Live Debate: Lords Chamber

Urgent Question Repeat: The implications of the closure of the Saudi East-West oil pipeline for UK energy security, fuel prices and global oil supply, and on the steps the government is taking in response.

as chairman of Buckthorn and act in concentrating on fuel prices. In the question, my Lords, since UK

12:47

Lord Moynihan (Conservative)

- -

imports of Saudi oil stand at 2.5% of our total oil imports and the UK's share of our overall Middle UK's share of our overall Middle Eastern gas supply is well under 1%. Why are our domestic electricity bills predicted to be £300 more per bills predicted to be £300 more per annum from January next year, a distant £600 more than the promised reduction in the Labour Party reduction in the Labour Party manifesto, when wholesale electricity prices. The only element which gas heavily element which gas heavily influences contributes just 38% of our domestic bills.

Would the Minister not agree that one way to reduce bills is to remove the Clean Power 2030 policy costs, which are fleecing British consumers in the government's headlong rush to net zero and decarbonisation of Britain's electricity generation by 2030, which everyone knows will not be achieved and will continue massively to impede household and industrial affordability.

12:48

Baroness Antrobus (Labour)

- -

Well. >> I thank the noble Lord. >> For his points just then and his question. I think he will recognise in talking about percentages of oil and gas coming from certain regions. You mentioned Saudi. Obviously, we understand that our energy security in the UK in a positive way is reliant on a diverse range of supplies from around the world, including the Netherlands and the US. As as you're well, he he will well know in terms of bills, in domestic terms.

Clearly the government is reviewing all the time the volatility that's happening as a result, not just of those most recent attacks on the pipeline and on the facilities in Saudi Arabia, but also the wider issues that are happening across the Middle East, in Iran and and other areas of volatility. So we we continue as a government to review what we can do to help people. But as many will know, we are removing VAT on electricity bills from the 1st of October, which was recently announced.

And there are other discounts to be made, both £150 off bills in the last budget. And for those 6 million households most in need, the Warm Homes discount, which I encourage noble Lords to ensure is widely communicated well.

12:49

Lord Hain (Labour)

- -

My Lords, can I can I welcome my first opportunity to welcome my first opportunity to welcome my honourable, noble friend to the benches? As a former wing Commander, she adds real expertise and stature to the whole of the Labour benches and indeed to the House. Can I welcome what she. She replied, but also say that doesn't this terrible attack on the. The. The pipeline also indicate that the white House is responsible for terrible blunders of diplomacy in the Middle East, something that the conservative leader asked us to back in.

The consequences have been appalling, and the government's wrestling with that.

12:50

Baroness Antrobus (Labour)

- -

Well, I thank my noble friend and it's lovely to be able to call the noble Lord my noble friend for the noble Lord my noble friend for his very, very kind words. And thank you for that. In terms of the situation, I know you're referring to the action against Iran combined from the US and Israel, as you will well know, our former Prime Minister now, Sir Keir Starmer, made an excellent judgement call in those very early days under an awful lot of pressure, both from outside groups and indeed from the opposition.

And I very much commend the way that he handled that, both as a member of this House and also as a former military officer.

12:51

Lord Hannay of Chiswick (Crossbench)

- -

The Minister confirmed. >> The Minister confirmed. >> That the. >> Damage done to the Saudi

**** Possible New Speaker ****

Damage done to the Saudi installations originated from a part of the Iraqi republic, a rogue general. And are we satisfied that that will not be repeated? And could he could she also perhaps address the question as to whether it is really very helpful that the president of the United States has said he doesn't expect anything much to happen to alleviate the supply problems in the Gulf until after the US midterm elections.

12:51

Baroness Antrobus (Labour)

- -

So you make an excellent point about the fact that the drone attacks that hit the Saudi pipeline and installations generally came from Iraq, from IRGC supported militia. I, I can't give a guarantee that that may not happen again. Clearly, the IRGC are active in various parts of the Middle East, and that remains of significant concern to, of course, our government and our allies in the region. On his second point about the future, sorry, I've forgotten exactly the second point.

