Lords Chamber

Friday 4th September 2026

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10:07
10:07
Lord Liddle Portrait Lord Liddle (Labour)
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My Lords, it's a great privilege >> My Lords, it's a great privilege and pleasure to introduce this report on behalf of the Economic Affairs Select Committee of the House. In place of our former chair, Lord Wood of Anfield, he has the Salvationists would say, in the 19th century, on the death of one of their senior members being promoted to glory in. And that in his case, his ministerial office. As one of Ed Miliband's Foreign Office Ministers.

Let me say I've known Stuart over two decades. He demonstrated a very high level of intellect by his appointment of a fellow of Magdalen at a young age. When I was in number ten, he was a member of Gordon Brown's Council of Economic Advisors. And while we didn't agree on every aspect of government policy, we were both committed European Social Democrats and fascinated by the lessons for Britain of post-war Germany. He's been a great chair of our select committee to work under, and we owe him a lot.

Of course, no report is ever produced without the contribution of the clerks, the expert advisors, our technical and administrative support and our witnesses. And this whole operation was brilliantly orchestrated by our committee clerk, Matthew Manning, to whom I'd also like to pay tribute. We learnt a lot from many excellent witnesses, and while to pick on one is unfair, I will take the liberty of breaching this rule by paying tribute to Charles Goodhart, the former Bank of England economist whose brother William was a distinguished member of this House, whose contribution at the age of 89 lost nothing in its clarity and pungency.

He's a great exemplar of why we should not be pessimistic about the possibilities of an ageing society. I also pay tribute to other members of the committee, including those who were rotated off before this debate. The UK is a rapidly ageing society. The numbers are striking. The office for Budget Responsibility Projections projections say the old age dependency ratio, that is, the number of people above the state pension age relative to the number of working people, will rise from approximately 31% around now to 38% approximately 31% around now to 38% in 2050 and 47% in 2074.

And indeed, in the years of the last government's conservative governments 2010 2024, the population over 65 rose from something like 16.5% to 19%. The decline in fertility rates is even more striking. In 1964, a peak fertility rate of 2.93 children per woman was achieved. This has fallen precipitously in 2023, it had reached a new low of 1.44 in England and Wales, and 1.25 in Scotland. Now, the long term replacement rate is 2.08, so you can see the basis of that demographic demographic crisis.

We heard from our witnesses that the prospects for raising the fertility rate are dim, and policy attempts elsewhere to do this have failed. This is a great disappointment to me because when I worked for the president of the European Commission two decades ago, we had a confidence that the adoption of Nordic style, family friendly policies, subsidised childcare, gender equality, more equally shared responsibility for bringing up children between men and women, that those would help sustain an adequate fertility rate.

Sadly, this is not proved to be the case. Immigration is likewise not the panacea that in some quarters is made out. It might help if immigration was circular, that is, immigrants returning home as their countries become more prosperous, which to some extent has happened with East European immigration. The problem with immigration further afield that Britain has experienced since 2019, is that families are more likely to settle here permanently, adding in the short term to the public spending costs, but not adding to demographic sustainability in the longer term, as second generation birth rates tend to adjust to to UK norms.

Among our witnesses. It was people were optimistic that the change in profile of the population is manageable. However, the rate it is occurring could pose substantial challenges, though it's worth highlighting that some of this is a result of a great success story. Rising life expectancy is something to be celebrated for girls born today. Life expectancy is 90. For boys, it's 86.7. But there is a worrying gap occurring between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy.

Healthy life expectancy has actually fallen in the last couple of years, and there's already a north south gap, a huge gap emerging. It's seven years, for instance, in healthy life expectancy between London and the North east. And these these are very worrying trends. The fiscal picture is also stark. In its 2025 Fiscal Risks and Sustainability report, the office for Budget Responsibility, for which I have great regard. Unlike some other people on. Say that on current policy settings, borrowing will be pushed up to.

By the early 2070s, clearly unsustainable. 20% a year and debt will rise to over 270%. Again, clearly unsustainable. We aren't alone in facing this challenge, but that's no source of comfort. The fact that others will be grappling with the same issues could actually increase competition between nations over a dwindling workforce. At the same time as our economy will be struggling, this is also more more than just about the current elderly. The current young population will become the older generation of the future.

Indeed, thanks to the increases in life expectancy, they will be older for longer. Yet demography is not destiny. One key conclusion we reached is that the government needs to focus on the older, economically inactive who are below state pension age, and I think these are facts that are not particularly well known. Discussion of raising the state pension age to deal with this problem is, in our view, misplaced. Those who are still working at the point of the state pension age are entitled to claim the state session, and there they're, in fact, highly likely to continue working beyond it.

The focus, the focus has to be on those who exit the workforce before reaching the state pension age. Now, at the age of 50, this is the the scale of the problem. At the age of 50, 80% of the age group are still in work. At the age of 65, the participation rate has fallen to 25 to 30%. And it's that catastrophic fall in the participation rate, which we feel is the public policy challenge that needs to be addressed simply to raise the state pension age would actually plunge a significant number of people in that late 60s bracket into poverty, as happened when the pension age was raised to 65 from 65.

Now the government is beginning to think very hard about how to promote workforce participation. At the other end of the age spectrum among young people. Absolutely brilliant. Milburn review, which I believe is greatly to be welcomed as an outstanding contribution to public policy. But we hear nothing of very little about the scale of what's required to prepare an ageing workforce for those in their mid 50s to mid 60s. What the government's response is the mid-life MOT programme that they have, and targeted job centre support for older job seekers.

While all that's welcome hardly seems an ambitious enough response to this crisis, and this is a crucial conclusion of our report, there are a number of reasons for those leaving the workforce at older ages, which present policy does little to address. Some are benign. People want to stop working, and if they have the financial resources to do so. Unfortunately for the Treasury, these are often those who contribute the most in taxes, and the government needs to find ways of incentivising these people to remain or return to work.

However, we also heard about those who want to work but are unable to do so because of caring responsibilities, either to ageing parents or to dependents. Now we recognise this is a priority for the government and we are looking forward to the recommendations of the Commission, which Baroness Casey of Blackstock is working on at present. But you can't help noting that a number of these grant reviews have been held in the past, with very little action taken.

And let us hope, profoundly hope that the Casey Review will be the last before concrete policies are announced and enacted. There's been some focus in discussion, obviously, on reforming the triple lock. This has proved an expensive driver of real terms. Increases in the state pension due to the recurring volatility of both inflation and earnings, which have led to real terms increases to link pensions to earnings, that is, to the living standards of the working population, is estimated to save some 15.5 billion.

That's a significant sum of money. It would take the defence budget up over half a percent by over half a percent of GDP. But in our report, rather than focus on that, we've chosen to focus on the much longer term issue of raising labour force participation among over 50 year olds, a continued yearly focus on the budget and the government's fiscal headroom and all that means there's a danger that we lose sight of the far more serious long term issues, and nothing in what the government had to say, I'm afraid to say, reassured us in this regard.

The Cameron government, to its credit, did make the ageing population one of the subjects of its foresight studies. But this was lost in the aftermath. I would say. Chaos of Brexit. The present government, in response to our recommendation that it publish an overarching strategy statement setting out how it plans to address the challenges of an ageing society in a cohesive way, said that a, quote, an integrated approach is preferable to a single standalone strategy. Don't know quite what that means.

This just after. And they went on to say that they. They are taking a strategic and cross-cutting approach to issues relating to an ageing society. Well, without some clear statement of what this strategy is that underpins the purported integrated approach, I find this answer devoid of significant and substantial comment content. The lack of any published strategy on ageing is a worrying indication that the government would prefer not to face up to these challenges. As an immediate question, and that the UK is therefore woefully unprepared for the future.

Now, this is a harsh conclusion, but the point of having select committees is to point out difficult. Conclusions that our politics is failing to address. So on that

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basis, and with that reason, I beg to move. Your question is that this

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motion be agreed to. My Lords, I would like to begin by thanking Lord wood for his by thanking Lord wood for his outstanding chairmanship. I've already paid tribute to him at Question Time, and I do so very Question Time, and I do so very happily today because his job was brilliantly done. It's a pleasure to follow Lord Liddle, who's
10:23
Lord Lamont of Lerwick Portrait Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Conservative)
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to follow Lord Liddle, who's summarised our report very comprehensively. Not left much for anyone to say. Even within three minutes. My Lords, for me, the most important paragraph in the report was one referred to by Lord Liddle. It is indeed paragraph two only of the report referring to the OBR in its Fiscal Sustainability Report, an annual publication about ageing where it states, as Lord Liddle emphasised that without a change in policy, government spending pressures will push up debt to GDP above 270 270% of GDP by the early 2000 and 70s.

Those are very alarming figures. Of course, many people will say this will never, ever happen, but it will only not happen if we take steps to prevent it happening. According to the OBR, age related public spending will increase total spending by 10% of GDP by 2074. But when you then add on top of that debt interest, it will raise total government spending from 44.5% of GDP to 60% of GDP by 2073. Taxes are already at an all time high.

What would they be if spending was to reach 60% of GDP? What policies are there that can mitigate the apparent need for deep spending cuts or increases in taxation? Well, the usual answer of government, of course, is growth. But alas, growth does not always happen and does not always happen. In response to the exhortations of government, according to the OBR, immigration and any likely acceptable scale will not be sufficient to improve the debt dynamic sufficiently. Debt dynamic according to our witnesses, efforts to increase fertility rates in other countries have largely failed, raising the pension age, which the government intend to do does save money but doesn't, as Lord Liddle emphasised, increase or participation rates or promote longer working lives.

One alternative, which is recommended now report and accepted by the government, is to increase labour force participation among those aged between 50 and pension age. Finding a solution to the problem of social care, which of course is an urgent problem in its own right, not just a financial problem. And it would help many of those in their mid 50s and 60s to remain at work. But a national care service modelled on the NHS, as suggested by the Prime Minister, could cost no less than up to 19 billion a year in ten years time.

So that's not going to help our fiscal problems if we do not increase the proportion of older people at work output per capita and the overall size of the economy will be lower, fewer workers and higher pension payments. What we have to do is to improve productivity per worker and at the same time, get more of the old to remain at work. It's not impossible. Over the past 100 years, the old age dependency ratio tripled, but has not been a factor in holding back growth.

In the past, we have adapted. My Lords, our report only scratches the surface of what is a huge, huge subject. The ageing of society is transformational. Will reach into every department, but the impact is only felt gradually, almost imperceptibly. We need a longer term framework to allow well-informed development of policy to prepare for these profound changes. If we do not face reality, reality is going to face us.
10:27
Lord Burns Portrait Lord Burns (Crossbench)
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But what I'd also like to thank Lord Liddle for outlining the conclusions of the committee's report so well, and to thank Lord Wood of Anfield for chairing the committee during his investigation. He has now gone on to greater things, and I hope we will have the opportunity to continue to deploy his considerable economic skills in that role as well. My Lords, there's nothing new or recent about the phenomenon of an ageing population. This been going on throughout my working life, but it's now a major factor in the conduct of economic policy.

In the 1960s, mid 1960s, when I started work, there were fewer than 7 million people aged 65 or over. Today, that number is approaching 14 million, and by 2050, it's forecast to reach almost 19 million. The increase in the over 85 is even more impressive. Over the same period, their number has gone from less than half a million in the mid 60s to almost 2 million today. It's now forecast to reach 4 million by 2050. This is something to celebrate. It was one of the things that we had to keep reminding ourselves in the in the committee.

It's been a remarkable measure of progress that has been going on, but it does have consequences for fiscal policy. Our concern is that despite this success, the proportion of people aged 50 to 65 and this was mentioned by Lord Liddle either working or looking for work, it drops off considerably compared to the cohort, the cohort just before them, the 35 to 50 age group, there has been some noticeable increase in the participation rate over the for the over 65, but it remains quite modest.

And it was these figures and the starkness of this that formed the basis for our report. It is clear that unless working lives are extended, our successors will have to fund many more years of retirement than in the past. The report also emphasises the need to rethink our approach to lifelong financial planning for individuals. This is not just a matter for governments, it's a matter for individuals as well. As has been noted, the committee concluded that from a fiscal point of view, the best response would be an encouraging and incentivising those in their mid 50s to mid 60s to remain active in the workforce.

But this would also require greater recognition, of course, of the valuable contribution experienced people can make to the to the workplace. The issue of the growing number of people requiring health support and social care has been mentioned. As others have noted, the unsatisfactory arrangements for adult social care have been recognised for years, but no policy proposal has received the necessary support. Fundamental questions remain about service provision, our lifetime contributions, how we share costs between the state and the individual, and the potential role for insurance.

Let us hope that Baroness Casey can unlock this puzzle. Finally, there is the question of pensioner incomes, the old system of indexing pensions solely to prices meant pensioners were not automatically benefiting from economic growth. However, the triple lock guarantees the level of pensions will increase faster than earnings over time. But an arbitrary in an arbitrary and random way. This is a problem that must be fixed.
10:31
Lord Bishop of Coventry Portrait The Lord Bishop of Coventry (Bishops)
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I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak on this important issue, and I thank the Economic Affairs and I thank the Economic Affairs Committee for their thorough and timely report. As we consider the prospect of a society where the people of older age vastly outnumber younger people, it's vital that we avoid framing our discussion primarily around the burden of the old to the young. We must continue to emphasise that the value of a person cannot be reduced to their fiscal contribution to the state, though I do very much understand the pressures, as the report rightly notes, increased life expectancy is a welcome gift and one of the considerable achievements of modern society.

I note that when I began ordained ministry in 1997, I was regularly conducting funerals of people in their 60s and 70s and decades on, much more frequently, people in their 80s and 90s. My Lords, I wish to emphasise the way in which other cultures can teach us the value of older age from their perspective. For example, on a trip to Kenya in recent years, I was privileged to share in the birthday celebrations of an 80 year old matriarch of the village and was bestowed the honour of a ceremonial feeding of the first taste of her enormous cake.

I will never forget her jubilation, which was felt across the entire community, present her life in its longevity, intrinsic value and her social contribution was remarkable, and nobody there took that for granted. Sadly, here in the UK, we often speak of and treat older people as an inconvenience to be mitigated, rather than cherishing the wisdom and life experience they bring. As a young priest, I was trained to visit my congregation in their own homes. A practice continued throughout my parochial ministry and to this day, what started as a visit for a cuppa ended with accounts of careers and achievements, such as the invention of the contact lens.

It expeditions to the summit of Everest and a most memorable and gorgeous afternoon with an original character from Call the Midwife. Clearly, the flourishing of our civil society continues to depend on the time, generosity and commitment of older people, many of whom serve as volunteers, carers, mentors, trustees and community leaders in retirement. Without this, many organisations would struggle to survive and function. It is vital that local communities continue to have the support to provide the network of friendship and stimulation that help older people remain connected and appropriately valued as they grow older.

Examples across the country of excellent dementia, cafes, bereavement and other support groups are a lifeline for many. I visited the church run Memory Lane Cafe in Henley in Arden, where the lunch on Christmas Day is oversubscribed, with 100 people attending who were very keen to let me know that it's a much loved annual event. Finally, as the report explores, an ageing population requires a reframed understanding of retirement. An active workforce on which the Church of England depends, and the Bishop. May I say I'm hugely grateful for their commitment.

As we consider the extension of the working life, it's vital that we maintain the safeguards that protect sustainable patterns of work. That said, the challenges facing public finance, health services and social care are acute and must be addressed, and I again thank the Economic Affairs Committee for their work. I would urge the government to ensure that within this work, the value of older age people is not lost. As we prepare for an ageing society, we must not forget such people are not merely recipients of care.

They remain bearers of gifts, contributors to the common good and people of immeasurable worth.
10:34
Lord Reid of Cardowan Portrait Lord Reid of Cardowan (Labour)
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Here. discussing was completed before I joined the Economic Affairs Committee, and therefore I need feel no embarrassment in feel no embarrassment in congratulating the committee on their work. I think it's prescient. I think it's timely. And to put it bluntly, I think it is a stark warning to this government and future governments, which they will ignore at their peril. Lord Liddle has has summarised it very well. The UK is ageing rapidly, a sign of success.

Longer life expectancy is a success, but falling birth rates mean older people will form a larger share of the population and this will cause critical problems. This is on top of the problems we already have for the exponential growth on public expenditure, on welfare, Lord Liddle and Lord Lamont pointed to the crucial paragraph. I won't repeat the statistics, but it illustrated just how far we will have to go to meet the challenges. By 2070 for roughly the next 50 years, and if we don't meet those challenges, we will be in a crisis long before that.

I believe this is a challenge laid out in this report, which no responsible government can refuse to recognise. And there is another warning, as Lord Liddle said, simply increasing the state pension age will not cut the mustard. It will not provide the means to address the challenge which they've outlined. A greater priority should be helping people in their 50s and 60s remain in or return to employment, but this in turn requires better health and social care.

It requires flexible working. It requires reduced age discrimination to bear in mind when next week we discuss the report from the Participation and Retirement Committee and. And it requires opportunities for lifelong learning and retraining. All of these are outlined in this report, and I urge the government to take them more seriously. If I have one disappointment, it is that the report did not, in my view, more forthrightly consider and challenge the triple lock. I believe that is essential.

Absent that analysis in the report, we have to rely on the good services of Lord O'Neill of this House who has been forthright on it. I agree entirely with them, and it will undoubtedly. That issue would have to be part of the deliberations of the recommended Cabinet subcommittee and overall strategy. But overall, the message is simple the UK needs to prepare now. It is already later than it should be to start preparations. Treating longer lives as an opportunity rather than a burden.

And the government cannot say in the months and years to come that

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it wasn't warned. We must move on to the next speaker. Candice, insist again that speaker. Candice, insist again that we keep to the three minutes because every second is extending the the time of the debate. So we

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the the time of the debate. So we just need to keep within the three minutes. Thank you. Hello. I shall do my best. I

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Hello. I shall do my best. I also warmly congratulate the committee and many of the speeches
10:38
Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone Portrait Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Conservative)
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already made set out the situation, the demography and all the rest of it. The United Nations has described population ageing as a defining global trend of our time. The change is taking place here and across the world will transform our workforce, our public services, our pensions and our families. It's worth remembering that when the Queen came to the throne in 1952, she used to send a telegram to everybody reaching a hundred. How many did she send in 1952? 300. And that's the scale of the change.

Sending that many telegrams. Now, it would be difficult to say the least. We have to act now. The greatest improvement to our fiscal outlook won't come from simply increasing the state pension age. It will come, as has been rightly said, from enabling more people in their mid 50s to 60s to remain in work. Healthy life expectancy in the UK has fallen by more than two years in the past decade, as the ONS figure shows, it's its lowest level since the present series began.

A watershed moment. Now I want to refer to Sir Charlie Mayfield's report in Keep Britain, his Keep Britain Working review. We're growing older and living longer, but getting sick sooner, and it's not a problem for the NHS, it's a problem for the economy. He also identifies a profession which gets far too little recognition and understanding and please. They are mentioned in the report and the government response, and that is the occupational health professions. Only 45% of workers had access to an occupational health support in 1924.

In small businesses, just 18%. If we want to keep more people working through ill health or returning afterwards, they are a critical in group of people helping people manage conditions, make adjustments, return after illness and avoid leaving employment altogether. The centre for Ageing Better, who I applaud with their report the looming retirement crisis estimates that more than 900 000 people between 50 and state pension age are out of work, but would like to be working now. I must quickly shoot forward to the triple lock because Lord O'Neill, as has been rightly said, has been forthright.

It's completely bonkers. It's very unfair to younger generations and we've heard more from him this week. But sir Lee Lewis, the distinguished former PM at the Department for Work and Pensions, wrote in The Times recently of all the policies for which he had some responsibility in government, the triple lock was by far the worst left unchanged. It will bankrupt our children and grandchildren. His conclusion was equally clear. Politicians of all parties have a duty to admit that the policy is unaffordable and have to change.

And the other area I look for courage is in social care. The Prime Minister, with his people pleasing approach, has given warm words about social care, but this is an incredibly costly programme. Health care has always been free at the point of use. Social care has always had an assessment of needs, and it's essential that there is a proper expectation of what the reality of a social care programme is going to involve. I hope we could have somebody to produce some coherence in this programme.

I commend the report, I apologise.
10:42
Baroness Wolf of Dulwich Portrait Baroness Wolf of Dulwich (Crossbench)
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My Lords, as a member of the committee which produced this report, I would like to join others in congratulating Lord Wood and also thank putting on record my thanks for his outstanding chairing and my thanks to the committee staff. I want to emphasise one of the major conclusions which Lord Liddle and others have also already highlighted, and which I think was. For many of us, the major new insight, namely, that we must concentrate on raising participation levels of people in their mid 50s.

This is really important. The UK has done pretty well at raising the state pension age, but just putting it up further is not a panacea, as others have already explained, and doing that is very unlikely to increase employment levels. Among the pre-retirement cohort, where many have already dropped out of the labour market. Conversely, raising participation among these 55 to 65 year olds would make a major difference to our economy and to the public finances and also in many cases, to people's physical and mental wellbeing.

Because, as our witnesses confirm time and again, working is really good for people and being unemployed and economically inactive really is not. This country had a good record over the last few decades of providing jobs and keeping formal unemployment down, and there is rightly now concern over the impact of government policy. Both taxes and employment legislation on employers willingness to hire, and especially to hire the young and PA data show a fall of 86,000 Payrolled employees in April to June 26th, workforce data shows, a fall of 97,000 in the year to March 26th.

But although we are very focussed on the immediate problems, if you look at our participation rate participation rates over a longer period, they don't actually look that wonderful. At a time of lengthening life expectancy. It's true that total employment is up, but that's because of the size of the population. Overall employment rates have been pretty static this century. Down a bit for men, up a little bit for women. And unemployment rates, meanwhile, are down because of people simply dropping out of the labour market.

And again, we know and heard from witnesses that if you drop out in mid to late in life, you are very unlikely to return. And meanwhile, part time employment, which is especially attractive to older workers and those with caring responsibilities, has been starting to fall sharply. This is a major challenge for the government. I think it's something which people have not really been aware of. We asked them to set out their policies to look at tax and other incentives. But as Lord Liddle again said, the focus at the moment is very much on the young.

Now the young really matter. But in our ageing society, people in their 50s and 60s matter too.
10:45
Baroness Nargund Portrait Baroness Nargund (Labour)
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I thank my noble friend Lord Liddle for securing this debate and for also his brilliant opening speech. Having written and speech. Having written and campaigned on the issue of declining birth rates since 2009, I will focus my remarks on fertility aspect of this challenge. My Lords, we have had the lowest birth rate last year since 1977. Lord Liddle has already highlighted the statistics about declining birth rates and also the policies tried elsewhere. My Lords, I want to focus on an easy win.

The Department of Education could implement this tomorrow at a minimal cost, to enable our young people to understand what affects their future fertility and how to protect their natural fertility. My Lord, I'm talking about an issue close to my heart that's introducing fertility education in school curriculum. Today, 1 in 7 couples struggle to conceive. I have seen the emotional, physical and financial toll this takes as prospective parents fight for years to realise their dreams of holding their baby.

In many cases, if these patients had better knowledge about their own reproductive health, the hardship of IVF and infertility could have been avoided within the education system. We need to teach both boys and girls in their late teens to understand the impact of their age and lifestyle choices they make on their future fertility. My Lords, in this age of social media, we know more young men are looking to perfect their image online, but performance enhancing drugs, including anabolic steroids and non-prescribed testosterone, can severely affect their fertility, not to mention the risks of smoking excessive alcohol intake.

