Commons Chamber

Thursday 3rd July 2025

(began 4 months, 4 weeks ago)

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None Portrait Oral questions: Culture, Media and Sport
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We start with questions with Media and Sport.
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None Portrait Q3. What steps her Department is taking to ensure the Creative Industries Sector Plan supports the growth of live music. (904965)
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golden era.
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Lisa Nandy Portrait Rt Hon Lisa Nandy MP, The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Wigan, Labour)
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I know this is something that has caused considerable concern to many people not just in this part of the House but in the other place as well. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that we bring forward legislative change that provides certainty and clarity, both for AI companies, tech companies, and for the creative industries. And making sure that transparency and remuneration are at the heart of that legislation. The creative industries, as you rightly has recognised, are absolutely central to the future of our economy.

We have recognised that as a government as well. They must be protected. The Secretary of State and I will be bringing forward those roundtables and working groups before the summer

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recess. Question number four Mr Speaker.

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Question number four Mr Speaker. Thank you Mr Speaker. We are absolutely committed to securing and absolutely committed to securing and delivering the biggest and best major sporting events, building upon the U.K.'s global reputation. I was the U.K.'s global reputation. I was really delighted to announce over £500 million recently to support the £500 million recently to support the delivery of world-class events, an additional £400 million going to grassroots facilities across the UK. So the people across the country who are inspired by these incredible are inspired by these incredible sporting events that we are bringing to this country, to our towns, villages, and cities, can also then villages, and cities, can also then build on that amazing moment in order to get involved.



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order to get involved. I would like to thank you personally Mr Speaker for hosting
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None Portrait Q5. What steps she has taken to promote British musical acts internationally. (904967)
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Question number five Mr Speaker.
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None Portrait Q8. What recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of changes to employer National Insurance contributions on charities. (904970)
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Number six.

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We will settle with eight. In answer to question number
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Stuart Andrew Portrait Rt Hon Stuart Andrew MP (Daventry, Conservative)
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Can I associate myself with the tributes to Diogo Jota? I understand his brother was also killed in the accident and my heart goes out to them. Since the statement on Monday, it has come to light that there was equally vile rhetoric being spread at another concert. Given the BBC can pool live broadcasts when things go wrong in football matches, for example, it's extraordinary it did not happen on this occasion. Can the Secretary of State update us on discussions she's had with the BBC, why this did not happen on this occasion, and what due diligence was carried out about the acts that are performing? Given we are waiting for a response to the previous documentary on Hamas, she satisfied with the conversation she has had and the action that has been taken? Burqa I agree with him and the answer is I am not satisfied with the response.

I can update the the response. I can update the the response. I can update the House, as I have promised to do. I'm not satisfied and I have gone back to leadership to ask for further to leadership to ask for further information and as he mentioned, the information and as he mentioned, the information and as he mentioned, the failure to pull the life it and also the due diligence done prior to securing the act also the lack of sinew oversight that took place at the BBC during the Glastonbury the BBC during the Glastonbury weekend.

I think the BBC leadership will hear and have heard the will hear and have heard the strength of feeling in the House about this and I expect further answers to be forthcoming. answers to be forthcoming. I thank for the answer and I am as disappointed as she is that they have not been able to come back with basic facts. There were hundreds of BBC staff and so not being able to identify who ultimately had the final decision to broadcast or not is unacceptable.

I think the chairman needs to inform her as a matter of urgency who that was and the action that will be taken. I understand the independence of the BBC but just as artists cannot hide behind artistic expression for vile commentary, neither can the BBC hide behind indifference of accountability and I hope she knows she has the full support of this side of the House as she pushes for clarity.
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None Portrait Oral questions: Church Commissioners and House of Commons Commission and Public Accounts Commission and Restoration and Renewal Client Board and Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission
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We come to questions with Church Commissioners at the House of Commons Commission.
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None Portrait Q1. To ask the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney, representing the House of Commons Commission, what steps the Commission is taking to increase the number of apprentices in the House of Commons. (905002)
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Question number one.
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None Portrait Q5. To ask the hon. Member for Battersea, representing the Church Commissioners, what support the Church of England is providing to Christians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. (905006)
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Question number five Mr Speaker. Thank you Mr Speaker. We continue to see the Christian community
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None Portrait Q6. To ask the hon. Member for Battersea, representing the Church Commissioners, what statutory powers the Church plans to use to facilitate Project Spire. (905007)
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Numbers six.
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None Portrait Business Statement: Business Questions to the Leader of the House
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House.
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Jesse Norman Portrait Rt Hon Jesse Norman MP (Hereford and South Herefordshire, Conservative)
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I am sure the Leader want to join me in recognising this year of the 81st anniversary of the announcement of the NHS in 1944. Most of us wishing to celebrate an anniversary would probably have a bit of a party and perhaps get a few friends around and order some pizza, put up some decorations. Only the Labour Party would celebrate its first year in office with the kind of Charlie FoxTrot multi-dementia double on the -- multidimensional shambles.

I would have thought the government had perfected the art of the U-turn. After all, it had U-turns on winter fuel payments and deep to child benefit cap and each in their own way were a masterpiece of slow motion dithering and indecision. The other day, the government executed a comprehensive U-turn on the decision to hold a statutory inquiry into grooming gangs after repeatedly saying it was not necessary and brilliantly the Prime Minister made the U-turn at the same time on his own speech about the UK being an island of strangers.

I naively believed at the time that it was the state of the art at the governor had maxed out on the U-turns and no one could be more incompetent than that. How wrong I was. On Tuesday, something almost unheard of in 750 years of Parliament with the Minister pulling out his chainsaw and disembowelling the flagship welfare bill of his own government in midair, on live television, from the dispatch box. It outstrips my expectations and we would need Shakespeare to do it justice.

It was a cock up on the past week has been Nick Nick Clegg Nick Clegg was Nick Clegg was defined Nick Clegg was defined by Nick Clegg was defined by his Nick Clegg was defined by his U- turn, so will be Prime Minister and the government with an enormous majority has not been able to cut but even reduce the rate of increase public spending on benefits, let alone making serious actual reforms to protect people. There has been a remarkable complacency about the government and this last week has shown it and they regard this agreement as something to be ignored or crushed and do not answer questions at the dispatch box and obviously, try to ignore the Opposition, dismissed the House of It will backbench.

People have been trying to get a hearing for months and have been rejected. This is the result and there are three things, firstly, the immediate consequences and it would be next to impossible for the government to achieve meaningful reform of the welfare system. It has shown it does not have the ability to make savings and tax will go up while the economy continues to stall. It is little wonder that markets exploded during Prime Minister's Questions yesterday and secondly the Prime Minister has opened the door to future rebellions and has gone further than that and has written the playbook for them and doubtless there will be a reshuffle some time soon and dissenters will be punished and Select Committee Joe Atley will be taken off but it will not make any difference because there will be others.

We have shown that they are a powerful new force in limbo politics, and finally the Prime Minister has damaged his own reputation. Is endlessly harped on about the need for competence and moral seriousness but this has been a year and government which started with a host of undisclosed personal gifts which were received and has ended with a political humiliation. He is in office but not in power so what is the point of this government? No one knows, not even the Prime Minister.
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Lucy Powell Portrait Rt Hon Lucy Powell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Manchester Central, Labour )
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Thank you very much. I start by sending all of our condolences to friends and family of the Liverpool football club star Diogo Jota following the shocking news of his and his brother's death in a tragic car accident and coming only two weeks after his wedding and after winning the Premier League trophy this season. I am sure the thoughts of the whole house are with his family, friends, and Liverpool and former Wolverhampton to mix as well.

I said my best wishes to the Lionesses at the start of the Euros. I complain all the computers to continue to fight for justice for As a result of asbestos cancer ahead of the national day tomorrow. My colleagues are sadly no longer with us and we are real champions for this cause and I pay tribute to them. I take this opportunity. I would not normally do this but I would like to put on record how proud I am of my friend, the first female Chancellor.

The very difficult and formidable job that she has been doing and quite honestly she's got more class than most of the rest of the members opposite and sometimes in the Frontbench. I am sure. He has asked me to do so and so I would like to the House on the universal credit bill as it will soon be renamed. I completely acknowledge that how this business was managed was not the way that it should have been and the process did not live up to the standards that I or the government hold ourselves to.

As I said last week, we value the contributions of members, especially those with particular experience and interest in the issues and critical to any good legislation is that it reflects Parliamentary opinion and I believe that this bill now does. I think it is a good thing when we are prepared to listen and change but, rest assured, we will take stock and reflect on doing things better going forward. The bill, as amended, and the Timms review alongside it now reflected are from and safeguards the House wants to see and we will consider the remaining stitches next week.

The title will become, The Universal Credit Bill as it will be more narrow in scope and focus on the ending of issues and protecting the incomes of those currently in receipt of the Universal Credit health and ending the reassessment for those with severe conditions and delete the clause relating to PIP. Any changes to PIP will only come following the Timms review and will be co-produced with disabled people be co-produced with disabled people We can all agree that the welfare system needs reform and needs to be sustainable.

And the party opposite honestly quite frankly should be ashamed of that legacy that needs addressing. A legacy of one in 10 working age people on sickness or disability benefits. A legacy of a generation of young people with no mental health and too few opportunities. A legacy of over 7 million people on NHS waiting lists, many unable to work. A legacy of stagnant growth and no Plan for Jobs creation. It is this government that is tackling these long-term challenges.

He wants to talk about the anniversary, I am really happy to talk about our anniversary because I am proud of our first year in office. Our 10 year NHS plan coming today, waiting lists coming down month on month. A new ambitious Industrial Strategy creating job opportunities around the country. Mental health support and skills revolution, British jobs for British workers with decent pay and conditions. The biggest investment in affordable and social housing in 50 years. Finally clearing up our rivers and seas.

Bringing the railways into public ownership, creating GB Energy, getting bills down. Half a million more children getting free school meals every day. And new free breakfast clubs. Wages going up and the biggest ever wage rise for the lowest paid workers. That is the change that people voted for and that is the change that we are bringing in. But it is also another anniversary actually Mr Speaker, it is the anniversary that the Tories don't want to talk about, their worst ever election defeats.

They were utterly rejected, and one year on, it has got no better for them. It is just getting worse and worse. They haven't learnt, they haven't reflected, they haven't apologised. And he talks about U- turns. I mean no one knows more about the changing position and changing direction than them. Changing prime ministers three times in three months. They went from austerity one month to throwing money up the wall the next. Once it was levelling up, the next it was funnelling money into the shires.

From Brexit opportunities to Brexit disaster, one day and Industrial Strategy the next ripping it up. In favour of net zero than against it. They couldn't even cancel HS2 properly. In 14 years, they have had more positions than the Kama Sutra. It is no wonder they are completely knackered. knackered.
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Bob Blackman Portrait Bob Blackman MP (Harrow East, Conservative)
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Unfortunately the leader has not been able to announce business after Tuesday the following week which means I'm not able to announce what the business would be on Thursday 17th in the chamber. She has not also announced what will happen in the final week before recess. We are due to have of course the Sir David Amess summer pre-recess adjournment debate on one of those days, and it would be helpful if the leader could update us on when we will be allowed to have that debate.

In addition business in Westminster Hall next week on Tuesday the eighth, it will be a debate on alcohol and cancer, appropriate given the recent comments. On Thursday the 10th will be a debate on state support for victims of terrorism followed by a debate on London's contribution to the national economy. On Tuesday the 15th On Tuesday, 15 July, in Westminster Hall there will be a debate on SEND provision in the south-east. On Thursday the 15th debate on freedom of religion and UK foreign policy for the buy debate on the role of the RAF photographic reconnaissance unit during the second world war.

On Tuesday 22nd of July there will be a debate on Black Country day. Members will well know, those who have been here for a while, but I have been campaigning for more than 20 years for a station in my constituency to receive a lift or some form of step free access. The good news a little while ago was that Queensbury and Cannon Park stations are on the list now to have step free access, good news. I immediately wrote to the Commissioner of TfL to say what about Stanmore station? I have received a reply this week which may interest you and others.

The definition of step free access means lifts, ramps, and level surfaces so you don't have to use stairs or escalators and can avoid the step and gap between our trains, buses, and boats. It went on to say that Stanmore station is classified as step free access. Despite the fact that it says quite clearly here, " Station entry and exits require 110 m journey via the station car park including steep ramps. " What it does not say if this is the access to the Royal hospital in Stanmore and a Paralympian is unable to get up that slope unaided.

I have been in correspondence with the chair of the Transport Committee who agrees with me that we need an updated definition. Of course the Secretary of State is a former deputy Mayor of London for transport. Could we have a statement from the Transport Secretary in this House on what we are going to do about ensuring those proper step free access and proper definition?
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Lucy Powell Portrait Rt Hon Lucy Powell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Manchester Central, Labour )
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First of all can I thank the chair of the Backbench Business Committee for announcing some of the forthcoming business. I can assure him that we will be in conversation very soon about the forthcoming business on the following Thursday, and ahead of the recess. I know how important it is to this House and to him as the chair of the committee that we do have the Sir David Amess pre-summer recess debate, as the whole House will expect us to have that at the appropriate moment.

So hopefully we can have positive conversations about that coming up. He is absolutely right to raise issues, as I have heard him raise in this House many times before about step free access particularly at Stanmore station and other stations in his constituency. He will know that those stations are a matter for TfL but ministers do talk to TfL about this. I can assure him that the Secretary of State for Transport is personally very committed to ensuring that all our stations do become step free and have access for all.

This is a big job because over half the stations across the country currently don't have that. It is important not just those with disabilities but for those with buggies and young children and carrying lots of luggage and all

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sorts of other people, to ensure that our transport network is truly accessible. To help everyone my intention is to take everyone so let's speed through.
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Lucy Powell Portrait Rt Hon Lucy Powell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Manchester Central, Labour )
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He raises a really important issue which is vital to the future workforce of the NHS and to ensure that we have the research and innovation that the Secretary of State for health will shortly be outlining in a statement on the 10 year NHS plan. I think it would be the Department but I will be happy to raise it with both. So, I will to raise it with both. So, I will to raise it with both. So, I will The football ground in my constituency is a historic part of workplace.

It is known as work the workplace. It is known as work the workplace. It is known as work the Wembley and legends like Paul really used to train and play on it, however, it was abandoned over however, it was abandoned over recent decades and was at risk of recent decades and was at risk of being lost forever. After a six-year campaign with local residents, I am pleased to say that the ground has pleased to say that the ground has been saved, and for my part, I spent three of those years working with owners, with residents to get a new owners, with residents to get a new owner for the site, and I am pleased to say that that new owner is Leeds United.

I'm incredibly pleased that United. I'm incredibly pleased that football club can invest in our constituency, and addition to that, we will restore its ground to its former glory. Although leader of the former glory. Although leader of the join me in paying tribute to everyone involved in this campaign on the need for football clubs to invest in communities. I take this opportunity to congratulate him on his leadership on this issue and forgetting work please Wembley, a great title, back please Wembley, a great title, back into use.

It is a great achievement as a new Member of Parliament to get this off the ground.
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None Portrait Ministerial Statement: 10 Year Health Plan for England
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statement, 10-Year Health Plan for England. I call the Health Secretary of State, Wes Streeting. Thank you. With your permission I
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Wes Streeting Portrait Rt Hon Wes Streeting MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Ilford North, Labour)
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Thank you. With your permission I will make a statement to the House on fit for the future. The government 10-Year Health Plan for government 10-Year Health Plan for England. There are moments in our national story when our choices define who we are. In 1948 the Attlee government made a choice founded on fairness. That everyone in our country deservess to receive the care you need, not just the care you can afford. It enshrined in law and in the service itself our collective conviction that healthcare is not a privilege to be bought and sold but a right to be And now it.

Our generation to rebuild our National Health Service and protect, in this century, what the government built for the last. That is the driving mission of our 10 year plan. In September, Lord Darcy gave us a diagnosis. The NHS was broken by 14 years of underinvestment and by the catastrophic top-down reorganisation. In the past year, Labour has put the NHS on the right track. We promise to million extra appointments and we have delivered more than 4 million.

We promised 1000 more GPs in the frontline, we have recruited 1900. We have taken almost 1/4 of a million of waiting lists, cutting waiting lists to their lowest level in two years. And we have launched an independent and chaired by Baroness Casey to build around a new national care service to meet the needs of older and disabled people into the 21st- century. Today, the prime minister has set a prescription to put the NHS back on its feet and make it fit for the future.

Our plan will deliver three big shifts. First, from hospital to community. Care should happen as locally as it can, digitally by default, in a patient's home if possible, in a neighbourhood health centre where needed, in a hospital if necessary. We'll put health centres in every community, so you can see a GP, nurse, physio, care worker, therapist, get a test, scan or treatment for minor injuries all under one roof. Rather than patients having to organise their lives around the NHS.

It will be and faster to see a GP. We will train thousands more, and the scramble, provide same-day consultations and bring back the family doctor. If you are someone with multiple conditions and complex needs, the NHS will co- create a personal care plan so your care is done with you and not to you. Pharmacy will play an expanded role in the neighbourhood health service. They will manage long-term conditions, treat conditions like obesity and high blood pressure, screen for disease and vaccinate against it, and we will reform the contract to get more dentists doing NHS work rebuilding NHS dentistry.

And over the course of this plan, the majority of the 135 million outpatient appointments done each year will be moved out of hospitals. The funding will follow so a greater share of NHS investment is spent in primary and community care. Second from analogue to digital. No longer will NHS staff have to enter seven passwords to log into their computers. Or spend hours writing notes and entering data. Our plan will liberate staff from the jobs they hate so they can focus on the job they love, caring for patients.

For the first time ever, patients will be given real control over a single secure and authoritative account of their data. The single patient record will mean NHS staff can see your medical records and know your medical history so they can provide possible care. Wearable technology will feed in real-time health data so that patients health can be monitored while they stay in the comfort of their own home with clinicians reaching out at the first signs of deterioration. The NHS Apple become the front door to the health service, delivering power to the patient.

You will be able to book and rearrange appointments for you, your children, or a loved one you care for, get instant advice from an AI doctor in your pocket, leave feedback on your care and see what feedback other patients have left. Choose where you are treated. Book appointments and urgent care so you don't wait for hours and refer yourself to a specialist were clinically appropriate. And of course, patients can already do these things but only if they can afford a private healthcare.

With Labour's plan, every patient will receive a first-class service whatever their background and whatever they earn. Third, from sickness to prevention, working with the food industry, we will make the healthy choice the easy choice to cut calories. We will roll out obesity The NHS, Get Britain Moving with Our New Points Scheme, Update Food Standards so That Kids Are Fed Nutritious Meals, and We Will Tackle the Mental-Health Crisis with 27 per Sort and Dedicated Emergency Departments from Patients for When They Reach Crisis Point.

The Science Is on Our Side. The Revolution in Artificial Intelligence, and data offers a golden opportunity to deliver better care at better value. We will see medicines adopted. Robotic surgery will become the norm in certain procedures so that customers can recover at home rather than in hospital beds, and the NHS will usher in a new age of medicine, leapfrogging disease so we are predicting and preventing it rather than just diagnosing and treating. It is therefore the ambition of this plan to provide the genomic test for every newborn baby by 2035, thanks to my right honourable friend the Chancellor, this plan is backed by an extra £29 billion a year by the end of the spending review period, and the biggest capital investment in the history of the NHS.

Of course, alongside that investment comes reform. This plan slashes are necessary bureaucracy and involves power and resource to the frontline. It abolishes more than 200 bodies because listening to patients guaranteeing safety and protecting whistleblowers is core business for the NHS and should never have been outsourced. It commits to publishing league tables to rank providers. We will intervene in failing providers to turn them around and reinvent the foundation trust model in a new system of and autonomy. Pay will be tied to performance so excellence is recognised and failure has consequences.

Tariffs will be reduced to boost productivity. Block reduced to boost productivity. Block contracts or end with funding tighter outcomes. The plan gives power to the patient so hospitals are financially rewarded for a better service. It closes health inequalities by investing more in working-class communities, and it establishes a national investigation into maternity and neonatal services to deliver the truth, justice and improvement that bereaved families deserve. I am sometimes told that NHS staff are resistant to change. On the contrary.

They are crying out for it. They suffer the moral injury of seeing their patients treated in unfit conditions, and they are the ones that are driving innovation on the frontline, so their fingerprints are all over this plan. The public are desperate for change as well. Each of us has our own story about the NHS and the difference it has made to our own lives. And we also know the consequences of failure. That is why we cannot afford to fail.

But to succeed, we need to defeat the cynicism that says nothing ever changes. We know the change in our plan is possible because it has already happened. We have toured the length and the breadth of the country and scouted the world for the best example of reform. If Australia can effectively serve communities living in the outback, we can surely meet the needs of real England. If community health teams can go door-to-door to prevent illness in Brazil, we can certainly do the same in Bradford.