12:52

Lord Hannay of Chiswick (Crossbench)

- -

I. I asked whether she thought >> I. I asked whether she thought it was helpful that the president of the United States had said that he didn't expect anything very he didn't expect anything very useful to happen to improve the supply of oil and gas from the Gulf before the US midterm elections.

12:52

Baroness Antrobus (Labour)

- -

Yes. Sorry. >> So to my second question, what I would say is that we don't know how long it is going to take for Saudi Arabia to repair the pipeline. Reports are varied on how long it will take, but there are some that are optimistic that it will be sooner than that. And so I would respectfully take the advice from our Saudi Arabian allies first and foremost. And there are conversations going on, as you will expect, between both the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero, and, of course, the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office particular.

12:53

Earl Russell (Liberal Democrat)

- -

Lib Dems, Lib Dems. >> Lib Dems, Lib Dems. noble. >> Baroness, the Minister? Again. >> It is.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

Fossil fuels that prove to be insecure in supply and volatile in price. The attack on this pipeline, carrying 4% of global oil, will pile further pressure on prices already inflated as we head into winter, and we can ill afford another fossil fuel crisis. So I ask the noble Baroness, the Minister, how robust are our energy supplies? And as the Prime Minister has promised, to take the difficult decisions, will a social tariff be introduced this winter so families can afford to heat their homes?

12:54

Baroness Antrobus (Labour)

- -

I thank the noble Lord for a >> I thank the noble Lord for a very important question. And clearly the UK continues, as I've clearly the UK continues, as I've said, to have a robust and secure supply of gas, oil and other fuel products to meet the demand through a mixture of domestic production and imports from a diverse and as I said before, some of the countries that we are getting imports from. We know that worry about energy prices is right at the forefront of the public's minds, and I understand that completely.

We are. We will keep looking at what we can do to protect families from unaffordable bills. I have already mentioned some of the the areas that we've been trying to make some lives better. And I could also add, perhaps that we are also helping those homes most in need who need heating oil and to provide their heating in rural communities. But I absolutely know that this is top of the agenda in terms of continuing to to review that.

12:55

Lord Redwood (Conservative)

- -

Lord Bruce disruption in the Middle East. We need to get the jackdaw gas out as quickly as possible for domestic use. And doesn't that bring a tax bonanza,

**** Possible New Speaker ****

doesn't that bring a tax bonanza, which surely the government needs? Yes. The noble Lord I know raised this very question with my my fellow colleague in the ministry. Baroness Curran and as I know he will have heard the answer last week. I can't comment at the moment on that project, given that it is currently subject to a live regulatory process.

12:55

Baroness Antrobus (Labour)

- -

Well. >> Well. >> Firstly, can I welcome congratulate my noble friend on her Dispatch Box. This issue really underlines the importance of Britain achieving fuel self-sufficiency going forward. So I wonder with that in mind, whether she can tell us any more about how the government's work is going in that direction, in particular, giving communities power over energy self-sufficiency?

12:55

Lord John of Southwark (Labour)

- -

I thank my noble friend for his question. And we know people are really worried about the cost of bills. As I've already said to the noble Lord Earl Russell. And

12:56

Baroness Antrobus (Labour)

- -

obviously, we're transitioning to clean energy as a government to get off this fossil fuels roller off this fossil fuels roller coaster and take back control of our energy bills. Now, in particular, today, there has been particular, today, there has been an announcement of a new grant package to support community energy projects. That is an announcement projects. That is an announcement of £30 million, backed by, or from the Great British Energy Organisation, to roll out a wave of local projects. So that's intended to allow communities and every postcode to decide what they would like to invest in, whether it's solar panels on their local library or a community wind farm.

And I commend that project to the House.

12:56

Lord Grayling (Conservative)

- -

My Lords, I refer members to my register of entry in the register. Of course, this attack is simply Of course, this attack is simply part of a mounting threat to the Red sea, which is far more than energy route. It's one of the world's most important trade routes. The United Kingdom has previously played an active role in ensuring, as part of the international community, it helps keep that route open. Are we planning to do the same thing now?