Moreover, young women need to be aware that if they become underweight with restrictive diet and excessive exercise to achieve a certain appearance, their hormonal and bone health could be affected and their future fertility. And also they need to know about the family history of menopause and its impact on their own age of menopause. My Lords, we are failing to educate young people about their future fertility. I urge my noble friend, the Minister, to meet with me to discuss how to develop modules in the curriculum for fertility education that teach students about how to protect their natural fertility, and also change their lifestyle.

My Lords, I have tried this. I introduced fertility education modules in some London schools, but I have failed in getting that into the curriculum. Now is not the time to sit on our hands and argue that demographic shift is our destiny. It is the time for fertility education and for more babies.
10:48
Lord Redwood Portrait Lord Redwood (Conservative)
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My Lords, I was happy to support. Previous conservative governments Previous conservative governments in implementing the triple lock, and I support the current government in honouring its promise. This has been a useful policy in reducing pensioner poverty. As one of the members of this House probably. Keenness to control public spending. I'm very conscious of cost and I have regularly recommended that we should raise the state retirement age, which gives you a substantial reduction and I think is a fair way of achieving the savings.

It is also very much in the spirit of this report, which I welcome, which is that people in their 60s, unless there is disability or a serious health problem, should be encouraged to work, and they will probably have richer lives as a result. And this is now possible because life expectancy is greater than when the lower state retirement pension ages were first set. And more importantly, I think there are now very few people who have hard manual work. And clearly you needed a much lower retirement age because people cannot continue now.

People have so much hydraulics and automation and robotics, it is much more feasible to carry on working for longer. And really, the most powerful muscle pressure you now need is the ability to make sure your fingers can press a touchscreen, and you are then able to do most of the interesting jobs in our community. Those who who wish to abolish the triple lock or make other changes to the pension arrangements, I think would be well advised to remind themselves that the pension is not a welfare benefit.

It is an entitlement based on contributions to the National Insurance Scheme. Now, of course, that can all be changed, but it would require complex legislation, a lot of political argument, and no government to this day has been willing to attempt that, because I suspect it would be very unpopular with the public. But the contributory principle to me is fundamental, because it shows that people have to work, they have to pay national insurance. And of course, there is an annual sign off of the fund with a review.

It is a pay as you go fund. It's not an endowment fund. And it embodies embodies a very important contract between generations. So the working generation says they will pay for their parents generation on the basis that their children, when they are working, will then pay for them. I don't want to disturb that social contract between generations. I want to keep the contributory principle. You get something for something and I do not want to take away the triple lock. I think that would be a great pity.
10:51
Lord Turnbull Portrait Lord Turnbull (Crossbench)
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Yes. >> We have two related debates in successive weeks. Next week we debate the issue of long term debt. This week we address one of the main drivers of that an ageing population. The main elements of this are well known older people putting more less into the exchequer and requiring more assistance from it. The sharp decline in the fertility rate in midlife, the shape of careers, is changing. The old model of education to, say, 16 or 1840 plus years of work, followed by retirement.

15 years has largely broken down. Young people are staying in education longer and taking longer to find settled employment. Taken together, these developments are producing a sharp rise in the dependency ratio, leading to severe pressures on public finances. The EBacc report looked at these developments and possible responses. It took the view that there has been significant change in the in the pension age, and often going further than other countries, but the scope for further rises is small. One change that should be made now partly Lord Redwood, is the abolition of the triple lock, which is frankly idiotic.

Instead of a considered decision on how overtime pensions should rise relative to prices or earnings, we have a chaotic system generating random windfall gains, and they always gains according to the movement of earnings and prices in particular years, and the OBR has estimated that this could cost an extra 2% of GDP. The report is rightly sceptical that the government that the government should try or is able to influence the birth rate. We could permit greater immigration. But not only is this politically sensitive, the effect may only be short term, as eventually immigrants adopt the work and family patterns of the host nation.

This leaves two areas where government action can be justified. The one emphasised most strongly in the report is trying to improve the participation rate in the 50 to 6570 age range. Technological change is affecting how long people's jobs last. Someone may find that the line of work they've been in for 30 years has ceased to exist, and therefore they're likely to need help to change jobs and skills to find new work. Another issue which gets less prominence in the report is that many young people are finding it difficult, after completing education and training to find fulfilling jobs.

This is seen in the rise of the so-called NEETs to over 1 million, and it should be a priority to bring this number down. The policy response has been precisely the opposite of what is needed. Young people need incentives, mentoring and advice to help them into work, and we are in fact consigning them to the dead end world of disability benefits. The course we are now on makes summer reading, and there'll be more of that next week. But we can. We are not without responses, which could improve matters, and I hope we will take them up with a matter of urgency.
10:54
Lord Davies of Brixton Portrait Lord Davies of Brixton (Labour)
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I welcome the Economic Affairs Committee report. I was, of course, a member of the committee, as can a member of the committee, as can be seen of you, most members will know that you don't necessarily agree with everything in a report when you sign off. But in fact, reading the report, I'm quite surprised how much of it I actually agree with. I thank my noble friend Lord Liddle for his introduction, but I must pick him up. He twice used the word crisis in relation to the challenges of an ageing society.

The report specifically did not use the word crisis, and that's because, unlike financial and geopolitical shocks, demographic shifts are slow moving and quantifiable decades in advance. The committee's own projections run to 2074, and the key trends falling fertility, rising life expectancy are already fully visible in the data. That is an advantage. Policy can be phased rather than improvised, and institutions can adjust incrementally rather than under duress. There is also a precedent. Britain absorbed the post-war baby boom boom generation into education, housing, employment and eventually pension systems.

Over several decades, life expectancy has risen substantially across the whole of the 20th century, and retirement provision was adapted accordingly, however imperfectly. I'm going to dodge the issue of the triple lock, except to say, somewhat to my surprise, that I totally agree with the remarks of the noble Lord. Lord report gets it exactly right. We need a proper debate rather than on the triple lock. The specific levers identified in the report encouraging workforce participation, addressing the social care shortfall, improving productivity, expanding skills training and tackling misplaced assumptions about age and capability.

Are policy choices not fixed constraints? What the report identifies is missing is not the capacity to respond, but sustained political attention. The absence of a published government strategy or forum for addressing ageing as a standing priority. This is a remedial deficiency given the lead times available and a demonstrated historical capacity to absorb comparable transitions. The present challenge of an ageing society is not one without a solution, but one of sequencing and will. My Lords, in the time available, I will just make two suggestions and I hope to keep within the three minutes by doing so.

The first is, I can dispose of very quickly. It is to add my voice to those of others who have urged getting rid of the triple lock. This innovation was triple lock. This innovation was much needed when it was introduced, but it
10:57
10:59
Lord Kakkar Portrait Lord Kakkar (Crossbench)
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My Lord. thanking the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, for the very thoughtful way in which he introduced this important report and in so doing declare my own interests as chairman of the office for the Strategic Coordination of Health Research. My Lords, this is not the first report of a Select Committee of your Lordships House that has identified important and common challenges attending ageing. A report in 2013 by a Select Committee on Public Service and Demographic Change, and then two committees chaired by my noble friend Lord Patel on the sustainability of the NHS and adult social care in 2016 2017, and then a Science and Technology Committee report on the science of ageing in 2021 reached remarkably similar conclusions.

As the noble Lord Lord Liddle has said, the increase in longevity is to be seen quite rightly as a tremendous success. But the real peril is the fact that healthy lifespan has not increased at the same rate, and that more and more of our population will be living with multiple co-morbidities and ill health for an extended period of time. That puts unsustainable pressure on the provision of health care, and it must now be addressed. 13 years of addressing this issue in your Lordships House has been attended by no meaningful government intervention, and action and action is now urgently required, and there is good basis to act, because the science of ageing is now far better understood.

The biological processes are better understood. We are now able to identify biomarkers associated with chronic inflammation that attend the development of many co-morbidities, and therefore, in the fullness of time, in short time, we should be able to develop strategies to identify early in life those individuals at high risk for the development of multiple co-morbidities later in life, and intervene in those in a targeted and precision way to reduce the occurrence of those diseases that in time will have a substantial impact on reducing the burden in the National Health Service.

That burden manifesting itself not only in the need to deliver care, but, of course, an ever increasing proportion of the population needing to deliver those services rather than being economically active in other parts of the economy. But all of this requires a holistic strategy to be delivered somewhere in government that brings the elements of government together and, most importantly, ensures that elements attending the delivery of health care reflect the complexity of managing health in an ageing population, the need to ensure that those challenges are addressed appropriately for individuals, as well as across communities and more broadly in the system, and that their substantial investment to ensure that the move to prevention is properly financed.

Now, rather than being talked about as a future

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requirement. The ageing problems begin during

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The ageing problems begin during childhood and are incubated by poor government policies. A June 2026 government policies. A June 2026 paper in Nature Human Behaviour noted that consequences of poverty, noted that consequences of poverty, inequality and discrimination accelerated biological ageing from accelerated biological ageing from a very young age. Adults enduring childhood economic deprivation age at a significantly accelerated biological pace. Even if they achieve financial security in later life. Many need support austerity, real wage and benefit cuts, and degradation of the NHS deprive people of nutritious food, good housing, health care and possibilities of working until a later age.

Regressive tax system prevents the poor from saving for old age. The poorest 20% pay a higher proportion of income in direct and indirect taxes than the richest 20%. The income tax personal allowance has been frozen at £12,570 since 2021. If it increased in line with inflation, it would now be £16,070. As a result, someone earning just £17,000 this year will be paying 1000 more in income tax and national insurance. 39% of adults in UK have savings of less than £1,000.

Millions are simply can't save for old age. Premature biological ageing prevents people from working until a later age. 7.27 million hospital appointments are awaited, fuelling rise in chronic illness and disabilities. The average healthy life expectancy has declined to 60.7 years for males and 60.9 years for females. In parts of Blackpool, it is 50.9 years for males and 51.2 years of females. In parts of Scotland, it is 44.8 years for males and 44.2 years for females.

How are you going to get the people round? About the age of 50 to work is hard to know. Calls for educating younger people about the financial
11:05
11:06
Baroness Penn Portrait Baroness Penn (Conservative)
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I am grateful to the Economic Affairs Committee for this report, and it reminds us that an ageing and it reminds us that an ageing society is not simply about older people, it's about how we structure our whole lives and how that may need to change in future. And so I wanted to touch on two points. First, on pensions, where I welcome the work of the Pensions Commission. But whilst we await its final report, there are three issues that I would welcome the government's thoughts on.

The first is how we build a stronger culture of investment more broadly. For most people, pensions are their main exposure to the stock market, and outside of that, too many people still default to cash saving, missing out on longer term growth. The second is the gender pensions gap amongst 55 to 59 year olds. The commission finds a 48% gap in private pension wealth. And this is not primarily because women contribute less when they are saving into a pension.

But but they are more likely to work part time, earn less and take time out for caring. So how is the government considering pensions alongside women's labour market participation? And the third is public service pensions, which are firmly beyond the commission's remit, where the committee heard evidence about pension cliff edges discouraging people from potentially working longer and more broadly. I think we need to ask ourselves whether we have the balance right across the whole life course, particularly when people in their 20s, 30s and 40s face pressures to buy a home or pay for childcare.

While some pension schemes provide a substantially greater amount of security in retirement, does the government have a clear assessment of both the affordability of these pension schemes and the incentives that they create? And the second area I wanted to touch on is fertility, where I agree with the noble Baroness opposite. We should not treat this as a lost cause. And looking at the evidence to the committee and beyond, I'm not advocating for one off incentives or baby bonuses where the evidence is weak, but there is evidence to say that fertility does respond to economic confidence.

If you look at UK fertility rates, they rose through the 2000 before falling off after the financial crisis and never really recovering. So growth must be part of the answer. But that is beyond a three minute speech. However, research by Dad, Shift and Movember found that 57% of fathers say that financial insecurity after their first child holds them back from having more eligibility for paternity leave. And the levels of pay in the UK are almost uniquely low compared to other developed economies.

So I'd like to ask the noble Lord, the Minister, what the government's approach to the review of parental leave are under this Prime Minister, where that review is due to conclude by the end of the year, even if you don't think that it would impact fertility, the strong evidence to show that better leave for dads increases mothers and overall labour market participation. That matters doubly in an ageing society, where strengthening workforce participation now and helping to close the gender pay gap in future.

So these issues are related and I hope the government treats them as such.
11:09
Lord Macpherson of Earl's Court Portrait Lord Macpherson of Earl's Court (Crossbench)
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Thank you. Committee on some first rate analysis. An ageing population has been long foreseen and long debated. Very occasionally governments have taken action. I recall working on the reforms to SERPs introduced by my noble friend Lord Fowler in the 1980s. But for the most part, governments have preferred to shelve decisions on the many reports they have commissioned. The result is the cost of ageing is rising inexorably. The OBR estimates that age related spending will rise from 26% of national income to some 35% in 2075.

We can fantasise about financing these pressures through spending cuts elsewhere. But even if we abolished all expenditure on working age and children's benefits, that would only relieve half the pressure from age related spending. Demographic pressures are already resulting in cuts to pay for the ever increasing proportion of spending accounted for by pensions and the NHS. Successive governments have had to cut unprotected programmes such as prisons, police and local government. The report describes the failure to solve the social care crisis as a scandal.

But if those unlucky enough to require paid care are not going to pay for it, somebody else is. And that means the taxpayer. We need we need to face up to this fact. I have long argued the case for a health and social care levy. Everybody should pay it. Young and old alike, and it should be payable on dividends and rents as well as earnings for all of six months. Thanks to Messrs Johnson and Sunak, I got my wish. Sadly, it's collision with the one tax cut which survived the Kwarteng Truss budget of 2022.

At some point it is going to have to be reinstituted. But raising taxes has its limits. The triple lock will have to go. At the very least, the state pension should rise no faster than the post tax earnings of those in work. And we will have to take another look at the Winter fuel payment and universal benefits such as free travel. Support for pensioners needs to be targeted at those who need it most. A rising proportion of the elderly are relatively affluent.

More than 1 million pensioners pay the higher rate of income tax, conceivably, higher growth may yet come to our rescue, though I rather doubt it. I was encouraged by the new minister's remarks on economic strategy on Tuesday. I wish him well in solving these problems, which have proven intractable for too long.
11:11
Baroness McGregor-Smith Portrait Baroness McGregor-Smith (Non-affiliated)
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My Lords, I begin by congratulating the Economic Affairs congratulating the Economic Affairs Committee on its excellent report. One passage of the report particularly struck me, and that was paragraph 40, which, in discussing the implications of an ageing society, Richard Hughes of the OBR highlighted the pressures that demographic change will place on the public finances. Those pressures are real and they cannot be ignored. Yet I am concerned when older people are viewed principally through the lens of cost and also dependency.

Too often the debate focuses on what older people will require rather than what they can continue to contribute. Older people or workers, carers, volunteers, mentors, entrepreneurs and taxpayers. Their contribution to our economy and to our communities is immense. We should therefore view an ageing society not simply as a challenge to be managed, but as an opportunity to be embraced. Having spent all of my career in UK and global businesses, I've seen first hand that experienced employees bring great experience, judgements and also great resilience.

Too many people, however, leave the workforce not because they wish to, but because poor health, caring responsibilities or inflexible employment practices make it difficult for them to remain. My Lords, I have three requests today to make to support businesses and business growth. Firstly, on health, healthier lives shift more resources from treating ill health to preventing it. We need a national focus on healthy life expectancy with prevention, physical activity including strength training and healthier ageing recognised as investments that reduce future pressure on both the NHS and also the public finances.

Secondly, on skills we need to support a genuinely lifelong approach to learning apprenticeships. Retraining in digital skills should be accessible throughout anyone's full and longer working life. The apprenticeship levy should be fundamentally reviewed to ensure it is sufficiently flexible for an economy being transformed by AI and longer careers. We should remember that the apprenticeship levy was devised well before we even discussed generative AI and energetic AI. Thirdly, on employment make increasing employment among older workers a clear economic priority.

Greater flexibility. Phased retirement and stronger occupational health provision would enable more people to remain economically active for longer. And let us not forget, 40% of our construction workers will be retiring in the next decade. And if we are serious about building homes and building infrastructure, we really will need more. My Lords, the most sustainable response to an ageing society is to improve healthy life expectancy, strengthen productivity and enable more people to remain active contributors for longer. This will reduce the pressure on our public finances and it will support business growth.

I welcome this report and look forward to the government's response.
11:14
Lord Willetts Portrait Lord Willetts (Conservative)
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My Lords, a strong. >> My Lords, a strong. >> Theme in this excellent report. >> Is the importance. Of people

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Is the importance. Of people aged over 80/50 remaining in the workforce. The other NEETs and the challenge in the report is clear. Perhaps I can make to the Minister one specific budget representation on this issue at the moment. People with pension savings can access them without losing any tax reliefs from the age of 55. The government is already planning to increase that to the age of 57. I think the report makes a strong case actually for increasing that age to 60.

And will the Minister consider that option? Secondly, as we make progress on improving participation in the workforce, I do think that the issue of the pension age comes up and it is striking. The pension age is currently from April of this year. The pension age has started increasing from 66 to 67, with no fuss and no dispute. Beyond that, there is an option of increasing the pension age to 68. The government commissioned its obligatory review of the pension age from Susie Morrissey.

It has had that report for several months. It is absurd that we in this chamber are discussing this issue, and the government has still not published that report. Can the Minister give the House an assurance that it will be published urgently, so it can inform debates such as the one that we are currently having? Finally, and very briefly, I must say, as this is a report about long term trends, I was surprised that there was no reference to the most significant long term technological trends, notably the developments in robotics.

And it is striking when you look around the world, the countries facing the most significant demographic crises are Japan, Korea, China, Italy are also the world leaders in robotics. This is part of their strategy. I should declare an interest. Chairing the Regulatory Innovation Office, a government body that looks at regulatory barriers to new technologies. But you don't need to read my reports on the issue. I strongly recommend the BBC series Android, which identifies one possible scenario which could be in existence by the time by the dates which this report discusses.

I personally don't think we're likely to have one single humanoid robot doing everything, but I can absolutely envisage robots interacting with lonely older people because with with indefinite time to give to their attention, robots assisting with physical social care. And so may I urge that the Minister also incorporates technological possibilities in any considerations of ageing society.
11:17
Lord Best Portrait Lord Best (Crossbench)
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Lord Sewell my comments. >> Lord Sewell my comments. >> On this excellent report concern a missing ingredient, an omission in the report. This is the role in the report. This is the role played by housing policies in preparation for demographic change. I'm not seeking to make the case here for private and public investment in more manageable, accessible, right sized accommodation that enhances health and wellbeing, saves NHS and social care budgets, and releases family homes for the next generation. That job has been done so well by the older People's Housing Task Force of 2024.

I'm referring to what we choose to do about housing policy today that has profound economic implications for both helping pay for our long lives for some, and conversely, adding appreciably to the cost of our long lives for others. 75% of pensioners are home owners. Most pensioners will have paid off their mortgage. Their incomes in older age go much further because they're not having to spend a large proportion of their income paying the rent. Most of accumulated a tax free capital gain.

Today's pensioner owner occupiers hold approximately £3 trillion in housing equity. This accumulation of significant resources has implications, of course, for the debate on paying for care costs and Baroness Casey current review. However, for pensioners in the private rented sector and particularly for retirees pre pension age in the private rented sector, there is serious trouble ahead here. Rents that start out at one third or so of earned income will absorb a much higher proportion of post retirement income.

In many cases, the impact of the increasing rent is likely to trigger an eligibility for housing benefit. The IFS estimates that the already massive housing Benefit Bill, currently around 38 billion per annum, will rise dramatically as a result of the switch from younger people buying to private renting. Home ownership is down from 71% to 65%. The prediction is that the housing benefit bill will rise to over £70 billion in the years ahead. Much of the increase necessary to support the pensioners.

My Lords, it is housing tenure beneficial for homeowners, highly problematic for private sector tenants. That will make a massive difference to the wealth and living standards of older people, and the cost of an ageing population to society at large. I strongly recommend another inquiry by our excellent Economic Affairs Committee to cover this bit.
11:20
Baroness Coffey Portrait Baroness Coffey (Conservative)
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The challenges. already been made that you thought you might cover, and the noble Lord Lord Best has just made one of them. It is one of my biggest concerns about the increasing cost, and actually one of the reasons why I kept trying to encourage the government to abandon its ideology about not being able to buy your own home from housing associations or from councils, because is that we are reaching that tipping point of where the costs are going to rise significantly as we see less home owner ownership.

My noble friend Baroness Neville-rolfe was appointed by me to do the previous pension age, looking into that report and I thought it was we do have to reach some kind of consensus on what is an acceptable proportion of income compared to earnings in order to reach a proper, settled way that we can take forward. It is it was the 2007 act brought in by the Labour government then, but enacted by the coalition government in 2011 that reinstated the link to earnings.

And we have a variety of views on what that particular pinch point should be, or the ideal point for it to be. And that is the sort of thing that I hope the Pensions Commission will settle. I think sometimes the triple lock gets blamed for a lot of things. I think to some extent it's I would I would actually probably prefer some kind of double lock. The 2.5% probably seemed the right thing at the time in order to achieve the policy outcome of getting pensions as a proportion of earnings up more quickly.

And it's achieved that, I think, by and large. But as a consequence, it's been used about four times and only twice, though in an artificially high way compared to some of the other changes on earnings and inflation. And indeed, as as the Cabinet Minister at the time, we did take the proactive decision on two occasions, one, when the earnings link legislation would have allowed would have made a freeze in state pension. We changed that for a year. And then we also changed the earnings link.

Remove that for a year. That in itself, just in one year, saved £4.5 billion and about £30 billion over the next five years. So it does show that some quite modest changes can have significant consequences for the public finance. But the other element of this very interesting report that I thought was useful was about thinking about working. Now, one of the best employers are a lot more flexible. And I do want to encourage the government to think again as it brings forward its regulations, its guidance about what it's really doing.

You know, we remove the default pension age at retirement age. This was again, designed to make life more flexible for people. The other key element, I saw it with my own late mother. Covid had a massive impact on old people in terms of they just didn't really get moving. And I saw her muscles atrophy. We need to have a proactive occupational health, but a health service. And I would welcome health visitors for pensioners, not just for children.
11:24
Baroness Thornton Portrait Baroness Thornton (Labour)
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Lord Sewell. Earlier this week, >> Lord Sewell. Earlier this week, I. Was pondering which aspect of this most impressive report on ageing. I might usefully make a small contribution. And as a relatively new chair of Sky, which is the Social Care Institute for excellence. It seemed important to make the links between the new enthusiasm that we have now with our new Prime Minister and the reform of social care and this debate, the reform of social care being a much wider issue, obviously, than just social care, because it did with young people, disabled people, those with learning and mental health challenges and so on.

But the interface between health and social care is undoubtedly a facet in this debate. However, lo and behold, the BBC bless them, their radio programme radical gave me an answer, featuring, as it did Professor Sarah Harper, professor of Gerontology at Oxford and indeed a witness and contributor to the considerations of this report. Like my noble friend Lord Reid and indeed the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Coventry, she challenges the widespread belief that ageing populations are primarily a social and economic burden, arguing instead that longer lives and represent one of humanity's greatest achievements and an opportunity to rethink how society is organised.