We know that we can build the neighbourhood health service because teams in Cornwall, Camden, Northumbria, Stratford, are already showing us how to do it. So, we will take the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS, and we will apply the best examples of innovation from around the world to benefit people here at home. Above all else, we will give power to the patient. This plan fulfils the commitment in 1948 to put on make-up phone to the mouth of every patient, and it will restore the founding promise of the NHS to be there for us when we needed.

Of course we know that there are those on the right who are willing us to fail. They will exploit the crisis at the NHS in order to dismantle it. The member for Clacton and his cronies argue that universal healthcare that could be afforded in the 20th-century but not in the 21st. Well, Labour rejects their decline list pessimism, and so to the public. But that is the choice sat right there. It is change or bust and we choose change. And we know the British people are counting on us.

In full to ask to make sure that the NHS not only survives but thrives and we will not let our country down. And of course, if we succeed, we will be able to say with pride that it will echo down the decades of the 21st- century that we with the generation that built an NHS fit for the future and a fairer Britain where everyone lives well for longer, and I commend the statement to the house.
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Edward Argar Portrait Rt Hon Edward Argar MP (Melton and Syston, Conservative)
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And I thank the Secretary of State for his courtesy in providing advance statements but also the plan itself. I am grateful to him, and others from his bench might learn a thing or two from him. I am pleased to see this plan published. The Secretary of State is a rare thing this day. He is a Secretary of State's announcements tend to survive intact for more than a week and in the case of this plan, it is vital that it does stick.

The Secretary of State is not known to be short on ambition, and to be clear, this is reflected in his plan today. It is ambitious. I believe his long-term goals are right. And the reforms he sets out today build on the reforms we set out and carried out. The desire to shift care from hospital to community, to better use technology and to move to prevention is not something new but they remain vital. The NHS undoubtedly needs reform, not just more cash.

38% of day-to-day government spending going on the NHS is simply not fiscally sustainable in the long-term. We need to focus on outcomes, not just inputs. At this plan, while welcome, is still sketchy on some of the details of delivery and how it will be paid for without the funds he has mentioned being eaten by pay rises and by inflation, and actually, how the shift will be staffed. Greater use of the app is right and builds on the amazing work done on the app by the right honourable member for Cambridgeshire when he was Secretary of State.

Greater use of technology and genomics is right. And his big five tech bats are largely right. But tech alone as he knows won't deliver this. People will need to deliver this, and so were clearly aligned workforce plan with his strategy is vital. Neighbourhood health centres are one of the measures at the heart of his plan today. The concept is an interesting one but it does throw up a number of questions which I hope he can answer today in the spirit of which they are asked.

While the providers of those centres be NHS public sector or private sector organisations or a mixture? How will the centres fit with GP provision and other services without duplication or fishing in the same pool for staff? What assessments has made the cost of new buildings and technology to go in them, and how many of these centres does he envisage and by when, and crucially, how will he ensure that a PPP model will avoid the downsides of the Blair-Brown PFI model? I ask not from a desire to see this fail but for it to succeed because it is in our interest that he does succeed.

But that will take time. On page 71 of his plan, he talks about the need for immediate opportunities to be seized. Can I take the opportunity to suggest to him to deliver on pre-election commitments for fracture liaison services to be delivered in all communities? As campaigned for by the Royal Orthopaedic Society, the express and many others, and that is a policy which we deliver savings within the CSR period. Similarly in my own constituency, Melton Mowbray has a great hospital.

I hope those hospitals will be a part of delivering within the community. On maternity care, I welcome his commitment to a national investigation into maternity scandals but I hope that won't stop him from delivering on the work that was done by the member from Canterbury where there are measures that can be implement it now to help On systems reform can I offer him some words of caution, one into the CQC even as a discrete entity within it, HCV is not a regulator.

It is not designed as such and it is clear those distinctions are not blurred and how that change happens. Similarly on ICBs can I say to him to be wary of moving those to larger geographies at risk of becoming again regional health authorities is that will move them further away from the local communities they are saving. And also the entities that provide social care in those communities with whom they must interact. Which does bring me finally to a very significant question hanging over this plan.

Unless we move faster to address the challenges of social care put it on a sustainable footing, these reforms risk failing to seize the genuine opportunity presented. I think in the move from cross-party talks to an independent commission we risk losing the opportunity that is there. But crucially again I ask the Secretary of State to consider bringing forward the end date of the commission so we can go further and faster. On social care. To conclude, I have often said the Secretary of State where he is wrong we will rightly hold him to account and challenge him but where he is right we will offer constructive support.

This plan by and large say in my view the right things. We must shift to outcomes and not focus continually on input. We must do that through real and genuine reform. The challenges he faces will be in the detail, much of which is still to be confirmed and crucially for the government, in actual delivery. The Secretary of State should not underestimate those challenges. I will work with him to improve this plan where it needs it, but also to support him where he pledges and brings genuine reform.

To our healthcare system. His panel have the key test like his plan will have the key test. Will the patients see the difference? And when will they see the difference? It is vital we reform, as we reform our NHS that

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in all we do it is patients that is at the heart of our deliberations and our plans. Secretary of State.

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Secretary of State.
12:18
Wes Streeting Portrait Rt Hon Wes Streeting MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Ilford North, Labour)
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Thank you. Can I first of all thank the Shadow Secretary of State for the constructive approach he has taken to what does need to be a taken to what does need to be a successful plan for the next decade. To get our NHS back on its feet, to make it fit for the future and to make sure we improve the health of the nation. Aside from the lines he was no doubt given to trot out and he almost said them with conviction at the beginning, we know we can count on him to con -- to be rather more serious and sensible than the display we saw from that event yesterday.

-- From that eventually saw yesterday. Turning to his points he is right to say the investment needs to go alongside the reform. That is why the spending review set out the Chancellor's commitment to the NHS and to NHS reform only a matter of weeks ago. The government is providing a £29 billion real terms increase which is the £53 billion cash increase in annual NHS database spending -- day-to-day spending by 2028/29. This funding will support the first steps towards living reforms and service improvements and the new technology set out in the plan.

But the investment alone is not enough and one of the reasons we are paying more and more and for worse and worse outcomes is because we have got the wrong care in the wrong places at the wrong time. Contrary to what we hear from some newspaper columns and I heard the honourable member for Clacton on the radio this morning once again attacking the NHS equitable principles and funding model, it is not the model of funding that is the problem, it is the model of care.

That is why the shift to neighbourhood health is absolutely essential for delivering better outcomes for patients and better value for taxpayers. With the technology that is coming down the track and the technology we already have, that will drive the brick productivity gains in the system that have eluded us. Thinking back to the previous government and in recent years we have seen they have invested in more staff and they put all of those staff in hospitals. They were working in undercapitalised NHS and if you have got more going into the inputs if you do not have the neighbourhood to deliver the service and we do not see the response responding improvements in outputs and impact, that is how you drive poorer productivity, poorer value for money and poor outcomes for patients.

That is the approach we are changing. If for example we rollout as we will, ambient AI to all GPs and make sure in those interactions with patients we liberate them from being glued to the screen, filling out the forms and drafting the letters, that is all done automatically before the GP spend a few moments checking over to make sure it is right, if we could just save 90 seconds in every GP appointment we will save the equivalent GP time of 2,000 more GPs.

That is how we get more bang for buck. That is how we drive productivity, that is how we deliver better care and better value. That is why the workforce plan of the previous government was not right. It assumed the NHS just needed growth on the same rates and in the same way as it has always done things. And if that is so plausible, if we had continued with the rate of growth they had set out by the end of the century, 100% of our entire country would be working in the NHS.

I know we love the NHS and we love the people who work in it but I do not think everybody in our country can or should be working in the National Health Service was and so to reassure the honourable gentleman we will this autumn set out a new workforce plan that aligns with this 10-Year Plan. He asked about neighbourhood health centres. We aim to go for 250 to 300 new neighbourhood health centres by the end of this plan. 40 to 50 over the course of this Parliament.

They will be NHS providers and we will be doing a combination of new builds and also refurbishing and rejuvenating underutilised existing estates both in the NHS and in the public sector. Therefore the cost of each neighbourhood health centre will vary from the low millions to around £20 million depending on whether it is an upgrade, refurb, and expansion or indeed a new build. And because of the capitalisation of the NHS we inherited, even with the record investment for public sources the Chancellor has provided that in itself will not be enough to deal with the capital backlog.

That is why as set out in the government infrastructure plan and with care and caution and keeping in mind the mistakes that were made by the private finance initiative, we are looking at alternative private sources of investment to make sure we can go further and faster on capital improvement particularly. Particularly in the neighbourhood health service. He asked me to commit to Fracture Liaison Services. Fracture liaison services have a demonstrable impact on keeping people well and of providing both better outcomes for patients and better value for taxpayers.

That is why we want to see them rolled out across the country. In maternity I very much welcome his support for the investigation. NHS England is in the third of the three-year plan put in place by the previous government and we have been told to support that progress and not interfere. Even with the most recent CQC report into the trust in Nottingham, we have got so much more to do. It needs an entire change and approach and culture, let alone practice and behaviour.

I am committed to working with All-Party Parliamentary Groups across the thousand make sure the expertise and insight we have right across these benches on both sides of the chamber helps to drive maternity improvements. He asked about rolling HSIB into the CQC. Let me provide this reassurance to him. HSIB has been a really effective body but we cannot justify the duplication. The duplication of back-office functions and the inefficiency that comes with that. However the CQC when we came into office was in such a dire state we had to replace the leadership and we are -- we have replaced the improvement plan.

We will not roll leadership into the Care Quality Commission until we are sure the Care Quality Commission is back to the standard we expect for it to perform its core duties today. Let alone the work it will do with HSIB housed within the CQC. On ICBs I am not going to measure success through the number of bodies in the NHS. I think that is -- has led us to where we are. I am committed to making sure as we devolve more power, more responsive ability, more resources closer to the frontline the system leaders and provider leaders we also make sure we have in place democratic accountability so members of Parliament, local councillors, Metro mayors can influence and shape healthcare where they live.

He also asked about social care. We are not waiting for casing, the Spending Review gave an additional £4 billion to social care. We are delivering the biggest expansion of Carer's Allowance since the 1970s. A significant increase the Disabled Facilities Grant and the Deputy Prime Minister and I will shortly be setting out how will -- we will deliver the first Fair Pay Agreements for care towards building a real social care progression. Finally Mr Deputy Speaker, on neighbourhood health social care has to be a part of this.

In the context of this plan, social care features because it has a role to play and emission avoidance and speeding up delayed discharges. Of course we know that social care is important in its own right and that is why it is important it has its own commission. Finally the funding, the shadow Secretary of State asked about whether people will see and feel these improvements. We know on this side of the House it will be judged by results. And whether people can feel the change we are delivering.

So all I would say to people watching our proceedings today is that in our first year we promised 2 million more appointments to cut waiting lists and we have doubled that. We promised to deliver 1,000 more GPs, we have almost doubled that. We promised within our first year that you would see the NHS moving in the right direction and waiting lists are lower now, at the lowest point for two years. We know there is more to do. I hope the progress you have seen under this Labour government reassures you when it comes to our National Heath Service, if anything were under promise and over deliver.

We know people will see and feel the change and I say respectfully given his constructive tone, that will be the difference between a Labour

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government and a Conservative government. Chair of the Select Committee.
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Wes Streeting Portrait Rt Hon Wes Streeting MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Ilford North, Labour)
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Can I just say, I thank my honourable friend for her question and thank her for the leadership sheet showing to the Select Committee -- leadership she is showing to the Select Committee while she is off on maternity leave and what a delight to see the chair of the Select Committee earlier this week with her new baby. That was delightful and we wish her well. One of the exciting things for me about launching the plant today is just how widespread the support has been from a range of different organisations that we will need to work with to deliver this plan.

Whether it is the Royal colleges and the trade unions, whether it is the organisations representing patients, the wide range of healthcare charities and crucially the frontline staff. Everyone is up for this change. Everyone is desperate for it to succeed. We are not going to get everything right will make mistakes along the way and we will always learn and reflect. We know in government we cannot do this without effective leadership from Ministers but also government cannot do it alone. It is now our responsibility to mobilise more than 1 1/2 million people who work in the NHS.

More than 1 1/2 million people who work in social care and mobilise our whole country behind a national mission to get our NHS back on its feet. To make sure it is fit for the future and to make sure fundamentally we attack the injustices that lead to ill health. So we have a fairer Britain where everyone lives well for longer.
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Helen Morgan Portrait Helen Morgan MP (North Shropshire, Liberal Democrat)
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Liberal Democrat spokesperson. the Secretary of State for early sight of the plan this morning. After years of Conservative failure, a plan for the future of the NHS is welcome and the Liberal Democrat support the Secretary of State in his vision to shift the NHS to a community focus preventative service. However I do seek his reassurance on some questions. Firstly in 143 pages of the 10-Year Plan, there is only a passing reference to social care. Everyone knows you cannot fix the NHS without fixing social care.

With so many people unable to return home from hospital, to get the care they need solving the crisis in social care is a huge part of moving her out of hospital -- moving care out of hospital and into the community. The Secretary of State please bring forward the KC Review to this year and reinstate the cross-party talks so something certain can be reached on the future of care? I welcome the idea of a neighbourhood Council but I would like to ask the Secretary of State how this interact with the plan for GPs? The plan implies GP contract will encourage them to cover a huge geographic area of 50,000 people.

In North Shropshire that would be two or three market towns combined in dozens of miles. Will he reassure me that will still be a physical health centre accessible to all and areas with little public transport in particular there will be availability for people to access care when needed? Finally the plan hinges on the shift to digital solutions and that is not without risk. The use of the NHS Is critical to what happens. How will the Secretary of State ensure those without a smartphone because they cannot afford one, do not feel confident using one simply do not have adequate broadband or internet will access the NHS going forward? There are many particularly elderly and disabled people who are digitally excluded you will feel
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Wes Streeting Portrait Rt Hon Wes Streeting MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Ilford North, Labour)
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I welcome the LibDem support for the plan, and the way they have sought to with -- work with us in pursuit of better health services and social care services as well. I understand the point she makes I won't repeat at length the points that I made to the Shadow Secretary of State for health and social care, but I hope the house is reassured by the action we are already taking on greater funding, increasing facilities Grant, the fair pay agreement and the role and partnership that we will see with social care to deliver at a neighbourhood health services, and I should also say in the context of what we have been describing on the importance of data and digital connections and better systems, in some parts of the country, the social care system is ahead at the NHS, making better use of data and joining things up in a more efficient way.

There is a lot that the NHS can learn from social care as well. I will take both representations from frontbenchers upset exhorting me to speed up the commission and that is duly noted. Our neighbourhood health centres, I do want to reassure her on the point that she raises which is one of the reasons why we want to devolve so much power in the NHS, because I think the closer decisions are made to the communities that they serve, the better the outcomes and the provision, and on one size fits all approach to neighbourhood care won't work.

For a constituency like mine, there are three hospitals within a 15 to 20 minute drive of where I live. In so many rural towns, coastal communities, villages across the community, there is not even one hospital within that list. People are driving huge lengths to get there, so I want to reassure members on both sides of the house is in terms of our priorities to roll out neighbourhood health centres, we will start out with the areas of greatest inequality and need, and also, those communities where people have to travel far to get to the nearest hospital so that people can genuinely receive care closer to home and in people's home where I think technology can play a big role.

I understand the cynicism about digital rollout, and the government IT projects don't have a great reputation historically, let's be clear about that, which is why we are learning from past mistakes. We are making sure that we have the right experts in the room to help us, and so much of that is the digital clinical leadership to help marry the best of the scientific and technological mines in our country with the experience to make sure that we get this absolutely right.

But we can't afford to fail. We can't afford to be left behind. There are so many brilliant innovators in life sciences and tech who are designing and making things here in Britain, but when it comes to scaling up they need shipping out because the NHS has been a poor partner and a poor customer. That is what we are going to change so that we will create more here in Britain and make sure it is rolled out right across the country. And in doing so, people, whether they are staff liberated from the drudgery and toil of bureaucracy and at, or patients that have more ease, convenience, choice and control the figure tips, this is the revolution happening, and it is crucial that nobody is left behind.

I take the point about the digitally connected, and there are two responses to that. People like me booking through the touch of a button free up telephone lines, get out of the way of reception desks and free at more capacity for face-to-face appointments. And I believe in different courses for different horses. I believe in patient choice and those patients who want to pick up the phone, who want to be seen face-to-face must be given that choice and that control, and we will give it to them, but he's the other thing.

Working with the science innovation and technology secretary, we will deal with the fundamental problem of digital disconnection in our country because, as I have found, when I knocked on the door of one of my party members when I have heard that she has been unwell and I was canvassing down the street, I knocked on her door, she opened the door, I asked if she needs anything from the shops and she looked me up and down as a fighter the ridiculous thing. She said she did her shopping online with her iPad.

We shouldn't assume that because people are older than they are naturally digitally disconnected. They are some of the most tech savvy people and we have to make sure those skills are enjoyed by all. In keeping with the NHS as principles of making sure that healthcare is available universally to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay.

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Order, order. There are some 60 minutes who wish to participate in the session. The statement is clearly likely to have an impact on every constituency in the country every constituency in the country and I understand why so many honourable members wish to question honourable members wish to question the Secretary of State. It is our intention to try to call everybody but there is important business later which also has to be reached, later which also has to be reached, so may I urge brevity on all members and short answers from the Secretary of State.
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Wes Streeting Portrait Rt Hon Wes Streeting MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Ilford North, Labour)
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I absolutely give him that assurance and I feel so sorry for him that he comes here to this place to stand up for his constituents knowing full well that while they've got a Labour government is delivering the biggest increase in investment to devolved Administration since devolution began the SNP who have been in government for almost 2 decades now is squandering the money and squandering the opportunity. They are not going to get change in his constituency or across the rest of Scotland with more of the same from the SNP.

Scotland needs an alternative, Scotland's NHS needs alternative, that alternative the Scottish Labour's leadership with Anna Sarwar and Jackie Baillie and that alternative can't come soon

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enough. I thank the Secretary of State for asking in excess of 65 question for asking in excess of 65 question and thank the shadow Secretary of State for being in attendance throughout the entire proceedings. Order. Change of scenery please. -- Answering in excess of 65 questions. Answering in excess of 65 questions. Now come to the select committees statement on behalf of the culture statement on behalf of the culture media and sport committee. Dame Caroline Di natural speak for up to 10 years but 10 minutes during which no interventions may be taken.

At no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of her statement I will pull step members to ask questions on the subject of the questions on the subject of the Questions not full speeches. I emphasise the question should be directed to the Select Committee

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chair and not the relevant government minister. Front Benchers however may take part in questions. Dame Caroline dinette. Thank you very much I'm really
14:00
None Portrait Select Committee statement on the Fourth special report of the Culture, Media and sport Committee, British film and high-end television: Government response, hC 1123
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14:00
Caroline Dinenage Portrait Dame Caroline Dinenage MP (Gosport, Conservative)
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Thank you very much I'm really For making time for the statement. In April of this year the culture media and sport Select Committee which I'm very honoured to chair published its report into British film and high-end TV. This is a sector that is absolutely thriving, we have world-class facilities at Pinewood and leave stone where inward investment is being made for films that could be made anywhere they are being made here in the UK. The development of groundwork studios in Sunderland ensures that filmmaking is not happening in London and the south-east, the money is spreading out their to our regions as well, we have enormous amounts of talent on our screen there are fantastic shows like adolescents, Doctor Who, rivals, something for everybody sharing British stories around the world.

In cinemas right now British talent and locations in movies like footpath and the ballad of Wallace Island which I'm told is fantastic are really making such an impact. This is a fragile industry, it's done so much to rebound from the difficulties of COVID but in 2023 the US strikes showed us just how reliant the UK industry is on inward investment. And how vulnerable it We cannot take success for granted. It was hard and must be protected. Our inquiry was launched in the summer of 2023.

20 years after the last major committee inquiry to the state of the British film. Reports with willingness of successive governments and huge engagement from the sector, has actually shaped policies for the last two decades since. It was in need of an update. Our select committee heard from filmmakers, cinemas, industry bodies, and those working on skills in the sector. The previous government acknowledged some of the issues that we were beginning to raise in terms of low-budget British raise in terms of low-budget British film, and VFX tax credits.

But last year's general election left inquiry on a cliffhanger with many in the industry desperate for a sequel. We did not want to leave audiences disappointed, so with a new look committee of excellent new members, we brought back the inquiry looking at the crisis in British high-end TV. The benefits and challenges of AI, and the work of the government. Our reports made 35 recommendations to the government and the BFI. I won't test your patience by going through all of them. Based on evidence from across the industry, we proposed a complaint to plan that would support inward investment, that the champion British content, and independent filmmaking.

