Behind that service are our posties, and I too want to put on record my thanks to postal workers up and down the country for everything they do. My grandad proudly served his community as a postie, and I know that many other Members have a personal connection to their postie or a postie. As I did last week, I would like to thank and pay tribute to all the postal workers who work so hard to deliver for their communities, and go above and beyond. I know that, for many of my constituents, they may be the only person they speak to and interact with that day, and the incredible work posties do should not be underestimated. We are all clear that the service failures Members have described are not the result of their postie or of postal workers across the country.
Our affection for this national institution, however, must not mean accepting poor performance. I absolutely share the strong concerns expressed today and last week by Members across the House. I will be very clear again: Royal Mail’s performance has been unacceptable for far too long, and it needs urgently to restore service standards to levels that we all expect in our villages, towns and cities. The Prime Minister was similarly clear at this Dispatch Box last week, as was the Secretary of State at the Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee last Tuesday. I hope Royal Mail will be listening to this debate, and will hear the clear message that Parliament is sending.
We have heard about the serious consequences associated with late deliveries. Late letters—whether they contain a greeting card for a loved one, important medical correspondence, including hospital appointments, or financial information—are deeply frustrating, but they can also lead to serious consequences. I thank Members for sharing the terrible stories of the real-life impact that they can have, as well the impact on colleagues in this House when carrying out their responsibilities and duties as constituency MPs, for example, sending letters about coffee mornings and surgeries.
Hon. Members have raised the vital impact of high-quality and timely postal services on our democracy. We have made clear to Royal Mail the importance of the successful and timely delivery of election-related mail for returning officers and election readiness and performance, and I reassure Members that we will continue to do so.
David Reed
Will the Minister touch on the points that I raised about deferred mail? There should be more transparency over the economy service that Royal Mail offers. Constituents are receiving letters from the NHS or local councils, and do not realise that those buying these products have chosen a cheaper option.
Kate Dearden
I will be raising this issue with Royal Mail, and I will touch on my interactions with the chief executive later in my speech.
Kirsty Blackman
We know that postal vote letters not being delivered is an issue, and a number of us have seen that in our constituencies. I appreciate that the Minister is being clear with Royal Mail that it is an important issue, but is she aware of or has she asked Royal Mail how many of those letters were not delivered on time? How many complaints have been made? We know that a significant number of people are not even making complaints, because they do not think there is any point.
Kate Dearden
Colleagues have raised numerous concerns about missed mail in the Chamber and outside, and I will always raise that issue with Royal Mail. Where I need to push for transparency, I will do so. I will come shortly to what I have pushed the chief executive on.
With Christmas approaching, improvements clearly cannot wait. This is Royal Mail’s busiest period. Families and businesses that we have heard about are relying on timely deliveries. I welcome the commitment from Royal Mail to recruit 22,000 staff to help deliver this Christmas, and I will be seeking reassurances that it is doing everything it can to meet the demand.
As colleagues know, the Government do not run the delivery operations of independent businesses such as Royal Mail, but that does not mean that we are a passive observer. I have challenged Royal Mail’s leadership on performance, and I have been frank with them, as has the Prime Minister, that the pace of improvement needs to urgently increase.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)
What has gone remarkably unremarked on in this debate is the role of Ofcom, to which we give £222 million a year. It is systematically failing to put in place a plan to improve the service at Royal Mail. The Select Committee has given Ofcom six months, expiring in a month’s time, to show that it is improving performance at Royal Mail. We insisted that at that point Ofcom tells us what new powers it needs to get Royal Mail to deliver, because fining Royal Mail into improvement has failed, and is likely to fail again. Can the Minister tell us what conversations she has had with Ofcom? What powers will she seek to give it if the situation persists?
Kate Dearden
I thank my right hon. Friend for the work that his Committee has done on this issue for his constituents and people across the country. I am aware that his Select Committee has written to Ofcom—I thank him for raising the issue again today—to seek further information about its plans to improve services. I met Ofcom last week, and I will continue to work closely with it. I will pragmatically consider any requests for additional powers, as we heard from the Secretary of State, where those are needed to support improved outcomes for constituents and customers across the country. We will be pragmatic about any requests, and I am meeting with Ofcom again soon to hear further.
In the meantime, I expect Ofcom to use the full range of tools at its disposal to secure a more reliable service for users. My right hon. Friend knows that I will continue to hold Ofcom and other regulators to account. On that point, in my recent meeting with Ofcom, I raised colleagues’ concerns about data on Royal Mail’s performance masking serious local issues. I have also stressed that the review over the coming months must take into consideration the wider challenges and the staffing, resources and workforce changes.