And is this report does she explains why many of the pressures associated with ageing society stem from institutions which were designed for a different era? It's kind of obvious, really. And she argued that our welfare systems, labour markets and expectations around retirement no longer reflect the realities of modern life. Where people are living longer, healthier lives often and more than previous generations. Indeed. So I think that's a note of optimism, and I think that's what we need to inject into this debate.

And in fact, many of the contributions that we've had this morning do exactly that. And I think that also the fact that the government needs to grasp this and run with it, and indeed to bring forward a much bigger strategy, needs to be done in the face of optimism for our society and its future. I mean, I think we look around this House and look at all the age profile that we have. Here. We are, I think, an excellent example.

And of course, we are greatly privileged, no doubt about that at all, and greatly supported. But indeed, up to I think about my noble friend Lord dubs at 92 or 3, still here, still leading great things in this House. And so I think we need to see this as an opportunity to, to build a richer society, which takes into account the things in this report to do with economic health, social care, and the changes that are necessary. But particularly it's about the culture and how we regard older people and the value we place on them.

So I look at this report as a start of an optimistic debate, which I hope will lead to greater things.
11:27
Baroness Meyer Portrait Baroness Meyer (Conservative)
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My Lords are people over 85 are the fastest growing population segment. This. But we are also having far fewer children. This is a problem as this excellent report has highlighted, the committee doubts that financial incentives can reverse fertility falls in fertility. I do not entirely agree. From the 1950s, successive French governments developed a strong pro-family system with tax advantages and practical benefits aimed at larger families. It worked. France had the highest fertility rate in Western Europe.

Today, France has not escaped the recent decline, but its fertility remains higher than ours. At 1.56 per woman. The government can create an environment in which it is easier for people to have more children. Higher taxes, housing and child care has made it harder to start a family. Just when fertility drastically declines with age. The centre for Social Justice estimates that 3 million women may remain childless. It calls them Britain's missing mothers. Not wanting children is a choice.

Wanting them but being unable to afford them is a problem. And my Lords, there is another worrying statistics. In 2023, almost 1 in 3 conceptions ended in abortion, the highest proportion on record. Yet the government has recently removed women from the criminal law relating to their own abortions at any stage of gestation. And then there is the other problem, which has been addressed by many noble Lords, is of intergenerational fairness. And immigration is not the answer.

As Professor Andrew Scott told the committee, immigration may buy time, but it does not solve the fundamental problem. Immigrants grow older too. So instead of all this, what we need is a fundamental change in our attitude towards ageing. Retirements should not be seen as a finishing line. We should encourage people to remain active, engaged and useful for longer. As we said before, look at this chamber. Maybe members. Many members are well beyond conventional retirement age.

This is a perfect example, and we should stop treating older people as a cost and recognise them as an underused resource. This week, 84 year old actor Peter Marinker, recently diagnosed with Alzheimer, is performing. Samuel Beckett Knapp. Krapp's Last Tape alone on the London stage. What better example? So what steps will the government take to change our attitude towards older people, and will it consider reducing taxes and improving housing and family policies to make it easier for people to have children?
11:30
Baroness Prashar Portrait Baroness Prashar (Crossbench)
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I commend the Economic. >> I commend the Economic. >> Affairs Committee for producing this report. >> And thank Lord Liddle for his

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And thank Lord Liddle for his comprehensive introduction. The Committee. Has offered a sobering assessment of our inadequate preparedness for an ageing society, and I fully endorse the recommendations of this report, particularly the emphasis on supporting those in their mid 50s and 60s to remain in work or return to work, and also their call to address the crisis of adult social care. It is, however, regrettable that the government's response does not grasp the strategic direction recommended in this report, nor the committee's call for act now.

I declare my interest as an ambassador for the Age Irrelevance campaign, which was built on the on on the vision of the late Baroness Healy Greengross, a lifelong campaigner for age inclusion. The campaign's push for inclusive language of era of longevity as opposed to an ageing society, captures the need for a holistic approach and the pressing need for younger generations to invest in their own longevity, both from a financial and health aspect. And if we are to move from the idea of an ageing society is a burden that will deplete resources.

We need to look it at as a multi-stage life. We need to move away from the narrative, which creates intergenerational division and resentment and resentment to one which is designed to create systems that allow people to contribute to society in different ways and at different stages of their life. And to achieve this, we need an integrated approach with a positive narrative that shows determination to benefit from the demographic shift and and maximise the opportunities it offers. And if the pension imperative is that people must work longer than this can only be achieved, it is supported by a national housing strategy mentioned by Lord the noble Lord Lord Best, which supports right sizing near places of work enabled by progressive models to promote work and healthy long lives and longer working lives, can only be achieved if is underpinned with a focus on healthy living, healthy ageing, prevention and understanding of healthy living and healthy lifestyles as from early stages and in preparing for longer lives.

Financial planning should be mandated in the educational curriculum, and we also need employers to actively support longer careers and changing working patterns, and the government should also place a place, lifelong learning at the heart of education, and, of course, continue to ensure digital inclusion and use of innovation technology to achieve this. My Lords, the urgent engagement with this issue, the urgent engagement with the issues raised in this report are very important, and I look forward to an encouraging response from the noble Lord, the Minister.
11:34
Lord Razzall Portrait Lord Razzall (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lords, if I can join. Committee in thanking our recently departed chair, Lord wood, who was an excellent chair, as we've all agreed. I have only one tiny criticism about his chairmanship and his drafting of this report, and as I speak, as the one of the tenders of the Asquithian flame on these benches, if you look at the report clearly, it does actually say that in 1909, when the old age pensions were introduced, they were introduced by Lloyd George as Prime Minister.

They weren't. They were introduced by Lloyd George as Chancellor, Exchequer and Asquith was Prime Minister. So I do want to get that on. I do want to get that onto the record. Now, many people may have thought that, as the majority of the committee were over 80 when we decided to do this, that's why we chose to choose a report on the ageing society. I have to say that was not the case. We chose to do it because this, as a number of noble Lords have indicated, and certainly Lord Liddle did in his wonderful opening speech, is a serious issue facing our country.

I think one of the things that nobody touched on apart from Baroness Bottomley is that we're not the only country facing these issues. If I can take take three of them, Italy is the worst or best, whichever way you look at it. Country in Europe for these problems, probably because it's a well known Roman Catholic country. They've got the lowest rate of fertility. Japan further away has a massive problem which will result in the reduction of population of Japan.

And the best view about what's happened to Japan is because they've had no immigration, as a result of which their population is shrinking. And then, of course, the obvious problem country with a problem is China, because that's what happens if you have a one child policy, it comes back to bite you in future years. Now, I think our committee was extremely strong on what we don't believe the solutions are. First of all, fertility. Now, as Lord Liddle indicated in his opening remarks, we do not we did not believe that doing anything about fertility would be enough to solve the problem.

Now, I know Baroness Nargund had some solutions. I know Baroness Meyer disagreed, but we weren't saying that doing something about fertility would not have some impact. We were saying that doing anything about fertility would not have an impact in the time frame to solve the problem. The second, second issue that we thought was not would would not solve the problem is immigration. As a noble Lord Liddle and noble Lord Turnbull indicated, well, whatever we did about immigration, we do not believe that that would have would have have an opportunity in the time frame to do anything about it.

Thirdly, we do not think that what appears to be the government issue, which is if only we did something about productivity, then that would solve the problem. Because despite endless government attempts to do something about productivity over the last 14 to 16 years, there doesn't seem any evidence that we've done anything about it. So we don't believe that that will that will cause the problem. Now, as far as pensions are concerned, we did look at pensions as we see.

We certainly looked at the question of an increase in the suspension in the in the starting pension age. And as the noble Lord Liddle, Lord Reid and Baroness Wolf indicated, we again thought that it was too late to to have a massive impact by increasing the state pension age. I know I think Lord, Lord Redwood and Lord Willis probably disagree, but that was our conclusion. Now we didn't. As readers of the report will indicate, look at the triple lock.

Now, I think this debate today probably indicates why we didn't look at the triple lock, because it's clearly a highly controversial topic. On the one hand, we had Lord Reid Baroness Bottomley, Lord Turnbull Lord Hogan-Howe and Lord Macpherson all indicating they thought keeping the triple lock was silly. On the other hand, we had Lord Redwood indicating quite the opposite point of view, and I think Lord Davies of Brixton thinks we certainly should not do anything about it without a proper debate.

So I think for that reason we rather wisely kept off kept off in the report. The issue of the triple lock. But as noble Lords will realise, we believe that the magic bullet, to the extent there is a magic bullet, is to do something about getting people aged between 50 and 65, either staying in work or getting back into work. And as a number of noble Lords have indicated, there are a number of reasons why they leave work. They're not the noble Lord Liddle Lord Lamont Lord Hogan-Howe all indicated that people stay in or don't work because they have caring responsibilities.

Lord Liddle was the only person to say what I think is of very often the case, that it actually made enough money so they don't have to work, and that has an impact impact on our on our society. And then thirdly, obviously people have made the obvious point. Lord Tugendhat and Baroness Bottomley that there are health concerns quite often. And Baroness Bottomley, I thought, had some interesting suggestions as to what might be done to help that. Now. Lord Liddle also drew attention to the fact that it's not only what's happened at the top end that is relevant, it's also what's happening at the bottom end.

If, unless we do something, as the Milburn report has indicated, to bring young people back into the workplace, that will not help in providing the revenue necessary to support, support the elderly, and I would certainly support, as indeed the committee would, that it requires action. Now, I'll just finally say, and I think here I think Lord Liddle Lord Davies of Brixton Brixton both articulated it. If you read the government report to in response to what our report said, I think at best it's disappointing and at worst it's very disappointing.

So I hope in replying the noble, the Minister can do a bit better.
11:41
Baroness Neville-Rolfe Portrait Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Conservative)
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My Lords. >> And timely report. It continues, I would say the tradition of high quality reports from the Economic Affairs Committee, and I'd like to share the tributes to Lord Wood of Anfield in his role as chair, and to Lord Liddle for his clear and compelling opening speech, and indeed to the clerks who have supported the Committee. This excellent report sets out with clarity the scale of the demographic challenge facing the country. The UK is ageing rapidly, birth rates have fallen to historic lows and the implications for our labour market are tax base and our public finances are profound.

Lord Liddle and my noble friend Lord Lamont were right to emphasise the consequences for fiscal sustainability and to quote the OBR in telling us that on current forecasts, debt would rise to an unimaginable 270%. My noble friend Lord Willetts emphasised the possibilities of technology and robotics in heading this off, and many noble Lords have rightly focussed on the need to increase employment rates in the 50s and 60s, and that's a theme I'll return to later.

We also heard from many of the need for transformation of adult care, and I think we all wish Baroness Casey great success. There's been a debate about pensions summarised by by, by by noble, the noble Lord Lord Razzall, and articulated very well by my noble friend Baroness Coffey from her experience at DWP. But a lack of agreement indeed on the. With the triple lock set out. The arguments for that were set out very clearly and well by my noble friend Lord Redwood, and I thought my noble friend Lady Bottomley was right to mention the value of occupational health, which.

Which is something I agree with from my own business experience. Now. It's only possible in the time available to cover a few points, and I will try not to repeat what has already been said, but I would like to draw attention to the government's response, which, unlike the noble Lord Lord Razzall, I think is a respectable one. Although sometimes ideology is over influential. So at the top of page 12 to halving the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and the poorest.

This is foolish. The government's ambition should be to improve health, life expectancy for everyone, especially the least fortunate. We do not want the gap to be narrowed simply by reducing healthy life expectancy among the rich. It's clear from the report that the problems of our ageing society would be much reduced if we could get our birth rate back up to the replacement rate. Although all countries have found this difficult, more efforts should be made. It's not a lost cause.

As my noble friend Lady Penn explained, my own view is that more help with nursery provision could make a big difference. Having a child care system largely geared to school hours and school terms may be convenient to teach us, but it makes it very difficult for most working parents. They do it better elsewhere, not only in Scandinavia but also in the United States and indeed in France, which was described by my noble friend Lady Muir.

And I know, I know that from experience of family members in those countries, the noble Lady, Lady Nagel, explained that people also need to be taught more about fertility and, of course, the shift to starting families later can lead to lower replacement rates. Otherwise, the best way to mitigate the problems that have been outlined in this important report is to conjure up more economic growth. The then chief Secretary, James Murray, described this in his response letter as the central mission of the government.

It is one of the best ways out of the dilemmas described and indeed many of the other problems we face. Unfortunately, many of the actions taken by this government have reduced growth. Examples include the effective ban on new drilling in the North Sea, leaving Norway to grow instead. That and other policies have led to the highest electricity prices in the developed world. These have ruined car and cement industries and hit data centres which support AI, one of the key new avenues of growth.

And we've seen a disastrous attack on large and small businesses. A £25 billion hit on NICs, a very high minimum wage, especially for the young, and an Employment Rights Act, whose damaging consequences become more apparent by the day. So I would urge the government not to launch another attack on wealth creators, on the budget, in the budget on October 28th. I think improving productivity can also contribute. It was rightly on the noble Lord Lord Razzall list, and I'm more optimistic than he is about the scope for improving productivity.

If we follow the right policies. Now, demography is not only about births and deaths or indeed immigration. We face a worrying trend of entrepreneurs and younger talent emigrating because of high taxation and growing burdens on business. If we want people to work longer to invest more and innovate here in Britain, we must stop making it harder for them to do so. So I ask the Minister for reassurance. How does the government intend to reverse the outflow of skilled, ambitious workers who are essential to sustaining our future tax and reporting and supporting our ageing population? We also need a national conversation about retirement expectations.

Too many assume the system will simply provide. Yet in reality, given the demographic realities, younger workers will need to save more for longer and will almost certainly retire later. There are two mitigations in the report that I would like to highlight. In conclusion. The first is to join others in persuading those able to do so to work for longer and allowing them to do that. People live much longer than they did, but a much smaller part of their life is spent in work than when pensions were devised.

It's too easy for many of those contributing to the economy to retire early. My father's farming business failed when he was in his 40s, but he retrained and he worked into his 70s. We need more of this, and not only in the House of Lords. To achieve this, we need to call out the culture of age discrimination that I was shocked to discover when preparing my review of the state pension age in 2022. The latest figure from the centre for Ageing Better suggests that 1 in 3 people report experiencing age discrimination and the right Reverend Bishop of Coventry rightly described the amazing contribution that older people make to civil society.

My second issue is better financial education, and it's welcome news that the government will be consulting shortly on better provision in the national curriculum, the response tells us commendably on page six that through their reforms, they will be building a generation better equipped to plan for and navigate significant, significant financial decisions, such as those relating to retirement. And I would obviously add investment to that which has been a subject of this debate. The response talks about young people learning about tax, about scams, about bank accounts, about savings and about pensions, to which I would add the power of compound interest.

If you save, I would also point to the value and importance of financial literacy across the population and in lifelong learning, the subject of amendments I have proposed to the Financial Services Bill, but in conclusion, I warmly thank the Committee for all they have done in setting the scene in this vital area to Lord Liddle and to all the committee members, and to all those today who have taken part so constructively, and, I hope, help the Minister to move things forward.

I very much look forward to his response.
11:51
Lord Pitt-Watson Portrait Lord Pitt-Watson, The Parliamentary Secretary, HM Treasury (Labour)
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Yes, yes. >> I my Lords, can I begin by echoing a Baroness Neville-Rolfe echoing a Baroness Neville-Rolfe and others in welcoming this report and congratulating the noble Lord Liddle Lord Wood of Anfield for bringing it to the House today, and all the noble Lords who have contributed to what has been a really thoughtful and wide ranging debate, I am struck as a new boy how. Coming to a debate in the House of Lords always opened up new issues on things that you thought you had studied, and I will aim to address the points that people have made, though I may not be able to name check everyone, particularly those excellent speeches such as that from Baroness Prashar, which were very broad in terms of thinking about how this gets this issue is dealt with.

But look, I begin a. Where many of you began Lord Burns, I think in particular with some optimism that we are as a society, living longer is one of the great achievements of the modern age. I have two little twin granddaughters, Grace and Astrid and Lord Liddle, explaining to me that they can expect a life of 90 years is an absolute triumph of public health, medical science, and rising living standards. And it's been an objective, I think, of everybody and of every party that we want to promote, that people have longer and healthier lives and more fulfilling lives.

And this government remains committed to that goal. But it brings with it new and mounting pressures on our public services and on our public finances, not just a year, but as Baroness Bottomley and Lord Razzall pointed out, in lots of countries across the developed world, and the government does not shy away from that reality, that addressing the challenge is not straightforward. It's not just about addressing the pension age, although that is an important part of what it is that we have to do.

It's not just about addressing fertility, although I was interested, one of those things where you had not thought about it before the speech from Baroness Nargund, and I would be more than pleased to talk to her or arrange for her to talk to somebody with greater expertise in the government. Baroness Penn Baroness Meyer talking about these sorts of about this issue. But it's not just the pension age and fertility and ageing society touches on nearly every area of public policy, and it would be wrong of me to suggest that there was one lever, however important, that can resolve it alone, that, I think, is the key point of your Lordships report.

The committee's report that in order for this to work, we also need to think about how we keep people in work, particularly older people in work, for longer, how it is that we deal with a caring and social care, which has a circularity, because the people that are not working are often looking after their parents, how we address discrimination, how also we think about life planning from education that Baroness Neville Rolfe mentioned, but keeping people employment. And I'd like to talk about some of those points and the government's approach.

I won't touch on housing, which I know is important. Raised by Lord Best or technology raised by Lord Willetts. So I would like to talk about how do we look after people in old age? How do we support them to keep working? How do we provide adequate pensions? And how more broadly, do we promote prosperity and keep the dependency ratio down by focusing on the denominator? And I'd like to start with social care. Many of you talked about social care, Lord Burns, Lord Lamont, Lord Liddle and others.

And this is a big gap in welfare provision. People are seeing everything that they've worked for, wiped out by the cost of social care a, A, and costs are increasing hugely. This is an issue raised by Baroness Thornton, Lord Willetts, Baroness McGregor-Smith. And I thought particularly as well by the right Reverend Bishop of Coventry, that we we think about the technical solutions. We don't forget that old people, like all people, are of immeasurable worth. And I think our Prime Minister has set out his personal commitment to make progress, to fix the broken social system, social care system, and has agreed with Baroness Casey that the conclusion of the Independent Commission will be brought forward to 2027 in order to help with that, and this will combine the work originally set out as two separate phases, so that a single set of recommendations will cover both the immediate improvements the system needs now, and the longer term transformation required to meet demographic changes.

Same pressures are bearing down on the National Health Service, and there are a series of actions that are taking place there so that on social care, what about keeping people working? Well, that must start by addressing ill health. Lord Kakkar introducing just the fantastic expertise to this debate. I mean, look, the government has set out a ten year health plan last year, remains committed to supporting people to lead healthier lives. Budget 2025 29 billion increase in annual cash resources

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by 2829. Department for Health and social care, bringing

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Health and social care, bringing 13.4 of public health funding into 13.4 of public health funding into the public health. A grant and £800 million that is being put into the million that is being put into the treatment of mental health and. Look, I know that what I'm doing is Look, I know that what I'm doing is that I'm quoting inputs rather than outputs. We don't know what the output of that will be, but it does feel to me like that is a commitment to try and address these issues.

Let me then come to pensions. Big debate about the triple lock. Lord Wei. Lord Redwood. Lord Turnbull. Baroness Coffey. Thank you very much for your input on that. As you all know, the government has a manifesto commitment that until the end of this Parliament, the triple lock remains Lord Tugendhat. I think an interesting suggestion about a cost benefit Lord Willetts on in what is to be the retirement age. I think that that has been delayed because of the Pensions Commission.

Let me come to that. A the policy there is the announcement last summer that the government had launched a pensions Commission with a pension state pension age review. So the Pension Age Review feeds into the Pension Commission and the pension will advise the government early next year on how the state pension age and wider pension policy framework should adapt to those trends to ensure that pensioners in the future have adequate incomes, while ensuring fairness and fiscal sustainability.

Look, the danger is that this just feels like another grand review. Baroness Penn Lord Macpherson raising that. I have a long paragraph on all the things that are happening in pensions right now. There are many, many foundation stones that are being put in place for mandating value for money reporting. Give trustees giving people guidance on how it is that they get a pension out of their pension savings, CDC collective pensions that will give them an income for life rather than cash.

Lots of stuff that is already going on and a a as Baroness Neville-Rolfe had said, financial education for the young so that they know what is going on as well. Gosh, I'm running out of a time, my Lords. A I think you will be aware of many of the things that the government is doing on the economy and look, it is growth in every postcode which I hope addresses Lord Cica's point. And I think Baroness Neville-Rolfe is absolutely right to hold us to account that this is not Procrustean, but we are looking after everyone in every postcode.

A a. Let me skip forward if I may. As you all know, there is also a lot going on with young people. The education. We've talked about a youth guarantee, the growth skills levy, investing in training and. More broadly, the government recognises the importance of ensuring that every young person can make a successful transition to work. And that's what Sir Alan Milburn's review will be doing. And given this is such a cross country, a cross-cutting challenge, consideration of how we tackle the ageing population is embedded everywhere in growth in pensions, health and social care, labour markets.

It's also, by the way, is embedded in housing. We are not, I think, doing what was one of the recommendations of the committee, which is having a grand plan. Lord Davis, a recognised this, but I think the government does recognise that this is a big challenge. Ageing society is a symptom of success. It's a matter for celebration. It's a result of the determination of a great nation to improve the living standards for everyone. And we've not solved all the problems, and I've not addressed all the problems in this speech, but I think we have some strong foundations, not least of your Lordships report, in keeping an active debate going on this, but also in action by the government.

And I trust that Grace and Astrid can not only expect longer lives than their granddad, but also healthier and more fulfilling ones. Thank you, my Lords.
12:02
Lord Liddle Portrait Lord Liddle (Labour)
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My Lords, my thanks are due to everyone who has contributed to this debate, which I think has thrown up an enormous range of new ideas and thoughts which various committees of the House might take up. And I was going to discuss with our clerk how we can summarise all the possible issues that might be taken up further. I'd also like to congratulate Lord Pitt-Watson on his summing up. It's very difficult when you're a new Minister to come in and do this and.

And I think it is very well. So thank you. I. I feel a little guilty that the report didn't directly address the triple lock question. Because it's obvious that it is a question that has to be addressed. And my own sympathies are very much with with taking the risk of doing it in a appropriate way. But I think that the reason we didn't do that is because we wanted to draw attention to what is a very fundamental problem of this declining participation rate in among over 50s.

And there has been quite a lot of ideas coming forward about how we could address this debate, this question, and therefore, I think that the the report and the debate on it has been extremely valuable. And I'd like to thank everyone most sincerely for the part they played. I beg to move. The question is, at this motion. Be agreed to as many of their opinion will say, content Of the contrary, not content. the The The motion The motion for debate.

Social Mobility Policy Committee report on Social Mobility. Local roots, lasting change. Baroness Manningham-Buller. Baroness Manningham-Buller.
12:06
None Portrait Debate: Report from the Social Mobility Policy Committee: 'Social Mobility: Local Roots, Lasting Change' Baroness Manningham-Buller (Crossbench)
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My Lords, there's hardly a more important subject than the future of our young people and their contribution to the wealth of the nation and to their own happiness. I was privileged to lead a committee last year, a one off committee on social mobility. What the committee learnt was pretty sobering and shocking. As a result of lots of evidence we received, our remit was to look at how education and work could be better integrated. Our first decision was given a complex subject, and we've just heard the wind up of the last debate references to to young people.