Drive up skills, support people to stay in the sector, our cinema is, and protect our incredible screen heritage. Some of these recommendations were admittedly really bold. We supported the call to many eminent creators such as the fantastic producer director for a levy on streamer subscriptions to help fund British content. Other recommendations comparatively small but important like we invited the government to review the effectiveness of its incentives for the sector. Working with the BFI for a screen heritage strategy.

In the meantime, the government has published its Creative Industries Sector Plan happily put film and TV as one of its first frontier sectors in terms of its priorities. It has given a welcome uplift to the global screen found which is one of the things are committee recommended. And it has announced a new capital fund for the new television school which will contribute to some if not all of the skills we needed. If like me you have been to the cinema recently you will have seen the trailers for the summer block busters coming up, and many have been frustrated that the best bits have all been shown in the trailer.

That is where we are the government response. The areas where the government has agreed with the committee and taken decisive action I really the only announcement that were new in the Sector Plan. For everything else, the creative industries minister, who I know can't be given the statements today, is at risk of being the villain. He might be the government's very own Dr No. In the time I have left I want to talk through everything the government might have got it wrong, we are simply not sharing our ambition for the sector, or some of the real anxieties this sector have expressed, and the support they have asked for.

The government agrees with our committee that we need to ensure resilience of domestic production and protect our domestic workforce. It does not seem to have the answers on how. It has failed to recognise the value of research and development in the creative arts, and that it should be treated the same way as R&D for science and. It is it has ignored requests. It has ignored proposals for print and advertising relief that will drive investment into our cinema's and interdependent bills.

It has refused a regional breakdown of production spending that would help the government ensure the benefits of these tax credits are being shared right across the UK. We have got phenomenal skills and great stories to tell around the UK. It's welcome extra funding for the Global Screen Fund is tempered with refusal to engage with industry calls to rejoin creative Europe. On skills it has ruled out statutory reporting on spending in the sector despite the unwillingness of some big players in the industry to be open and transparent on what it is giving back.

There is hope that the Growth and Skills Levy will be more suitable for the creative industries was the Apprenticeships Levy currently isn't working, but there is very little new information. I know the secretary is concerned that the Treasury may weaken the proposals for a levy that works for them. The government's proposed freelance champion is good as far as it goes but it is very light on detail and a long way from the Freelancers' Commissioner that we have repeatedly asked for. Although the debate on AI and copyright has moved on somewhat from the Data (Use and Access) Bill, the government has rejected a raft of proposals which would have protected the intellectual property and moral rights of our creative artists.

I know that ministers care deeply about our creative industries, and the government has made commitments to them with its Sector Plan. But I am concerned that while it does call the British film and TV a frontier sector, so many of the recommendations based on really clear and compelling evidence in the sector have just been dismissed or ignored. There is a question for the Department as to whether they think the recommendations we have made are wrong, or whether they just don't have the clout of the Treasury to make them happen.

I know that the Minster can't be here today but I also know how he loves a cultural pardon. It would be a shame for me not to take the opportunity to say, and I hope we will be watching this back. We had great expectations for the government's response rather than offering us the full Monty, I'm afraid we were left blastoff. The Minister will meet for our committee next week for a brief encounter to discuss the Creative Industries Sector Plan. We are not rivals. We want to work with the government in the line of duty.

To get the most for this sector. There is some time for them to add a little sense and sensibility, or perhaps some atonement. If so, rather than being wicked, the Minister could end up as British films local hero. I commend the statements to the house.

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Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker.
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None Portrait Backbench Business: Debate on a Motion on Financial Redress for 1950s Women Impacted by Dwp Maladministration of State Pension Age Changes
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1950s women. Impacted by Department for Work & Pensions maladministration of state pension age changes. I call Rebecca Long minutes.
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Rebecca Long Bailey Portrait Rebecca Long Bailey MP (Salford, Labour)
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Following last night's terrific news I just want to send my deepest condolences to the family of Diogo Jota and his brother in the city of Liverpool. I beg to move the motion in my name on the Order Paper and I would like to pay tribute to the thousands of fearless women who have been campaigning relentlessly to secure justice on this matter for decades now. And to remember all those women who have died waiting for justice. My personal thanks go to the campaign groups you provided briefings the All Party Parliamentary Group on state pension age and equality for women including , C Doran law, pension partners for justice, pension United, was to be Scotland and 1950s women of Wales as well as many individuals who have been in touch.

My thanks also go to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate and numerous colleagues across this House have been instrumental in campaigning for the women but also securing today's debate. As Lord Brennan Davies, co- chair of the APPG under pensions expert has stated, the U.K.'s pension system was designed for men by men. It systematically favoured men with the result that they received higher state pensions and even higher private pensions. Hence the gender pensions gap. The only feature that David women was that the national insurance pension was paid to women from age 60 whereas that is paid to men from age 65.

But in 2010 that single advantage was taken away. Without consultation and without regard to the other factors -- women of that era were worse off financially and ended up with worse pensions. That was bad enough. What was worse though is that they weren't even told about it. Many women were left destitute, some even lost their homes. They were already disadvantaged and discriminated against. These women began work in an era when it was legal to pay female workers less than men and they often stepped out of the workforce to raise families or look after loved ones because there was no wraparound care.

Losing out on paid stamps but also on paying into private pensions. Overnight these disgraceful changes were dumped on them without their knowledge. Many had already handed in their notice at work and in many cases were forced to exist on meagre welfare benefits that left them living a hand to mouth existence. Hundreds of women started to raise the alarm. When the previous government failed When the previous government failed to take action they escalated their complaints to the Parliamentary and health service ombudsman.

He began a lengthy investigation spanning years. What they only chose sample of six cases to focus on. The reports published in March last year uncovered internal departmental for work and memos from 2005 that showed that officials knew considerable numbers of women were unaware of the planned changes. Whilst of course many women feel that the report did not go far enough and suggested redress and it was too limited in the cases that is assessed, it did confirm what women already knew.

They had suffered injustice, that the DWP was guilty of maladministration in failing to properly communicate changes, and that redress was duly owed. When the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions responded to the report in December there was genuine hope that the scandal would finally end, it was there in black-and-white. But sadly it didn't. Women were left shocked and angry. Whilst the government agreed with the finding of maladministration and apologised, no redress would be forthcoming and contrary to the ombudsman they actually felt that the majority of women did know about changes to their pension age based on Department for Work and Pensions research and that sending the women letters would not have been effective.

Which I am sure most people would agree is bizarre people would agree is bizarre because it's pretty effective when a bill addressed to you coming through your door comes through, it's pretty effective when it's a hospital appointment, is pretty effective the very rare but joyous occasion that HMRC gives you a tax rebate check so I ask honestly why would 1950s born women have actively refused to open

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letters with their name on from the DWP? It makes no sense. She's making a really powerful

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She's making a really powerful opening statement and what she says is reflecting some of the conversations I've had with women in my own constituency about the my own constituency about the distress this has caused them, but also how so many of them said that they just simply didn't receive correspondence that they have been correspondence that they have been told that they did receive over the years about the financial situation that was coming down the track for that was coming down the track for them.

She pointed out that the pHA so report found maladministration and despite promising to address it and despite promising to address it in all their communications before the general election the government said it was too burdensome to said it was too burdensome to compensate on a flat scale. At the time that announcement was made I asked the Secretary of State what else could be done to support these else could be done to support these women, many of whom have really struggled as a result of this decision. I didn't have a decision.

I didn't have a particularly forthcoming response that point but I wonder if the honourable lady has had any better joy at hearing what the government is going to do to support these women if they can't bring the financial support that actually so financial support that actually so Thank the honourable lady she's been a fun mid -- formidable campaigner for these women for sub in answer to your question no, I haven't had any joyous information from the government as yet which is why we are here today because I will outline throughout the course of my speech why I think the government statement and response to the ombudsman's report was misinformed and whilst I understand the financial difficulties that government faces, there are options available and cost should never be a barrier to addressing injustice.

Many of the campaign groups are also clear that the statistics used by government to justify no redress are misquoted and misinformed. Painting a picture that is completely at odds with the experiences of thousands of impacted women as the honourable lady is a Real client the ombudsman is finding and independent research results. For example Department for Work and Pensions research 2003 showed that only 43% of all women affected by the changes knew that the state pension age was changing even that research itself comments this low figure provides cause for concern and shows the information about the increase in SVA is not reaching the group of individuals who arguably have the greatest need to be informed.

Independent research such as an Age UK focus group study from as late as 2011 also found that many women responding relieved they were still going to retire when the spate pension hit 60. Furthermore the ombudsman's report also focused on the continued failure of the DWP to recognise and respond to this research and feedback. Indeed that was a point flagged by the Work and Pensions Committee in 2013 and the National Audit Office in 2016 but the DWP still failed to take any meaningful action.



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I pay tribute to her leadership of this campaign. It is still worse of this campaign. It is still worse than she paints it stop for the ombudsman made clear and I quote, ombudsman made clear and I quote, that the DWP had clearly indicated it will refuse to comply with the recommendations and invited recommendations and invited Parliament to step in to resolve this matter. So this is officialdom

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this matter. So this is officialdom closing ranks is it not? Right honourable member is correct and he's been a formidable campaigner the women affected under the Ally in the campaign in this House and what he said is correct. I will explain in a moment how will explain in a moment how unprecedented it is for a government unprecedented it is for a government to reject the ombudsman's recommendations in this way and how dangerous it is in fact for our democracy and the ability of citizens to hold its government to account.

Back to the statistics that the government relied upon in his the government relied upon in his response to the ombudsman's report. Instead of relying on the clear findings that have outlined the findings that have outlined the government relied on abstract figures, in 2004 and 2006 Department figures, in 2004 and 2006 Department for Work and Pensions research. This suggested that 73% and 90% of women born in the 1950s respectively knew that their own state pension age was increasing. That is not correct.

I must like with the Minister for clarity, the question asked in the surveys was crucial. It was, do you know that the broad state pension age is due to increase at some point in the future? It was not, do you know that your own state pension age is going to increase. So it is wrong in my view to make the assertion that 73% and 90% of women knew that the state pension age was changing because the fact prove that they simply did not.

Next, when an ombudsman makes recommendations to government as the right honourable gentleman has alluded to the usual course of action is for the government to accept them. Furthermore this occasion the ombudsman made the incredibly rare decision to lodge their report before Parliament, not before the Department for Work and Pensions. They did this because based on their dealings with the Department for Work and Pensions they already feared and knew that they would be ignored. So it was clear the ombudsman realised this was an important issue and they wanted important issue and they wanted government to listen.

There have only been eight other occasions where the ombudsman felt the need to put down a special report in this way, the first was in 1978. All resulted in the full recommendations being implemented safe one which was the old report where Environment Agency still complied with three out of the four recommendations and on the fourth they implemented alternative compensation offer instead. So I can't stress enough the decision to reject the ombudsman recommendations in full here is unprecedented and in fact is dangerous.

Because it sets a precedent that regardless of what an independent adjudicator recommends concerning state-level injustice the government can now ignore them. It strips away one of the only levers citizens have to hold the government the government of the time to account. All of the amazing campaign groups that win this House work with are clear, this has been a state injustice, has cause significant harm to these women and a limited government apology whilst welcome, without any material redress is not acceptable.

For a grave injustice that has driven so many into debt or

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poverty. Thank the honourable lady for giving way and congratulate her on giving way and congratulate her on giving way and congratulate her on bringing forward this debate she has been a very powerful advocate for the was be campaigners not just England and but also in Scotland as England and but also in Scotland as well and that is recognised by them. Does she recognise the fact that over the course of recent weeks we seen that where there is a well seen that where there is a well there is a way and that if her colleagues on the Labour benches were to use the newfound power perhaps we could find a way of perhaps we could find a way of getting the government to write this

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getting the government to write this I thank Member for his

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I thank Member for his suggestion. He is a fantastic campaigner for 1950s women in campaigner for 1950s women in Scotland, and has done an enormous amount of work in this House to support the cause. As I said earlier, we all recognise the earlier, we all recognise the difficulties that the government faces. It inherited a difficult faces. It inherited a difficult financial inheritance but that is no excuse to deny these women justice. And there are financial options And there are financial options available, some of which I have decided to outline today, and some of which my colleagues will outline.

of which my colleagues will outline. The government, as well as refuting the findings of the ombudsman, sites cost and administrative burdens as barriers. But on this point, I think it is important to stress that have been other large-scale compensation schemes created in response to the

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Department for Work & Pensions maladministration. The Equitable Life compensation scheme was a key one, a key example. I thank the honourable lady four

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I thank the honourable lady four Divin way. I congratulate her profoundly on getting this debate is profoundly on getting this debate is much needed. Would my honourable friend agree with me that it is shameful that Labour made personal shameful that Labour made personal pledges to Waspi women over social pledges to Waspi women over social media as a vehicle to get elected and then tossed aside those promises and turned their backs on more than and turned their backs on more than 7000 women such as Jill in Tiverton 7000 women such as Jill in Tiverton and Helen in Bampton, as well as those across the length and breadth of the country? Does she recognise of the country? Does she recognise as I do that 74% of the British public support fair compensation for WASPI women.

WASPI women.

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I thank the honourable lady for comments. Again she is a fantastic campaigner for her constituents during her time in this house. What during her time in this house. What I would say in response is that this is an issue that unites the House. We are all angry about the injustice that these women have faced, and we want to see the government take action, and spanning various government and various government and various illustrations, these women have had to fight relentlessly just for what they are owed.

That is not acceptable. I have no doubt that there are numerous colleagues at Cabinet level who agree with that women's cause, but may be struggling to find options. That is what we are here today in this debate to provide. I hope they are listened to and acted upon. Because injustice is injustice, and if we are to say that victims of one injustice can be compensated by the government but victims of another don't deserve to, then that is a very dangerous path to travel down.

There are options to cover the costs and ensure that there is no heavy admission to burden. I will cover a few of them. The ombudsman's guidance on financial remedies sets out the suggestion on the severity and justice scale. They estimate it would involve a big spending of between £3,500,000,000.10 £0.5 billion. Campaigners have suggested that an earlier stage level 5 was under consideration, and that will cost between £10 billion and that will cost between £10,000,000,000.30 £1 billion. In both cases, as has been highlighted, the recommendation, nor any other scheme does not preclude tapering the amounts paid which would bring down costs considerably.

WASPI and its sister campaign suggests a bell curve model. They have highlighted other large compensation schemes for DWP maladministration have been viable and proposed that any financial remedy could allocate the most compensation to those who have had the shortest notice for the longest delay to their State Pension Age, i.e. Supporting those most heavily impacted in a bell curve model. They state that redress must be speedy, simple, and sensitive. And they want to avoid legal action for top they've asked the government to enter into talks to address this very issue.

WASPI proposed this could be in the form of a one-off payment that takes this into account, but level 4 should not be a ceiling given that not all circumstances are identical to the six sample claimants. WASPI Scotland have also highlighted how a scheme could be done relatively easily using DWP records and National Insurance prefixes on either opt in or opt out spaces. The information is readily available and would not require complex application systems nor processing of such applications.



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I thank the honourable lady for giving way. She is making a very top does she share my frustration that government is refusing to sit around the table, and instead effectively forcing a core process effectively forcing a core process which is just leading to longer and longer delays when there is such a clear injustice here, and unprecedented rejection of the PCSO

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recommendation? Quite a These women should not be forced

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These women should not be forced to go through lengthy court battles and the government must recognise the cost of going through these court battles versus the amount they court battles versus the amount they would actually pay for a redress scheme. But ultimately the court is likely to find in favour of these likely to find in favour of these women based on the fact that we have been presented with as parliamentarians. Indeed, a 1950s woman of Wales both strongly support mediation to redress via an early neutral remediation with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions via mediators.

More broadly, they raise concerns that discrimination needs to be factored into any redress mechanism stating that the rollout of State Pension Age potentially conflicts with the UN's Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women treaty which the UK signed in 1981. As such, the government implement a temporary special measure to guarantee an

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adequate non-discriminatory pension. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. Would the honourable lady agree with me that after so many years, one of the first constituency came to be the first constituency came to be ages ago was a WASPI woman. After so many years and so much compromise on many years and so much compromise on their side and willing to talk to the government, one of the things that matters most to the women that matters most to the women rather than the amount of money is the actuality and the significance the actuality and the significance of compensating them after all these years?

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The honourable lady is spot on. This is an injustice and that women have suffered full stop they have have suffered full stop they have been ignored and they should not have had to fight for so long. The sad fact is that so many women have sad fact is that so many women have already died waiting to see justice. already died waiting to see justice. What will it take? Will it take an ITV drama to shine a light on what has happened before everybody gets has happened before everybody gets angry enough to do something about it? I don't know.

But what I do know is that the facts are clear. Even is that the facts are clear. Even the ombudsman reports set that out, and that the government needs to act and that the government needs to act urgently. As I said, the honourable lady has been a fantastic campaigner in this House over the years. I'm sure the women are truly thankful for her support. 1950s Women of Wales propose that redress could be an initial lump sum to allow swift financial relief additional payment over a five year period.

But even the previous chair of the Department for Work & Pensions Select Committee suggested a scheme. He wrote to the event Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to suggest that a rules-based scheme considered. The letter describes a system where payments are adjusted within a range on the ombudsman's severity of injustice scale. Reflects the extent of change in the individuals State Pension Age and the notice of the change the individual received. It would be quick to administer he said, and inexpensive compares to a more bespoke scheme.

He further suggested there should also be flexibility for individuals to make a case for additional compensation for direct loss. You know what, that Select Committee chair is now a minister in the Department for Work & Pensions. Who knew. Perhaps the Minister could sit down and have a cup of tea with him and discuss the plans that he had before he entered office? Of course any scheme must also be responsible and it must be financially sustainable. So let's financially sustainable.

So let's have a look at some options on this.

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Before Mr Shannon intervenes, can I respectfully request that your ability considers whether she might be able to truncate his speech a

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little as there are a number of colleagues who want to get in this afternoon. 77,000 WASPI women in Northern Ireland, 7000 in my constituency. Ireland, 7000 in my constituency. Does the honourable lady appreciate the palatable anger they have about the palatable anger they have about how they have been mistreated and the injustice that they wish to see sorted out, on behalf of my

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sorted out, on behalf of my constituents, I see the same thing as the honourable Lady, as we all seek. The honourable gentleman is a

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The honourable gentleman is a powerful advocate for women in powerful advocate for women in Northern Ireland. He is right, it is just wrong, plain and simple. We need to see action on this today. need to see action on this today. And I promise I'm coming to the end. In terms of options to make sure that schemes could be financially sustainable, WASPI have captivated that HM Treasury have saved a whopping £181 billion alone by increasing the State Pension Age.

But there are other options. There's But there are other options. There's the options of applying a 1% or 2% charge on assets over £10 million. Equalise Capital Gains Tax with Equalise Capital Gains Tax with income tax rates raising £15.2 billion a year. Apply National Insurance to investment income raising £8.6 million a year. End stealth subsidies on banks to get up to £55 billion in the next five years. Even Gordon Brown has advocated for this. So cost does not need to be and should not be a barrier to justice.

In January, the deputy ombudsman told the Work and Pensions Committee, the DWP at the time did not know. They failed to act. If you accept this maladministration you except people were affected by it, there is a conversation about how you factor cost into the need to do justice. So the trauma, hardship, poverty, and shear stress these women have put through for a decade must make justice for them a matter of urgency. Madam Deputy Speaker, I call on the Minister today, and I have got a lot of time for him, to listen to these women.

Get round the table with them, listen to the evidence, but considerations of financial redress for 1950s born women who have suffered back on the table, and present any proposal for full and adequate parliamentary

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scrutiny as the ombudsman intended. The question is as on the Order

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The question is as on the Order Paper. Tom Gordon. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker.

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Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to be caught early in this debate and I want to in this debate and I want to replicable lady for securing this debate. I don't really have much more that can be said for top she has put the case so eloquently has put the case so eloquently throughout this debate we have had so far. For me I think the key points that I want to get down on points that I want to get down on the record is that I think that broadly speaking, as the honourable lady said, this is an issue that lady said, this is an issue that does cross all sides of this House.

A broad understanding that this is A broad understanding that this is an injustice. For me it is about fairness and about what happens fairness and about what happens going forward if people lose faith

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in organisations like the PH essay. I thank my honourable friend for giving way and I thank the
14:44
Tom Gordon Portrait Tom Gordon MP (Harrogate and Knaresborough, Liberal Democrat)
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giving way and I thank the honourable Lady for bringing this debate today and congratulate her on her work. Does my honourable friend agree with me that this is about trust, it is about trust in government and to betray that trust for all of us who stood there with placards saying, "I support the WASPI women ", they should be following us up.

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I believe agree with him. Going

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I believe agree with him. Going on from that, at a time when trust is so low in government, politicians, I think it is imperative that we all do what we imperative that we all do what we can in this place to right that can in this place to right that wrong. I would like to see a vote in the key thing I would take away should have a vote in parliament as should have a vote in parliament as to whether we should have a fair compensation scheme.