I will continue to raise the concerns, including those that lots of colleagues have mentioned. I am grateful to those who took the time to meet Ofcom directly the week before last to reflect constituents’ concerns, particularly parcel prioritisation, which we have talked about. I have heard about that at length from colleagues. Ofcom has confirmed that it is considering the role of the alleged prioritisation of parcels over letters as part of its ongoing investigation into Royal Mail’s performance in 2025 and 2026. I expect Ofcom will publish its findings in the coming weeks. Ofcom will be in no doubt about Members’ concerns following the meeting it had with them directly, today’s debate, the Westminster Hall debate and the concerns expressed by the Select Committee. I thank all colleagues for continuing to engage with myself and Ofcom on what they want to see and what they expect to improve.
On improvement, while there were some encouraging signs in the first quarter of this financial year with the roll out of the delivery model, that is only the start. Reflections clearly vary across the country on the impact of the roll-out, given what colleagues have said, and Royal Mail needs to turn this into sustained improvement that our constituents can rely on. That is why it is critical that any issues with the model between the workforce and management are resolved urgently.
I welcome the positive announcement by Royal Mail and CWU earlier today, which demonstrates a shared commitment to improving service performance, supporting the workforce and ensuring that the company is well prepared to meet customer demand over the Christmas period. That includes restarting the roll-out of the new USO delivery model, albeit over a slower timescale to account for the Christmas peak period.
To ensure that our constituents get the service that they deserve, it is critical that this engagement continues. The Secretary of State and I will be meeting with both Royal Mail and CWU next week to seek updates on progress. I know that postal workers have valuable insights on operations and thoughts about how things can be improved, and I am grateful for colleagues raising the reflections of the posties they have interacted with and met. It is important that they are also on board with any changes.
Hon. Members know that improving working conditions and standards for workers across the economy is important to me and this Government. The postal sector needs to work for consumers, businesses and workers. I am aware of concerns about the treatment and status of workers across the postal sector. The current employment status framework can leave very vulnerable workers without core and basic employment protections and rights.
Last week, along with some colleagues who are in the Chamber, I attended an interesting discussion on work and employment in UK parcel delivery with Sheffield University management school. That discussion aligns with the Government’s recently published consultation on proposals for targeted reforms on employment status, which will seek to address many issues—particularly around bogus self-employment—that colleagues have raised today; we discussed those issues at the roundtable, too.
I will move on to Royal Mail’s communication with colleagues. While local operational issues are for Royal Mail’s management to explain and address, I know that many hon. Members—as has been raised in this debate and beyond—are dissatisfied with the level of engagement that they have had with the company’s leadership. It is crucial that Royal Mail meets with Members of this House, listens to their concerns and sets out clearly what it is doing to put things right. That is the least that our constituents deserve.
I know that Royal Mail’s chief executive will now be meeting a number of hon. Members in Parliament next month, and I will continue to reflect Parliament’s concerns in my engagements with him—in particular, detailed information on local data and assessments of what is happening at constituency level. In my first engagement with the chief executive, I said that I would take seriously every complaint that is raised directly to Members via their constituents. As a constituency MP, I can share in the reflections and frustrations that colleagues have raised; when we receive those complaints, it is important that we have as much information as possible available to us—and early on. I would like to see that in a more proactive form from Royal Mail.
In addition to engaging constructively with Parliament, it is important that Royal Mail also listens to the concerns and suggestions of its workforce, who work so hard to deliver post across the nation. I welcome engagement, whether through formal or informal channels that are currently in place, such as the Q&A sessions that Royal Mail has introduced, or more directly from staff to senior leadership, but I urge Royal Mail to also to continue to listen to its workforce through their recognised unions and reps. The expertise and first-hand experience of the workforce must help to shape improvements.
Some Members also raised the idea of linking any further price increases to improvements in quality of service. I understand the frustration when people see prices rise but do not see the improvement in services that they rightly expect. Every pound matters to our constituents who are still struggling, and our constituents need to see the value as well as the reliability. Considerations around pricing regulations are a regulatory matter for Ofcom, which is considering this very issue as part of its consultation on pricing and affordability, which was launched on 16 October and will close on 27 November.
Our priority for Royal Mail has been scrutiny of the takeover and securing important undertakings to support the financial sustainability of the company and the long-term provision of the universal service obligations. Colleagues have given careful consideration as to where the Government can continue to play our part—some in quite significant detail—and I am grateful for all the contributions this evening. I commit to continuing to engage with all colleagues in the Chamber on the progress of the quality of service with Royal Mail. Colleagues know that, alongside the Secretary of State, I am meeting with the leadership next week, and we will always be happy to update colleagues following those discussions.