It covers a range of things. We decided that we would focus on four areas the importance of place where the issues are arising, this horrible expression, NEETs, those young people not in education, employment or training, and the particular problems of those aged between 16 and 18. And also data. I hope not many of you will criticise us for the things we didn't cover, some of which may have been more important, but to have covered all of them, we'd need a full standing committee on this subject.

Early years, mental health, housing, the benefit system, the care system, the effect of Covid, social media levers for economic growth, attitudes to work. Any one of those could have kept us busy. But we. I think despite what I said about what we learned being sobering and shocking, it's encouraging that there is now plenty of public focus on these plenty of public focus on these issues and political focus. Definitions. We heard a number of options for definitions of what social mobility means.

We ended up with working on the basis that where you're born, the circumstances in which you're born, the income of your parents should not determine everything that happens in the rest of your life. And as far as possible, it's the responsibility of all governments to provide circumstances in which our citizens can thrive. From an early age. What several witnesses said to us that this isn't social mobility, is not about fishing out of the education system. Bright, young, talented, disadvantaged people, sending them to a Russell Group university and expecting them to be earning £100,000 as a lawyer within five minutes.

And that, I think, was we were we were very much told that by a number of people on the committee agreed. Since we reported, there have been a lot of broad policy and HMG initiatives on this subject, and I'll talk to them later on, some of them later. But what we were found very compelling was the fact that different solutions are required all over the country. Coastal areas, remote rural areas, inner cities and inner cities are different.

Problems in the centre of Bristol may be different to Birmingham and therefore whatever frameworks, whatever initiatives HMG does, we have to recognise that the solutions, the best solutions come from people in the areas where the problems are, who know the problems, who know the transport issues, who know what the local education is, what the local jobs are and so on, or can help create them, help create those job opportunities and remove barriers. I mean, I'll come on a moment in a moment to talk about a really encouraging visit.

We had to Blackpool, but one of the things that one of our recommendations, building on what I've just said, is that local partnerships must be the answer. I don't wish to pick out particular bits of evidence, but I remember being very struck as other members of the committee will be by one area, and I can't remember where it was, where the local fire brigade, noticing the needs, had taken the initiative to do something. And if we prescribe that, it has to be the further education college, if there is one, or it has to be the DWP, it's got to be a combination of people helping.

Our other recommendations are to do with the educational. It's quite striking how many people fail maths and English and then a bar really. From further progress at GCSE. When we went to Blackpool, the Further Education College there had a drop in centre by the front door to get extra coaching in this area. But we tended to believe on the committee that presenting maths to students who understand its functionality and value in today's internet enabled world needed some fresh thinking.

Another thing that was striking was that the loan that you get to go to university from a low income family has not risen for seven years, or had not risen at the time of our report, thereby barring a number of people at that stage. And things are beginning to change. We also felt in the committee that there needed to be greater scope for progress in education on creative, technical and vocational subjects. Career advice seemed to be pretty patchy.

The trailblazers looked as though this was a good proposal. We were hoped that the arrangement where the Minister straddles the DWP and the Department for Further Education continued data again needs improvement, including the ability to share so that we know what the problems are. The particular problems. Again, at the time we did our report of care leavers making the transition to work with the. We heard evidence that to get enough to pay for the rent and the transport to get to work, they would have had to give up their accommodation allowance.

So the sort of catch 22 there, we thought the growth and skills levy should be extended and that we needed data sets on parental income. I mentioned Blackpool earlier. Now Blackpool comes near the bottom of most indicators of social mobility, employment and a range of other issues, but they're partly led by the Social Mobility Commission, whose excellent work I want to applaud in this area and who gave us great help in working out what we were going to do have with the people in Blackpool, created this fantastic partnership.

Now it's already beginning to have results, but there's a long way to go. It involves the local authority. It involves the further education college, it involves employers, it involves the DWP, it involves charities. It also involves students and listening to students about their experiences and what they themselves were doing. Those in education to help those in the Neet category was was inspirational. Again, there we were encouraged to think in terms of various tiers, if you like, of people who are not in education, employment and training, ranging from those who are very nearly ready for employment if jobs were available, and those who were so far away without really the concepts of what jobs are, the social skills they need to do, them turning up on time, etc.

and the suggestion was that that group needed particular attention. To quote the Social Mobility Commission, it's the truly disadvantaged in these areas who get lost. Now, we had some super evidence. We had evidence, including from Lord Willetts, who we're going to hear from later, who influenced us, as quoted in our report, 58 pieces of written evidence, 54 witnesses, students, employers, educationalists, university professors, training providers, further education colleges, academics, and government Ministers. I'm not going to pick out anything from them, except to say that a particularly poignant piece of evidence came from an academic studying NEETs, and she told us how she went to interview a young man who was in this category.

He was thrilled to see her. She was the first person who'd taken an interest in his future. He thought she was coming to offer him a job. She was coming to do academic research. I'd like to thank the members of the committee, starting with Lord Ravensdale, whose thought proposal this was. I heard Lord Liddle thanking the clerks on the previous committee whose subject you debated. Anybody in this House will know what fantastic support we have.

Amanda, Bruce and Emily helped us enormously, and I'd also like to thank the committee itself. Everybody turned up, everybody contributed. Everybody did the maximum they could to help produce a report to be proud of, of. Before I end, I'm afraid I need to inject a slightly grumpy note, and I do so reluctantly. Given that the government is doing a lot in this area, but we did a lot of hard work. It took rather than two months for a government response. It took eight.

The response was issued a day after the summer recess and to be slightly personally grumpy. It was chaired by me, not Lady Tyler, which is what the government response said. But having said that, and I know there's a problem about managing business, but I would plead again, as other chairs of select committees have done before, that when members of this House do extensive, careful, thorough work at taking a lot of time and costing the taxpayer quite substantial amounts of money, that those reports are taken seriously, given adequate time to debate them.

And we do not experience what we did in this committee. I've mentioned. I'm just I'm I mentioned already that there are a flurry of government initiatives in this area. Before we reported, we had Charlie Mayfield's review on keeping Britain working. We had the work being done, but not completed by the Curriculum and Assessment Review. Since we reported, we've had the interim report from Alan Milburn. We've had some changes on the arrangements for apprenticeships. We've had job placements, youth hubs, youth jobs grant and jobs graduate scheme.

Clearly these have value severally, I think, and I haven't been able to discuss this with the committee because this all happened after we submitted our report. The concerns I would have are is this coordinated? Is the data being collected on the value of these initiatives? And the success of them? Is that the right proportion of direction from central government and freedom of local initiatives? And does it cover enough of the country? It was clear to us that where there were combined authorities, it was easier to make progress than in areas where were not covered.

And there are quite a lot of gaps in the country which are not covered at this level. I will probably have more things to say in the summing up, but at this stage I beg to move.
12:19
Lord Winston Portrait Lord Winston (Labour)
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The question. Order, order, >> The question. Order, order, order, order. The question is that this motion be agreed to. Lord this motion be agreed to. Lord Winston. Forgive me, my Lords. It's a huge privilege to speak following a huge privilege to speak following the noble Lady Baroness Manningham-Buller, who for whom I have a huge respect and tremble so often when I see her. But with. But with always with respect, with respect. And I want to say really that I think this is an excellent report.

And she mentioned it obviously has gaps which are bound to be. And one I want to start with actually is the gap on on early years learning, because I think it's very relevant to what happens later on in the rest of learning. And I'm reminded of something which happened some 50 years ago experimentally with the neuroscientists when they blinded, they blindfolded a number of newborn kittens. And what was interesting was depending on how long the blindfold was held and how long they were in darkness for afterwards.

So within, say, three weeks of blindfolding, their visual impairment was permanent, and sometimes they were virtually completely blind. And in other experiments which have been done, some cats showed that they could not identify geometric spaces in spite of normal cognitive ability in other animals. The fact of the matter is that their eyes were completely normal. Their retina was fine, their relatives were fine, their muscles were fine. But the visual cortex at the back of the brain was in fact hampered. And indeed, there were no proper connections.

In many cases with synapses, those synapses are the result of experience. Experience is the basis of how we learn completely. So these cats did not learn to see, just as we do with children. As they go on. They actually learn by experience all the time. It's something which we have to understand educationally. Now what is so I think important is that this actually applies to early years learning. It's rather sad to think that, for example, Surestart, which started under the under the Labour government years ago, was actually highly effective.

It was shown by my colleagues at University College London to be a really effective way of not just merely improving learning, but improving social cohesion, behaviour and a whole range of other things. Ability to express oneself and to communicate and connect with other people. That's really sad indeed. And I must say that that, of course, applies in primary schools as well. And it's primary schools. I want to just devote a bit of time to I've got so little time to say this, but in fact, we neglect primary schools at the most important stage of all education.

And I see this when I go around coastal areas, for example, where it's not just merely the neat students, but in fact, the number of children we see with free school meals who are damaged as a result. One of the things we tried to do with Imperial College, where no interest in in trying to recruit students, we simply want to provide a public benefit with our outreach. And that is something which I think is very important to conclude, to say that one of the things that the the committee recognised was the connections with universities is very important.

It doesn't have to be local. In fact, in fact, imperial. We go as far as the north of England with some of our outreach activity, and that is something which I think we should be expressing, but it's not properly funded, just as indeed primary education is funded either.
12:23
Lord Willetts Portrait Lord Willetts (Conservative)
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My Lords, I congratulate the Committee on an excellent report. Committee on an excellent report. I'm sure it was the right approach to focus on a specific set of problems, and it's a very well judged collection that's put to us for us to debate today. For me personally, I've always thought that the biggest single problem we face in social mobility is the prospects for those 16 year olds who do not get good GCSEs. That is where the most shocking waste and loss of opportunity occurs.

I'd briefly like to pick on three specific points in the report. First of all, the brief discussion of work experience in paragraph 50 and elsewhere. There is an extraordinary phenomenon at the moment. T levels include a requirement for 45 days of work experience and have very significant funding for employers to provide that work experience. That is, having the effect of pushing all the work experience options into a relatively small program and a relatively small number of beneficiaries. Does the Minister see the case for instead, insofar as there is public funding for work experience, spreading it more widely and more equitably, rather than so specifically linked to T levels? Secondly, I should refer to higher education.

Higher education is the only stage of education where the kids from the poor areas outperform. It's the one stage where they catch up a bit. I think the report is absolutely right to identify the importance of maintenance loans for them. It's still the case that kids from poorer areas are less likely to go to university. I always enjoy it when the Minister takes the opportunity of these Lords debates to reflect on policy. There is a lot of talk at the moment on restricting and controlling numbers of people going to university.

Does she agree with me that the danger when you control numbers is that it's the marginal students from the tough backgrounds that lose out when the evidence is actually those cases where it's the marginal student, people might just have gone or just didn't go. That's where you can do the best rigorous empirical research. And it shows that the ones who do go in those circumstances enjoy far better work opportunities and life outcomes. And then finally, third on my list. It's great that the report has such a meaty chapter on data.

We need to link data to have proper social mobility research of the sort that Raj Chetty has conducted in the US. But we don't just need it for research. I think it is also necessary for the place agenda, which is another strong theme in the report. And at the moment there are many people providing services to young NEETs and others who are not totally confident what data they can share with other bodies, including other public bodies that are also trying to help these people.

And often there is overcautious legal advice about GDPR obligations. So data is not being shared, and there is a role for government in signalling clearly to these players that they can share data.
12:26
Baroness Garden of Frognal Portrait Baroness Garden of Frognal (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lords, this was a fascinating committee with a very impressive chair and enthusiastic members. We asked witnesses for a definition of social mobility and received a very wide variety of answers. We ended up with ensuring that the situation that you're born into or grow up in does not determine your outcomes in life. In theory, of course, this could be down as well as up due to dustmen, for instance, but we felt it more productive to concentrate on people bettering themselves rather than moving down.

The government response has warm words and set out plans for tackling the NEETs. Who should be a scar on our society. We look forward to Alan Milburn's final report and welcome the £2.5 billion to support young people, as well as the proposals for work experience and youth jobs grants, but fear that the penalties for employers in taking on young people will act as a deterrent to those opportunities. So will the government consider relaxing the employee rights for young people trying to get into employment? We move amounts to the Bill to ensure that apprentices should not have their hopes dashed by acquiring full rights from day one.

But it is important that all those trying to find work should give employers the chance to try them out. Messing about with vocational qualifications is never a clever way to encourage take up. We had well tried and tested BTECs and City and Guilds qualifications when the last government introduced T levels under the misapprehension that changing vocational to technical would at a stroke raise their status, T levels are beginning to be understood and the so encouraging take up. But why introduce V levels when existing provision covers the same fields and.

We plead with the government not to defund existing provision until there is very sound evidence that the new qualifications on the block are valid, valued and working to stop when T and V levels are introduced, as in the response to recommendation nine is no use if they have not been properly evaluated and understood by students, colleges, training providers and parents who have some of the most difficult people to convince. And as Baroness Manningham-Buller has said, we were very impressed with the work in Blackpool, particularly at Blackpool and the Fylde College, where young people relish doing real work in building and engineering.

Local collaboration is obviously vital to such schemes to work, and the partnerships which the college have built up with local businesses large and small, was a key factor in its success. But, as Lord Willetts has said, we must not ignore the huge contribution made by universities to social mobility. We do need to ensure that financial and structural barriers do not prevent students from disadvantaged backgrounds from accessing and succeeding in higher education. My Lord, we welcome the measures the government has announced.

And the noble Lady yesterday in our debate was setting them all out for us to a review, and particularly the ones to review careers guidance to help care leavers leaving care and being left adrift to transform the growth and skills levy, to ensure that unspent funds go back into apprenticeships rather than into the Treasury. And we shall watch with interest in the hope that the intentions to do get translated into actions to enable disadvantaged people, young and old, to have the opportunities of social mobility and can become productive, society.
12:29
Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone Portrait Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Conservative)
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Amen, Amen. >> My Lords, I will say warmly applaud this report. And what is so encouraging is it does not have all encouraging is it does not have all the answers. I think it's wetted in a great number of people a curiosity, an appetite to study further, to have more data. That to me is a very encouraging start. Social mobility is a theme that has dominated most of my working life. I worked in Brixton and Peckham. I was chairman of the juvenile court.

Many of you know I was 17 years Chancellor at the University of Hull. I tried to represent the Isle of Wight, another very poor area, but my constituency was Farnham, Hazlemere and Godalming. A totally different picture. So the point about disadvantaged deprivation and opportunity, it's so contextual. And the Education Policy Institute tells us that disadvantaged children are already five months behind their peers by the end of reception by GCSE. That gap has grown to 19 months. This is something that people in the field know and there are a great number of factors.

What I wanted to ask is what are the protective factors? So when I worked in my child guidance clinic, it was almost inevitable. A child came from a very difficult, poor home, disrupted a difficult area, and so that there was almost a sort of reluctant pessimism that they would become a delinquent or fail at school. Now, what fascinates me is those people who, in spite of all those factors, have actually made it through, because that's a much more positive message and one from which we can really learn, and one which my present career.

I very often discreetly ask people who evidently had a pretty grim start, what was it? Was it a grandparent? Was it a priest? Was it a school? Was it was it the armed services? Was it youth groups? Was it music? Was it sport? But I hope that through data, we can get people's own self-report about the factors that have made made a great difference. Now, of course, employers have got a huge part to play, and I welcome the way in which many of them have been mobilised.

Sainsbury's the other day offering more work placements, offering supporting careers, guidance and much else besides. I wanted to read to the noble Lords a message from a young man I greatly admire who co-chairs the social mobility allies at a professional services firm. He is the son of Albanian refugees who came to the UK during the Kosovo war. He says it's all too easy to overlook how important mindset and self-belief are. If you don't believe you've got the ability to achieve or see role models that have managed to achieve impressive results, you feel that you.

That other people who come from a background similar to your own. Then whatever government says, you'll struggle really to engage. We need employers to recognise the value of social economic diversity. We can help individuals build confidence and aspiration, but we also need organisation to be open to talent that may not fit the traditional mould. There's a huge amount of untapped potential that can be unlocked when employers focus on capability potential rather than pedigree. We talk a lot about opening doors, but for many from working class backgrounds, there's still a feeling that they need to change how they speak, how they dress, to fit in and to progress.

Social mobility isn't just about giving people opportunities, it's about creating environments where people can be themselves and be seen as credible, capable and worthy of progression. It's a good example. Thank you.
12:33
Lord Ravensdale Portrait Lord Ravensdale (Crossbench)
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Mr. Journey for me. when I proposed this topic as a special inquiry. So it's very good that lasts to see the work brought to a conclusion in this debate. And I must first thank our superb chair, the noble Baroness Lady Manningham-Buller, for her sterling work in keeping us all focussed on delivery and steering us through actually a really complex topic area and also keeping us all entertained with her amazing Cold War spy stories. I must also thank our clerks Andrea, Bruce, Emily as well for all of their efforts, culminating in a really excellent report.

And finally, we really need to pick out the Social Mobility Commission for all of their experts and advice and support throughout the process. We must also note that we're standing on the shoulders of previous work done in the house in this area, in particular the previous committee in 2015, led by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley. Now, my Lords, something we've clearly demonstrated throughout this work is the real importance of a regional local approach rather than a one size fits all approach to social mobility.

In making progress in this area and hearing from many of the excellent local partnerships, and we have made good progress in this area, both in the the government responses to our recommendations, but also in the work done within your Lordships House on the English Devolution Act. But it is an area that the government really needs to continue focus on as it progresses its devolution agenda in the coming years. As the noble Baroness Manningham-Buller said, there are many areas of the country which don't have that focus in the way that our devolution agenda is currently being progressed.

Data. My Lords, really pleased to see the acceptance of our recommendations on data and look forward to seeing the outputs of the government review in March 2027 on the development of a broader data sets in social mobility. This work. I can't overstate the importance of this work in helping to better understand the drivers of social mobility, and that's really going to help us design better interventions and ultimately help improve life chances for so many disadvantaged communities across the UK.

I finish with a quote from a noble Lord we all remember fondly the noble Lord, Lord Boyce. There are no such thing as problems, only solutions in disguise. I'm grateful for the work of the committee and the collaboration with government in helping really tease out some of those solutions, which will make a real difference to the life chances of so many in those disadvantaged communities, and ultimately continue our journey to a fairer society and opportunity for all, which is something that we can all get behind.

I thank again the committee and the governments for all of their efforts, and look forward to hearing from the Minister.
12:36
Lord Young of Cookham Portrait Lord Young of Cookham (Conservative)
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Noble Lord Lord Ravensdale. the importance of data, and I join him and others in complimenting the noble Baroness on her chairmanship. Her earlier career gave her unparalleled skills in interrogation. My Lords, well, welcoming much of the government's response, I was disappointed with its principal response, and that's because the substance of our report is captured in its title Social Mobility, Local Roots, Lasting Change. And if there's one paragraph in the report that sums it up, it's paragraph two three, six.

We have further concluded that those initiatives are best taken forward by local government, working in collaboration with Skills England and Universities, FE colleges, schools, local employers and, crucially, the DWP. But if you read the introduction to the government's response, this concept of devolution, of responsibility, of a fresh approach is totally absent at worse, the government then rejects what I regard as our key recommendation that we should build on the eight youth trailblazers. This was kicked into touch. I quote we expect to publish interim findings during the next two years and will develop the value for money assessment once longer term impacts have developed.

Rest in peace. But the committee's message was actually received by the new Prime Minister. In the speech shortly after he became Prime Minister, he said this. The current local government restructure and the creation of mayoral combined authorities is an opportunity for government to devolve the power and resources needed for those authorities to lead work through local partnerships with schools, colleges, universities and employers, and Skills England to promote social mobility and address the acute problems. And that's exactly what we recommended, but not reflected in the government's response, which was published actually after he became Prime Minister.

There's one point I want to make during the recess. I read Jeremy Hunt's book, Can We Be Rich Again? And this is what he said about the DWP budget on unemployment. And again, I quote, can national employment programmes ever be as sensitive to local individual situations as those run locally? The whole system would be far more tailored to individual situations. If we devolved responsibility for getting people back into work to elected mayors or unitary authorities, if they were allowed to keep a proportion of any savings made, we would be likely to see a far quicker rise in the number of adults in work than by relying on a centralised national bureaucracy.

And of course, it's exactly in line with our report devolving budget, devolving responsibility locally. That indeed would bring about lasting change there. I hear.
12:39
Lord Harlech Portrait Lord Harlech (Conservative)
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As a member of the committee, I expressed, I also express my expressed, I also express my gratitude to our chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, along with our clerk and her outstanding team. I draw attention to my registered interests as an employer and an active Army Reserve officer. I also pay tribute to the exceptional staff at Blackpool College and all our witnesses. However, I want to reiterate our chairs point that the publication of the government response took eight months and was published on the day immediately after the House adjourned.

So our formally written to the Government Chief Whip, the noble Baroness Sater Minister and the Liaison Committee Chair regarding the timing of this response and performance. And I think I mean, this feels like a. Should the rate at which people are speaking, I think, in conjunction with the meagre three minutes offered to respond to the committee's, you know, nearly a year of serious hard work. My personal view is that this behaviour from the government displays more than a degree of contempt for the committee's work.

I think it's also a shame that not a single Labour backbencher who was part of the committee is here today, and they were all very valid members during the committee's work. So turning to the substance of our report, employment remains the single most effective vehicle for social mobility, far surpassing any strategy, task force or policy framework. But in order to create the jobs, you need to create the right environment, including housing, transport and digital connectivity. However, cumulative burdens since 2024 have made hiring increasingly costly.

Higher employer National Insurance contributions above inflation. Minimum wage growth that has narrowed the youth pay differential and immediate employment rights under the Employment Rights Act. Consequently, sectors like retail and hospitality traditionally the primary entry point for young workers, are experiencing severe job cuts. The British Chambers of Commerce now projects youth employment to reach 17.6% next year. My Lords, we should not be surprised that taxing employment results in fewer available jobs. When our committee recommended lowering the levy rate for smaller businesses, we were informed that levy operations fall under Treasury jurisdiction.

This policy environment leaves nearly a million young people not in education, employment or training. Among them, 60% have never held a job, compared to 40% in 2005. Government reviewer Alan Milburn calculates the annual economic cost of youth disengagement at 125 billion, exceeding our national education budget. The repercussions extend beyond economics. Milburn's findings indicate that young men in the Neet category are five times more likely to acquire a criminal record than their peers, while half of those aged 15 to 17 in youth offender institutions possess primary school levels of literacy and numeracy.

Its advisory, in the absence of legitimate career paths.

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My Lords. The noble was absolutely right. It is advisory, but given the number of speakers we have in all number of speakers we have in all three debates today, if the Ministers are going to have appropriate time and we are going

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to finish at a reasonable hour on a Friday, it's three minutes. So I'll then put forward two direct questions to the noble Baroness. The Minister. Will she advocate with the Treasury to expand National Insurance expand National Insurance exemptions to cover all employees under 25 in the upcoming budget? And will she confirm that the final Milburn report will be released promptly and that it will incorporate participation conditionality? Are you hear.
12:43
Baroness Prashar Portrait Baroness Prashar (Crossbench)
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My Lords, I thank Baroness Manningham-Buller and her committee for producing this very thoughtful for producing this very thoughtful and focussed report. Committees focus on education and training opportunities for 16 to 18 years old is pertinent, as is the recommendation regarding local leadership. Given the regional disparities. While the government's response is encouraging, it is, however, disappointing that government is not keen about the expansion of Youth Guarantee trailblazer pilots or to expand their remit to become pilots on social mobility.