12:57

Baroness Antrobus (Labour)

- -

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. makes an excellent point about the importance of that region. I can speak as somebody who, on an exchange tour with the Royal Navy, sailed and served through the Suez Canal, the Red sea and into the Gulf. So I know that region very well. And you're absolutely right about its importance of, of course, to this country, but actually almost more to some other parts of the world, not least Asia, with the current crisis and the, the the difficulties with getting through the strait to the south of where the incident took place.

And so I think we need to think of our allies around the world, some of whom will be actually more affected than we are. And in terms of our actions, as we know, the best way to resolve these kind of threats and activities is through diplomacy. Work alongside our allies, and we will continue that work. I assure

**** Possible New Speaker ****

him. My Lords, may I suggest that if any noble Lords wish to leave the any noble Lords wish to leave the chamber, they do so now, before I My My Lords. Motion for debate. Independent schools. Lord Lexden.

12:59

Debate: Impact of VAT and other tax changes on independent schools

My Lords. A couple of years ago, in the autumn of 2024, when I was in better health, I introduced two in better health, I introduced two debates on the imposition of VAT on independent school fees due to come

12:59

Lord Lexden (Conservative)

- -

13:12

Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench)

- -

each additional state school pupil derived and applied. How was that figure derived and applied, and do the government still stand by that figure today? Now, for the record, figure today? Now, for the record, my Lords, I did not attend an independent school. My father was a demobbed desert rat at the end of demobbed desert rat at the end of the Second World War and married my mother, who was an immigrant whose first language was Irish. I'm a first language was Irish.

I'm a typical grammar school boy whose family was rehoused to a council flat on an overspill estate. My parents and wonderful teachers were the reason I became a beneficiary of the 1944 Education Act, the first from either side of my family to enter higher education. I believe it is the duty of the state to facilitate quality educational opportunities for all. My Lords, not for 93% or 7%, but for all. As a teacher, I taught in the voluntary, aided and state sectors and have been a governor of schools in the state, voluntary aided and state sectors.

My own children and grandchildren have had a mixture of voluntary aided and independent education. In another place, I fought general elections with a commitment to increase income tax based on the ability to pay by a penny in the pound to improve state education. So I've never seen this as a binary or ideological issue, and I've always supported the independent sector and have challenged the ideological caricature caricature of independent schools as sort of mini etons, replete with straw boaters and top hats and tails.

The noble Lord Lord Lexden referred to exceptions, not the rule, and I agree with him. It's that caricature is simply not true and doesn't lead to considered debate. It simply wrong to suggest that all parents with children in independent schools are wealthy. Which is why I oppose to be targeted VAT tax, which takes little account of the ability to pay or of individual circumstances. Some middle income families stretch their finances significantly and make great sacrifices, and feel the 20% increase acutely.

Some children in independent schools come from straitened circumstances. That money should be an impediment is one of the reasons why I broke ranks while I was in the House of Commons and voted for the Assisted Places scheme. And I would like to see more assisted places instead of none. My Lords, in our 2024 debate, I pointed out that 168,000 children were receiving financial support from independent schools, often through bursary schemes, while 10,000 were paying no fees. In 2026, the Independent Schools Council census established that ISC schools provided 538.5 million in means tested fees.

Assistance to pupils with more than half of pupils receiving means tested bursaries having over half of their fees remitted. That is remarkable. This is something to celebrate, not to denigrate. By pushing schools to the brink of financial ruin. It jeopardises the good which these schools can do. It's often the beneficiaries, then, who suffer, not those with deep pockets. Let me illustrate, my Lords, what I mean. Last Friday I had a conversation with a bright young woman who told me that her grandfather had won a challenging custody battle to bring her up.