To get an idea what support there is across this House. Whenever I have WASPI women House. Whenever I have WASPI women in my constituency or outside speak to me, the main thing that they want to have is to be heard listen to. to have is to be heard listen to. That is what I find the key thread that resonates through all of this, they feel completely sidelined and they feel completely sidelined and ignored. The point was made earlier ignored. The point was made earlier is that parties of all persuasions have stood there, have held placards, have made promises, have placards, have made promises, have made pledges.

The Liberal Democrats know well about breaking promises. And I would want to see all parties, And I would want to see all parties, all politicians be held to account for those promises that they failed to deliver. I represent a place that is broadly characterised as fairly is broadly characterised as fairly affluent and wealthy will stop there are not -- there are real issues with poverty as well as a hidden. But when WASPI women were working they were already disadvantaged and this is the further disadvantage.

So

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we need to right that wrong. I thank my noble friend for giving way. Would he agree with me that this is slickly an issue of justice, but also an issue of justice, but also an issue of equality between men and women? If this government is serious about tackling inequality, at all levels, tackling inequality, at all levels, they must surely listen to the women in all their constituencies. I have been inundated with constituents on been inundated with constituents on this from North Cornwall.

It really is an issue of justice but also equality and government must tackle equality and government must tackle

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equality and government must tackle I completely agree. I don't intend to speak much longer so I will wrap up. For me it is a will wrap up. For me it is a fundamental flaw of the system. It's fundamental flaw of the system. It's a complete failure of the ombudsman if it can't enact and get us in this place to push for the change that they outlined, the they outlined, the maladministration. This isn't something that's up for debate, that something that's up for debate, that is the finding of that report.

I think for me when you hear those harrowing stories from women who have lost their houses and ended up have lost their houses and ended up in debt, ended up in all these horrendous situations as a result of something they didn't know about, it's about fixing that problem and writing that wrong.
14:47
Euan Stainbank Portrait Euan Stainbank MP (Falkirk, Labour)
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The many The many women The many women from The many women from across The many women from across Falkirk who have taken the time to campaign on this issue and discuss the injustice done to women affected by state pension age chases and the state pension age chases and the lack of notification. I'm here on their behalf today. Both the ombudsman and ministers and their statement backing December was clear that there is an injustice in the way women impacted by pension state age changes were notified was the woman in Falkirk into met me in December and the understanding a December and the understanding a collective voice took from that meeting is that if we in this place believe there was no injustice here, compensation would never have been compensation would never have been paid regardless of the scope circumstances.

If we recognise an injustice here as the Secretary of State and ombudsman does it's only right we expected to deliver redress right we expected to deliver redress on the ombudsman's findings. On behalf of the women who raised these questions I will use as opportunity to ask again some of the questions I previously raised with the Minister previously raised with the Minister and would welcome them addressing this in the summing up. Why can the government choose when and when not to implement ombudsman recommendations? Is the 90% figure derived from a study specific to women who have been impacted by the pension age changes and if this decision based on cost not genuine disagreement with the findings of

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disagreement with the findings of the ombudsman? It is often said in times of financial crisis that some institutions are too big to fail. Unfortunately in this case is a question of some campaigns being seen as too big to succeed. I am quite sure that the real reason that the DWP is so resistant about this is not because it doesn't recognise the justice of the WASPI women's cause so eloquently set out by the honourable lady for Salford who has given excellent leadership through the All Party Parliamentary Group to this cause, it is because they are simply putting forward behind-the- scenes even though I don't know it, but I am sure that I'm right, arguments along the lines of, there are so many of them the bill will are so many of them the bill will simply be too great and what's more, they are only going to get between 1,000 and £3000 each which won't really be anything like full financial compensation so what's the point of giving in to this point of giving in to this particular demand.

I'm quite sure that if the numbers were fewer and that if the numbers were fewer and if the overall bill would not be so significant then we would not the seeing this resistance to non- obviously valid and viable cause. obviously valid and viable cause.
14:50
Julian Lewis Portrait Rt Hon Sir Julian Lewis MP (New Forest East, Conservative)
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Does he agree with me that you cannot put a price injustice? that they are not going to get anything like full compensation, but what they want is the symbolic acceptance and acknowledgement of the injustice that they have received. In resisting this, as we have heard from both sides of the House, what is at stake is the credibility of the ombudsman system itself. To undermine that is to have a knock-on effect in many future cases when the bills of implementing and ombudsman's recommendations and findings would not be anything like as large as this but it will embolden people and institutions to defy the ombudsman in the future.

Now one of the best short summaries of the case was put forward in a previous Labour manifesto which said previous Labour manifesto which said , a generation of , a generation of women , a generation of women born , a generation of women born in , a generation of women born in the 1950s had their pension age changed without fair notification. This betrayal left millions of women with no time to make a turn to plans with sometimes devastating personal consequences. Labour recognises this injustice and will work with these women to design a system of recompense for the losses and insecurity they have suffered.

Now admittedly that was 2019 manifesto and labour and that time was led by the right honourable member for Islington North and just because that was the case it doesn't mean that it was wrong in what it said. It was absolutely right in the way that it summarised it and in the way that it recognised that something must be done and indeed, when present Secretary of State for work and was in opposition in the last Parliament, she was cautious in what she said she did acknowledge the following.

She said, we will take time to give the report of the ombudsman proper consideration as well and continue to listen respectfully to the women who have been affected as we have done from the start. Then she added, we won't be able to write every wrong overnight. Now that would have been overnight. Now that would have been the basis for at least an attempt to give the symbolic redress and acknowledgement that I think most fair-minded people agree is due.

If the government had come back and said well we can't implement the ombudsman's recommendations in full at the moment we shall try and do it in stages or over a period, or at least go some way in order to give this symbolic acceptance of the wrong that has been done, I think most reasonable people would have understood the situation and would have been willing at least to

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consider some sort of compromise in that way. Would the honourable member perhaps agree with me that this is perhaps agree with me that this is not just an issue of policy and of not just an issue of policy and of these things but it is also really a matter of dignity. That these women's voices must be heard and that the government has a that the government has a responsibility to honour commitments made to give fair treatment and to ensure that something is done about this?

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this? Yes I think in a way the government has fallen between two government has fallen between two stools. You see the report as we have heard anticipated that the government was going to be reluctant government was going to be reluctant to write wrong that had been done to so many people at once, but so many people at once, but nevertheless the PHS oh felt that justice required compensation to be paid. And it must have meant a lot to the ombudsman, knowing that there was going to be this government resistance that it still went down this highly unusual route of trying this highly unusual route of trying to present its report directly to Parliament because it felt it wasn't going to get very far with dealing with the government itself directly.

One might as I say have expected the government to offer a scheme that fell some way short of the ombudsman's recommendation but it's outright rejection of any restitution at all is rather insulting to the women whose complaint was upheld by the ombudsman. As we have heard, despite claiming to accept the findings and even apologise, apologising for its own maladministration, the DWP is not offering a penny in restitution but also is relying in its response on a deeply unconvincing polling exercise supposedly finding that 9/10 of the affected women knew in advance that their state pension age was going to change.

Well if that was the case why did so many of them carry on as if nothing was going to change at all? In reality the answer to the honourable gentleman's question that he referred to a few moments ago when he asked about the nature of the sampling that was done, in reality only some 200 women born in the 1950s were included in the sample of nearly 2,000 people who were surveyed and which led to that misleading results. So I conclude in appealing to the Minister who I know has a great deal of expertise and a very strong track record on issues of this sort from his former career before he came into this House, at least to reach out the hand of negotiation and discussion and accept the offer that reasonable people are making to the government, sit down with them, talk to them, don't let the whole thing go through the courts with adversarial, deepening of hostility and inevitably a less desirable

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outcome for everyone concerned. With an immediate four-minute

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With an immediate four-minute timely -- limit. Chevron --

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timely -- limit. Chevron -- Thanks to the Member for Salford

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Thanks to the Member for Salford And for her as usual excellent contribution. It was quite the site yesterday seeing female parliamentarians don green white and parliamentarians don green white and purple sashes in commemoration of it being 97 years since women on the boat. It seems unthinkable that women would be denied what they call women would be denied what they call representation but then again women have been the victims of inequality for centuries and the pension for centuries and the pension inequality women in born in 1950 suffered from shows the political suffered from shows the political battle has somewhat changed but prejudice and unfairness still prejudice and unfairness still exists.

I imagine that some colleagues may feel somewhat uncomfortable at what I'm about to uncomfortable at what I'm about to say, but I believe it needs said. Because if you support campaigns Because if you support campaigns like WASPI or nuclear test victims
14:57
Brian Leishman Portrait Brian Leishman MP (Alloa and Grangemouth, Labour)
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of the Hillsborough Law, while in opposition, and then you find yourself in frontbench roles in government, well you should do everything you can to deliver on justice. Like you said you would while you're holding a placard or a banner. Because support and solidarity for people like WASPI women is not transactional. Solidarity is not a campaigning tool. I have campaigned for Waspi women to receive justice and that is why I co-sponsored the Ten Minute Rule bills for compensation in January and for years governments have refused to deliver justice to Waspi women.

That is wrong. Do not deliver that justice seems like one of those quote unquote tough decisions politicians have to take. The truth is it is a choice and it always seems to be working class people who are on the wrong end of those choices. A Labour government should instead be taking different choices as highlighted by my honourable friend from Salford. Because I like many believe that the Labour Party is the vehicle for social, political and economic change, and year ago tomorrow people voted for change.

A change from austerity, its social consequences and the government that denied fairness to victims of many different scandals and injustices. So before I finish I would also like to mention the latest from the Falkirk WASPI branch. We met in my constituency office, we sat, they spoke and I listened to their very legitimate anger at the Secretary of State's announcement from last December. There hurt today is as palpable as it was when we met in the New Year. To finish, I just urge the government to do the right thing.



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It's a pleasure to follow the

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It's a pleasure to follow the Member for Grangemouth and I should
15:00
Ben Lake Portrait Ben Lake MP (Ceredigion Preseli, Plaid Cymru)
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Member for Grangemouth and I should get by congratulating the Member for Salford for securing this debate and for being such a champion of this course throughout the many years. It has been too many years that we have had to debate this injustice in this House, whether on these benches or indeed in other chambers in the estate. It is a point of great sorrow for me personally that one of my first speeches as a member of Parliament in 2017 was on this injustice and little could I have imagined back then that I would be a little bit older most reactions down and still having to debate the injustice for so many nine for so many 9G 50s born women.

I think the honourable lady for Salford covered the entire injustice so eloquently that I only want to add a few more points or to emphasise viewpoints, they are as follows. First is that we are talking here of a generation of women that I highly admire. They were women suffered injustice and indeed, throughout their working lives great disadvantages. They were often not paid in line with colleagues and they were also not entitled to the same opportunities when it came to private pensions.

That injustice itself is important to highlight because it does their We are of course aware of the changes initiated by the two pension acts that cause the change to pension age from 1950s born women. What is unacceptable is, having brought the injustice to our attention, members of Parliament from across the island of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the fact of the matter is we asked many women in our constituencies to organise, to campaign. We asked them diligently to undertake through various processes that were available to them to right this wrong.

It all culminated with the ombudsman process. The ombudsman as we have heard found there had been maladministration. There had been an injustice and far too many 1950s born women have suffered as a consequence. I think it is outrageous that we then have a government not only disregarding recommendations in part or trying to water them down, but dismissing them outright. Honourable members have already made the point eloquently, this goes to the very heart of our democracy, and indeed faith in the administration in the institutions of the state to write these terrible wrongs.

I understand from representations made by that campaign groups are my own constituency, both WASPI and the 1950s Women of Wales, ARC to get justice for themselves and their fellow women. They have been pragmatic, they are linked to speak and discuss with the government was that is what I would plead with the Minister today, to consider the opportunity that has been created by these groups to discuss other ways of bringing the resolution forward so that 1950s born women can at last have some justice we should not force them to go through the judicial review process dragged through the courts.

Far too many years have already been spent writing this wrong. I will end on this point, we can't delay any further because estimates suggest that over 300,000 1950s born women have already passed away since this injustice came to light. That is equivalent to another 1950s born woman dying every 12 minutes. There is an opportunity here to get back around the table, and I would urge the Minister and the government to

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do so. I just want to put on the record my thanks to my right honourable friend for this campaign. Reference friend for this campaign. Reference has been made to the manifesto in has been made to the manifesto in 2019. The right honourable lady and I wrote that section. What we have I wrote that section. What we have done is work with the WASPI and all the campaigns, with Lord Bryn the campaigns, with Lord Bryn Davies, and in the modern language, we co-produced a scheme at that point.

We looked at how much they point. We looked at how much they had lost and how much they had been robbed. It was about £200 million. And they asked for 25% back. Was And they asked for 25% back. Was expensive of course it was but there was a window of opportunity because was a window of opportunity because we set actually we would borrow that and pay it out the five year period. and pay it out the five year period. And at that point in time interest rates were so low in fat some of them were going to negative interest them were going to negative interest rates we can afford it.

We lost that window of opportunity. I'm angry that happened. Because I don't know that happened. Because I don't know of any MP that was not photographed of any MP that was not photographed behind a poster supporting the campaign. And I pay tribute to the campaign. And I pay tribute to the campaign, a lot of those ladies have been patronised over the years. It was a terrific campaign. It was so terrific under this government they would most probably be proscribed. I think we recognise there is an injustice.

We all accept that. We all know that the DWP operated effectively a sexist policy. They admit it now. And I don't believe, the honourable gentleman has said it is a matter of principle, I don't think it is a matter of principle, I think it is a matter of hard cash as well because large numbers of people are still suffering poverty as a result of what has gone on. All I want is a fair settlement and that is all they are asking for.

Some of them have gone away because they have died but this campaign is not going away for top we won't let it go away and we get justice for these women. And so therefore what the ombudsperson has done is bring it back to this House. We should be demanding in this House that this House determines the scheme itself and is allowed to vote on that scheme. And I say this, the budget is coming up in November. There will be a number of us who say we are not
15:06
John McDonnell Portrait Rt Hon John McDonnell MP (Hayes and Harlington, Independent)
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going to support a budget unless there is something within that budget for these women. Why should we? Why should we let it go on again we? Why should we let it go on again for another year while people have suffered and this injustice goes on remedy. I'm angry about it because all the promises that have been all the promises that have been given over the years, they have been reneges upon and dishonoured and I don't think that is the way we don't think that is the way we should act as representatives of our communities.

I want to be able to go communities. I want to be able to go back and say, at least the government is now going to offer negotiations and that it will report negotiations and that it will report to the House and it will let this House determine the nature of the scheme. And I want that done within scheme. And I want that done within months not years dragging it on again while others suffer in poverty and others lose their lives, and lose compensation was the select lose compensation was the select make that commitment today.

I don't expect the Minister to say much today other than what has been regurgitated year after year but regurgitated year after year but let's us make the commitment today and think we will keep coming back and think we will keep coming back over these coming months do we secure that commitment from secure that commitment from government. I would like it to be a cross-party commitment or the Front Benches to sign up to so we can have some confidence will be delivered. Like the WASPI women, I have had enough of these debates, I've had enough of promises not delivered, and I've had enough of watching them suffer in a way that has gone on in all our communities.

Because of this

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injustice and inequity. Took I first of all want to congratulate the member for Salford. This debate and for tremendously This debate and for tremendously eloquent speech which removed much of what I have to say. Many members of what I have to say. Many members are made eloquent speeches but to be honest that is not going to cut it, it won't do the trick. We need some
15:08
Seamus Logan Portrait Seamus Logan MP (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, Scottish National Party)
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it won't do the trick. We need some action. I know the exception of those who are present here today, the absence of so many Labour MPs, whose others have referred to stood with placards in support of the WASPI case. Where are they? Do they not understand the sense of betrayal that is out there? The sense of breach of promise, the central breakdown of trust. That is the problem that many of them will face in due course. The member for Harrogate and Knaresborough referred to accountability.

There is accountability and it comes at the next election when people get a chance to pass a verdict was I'm not going to repeat so many of the things that the honourable Member for Salford said. But I do want to highlight a couple of things. The PHSO said "Some women lost opportunities to make informed decisions about their finances. " They also said Parliament should identify mechanism for providing appropriate remedy for those who had suffered injustice. When the budget was announced, was great expectation that would be something in it for the WASPI women.

Nothing. Even though the DWP accepted the PHSO findings, apologise not once but twice. If you take my wallet and I discover that, and I come to you, do you think an apology will suffice? No, I want the wallet back. This is the point. An apology just won't cut it. A great number of women affected by this maladministration are in my constituency. On 17 March I participated in the debate, and in my Maiden speech I mentioned the WASPI women case, I believe the honourable Member for Salford spoke straight after, and the member for new Forest as well.

Many others, have a much longer record in campaigning for this issue. I don't want to go on long. Many of the points have already been made. But I want to highlight one last thing to the most distasteful aspect of this profound failure of the UK government was the photograph of the current Secretary of State for work and pensions posing with WASPI campaigners smiling and holding a sign pledging " I will work with WASPI to identify and deliver a fair solution for all women affected.

That is shameful. But there is one way, a number of ways in which this can be addressed, but my honourable friend will tomorrow be presenting his bill on women's State Pension Age, and the compensation scheme bill. If members have not signed, they still have the opportunity to sign support for that bill, they have an opportunity tomorrow it will be presented to the chair. We in the SNP understand the issues that are involved here. We will continue to support and speak out against this injustice.

I thank members for listening.

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Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank my honourable friend for
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Mary Glindon Portrait Mary Glindon MP (Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend, Labour)
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securing this debate. And for her most eloquent and informative speech. Financial security is something we endeavour to secure for our families and for ourselves. Many 1950s women worked their whole lives with the goal of financial security in their minds eye. Only for it to be affected through no fault of their own. I won't rehearse the ombudsman's judgement would stand as clear as day. We have heard the words time and time again, specifically because they have not been appropriately remedied.

One never fails to provide a sense of shock of the lived experiences, the testimony of 1950s women are so important because the impact of their story never diminishes. This is about real women. My constituent, and, as one of the many 1950s women who won't accept that finding is a remedy to the DWP maladministration, is neither fair nor reasonable, and would not represent good value for taxpayers. When Anne was 57 she applied for a pension forecast.

Upon receiving it, she discovered that her retirement age was 66 rather than 60. Not long before this shocking news, she went from working five days a week to three. How was she to know she had to work part of her retirement over a further six years? She was never informed. Because she was now working part- time, it was not possible for her to substantially increase the pension contributions. In 2020, at the age of 63, and was made redundant. She had to make her small redundancy payment blaster until she retired three years later.

Life has been tough for these women. There have been events like the pandemic, when Anne lost a job, that shook us all. But events where the state has made people's lives more difficult just because of the day they were born have a particular degree of unfairness to them. Given the ombudsman's significant concerns that the DWP would fail to remedy the injustice, they deliberately laid their reports before Parliament when the government announced its position in relation to the findings, made incredibly without recourse to Parliament, and this reaffirms the ombudsman's concerns.

It sets a worrying precedent for the future. We have high hopes for our Pensions Minister, as we know his past life, dedicated to improving the living standards makes him well suited to the role he now holds. I truly hope that he will re-examine the government's position on the issue that is so important to so many women who continue to fight for their justice.

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Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. The purpose of this place is of The purpose of this place is of course to make laws, to amend them, course to make laws, to amend them, and sometimes in the opposition that is, to stop laws being made. It has another purpose, the purpose is to another purpose, the purpose is to hold those with power to account. And we do that as individual And we do that as individual constituency MPs all the time do we not? Taking up cases on behalf of not? Taking up cases on behalf of individuals.

This case not only affects the WASPI women my constituency, I take it up for all constituency, I take it up for all the WASPI women. Inspired by the leadership of the honourable Member, leadership of the honourable Member, the honourable Member for Salford. And others across this House. For it And others across this House. For it is unusual in this place for government members of Parliament, Labour MPs, Official Opposition, Labour MPs, Official Opposition, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats,
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John Hayes Portrait Rt Hon Sir John Hayes MP (South Holland and The Deepings, Conservative)
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Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, the SNP, the DUP, Plaid Cymru, to all come together in common cause. That speaks volumes. It speaks volumes that we recognise that these women were unjustly treated. It is not just our recommendation that counts. The ombudsman recognised exactly that. When the ombudsman says, " We find maladministration in the DWP's communication about the 1995 pension act resulting in claimants losing opportunities to make informed decisions to do some things differently, diminish their sense of personal autonomy and financial control.