My Lords, I want to take this opportunity to highlight the importance of literacy as a determinant for social mobility and the effectiveness of place based approaches. The link between social mobility and socio economic status and literacy in the UK are profoundly strong and intergenerational, and despite numerous government strategies, the situation has persisted for 50 years and research shows that children's lives from the earliest moments are shaped by characteristics of neighbourhoods and local circumstances. Now, based on this research, National Literacy Trust, of which I co-founded and now its president, has advocated place based solutions through 12 hubs in local areas for several years.

And through these hubs, they have worked with multiple stakeholders to galvanise the whole community to improve local levels and levels of literacy and help drive social mobility. And this approach is also ensures sustainability. So based on this experience, I urge the government to take the committee's emphasis on place seriously. My Lords, to achieve social mobility, inclusion, importance of literacy skills should not be underestimated. Lack of literacy skills can be traced back to early years, and the early literacy deficit affects the future.

Future life chances. So focus on literacy skills, particularly during early years, should be given a priority as these skills are crucial determinant in enabling acquisition of education and social mobility. This is not a criticism of the fact that committee didn't look at this area. It just to highlight the importance of a link between taking advantage of education later stages about disability, and I look forward to Baroness.
12:45
Baroness Porter of Fulwood Portrait Baroness Porter of Fulwood (Conservative)
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Hear, hear. >> Hear, hear. >> My Lords, it is important as we consider this issue, that we also look at how it intersects with the look at how it intersects with the criminal justice system. We know there's a cycle where disadvantage can lead to educational disengagement. This can then lead to someone ending up outside of education, employment or training. Once there, this puts them at greater risk of getting involved with the criminal justice system. Having then been involved with the criminal justice system, this then further reduces their employment prospects.

I'd pulled out the same statistics that Lord Harlech has already quoted, linking and showing just how substantial this link between youth offending and Neet status is. The DWP report that he quotes from, and I won't repeat his statistics, but it goes on to say this the pipeline from educational failure to offending to sustain detachment is one of the most documented and most neglected in the country, but very little has changed or improved for this cohort. That's damning.

We need to do more to ensure that all the different organisations working with these young people are focussed on providing a genuine pathway into education, training or employment. What we address nationally and what we address locally is important. There are obvious tensions that have been raised in where the balance of power should lie, and as ever, the optimal answer is not a straightforward one. Too much localisation with multiple layers is confusing. People don't know where to go for help, and it's not clear where responsibility lies.

Too much centralisation ignores the reality that local circumstances vary dramatically, and that those closest to a specific community are often those most able to help people navigate and find a way through a point. This report makes powerfully. The youth justice system has had to grapple with this same tension. Its current consultation into the oversight and funding of youth justice services is looking at this specifically. There's a sense of a system that's been too fragmented with too many layers without enough clarity, clear accountability.

Given the proportion of NEETs who were involved with youth justice services, any reform of the system should be looked at in the context of wider structures and needs to be fully integrated with the conversation we're having here. The key principle should be that there must be clear accountability for who is responsible for doing what at each level of the system. As the government considers the oversight and funding of the youth justice system, it should consider the points raised here today and in this report, and look at how to deliver a properly integrated system that helps transition people into education, training and employment and, crucially, be clear on who will be responsible for making that pathway work.
12:48
Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell Portrait Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell (Conservative)
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Very good. >> My Lords. >> I read the committee's excellent report over the summer recess, where I spent time in Washington, where I spent time in Washington, DC, and also visited the recently opened Milken Centre for Advancing the American Dream. It defines the core pillars of that dream. In other words, the core pillars of social mobility as education, health, financial empowerment, and entrepreneurship. Much of the exhibition turned on the essential role of business in lifting people out of poverty.

When we talk about social mobility, we too often talk about it as something driven by the state, by the government, by the laws we passed in Parliament, when in truth, the greatest engine of social mobility is business. Consider the late Dolly Parton, born into poverty in a one room cabin in Tennessee who built a global career and a multibillion dollar fortune in the entertainment industry. Through sheer gut and talent. But even for those who work in Main Street rather than Hollywood, the first pay packet, the first taste of responsibility, the first colleague who believes in them.

All these things are crucial to setting up a young person for life. This subject is close to my heart as president of the Jobs Foundation, as declared in the Register, the charity recently published a report on jobs and education, building the Bridge to Opportunity, which identified two sides to the NEETs crisis. On the supply side, too many young people leave school without the attitudes and workplace readiness that employers want. I welcome the committee's call for reform of the EBacc framework. This aligns with our own finding that a broader curriculum from 14, with genuine parity between academic and vocational routes would help prevent young people from becoming Neet.

And I was pleased to hear the Prime Minister echoed this sentiment earlier this week. On the demand side, the rising costs and risk of hiring a young person is making employers reluctant to take a chance on someone without experience. The costs of employing a young person has risen by more than £4,000 in two years. When we raised the cost of hiring young people, we shouldn't be surprised when a few of them are hired as the chef, Tom Kerridge told the authors.

Rising costs of pushes restaurants away from the very weekend, and part time roles that once gave young people their first place of work in the hospitality industry. When these first rungs of the jobs market disappear, the ladder of social mobility goes with them. This is why, to achieve net zero, both the supply and the demand side of the next crisis needs to be addressed. My Lord.
12:51
Lord Crisp Portrait Lord Crisp (Crossbench)
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I do. colleagues for an excellent and timely report, and indeed for her speech as well. I want to make two quick points. The first one is to quick points. The first one is to just add my voice to the point about local partnerships and how vital they are, and that you can't just have a national policy that can just be applied. This is a lot of very detailed work locally, which requires the empowerment of local leadership from across the sectors, including as a noble Lord has just said, business alongside education and indeed health and others.

And noting, my noble friend Lord Mawson in it is in his place. I would say this is what he describes as a 360 degree society. This is a problem for the whole of society. But I want to raise one point that hasn't yet been raised, and I note that the committee could not cover everything. But my point is to talk about the first years of secondary school, when children are aged 11 to 13, and what I believe is is called technically Key Stage three.

I believe that is a time when the body and indeed the brain changes really fundamentally. And that's happening at the same time as people are moving from a primary school where they had one teacher who knew them into a situation where they may have 6 or 7 or whatever the number is, and you move from an individual pastoral approach, as it were, to to a less clear one. And what happens, the research shows, is that educational attainment declines during that period.

It then tends to come back up again. But the people for whom it doesn't come back up again of the people from disadvantaged backgrounds and increasingly and increasingly, girls in that group. And I suppose we could I don't know what the reasons for that are, but one could speculate that actually the link with the individual teacher in primary school being replaced or not being replaced, maybe part of that as an issue. And it's good to see that there is an independent and government supported task force, which I believe is called the key stage three Alliance that is looking at this and that.

There are a whole series of other reviews around this, and I would be very interested in the noble Lady. The Minister's observation on the importance of this stage in an educational career, and about how this can be tackled. My Lords, I pay tribute to our formidable. Manningham-Buller.
12:54
Lord Evans of Rainow Portrait Lord Evans of Rainow (Conservative)
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For keeping us all on track. My >> For keeping us all on track. My Lords, I welcome the government's response to the Social Mobility Policy Committee's report on social mobility and needs, and it is encouraging to see progress on early identification, better data

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sharing, the youth guarantee, stronger local partnerships and the development of the risk Of neat indicator, but the

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Of neat indicator, but the central point I want to make is that NEETs are not simply an education problem or an employment education problem or an employment problem. There are social mobility problem and an economic and place based problem. Opportunity has a geography where a young person grows up, shapes the education they receive, the employers they, the transport available of them, and ultimately the choices they can make about their future. That is why this response must be seen in the context of a much bigger question how we create opportunity across the country.

The Social Mobility Commission's recent work makes clear that social mobility cannot be separated from the economic dynamism of a place in which people live. That is particularly relevant to NEETs. We can identify risk, offer training, even secure an apprenticeship. But ultimately, young people need good opportunities to move into economic growth and social mobility are not competing objectives. A growing local economy creates jobs, demand skills and supports the services and infrastructure that underpin opportunity. The challenge is ensuring that young people with the fewest opportunities benefit from that growth.

I therefore welcome the government's recognition that different places face different challenges, but we should not assume that the answer looks the same everywhere. The causes of NEETs in a major city are not the same as a coastal town, a former industrial community, or a rural area. The employer based transport, educational infrastructure and barriers are different. The question is whether we have a national programme, but whether we have effective local systems and understand their young people and act early. Better data will help, but identification is not intervention.

Knowing a young person is at risk is only useful if someone takes responsibility for acting and ensuring that the outcome is sustained. Success cannot be measured simply by someone's disappearing from the Neet statistics. The real test is whether they make a lasting transition into education, training or employment. The technical education reforms are important, but again, the test is outcomes. Do these qualifications lead to jobs, further training and are they accessible to disadvantaged young people? My Lords, this is a bigger point about social mobility.

We often talk about individuals moving upwards, but we must also think about the mobility of places. Can towns experiencing decline attract investment, develop new industries and enable young people to build successful careers? If the answer is yes, we do something more powerful than helping a few individuals leave. We change the places themselves. The challenge is not simply to stop young people becoming Neet, it is to create places in which young people can see a future with good schools and colleges. Effective careers advice, apprenticeships, early support and crucially, businesses.

Investment, innovation and economic growth.

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These things are interconnected. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, Manningham-Buller and her committee on their thoughtful report. I declare my interest as a social declare my interest as a social mobility Commissioner, and the Commission was very pleased to contribute to the inquiry, contribute to the inquiry, including our excellent chair, Alan Francis, hosting the committee at Blackpool and the Fylde College, Blackpool and the Fylde College, where he is chief executive at the commission. Alan Francis has put localism and place at the forefront of breaking down social mobility
12:57
Baroness Stowell of Beeston Portrait Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Conservative)
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barriers, so we strongly support the committee's calls for place based approaches as to the most based approaches as to the most serious matter of NEETs. The SMC has been highlighting the growing crisis for some time and contributed to Alan Milburn's interim report. Whilst it is true, interim report. Whilst it is true, as the Milburn report said, that getting a job is increasingly difficult for all young people, including graduates, it is important not to conflate the government's political and economic decisions that are deterring employers from recruiting young people.

With the social conditions driving the huge increase in economically inactive needs. The Commission is currently discussing with the Milburn Review team its new, soon to be published qualitative research with young people who are Neet in Blackpool, and that research shows how they are not a homogenous group and how, for many, a lack of stability and security in their home life influences their wellbeing and lack of progress towards education, employment or training. My Lords, addressing the causes of our Neet epidemic must go beyond increasing and spreading economic opportunity.

It must involve topics which too often politicians and policymakers are reluctant to discuss, the most obvious and important being the family and parenting. This is not just about household incomes or parents educational attainment, it's about highlighting the need for both parents to provide stability, uphold social norms, and teach their children common standards that are beneath no one, beyond no one, and are vital to our individual success, cohesive communities, and a stronger society. My noble friend Lord Elliot mentioned the late Dolly Parton alongside her talents.

One of the most important things she had going for her was a stable, strong family background. My Lords, it was a was as surprising. As much as it was disappointing to read media reports this week, signalling the Social Mobility Commission's demise. Now, of course, it is for Ministers to decide how to organise resources to address barriers to social mobility. But perhaps the Minister could tell us how and when she intends to communicate their decision. But whatever the commission's future, promoting the importance of stable families to children's future success must be a government priority.

We exacerbate inequality when we deny evidence and fail to join obvious dots for fear of causing offence. And most importantly, those who suffer most when we do are in the lowest socio economic groups.
13:00
Baroness Wolf of Dulwich Portrait Baroness Wolf of Dulwich (Crossbench)
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My Lords, I welcome this report, in particular its focus on local in particular its focus on local areas and also strongly agree with the number of previous speakers that Blackpool College and the that Blackpool College and the Social Mobility Commission, Alan Francis are really inspirational. I think there are some important specific recommendations, but I specific recommendations, but I would like to offer a couple of more general and perhaps somewhat downbeat, partly downbeat comments. There's a sizeable academic literature which traces social mobility using very much the same approach as as the as this report and looking at whether someone's adult occupation and finances are closely related to and predicted by their family of origin.

And in deciding whether this link is strong or weak, there are two key forces. The first, bluntly, is how well or badly better off parents are able to protect their children from downward mobility. And in a static society, that is really critical because when things are static, if somebody goes up, somebody else is going down. Fortunately, in a dynamic or less fortunately in a collapsing society, what really matters is the whole structure of the labour market. And in the last century and a half in this country, it has been the structure of the labour market and therefore the class structure that have been the really important drivers.

And they have been wonderful. The greatest UK expert on this is Oxford University's John Goldthorpe, who has done a magisterial analysis of social mobility and education in this country over the last century and a bit. And you the contrast that is, is quite dramatic. For example, men born between 1938 and 47, 2/5 of them were upward compared to their families and only a 10th downward. But in the last 30 to 40 years, this has plummeted, and upward mobility has become less frequent and downward mobility has become more frequent.

And this is very much because the of the the flattening of the labour market structure. And so what I really want to say in this context is we must not expect of education what it cannot provide. Of course, all of these things are important that what I've worked on all my life. But what will transform social mobility ultimately is economic growth. And we have to be realistic about that and to think about that in every local area. I just want to say one more thing, which is that I'm a little concerned at the the tendency, which was visible a bit in this report, to feel that if a 16 year old is struggling with English and maths, we should just forget it.

Now, I know that's hugely oversimplistic, but there. There is something of that in some of your witnesses, and I actually do think that the new qualifications which are coming in for 16 to 18, which are pre GCSE, will be important, but the most important vocational skills by miles in a modern economy are maths and English. And if you doubt this, you can look at the sterling work done by DfE statisticians, which is also pretty magisterial. Thank you.
13:04
Lord Addington Portrait Lord Addington (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lords, this is one. >> My Lords, this is one. >> Of those debates where the report has no more bullet, seems to report has no more bullet, seems to address only certain aspects of it. But then, as she also described, if you didn't, we would be here all week going through. We are looking at key aspects and to concentrate on those key aspects. The. I rise of the Neet. Now, my Lords, we may have paid attention to them, but as.

And this debate is rather an extension of. When I was in yesterday. The rise of the Neet is something which we have identified over the decade. At least those groups who don't become involved in education or work. Something has happened in our society that makes this possible. Covid undoubtedly accelerated the process slightly or or maybe even established it, but it's already been there. There is something about the way we are structuring our education and society that is encouraging this group to grow, and I hope we can start to address it properly.

We will not do that by repeating the policies of the last decade ad nauseam. We will have to change something now, the one which I will go back to. And if the noble Baroness had a small bet with herself that I would raise special educational needs and dyslexia, she's one. Because it comes to the point, as the Baroness Wolf raised English and maths, dyslexia, Latin origin of the word. No, no it's not. It's Greek, isn't it? Greek? Origin of the word.

Sorry, I don't do classics. The word comes down, the fact problems with words. It's not. It's actually a problem with processing, which expresses itself in problems with literacy and reading more prominently writing than reading two separate skills. And also maths is a language as well that expresses itself. You have some problems there. Many of the solutions we have found there is the fact that you get somebody to encourage them and you immerse them in the subject, and you tend to scan, read so you get over it and you function there.

But also in the modern world, we use technology to actually produce literate, you know, literature and you can communicate. I haven't met anybody yet who would object to somebody talking to a computer to get a communication going, as opposed to tapping a keyboard. If there is somebody, well, there probably will be waiting for me at the end of this debate. But I have a very short shrift for them is what's coming there. So please, can we start to establish what is needed with literacy and mathematics in training, etc.

We have found that all these groups, if you test them in the language or the maths they are going to use in their career, they do better. So please can we address that and work it in the level one qualifications, which has been hinted at by the last government and now seems to be implemented here, these may well be enough for a person to go through the rest of their training. Could we please work that in? Could we make sure that everybody uses a computer all the time? Now, my Lords, in the past I have raised the fact that the.

In terms of education, the phone in your pocket may be a distraction because of the technology on it. It also can carry assistive technology. It does carry voice operation. It does carry a calculator. We may have to do other things, but it is there. It fits in your pocket. We've all got them with us and I hope mine's been switched off. But my Lords, we've got to start addressing this differently then, my Lords, when it comes to the process and the system when we're going here and we've discussed it, and I know my noble friend has raised, as she has often before, changing the types of names of the qualifications may be great and you may get slightly different qualifications, but let's make sure they work properly.

T levels have an incredibly bumpy start, and because the work experience required some of them, we had some courses where nobody finished them. V levels aren't as big. Yes, I did find that it was a figure going back. We actually it was only one course probably, but you went through there. The V level will fit in slightly more, shall we say, easier to the actual existing system. But can we make sure they work? Because the BTec examination, which has been generally accepted, seems to be the primary target, you are going to get a diverse set of qualifications for a diverse workplace.

Even if they have the same name, they will be very different because they've got to be or they've got to be used through there. Can we make sure we get things which are appropriate and people have appropriate pathways through the great engine of social mobility that used. Certainly that, and one that was preached to me was university. Now, at the moment, universities are getting a very bad press. You're getting a big debt with it. We don't seem to have so much support.

The government are taking steps here, but to making sure that these remain attractive. But also, my Lords, they have become a sacred cow. We all had to get to University of Hertfordshire, had to, and we actually did elbow out level five and level four, H and E and Gnvq courses. They were actually devalued, in my opinion, by the drive there and newer universities, when they stopped being polytechnics and colleges tended to push these aside and dump them. Can we encourage universities to take on some of these level four and five qualifications? Let's bring them all up to the same social status going through many of them.

Were there a Non-graduating courses are an important part of the history of our universities. Can we bring that in to make sure they have the social status and support they need? We need to make sure they are going through. But all of this is impossible unless you are letting people know what is there. And careers advice, which is mentioned in the report. But I personally one of my personal favourites would have liked to see a little bigger, but hey, you could only do so much.

Can we make sure we get this information into the parents because they're the important ones, or the carers in these groups? Some of these people we're talking about here may not have those people who are engaged. Social mobility. If you come from a group which has low attainment in academia, you are less likely to acquire it yourself. You're also less likely to acquire somebody that is pushing you forward to do it. So have the government given any thought to how you get people to engage with that advice, or give it properly to make sure that from a fairly early age, you know what the options are? My Lords, 16 is too late in this context.

Effectively, you're going forward. It just will be. You've got to get somebody who is geared up and prepared to take on that effort, that in that investment of time and energy and money to get themselves there, particularly if you don't find it easy or you have extra problems there. I refer back to my comments on dyslexia. Other special educational needs are available until. Can we make sure that we actually have somebody who knows what is going on and structures to try and reach them? This isn't easy.

We're talking about parents here who may have found their own educational experience with something that is best forgotten. If we can start to do that, much of the work of this government and the previous has ones becomes all the, should we say, so much easier? It's that engagement to go through will actually lead us to some real results. It's a big ask, but I hope the Minister will give us some positive a positive response and telling us how this is being at least started.
13:12
Baroness Stedman-Scott Portrait Baroness Stedman-Scott (Conservative)
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Well. >> My Lords, I want to begin by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, for leading this debate and to thank all members of the Social Mobility Policy Committee for producing such a Committee for producing such a thoughtful and important report. Its title Local roots, lasting change, captures particularly well the central point that I want to focus on today. As the noble Baroness Manningham-Buller said in her introduction, this subject matter could not be more important. Noble Lords who have taken part in the debate have raised many, many key points.

I promise you I will not repeat them, but just let me list them so that we all all understand the size and the scale of the problem, the relevance to that scale of those who are economically inactive, the economy. You know, if we if we know nothing else, it's only employers who create jobs. And the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, made the very, very important point that the best way to have an impact on social mobility is to have a robust, robust economy.

Long may we get one. The the the impact of operating costs on business, the business rate increase, the VAT, the National insurance contribution increase. Vacancies are through the floor. And if there are no vacancies, we can prepare young people for work. But where will they get it? And the one thing that's come out loud and clear in everything is the importance of data. Something I learned when I was at the DWP under the direction of my noble friend Lady Coffey. When you understand the data, when you can analyse it, you know best where to focus your efforts and I consider data to be absolutely critical.

The point about place and partnerships. My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham raised with others the importance of place and I always say that anything we deliver must be known, nationally, designed and delivered locally, and felt personally. Please, can I ask the noble Baroness, the Minister? She might not be able to do this, but I'm going to ask her anyway. Please, can you be brave about budgets? Spend the money where you get the best outcomes. I remember when I was running my charity, Tomorrow's People, we were sponsored by Diageo and they decided they would conduct an analysis of our work to see what we were delivering.

And the the outputs were phenomenal and the cost per job was phenomenal. And so I can say with with just quoting Alan Milburn, he asked organisations he met when he was compiling his report, what is the impact of the work that you do? What do you what do you deliver? What are the outcomes? And he said he was absolutely astounded that so many of them could not say. And so let's fully endorse the points raised by my noble friend Lord young about trailblazers placing budgets locally rather than centrally.

And then we may see that we get some lasting, lasting impact on the lives of the young people that we're trying to help. One thing that hasn't been raised today, and I'm not making a criticism, it didn't come out in the report, but I just want to put this in, is the importance of having a mentor. Some of our young people have got a mom and a dad and a granddad at home who absolutely encouraged them. You know, they don't just tell him what it was like in their day, but they actually encourage them to do well.

They give them advice. Young people I've dealt with, you know, they've got no hope, you know, how do you go home when you've been on a programme and you say to your parents or your guardians, God, I'm going to get a job. And they say, For God's sake, don't do that. You know, you don't want to do that. You know, what do you do when young people are given this information? And it, it just flattens them all the time. And so I would say I give credit to a lady I used to employ.

She loved the young people she worked with so much. I'm not saying others don't, but she loved them so much. She would take them to job interviews. And I can remember her standing outside of an employer's premises with a young person and she said, take your jacket off and wear mine. You'll look better, that sort of level. And when she got the call in the middle of the night from a young person from the police station, because they'd got themselves into a right pickle, what did she do? She got dressed and went to the police station and got them out.

Now there are young people who get this level of support, but there's a don't. And so we need we need services and we need people that get people on the right road, but we also need them to keep them there. And I think that would be absolutely right. The noble Lord Crisp made the point about the the teacher at primary school. I can still remember mine, the teacher who knew them, and then they lost it. And it's absolutely critical that you're working with someone who knew, who knows them and stays with them.

Getting a young person into work is an output, keeping them there as an outcome. And that's where we need to be. I've said about the cost of employing people, so I won't go on to that any more. Now, I want to be robust in my points about the Social Mobility Commission, what an organisation they are, what great things they've added. LED by Alan Francis, a great giant of social mobility, and my noble friend Baroness Stowell has already explained his impact.

The work in Blackpool is a credit to him and his team, and a blueprint for others to build on and adapt to the place that they are in. And I'm telling you, they've got data. I'm. I'm absolutely convinced of it, of its use. Now, can I ask the noble Baroness, the Minister, in the nicest term, not looking at me in the nicest term. What are you thinking about? Getting rid of them or taking them out? If that's correct, please can you explain it? Well, I'm delighted to hear that we don't believe everything we read in the newspaper.