Royal Mail’s performance has not been good enough. Our constituents know it, the Government know it, the House knows it and Royal Mail knows it, so we will continue to engage with Ofcom, and Royal Mail, its owners and its workforce. But people do not want excuses—they want their post delivered on time. Ultimately, that is the only test that matters. It is a test that Royal Mail must pass, and it is the test that this Government will continue to hold it to.
I will conclude by once again thanking our incredible posties across the country. This is not a reflection on them, their hard work, and their service to our constituents and our communities. We are committed to bringing all parties to the table to resolve the issues that we have discussed today, because Royal Mail is a national institution that we want to protect long into the future and an essential public service that our constituents rely on. I thank all colleagues for bringing their voices and those of their constituents to the Chamber today—I hope that they have been heard loud and clear. I look forward to working with all colleagues going forwards.
Chris Bloore
I have already had the best part of 20 minutes, so I probably will not be long.
I thank the Minister for her comprehensive response. I also thank the many right hon. and hon. Members from all parties for taking part in today’s Backbench Business debate. I have learned things about the service that I did not think I would ever learn, whether that is the infidelity of a former Prime Minister—I do not know if I am letting the cat out of the bag here—or the Jane Austen quotes that we have heard.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) talked about the direction of travel and what is likely to happen if we do not take action. Despite the light-hearted and more serious stories that we have shared today, we are in a position where we could lose universal services if we in this House do not take action. While I may not have set out the same plan as my right hon. Friend in his speech, I really do think we have to understand that we are at a point of no return if we do not take strong and positive action. Our constituents will not forgive us if that universal service disappears, and it will cost us a lot more to try to rebuild it in the future.
Once again, I thank everyone for taking part today.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House is concerned about the performance of Royal Mail; and urges the Government to work with Royal Mail to improve its performance levels.
Business without Debate
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
With the leave of the House, I will group the following motions together, unless there are any objections.
Ordered,
Business, innovation, Science and Trade Committee
That Justin Madders be discharged from the Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee and Nesil Caliskan be added.
Defence Committee
That Calvin Bailey be discharged from the Defence Committee and Graeme Downie be added.
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee
That Vicky Foxcroft, Natasha Irons, Anneliese Midgley and Jo Platt be discharged from the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee and Gill German, Alison Hume, Tom Rutland and Jo Stevens be added.
Energy Security and Net Zero Committee
That Ms Polly Billington be discharged from the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee and Catherine Fookes be added.
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
That Juliet Campbell be discharged from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and Helena Dollimore be added.
Foreign Affairs Committee
That Alan Gemmell and Uma Kumaran be discharged from the Foreign Affairs Committee and Dr Zubir Ahmed and Jessica Toale be added.
Health and Social Care Committee
That Dr Beccy Cooper and Alex McIntyre be discharged from the Health and Social Care Committee and Sadik Al-Hassan and Dr Allison Gardner be added.
Home Affairs Committee
That Chris Murray and Jo White be discharged from the Home Affairs Committee and Matt Bishop and Preet Kaur Gill be added.
Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee
That Maya Ellis and Sarah Smith be discharged from the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee and Sagal Abdi-Wali and Alan Strickland be added.
International Development Committee
That Janet Daby be discharged from the International Development Committee and Tulip Siddiq be added.
Justice Committee
That Pam Cox be discharged from the Justice Committee and Jon Pearce be added.
Scottish Affairs Committee
That Elaine Stewart be discharged from the Scottish Affairs Committee and Kenneth Stevenson be added.
Transport Committee
That Mrs Elsie Blundell be discharged from the Transport Committee and Samantha Dixon be added.
Treasury Committee
That John Grady and Yuan Yang be discharged from the Treasury Committee and Andrew Lewin and Seema Malhotra be added.
Work and Pensions Committee
That David Baines be discharged from the Work and Pensions Committee and Andrew Pakes be added.—(Jessica Morden, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.)
Petitions
Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition for a pedestrian crossing across the A34 at Tittensor village. Tittensor residents have been campaigning for a crossing for over 30 years, led by the indefatigable Josie Windsor. The A34 dual carriageway cuts directly through the village, separating bus stops that take people to school, doctors’ appointments and the shops.
My constituents cannot safely cross from one side to the other due to heavy and speeding traffic. Sadly, an elderly gentleman was knocked over recently. Staffordshire county council’s own assessment confirms that pedestrians experience delays waiting for safe gaps to cross. Indeed, the council has finally agreed to the crossing in principle but, as yet, has not allocated funds.
This petition, signed by over 100 constituents, requests
“that the House of Commons urge the Government to compel Staffordshire county council to deliver a crossing”
to improve pedestrian safety. My constituents cannot be left waiting for another 30 years to see their crossing delivered.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of the constituency of Stoke-on-Trent South in Staffordshire,
Declares that a crossing should be added on the A34 in Tittensor to improve road safety and pedestrian access to services and public transport.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to compel Staffordshire County Council to deliver a crossing in Tittensor.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P003249]
Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of residents of Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North. It insists that Ward End fire station must stay open.