" That's one of their findings. Maladministration, inappropriate medications, the failure to deal with complaints, it punctuates the ombudsman's findings. For a government not to respond to the woodsman is frankly Making this case we are speaking not solely that the particularities of

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the WASPI campaign, we are speaking... Thank him for giving way. Would

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Thank him for giving way. Would he agree with me that taking the step to ignore the findings of an ombudsman sets a really dangerous precedent that could then be exploited by companies privately but

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also government departments? I do recognise that, it was a case powerfully made by the honourable lady from Salford that honourable lady from Salford that this is very much about the relationship between the ombudsman relationship between the ombudsman and government and this House and government. That connection between government. That connection between independent scrutiny by the ombudsman and our ability as a house ombudsman and our ability as a house to hold the government to account does lie at the heart of this, that does lie at the heart of this, that is exactly what I was about to say.

It is about the Waspi women, it's about something still more profound. about something still more profound. I hope the Minister will recognise that in the decisions that he takes that in the decisions that he takes he will set an important precedent, a precedent which affect exactly a precedent which affect exactly those kind of relationships. I will reveal to the House what the Minister already knows, that is that when this matter was considered I ministers a submission would have come forward from officials.

I have no doubt at all it would offer several options. Option a might have been to satisfy the Waspi women before. Option B might come to a partial settlement that they perhaps would have accepted. Option C would have been to do nothing. The government chose, despite all the pledges in opposition the Deputy Prime Minister, the working secretary the, the Prime Minister himself to take that final option of doing nothing. I find that very surprising. Because had a partial settlement been offered I suspect, knowing how reasonable the campaigners are, they might well have met the government halfway.

They might have understood that the cost was substantial and that they had to compromise to some degree. had to compromise to some degree. One thing. That all of these women -- one myth. That all of these women are privileged an advantage. Many were not. Many when they faced a longer period before they could retire when ill health. Many had caring responsibilities, many were hard up. In campaigning for these women and mindful of those disadvantages we are speaking for people that otherwise would be powerless.

I say to the Minister it's not too late to get this right. For the Waspi women having just because and surely, in the name of decency as well as the name of good

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democracy, justice must be done. I fear the government's decision
15:19
Douglas McAllister Portrait Douglas McAllister MP (West Dunbartonshire, Labour)
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I fear the government's decision was not about the changes from state was not about the changes from state pension age from 1995 onwards but rather how decisions made by the Department between 2005 and 2007 led to a 28 month delay and later to those affected by those changes. In March 2024 the PHS stage II and three report found clear maladministration in the way the DWP communicated state pension age changes. This fact cannot be disputed. As a direct result of that many women born in the 1950s were left with little or no time to make will turn to plans and therefore suffered injustice.

Again this is clear and obvious, I would suggest to all. Figures from age Scotland suggest that around 336,000 women were impacted in Scotland and over 5,000 of those were in my constituency, my Waspi women. Like And Maureen McGrath, I could list hundred to have contacted me to share their own personal stories to help me understand that this is not just about figures or statistics. Liz cared for her desperately ill husband, her retirement plan right, their lives destroyed. Years of suffering.

Maureen penalised because she retired at the age of 60 to care for her elderly mother, she lost out on accessing a full state retirement pension. What all my Waspi women said to me is that it's not about the level of need or the amount of compensation at this stage, it's simply about justice. UK government was right to recognise injustice suffered by Waspi women in its statement to the House on 17 December and to apologise for the maladministration that affected women across the UK, and of course the steps set out by the government to ensure this does not happen again are welcome but we must learn the lessons and always set a clear timetable of notice of any future state pension age changes.

However an apology is not enough. I urge my government colleagues to look again at the ombudsman report and all its recommendations. Refusing to comply with those instructions, refusing to set up a compensation scheme maladministration, ignoring this key element of the ombudsman's report not only undermines its role and function, it is in this context function, it is in this context unprecedented and sets us on a very dangerous path. For any government to reject the recommendations of the Parliamentary and is extremely rare between 2018 and 2021 PHSO made a total of 811 compensation recommendations.

Only one of these was not complied with. 99.9% accepted. Therefore this is highly unusual and in my opinion corrosive. That That we That we should That we should be That we should be avoiding unnecessary court actions. Let's get round the table with our Waspi women, let's avoid years of court battles similar to the other scandals over the last few decades. Let's urgently review and explore what this government can consider and offer financial redress to the 1950s women who deserve does this -- justice and deserve to be properly compensated for past governments maladministration.



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I rise to speak on behalf of the 5180 women in my constituency obviously impacted by state pension obviously impacted by state pension age inequality, and for the thousands of women across the country who were victims of DWP country who were victims of DWP maladministration. As I said in the debate in March we know that the debate in March we know that the government is facing incredibly difficult challenges but ignoring the voices of thousands of women is a huge mistake. This issue is not a huge mistake.

This issue is not going to go away. My constituent Chrissie received her state pension Chrissie received her state pension six years later than she was expecting. She told me those lost years one just numbers, they were years of struggle, uncertainty and years of struggle, uncertainty and The silence from the government is a cruel erasure of our lives, the
15:24
Liz Jarvis Portrait Liz Jarvis MP (Eastleigh, Liberal Democrat)
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cruel erasure of our lives, the government says it is too expensive to compensate us. But it was never too expensive for us, yet we had to live with the cost and the hardship every single day. Many of the women in my constituency who were impacted were left with very little to live on, blindsided by the sudden loss of income. They were forced to return to in low-paid jobs to get by and in some cases to food banks. The toll on their lives and their families should not be underestimated.

These women spent decades working, raising families and often taking on unpaid caregiving roles. Many continue to shoulder care responsibilities today, the way they have been treated by successive governments is nothing short of disgraceful. My constituent stories are echoed across the country. The WASPI campaign estimates that 3.8 million women have been affected, women who have been treated appallingly and feel that they do not matter and are invisible. I would urge the government to stop gas fighting them and start listening, really listening to the pain, injustice and betrayal they have endured.

The refusal to provide compensation is not only morally indefensible, but as the Member for Salford said it sets a dangerous precedent. If government departments can accept maladministration yet ignore the ombudsman's remedy then the entire purpose of independent oversight collapses. Today I am calling again on the government to do the right thing and compensate the women who are unfairly impacted by the change state pension age because it is the right thing to do. How much longer do these women have to wait for the government to U-turn on state pension age and quality and give them the compensation they deserve?
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Susan Murray Portrait Susan Murray MP (Mid Dunbartonshire, Liberal Democrat)
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Thank you to the Member for Salford for championing the cause of Waspi women who have been utterly failed by successive governments. I won't repeat what others have said but it's clear that the government should the acting on the ombudsman's report after the maladministration of the DWP. I have spoken to women in my constituency of Mid Dunbartonshire, WASPI Scotland and across the UK. These are women who have historically faced systemic inequalities. Lower wages, difficulty accessing the same work opportunities as men.

They have disproportionately shouldered caring responsibilities, as primary carers for children and later frequently caring for elderly relatives and loved ones with this abilities. Without acknowledgement they continue to give their unpaid labour which significantly reduces pressures and costs on the NHS and social care services. I myself and one of these women, after a family illness life changed in instant. I had to stop working and became a carer. I had to be at home. If I wasn't fortunate enough to still have my health and strength to become a counsellor later in life when my caring responsibilities allowed and now an MP, I would have been reliant on my state pension and a very small private pension due to circumstances totally out of my control.

The reality is that I am far from being alone finding myself with caring responsibilities or indeed with ill-health. Many of my counterparts aren't in my fortunate position. Waspi women like myself worked hard, paid into the system and look forward to the retirement. Based on their understanding of the system at the time. At times when others were planning their pensions, they were in low-paid jobs which were flexible enough to allow them to continue with family commitments. When it became clear that collective action was necessary government first exploited the plight of these women for political gain, then once in power ignoring the promises they had made to win their seats.

Most troubling is the government's continued refusal to access despite the ombudsman extraordinary call for Parliamentary intervention. Rather than providing decisive leadership and delivering justice, the government has delayed, deflected and evaded accountability. If the government is sincere about fairness and integrity and honouring its commitments to support working people, it must go beyond expressions of sympathy. Concrete steps must be taken to deliver the ombudsman's recommendations, recognising both the scale of the injustice and the dignity of those involved.

These women deserve better. They spent their lives working and contributing to our society, preventing costs to the NHS. We must value their contribution and thank them. Implementing the advice of the ombudsman is the least the government can do. For those women who like me are fortunate to have a higher income after reaching state pension age, then the HMRC and the tax system will effectively clawback a large proportion of any redress and return it to the Treasury.
15:29
Iqbal Mohamed Portrait Iqbal Mohamed MP (Dewsbury and Batley, Independent)
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I stand here today in support of

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I stand here today in support of the Waspi women 6020 in my constituency of Dewsbury and Batley and every single Waspi women across the UK. I want to begin by congratulating my right honourable friend the Member for Salford for friend the Member for Salford for securing this crucial debate. And for her powerful, compelling speech for her powerful, compelling speech clearly presented the case, the evidence and the injustice that evidence and the injustice that these women have suffered.

And the these women have suffered. And the clear need to address the injustice through payment of compensation by through payment of compensation by implementing the recommendations of the ombudsman. Without wanting to the ombudsman. Without wanting to repeat any of the points made just going to read out some specific comments from my constituents Dewsbury and Batley Virginia wrote to me just after I became elected to me just after I became elected she writes, I'm absolutely devastated and feel betrayed.

For years senior Labour representatives and even the Prime Minister himself pledged to deliver their compensation to those impacted. They have now made a political choice to break that promise and to ignore the findings of an independent watchdog. The DWP got it wrong and they cannot simply adopt pick and mix approach to which elements of an independent ombudsman's conclusions they find She goes on to say that in recent months, pensioners losing their Winter Fuel Allowance have been written to directly. Why does the government not feel this would have made a difference to WASPI women? Another constituent, and, right, "I need to vent my frustration and anger at the government announcement yesterday that they would not accept the ombudsman's recommendations to pay WASPI women some compensation for maladministration.

They were in support of this while they were in opposition. " This is a complete betrayal and a breach of trust between our people that we represent in this place. And it must be reversed. She also goes on to say, "People making these decisions are in fortunate positions themselves but I was relying on their understanding and compassion for others who are less able to make up the circa £48,000 which I've lost. " Paul writes to me and says, " As you know thousands of women living in Dewsbury were impacted including myself, were left with little time to make alternative plans for our retirement, and have been affected by the lack of notice ever since.

She raises a really critical point. She said she had no notification from the DWP at all until she wrote to them asking for clarification in 2006 when they replied and said she would be able to retire at 65, which was a shock. In 2011, when an extra year was added, they did not communicate to her then either. So in conclusion, as the member for Salford has stated, and clearly explained, the government's justification for not paying compensation are absolutely flawed.

The argument that it is to costly or complex to compensate is untrue. The ombudsman wrote in the findings, "Finite resources should not be excuse to avoid affair remedy. " I repeat the cause across the house for the government to reverse his decision, to bring a vote on compensation to this house, and to engage in out-of-court talks with WASPI women.

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Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. My thanks to the honourable Member
15:34
James MacCleary Portrait James MacCleary MP (Lewes, Liberal Democrat)
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My thanks to the honourable Member for Salford were bringing forward the debate, I thought she spoke superbly and with great passion. December last year marked a shameful day for this government, millions of women born in the 1950s who have given a lifetime of service, hard work, and care to their families communities and country were betrayed. I felt the honourable Member gave a superb speech, blow take slight issue with one thing he said. He said the government did nothing. If only they had done nothing, I think we would be in a better situation than we are.

Instead, despite the clear evidence of the Parliamentary Ombudsman, of Mallard illustration by the DWP, the government decided there would be no financial compensation, no justice, only betrayal. That was a choice they made on behalf of these women. Women who faced significant hardship because they were not properly informed about changes to the state pension. An apology, while necessary, simply not enough. You cannot apologise for maladministration and refuse to put things right. It is disgraceful to acknowledge an injustice but refused to fix it.

These women deserve fairness, they deserve dignity, and they deserve compensation. We know exactly why the government won't act, other the honourable member's have mentioned it. It comes down to money. For years the Liberal Democrats have championed the cause of WASPI women amongst others. We have consistently called for fair and proper compensation in line with the ombudsman's recommendations. My constituency I've seen firsthand how deeply this has affected women's lives. They have worked hard and trusted the government to keep its promises only to be badly let down.

I would like to share the story quickly of my constituent, Helen, who is part of my local WASPI group. She was shocked to hear about the changes in 2012. The letter informing her that the age she was due to retire would rise from 60 to 65. Unbelievably this was only 2 1/2 years before she was due to tyre. This meant she had to work an extra 6 1/2 years to support a daughter. Helen spent 50 years paying National Insurance as a single parent.

She told me she was so angry about what she had worked for and taken away. I'm sure this House will agree Helen's resilience and determination is inspiring but he should never have been placed in this position. This government made a cynical calculation that these women can be ignored. But they won't fight back and won't be pushing for they do underestimate the strength and determination of women across this country including in my constituency who have stood up and demanded fairness. This decision cannot and must not stand.

It is a bitter irony, the very people this government said they would stand up for and fight for they are now fighting in court. I urge the government to reconsider its position, listen to reason, finally do the right thing, and compensate these women now.
15:37
Jim Shannon Portrait Jim Shannon MP (Strangford, Democratic Unionist Party)
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Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. A pleasure to speak in this. Can I festival that the honourable lady from Salford for setting the scene so incredibly well. In all those members who have contributed, honourable members have made a fantastic demand on behalf of their constituents. This is not a new issue. I don't think there is a WASPI debates I have missed. And there will be others who not miss these either. This week has given me hope that perhaps governments can acknowledge were moving in the wrong direction, and of course government needs to correct the wrong steps taken and follow through with recommendations contained in the ombudsman's report.

In Northern Ireland, 77,000 WASPI women, many of my constituents. I don't know all 7000 personally, but I know those who have come to me have told me who have come to me have told me their stories. In many cases, they are ladies who are probably clean floors, cleaned offices, who have been teachers. Age catches up on us all, it catches up with me as well. The need is under strong as they used to be means when they planned all those pensions in accordance with the timescale and now find it was taken away from them.

It is a concern. They planned and then it concern. They planned and then it was deprived. And WASPI women were not informed of changes, and it was based on an assumption that they would receive their state pension at 60, although financial planning is were in place and it was taken away. WASPI women lost their pensions and lost all sources of income. And unexpected financial insecurity. There's been insufficient information, it was not only negligent and deeply unjust but there is a precedent.

And the honourable gentleman was right to say there was a process which was right, paying taxes, raising families, and many WASPI women were forced into the workforce often with disabilities, often into low-paid jobs and had no choice but to apply for benefits. These women should have never had to do this after a lifetime of contributing to the system. A number of these women, the Silent generation I call them, are dealing with debts and loans they struggled to pay off.

And then realising going back to full time hours. The simple step. The emotional toll was significant. They experienced stress, depression, financial uncertainty. It is only fair that their plight is financially recognised. One of the first steps of this government, I say this with respect, is to sort out the backpay of the union workers. I'm not saying they shouldn't. But I'm saying if there's going to be fairness in the system I cannot understand how they can do this in one breath and apologise to the WASPI women and not do anything.

The Silent generation determined to be silent no longer. I applaud them for continuing to complain, for considering to speak with many of them have been told to keep quiet and give it up. I applaud them for continuing to hold the government, this one and the last one as well, to account. I applaud members standing beside the weary and worn, and for not apologising. We must have, it is not words any more must

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be actions. I refuse to believe that age is catching up with the honourable gentleman. Liberal Democrat
15:41
Daisy Cooper Portrait Daisy Cooper MP (St Albans, Liberal Democrat)
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gentleman. Liberal Democrat spokesperson Daisy Cooper. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. I would also like to congratulate the honourable Lady for Salford on securing this debate for her campaigning on this issue and making sure this debate comes to the main chamber as well. I want to thank all honourable members for the contributions this afternoon. As well as hearing there are strong and powerful case around this particular issue, we have had personal examples as well. Whether it is Jill from Tiverton, and from Newcastle, Ellen from Sleaford or Paula from Dewsbury, we have heard that many women quite rightly feel this sense of a raw injustice.

And the government must act. I have met WASPI women many times Parliament, and a couple of years before I was elected, I met 30 WASPI women. I regret I do not remember the name of the woman, but the circumstances stuck with me. Because she was quietly spoken, you could tell she had a real rage or fury inside evident she wasn't repaired to show it. She just said, "I spent my entire life working, I raised a family, I watched the pennies and I was proud to stand my own two feed.

At the end of my working life, I felt robbed. Robbed of my money and Rob to my dignity. And even though I know this is a situation not of my making and also my fault, I feel a tremendous sense of shame. " That's really stuck with me. Every single woman, three-foot 8 million women who were affected by this, many of them feel that sense of shame which they should not but they do. It is really frustrating that the government, notwithstanding the terrible inheritance it received, has chosen to do nothing.

There are two problems facing the government. The first is this is an obvious injustice that is unaddressed. And the second, as so many members across this House and said, set very dangerous precedent. For some women, an offer of an apology or payments might be symbolic. But for many of these women it is far more than that. It is survival. And it is helping them get out of the struggle that they allow in. I urge the government on behalf of my party to please reflect after this debate.

To go back to the drawing board, and think about what can be done, and at the very least, think of something to help those women who are struggling the most. Doing nothing is really not an option. And if the rebellion earlier this week was for any reason at all, it was to really send a message to this government that its own party, this House, and the British public want a government that will stand up for the underdog. Those who are hard done by by life, by government, by circumstances out of their control.

So I hope the government does listen today. Hope the government does act. Because to govern is to choose. And the government must know it is not too

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late to make a different choice. Shadow Minister Danny Kruger. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker.

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Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. Let me start by giving credit where it is due to the right honourable it is due to the right honourable lady for a very powerful speech of all the work she's done on this campaign over the years. And indeed to any other honourable members opposite who have spoken so well today, and for some time particularly the member for Hayes particularly the member for Hayes and Harlington who I will listen to with respect on this topic and with respect on this topic and others.

It has been good to hear from some others I particularly from some others I particularly welcome the contribution from Grangemouth, a great new addition. We see the true voice of the Labour We see the true voice of the Labour Party. This is the labour movement at its best and I pay them tribute for their campaigning on this topic, for their campaigning on this topic, heroes of the movement. We also have heroes of the Conservative party heroes of the Conservative party behind me, the nights of the shires, behind me, the nights of the shires, and the member for this speaks of and the member for this speaks of our duty.

I congratulate the right honourable lady on the right honourable gentleman for their work together on this campaign. The
15:45
Danny Kruger Portrait Danny Kruger MP (East Wiltshire, Conservative)
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together on this campaign. The campaign brought the Westminster Hall debates that has been mentioned a few times a couple of months ago, a very significant debate. On that day, as if the product of their work out popped fresh and pick the new minister himself appointed on that There was great hope from him but afraid to say we were disappointed on that day that he could offer no hope at all. Since then we have seen a whole series of U-turns which have become fashionable on that bench over there, and who knows what we might here today from the Minister.

I do recognise, and I'm sure I will stress how difficult it is to address the very complicated surf set of circumstances are very many women who have been caught in the changes of the pension age, and it is true as I'm sure he will say that the ombudsman has recognised was no direct impact on pensioners incomes from the maladministration and communication that the DWP was guilty of in the 2000's. As members have said to clearly recognising the point made by the Member for Strangford, women made decisions about their futures, about their lives in ignorance of the true circumstances.

With that failure by the DWP to successfully and appropriately communicate to the women that cause them to make decisions that directly disadvantage to them. It is simply not credible, and I hope the Minister will not advance this argument, that correspondence from government somehow essentially pointless, that it has no value. That will be to suggest there is no point in any government munication is by post, because it is the case that women were not advised on the changes in the circumstances and that it's the governments fault, the government of the days fault that that didn't happen.

As many members have said I want to acknowledge the point made by the Member for St Albans, women deserve so much more. As she said, constituents feel they have been robbed not just of their money but their dignity as a consequence of these decisions will stop what is to be done? There have been a series of suggestions about how we might go forward, appoint a process I don't agree with the Member for Harrogate & Knaresborough and I'm concerned that my right honourable friend seem to agree with him, that the ombudsman's report should be effectively binding in government, I don't think that is appropriate.

don't think that is appropriate. These are sovereign decisions that government accountable to Parliament should be making but I do agree with him and others that these reports should be respected by government

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and I feel that is simply not happened in this case. I thank him for giving way, it's becoming a habit of mine intervening becoming a habit of mine intervening on him. He says that the report should be respected but it shouldn't be binding, what does he have in

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mind, how would this look? I think it is absolutely essential that the points made in the ombudsman's report fully the ombudsman's report fully acknowledged by the government and I think it is necessary as I will explain that some meaningful redress is made to the victims of the is made to the victims of the maladministration of the DWP. The honourable lady suggested that there could be another review into the system by the Member for East Ham, I system by the Member for East Ham, I don't think that the magic word don't think that the magic word Tim's review is going to get government out of this particular hole.