He used his resources to provide a stable and fulfilling education in an independent school for his granddaughter. In parentheses, where such schools have boarding facilities. A really committed pastoral team can literally be a lifeline. In reply to a question I tabled to the noble Lord Lord Livermore and answered on 17 September 19th, 2024, the government confirmed that 20% VAT education tax would also apply to boarding services, but by pricing families out of such services, it is hard to see how it meets the government's worthy objective that every child should get the best start in life.

The Cabinet Minister recently discussed her decision to send three of her own children to independent schools in putting her children's needs first. She is doing the right thing and should be defended for doing so. Being able to exercise choice, not defending ideology should be axiomatic. Let's also be clear, my Lord, in interrogating the economic justifications advanced in favour of this policy. We have done too much muddying of the waters. The statistics are worthy of intense scrutiny. For example, in the excellent library, note that we have been provided with for today's debate.

They say, I quote published figures do not fully capture the impact of the tax changes because they include independent special schools, which are largely unaffected by the new measures. Close quotes Simon Hide, CEO of the Head's Conference, said this is creating his words a confusing picture. Yes my Lord, there have been some new schools, but 90% of new openings have been special schools, while 106 mainstream schools, some of which the noble Lord Lord Lexden referred to him, which had long and historic roots, have been closed since 2024, according to the department's own figures.

The cohort of children in independent schools has fallen by 33,231, double the estimate of 14,000. But your Lordships were given back in 2024. Fair enough. 560,300 pupils in independent schools. That's nearly 4% down on the previous year. The largest reductions were seen in the key intake years 5.2% in reception year, 5.6% in year seven and 6.6 in year 12. And it's also dissembling to suggest that the loss of 30,000 places is attributable to demographics. Unprecedented pupil losses in independent schools have been triple the decline in the school population as a whole.

Now, to inform the debate, Cameron Baroness, please tell us what is the average annual cost then to the state sector in educating these children who have had to leave independent schools? What assessment has been made of the educational consequences of disrupting a child's education and moving them from one school to another? Can she tell us how many more independent schools she expects to close? How many children will be displaced? What are the current estimates of the revenues being raised this year? By extending the A T on school fees and removing business rate charitable relief? In summary, taxing education is simply wrong.

In principle, it is a breach of human rights, and I might say that in the EU would be a breach of article 132 of the EU VAT directive, which exempts education from tax. Our starting point, my Lords, should be that encouraging diversity and parental choice is a good. Suggesting that all schools would be able to absorb punitive taxes was clearly wrong. And where schools have done so, it's been at the cost of services to parents, including bursaries and the less well off.

And note two, that it has disproportionately hit low fee faith schools where schools have closed. There's been heartache, disruption, the loss of jobs, the loss of revenue into the local economy and sometimes of heritage buildings and community assets. Lord Lexden was right, therefore, to ask the House to consider all of this again and to reiterate the need to value all schools, state or independent. And I hope that we will have the review of this policy, which he has rightly called for.

13:20

Lord Redwood (Conservative)

- -

My Lords, I should declare that my son does teach in the private my son does teach in the private sector, but I won't be drawing on his experiences or or the views of his experiences or or the views of his school in my remarks. I wish to be broader than that. Jealousy is not a great emotion. It produces bitterness and unpleasantness. And I think if jealousy gets woven into politics, it usually ends up damaging the people and parties pursuing it rather than helping them.

I remember a previous government didn't like grammar schools very much, and they decided that the families, the parents of children in the surrounding area of the grammar school, where a big majority would not have children attending the grammar school, could be given a vote on the future of the grammar school, because I think they thought that that would result in the abolition of grammar schools, whereas when they held a vote, they discovered that the parents of pupils not got into grammar school had no problem with the good for the wider society in the local community, not as a bad.

And I think it's a warning in there now. I think we are fortunate indeed in this country that we have some very outstanding private sector schools, some of them very famous and well known, and some of them deliver a high quality of education. And Labour will point out that they are partly able to do that because they have more income per pupil going into the school, because they can charge much higher fees. And there is some truth in that. But there's also truth in the energy and the standards that they set.