The Fire Brigades Union has been warning for the last couple of months that un-thought-through cuts by West Midlands fire service imperil this fire station, yet the wildfires that we had across the constituency over the course of the summer underline how every single second counts and why these plans are wrong, wrong, wrong. They have not been discussed with the mayor; they are precipitate, and they need to be dropped now.
The petitioners therefore request
“that the House of Commons urge the Government to work with the West Midlands Fire Service and other relevant bodies to keep Ward End Fire Station open.
And the petitioners remain, etc.”
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of Birmingham Hodge Hill & Solihull North.
This petition declares that the West Midlands Fire Service must keep Ward End Fire Station open; further that firefighters have warned that the Service is considering the closure and sale of the station; further that such a closure would leave a gap in local fire cover for residents of Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North, with crews having to travel further to reach emergencies; further that fire engines would be moved to the Fire Service headquarters near the city centre and that one vehicle's cover would be reduced from 24 hours a day to daytime-only operation, increasing danger at night; and further that residents fear that closing Ward End Fire Station would place both local people and firefighters at greater risk.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to work with the West Midlands Fire Service and other relevant bodies to keep Ward End Fire Station open.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P003248]
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on a windfall tax on the banks in the autumn Budget, further to a corresponding online petition signed by over 13,000 people. This petition of residents of the United Kingdom states that a windfall tax on the super-profits of banks, like that introduced on energy companies, could generate £15 billion per year, providing essential resources to tackle the cost of living crisis affecting millions of people.
The petitioners therefore request
“that the House of Commons urge the Government to take into account the requests…and consider the resource benefits of a windfall tax on banks when allocating funds in the budget.”
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of the United Kingdom,
Notes that Britain’s largest banks are making unusually high profits from the higher interest rates that simultaneously have driven up rents and mortgages, and that experts estimate that a windfall tax in line with that introduced on the oil and gas firms would generate up to £15 billion a year, providing resources to fund emergency action to address the cost-of-living crisis.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to take into account the requests of the petitions and consider the resource benefits of a windfall tax on banks when allocating funds in the Budget.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P003251]
Jobs and Employment: Staffordshire
(2 days, 22 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
Madam Deputy Speaker, you know that I will take any opportunity, whatever time of day it is, to champion my community and our county, as will my colleagues. That is why many of us from Staffordshire are here at this late hour.
The House has heard me talk before about the wonderful people who live, learn and work in Newcastle-under-Lyme. They work hard, pay their way and bring their skills and smarts to whatever they do, and they were wise enough to vote for me—for which I am very grateful. Over the centuries, people in Newcastle-under-Lyme and across Staffordshire made things. They built things, discovered things, and they showed a nation how things can and should be done. That is why my Staffordshire colleagues and I are here tonight. We are determined to ensure that our people, particularly our young people, are able to access the jobs and opportunities that they deserve.
I am pleased to see the Government Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner), in his place. He will be hearing lots from us about our concerns with the at-times botched and unwanted roll-out of local government reform in many parts of Staffordshire. I look forward to having that conversation with him.
Newcastle-under-Lyme is synonymous with workers and working. We are rooted in our industrial heartlands. Our coalfields community and our coalminers were driven by diligence and determination. Mining in our United Kingdom was not just about coal, though. It was about camaraderie, courage and power. It was about families and communities, bound together by shared experiences, overcoming hardships and supporting one another through thick and thin.
The worst legacy of Thatcherism was tearing industry apart, destroying communities and our industrial heartlands and not doing anything to replace them. There was no focus on upskilling, no focus on investment and no willingness to ensure that those same people and their families—who they screwed over—were not left and forgotten. It says a lot that some in politics today who pretend to care about working-class people describe themselves as Thatcherites. They are telling us who they are, and we should listen to them.
Our people back home made things work. In fact, they powered our country. Without that power, we would not have been able to emerge as a global leader in manufacturing and as one of the biggest economies in the world. As important as it is to look back at our industrial heritage with pride, today we must redouble our efforts to ensure that people in Staffordshire do not fall behind in the race for the jobs of the future.
Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
I represent the neighbouring constituency, and of course I have to mention ceramics. Since 2018, employment in traditional ceramics has fallen by 37% in Staffordshire. Advanced and traditional ceramics companies need skilled workers, but local employers are struggling to attract new talent. Stoke-on-Trent college has proposed a national ceramics and advanced materials technical college, which would create a national centre for technical education offering apprenticeships, industry placements and workforce development in traditional and advanced ceramics. Will my hon. Friend join me in recognising the value of the proposal in boosting local ceramics employment by providing the specialist skills required and creating clear pathways from education to high-value careers?