The member has enough on his hole. The member has enough on his hands sorting out the mess they made on benefits this is a job for this minister who is a very clever man. A great -- I have great confidence in him. I think there is a suggestion of mediation suggested by some of mediation suggested by some members may be usefully taken forward, but as my honourable friend forward, but as my honourable friend the Member for New Forest East said it is simply insulting of the government to make absolutely no redress, no acknowledgement of the injustice that the Waspi women have endured and it is appropriate that some acknowledgement, some meaningful acknowledgement is made.

It's not for me to rescue the government from the consequences of Incontinence, Incontinence, their Incontinence, their fiscal Incontinence, their fiscal folly that has gotten into the mass therein, but it is the case that a whole series of discretionary payments have been made by this government since they came to power. Salary increases for train drivers without any improvement in productivity, the creation of a multibillion pound energy company that makes no energy paying another country billions of pounds to take away sovereign territory belonging to the UK and of course the whole series of U-turns which have imposed significant new costs on the taxpayer, they have cost £5 billion this week alone in their U-turns.

It obviously is the case that the government could make discretionary payments if it wants to and these are sovereign decision to can make. Crucially any such decision must be funded. We thought this week the government essentially fell apart in consequence of a whole series of bad decisions made in the Treasury when Parliament rose up against the Treasury and demanded change. The decision-making at the heart of government has been woeful for this last year since Labour have been in office. I pay tribute to the parliamentarians who resisted that this week.

Now there is a new opportunity for the government to put right a mistake. I look forward hearing how the Minster proposes to

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do that. I want to thank all the honourable members who have spoken honourable members who have spoken powerfully today and particularly the Member for Salford for leading
15:51
Torsten Bell Portrait Torsten Bell MP, The Parliamentary Secretary, HM Treasury (Swansea West, Labour)
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the Member for Salford for leading today's debate on behalf of the Backbench Business Committee, this is an important topic that she and I discussed several times both in public and private and I look forward to her closing remarks. When we retire how comfortable we will be in retirement and in the years leading up to it not least given the growth in preretirement poverty partly due to low -- ill-health as partly due to low -- ill-health as the member set out, those rural crucial question for all of us.

We asked them about ourselves and about those we care about. As this debate has shown many honourable members rightly ask them about the country as a whole as well. We should expect people to have strong views on state pension age and we all know we been affected by -- women affected by changes to that age was constituents, friends and family full stop I have declared family interest on this front before

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alongside my professional one. I thank the Minister for giving

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I thank the Minister for giving way. I also have many constituents I have held up a banner saying I stand with Waspi women, my friend has laid with Waspi women, my friend has laid out where we can find the money from, surely what we can do is promise to revisit this when the promise to revisit this when the public purse allows rather than letting down these women who have been let down over and over again, justice delayed is justice denied.



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justice delayed is justice denied. I ways thank my honourable friend for her contribution, she makes a powerful case I will come on to the reasons why we don't agree with the reasons why we don't agree with the case she has made but I understand the point she is making. As more broadly, I will make some progress broadly, I will make some progress and of course give way this is a and of course give way this is a cohort of women who have too often face discrimination in the world of work with lasting effects on the value of their workplace pensions and to bear the brunt of and unequally born caring Responsibilities for top as the Member for Salford also set out Member for Salford also set out historically very unequal state pension when it comes to gender that at least has been addressed but the

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at least has been addressed but the workplace pension divide remains as big as ever. I should also declare that my mum Would be disappointed if I wasn't here today nothing worse than your mum being disappointed in you. I also represent 6030 other Waspi women in my constituency. I just wonder if the women really understand the discrimination the 1950s women face, including sexism, lots of discrimination in the workplace will stop they feel let down and whether the Minister realises that and realises they absolutely deserve justice?

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I thank my honourable friend for his question, I know without having matter that his mum won't be disappointed in him and obviously the point he makes is absolute right and it's just the point I was making and it's just the point I was making that we are all aware of the experiences this generation of women had to face not just in the labour market but much more broadly. He market but much more broadly. He makes a powerful case as always makes a powerful case as always there is broad consensus that it is right to equalise the state pension right to equalise the state pension The acceleration of the state pension age increases by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition was more politically controversial and I wasn't going to mention this but I will gently remind Liberal Democrat members who are spoken today particularly the members to easily and Lewis are used particularly strong language on this point that it was the choice made by their party, not to mention that acceleration at all, if you are going to use strong language about difficult choices the need to respect -- reflect on the choices that came to that point.

My party imposed that -- oppose that at the time was neither the acceleration or time was neither the acceleration or the longer planned increases to the FPA legislated for since 1995 were FPA legislated for since 1995 were matters that the ombudsman investigated. This matters when it is the desirability of those original policy decisions made by previous governments that are most frequently referred to by campaigners and honourable members including honourable members today for example the Member for Strangford he was focusing on the increases in the state pension age themselves.

In contrast is how those changes were communicated by the Department for Work and Pensions that was the ombudsman's focus as the Member for West Dunbartonshire pointed out very clearly. As all honourable members no, we carefully considered the ombudsman's findings. As we always will given their important role as the Member for South Holland & The Deepings setup today and in several debates I have shared with him in recent months.

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No party, indeed no previous government can be excused in this government can be excused in this respect because this covers the respect because this covers the period of office of several governments. The difference is that governments. The difference is that his party in opposition said, I quote, this injustice can't go on, Labour will compensate Waspi women, Labour will compensate Waspi women, it is their money. But was a combination of the current working pension secretary and the current pension secretary and the current I know my honourable friend has been much longer member of this House than me so he knows how this works which that party set out manifestoes which that party set out manifestoes and I'm sure he will look at the Labour Party 2024 manifesto and will find different words to the ones he has just shared with this House just has just shared with this House just now.

Let me make some progress. We agree letters should have been sent sooner, we have apologised and will learn the lesson from that. However as honourable members and campaigners on this issue are well campaigners on this issue are well aware we do not agree with the ombudsman's approach to injustice or to remedy. Neither if you read carefully between the lines when listening to the Member for East Wiltshire does the opposition. He speaks very eloquently as always but At At what At what the At what the ombudsman At what the ombudsman said At what the ombudsman said when At what the ombudsman said when they made their decision to lay their report before Parliament.

It was not looking ahead to what a future government might do it was because they knew that the then Conservative government would had come to a similar conclusion because remember that long debate over those years between the government and the ombudsman was held in private. They knew what the approach was under department they talking to the way those of us outside government at the time cannot. The Member for Harrogate and New Forest East asked about the decision not to accept an ombudsman's findings and they are right to say that is unusual, but it is definitely not unprecedented.

I should spell out that the government has accepted other ombudsman's findings since so it's not right to say this is some kind of fundamental break in the approach by government.

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I thank the Minister for giving way, early in the debate the Member for Hayes and Harlington warned us for Hayes and Harlington warned us that we might see simply a regurgitation from the Frontbench regurgitation from the Frontbench today on behalf of the government. I ask him, can he clarify has he been sent here to defend the indefensible or is he going to give us something

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new today? The member is welcome to choose

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The member is welcome to choose

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The member is welcome to choose his tone, I will come onto the end of my point but my job is to come and explain the government's decision and be held accountable for it, that is what I'm doing today and it, that is what I'm doing today and am going to continue to do that over the course of these remarks. It is right that we then asked questions about that, that's the nature of this democracy as the member just this democracy as the member just set out just now.

An important consideration when making this decision was that evidence showed decision was that evidence showed that sending people unsolicited that sending people unsolicited letters is unlikely what they knew which is why letters are sent but they are sent as part of wider communication campaigns was this communication campaigns was this evidence was not properly considered evidence was not properly considered by the ombudsman. Another consideration was that the great majority of 1950s born women well aware that the state pension age was changing if not their specific state pension age as members have pointed out.

The honourable member for 43 % statistics referring to the 2024 rather than 2023 survey but as she will know that refers to all women including some women as young as 16. When you look at the cohort of women born in the 1950s the figure is far higher than that. On these and other grounds we rejected the ombudsman's approach to injustice and remedy. Members are aware that litigation is lives so I won't go into a lot more detail on the research evidence which is the core of that litigation but let me just say that our decision was based on published research that was robust and met professional standards and second that the same awareness research that the

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honourable member for New Forest East was disparaging about. The ombudsman is clear... Very grateful to him, can he just

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Very grateful to him, can he just explained to the House why not one single speech in this debate until his is taking the line that he is taking and that everyone who has spoken on this debate believes that some compensation at least some compensation at least symbolically should be paid?

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I thank him for his intervention. I am a liberal man and people come I am a liberal man and people come to different views on the evidence, there are many members in this House you have campaigned powerfully on you have campaigned powerfully on this issue over many years and I respect the work they have done that and I'm setting out a different view and I'm setting out a different view to the one the honourable member has taken, that is the nature of policy taken, that is the nature of policy choices, it's the nature of accountability and the nature of this debate today.

The ombudsman is clear that redress and compensation should normally reflect individual impact, as it did in case of the equatorial life compensation scheme that was mentioned. They spell out the challenges of assessing the individual circumstances of 3.5 million women not least given it took the ombudsman six years to look at just six cases. The reality is assessing them would take thousands of staff that very many years full stop we gave a detailed thought to whether we could design a fair and these will compensation scheme however most of the scheme suggested would not focus on those women who lost opportunities as a result of the delay in sending letters, rule- based scheme such as suggested by the Select Committee would make payments on the basis of the likes of age rather than to injustice for top simply playing -- paying a flat rate to wall 3.5 million women born in the 1950s irrespective of any injustice is also hard to justify full stop fundamentally our decision was not driven only by cost to answer directly the Member for Falkirk's question, but by the fact we do not agree with the approach to injustice or remedy for the reasons I have set out, indeed our commitment to pensioners can be seen in the significant fiscal intervention advancements we are making in our priorities for pensioners raising the state pension

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Is there a difference between this speech and the speech in this speech and the speech in Westminster Hall because it doesn't look like there is. He might as well

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send us the tape of the last one. E has demonstrated more affection on previous occasions is what I would gently say to that but if he is asking if the government's is asking if the government's position has changed, if the honourable gentleman has asked of the position has changed, the answer

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is not. I'm grateful to the Minister for giving way. A few minutes ago, the giving way. A few minutes ago, the Minister said that the government said it would not be appropriate to said it would not be appropriate to apply flat wrote to all women. As the government and any modelling at all about paying a flat rate to any other smaller cohorts within that, like women on pension credit or under a certain level of income or savings.

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savings. I think the lady for the question and I think we have discussed and I think we have discussed versions of this before. Yes, there have been positions of models that may have focused on a subset of women, like those on pension credit, but that still comes up against the but that still comes up against the fundamental challenge of payments based on some other qualifying condition, like income, not on the injustice that has been suffered, and that is the case that the ombudsman set out, that it was for justice, not just the virtue of

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being a 1950s woman. He will be aware that in other

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He will be aware that in other compensation schemes, there are often waves of compensation, so the first wave can be on one indicator first wave can be on one indicator with a second wave that looks at other complicating factors. Has the government looked at that model?

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government looked at that model? I would refer the lady to our very detailed response published in December which runs through a number of pages and I would send her the relative extracts and the relative extracts and the conclusions we have drawn. I will conclude because I'm running up against the patience of the very against the patience of the very patient Deputy Speakers. None of what I say I recognises likely to change the minds of many members change the minds of many members here, as has been kindly pointed out to me.

He is always kind to do that. I know that because I see many familiar faces from similar debates, as has been pointed out from as has been pointed out from Westminster Hall. No other campaigns whose Tanah city has been clear for all to see and has been attested to all to see and has been attested to sufficiently today, likely to be satisfied. They are right to continue to point to the wider continue to point to the wider context the society has been far from universally kind to women born in the 1950s as they wrestle discrimination in the labour market and beyond.

As the members set out earlier. Nothing regarding the case I have set out today diminishes any of that, but the government has made its decision and we await everybody to be clear about that. It is right that members hold us to account for it as a member for East Welsh has set out. That has happened today and other debates in this house in Westminster Hall, and as I've said before, there are lessons for the Department to learn and learn them we well.

We will also continue to support women born in the 1950s and pensioners by raising the state pension and by turning around our NHS. I know that they and honourable members will expect nothing less. Thank you.

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Thank you, and I just want to thank the whole range of colleagues who have spoken in today's debate. I who have spoken in today's debate. I think it has been a fantastic and collegiate debate and it shows the house at its best. And this house at its best. And this continues outside of the chamber for those who are watching, a campaign those who are watching, a campaign that brings so many of us together, and there are so many formidable campaigners in the chamber today which needed to be celebrated.

Now, which needed to be celebrated. Now, I know the Minister is in a really I know the Minister is in a really difficult position, and as I say, I've got a lot of time for him, and I know he's bound by the government's current position on this, but some of the information that has been given within a speech, that has been given within a speech, so he refers to me referring to a piece of research from 2024. It is piece of research from 2024.

It is actually 2003, and that is the research that the ombudsman themselves rely on that 43% of women themselves rely on that 43% of women didn't know when their state pension didn't know when their state pension age was increasing. He makes the point about letters being ineffective and must understand that the people watching today, it is a the people watching today, it is a really absurd thing to say, despite the fact that I know he says the DWP the fact that I know he says the DWP research says that, but the researchers absurd.

It doesn't have a basis in reality, and I don't want the honourable gentleman to go down in history as the man who denied justice for the 1950s woman. I want to see action on this and I want him to go down as the person who finally managed to award them justice, but at the moment, he's got to understand that the arguments put back are absurd to say the least. They are akin to somebody arguing that the world is flat. In denying

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the ombudsman support. It was put forward when he was

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the director. No, the gentleman is right. That

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No, the gentleman is right. That is why I have so much place for the Minister to take action on this. But Minister to take action on this. But just to conclude, there were no colleagues that stood out to me. The colleagues that stood out to me. The first was from The Right Honourable member who said, in the name of member who said, in the name of member who said, in the name of decency, justice must be done. We decency, justice must be done.

We all want to support this package, all want to support this package, and as the member said, we are not going to give up until justice is

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done. The question is is on the order

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The question is is on the order paper. I think the aye habit. We will now give the frontbenchers a
16:09
Dawn Butler Portrait Backbench Business: General Debate on Mobile Phone Thefts Dawn Butler MP (Brent East, Labour)
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Thank you. I would Thank you. I would also Thank you. I would also like Thank you. I would also like to thank the Backbench Business Committee for ensuring that we could have this important debate today. And I know that there are many MPs And I know that there are many MPs who would have loved to have been here today who have suffered mobile here today who have suffered mobile phone thefts. 10 years ago, my bag phone thefts.

10 years ago, my bag was stolen when I was in a conference in Westminster hotel and conference in Westminster hotel and conference in Westminster hotel and I used geo-tracking and I saw it moving slowly over the bridge, and I called the police and the police called the police and the police were not interested. And as I say, it was 10 years ago, so in true it was 10 years ago, so in true style, somebody who was at the conference has a car and we chased down the thieves and we noticed as down the thieves and we noticed as we were travelling alongside them that we were going to make them very suspicious, so we went ahead of them suspicious, so we went ahead of them and we stopped and we pretended to and we stopped and we pretended to kiss.

The thieves walked towards us, kiss. The thieves walked towards us, I called the police again to tell them that we are about to apprehend the thieves and retrieve my phone. The police then arrived, and when they jumped out of the van, he jumped out of the car and the thieves had about 20 mobile phones on them. I recovered my bag. They dumped my stuff along the way. I got all my stuff back, but the thing is this, that was 10 years ago.

Things have moved on, people understand so there is a greater understanding that we can recover stolen phones, and I think now is the time that we have to prioritise this type of theft because it is making us less safe, it means that tourists are targeted, and if the mobile phone companies, and I know that the Home Secretary has had a roundtable with mobile phone countries and with the Mayor of London, but the companies are not going to take this as seriously as they should, so I feel like we have to force them to do that by law.

And I have been to very good briefings with the Metropolitan police where they talked about their operation reckoning, and with theft determined, with the government's safer streets mission, that this is a vital way that we can achieve this because, at the end of the day, and mobile phone is stolen every six minutes in Westminster. Every single

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six minutes. And I commend the lady for

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And I commend the lady for bringing this forward? I'm not technically minded and I am of a technically minded and I am of a different generation, but today's young person doesn't cover the young person doesn't cover the details of a mobile phone of details of a mobile phone of personal things with whatever else, personal things with whatever else, but in the back of the phones, they carry their debit cards, their drivers license, so when you get the phone, you get almost their whole phone, you get almost their whole life, and I know the ministers here life, and I know the ministers here acknowledged it before, but maybe the person needs to understand that the person needs to understand that if they lose that, they lose almost everything.



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everything. I thank my friend for that intervention, and a mobile phone isn't just a phone when you make a phone call anymore. It is an phone call anymore. It is an integral part of most people's lives. It holds the data on it. It holds pictures that you will never be able to take again. It holds be able to take again. It holds voicemails from your loved one. From my friend you had her phone snatched in Egypt, she had a voicemail from her late mother on her phone.

Mobile phones hold so much information that when you snatch it, you snatch a

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part of somebody's life with them. Further to the intervention, she agreed that public awareness isn't agreed that public awareness isn't where it should be? It worries me to see people with their phones hanging out of their pocket and taking photos. The public somehow need to be more aware and more careful with these precious things that hold so

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much of their lives on them. I thank my friend for that

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I thank my friend for that important intervention. That is the thing. Until we ensure that our streets are safe, we have to ensure streets are safe, we have to ensure that people are made acutely aware of what is happening, and I find of what is happening, and I find myself tapping people on the shoulder saying excuse me, can you move your phone from your back pocket because it might get pocket because it might get pickpocketed. And I feel that the pickpocketed.

And I feel that the manufacturers use this as part of their business model because they know that once a phone gets stolen, know that once a phone gets stolen, you are going to buy another phone. And the way that mobile phones currently operate is that they have currently operate is that they have a monopoly so I don't know if anyone has tried to switch from an iPhone to a Samsung, I did that, my goodness, it's like they don't want you to switch over. It is very difficult, even from android to android, it is very difficult to move over your data, so mobile phone companies know exactly what they are doing.

Thank God for you SBC because iPhone used to change their charges every upgrade which meant you ended up forking out more and more money. So we need to hold them to account because these manufacturers make enough money. They make enough profit, and sometimes, we have to get to a stage where we are putting people first and we are putting the safety of our citizens first. London is one of the greatest cities on We want tourists to come to London to sample the art, the culture, and the inclusion.

We don't really want to go around warning them about their mobile phones. Over 700 phones were stolen from government departments. So the government should also have an invested interest in this because it will be costing the taxpayers money to We can actually redesign mobile phones so nobody wants to steal them. I do not know if people are old enough, there is a view in the chamber, to remember when car radios is to be stolen out of cars. The way they combated that and stop that crime was by in building the radios

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into the car so you could not just easily snatch it out. I just want to throw something

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I just want to throw something else into the debate which is an insurance issue. Many say you should insurance issue. Many say you should pick up insurance. My phone was stolen last November. It was classic, I got bumped in a big classic, I got bumped in a big crowd, got bumped into. You do not realise and now I know, I recognise realise and now I know, I recognise the signs and I did Find My Phone. I was in north London. I contacted the was in north London.

I contacted the police. They do not investigate after one hour because they say it after one hour because they say it is gone. I did say actually I have got a personal number to the whole of the Cabinet best that Michael is of the Cabinet best that Michael is a bit of a problem. -- That might cause a bit of a problem. I then claimed in my household insurance claimed in my household insurance with my cover. And the company would not renew my cover in the future.

So it just adds to the problems all the way through. Everyone seems to be

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making a profit out of it. I thank my honourable friend for that intervention. I am also that intervention. I am also impressed you have got all of the phone numbers of the Cabinet. But phone numbers of the Cabinet. But you are absolutely right. The local effect -- the knock-on effect of this crime is absolutely huge. Whether it is your house insurance, whether it is your personal stuff, whether it is the group -- global crime syndicate included in this, it is absolutely huge.

I watched a documentary known as Bank of Dave. He spoke to one of these gang leaders and they talked about shoulder surfing, where they like to watch people and get their details of their phones because they like to get phones when they are open so they can scrape all of your data and your bank details. Within that hour as my honourable friend said they can empty out your bank account. There is around 30,000 people who are victims to identity theft everything all day.

In this country. -- Every single day in this country. This is not just a simple crime of stealing someone's phone. It goes a lot deeper than that. There are 100,000,002nd hand phones that go to China and some to Algeria too. The Apple people say they will reconnect phones that have been reported stolen. I think that admission in itself is something we should be saying to them is unacceptable. China has become this illegal electronic recycling her but if they cannot get into your phone they then will dismantle your phone and build a new phone from various parts from stolen phones and for those who do not disconnect their ID Madam Deputy Speaker, straight away they are sent threatening messages.