And what they expect also contributes to their great success. So I think when we have a great success like that, clever governments want to build bridges, not create barriers. They wish to see how we can allow those well-endowed schools still to flourish. But how? More of us can benefit from that process. Now, my parents weren't rich enough to send me to private school, but I benefited from the fact that my local state primary put me in for a competitive examination to get a place at a direct grant school, and I was fortunate enough to pass that exam.

And so I was then able to attend as a day pupil what was primarily a boarding school, paid for by richer parents to send their children there. And it worked very harmoniously. And I think we benefited from the exchanges between us, from our different backgrounds and our different attitudes, different contributions we could make to that school. Now, our previous government thought that kind of thing was wrong. And so the direct grant school idea disappeared, and those schools had to become full fee paying schools or perish, because then there was the assisted places scheme, which was a similar kind of operation.

And I think that too is an excellent idea because it gives people from low income backgrounds who would respond well to the ethos of the school, offering the place that opportunity to do so. And again, again blends the excellence of the private school with the opportunity of those who can compete for the places. Now, quite a lot of our great public schools, as endowment charities, are aware of their need to pursue wider charitable purposes in the educational area.

And so some of those great schools do help the surrounding state schools by offering lectures, by offering specialist tuition, by organising joint events, by being good members of the local community. That is something, again, that we should value. It is, of course, something they should do as charities, but it is there and it enriches the wider experience. We have some extremely good state schools and very proud that they should be there. But we also have some state schools who could do considerably better.

And that is where having both great state schools and some great private schools who can act as mentors or guides or lighthouses to illuminate a better future can be so valuable. So I do think the government should look again about the opportunity for social and educational enrichment, which can come from more sharing of facilities, more joint venturing, more cross-feeding of good ideas from state sector to private sector, and from private sector to state sector. I think this unfortunate policy experiment that the government has unleashed on private sector schools is very revealing about the wider debate of the impact of policy interventions.

One of my persistent themes is noble Lords were probably picked up because a tax is usually very damaging, and that tax is usually something you impose to people doing things, rather than to encourage doing things, because it very rarely does that. And the government decided to unleash three very big tax rises on these private schools. The VAT that we're describing, which directly has to be paid by the families of pupils going there, but also the very big hit on business rates and the very big hit on employee costs, when, of course, the main item in a private school's budget is employment.

And it's not just the employment of the teachers, but also the employment of all the support staff, some of them not that well paid. And these jobs are at risk. The higher you put up the National Insurance along with the other two taxes, and we've seen and heard already in this debate that the result of this treble tax attack has been a substantial number of school closures, as predicted. And it's not good enough to say, well, there have been openings on the other side because as we know, those openings of different kinds of schools, often with different revenue streams, and you can't get away from the fact that you've lost quite a lot of good schools who just found the treble taxes too much.

And we also know that some 33,000 places have had to be found in state schools as a result of the displacement, and that's 33,000

**** Possible New Speaker ****

families and individual pupils whose Lives have been profoundly. Changed.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

And it's not easy for a child to change school at an unusual time, other than when everybody's other than when everybody's changing school, going from primary to secondary because you lose all your friends and then you go into a new school, and maybe nobody wants to be friends with you because they to be friends with you because they can be very cliquey or difficult as groups of children. And so it's, it's those kind of issues which the government seems totally insensitive to, but they think it's worthwhile changing the lives of 33,000 young people and their families for some greater good, which just seems to be the idea that they don't really like people being able to buy the decent education for their children.

I would imagine that the costs of those children transferring is around 300 million a year, applying very rough multiple to the number of children. And the government that is very short of cash is not well advised to invent a policy which immediately imposes additional 300 million a year public spending. And we wait to see how much extra revenue growth there has really been, because, as we've heard in the Scottish example, you can end up worse off when you take the balance of disappointing revenue into account with the extra costs.

One of the social consequences of imposing a tax upon the schools, which means higher fees for the parents to pay, is that many of the schools will not close, but they will change the people they educate. And so we will see a pattern where you have these schools for very rich foreigners. So that is an export. And for very rich people at home. But all the other strivers who would like that are priced out of the market. Now, surely that's the opposite kind of social change to the one Labour should want.