Adam Jogee
I am grateful to my constituency neighbour. She makes an excellent point, which she knows that I agree with. I will come to ceramics. She is correct to raise those points.
We hear far too many stories about our young people being lazy and unwilling to put in the graft to get on in life.
Sarah Edwards (Tamworth) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for making such an important speech on the incredible things that happen in Staffordshire. It is really important to our young people that the youth hubs that have been announced—one of them is in Tamworth—have a base and a home. That, though, is where Staffordshire county council has really failed in recent years when it could be leading the way. Does my hon. Friend think that Councillor Murray, the leader of Staffordshire county council, is asleep at the wheel and has possibly gone AWOL on this one? Does he agree that we really need to invest in young people?
Adam Jogee
As ever, my hon. Friend puts it as well as anyone else could, particularly when it comes to the sorry state of affairs at county hall. In Newcastle-under-Lyme, we are lucky to have a youth hub, too, but as she says, it is of great importance to ensure that the county council steps up and helps us to deliver those services for our people. I look forward to working with her to hold the county and whoever its leadership is to account in the period ahead.
Leigh Ingham
On the point about Staffordshire county council, I recently held a roundtable to talk about youth services in Stafford—by the way, Staffordshire was the third worst hit part of the country for youth service cuts—and youth service providers told me that Staffordshire county council categorically is not engaging with the Department for Work and Pensions on youth hubs. We are fortunate enough to have one in Stafford, and I am pleased that we also have them in Newcastle-under-Lyme and in Tamworth. Does my hon. Friend agree that if Staffordshire county council does not get its act together and start participating in conversations with services that can wrap around our young people, we will fall behind?
Adam Jogee
My hon. Friend, who represents the town where my mother was born and raised, makes an excellent point. I could not put it better myself, so I will not attempt to do so. Many of the young people that she and my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth mentioned want to contribute to the communities they live in, and many live with the ambition of having and seeking a meaningful career, but, after being failed for so long by the generations of political leaders that went before us, many of our young people just feel forgotten. Tonight, Staffordshire’s MPs tell them that they have not been.
Young people across Newcastle-under-Lyme are facing some of the most profound challenges in the country when it comes to entering the world of work. In my constituency, there are 57 suitable vacancies per 1,000 residents aged 18 to 24, which is 47% below the national average. Those statistics make for sobering reading. We do not just need the vacancies. We need to make sure that our young people have the skills that employers are looking for.
Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is, as always, making a fantastic speech and banging the drum for our great county. Does he agree that if we are serious about creating and filling the jobs he is talking about in Staffordshire, we have to give our colleges the capacity to train the workforce that we need? I welcome the recent investment in South Staffordshire college, including Cannock college, but will he join me in calling for further investment in our training facilities in Staffordshire, so that local young people can access skilled jobs in construction, engineering and all those growing industries?
Adam Jogee
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I will be sure to raise that with the Secretary of State for Education at the next opportunity.
As I said, we do not just need the vacancies; we need to make sure that our young people have the skills that employers are looking for. A shortage of quality jobs, or the lack of skills required for the jobs that are available, means that so many of our talented young people feel forced to leave the community they call home to seek and find meaningful work elsewhere. Communities like Newcastle-under-Lyme lose out not just on economic growth, but on the dynamism and skill that bright local people bring to the jobs market. Those who choose to stay in their community face the entrenched inequalities typical of our industrial heartlands. Communities such as Silverdale, Knutton and Cross Heath have higher levels of health inequality and lower levels of life expectancy. So many interconnected factors are at play in communities when it comes to the challenge of ensuring that local people get the jobs they need.
In the summer, I welcomed my hon. Friend the Minister to meet the North Staffordshire citizens advice bureau in Newcastle town centre. He had the opportunity to hear all manner of things from the people he met, but particularly from young people who were struggling to deal with their money and to navigate entering the job market. Yes, we need our businesses to employ people, but if people cannot get to work, what is the point? That is the situation facing many traders and their employers in Newcastle-under-Lyme thanks to the sheer incompetence of Staffordshire county council.
Leigh Ingham
I held a roundtable—a different one—in Penkside, in Stafford town centre, to talk about the issues people face in getting to and from work, and buses came up as the major issue. The first bus is after 9 o’clock, and the last bus gets home before 3 pm. For someone trying to do a course at college, those times just do not work. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that Staffordshire county council uses the money it has been given by this Government to support young people in our areas in getting into work?
Adam Jogee
That is a good point well made by my hon. Friend. She is correct. Like her, I have many rural communities that would absolutely benefit from a sensible approach to transport from Staffordshire county council. In that fight, as in many others, she has my full agreement.