These messages talk about killing family members, raping them and some are even sent videos of guns to say they are coming to kill them. Obviously that is terribly frightening and that is also why we need to stop this global crime now. There is a link between neighbourhood crimes and organised criminality. Criminals think the police do not care about mobile phone theft because it is just a mobile phone and people can get it back. I am glad the Met police are taking it seriously unlike 10 years ago.

I doubt there will be many criminal, heads of criminals watching this debate today. But in January 2024 operation reckoning arrested 235 people. On average people are getting four to five years sentence. I think that is right. Because this is not a crime without consequences. And I think the government has a huge role to play in making sure we say to these criminals we are serious about holding you to account. But also we say to them -- we say to the manufacturing companies if they will not do a kill switch on those mobile phones when they are stolen then we

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will force you to do it by law. Thank you. The question is as on the order paper. I am planning to start

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paper. I am planning to start windups around 4:30 PM. Thank you. I start by congratulating and thanking my congratulating and thanking my honourable friend, the member for Brent East for bringing this important debate. I rise today in support of her to bring urgent attention to an issue that continues
16:21
Iqbal Mohamed Portrait Iqbal Mohamed MP (Dewsbury and Batley, Independent)
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attention to an issue that continues to disrupt lives not only across the UK but also in my constituency of Dewsbury and Batley. The rising tide of mobile phone theft. Let me be clear that is not a petty crime. This is not just about the loss of a device. This is about identity theft, financial vulnerable at and in many cases, the complete disconnection of some of the most vulnerable people in our communities from services they rely on every day. Over the past two years the numbers speak volumes.

Between December 2021 and November 2023 West Yorkshire police reported over 560 mobile phone thefts in Dewsbury and Batley alone. 293 in 2021 to 2022 and 269 the following year. That means on average more than 20 people every single month in my constituency are victims of this specific crime. That is just what is recorded. We know full well the real figures are likely higher. Many do not report these crimes believing the police have more serious matters to attend to all that nothing can be done.

But mobile phone theft as my honourable friend said is serious. These are not just communication tools. They are banks, medical records, job applications childcare arrangements. Emergency lifelines, as well as priceless memories. I have read about a constituent in Dewsbury more, a single mother whose phone was stolen while shopping. It was not just the phone she lost, she missed three job interviews, could not access your Universal Credit account and had her personal photos and private medical records compromised. This is not an isolated story.

It is a systemic threat to digital safety and personal dignity. Nationally thousands of mobile phones are stolen annually and many of these devices end up in highly organised criminal supply chains. Some are exported, others of widespread locally and in some cases victims are even assaulted for their devices. What is worse is the recovery and prosecution rates remain disturbingly low. Less than five% of mobile phone thefts result in charges across many police forces. So what must me do? -- We do? We must treat organised crime -- we must treat mobile theft as an organised crime, fraud and violent crime, police forces must be resourced and mandated to treat it with the seriousness it deserves.

Secondly we need stronger action from telecom providers and tech companies. Why are some phones so easy to wipe clean and resell? I

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will give way? I thank the honourable member for giving way. On that very topic he had an investigation in the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee where we put this to Apple and Google. It turns out phones that are Google. It turns out phones that are reported stolen in this country go on to something like GSM a blacklist which stops the hardware from which stops the hardware from working again. They cannot be reused in this country. Olise most of the in this country.

Olise most of the phone stolen go abroad -- police say phone stolen go abroad -- police say most of the phone stolen go abroad and are not on this blacklist. They said Apple could use this blacklist said Apple could use this blacklist and Apple said no they did not want to. Does the honourable member agree with me, they should enable that so with me, they should enable that so this will effectively stop in my humble opinion the theft of phones

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on the streets of London? I thank my honourable friend for

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I thank my honourable friend for his intervention. And for his informed contribution to this debate. I do agree with both him and The right honourable member for Brent East. Who indicated companies Brent East. Who indicated companies are not doing enough and should be quite easy -- it should be quite quite easy -- it should be quite easy to disable phones so they are beyond use both in this country or abroad. And the only value they have is in the spare parts they contain.

So we need stronger action from telecom providers and tech companies. They need to put their protection of the data, of their customers and the value, the money they pay to buy these devices above profits from these people then having to buy similar or same devices again. Why are some phones so easy to wipe clean and resell? Why are tracking systems so easy to disable? The government must act to enforce companies to enable or make the tracking physio system like the tracking system stronger.

We must support neighbourhood policing, in Dewsbury and Batley they are overstretched, trying to deal with phone snatching, shoplifting, antisocial behaviour with limited boots on the ground. They deserve the tools people and the political will to make our streets safer. And finally we must support victims, many cannot afford to replace their phones and reclaim their digital identity without support. So let us explore emergency tech funds or digital safety grants for vulnerable individuals and families. Madam Deputy Speaker, we live in a digital world and in that world stealing someone's phone is tantamount to stealing their identity, their access to society and in some cases there only link to help.

Let us not stand by while our constituents are targeted, their privacy violated and their futures interrupted. Let us act, not just with concern but with conviction. Thank you.
16:27
Uma Kumaran Portrait Uma Kumaran MP (Stratford and Bow, Labour)
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Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the honourable member for Brent East for securing this important debate. It is timely because 17 years ago I think I was a young hutch to this task as a young Parliamentary staff other then constituency of Brent Central. It is particularly nice to be speaking on her debate today. Those of us who have had our mobile phones stolen know how hopeless it can feel and how intrusive it can be. We know it is not a victimless crime I have had my phone stolen as has my husband.

It can happen in seconds and it can leave you suddenly feeling very vulnerable as you go about your daily life. Indeed as a woman walking about late at night if you have your phone taken from your hands it can be very unnerving indeed. Many of us having our phones stolen or snatched, we lose access to so much more as we have heard today. Our banking, photos, voice notes. And the occasional WhatsApp you may not want to be seen. Having your phone stolen in this day and age really does feel like your whole life is suddenly at risk of being cracked open and violated.

As I have said I know this horrible feeling and so does my constituent Thomas. He contacted me after he sought -- saw a BBC article which discussed my own experience. Thomas did not just have his phone stolen, thieves also gained access to his wallet and online banking. And they took out a huge loan in his name, causing massive anxiety over Christmas. Despite clear evidence of fraud, it was only with my intervention as his Member of Parliament his bank were able to recover his money.

Thomas's story is just one of many that my constituents in Stratford and phone have told me about. About the impact of phone theft. Sadly with a footfall of 330,000 passengers through Stratford station and a million people through Westfield weekly it has become a hotspot for phone theft. Sylvia and Andrew wrote to me deeply concerned about the rise of e-bike enabled zone snatchers -- phone snatchers and the anxiety this has caused in their

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neighbourhood. I will. I thank my honourable friend for giving way. E-bike Sara Kira enabler giving way. E-bike Sara Kira enabler -- e-bikes RNA key enabler to phone -- e-bikes RNA key enabler to phone theft. In Wanstead this weekend and in Redbridge sorry and in Waltham Forest we heard of the great work Forest we heard of the great work being done by Councillor Jane Blackman to try and address the problem of illegally adapted e- problem of illegally adapted e- bikes.

There are simple measures that could be taken such as ending that could be taken such as ending off-road sales loophole which would off-road sales loophole which would have a real impact for our constituents impacted by phone theft and other crimes. Does my honourable and other crimes. Does my honourable friend agree with me we need to look at the regulation and enforcement against these e-bikes which have against these e-bikes which have adapted to go at dangerously fast speeds and enable the activity she speeds and enable the activity she supports -- the activity she is

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talking about. I agree with my honourable and gallant friend for Leyton and Wanstead. He makes an important Wanstead. He makes an important point and I am sure the Minister today will respond to that. To speak of a few other experiences of my constituents, Jade contacted me to constituents, Jade contacted me to share her story and shock at witnessing a mother having her phone snatched while she was trying to buy shoes for her son. Matthew told me his partner was left feeling unsafe walking their dog at night and accosted by thieves on his way home.

These are not isolated incidents, they are part of a wider and troubling trend and those of us here in this chamber know it is happening across our constituencies. It is one that leaves people leaving -- leaving people feeling fearful in their neighbourhood as they go about their daily lives. Make no mistake the opposite benches who are not even great number today should really look again to very serious -- very seriously at their record. Street crime rose by over 40% in previous years with mobile theft soaring.

It does not have to be this way. With properly funded and resourced policing and community centres we can fight back. I have seen this and I mention Madam Deputy Speaker, the footballer Trafford station I have seen this first hand and all we are doing to tackle it. A police task force launched to operate on targeted operations there, officers disrupting thefts and arresting phone snatchers. We also have the British Transport Police having a similar operation recently. This Labour government is taking action, cracking down on thieves and thugs and taking back our control of our high streets.

Our town centres and other shopping centres. We are backing a police with stronger powers to tackle mobile phone theft in the Crime and Policing Bill and we are calling on tech companies to design our amenities to thieves so they are less stolen. We will restore public confidence so that if you report your phone is stolen then someone will actually do something about it. In London we are working with the Mayor Sadiq Khan who I know is personally committed to driving down Phone theft isn't a petty crime and it isn't a victimless crime.

It can happen in seconds but the impact is long lasting. It can rob cherished memories, can drain an account and second, in what way is that to live, afraid to walk a dog in your own neighbourhood? We await to him and everyone affected to make our streets safer. And I will join member today to do all we can to root it out, but we must also compel phone manufacturers to remove the incentive because we can't arrest our way out of this problem, so every layer of this chamber must

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take it seriously. Thank you. Can I start by thanking the honourable member for securing this debate and the Backbench Business Committee for granting time to it? Honourable members have all spoken Honourable members have all spoken eloquently of the emotional impact of the stolen phone and they have
16:33
Olly Glover Portrait Olly Glover MP (Didcot and Wantage, Liberal Democrat)
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of the stolen phone and they have all pointed out how phone, I do have a to G Nokia, but that is another issue. That aside, a phone is far more than something we talk on, we store our memories, we find romance, we access critical services. It is so much more, and that is why the impact of the stolen phone is very significant and far more disruptive than it would have been 20 years ago. Honourable members have also highlighted the important role that tech companies need to have in preventing and mitigating phone thefts and phone companies as well, and members have highlighted how the lack of police resources can sometimes mean a lack of immediate police interest or a need to improve police process.

We must make sure that our police are supported so that they can help people who are victims of this type of crime. And any form of crime can leave us feeling vulnerable. I was once burgled. Very little was taken but nevertheless, the sense of worry and the fact that it can happen again stays with you and praise on you late in the evening, and that manifests here as well as anywhere hours. And we made the important point about illegal bikes and the role that they play in this, and I commend members of the house the recent report by the group for cycling and walking about the issue of illegal AT Medics which outlines a number of steps that could be taken to better regulate them and deal with that problem.

Government policy is that police will be able to search properties without a warrant for stolen phones or other electronically geo-tagged items in the crime and policing Bill, and as we've heard, more needs to be done to stop the Tidal Wave of mobile phone theft, and it is right that the government is taking steps in that direction, but if the government is really serious about stopping theft, they also have to restore proper community policing officers at the time and resources to focus on the local neighbourhoods.

Everyone deserves to feel safe in their own home and walking down their own streets, for too many people, that simply is not the reality. The Conservatives are necessary cuts of left our police forces under resourced and unable to focus on the crimes that affect our communities the most. Every day. The member knows how to make an intervention if he needs to. He has been here sometime. Every day, 6000 cases are closed by the police across England and without a suspect even being identified, just 6% of crimes are reported to the police, resulting in a suspect being charged, and that's because the Conservative/the number of community support officers by more than 4500 since 2015 when they are in since 2015 when they are in Significant concern over the prevalence of mobile phone theft, especially snatch thefts as we have heard were poetry some bikes and mopeds steal mobile phones from people's hands, often in urban areas.

The exact offence will depend on the circumstances of the case, such as where the case was taken from and where force was used, but we know from the crime survey for England and that an estimated 78,000 people had phones or bag snatched from them in the year ending March 2024. This is equivalent to 2000 today and is an increase on March 2023 full stop London is regarded as the epicentre of phone thefts with £50 million worth of phones reported stolen in London in 2024.

The National Crime Agency's installing phones are disposed of overseas. They suggest some offenders will access data contained on stolen phones or to commit additional offences, such as that from bank accounts. Reports published in the mail in time so they pay up to £200 per stone they steal which shows the complexity of this crime we are trying to tackle when linked to other forms of crime and that those organised crime goes down or use them for repairs. It has been suggested that China is the destination for stolen handsets as China is not a member of the register which is a global network for stolen devices.

The government is taking some welcome steps in this direction. It is working to work on these communities, including strengthening confidence. The safe streets mission includes a policing guarantee so each neighbour will have a contract of officer facing communities. These will include teams who will spend time on the debate in town centre and other hotspot areas at peak times, but central to that guarantee those putting PCS owes and special constables into leasing roles. The government aims to have the 13,000 in place by 2029.

The Home Secretary hosted a mobile phone theft summit hosted a mobile phone theft summit to tackle this commonality. The summit was attended by police leaders, the National Crime Agency, the Mayor of London and tech companies to break this. Home Secretary urged all in attendance to help design out and this incentivised phone theft by making phones worthless to criminals. It was agreed that the summit would reconvene in three months time but we have not had a public record as of yet.

As honourable members have said, there is an important role to be played here in terms of the tech industry and while some companies such as Apple can remotely lock, locate and wipe devices and require identification, there is a lot more that they need to do to make sure this is dealt with. In conclusion, this is dealt with. In conclusion, losing a fine is something that has been intrinsic to most of our lives with most people not being able to pay for things that their phone, and that is why it is important that we do this and I look forward to hearing from the Minister.

hearing from the Minister.
16:40
Katie Lam Portrait Katie Lam MP (Weald of Kent, Conservative)
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It should go without saying that law and order is the bedrock of a healthy society, and laws that we make in this house are only worth anything if they are in force. A widening gulf between laws and how they are actually applied. I can think of a few better examples and mobile phone thefts. There is a temptation to think about phone theft as an example of petty crime. It sounds as though we all in this house agree that there is nothing petty about it.

Mobile phones are linked to our friends and family are necessary thing for school, that is to say nothing of the intimidation and violence experienced by victims and the corrosive impact that rampant phone theft has on public realm. So, we think about phone theft, we shouldn't think about the inconvenience of a missing phone. We should be thinking about the distressed victim and the creeping sense that increasingly, we are no longer safe in public. To capture the scale of this problem, it is useful to reflect on the data.

Snatch thefts rose by 700% last year, reaching a 20 year high. Overall theft stands at the highest rate according to national statistics. And at the epicentre of this crimewave in London, you see three quarters of phone thefts taking place over 116,656 phone stolen last year alone. These devices have a street value of more than £20 million. In these cases of phone theft often contribute to other forms of crime as well. James Conway of the Metropolitan police said that 70% of London's lifetimes linked to theft, meaning that this increase in phone theft is also likely to be contributing to the cities rampant knife crime epidemic.

Cybersecurity experts have also warned that phone stolen in London have been shipped to countries like China but are often using international organised crime. But perhaps this shouldn't come as a surprise given the approach taken by Siddique Khan, London's Labour mayor. He is focused on cracking down on stop and search which is clearly proven to cut crime whereas police and plans barely mentions phone theft, introducing regulations for phone companies instead of stopping actual crimes. Of course technology company should do their bit with a reasonably can, but our focus should be on catching and imprisoning criminals.

In the vast majority of these 116,656 cases, the reported crime is not solved, not retrieved, and the offender is not arrested, leaving them to walk free to commit more crime. This is simply not acceptable and we should not accept it. All the while, police forces across the country spent an estimated 60,000 on non-crime hate incidents which might be perceived to be offensive. Many people begin to describe the state of modern Britain as tyranny. More rules applied more strictly for the law- abiding facility were criminals run free.

While police officers work hard and genuinely wish to make our country a safer place, the systems and incentives the governor activities are totally broken. It is simply wrong that prolific freeze run rampant on our streets. And phone theft is not the only crime like this. To me people in Britain, particularly in our largest cities, low level disorder is now the music of their day-to-day lives. We all feel the decline in the public realm, and it makes our country a worse place to live.

Speak to any member of the British public and they will be able to tell you exactly what to do. Spend less time on policing speech and more time on catching thieves, give police forces way to tackle these crimes and we catch a career criminal, make sure they serve a proper police sentence. In short, enforce the law. In short, enforce the law.
16:44
Diana Johnson Portrait Rt Hon Dame Diana Johnson MP, The Minister of State, Home Department (Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham, Labour)
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Thank you. I would like to start by congratulating my honourable friend the member for securing this debate and for the allocation of debate and for the allocation of We have discussed Ian Hatch approach in terms of doing this, and in the limited time that we have available, this has been an important discussion spanning many different areas both geographical and in the topical sense. He spoke of the career in West Yorkshire, and my friend for Stratford and Bow talked about the interchange at Stratford station and along with my honourable and gallant friend the member for Leighton and Wanstead talked about the problems with EE bikes as enablers of mobile phone theft.

I want to be clear that this government is absolutely determined to look at the menace of mobile phone theft, but I would say to the shadow minister, the unfortunate truth is the time that this government took office, this type of commonality had become so common that it was essentially a feature of The statistics bear this out. Another shadow Minister was talking about the police and looking at criminals and locking them up. I think she does need to reflect on the actual record of the Conservative government when they introduced the nonprime hate incident guidance -- non- crime hate incident guidance under the previous Home Secretary and failed the prison system by not building enough prison places.

It is this government who is having to deal with that. I want to talk about the statistics. Time is very short, no. I think the honourable gentleman really with his record when he was a Special Advisor in the Home Office is nothing to be proud about. Street theft increased by more than 40% in the last year of the previous government. Driven largely by soaring rates of snatched theft involving mobile phones. Whilst we are starting to see some promising reductions including a decrease in the number of mobile phone theft by force or threat of force in the capital, sadly levels of mobile phone theft remain intolerably high.

This is totally unacceptable. We recognise the impact this criminality goes beyond the loss of the mobile phone, costly and stressful although that undoubtedly is, it undermines people's sense of personal safety and security in the most insidious way. It snatchers part of someone's life as my honourable friend said. Details around banks or personal records or precious memories that are stored on phones. Decent law- abiding people deserve much much better. That is why the Prime Minister has placed Safer Streets at the heart of his Plan for Change.

Through that mission we are taking decisive action to restore Law & Order to our town centres and high streets. And the scourge of mobile phone theft is very much in our sites. It may be health like this point if I set out for the House some of the key steps we are taking to combat this crime. It has been clear throughout the debate that we accept to drive the real change that we need to see we need to work effectively with tech companies, with the police and others in civil society.

To both prevent those thefts happening in the first place and to better detect the perpetrators when they do a curve. In that -- when they do occur. In that spirit the Home Secretary chaired the summit bringing together representatives from the police including the Metropolitan police, the National Crime Agency, the Mayor of London, local government leaders and leading technology companies and other sectors to push for a much stronger collaboration in the space. I have been working closely with stakeholders from industry and law enforcement on this important topic.

So I was pleased to see the summit result in clear commitments from attendees to work in partnership. Including to significantly boost sharing of data and intelligence on mobile phones theft, to build a, hence picture of the problem and better understand the role of organised criminal networks. And ultimately our aim is to disrupt, design out and dis-incentivise mobile phone theft. And officials are working closely with law enforcement partners and other tech companies and other industry representatives to deliver those practical and effective measures to crack down on those crimes.

My honourable friend talked about particularly about mobile phone theft in London. We know London is a particularly -- a particular hotspot for that and that is why the Metropolitan Police are an important partner in the collective effort to tackle this form of crime. Indeed we welcome the two recent periods of intensification activity by the Metropolitan Police which together resulted in over 500 arrests linked to mobile phone theft. Now we will be holding the second summit within the next few weeks.

To reflect on the progress that has been made. And to galvanise that cross sector agreement on the ambitious outcomes we all want to see delivered. There remains I think a long road ahead but I really hope -- I am really hopeful the tech companies and wider stakeholders will come to the table with some bold proposals. And to be really very clear about this, the government will not hesitate to take more decisive action if we do not see those clear commitments to tackle this issue as an outcome of this summit.

Including considering further legislation and regulation to radically reduce this and related criminality. I just wanted to also draw to members attention the fact the Crime and Policing Bill introduces a new power to help police recover stolen mobile phones more quickly. It allows officers to help -- to enter and search premises were a stolen device has been electronically tracked. In situations where it is not practical to obtain a warrant. This will allow the police to act swiftly and increase the likelihood criminals will be caught and punished.

Now we welcome the innovative steps already taken by tech companies to tackle mobile phone theft. What is crucial now is deepening collaboration between those companies and law enforcement. That is how we will ensure antitheft features cannot be bypassed by criminals. And the technology support police investigation and the recovery of stolen phones. While antitheft features are vital to ensure the safety of your mobile phone, some technology we acknowledge can be misused by by our doctors -- misused by bad actors, particularly in cases of domestic abuse.