I should have learned that lesson by now, shouldn't I? But perhaps the noble Baroness could say, are you planning to get rid of them? And how will young people benefit from that? So let me ask some other questions. And the noble Baroness here, where a mayor or local authority can demonstrate clear leadership, strong partnerships and the capacity to deliver. Will the government transfer real control over skills, employment, careers, provision and budgets, or will Whitehall continue to hold the levers while asking local leaders to carry responsibility? How will the government ensure that areas outside mayoral combined authorities, especially rural and coastal communities, where barriers are often most severe, are not left behind? What is the plan for those places that do not fit neatly into the government's preferred devolution model? The committee places significant responsibility on the DWP job centres, and the proposed jobs and careers service.

Will local leaders have meaningful influence over DWP and Jobcentre budgets? Will those budgets be capable of being pulled with local skills funding, and will the government provide multiyear settlements, rather than expecting long term partnerships to be built on short term pilots? And given that economic inactivity now accounts for the majority of NEETs, what action will the government take on growing NUM? The growing number of young people who face no work requirements when claiming incapacity benefit, a feature not shared by countries with lower rates? Does the Minister accept the findings of the Resolution Foundation's report Lost in Transition? And, if so, what reforms might follow? And finally, vacancies are falling, costs are rising.

Employers are becoming more cautious. What is the government's plan to increase the demand for young workers? How will it ensure that Saturday jobs, the junior role and the first chance to prove yourself, do not continue to disappear? My Lords, unless the government can answer these questions clearly, devolution risks becoming little more than the administration of centrally designed programmes, and young people will continue to pay the price. We owe them more.
13:22
Baroness Smith of Malvern Portrait Baroness Smith of Malvern, Minister of State (Education) (Labour)
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> My Lords, can I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, both for her leadership of the committee and for securing this debate, and to the Committee for the careful and constructive way in which they have considered the issues that we have talked about in the debate this morning, and that are reflected so well in the report. Can I say, on the issue of the government's response, there is no excuse for the time taken by the government to respond, and I am sorry for that.

The inquiry goes to the heart of a question that should concern every part of government and this House, how we ensure that background, geography or early disadvantage do not determine a young person's future. The committee rightly calls for stronger local partnerships, better data, earlier support for those at risk of becoming Neet, clearer routes through education and training, and closer links between skills and employment, and the government shares those aims. We may differ on some aspects of delivery, but we are united in wanting every young person, wherever they live, to participate, progress and build a good life.

Yet too many still leave education without a secure route into further learning, training or work. The task we have started, therefore, is to build a nationally coherent but locally responsive system that works around the learner, supports local growth, and expands opportunity in every part of the country. Quite rightly, the debate and the report have placed a strong focus on on place and devolution. And as the noble Lord, Lord young, has already identified, the Prime Minister has also set out a very clear approach to the way in which we rewire the state and go far further than ever before on devolving power and budgets to those places where, with a greater understanding and a bigger ability, both to be able to bring together agencies in the way the noble Lady said, and to deliver on local priorities.

And the government will set out more detail about how that will work. In a white Paper in the autumn, every young person should be able to see a clear pathway from education into further learning, skilled employment and adult life, academic and vocational, technical and vocational education will be complementary parts of one high quality offer and, as we have recently announced, new technical pathways from age 14 will reflect local needs, giving young people earlier access to technical skills, work experience and employers.

And here again, regional mayors, schools, colleges and employers will shape those pathways around local industries and growth sectors from advanced manufacturing, AI and digital technology to clean energy, life sciences, construction, health and care, and the creative industries. Mayors will have the powers, flexibility and accountability to bring education, employment, health and local support closer together and we will work with strategic authorities, providers, employers and local government to implement this approach and to ensure that new freedoms translate into better routes to apprenticeships, higher education, higher level skills and employment.

As noble Lords have identified again, and I do. And of course, some people who have contributed today did, of course, contribute yesterday to quite a lengthy debate on many of the issues we've covered this morning. I have to say to the noble Lord Lord Harlech, that was actually a debate initiated by a Labour peer. But whether or not yesterday's discussion or today's, I think there is a common recognition that we face a serious challenge with the numbers of young people who are neither earning nor learning almost 1 million young people in that position.

And that, of course, is not simply a statistic. It represents individual young lives, their ambitions and the potential for them to be held back. That's why we commissioned Alan Milburn to examine the deep seated drivers of youth inactivity, unemployment and sickness, and his interim report was a clear call to action, and we will consider the recommendations from the next phase of his work carefully. But we're not waiting across DfE and DWP, the Get Britain Working White Paper and the post 16 Education and Skills White Paper set out a joined up approach to participation, skills and employment.

An important guiding principle is that prevention is better than cure. Once a young person becomes disconnected, re-engage with is much harder, and we're therefore strengthening school's role in supporting post 16 transitions so that every young person leaves with a clear destination and those most at risk receive timely help. We are also piloting a post 16 backstop to connect young people without a confirmed place, or plan quickly to appropriate educational training, with the wraparound support needed to stay engaged.

And whilst it wasn't the topic of of this report, the noble Lord, Lord Winston is right about the significance of early years and primary. And the noble Lord Lord Crisp is right that we do need to focus and are focusing on key stage three. In the early years of secondary. The report is also right that better data is central to that effort. Too often problems are identified only after a young person has disengaged through the post 16 Education and Skills White Paper.

We are investing in risk of early indicator tools, improving data sharing and strengthening attendance monitoring in further education. When young people are outside work or education, we can strain labour supply, we limit productivity and we store up long term costs for individuals, the exchequer and the economy. And that is why the government is investing an additional £2.5 billion over three years into the Youth Guarantee and the growth and skills levy to support nearly 1 million young people and to unlock up to 500 000 jobs, training and learning opportunities and 300 000 work experience places.

As part of that, the committee and I've referenced this already, but the committee rightly stresses that social mobility is often delivered locally. Blackpool does show what can happen when leaders have the right data, can convene partners and can act early, and the youth guarantee. Trailblazers are testing innovative local approaches to supporting young people into education, training and employment. But of course, one of the reasons why we will not necessarily continue those trailblazers in the same format is because we, having learned some of the lessons, we're now determined to that they will inform wider policy.

We have introduced a National Youth Guarantee, but we will ensure that that is delivered in a way that enables local and regional design and use of the links that need to be made between employment support, apprenticeships and education. We don't believe that one model can be imposed everywhere. The barriers. It's absolutely right. Facing a coastal town, rural community, post-industrial area or major city differ, but the best local practice should shape national reform. Prevention must also be matched by a post 16 system that is clear, high quality and understood by learners, parents, employers and providers.

And that's why our reforms will create three clear level three routes. But and also that importantly, new level two pathways will provide clearer stepping stones for students. The committee also raised English and maths. Those skills are essential for further study and wider life, but repeated resits can become a barrier rather than a bridge. That's why the Curriculum and Assessment Review has emphasised stronger foundations in reading, writing and maths, alongside improvements at Key Stage three, and we're introducing new 16 to 19 level one English and maths qualifications, helping students to consolidate and build the foundation of knowledge that will enable them to progress.

As apprenticeships are an essential route into opportunity. That's why we're prioritising Youth Starts through the growth and skills levy to reverse the 40% decline in starts by young people over the past decade. We will now fully fund apprenticeships for 16 to 24 year olds, for employers of all sizes, and from the 1st of October, eligible small businesses will also receive a £2,000 payment when they recruit an apprentice aged 16 to 24. The Youth Guarantee, as I've said, will also expand work experience and training placements, work coach support and pathways into employment, apprenticeships, further learning and workplace training, careers, education, information, advice and guidance must sit alongside these reforms as the report makes clear through the Careers and Enterprise Company, a national network of careers hubs reaches the great majority of secondary schools and colleges in England, connecting young people with employers, local labour market opportunities and informed choices about their next steps.

Higher education remains another important route into opportunity. We want everybody with a desire and aptitude to enter it, to be empowered to do so. But access gaps remain too wide through Uni Connect and the office for students wider work on access and participation, we are supporting stronger local collaboration to connect people's ambitions with opportunities and skills needs in their communities, creating clearer pathways from education into good employment. And the Access and Participation Task and Finish Group is developing proposals for students from disadvantaged backgrounds and underserved areas, with its work continuing through to January 2027.

Maintenance loans have now risen by 2.71% for the 2020 627 academic year, and we will, of course, also reintroduce maintenance grants to support young people into higher education. The committee is right that this must be a genuinely cross-government effort. Skills, employment support, welfare, health, local growth and social mobility cannot be treated as separate silos. As schools Minister across DfE and DWP, I'm driving a joined up approach through the Youth Guarantee, the Jobs and Careers service, apprenticeships and skills reform and support for young people on Universal Credit, as well as the work, reforming the curriculum and supporting further education and higher education.

As a government, we are working with strategic authorities, local authorities, schools, colleges, employers and the voluntary sector because improving opportunity requires concerted action at every level. Our task is to move more young people from inactivity into opportunity, with the confidence to take their next step, the skills to enter work and the chance to fulfil their potential while supplying the talent our economy needs to grow. I thank the the noble Lords and the Committee for their work, which rightly challenges the government to go further and faster, and we will take up that challenge.
13:34
Baroness Manningham-Buller Portrait Baroness Manningham-Buller (Crossbench)
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Yeah. >> I'm very grateful for the positive reaction to our report around the House, even if some of you would have understandably emphasised some slightly different things. And where you think we haven't quite got the emphasis right, I wondered when I would be speaking at the end whether I would want to challenge what anybody had said, but actually I think pretty well all the contributions have been helpful and constructive and have supported what we have been trying to say.

This isn't surprising. Many of you came into politics, or in my case and others into public service, to improve the life of our people. And what we were looking at was a tremendous waste. And people becoming a drain on the economy rather than contributing it. So what I'm very encouraged by today is the number of people across the House who agree that this is of critical importance. I have to say, I'm rather closer to Lord Addington than Lady Wolf on maths and English, having had substantial problems passing maths myself.

This didn't prevent me running a charity that, at the time I left had a budget of 30 billion, despite my lack of numeracy, not because of my fiscal skills, but when 40% of young people fail GCSE, maths and English, we've got to have a slightly different approach. It's not to say that these skills aren't very important, but we must have that. We must have high expectations of people rather than dumbed down. But we need to think of different ways of doing it.

So I welcome very much what the government is saying. Those of us on the committee and others will watch and hope and challenge. I would just really end with the point made by Lord Young of Cookham. Please loosen the apron strings because it's not just delivery locally. It's not just money. It's not just power. It's also allowing local, encouraging local freedom on policy. Because that's where we felt the chain change would come. I beg to move here.



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Question is. That this. I must apologise to the House. I

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I must apologise to the House. I forgot to declare my interests as chairman of Microlink plc, which deal in assistive technology. I

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apologise for that. The question is that this motion be agreed to, as many of that opinion shall say, content contrary, opinion shall say, content contrary, not content. The contents have it. My Lords, as noble Lords, lead the chamber quickly and quietly. We Motion Motion for Motion for debate. Motion for debate. Human Motion for debate. Human Rights Committee report on forced Labour and UK supply chains. Lord Alton of Liverpool.
13:38
None Portrait Debate: Report from the Human Rights Committee: 'Forced Labour in UK Supply Chains'
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It's an.
13:38
Lord Alton of Liverpool Portrait Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench)
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the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Forced labour in supply chains. Let me begin my remarks, if I may, my Lords, by paying tribute to my hard working Joint Committee on Human working Joint Committee on Human Rights colleagues, two of whom will be speaking in the debate later, and to our committee team, its and to our committee team, its clerks, Rhiannon Hollis. Ayola, and clerks, Rhiannon Hollis. Ayola, and the specialist Laura Fatta. But I'm also grateful to the library, to the noble Lord, Lord Sarwar, who was introduced and made his maiden speech only yesterday and will give the ministerial response this afternoon.

He's a very welcome addition to your Lordships House. I also thank his officials and witnesses, including the independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Border Force, BSI, NCA Solar Task Force, the courageous Rahima Mahmood of the World Uyghur Congress and the noble Baroness Baroness May, the principal driver of the 2015 Modern Slavery Act, having myself visited Tibet and western China, where 12 million overwhelmingly Muslim Uyghur people face state imposed forced labour and genocide. I make no apologies for remaining focussed on Xinjiang.

President Xi Jinping explicitly framed his labour policies around ethnic minorities, telling his cadres, I quote, to guide them to integrate into modern urban life. A campaign which researchers note masks coercive labour transfers. Now for exposing this, the minister's noble friend and Scottish compatriot, Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws and I are in an attempt, I suppose, to try and silence us. Were both sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party regime. In part. My Lords, this report is a riposte. But Uyghurs are not the only victims.

Globally, around 50 million people endure modern slavery, generating some £174 billion annually in illegal profits. The charity Walk Free has identified state imposed forced labour across 17 different countries. Last year alone, the United Kingdom imported around £20 billion worth of goods at high risk of exposure to forced labour. Shamefully built on the broken backs and broken lives of men, women and children right across our economy. The committee identified high risk sectors. These include renewable energy components such as solar panels, which I raised as an all party amendment to the Great British Energy Act of 2025, alongside seafood, coffee, tea, chocolate, PPE, garments and critical minerals, where our committee cited the widespread shocking use of child labour in Congolese cobalt mines.

While the 2015 Modern Slavery Act was groundbreaking, our legislative architecture has completely and utterly failed to keep up with the escalating challenges. We found that our reliance on a patchwork of regulations randomly and erratically applied opens the door to tainted goods bearing the fingerprints of slavery. Compliance with transparency rules is dangerously low, as companies can legally report taking zero steps without facing penalties. As the noble Baroness Brady May wrote to the committee, I quote, there is growing acceptance that mandatory human rights due diligence aligned with the UN guiding principles is the best approach, my Lords.

That certainly requires changes to section 54 of the Act. The UK must implement mandatory due diligence and stay in lockstep with our international allies. Failing to do so leaves a yawning regulatory gap, which puts the UK at risk of becoming a dumping ground for top safe haven for forced labour goods that cannot be legally sold elsewhere. Adding to that danger, please note that as of August the 3rd, United States tariff policy has led to 13 countries responding to US pressure to address slave labour products.

Now, with so many countries robustly scrutinising products that enter their countries, UK exports will be at higher risk of exclusion because there is no mechanism in place to exclude forced labour imports from entering UK manufacturing supply chains. And for anyone who believes in national resilience and less dependency on slave based economies, and that we must tackle both of those things. Let me add to the list. This is also about protecting United Kingdom workers as well. Forced labour artificially deflates the price of goods, creating unfair competition for UK companies.

It is not too late to reverse the irresponsible emasculation of our manufacturing base and wanton destruction of British jobs, automotive, aerospace and pharmaceutical jobs continue to be at extremely high risk from state imposed forced labour and I would commend a Henry Jackson Society report published recently into the doubling of dependency on China for active pharmaceutical ingredients, many manufactured in Xinjiang. My Lords, this is a strategic risk, but reducing dependency can also bring gains in the US, when solar modules made with forced labour made polysilicon were banned from import, the US solar market exploded after a decade of decline and the loss of thousands of jobs.

The US solar industry has made a striking comeback, producing solar modules for consumers who prefer non forced labour made products. Segments of the solar industry require a short lead up time and could become a growth industry in the United Kingdom too. So in this instance, the ethical and moral choice can coincide with self and national interest. Under section 32 of the 2025 Great British Energy Act, GB are required to encourage and participate in measures to ensure that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place in the business of supply chains.

The JCHR recommended that GB report to our committee on what they had done to cleanse their supply chains, and last month they constructively wrote to us with an update and they say, I quote, they will use various levers to drive meaningful change within a constrained context. This is what happens when the chairman of a company, in this case, Jürgen Mayer, makes a welcome and deeply personal commitment. Even better, my Lords, when they have the sense to appoint people of the calibre of the noble Baroness, lady O'Grady, and my noble friend Baroness Young of Hornsey, and also Sarah Champion, Member of Parliament to the GB Ethical Supply Chains Advisory Group, something I greatly welcome.

However, more generally the JCHR found the government's solar roadmap and the Solar Taskforce does fail to address the issue of forced labour in solar supply chains and in recommendations 26 to 28. We urge the government to evaluate the work of these failed initiatives and develop a viable strategy to address the risks of forced labour in the UK's solar supply chain, and I hope that noble Lords Minister, fresh as he is to this post, that nevertheless will give us an update on that.

In a letter to the committee, one of the first he must have written in post on August the 26th, the noble Lord, Lord Sarwar gave a welcome pledge. I quote that the government believes that progress towards our clean energy and net zero ambitions must not come at the expense of human rights. The government is clear that the UK's ambitions for energy security, for affordability and clean power must go hand in hand with the government's long standing position towards protecting human rights domestically and in supply chains.

However, my Lords note that Professor Laura Murphy categorically states, I quote, it is possible to trace these goods to identify which are at higher risk of forced labour. But currently the UK has no apparatus to do so. So to tackle that, let me summarise our main recommendations. The committee call on the government to examine targeted import bans to prevent goods linked to forced labour from entering the UK market. It calls for mandatory human rights due diligence, a legal requirement forcing companies to actively map out, clean up and audit their supply chains backed by financial penalties for non-compliance.

It calls for civil liability that is a legal duty to prevent, and where a company fails to take adequate steps to prevent exploitation, we call for clearer access to justice and civil remedies for victims in the UK courts. We commend to the Minister best practice elsewhere. See the 2021 Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act in the United States, which introduced a rebuttable presumption banning goods produced wholly or in part by forced labour in Xinjiang, unless the importer can prove otherwise, and following suit in 2027, the EU forced labour regulation will come into force that bans the sale, import and export of goods made with forced labour.

So once again, if we aren't in lockstep, if we don't do the same, it will further exacerbate the risk of the UK being a dumping ground. So my Lords, this is urgent. Now, to achieve our recommendations, we call for comprehensive new legislation and many of us were justifiably, I think, disappointed not to see that hope realised in this year's King's Speech. But we do welcome measures in the Immigration and Asylum Bill implementing JCHR recommendations 3 to 5 to strengthen and expand the transparency and supply chains.

Reporting duty under section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act. It will be a good start, but there is still much more to do, which is why we still argue that a new bill is urgently needed while awaiting comprehensive legislation. There are other things, of course, that we can do. The committee examined the historic 2024 UK Court of Appeal ruling in a court case brought by Rahima Mahmood that the UK's National Crime Agency had applied the wrong test in deciding whether to investigate the importation of cotton products produced by forced Uyghur labour in Xinjiang.

Those powers, in the Proceeds of Crime Act, have too rarely been used to confiscate goods linked to forced labour. Now the National Crime Agency and Border Force appeared before our committee and the NCA wrote to us stating that they don't have a clear mandate to confiscate goods linked to forced labour. After an exchange of correspondence. We've only today had a letter from the NCA, which I will ask the Joint Committee to publish. I will share, of course, with the Minister. What I can say is this.

But it adds weight to the committee's view that the government needs to get a grip of this issue. We are clear in recommendation 17 that the government should explore further ways of using the existing proceeds of crime powers to prevent goods linked to forced labour being sold in the UK, and go on to seize assets linked to forced labour. The government should not use the Lane excuse that it can't direct independent law enforcement bodies. It can give them a legislative mandate.

It has done so before this House amended this House, the UK Health and Care Act, to prohibit the NHS from sourcing products such as PPE made with slave labour. However, my Lords, given the 2024

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finding that 21% of NHS suppliers had a, quote, High risk of exposure to forced

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High risk of exposure to forced labour. I hope the noble Lord will commit to a review of whether and commit to a review of whether and how the NHS has implemented those legal obligations. What has also become worryingly clear during our become worryingly clear during our inquiry, and backed up by some brilliant journalism in the Financial Times, is that the UK Financial Times, is that the UK doesn't bother to or collect data that would enable risks of forced labour in supply chains to be identified.

And I'm referring specifically to shipping manifest data. It only provides less detailed aggregate data. That is in contrast to many other states, including, for instance, Kazakhstan and the United States. On July 15th, the noble Lord Lord Hanson of Flint, Minister of State at the Home Office, confirmed, I quote, that the Home Office does not routinely assess whether goods entering the UK may have been produced using forced labour. Now, if other jurisdictions can do that, I hope the noble Lord, the Minister, will commit to thinking again about creating comparable transparency.

The JCHR also recommended the creation of greater corporate responsibilities, including enhanced transparency, reporting obligations and mandatory human rights due diligence duties to be implemented with new regulatory arrangements, including penalties for non-compliance overseen by either the supply chain centre or the office for Responsible Business Conduct. In his letter to us on the 26th, the noble Lord said that the government's considering its response to the Responsible Business Review. Can he say whether he has a preliminary view on whether the O r, b c should have a regulatory role in, say, when he imagines that the response will actually be published? Let me conclude by returning to the people who have been subject to forced labour and who provided evidence to the inquiry.

They described a lawless existence where they had been denied food and water wounds were left untreated. They sustained permanent injuries and they were abandoned, destitute, without papers. Some survivors reported their exploitation to local authorities, but nothing was done even after reaching safety. Survivors expressed experience of psychological difficulties such as PTSD and addiction. In recommendation 29, the JCHR calls for improved access to justice for survivors. Corporations should be subject to the civil course of action generated by a failure to prevent forced labour.

And I would say to those who talk about slavery as a problem of the past, that despite what William Wilberforce and many others hoped for, this remains a contemporary challenge. Nor is modern day slavery a problem in faraway countries. It affects all parts of the world, despite us too rarely hearing about it. Sadly, most of the items and products we use and buy every single day are to a smaller or larger degree tainted in modern slavery. The clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the computers and phones we use, the food we eat.

But as a country, we are still a long way from eradicating it. So we must try harder and we must do more to focus on victims, governments, companies and consumers. I am particularly grateful to the Wilberforce Society at Cambridge University who are working on proposals for me on the empowerment of consumers in challenging modern day slavery. We can do far more in welcoming the Minister to his new role. I hope that he will keep this report on his desk and its recommendations in his in-tray.

I welcome him again to his post and thank all noble Lords who are going to speak today.
13:53
Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Portrait Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Labour)
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That this motion be agreed to. >> That this motion be agreed to. >> My Lords, I congratulate Lord Alton and his Committee on this important report and for securing this debate and add my warm welcome to my noble friend, the Minister. I chaired the House of Lords Committee, which examined the 2015 Modern Slavery Act. Our committee recommended the introduction of much more robust due diligence standards aligned to those emerging from the EU, and I was so pleased to see that echoed in this report.

Can my noble friend, the Minister, signal support today for the approach advocated by the Corporate Justice Coalition, which is backed by both business and unions as set out in Baroness Symons excellent private member's bill. I also have an interest in the debate, as we have heard, as Great British Energy's board member with lead responsibility for a just transition for workers and to combat modern slavery. Basic human rights are severely threatened by climate change, too. So the answer can't be putting the brakes on decarbonisation.

GB is committed to becoming an anti-slavery leader, helping to cut industry reliance on minerals and products from companies or regions which use forced labour. In the short term. We're finalising a code of conduct on which investments and grants are conditional. But ultimately, I agree the best way forward is to invest in the development of alternative technologies and build supply chains and decent jobs here in the UK as a country. We must also learn from history.

Globally, the last great advance against forced labour came after the Second World War, when many former colonies won independence and set about dismantling colonial systems of indentured labour in the British Empire alone. An estimated 1 million Indian workers and hundreds of thousands of Chinese labourers had been brutally controlled through drugs, debt bondage and criminalisation of desertion. My point is that today the root causes of forced labour are the same unaccountable state or corporate power, poverty, racism and discrimination, and weak labour rights workers organised into free and independent trade unions, play a vital role in holding companies and their supply chain policies to account.