My town has been brought to a standstill by road closures on different neighbouring roads at the same time and by delayed works that just do not seem to get finished, and there has been little leadership or communication from those in charge at county hall. I have written directly to the leader of Staffordshire county council and have heard absolutely nothing back. When I have received responses, most of them are nonsense. In fact, I have 22 letters in response to my raising issues that local people have brought to me as their Member of Parliament, and they all essentially say the same thing:
“This has been added to the County Councillor’s Divisional Highway Programme or the DHP”.
Then we hear nothing more.
Sarah Edwards
My hon. Friend has a whole bundle of letters. We regularly write to the county council, and I find that responses are sometimes received four to five months later. Is he having the same issue, not just in relation to roadworks, but in relation to young people and their special educational needs and disabilities situations? That is failure from the county council.
Adam Jogee
My hon. Friend makes a good point, and it is not a party point. I suspect that the right hon. Members for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) and for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson), and the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood) would agree with other Staffordshire MPs on the point she has made: the county council is missing in action and is failing to deliver the services that our people deserve—and that they pay for. We are not asking for favours. We are asking for things to be done properly and in a timely way. If the county council cannot fix our roads in a sensible and ordered way, without impacting businesses and stopping people getting to work, school and the hospital, it should get out the way and let others do so.
We know the challenges before us, but what do we do about them? There are examples of best practice within organisations such as the King’s Trust, which for half a century has given young people across the kingdom and the Commonwealth the confidence and skills they need to succeed and thrive.
Dave Robertson (Lichfield) (Lab)
I am not quite a constituency neighbour, but it is always great to see a fellow Staffordshire MP in this place. Will my hon. Friend join me in thanking organisations such as AKG, which operates in my constituency? It is a private company, but it provides services to those who have been out of work for a long time through the restart scheme and the connect to work scheme, both funded by the Government, which are very much designed to provide people with the employment support they need so they can get back into work—doing the real work, not just trying to solve this problem by soundbite. Will he join me in thanking AKG for helping people find those opportunities?
Adam Jogee
It is all in good time when it comes to being neighbours—we will happily expand our boundaries to reach Lichfield. My hon. Friend knows my constituency well—he comes to see us often enough—so he is an honorary Newcastle-under-Lymer. I agree very much with his point about what we need to do to get our people the skills they need to get into work.
Last year, I saw the excellent work of the King’s Trust up close at Stoke-on-Trent college in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell). More than 400 programmes have been run there by the King’s Trust over the last three decades, benefiting young people from Newcastle-under-Lyme and right across north Staffordshire and the county.
Earlier this month, I joined a number of local institutions and authorities and the Department for Work and Pensions in supporting the north Staffordshire jobs fair, held in our town centre and open to people across the north part of our county and, I suspect, everyone else. It was great to see so many people energised and enthused, demonstrating that there is no lack of ambition or work ethic in our part of the world.
Our education institutions help keep us on the right path in ensuring that our people get the job opportunities they need and deserve. Our county is home to two universities: Keele University in my constituency and the University of Staffordshire in my hon. Friend’s constituency. Those two institutions bring young people to our area, and many from our area stay there.
I must declare an interest—I probably should have done it when I responded to my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham)—as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Education. In doing so, I pay tribute to Newcastle college and the Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group. Our local college’s successful bid to become an advanced manufacturing technical excellence college is so important to ensuring that our industrial heritage is respected and that talented young people from across Staffordshire are at the heart of Britain’s industrial future. I would like to extend my very best thanks—I know you will agree with me, Madam Deputy Speaker—to Craig Hodgson, the principal of Newcastle college. He has served in that role for three decades and some. Service of that length just does not happen very often these days, and certainly not in this place.
Adam Jogee
I will see my hon. Friend in 30 years—I will be sitting here and he will be sitting there.
Earlier this year, Craig announced that he was retiring after one heck of a stint. We will always be grateful to Craig for his commitment to our community, our young people, our county and our collective future.
We must look to our industrial heartlands to make the most of what we already have, ensuring that real growth, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister would say, is felt in all postcodes in Staffordshire and that growth is translated into well-paid, meaningful career opportunities for local people. The growth potential that comes from investing in British industry and the skills required is massive in communities across our county, and there is no better place, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) noted, than our ceramics industry. It provides the building blocks of and for our United Kingdom, and without it we could not manufacture steel, glass, cement, bricks and many other important things.