That is why we are working with those tech companies to ensure new solutions are safe, proportionate and do not inadvertently put victims at risk. It is about making stolen phones worthless without creating new fund abilities. -- New vulnerabilities. Several proposals have been put forward on this debate about how we might strengthen our collective response to mobile phone theft. I have heard them all and I am very grateful for all of them. While we will of course keep our approach under review at this stage we are focused on delivering our plan to reduce mobile phone theft in partnership with the law enforcement, technology companies and service providers.

The government is working with those tech companies to ensure people's phones are protected. Through working groups established by the Home Office and attended by technology companies and policing partners, we are aiming to ensure everything possible is being done to dis-incentivise phone theft by making them effectively worthless for criminals. I just want to conclude my remarks by again offering my thanks to Mike honourable friend -- to my honourable friend for skewing this debate and all of the members who have contributed.

I hope I have addressed some of the points we have had the opportunity to discuss this afternoon in this limiting time available I think in essence, this issue is as much about people as it issue is as much about people as it is about policies and powers. We must always remember behind the statistics are thousands and thousands of real victims. You have suffered the shock and distress as well as the inconvenience and disruption of having their devices snatched. Every day our high streets and town centres are filled with people going about their everyday lives.

As they make their way from policed -- from place to place there should be no question they are safe and their belongings are secure. The notion they might be pounced upon at any moment by thieves is simply unacceptable. This government will not tolerate that. Our message is clear, Britain's streets belong to the law-abiding majority, not thieves and others and we will do whatever it takes to protect the public from those callous and harmful crimes. Thank you.

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Dawn Butler to windup. Thank you. I was in the middle of writing we all know what the issues
16:54
Dawn Butler Portrait Dawn Butler MP (Brent East, Labour)
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and the problems are until the shadow Minister started speaking. I want to thank the member for Dewsbury and Batley for his contribution and also mentioning Universal Credit as we start to encourage people to do everything online, when their phone gets taken away all of that also gets taken away. And my honourable friend, my partner in crime for Stratford and I will not tell you about any of the adventures we have been on Madame Deputy Speaker. But Stratford is a very busy centre and does attract a lot of crime.

It is important we get this right. She also mentioned our Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan and all of the work he is doing around that and I want to thank all of the interventions from the member for Leyton and Wanstead on e-bikes that have been illegally hacked so they go faster and generally there is to riders on the back, want to steer and the other takes it. It is a problem we do have to get to grips with. The member for Newcastle upon Tyne and the member for Hayes and Harlington.

At the end of the day we do need to get to the bottom of this because it is a petty crime like it is not a petty crime, it is a huge crime that affects our streets. And to the shadow Minister who completely missed the point, just on the talk of free speech, let me say this the last person who the police arrested for calling me the N word and other racist slurs, they thanked me for taking a far right extremist off of the streets because that person was not on their radar and the police were quite shock.

So the shadow spokesperson may want to hold a protective shield for those people who are racist, sexist, misogynistic and homophobic. But we do not. All I say to that Adam Deputy Speaker is

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thank goodness they are no longer in power. The question is as on the Order Paper. As many as are of that Paper. As many as are of that opinion, say, "Aye". Of the contrary, "No". The ayes have it.

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The ayes have it. I beg to move this House do now adjourn.

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adjourn. The question is this House do now adjourn.
16:57
Lauren Sullivan Portrait Adjournment: Impact of river crossings on Gravesham constituency Dr Lauren Sullivan MP (Gravesham, Labour)
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adjourn. Thank you very much Madam Deputy Speaker. For this opportunity for me Speaker. For this opportunity for me to come to the House today to discuss the importance of river crossings in my constituency of Gravesham. I am grateful to the Minister for giving up his time today in order to respond to this debate. I wish to cover two crossings, one old and closed which is the Gravesend to Tilbury ferry and one planned and very expensive Lower Thames Crossing. For those who do not know Gravesham in the Constituencies River community.

Like we are here in house we are bound by the River Thames with all of that history and only 20 miles apart. However much of that history in the borough there has been river crossings. Certainly since Roman times and according to one of the esteemed local historians, the right of long very. Which was exclusively given the Gravesend water way to provide river service to and from London. This was confirmed by the king in 1401. With the charter. This charter was in aid to help rebuild the time after a fire in 1318 and since then the cross river between my honourable friend from the Thurrock constituency and mine has been in place also connecting the two ancient kingdoms for eons.

Providing trade, leisure and tourism. Today the Port of London authority which controls all travel of boats up and down the Thames is based on my constituency and I pay tribute to them today. Also the RNLI have their base on the river in Gravesend and I know the House would want to extend our thanks for the work they do across the country. Both the people in Gravesham and in my honourable friend's constituency of the wreck are river people. Many families including my own, my late father-in-law was a Gravesend seamen.

Working on the river before working on the high seas. The river is and was the main artery to and from London, Gravesham was and is high industry, employment, a source of enjoyment of tourism and leisure and particular our regatta. This is celebrated this year, 179 years. It was running earlier however it was made official in 179 years ago by the council because of some very unparliamentary disputes that took place. Now who won that race -- who won that race.

I would like to place on record my thanks to the committee and all of the volunteers for keeping this tradition going on a sportsmanship fashion and there has been no further dispute of this kind. With this extensive local history and heritage, it was to our dismay residents and businesses and visitors from both sides from Thurrock to Gravesend and Thurrock and Kent County Council ceased funding of the Gravesend to Tilbury ferry last year. Since the ending of that service local businesses have been suffering significantly.

They have been telling me it is impacting people getting to and from work and actually they have lost many people who cannot bear the thought of taking the crossing in order to get to work. On our high streets, one particular business, a tearoom who used to cater for the passing trade from large cruise ships that used to dock at Tilbury. They have been impacted to the point they can no longer employ a member of staff. These things have impact.

I am sure that is the same across our High Street. I have been running a petition as has the honourable member for Thurrock and there have been other petitions to Ghana adjourn.

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Thank you. This petition has been

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Thank you. This petition has been calling for the return of this calling for the return of this service. At present, there is a desire for people to travel by public transport which I support. Leave the car at home if you need Leave the car at home if you need options. The option was a 10 minute options. The option was a 10 minute jump across the water. Now, it is a train into London and back out train into London and back out again.

It is a bus with multiple connections to take you through the Dartford Crossing, and all this is Dartford Crossing, and all this is costing us time, precious time. And costing us time, precious time. And if we are a society that wants to support public transport, and it support public transport, and it should be at the heart of everything we do to relieve congestion on the roads, if we take the Woolwich Ferry roads, if we take the Woolwich Ferry which must be pun by Parliamentary statute and I am for promoting wider statute and I am for promoting wider impact of this.

I'm not asking for impact of this. I'm not asking for this to be the case that I am asking for the local authority in my Parliament to protect these

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transport links. In the last 20 years, we have

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In the last 20 years, we have seen new options which my seen new options which my constituents can benefit from, but as my friend has said, from Woolwich as my friend has said, from Woolwich all the way through to the Kent coast, there is no public transport option that Haran my constituents can benefit from, so which she can benefit from, so which she welcomed me in looking at transport options into Kent.

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options into Kent. I agree. Thames Clipper is a remarkable service which has been supported by transport for London which is needed to be subsidised for this, and they are looking at expanding into the estuary, so expanding into the estuary, so taking on board the desire for his constituents and mind to be able to constituents and mind to be able to be by the river, it is a good proposal, and that is something that we should be trying to get behind. I we should be trying to get behind.

I know from my past that we have been very interested. Engraved centipede, it was sold to the Clipper to make way for make way for this route into way for make way for this route into London and yawned. However, it is not a highway authority. It does not have the status nor the money to put on this kind of public. However, they are prepared to do this. Certain government organisations are able to do this, but they have to look at financial management.

This could be a public-private partnership. So, if there are businesses listening in consultation with government and money that go down to local authorities, that we can come together and fund the service. So, turning to the other type of river crossing, I wish to type of river crossing, I wish to speak briefly about the lower Thames crossing and I feel that this may not be the solution or the silver bullet. The lower Thames crossing will be going through the constituency, and it's fair to say that we have been vocally opposed to this since the outset.

In particular, because of immigration. Labour have promised that the major infrastructure projects, local residents either benefit at this, and it is in this vein that I ask the following questions and points to the Minister and hope he will be able to follow up so that we can go through this bill. The lower Thames crossing will have an impact while options chosen nearly a decade ago under the Tories. It was the most expensive option and I do regret the loss of ancient woodland, the impact of air quality and congestion to local roads.

The Conservatives took a dip that underlay approach. So therefore, while a new bridge could have already been built, had it been funded, here we are today still waiting. Residents in my constituency in Gravesend and surrounding villages already suffer with congestion when the Dartford Crossing goes down, a huge arterial road into London. It will be cut in half, yet sandwiched between the Dartford Crossing and the lower Thames crossing. In the modelling data for highways England showed that congestion levels will be back to how they are now in four years after the opening of the crossing.

So, residents are worried about getting into the hospital for urgent care when these problems on the road appear. Given the people choice of reliable public transport options will ease that congestion, so if there are reliable public transport options such as buses or riverboats, river ferries will take cars off the road, when these sound congestion events occur, there is a greater capacity on the roads. The wider impacts to the tunnel also need to be considered.

Currently, the 82 seven says we will have to access the 820. When the original plans were thought of, there was going to were thought of, there was going to be an upgrade which sadly, under the Conservatives was cut back further. There will be villages in my constituency to increase travel, so, in the lower Thames crossing, I would like to see some assurances, and some of the questions I would like answers to in the days to come.

So, how will national highways insure that years of construction delays will minimally impact residents? How will the traffic get to and from the lower Thames crossing without impacting local roads? What powers will exist to show that local roads were used as reference, and who will be held accountable to this? Our local infrastructure will be impacted with the influx of workers coming forward, so I would like to hear a halt on people working on the lower Thames crossing moving into the area because we are already facing a significant housing crisis in the area.

The other thing that could be affected as leisure, health services, and how will these wider infrastructure projects be increased? How will they be increased in future? What accountability should there be about this model data? We had that for years on and the congestion will be held at the same level. It will have a wider impact. Local residents have a wider impact. Local residents have raised these concerns, but we are all local MPs, it is right that we need to ask the tough questions.

It is right that we do so. We are doing this for our constituencies, so we have to be able to look and see the Tilbury ferry to be restored sustainably maintained in perpetuity as a decent public transport office that could be subsidised. We want Gravesend residents to be the front and centre of this. We are in the top 10 of most things. We want to make sure that people understand that Gravesham and Thurrock are going to be most impacted by this program.

We will be seeing those benefits, and especially at the moment, a local resident or a local person that is employed will be in a 20 mile radiance. That is half of London. I'm asking that we should be capturing information from a 5 mile radiance. Not saying that all of it should be local but we need to make sure that local businesses will be explored. Taking accountability for what will take place in the 82 seven based on the wider road as well.

There is also a point about the tolls. Gravesham, from the point of being directly opposite Thurrock and the local authority, the local authority of Thurrock is larger than the military. We are directly opposite Thurrock and Thurrock enjoy a residents discount scheme. For Gravesham, that has not been promoted. We have very many residents that use the Dartford Crossing a regular basis, especially now this has in down, so I would ask the Minister if this could be included for the Dartford Crossing while this is belt.

The last two things I want to raise about the mitigations for the environment impact. We know the terrible air quality this is in Dartford. Which not want to see that in Gravesham as well, so how can we can prove both places and protect residents? But also, the issue with housing now that a vast swathe of our land could have had development for housing which is now unavailable. In conclusion, I would like to thank the Minister in advance for his up- and-coming reply, to yourself at this adjournment debates, the residents so we can see that Gravesham has a long history on the river and we would like to see that Gravesend Tilbury ferry crossing return.

return.
17:13
Jen Craft Portrait Jen Craft MP (Thurrock, Labour)
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Thank you. We call each other our sisters across the river as we are separated by a small stretch of the River Thames, and I would like to add my own contribution to the importance of the Tilbury ferry on my side of the river. The Gravesend Hillsborough, the Tilbury ferry as we like to call it. My friend has spoken at length about the history of the Tilbury ferry and it has a long and proud history. We always refer to it as having been granted to us by Henry VIII and ran continuously for the best part of four, 500 years until a bankruptcy by a Tory county took it out, and it became my thing that I'm really quite determined to see it return.

It has a really special and personal thing for me. I have many childhood memories of taking the Tilbury ferry across the river to Gravesend to spend a delightful day on my honourable friends side of the river, going to the cafe's there, having a really lovely shop that sells boardgames, and I have a penchant for D Curry and it is very much up my alley. A lovely pub called the three doors where I have spent many happy times there, and sadly, we are unable to visit it any further because to do so now mandates a 45 minute to an hour trip over the Dartford Crossing around.

And when the Dartford Crossing has issues with congestion, and when there are more severe issues as there are today, I husband had to get my daughter from school because her bus couldn't pick it up because it backed right up into my constituency and it is a huge issue for us. I know many of my constituents tonight will be sat from the house, and clearly, this needs to be addressed. My honourable friends has spoken very eloquently about how we don't feel that this is necessarily the way to answer this problem of congestion, however, I would like to add my voice to say that the Tilbury ferry offered an alternative to using the roads, which is probably the direction of travel we should be looking in, making public transport open and easy to use.

And I know that when the Minister rises, he may say that we are not in the habit of the government funding boat services, and my answer would potentially be that I feel that we should maybe explore what is possible to do and how we can restore this. It was not only a wonderful cultural and historic ferry but a really key part of public infrastructure in my part of the world. We share a lot of health services that people would take the ferry over to see my orthodontist when I was a teenager, so that was something I looked forward to less than day trips out and visiting cafe's.

But it was A lot of my constituents commuted grammar school. I understand the Port of London actually put on a very small boat for some of those staff who live either side of the river. Indeed my brother lived for a time just on, short hop over the river on the ferry. That is no longer possible again. Which is quite upsetting and sad for a lot of us. Within about a week of starting a petition to try and bring back the Tilbury ferry I received 500 signatures.

It now stands at a little over 1000. It really shows if we ask people to share their memories of why they want to bring a ferry back because I think we are looking at someone coming on board, a potential private partner we want to show there is an appetite for it. It will be used but it was always used. It was never an empty ferry when it was running, it was or is busy throughout the day any day of the week that it was running but people have shared things like they want to come on it one more time before they die.

Something that feels really quite moving. They have shared memories of taking their grandchildren and great- grandchildren on it. They have day trips out, actually travelling from work. Someone said we do not have a lot of nice things in our part of the world and the things we do have, we have got to keep. And so we want them back. This is something that was absolutely delightful and it is coincidentally the Tilbury ferry is exactly the right amount of time that any child could spend on a boat for going round before getting bored.

Five minutes, they see the boat they get on they are excited and then they want to leave the boat and there are Gravesend so it is a fantastic day out as well. I plead to the Minister would be to consider what my honourable friend has said, particularly in relation to using some of the money that will be generated by the Lower Thames Crossing. It would be a very minuscule proportion that could fund the running of the service in perpetuity. It would alleviate the congestion, alleviate the congestion that will still exist after about five years, the Lower Thames Crossing operation.

And also in the meantime we can look at other ways we can support the return of this absolutely vital, crucial, important service for my constituents and

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constituents of my honourable friend. Minister.

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Minister. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would like to thank my honourable friend for securing this very friend for securing this very important Adjournment Debate on the impact of the river crossings in Gravesham, her constituency. She Gravesham, her constituency. She said the charter for the river and
17:18
Mike Kane Portrait Mike Kane MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport) (Wythenshawe and Sale East, Labour)
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said the charter for the river and her town was 1401. I think that was Henry IV of the time. And obviously having taken over from Richard the second, the whole play in Shakespeare was about rebellion. I feel rebellion on the backbenches at the moment about how important this subject is to both those constituency MPs. She has been a true champion in this field. I do not -- I know my honourable friend has made a number of representations to myself that she has mentioned and other ministerial colleagues on this matter.

Calling for the reinstatement of the Tilbury Gravesend very services. That ended in March 2024 due to the lack of funding. I do appreciate the efforts and passion my honourable friend and her sister across the river, I would say fearsome sisters from across the river. In supporting the services they can provide a quick link between Kent and Essex. Across the Thames estuary. In particular providing an alternative when there are problems experienced on the Dartford Crossing as already has Dartford Crossing as already has been pointed out.

I recognise the ferry provided a useful link across the estuary and was very popular with the regular users of the service. It was particularly useful, those travelling to their respective workplaces and was an alternative to car journeys via Dartford. As my honourable friend will know there is a number of key industries and employment sites along the North Kent and South Essex the play an important regional and national role in our economy. We know the Thames Gateway is going to be a massive driver for economic growth in the UK.

We have the Amazon plan there, we have CLD and, we have other ambitions for that estuary in terms of our clean and superpower and driving growth in the maritime sector. Both numbers who have spoken today, can I thank them for their work with the maritime sector as it affects their constituencies. I am sure my honourable friend will acknowledge ferry services run on a private sector basis to meet commercial demand. Any decisions to provide funding for local ferry services is also a matter for local partners.

Where local ferry services fund and form part of local transport options they therefore offer local transport authorities to consider, in line with devolution. It is the local authorities to decide the transport priorities and where to allocate budgets. There have been successful examples of ferry services receiving local funding including Mersey ferries in Liverpool, the Woolwich Ferry to London, both of which have been funded and operated by the local transport authority. To support local transport authorities, the government has been clear on its transport priorities, capital funding to support local bus services, improvements to active travel and the maintenance of local roads.

I will give way.

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Thank you. I really do thank the Minister for giving way. On that very specific point, myself and my very specific point, myself and my honourable friend have asked in the past if it is possible to use some past if it is possible to use some of the bus funding that has indeed of the bus funding that has indeed there has been an uplift on to fund the Tilbury ferry. The answer we have received previously as it would have received previously as it would not be because it is not a bus.

It is fairly obvious it is not a bus! I would ask if the Minister would perhaps consider rethinking if we perhaps consider rethinking if we would be able to maybe reclassify the Tilbury ferry as potentially a

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river bus. I am grateful for the honourable friends intervention. No the current situation is you cannot use those monies. He does not stop us talking in the future with partner officials and together with the private sector on the river to see what is possible on the river to see what is possible as has already been said. Let's keep as has already been said. Let's keep that in the bay. I will say just a little bit more about that at the end of my speech as well.

The Lower Thames Crossing has been raised Thames Crossing has been raised here, the government is expressing here, the government is expressing -- exploring all viable options for the Lower Thames Crossing. This includes private finance options which reduce public seed funding to unlock investment. A road users charge will help finance the Lower Thames Crossing and reduce the burden on the public purse for major infrastructure projects as they know. The road charging regime for the Lower Thames Crossing has not been set.

I urge honourable members to make their representations to myself and the Secretary of State and the roads Minister on this matter as it pertains to their local constituencies. Yes of course.

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I thank the Minister for giving way. I suppose the ASCII as well as way. I suppose the ASCII as well as when we are looking at the private companies who may be coming forward and the contractors whether a social value, social good involved and that could be also including funding

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could be also including funding towards a small part towards the Tilbury Gravesend crossing? I am very grateful and I recently

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I am very grateful and I recently met with the chief executive who I met with the chief executive who I think owns the peer. That has been pursued in other parts so I think again it is worthy of exploration again it is worthy of exploration with me and my officials going forward. Now across the period of 25/26, the Department has allocated 25/26, the Department has allocated Kent County Council 40 million to Kent County Council 40 million to support their local highways network, over 23 million to support network, over 23 million to support the improvement of bus services and 5.7 million to support active 5.7 million to support active travel.

A significant uplift with travel. A significant uplift with the new government. In the same financial period the department has allocated the council nearly 3 million support their local highway million support their local highway network and 2 million to support the improvement of bus services and another 350,000 to support active travel improvements. In addition the Chancellor in the spending review recently confirmed three pounds bus fare cap expected to end at the end of the year will be extended until at least March 2027, benefiting both local authorities.

There is limited revenue however for the local authorities and it would be for them to decide which services to prioritise. Therefore I would urge all partners in the region and the members of Parliament here today who have spoken so eloquently to work together constructively to find appropriate local transport solutions, including river services. I have asked my officials here at the Department of Transport to work closely with local partners to help identify any potential funding opportunities that could become available to help support their local plans.

I will say to the member for Thurrock in winding up, Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope one day she will be able to visit the three doors public house once again. And with that can I thank the member for Gravesham for securing this Adjournment Debate and being a doughty champion on this matter in

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her constituency. The question is this House do now

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The question is this House do now adjourn. As many as are of that opinion, say, "Aye". The ayes have
This debate has concluded
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