I hope that the Minister can reassure us that new UK rules on due diligence will recognise and strengthen that trade union role. Yeah.
13:57
Baroness Sugg Portrait Baroness Sugg (Conservative)
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My Lords, I'm grateful to the noble Lord Lord Alton for bringing this debate to the House, and I commend the Joint Committee on Human Rights for report. That is both sobering and constructive. Its central conclusion that goods produced through forced labour are. Entering UK supply chains should concern us all. And as the report argues, in comparison to our main international trading partners, the UK is falling behind a country that rightly takes pride in its leadership on modern slavery must ensure that its own market does not become a route for exploitation.

I approach this debate with two principles held together our responsibility to tackle forced labour and to uphold human rights, and the need for a regulatory environment that supports responsible business, rather than placing unnecessary burdens upon it. The committee is right to highlight that many British companies are already investigating, investing significant time and resource into tracing suppliers, improving transparency and mitigating risks. They do so because it is morally right, but also because their consumers increasingly expect it. Yet these responsible firms can find themselves undercut by competitors who take a less rigorous approach.

And that is not fair competition. It's and it's one reason why this debate matters. At the same time, we must recognise the pressures that businesses face. Many sectors are navigating inflation, supply chain disruption and tight margins. Additional mandatory requirements, particularly if introduced without careful design, could impose substantial new costs. The committee's proposals on mandatory human rights, due diligence and import controls are serious and deserve consideration, but they would mark a shift in the UK's regulatory landscape. And so before moving in that direction, we need clarity, evidence and a full understanding of the economic implications, as well as ensuring their efficacy in tackling forced labour.

I'd be grateful if the noble Lord, the Minister, could address three points, and I welcome him to his position and am happy to take the response in writing. First, as the noble Lord Lord Alton asked, when will the government publish the Responsible Business Conduct Review and the National Baseline Assessment on the UN Guiding Principles? And these documents are going to be essential for informed policy making. Secondly, how will the cumulative impact of potential new due diligence requirements on small and medium sized enterprises be assessed? And thirdly, can the Minister confirm that any future proposals, whether on due diligence or import controls, will be developed in close consultation with business, with a clear understanding of sector specific risks and the need to maintain competitiveness? My Lords, the UK should never be a market for goods produced through coercion or abuse, but our response must be effective, targeted, proportionate and workable.

The task before us is to protect those being exploited while supporting responsible business, and I hope that today's debate help us move helps us move closer to achieving both.
13:59
Lord Bishop of Chester Portrait The Lord Bishop of Chester (Bishops)
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My Lords, I join with others in welcoming the noble Lord, the Minister, to his seat. I hope the noble Lord won't mind me sharing that. Before his introduction yesterday, we were chuckling that wandering around this place for the first time felt a bit like wandering around Hogwarts. My hope, if I may say so, is that he will fight as passionately for justice as the heroes of those stories. I think I'm also not alone in welcoming this report wholeheartedly and expressing gratitude to Lord Alton and his colleagues for the extraordinarily good and profound work which has been done here.

I am proud to be part of a nation which ten years ago introduced, I believe, for the first time in the world, groundbreaking legislation. But we have not gone far enough. And this matters. It matters morally, legally, economically and in terms of human rights. I suspect to go to my day job, I am preaching to the choir in terms of the moral case for this. You only have to glimpse the basics of forced labour in order to see that this is not good enough, although that's part of the problem.

I think we do not glimpse it, and we do not have the public outrage that we need. Others will make the economic case far better than I could. I do refer the noble, this noble house to the work of charities like unseen that reckons that around £60 billion of cost a year is added to the British economy by dealing with these issues. Imagine the effect of money being taken out of the criminal economy and put into the mainstream economy. And if I may speak up for the Church Commissioners, I am glad that our responsible investment team have been working for a number of years on this, but I would say I am a bear of little brain.

And so my reflections have been focussed around two very clear questions. The first is this how in tackling this injustice do we make sure that we not that we do not transfer inequity from one group to another? I suspect to most in this chamber this afternoon, it will make very little difference. If 10% were added to the cost of a new sweater or other points of clothing. But it matters hugely for many of the people that I am privileged to serve.

In researching this, I have been surprised and delighted to find that many of the most cost effective clothing providers in our society today actually have some of the strongest policies in this regard. And I ask the noble or the Minister what the government is doing in response to these recommendations, but particularly to ensure that we make sure that cost is not added to the most impoverished parts of our economy. And the second question, which has really absorbed me, is how we raise public awareness of this issue so that people know when there is forced labour in their supply chains, when chain, when they go to buy a new pair of socks or whatever it happens to be.

Where are the Greta Thunberg's? If you're of a particular generation, where are the Bob Geldof who will raise these things and raise public irritation to a point that we must do something about it, not only legislatively, but in terms of a change in our society. This question matters. Morally, it matters. Legally it matters economically, it matters to the very soul of our nation. So I thank you for this report and urge the government to take response.
14:03
Baroness Butler-Sloss Portrait Baroness Butler-Sloss (Crossbench)
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That I'm co-chair of the >> That I'm co-chair of the parliamentary Group on Modern Slavery and vice chair of the Human Trafficking Foundation. The 2015 Modern Slavery Act was transformational in its ambitions, but it was a long time ago, and much of what came from it has not really been implemented or has been positively discouraged. The two recent reports, particularly the excellent one, which we are debating today, do set out sensible recommendations but not yet implemented by the government.

And that really is what I am about to say today. There is no provision in the act for enforcement, and we are now, as already been said, out of step with many other countries as examples. Australia, United States, Norway, France and the EU. I remember discussing with border control officers over a link that with the United States border control officers, how they stopped hot goods, as they call them, very effectively. Why aren't we looking at the way the Americans deal with hot goods? The EU has a due diligence directive that's going to affect our big companies, because we deal hugely with the with EU, as we do with the United States.

Are we, as the noble Lord Lord Alton said, going to find that our goods are rejected because we can't be clear that they are safe? We have the Procurement Act of 2023. Excellent in idea, but not yet effective. We have an immigration and asylum bill that will increase transparency and reporting, but no due diligence, no mandatory provisions, no duty to identify, prevent and address forced labour. Quite simply, we do not have anything effective to deal with the companies, many of whom are working extremely hard to do the right thing, and that means they are at a financial disadvantage.

With all too many companies who are not doing anything to prevent it. So my view is that the mandatory provisions should apply. They should we should have financial implications. We should use SMEs as well as the very big companies with a right degree of proportionality. Trade negotiations should include considerations of modern slavery and also to clean the supply chains. There should be issues. There are issues across government departments, so there should be clarity and responsibility.

This is urgent. The government needs to get on with it. I'd like to thank Lord Alton for bringing this bill to our
14:06
Baroness Goudie Portrait Baroness Goudie (Labour)
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House, bringing this report and securing the debate, and to those who worked on that committee, and who worked on that committee, and also to my noble friend Baroness O'Grady, for her work her committee has done, and others in this House has done, and others in this House who are working on this issue, on this issue. I have long standing interest in today's discussion as interest in today's discussion as as an adviser to the Georgetown Institute for women, Peace and Security. My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to discuss the Human Rights Committee.

Forced labour in UK supply chains report today. The figures provided by the International Labour Organisation are beyond disturbing, estimating that every single day, 27.6 million people are trapped into forced labour and labour conditions, nearly double the populations of London, Manchester and Birmingham combined. My Lords, of course, this travesty is not a gender neutral and of the 6.3 million people in forced commercial sexual exploitation, nearly four out of five women are women and girls children. Those who are the most vulnerable and deserve care from their communities make up 3.8 million of those stuck inside forced labour situations, of which over half a million are commercially sexually exploited and no one who has sexually exploited lives a long life.

I think we ought to really realise that every single one of these people deserves our efforts to secure them the freedoms they deserve. My Lords, the nature of supply chains means that many of these cases are deliberately obscured and hidden beneath layers of supply chain contracts, ultimately also hidden within British homes and workplaces. My Lord, our current framework only asks companies with a turnover of £36 million to report on supply chains. But the committee noted that, with due diligence currently takes a voluntary approach which in fact disregards businesses who take this responsible approach and not always published.

I support I support, the committee's call for mandatory human rights due diligence throughout the supply chain, and would want to ensure that safe reporting mechanisms for victims are prioritised at every level. My Lords, including the right to autonomy and protections of the dignity of the people who have experienced this trauma. I also support the call for businesses to have the duty to prevent, meaning that victims have a have a route to civil claim if they are wronged. I hope that the government will look again at establishing a Survivors Advisory Council.

Those who have lived through the terrible form of exploitation understand the truth of its mechanisms, and more than any legislator could ever. Finally, I would like briefly to bring attention to our principal trading partners are moving forward in this area. The EU will be banning the sale, import and export of goods made with forced labour from December 2027. My Lords, whilst a while away. Yet it is a strong and decisive move and one that we must mine so as to avoid goods that are rejected over the channel.

Simply being redirected to sell, to sell at our stores. A year has passed since the committee's recommendations. Timetable for legislation. We now have a new government to both give us a real opportunity for a fresh leadership on this matter. And can my noble friend the Minister, say, when the government now expects to set out its legislative plans? I wish to congratulate the Minister on being with us today. Thank you.
14:09
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Portrait Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench)
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Lord Alton commendable inquiry has shone a light in dark places. Abuses occur beyond first tier suppliers, affecting women and the environment in particular. I it's made us think. And his opening speech today will have made us think further, as the NHS is one of the largest commercial organisations in the country and the fifth biggest employer in the world. I want to focus on its supply chain. Antibiotics alone constitute about half of NHS primary care prescriptions, mostly penicillin based.

Their manufacture depends on the precursor 6APA, for which 85 to 90% of the global manufacture is in China. In the NATO area, Sandoz in Kundl, Austria, is the only producer of six APA for penicillins, which it manufactures. The surgical equipment supply is similarly worrying. Over one fifth of equipment, especially disposables, is produced in northern Pakistan, with supplier companies in Europe or the US. Labourers manufacturing surgical instruments are often paid less than a dollar a day, have poor job security, woefully inadequate health and safety protection, and many employees are children, some as young as seven.

150 billion pairs of disposable gloves are produced every year, mostly in Malaysia, Thailand and a few other Asian countries from factories often known already for their serious labour rights concerns in Malaysia. Migrant migrant workers producing surgical gloves have reported unsafe factory conditions, confiscation of passports, illegal withholding of pay and debt bondage from high recruitment fees paid to agents to secure the job. In 2016, procurement agencies for the NHS started introducing contractual requirements.

But our strategic vulnerability was evident in Covid, buying £150 million worth of equipment from Chinese companies whose factories were using Uyghur and North Korean forced labour, with extensive links to the human rights abuses in Xinjiang. The report's recommendations warrant action. Our short term approach with procurement based on price leaves us complicit with human rights abuses and perilously vulnerable to disruption in critical health supplies. In Sweden, procurement directors included effective labour clauses into regional contract with an Indian healthcare uniforms manufacturer.

It can be done. It must be done. And I hope the new Minister, who I congratulate, will urgently press for the supply of medical instruments and medicines to be tackled across ministries in.
14:13
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere Portrait Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Non-affiliated)
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It's a great pleasure to see the noble Lord, the Minister in his place. He's always represented the best of the Scottish Labour tradition, that of building people up rather than trying to tear things down. My Lords, I am strongly in favour of what the noble Lord Lord Alton said about Xinjiang, and it's worth looking at not only the horror of what happens, but the exportability of it. An algorithm monitors you for antisocial behaviour. What's antisocial behaviour? Growing a beard.

Covering your hair. Observing the fast. Talking to foreigners. Accessing the wrong websites. And the algorithm can then sentence you to re-education. I hope it is common to all of us in this house that that is abominable behaviour. Equally, I hope that it is common to everyone on every side that forced labour is an atrocity, offends all our deepest moral sensibilities. I wish we would spend more time eliminating the remaining pockets of slavery in Afghanistan, Eritrea, Mauritania and so on.

Rather than fretting over who owned a share in the Royal Africa Company in the 18th century. The problem that arises from this report is that we shouldn't judge policies only by their intentions. We need to look at their consequences, and there are reasons why we have generally in trade policy, restricted ourselves to the finished product, rather than trying to police the production of any given good or service, whether it's to do with net zero or animal welfare or whatever it is.

It's an incredibly difficult and intrusive thing to try and police, and it's usually very ineffective. And to the extent that there is an impact, it is very often negative. A trade sanction of any kind and refusing to buy certain products and then having to go through a bureaucracy to see which products they are, is, if you like, the loosest form of trade sanction. Whom does that hurt? It hurts ordinary people in the other country. And as the noble prelate, the Bishop of Chester reminded us in our own country, and it generally drives support to the regime of which you disapprove, because it strengthens their control of the economy, and it makes it easier for them to put their cronies in positions of power.

So there's a real danger that we elide from saying, I disapprove of this practice, or I disapprove of this regime, whether it's Iran or China or wherever else, into saying, therefore, let's have some kind of trade sanction. Actually, I think we need stronger sanctions, not commercial sanctions, but political sanctions and legal sanctions aimed at the individuals responsible. And we shouldn't use trade as a kind of dustbin into which we put all of our desiderata. It's not like the last debate. People were talking this way about the school curriculum.

I want my particular thing in the school curriculum. I want it to be more financial literacy, more climate. If you if you put in everything that everyone wants in the school curriculum, there'd be no English or math or science. And similarly, if trade deals become about women's rights and workers rights and net zero and indigenous rights and all the rest of it, then there isn't room in them for what they really for, which is the removal of obstacles to increase mutual prosperity. I have to say, historically, the thing that really did for slavery was rising prosperity, which made it obsolete.

And if you look at that list of countries where it still persists, they are poor countries. The best thing we can do is to allow them to trade their way to wealth.
14:16
Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick Portrait Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick (Crossbench)
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By Lord Black all the rest of us in the chamber. I thank my noble in the chamber. I thank my noble friend of over 40 years for his incredibly diligent work and for the work of his committee, which is, the work of his committee, which is, as we've said, shone a light on this very painful area. An entangled web of cheap and forced labour, of modern slavery, of migrant and asylum issues, all of which are in a mess. Not to trivialise the issue in any way, but if you fancy a cinema trip.

The current film mutiny, available in cinemas right now featuring Jason Statham, is all about a conspiracy of international slavery proportions and in fact, a great British actor exposes the best way to deal with the issue. Quite violent, I have to say, but never mind. It is there to be seen. We are having this debate in the week in which we discover that 660 British companies have underpaid their workers, not even minimum wage, barely a living wage, and having to return to 27000 people, £4 million for trying to get them to do things on the cheap in the UK.

This is the kind of disgrace we're focussed on. I noted in particular that the report from his brilliant committee states that state imposed forced labour is an issue, and it is. When a state seeks to. So either criminalise or reduce or push people to the margins. It forces not just forced labour activity, but wrong labour activity. So this very week a young man of British origin, but of African parentage, was arrested on the streets of London, banged behind bars again.

Minor offence. Nothing to do with violence or other people. Simply because, as an asylum seeker trying to get the Home Office to do its job and its failure to do so, he found the only way to get some income to feed himself was to sell minor category B drugs. Now the taxpayer will shell out £120,000 over the next two years by simply saying to keep him in prison is better than letting him work. That is a nonsense. That is state imposed, forced Labour absence, and the fact that I hope the Committee will consider in its brilliant future, thinking about how these minor aspects of our policy and failed government departments trap people rather than liberate and build them up.
14:19
Lord Murray of Blidworth Portrait Lord Murray of Blidworth (Conservative)
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My Lords, as a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, so ably led by the noble Lord Lord ably led by the noble Lord Lord Alton, my first remark is that I find it slightly unfortunate that the House is only now considering a report that the Joint Committee published in July of 2025, but then delay has been something of a feature in the long history of dealing with modern slavery and indeed, slavery in the history of our country.

As has been observed, the 2015 Modern Slavery Act, so bravely introduced by my noble friend lady May, was a groundbreaking international instrument which reflected in our domestic law, our obligations, and led the way for many countries to emulate the points that were made. But that, I suggest, was a reflection of our nation's long and very positive history in this area. As long ago as 1897, this Parliament passed a statute called the Foreign Prison Made Goods Act, which sought to achieve a measure of the type which is recommended in our report today for its own time.

And one can trace a line all the way back to the great glory of the British Empire, which was the abolition of the slave trade, led so wonderfully by William Wilberforce. The recommendations of our report are a logical extension in my submission of that long and noble history in our country of seeking to eliminate slavery in all its forms. Whilst I appreciate the noble Lord, the Minister will be looking at our recommendations and wishing to balance them against the desire not to burden business with undue regulation, which is a real and genuine concern given the state of burdens on businesses.

But I urge him to accelerate that consideration. And in doing so, I circle back to a point ably made by my noble friend Baroness Sugg, and by the noble Lord Lord Alton, in that we are awaiting a response from the government. I note that in June 2025, the government announced in the UK's trade strategy that it would launch a review of our approach to ensuring responsible business conduct, focusing on the global supply chains of businesses operating in the UK.

The JCHR received a letter from the then Secretary of State for Business and Trade that he considered that the launch of the Responsible Business Conduct Review was the 30th of June 2025. The noble Lord, the Minister's earliest act as a Minister, or one of them, was writing to us on the 26th of August, and in that letter the noble Lord. The Minister said that the Responsible Business Conduct review, and I quote, has now been completed, and the government is considering its findings.

I ask the noble Lord could he publish the review now, prior to the government publishing its consideration of its findings? And in so doing, I obviously welcome the noble Lord Minister to his place.
14:22
14:42
Baroness Hamwee Portrait Baroness Hamwee (Liberal Democrat)
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labourer is worthy of his wages, his hire, his reward. One Timothy his hire, his reward. One Timothy five and verse 18, my Lords, forced labour pays peanuts to its workers, almost treating them as if they were squirrels, as if they were were squirrels, as if they were less human. That's what forced labour does to people, and the labour does to people, and the challenge His Majesty's Government now faces is that the Joint Committee on Human Rights asked for the new legislation to be introduced within one year of the.

Of the publication of the report, we were told in their review that if there is a review, was the government's response. Now the noble Lord, whom I welcome, was warmly to his frontbench. Tell your Lordships' House, where are we on this. My concern is that delay will result in the innocent becoming complicit in unlawful importing or selling goods linked to slavery. We all know. We all know for the forced labour. We all know that ignorance is not a defence.

Father. Those who are carrying out forced labour have the time to find devious ways of getting away with it. If we don't do something, we are allowing them to get away with it. My friend. My Lords, noble Minister, will you please tell us in all these areas where the reviews are announced from the reviews are announced from the report? Who is it that is persistently urging Chivvying the persistently urging Chivvying the reviewers to complete the work? My Lords, the time to act is now.

Yes, my Lords, you.
14:42
Lord Sharpe of Epsom Portrait Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Conservative)
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Talk about being thrown in at the deep end. It was introduced just yesterday, and I welcome a new noble friend to your Lordships' House as well as to his post as a Minister. I describe him as my new noble friend. He's not a new friend. Given that we first met so long ago, I think he was probably a teenager at the time, and much water has flown under many bridges since then. But let me just say that maintaining the aquatic theme, I'm sure that he has a rival in your Lordships' House will be as a duck to water and that he will excel here.

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord Lord Alton and the members of his committee for their report which builds on the report to which my. My noble friend Baroness Grady referred. I was a member of that committee two years ago, conducting a post-legislative review of the 2015 act, and one of our recommendations was that the government should introduce sanctions for companies that fail to comply with supply chain requirements. Unfortunately, the government's response in December 2024 was that the status quo should retain be retained with a voluntary aspect to it.

And I evidence, I have to say, shows that that's simply not a enough. Without it being made compulsory, there won't be any meaningful change. Section 54 of the 2015 act requires companies to publicly disclose their efforts to tackle forced labour and human trafficking within their business and supply chains, but section 54 only requires companies to report action on forced labour in supply chains, not to take action. But I Lord Cameron of Lochiel Lord Alton said. No action complies with the act.

If the act, if the government is serious about ethical supply chains and I do believe they are, then it needs to demonstrate that those companies with a poor record on supply chains involving forced labour and human trafficking. Have to ensure the action that they are taking. Otherwise, it is, in effect siding with those companies, which then distorts competition by denying companies that do act responsibly a level playing field. And that can't be right. In its response to our report, the government said it was reviewing how it can strengthen penalties for non-compliance and create a proportionate enforcement regime.

That was a year and nine months ago, my Lords. In June 25th, Minister Bryant said the government had launched a review into the UK's approach to responsible business conduct. That was a year and three months ago. Two months ago, in answer to a written question from the noble Lord Lord Alton, my noble friend Lord Stockwood said the government was considering the review's findings and would set out its plans in due course. That sequence of events brings to mind the rather acid comment of my noble friend Lord Blunkett, when he said of Tony Blair's first government, of which he, of course, was a senior member, that it had hit the ground reviewing.

That was one of the criticisms that Keir Starmer's government also received, with an often overcautious approach characterised by incrementalism. The early signs that the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, will be much less risk averse, and one way of demonstrating that would be to introduce legislation to make human rights due diligence and supply chains mandatory. My Lords, it is long overdue and it is absolutely necessary. My Lords, first of.

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All, I'm going to declare my interest as an honorary associate professor in the rights lab at the University of Nottingham, who've University of Nottingham, who've done so much work in this area and as a member of the Great British Energy Advisory Group on Ethical Energy Advisory Group on Ethical supply chains. And thank you very much to the noble Lady Baroness much to the noble Lady Baroness O'Grady for incorporating me into those into that structure. I should also point out, as other people also point out, as other people have already mentioned, thank you very much.

I have a private member's bill, commercial organisations and public authorities duty to prevent forced labour and environmental harms in all their operations, throughout their value chains. And I'm waiting to hear about Second Reading for that. But I would very much like to welcome the noble Lord Lord Swire by inviting him to have a meeting to discuss that, because my belief is, and that of many others, is that it covers 99% of what people have been asking for for some time in legislation in this area.

Of course, thanks to the Joint Committee on Human Rights and particularly my noble friend, the noble Lord Lord Alton, for his role in that fight against modern slavery in which he'd been engaged for so long. Now, I genuinely want to have a deeper understanding of the government's response to the recommendations, and that's one of the reasons why I would like to have that meeting, because I do believe that we can clarify and work out if there's some sort of way of working together to a common end.

I don't want to fight the government on these issues, but I do want to be quite critical, first of all, of the slowness with which they've approached this area and the kind of confusion which has been sown by not being clear about what the approach actually is, where it is we want to go, and how the different parts of legislation that have been enacted so far, you know, how they all fit together and will they be incorporated into this this area of business responsibility? I want to just quickly say something about this, this issue of the burden that people refer to placing a burden.

I'm wondering who is really bearing a burden? Who are the people who are suffering most from this inaction? Businesses should be addressing some of these issues through standard business risk mitigation. It's not only it's not about introducing a whole slew of bureaucratic structures in order to make people feel better about themselves. We want to change the landscape substantially. I've been working recently with the construction industry, and I raised this because, of course, the government has a very ambitious programme of building, not just homes, but also other parts of infrastructure.

And yet again, I've got people saying to me, we really want to engage with them due diligence. We want to ensure that we're aligned with the EU and other countries, but we don't know what's going on here, so we don't know what it is we can do. And it seems to me to represent a really good opportunity for leadership from the government in terms of ensuring that the kinds of structures and principles that we're discussing

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today can be incorporated into this rebuilding of Britain. Lord Singh can I.