I am grateful to Staffordshire chambers of commerce for its work helping deliver fully funded business start-up training for budding entrepreneurs across the county. By the end of this year, approximately 300 people will have completed that programme in 2026. Later this week, the chambers and I will welcome Baroness Foster and the board of Intertrade UK to Staffordshire, and to Newcastle-under-Lyme in particular, to meet Staffordshire’s businesses and employers to see what more we can do to increase trade between Northern Ireland and our fair county. Like the chambers, my colleagues and I from Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent want to see the establishment of a mayoral strategic authority for our area at the earliest opportunity. It will set us firmly on the path to helping unlock investment and the creation of well-paid local jobs and employment opportunities. I want to let the Minister address some of these points so will skip some of my speech, but I want to raise a couple of further issues.
There is a geopolitical need for us to get this right. Our international competitors—we know who they are—are investing in education, training and equipping the workforce of the future with the skills needed for that future, and we must do the same. It is vital that British manufacturing is at the heart of our trade agenda and that we redouble our efforts to buy British, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central would say, every step of the way, and all of that will help job creation in Staffordshire.
I ask the Minister to touch on a few specific areas. Staffordshire is home to many rural communities. I am proud to represent a number of them in Madeley, Audley, Betley and Wrinehill and would be grateful if the Minister could set out, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford did, what we are doing to ensure that rural communities do not fall behind. Will the Minister also encourage his colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to get on with giving us a mayoral authority and to prioritise that over local government reorganisation, and what is being done in Government to make sure that all relevant Departments are talking to each other? For those who live in a rural area and do not drive and who need a bus—there is some consistency of thought here, because I promise I had not shown my speech to my constituency neighbours—a chance would have been a fine thing over the last decade. So some clarity and inter-Government working would be helpful too.
How are we ensuring that Government understand what employers are looking for and ensuring that what they are looking for is reflected in our skills and training? I welcome the billions of pounds of investment in the youth guarantee and the growth skills levy, as well as new youth hubs from, as we have heard, Tamworth to Stafford to Newcastle-under-Lyme, but we need more of that.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is not just about the young people; it is also about the adult reskilling opportunities. The Chancellor’s announcement of the union learning fund was incredibly welcome, but with an ageing workforce in Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent, and with technological advances often outpacing the skills of the people already in work, we must make sure we keep those people who are in jobs trained to the level that means that they can carry on working. If the Minister could respond to that, I would be very grateful.
Adam Jogee
We are seeing tonight the consistency of view right across Staffordshire, from colleagues up and down, north and south, east and west, who are determined to make sure that all of our people have the skills they need, however old they are, to be competitive in the jobs market, to help fuel growth in our communities and ultimately to demonstrate to the rest of the world what they are capable of.
This is Budget week—as you know, Madam Deputy Speaker; you will be in the Chair on Wednesday—and I urge the Minister to send our right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer a copy of Hansard tomorrow, so he can read this speech and all the interventions and ensure that the fight for Staffordshire’s people and their ability to access the jobs and opportunities they deserve runs through his speech on Wednesday because our people deserve nothing less.
The Minister for Employment (Andrew Western)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) on securing this important debate and his tireless advocacy for the people of Newcastle-under-Lyme and the wider Staffordshire area. He has consistently championed the importance of creating opportunities for local people and ensuring that growth brings tangible benefits to local communities.
As my hon. Friend said, I was pleased to visit his constituency with him earlier this year to see at first hand the work being undertaken by local partners, including Jobcentre Plus and, as he reflected, Citizens Advice, to support people into employment, education and training. We heard directly from residents and young people about the opportunities and challenges they face and the work he has done to support them. They were indeed, as he so humbly set out, very wise to send him to this place, and if nothing else, that is reflected by his ability to create such a crowd for an Adjournment debate at 10 pm on a Monday night—on a one-line Whip no less. That is truly titanic.
Adam Jogee
I am very conscious that we want to hear from the Minister but, as he acknowledges the number of Staffordshire MPs, we hunt as a pack so it is no surprise we are all here together at 10 pm on a Monday on a one-line Whip.
Andrew Western
Indeed, and it is for that reason that I am treading very carefully with the words I use. I hear my hon. Friend’s message loud and clear: do not mess with Staffordshire.
My visit underlined the importance of ensuring that everyone can access the support and opportunities they need to achieve their potential, but too often in the past this has not happened and whole communities have been left behind. As my hon. Friend said, people should not be forced to leave the places that they are from just to have the chance to get on in life. That is why the Prime Minister has set out our ambition to deliver growth in every postcode in Staffordshire and beyond.
Growth is not an abstract economic concept; it is about whether people can find good work, whether businesses can access the skills they need and whether communities, such as those across Staffordshire, can realise their full potential. Staffordshire has significant strengths to build on, with a skilled workforce and strong businesses across advanced manufacturing, including ceramics and logistics, construction and energy.
Dave Robertson
The Minister is right to raise the importance of ceramics to our industries. In my part of the world, it is sanitaryware and Armitage Shanks, and we know the Stokies are all about flatware—it is a huge part of the economy. Will the Minister urge colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade to get the funding for the ceramics rescue package out of the door faster than currently planned? We need that rescue package in the hands of companies, not sitting in a bank account in Whitehall.
Andrew Western
I have heard my hon. Friend loud and clear, and I will ensure that DBIST colleagues do too. The industrial and logistics specialist Indurent plans to invest £800 million in Staffordshire over the next few years—a clear vote of confidence in the county. As he highlights, the ceramics industry remains central to the area’s identity, with companies such as Lucideon, Mantec and Ross Ceramics helping to apply north Staffordshire’s world-leading expertise in advanced materials to industries including aerospace, defence, electronics and nuclear energy.
We have recognised the contribution of advanced manufacturing in the Government’s industrial strategy and are working with industry to develop a jobs plan for the sector. This will help to address workforce challenges and strengthen recruitment pipelines, and it will also help to ensure that more people can access the opportunities being created in one of our most important growth sectors.
Turning to partnership, I welcome the role played by local colleges, training providers and employers across Staffordshire in developing the next generation of skilled workers. The selection of Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group as an advanced manufacturing technical excellence college demonstrates the important contribution the area is making to meeting future skills needs and helping people access high-quality technical careers. My colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions have been working with manufacturing employers to promote apprenticeships, work experience opportunities, careers events and employability activity, including activity targeted at young people who are not in education, employment or training.
Gareth Snell
I have spoken to the Minister about this issue before, and I have spoken to the Minister for Skills in the other place as well, but the DWP could help to move this forward by looking at the restrictions on apprenticeship provider and assessment register registrations for new apprenticeship providers, and by changing the £100,000 de minimis for subcontracting. There are companies and employers in Stoke that want to take on apprentices but cannot do so because the contracts are already at the limit. If the DWP could look at that, we could revolutionise apprenticeship providers in the county.
Andrew Western
My hon. Friend makes an important and valid point. I will share his contribution with my noble friend the Minister for Skills.
In the interest of time, I will turn to the questions raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme. He was particularly keen to understand how we ensure that people in rural communities can access jobs and opportunities. The Government are supporting employment in rural areas through localised get Britain working plans, a reformed jobs and careers service with expanded digital, phone and in-person support, and increased outreach through a flexible delivery network, including jobcentre vans. We have over 650 visiting officers who carry out home visits for customers with complex needs who cannot engage via digital or telephone channels, or attend a jobcentre. We have outreach work in place with local providers and community organisations to help to reach rural areas so that customers who might otherwise miss out on jobcentre services can access facilities.
On a cross-Government approach, my hon. Friend is entirely right to talk about ongoing dialogue with the Department for Transport. Bus services are incredibly important, and it is key that we retain strategic routes wherever possible. A particular, broader example of cross-Government working is our new jobs plans, which is a key part of the industrial strategy. Last Monday, the professional and business services jobs plan set out an aspiration to deliver 100,000 jobs in the coming years, including 22,400 apprenticeships. Departments involved include not just DWP and DBIST, but the Department for Education as well as Skills England. Departments are really working together to shape these plans, ensure that employment priorities are built in alongside skills and identify where DWP’s employment offer can help sectors to recruit the workforce that they need.
Leigh Ingham
My experience with Staffordshire county council is that funding has been allocated to it to deliver employment programmes, which is great, and we have the DWP jobs hubs as well, but they will not talk to each other, so there is real disengagement. If the Minister could push Staffordshire county council to have conversations with partners, it would really help the rest of us trying to do this work.
Andrew Western
I had made a mental note, from the contributions earlier, of the issues that colleagues have outlined with Staffordshire county council. It appears to be heading towards a meeting without coffee, but in the meantime, I am very happy to give it a chance to rectify its shortcomings when I write to it setting out some of the concerns that colleagues have raised.
On engagement more broadly, we want to consistently ensure that candidates come forward with the right skills to meet the jobs that employers wish to fill, to rebuild employer confidence in our services and to reduce skills shortages. The crucial thing there is a strong local understanding of the labour market needs. The Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire local skills improvement plan has been shaped collaboratively with employers and other partners to shape a plan for a more productive, inclusive and future-ready regional economy.
On the universities, I give my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme the assurance that the University of Staffordshire and Keele University are important partners for the local skills improvement plan. It is absolutely right that they are, and I reassure him that they are and will remain fully engaged.
Finally, on the point from my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), it is absolutely correct to stress the importance of reskilling and upskilling, as well as giving young people the skills that they need. I am passionate about that, and I know that my noble friend the Minister for Skills is too.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme for bringing forward the debate this evening. The level of interest shows the passion that Members across Staffordshire and beyond have for this important issue, and I will take away the actions that I have committed to this evening.
Question put and agreed to.