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Lord Singh can I. First of all, I'm grateful to be allowed to speak in the Gap. Can I allowed to speak in the Gap. Can I join the other Lords in welcoming Lord Sharma to this House, and we look forward to working with him, look forward to working with him, with his new responsibility as a trade Minister. I'm going to ask a question or two which I wouldn't mind receiving a reply in writing. If you can't answer the question right now, may I ask him what assessment his department has made of forced labour in UK supply chain in India? India is one of the most important trading partners, with bilateral trade worth over 40 billion.

But according to the Global Slavery Index, India has one of the highest absolute numbers of people in modern slavery, and the ILO and UK modern slavery assessments have repeatedly flagged up high risk sectors including textiles and garments, brick and skins and agriculture and leather. My question is threefold. First, what due diligence is? The Department for Business and Trade require of UK firms importing from high risk regions in India? Second, under the developing UK India Free Trade Agreement, what binding labour provisions will ensure trade does not profit from forced labour? And the third one is what practical support, not just guidance, is the government providing to help the British SMEs who do not have the large compliance teams to to audit their supply chains, remediate where abuse is found and and source

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ethically. My Lords.

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We started the week by giving a Second Reading to the Public Office Accountability Bill. We end it with Accountability Bill. We end it with a debate on the JCHR report. So ethics have permeated the week as ethics have permeated the week as they should, but there's quite a crossover between specific issues as well. I was not a member of the committee when it held its inquiry. I was a member in its previous incarnation. The incarnation of the committee, not me.

In 2017, when it published its report on human rights and business. To quote from the summary of that report, when UK companies source or manufacture goods in less developed countries with weakened mechanisms for protecting human rights, serious violations can occur. Human rights are just as important abroad. The Modern Slavery Act in 2015 has raised the profile of modern slavery within UK companies and their supply chains abroad. However, more action is needed. The government could make a positive start by facilitating the passage of Baroness Young's bill.

Well, that was then and this is now, and it went on to urge the government to consider what extra resources various organisations may require. As the Minister will realise, that is, Lords speak, for they are badly under-resourced. We commented then, too, on human rights being a matter for so many government departments which should be communicating with each other on this. A lot of the 2025 report therefore was familiar to me. In the course of many debates.

Noble Lords have remarked that at the time of the 2015 act, we regarded our country as world leading on modern slavery and that of. Over the years we've not kept up with international partners. I recall that when that legislation was going through, I made the rather naive point that public awareness was valuable. We talked about business following the example of the most ethical and best organised, without properly acknowledging, I think, that they cannot be precisely emulated by those with smaller margins.

I'm not making an excuse for unethical behaviour, but I am taking up a point which has been referred to by other noble Lords and in the context where you can be disadvantaged by doing the right thing, as the noble Baroness. Lady Butler-sloss, has said, and Baroness Young, I think, asks a very pertinent question on this. I think promoting a product on or partly on the basis of green credentials is easier than on the basis of no forced labour.

Though I was glad to hear what Lord Alton had to say on this subject. Reporting what evidence has shown the sector still battles the notion. It doesn't happen here. Well, Baroness O'Grady, who so skilfully chaired our Post-legislative inquiry, brought that out very strongly, as happened here. It happens here and it happens there. I agree with the right reverend Prelate. It's difficult when you don't see it starkly and immediately, and it's difficult when you can't really envisage it, which I think is perhaps a difference from the green credentials point, which I think we find a bit easier to get our heads around, or perhaps allow ourselves to think about.

We don't want to think about modern slavery. That predecessor committee visited an office where we were given a presentation on the UN Guiding Principles, and it felt really completely unfamiliar territory to all of us, I think. Was that because of a failure to promote the UN GPS or our own lack of awareness, maybe both. The Minister whom I welcome to his position, though I think he must already feel a bit of an old hand after having been thrown into it yesterday, will discover that Lord Sewell Lord Alton middle name is indefatigable.

He'll also find in the current independent Anti-Slavery commissioner an impressive level of determination. As with her predecessors, most noble Lords have had a very restricted time to speak today and though I could take quite a lot longer, that feels a bit rough on them. So I discarded the notes I made a couple of weeks ago, and I'm just going to pick up a couple of points made by Eleanor Lyons, the. I ask in her annual report of last December. She points out, I quote, exploitation not only harms victims, but also imposes significant financial costs on the British economy and responsible businesses.

Modern slavery costs the UK an estimated £60 billion each year, around 2% of GDP. She reminds us of the modern legislative drafting, drawing on the engagement and expertise contributed by stakeholders, demonstrating how legislation could be introduced in the UK. As she puts it, the public expect decisive action. 80% want retailers to be legally required to remove products linked to forced labour, and the same proportion support tougher government rules. Only 9% fully trust companies to act without oversight, while most believe profit takes priority over worker protection.

You might say that many people wouldn't want to be recorded as taking a different view, but these are significant figures, even allowing a reduction. For my scepticism, I was very struck by the foreword to her report, written by a survivor consultant working with and no doubt supported by the charity unseen, to quote mandatory human rights. Due diligence is not simply another regulatory requirement. When the law draws clear lines, exploitation has fewer places to hide. When those lines are backed by accountability, oversight, consequence and guaranteed pathways to appropriate remedy.

As I said, there's a real crossover with the Public Office Accountability Bill, which has extensive report and that that support rather that bill and will soon become law. Then, to quote, we move from reacting to harm to preventing it and from inadequate responses to just and restorative ones. If as a country, my Lords, we are to feel good about ourselves, forced labour in supply chains is something that badly needs attention. I very much support the report in which I had no hand.



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My Lords, firstly, can I take this opportunity to welcome the noble Lord, the Minister, to his place? And can I also thank. If I place? And can I also thank. If I may be so bold, my noble friend Lord Alton, for securing this debate and for introducing it so debate and for introducing it so comprehensively, and I don't think that any member of the House needs persuading of the gravity of what persuading of the gravity of what we are discussing. Forced labour is obviously a grotesque abuse, and Britain, working alongside our international partners, has a international partners, has a genuine and important role to play in confronting it.

It has been a very comprehensive debate and there's much to agree with in what has been discussed in the last hour or so, but I'm going to confine my remarks to pressing the House to drill into the detail and to look beyond the moral clarity of the diagnosis and towards the practical consequences of the remedies that are on offer. And we think that we need to be very careful about how we deal with this subject. And a one size fits all approach will probably not achieve the necessary objectives.

As the report notes, much of the forced labour that takes place in middle and higher income countries, and as a percentage of the population, it is at its worst in the Arab states. Now, how can that be acceptable, my Lords? Perhaps the most recent high profile case was the World Cup related construction in Qatar. And yet the world seemed to turn a blind eye to that which I personally think is shameful. Surely construction is one of the five sectors where forced labour is most prevalent, and the solutions to that are unlikely to be corporate in this country.

They have to be diplomatic, and that is something I think needs to be considered when dealing with this problem. But we also need to acknowledge that much of the forced labour we are debating arises in nations where corruption and weak institutions prevail, and as a consequence, poverty is endemic. In that context, further burdens placed on British businesses, whether through mandatory due diligence and reporting requirements of the kind that are proposed in the Immigration and Asylum Bill, or through restrictions on trade with particular suppliers or sectors, risks doing real harm to the very people we intend to protect.

In those areas where there are very fine distinctions between forced and desperate, we don't wish to further disadvantage those already in dreadful circumstances and thus therefore must be. Be very careful to design systems that allow for nuance, judgement, and that is not to argue for inaction, but just careful and detailed consideration. My Lords, we must also be aware that small and medium sized British businesses have faced cost after cost and millions of pounds in cumulatively regulatory burdens since this government took office, and I fear further mandatory reporting requirements will do very little to solve the problem they are aimed at.

While doing much to add to it. It will add cost, complexity and legal exposure to the businesses trying in good faith to operate responsibly within an imperfect system. In many situations, supply chains are so complex it would be practically impossible to ensure absolute due diligence and compliance. Now, this is not to argue for inaction. Not at all. But we are. And we need to argue that these businesses, particularly SMEs, will need help to ensure they are able to comply. So could I ask the noble Lord, the Minister, to bear this in mind when responding, and to please ensure that SMEs are taken particular care of and they have the necessary support to minimise compliance costs, compliance costs to maximise the efficiency of their practices and solutions to this problem.

And as the right Reverend prelate, the Bishop of Chester reminded us, we don't want to end up in a situation where all we are doing is, in effect, transferring inequity from one group of disadvantaged people to another. And again, my Lords, I don't say this to counsel inaction, but to counsel humility about the limits of regulation that are being imposed at a distance the long term. And I would argue the only durable solution to this problem is trade free and expanding trade with more international partners.

That raises the living standards. The standards of living drives development and fosters the competition. And I stress the word competition that roots out the bad practice. It is prosperity, not prohibition, that can eliminate exploitative labour practices in every economy that has escaped them. Our own included a point that I thought was made extremely well by my noble friend Lord Hannan. Now the noble Lord Lord Alton also made the extremely important argument about UK business, unfair competition and national resilience.

And I won't rehash them. But to that end, I do think the committee's suggestions about consistency in adding clauses on human and labour rights to international agreements should be given very careful consideration, and I welcome. I will welcome the noble Lord. The Minister's thoughts on that particular recommendation. My Lords, the drive to net zero has created a substantial, and I would suggest, insufficiently scrutinised reliance on imported solar panels from regions with. Associated with forced labour as much as 45% of the world's solar grade polysilicon, which is the essential raw material in the overwhelming majority of solar panels, has been produced in the Xinjiang Uyghur region, and the committee noted that the solar roadmap does not tackle supply chain risks.

Now, the United Kingdom imports the great majority of its photovoltaic hardware, and China's share of global manufacturing runs the high 90s percent at some stages of production. Similarly, some 70% of the world's cobalt, which of course is a critical component in the batteries. The power, both renewable storage and electric vehicles, is produced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country whose own record on forced and child labour in artisanal mining is well documented by the Global Slavery Index. So even where we do not import these materials directly, we do still sanction their use indirectly.

But unmistakeably every time we subsidise or mandate the deployment of renewable technology built upon them. Now, as have been noted by others in this debate, and particularly in this sector debates on this sector, we must not overlook the fact that the public sector has a significant role to play, both in terms of its procurement policies, as pointed out by the noble Lady Baroness Finlay, but also when it comes to the education of the public. And that was a fact that I think was made extremely a point that was made extremely well by the noble Lord Lord Alton, the right Reverend, the Bishop of Chester, and the noble Lady Baroness Hamwee.

The public need to be educated about this, the extent of the problem, so they can make better and informed choices. And by definition, a lot of that, that education will have to come from the public sector. My Lords, that is not to say that we are arguing or I am arguing, at least against the government's energy policy when we're talking about this particular aspect of the thing of the problem. But a serious conversation is still needed about how the forced labour ends up in UK, UK supply chains.

And I was very pleased to hear what the noble Lady Baroness O'Grady said on that, because I do think that sometimes the best of domestic intentions have disastrous unintended consequences thousands of miles away, out of sight. But hopefully, because of this thoughtful and expansive debate, not part of mine. Thank you.
14:50
Lord Sarwar Portrait Lord Sarwar, Minister of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade) (Labour)
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Yeah, yeah. to respond for the government. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, for securing this important debate. And can I thank him for his characteristically powerful and principled arguments that he made, and for the way he continues to campaign on this important issue? Can I just say right in the start that I can tell there is an impatient amongst my noble Lords for us to see progress on this issue, and can I reassure them that I am an impatient Minister? I want us to get things done and to get them done quickly and in the interests of people right across this country, but also in the interests of our international obligations too.

And that is a firm commitment I want to make to members across this chamber. I also want to thank the Joint Committee on Human Rights for its thorough report. Forced labour in UK supply chains and all noble Lords who have contributed to today's debate, and if I may digress for just one moment, can I thank the doorkeepers and all the staff who made me and my family feel very welcome yesterday and made it a thoroughly enjoyable but also memorable day? And can I thank the Whips office for making sure that they have me busy, not just yesterday, but today and also on Monday too.

I will, of course, endeavour to address as many points as possible within the allocated time, but if I do not cover any points, let me make a firm commitment that not only will I write to individual noble Lords, but any noble Lord that has raised an issue in this chamber that wants to meet to discuss that issue, my door is always open, but let me be absolutely clear forced labour is an egregious abuse of human rights. I think we are all in agreement on what we want the outcomes to be.

I think what we have to work through is how we get to those outcomes, because I have served, if I may say, in a parliament where we were very good at putting words and pieces of legislation, but what we weren't good at is changing the outcomes. And I want to make sure we are changing the outcomes for businesses in this country, but also for workers right across the globe. And because forced labour strips people of their freedom, their dignity and their agency, it has no place in the supply chains of British businesses, in goods purchased by the British government or in products sold to British consumers.

And so the scale of the challenge is sobering. An estimated 27.7 26.7 million people worldwide are subject to forced labour, including more than 3 million children. Forced labour generates an estimated $236 billion in illegal profits annually. And behind those statistics are human beings workers, coerced, children put in danger, families separated and communities denied the basic right to live and work freely. And that is why I welcome the committee's work and share their concerns. An estimated 70% of global trade now flows through complex supply chains.

That tells us the challenge. Globalisation has delivered enormous gains in productivity, innovation, living standards, but it has made the trading system complex and opacity of modern supply networks can also hide exploitation, and some products may pass through thousands of suppliers across multiple jurisdictions before it reaches consumers. Here in the UK, that means we have to think this through very carefully, and many noble Lords have mentioned Xinjiang and the abuses faced by the Uyghur communities. This government will remain absolutely resolute in opposing human rights abuses worldwide, including in Xinjiang, where substantial evidence indicates the persecution and arbitrary detention of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.

And my Ministers in the other place continue to raise these concerns directly. At the very highest level, the United Kingdom has a proud record of leading efforts to combat forced labour in supply chains. The Modern Slavery Act 2015 made us the first country in the world to require businesses to report on the steps they were taking to address modern slavery. It brought the issues into boardrooms, strengthened transparency and accountability, and prompted other countries to act. However, groundbreaking legislation should not remain unchanged because more than a decade later, we must honestly assess whether the framework is fit for purpose.

Many noble Lords have mentioned section 54 and how it requires larger businesses operating in the United Kingdom to publish annual statements outlining the steps they are taking to prevent modern slavery across our operations and supply chains. But analysis shows that only around 60% of companies have met those basic requirements. So transparency is meaningful, but the outcomes should be based on the actions. And that is why we need to see progress, because the statement must not just become a substitute for effective due diligence, nor must it be reporting be seen as an end in itself.

And that is why the government is strengthening the regime through the forthcoming immigration and Asylum Bill. It will establish clear reporting topics and deadlines, require the publication of statements on Modern Slavery statement registry and clarify the rules governing group statements. It will also extend the reporting obligations to public authorities, with budgets of £36 million or more, and introduce penalties of up to £1 million, or 1% of annual turnover, whichever is higher. For organisations that fail to comply. Together, these measures will raise reporting standards, strengthen accountability and help responsible businesses compete on a level playing field.

And alongside these reforms, the government has completed the Responsible Business Conduct Review announced in the trade strategy. The review assessed the effectiveness of the United Kingdom's approach to responsible business conduct, with a particular focus on the global supply chains of businesses operating here. It considered a range of measures, including mandatory human rights, due diligence and forced labour import bans, and it drew on the expertise of businesses, investors, trade unions, academics and civil society organisations. And importantly, it also heard from survivors and representatives of communities on the front line of supply chain abuses, including adults with lived experience of modern slavery.

We have also engaged with international partners that have shifted from voluntary approaches to mandatory due diligence and important restrictions, and we are carefully considering what can be learned from those systems. And as noble Lords are aware, the review is complete and the government is considering its findings, and we will set out our approach in due course. Let me reiterate again, I appreciate the committee's and the noble Lords impatience for greater clarity. I promise you I will not test your patience, but I think my noble Lords will accept that with the formation of a new government and new Ministers, we are looking at this with fresh eyes, and I have been robustly clear with officials in my own Department, and beyond that I want systems that work and systems that change the outcomes.

And that's a commitment that you have from me, because any strengthened framework must change behaviour, not merely increase paperwork. It must be clear, proportionate and enforceable. It must support responsible businesses and ensure that they are not undercut by competitors willing to profit from exploitation. Proportionality is particularly important for small and medium sized businesses, which lack the

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resources and commercial leverage of the Multinational companies. That does not mean lowering our does not mean lowering our ambitions. It means establishing clear, risk based obligations and providing businesses with the providing businesses with the practical guidance they need to meet. The committee's recommendation for an import ban recommendation for an import ban has been a prominent feature of today's debate, and the understands the full force of that argument. An the full force of that argument. An effective import measure could protect victims, responsible businesses and British consumers alike.

However, it does require credible evidence. Reliable traceability, clear decision making and properly resourced enforcement. We must ensure that any measure is legally robust, operationally feasible and genuinely disrupts forced labour, rather than merely diverting tainted goods through less transparent routes. The government are already using a range of other measures. The Procurement Act 2023 enables public bodies to reject bids and terminate contracts with suppliers known to forced labour. The NHS procurement regulations require public bodies to assess modern slavery risks and take responsible and proportionate measures to address them.

I note the point made about greater transparency on the outcomes of those measures, and I am happy to follow up with individual members on that. Of course, our trade policy also plays an important role. We do pursue forced labour provisions in our free trade agreements. And while the Developing Countries Trading scheme allows preferential trading arrangements to be suspended in cases of serious labour violation, violation rights, there was a question, for example, asked about the free trade agreement with India. Our free trade agreement with India is one of the first that India has signed.

That includes a Labour chapter. That is the kind of leadership I hope we can show in other free trade agreements too. Because another issue that's been raised is around clean energy supply chains and the risk and of and the link to forced labour points really powerfully made again by Lord Alton and others. The transition to clean energy must not and cannot be built on exploitation. The Greatest Great British Energy Act was therefore amended to ensure that Great British energy takes credible and proportionate measures to manage forced labour risks, and we expect Great British Energy to demonstrate leadership.

While the Solar Task Force has worked to support resilient, sustainable and innovative supply chains that are free from forced labour, my noble Lord Alton asked for an update on the solar roadmap. Since the establishment of the solar roadmap, we have also established the Solar Council that brings together key officials and Ministers with a clear commitment to deliver transparency on supply chains, and I am happy to update the noble Lord on that in more detail. We must also place victims at the centre of our response, because when exploitation is uncovered, businesses should seek to prevent further harm and secure meaningful remediation, not simply terminate a contract and abandon vulnerable workers to an even more precarious situation.

Now, no single measure, whether it is a reporting requirement, a due diligence report, procurement rules, trade provisions, import restrictions or criminal enforcement will solve this problem on its own. It needs a coherent whole system response backed by better data, greater traceability, effective enforcement and international cooperation. The committee's report poses a serious challenge to government, to business, and to Parliament, and I do not downplay or dismiss that challenge. So let me again commit to my noble Lords, that I will do everything I can to work with them to make significant progress in this area.

There were 1 or 2 other issues that were raised, and if I do not cover them in the next 30s or a minute, I will happily write to individual members. In terms of the Proceeds of Crime Act and what more we can do to use it, we are working with our Home Office colleagues to look at what more we can do, and again, I am happy to follow up on that with Baroness O'Grady's question around the Corporate Justice Coalition. I am looking forward to meeting them very soon to discuss their campaign, and what more we can do to deliver on the outcomes that they rightly demand of us.

And to my noble Lord, that ask the questions around the reports on the outcomes from the FTA with India and what assessments we have made. I am more than happy to come back to him on that issue as well. But let me just reiterate in closing, this is a collective challenge on all of us, and this is an obligation that we have based on the values of who we are as a country, but it is also an obligation that we have to those that are less fortunate than us right across the globe.

And this government, and I am sure this chamber will not step back from that commitment.
15:02
Lord Alton of Liverpool Portrait Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench)
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The noble Lord, Lord Sarwar, in his first occasion in having to give a ministerial reply, has give a ministerial reply, has acquitted himself with some distinction. And I would say to the noble Lord that it's wonderful to hear a Minister describing himself as an impatient Minister and someone who says he's going to look at things with fresh eyes. I also agree strongly with what he just said about there being no single outcome. And all of these are different levers that have to be applied.

And he said he will look at them carefully and I'm very grateful to him. But let me also thank everyone who's participated in this debate, all noble Lords who have spoken today. Left, right and centre. Right reverend Prelate said to us that we needed a greater sense of outrage. I think that is communicated itself in speeches today. My noble friend Lady Finlay said, it is our duty to shine a light into dark places. Everyone has done that today. It struck me, listening to the references to William Wilberforce, that 200 years ago it was a select committee at which he and others had appeared, including the slave trading sea captain from Liverpool, John Newton, who had changed his mind and came and described what he'd seen on those vessels that led to the changes in the law that this country can be so proud of, and this Parliament can be so proud of.

They changed hearts, they changed minds, they changed culture, and they changed law. And they did it as an alliance of people who came together. There was there were people from commerce. There were people from the law. There were people from religious backgrounds and secular backgrounds, and they worked with one another. They had campaigners like Thomas Clarkson, who abandoned his studies at Cambridge University in order to spend decades trying to bring through the legislation that ultimately made such a difference to people living in those dark places that my noble friend referred to today.

I began today by referring to the 50 million people who are victims. This is just a number, my Lords. Behind every number, every statistic, there's a story. There's a life that isn't theirs. There's a suffering that no one knows about. There's pain. There's exhaustion. There's hunger. There are dreams of freedom and dignity. The victims of this blight must remain central to this debate. In the years since we published our report, we've heard new stories on the use of modern slavery globally and the supply chains.

I draw attention to reports in the Times and The Independent about North Korean labourers living in conditions worse than cattle. Reports about exploited workers on Chinese fishing boats. Children working in deadly conditions. As the noble Lord Lord Sharpe reminded us in the DRC or the BBC's report seen by the Committee of Tomatoes being sold in the UK as Italian tomatoes, but actually grown by forced labour in Xinjiang. You don't have to look very far to see forced labour and modern slavery.

What we're going to do about it isn't about historic reparations, it's about action. This day, as Churchill famously demanded of his officials, he was an impatient Minister, too, and I hope that that dictum might become one that the noble Lord will have on his desk as he considers this issue further. My Lord, to end. It's an honour to have been the first member of your Lordships' House to be elected by the members of the Joint Committee on Human Rights as its chair.

As my tenure now comes to its conclusion, having chaired around 60 sessions and produced around a dozen reports on everything from transnational repression to the failures to prosecute British nationals responsible for genocide or crimes against minorities in northern Iraq. And our report, published only last week on the Human Rights of Children in Social care. I want to end by saying that the hard work of our parliamentary select committees in crafting challenging reports on public policy is exemplary and is a rebuke to those who only have negative things to say about Parliament and parliamentarians.

Joint committees of both houses of rarities, which I think we need more of, and I'm very glad to see the Government Chief Whip is in his place to hear that remark today, my Lords. Today's debate and our JCHR report on supply chains and modern slavery is a superb example of parliamentary work at its best. I do sincerely thank all noble Lords who have participated, both in the Committee and in the House today, and I beg to move.

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The question is that this motion be agreed to. As many of that opinion will say, content contrary, opinion will say, content contrary, not content. The contents have it. My Lords, beg to move the house. Do My Lords, beg to move the house. Do now adjourn the house. Do now
09:30
None Portrait Debate: Report from the Economic Affairs Committee: 'Preparing for an ageing society '
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