They shouldn't want the schools only to be for the children of billionaires or multi-millionaires. Wouldn't it be better if they reflected more widely and offered education to a wider number in the community? So please government, think again. Understand these schools can be a great bonus for our society. Yeah, excellent.

13:29

Baroness Laing of Elderslie (Conservative)

- -

My Lords, what a pleasure it is to see the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, to see the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, back in his place this afternoon and and to hear from him in his usual erudite fashion, on a subject on which he has experience and expertise of many, many decades. We have all benefited from hearing him this afternoon, and I agree with everything that he said and all of the points made by the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Redwood.

So I won't repeat those points. My Lords, I just want to ask one question which is who is the most damaged by this policy brought forward by this government? Not. There's no point, my Lords, in asking who benefits most because nobody benefits, nobody benefits. The Minister will undoubtedly say that the Exchequer benefits to a very small amount in tax take, and that some of that tax take can be invested in education generally. But that is not a strong argument.

The fact is that the education of our children is the responsibility of everyone in our society, because we all want to see the coming generation having the very, very best start and the very best opportunity in life and the better educated our population is, then the better is the economic hope for future generations. So we all want to see a better education system. But dividing the education system into 93% and 7%, and pretending in some way that these are separate is simply nonsense.

The fact is that the education system is one system as a whole. It affects every young person, every child in our society, in every part of our country. And if you damage any part of the education system,

**** Possible New Speaker ****

logically, you damage all of it. Yeah.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

Yeah. So my question is, who suffers the most? And the answer, my Lords, the most? And the answer, my Lords, is not the families who are genuinely wealthy and who are despised by this government, but despised by this government, but who are genuinely wealthy because they go on paying for their children in independent education. The people who suffer, as ever, are those who are at the margins. First of all, there are the 33000 children who have had to be removed from independent schools and sent to other schools.

Clearly they suffer. But my Lords, that means that 33,000 other children have been displaced from other schools. Now, in any given geographical catchment area, what one will usually find is there might be an independent school, possibly two independent schools, and there will be 3 or 4 really good state schools, because many of our state schools, my Lords, are excellent and provide an excellent education. But then there will be 7 or 8 state schools which don't provide an excellent education because they have some disadvantages and some difficulties, and they possibly don't have the parental support, and they're possibly in an area which suffers from some other disadvantages.

The children who most benefit from attending an excellent state school are those who are at the margin and lifted out of an area of disadvantage, taken away from a school where they would not have flourished and have the opportunity of going to an excellent state school, which will give them a truly good start in life. Those are the children who are going to suffer most from this government's policy, because the children who have left the independent schools are likely to live in a catchment area, and are likely to have parents who know what you have to do to get your child into an excellent state school.

So a child who has parents who understand the education system and who contribute to the education system is likely to succeed and to have a good opportunity, regardless of whether they go to an independent school or an excellent state school. Those who will suffer. My Lords, are those who would have had the chance of a place at an excellent state school, but have lost that place because that place is now taken by a child who had previously been at an independent school, but who has vociferous middle class parents who know what to do to get the best education for their children.

The children who will suffer are those whose parents are not involved in the education system, are not, are not well educated themselves and do not know how to get their children into the excellent state schools. I am not making this up, my Lords. This is fact and I. When I was a constituency, members of Parliament, member of Parliament, I know, my Lord, your Lordships don't like one mentioning being a Member of Parliament and representing a constituency.

But when you've done so for 27 years, as the Minister knows very well, it's in your heart, it's in your being. And I personally, over 27 years dealt with hundreds and hundreds of families who were trying to get their children into the best schools. And I know what is now happening. The places that the excellent state schools are being taken by children who were previously at independent schools, but whose parents can no longer afford it. And so the people who will actually be most damaged by this policy, and by the way, in which this government is taking the education system, are those children who are now being denied a place at an excellent state school.

They are the people that we should be lifting up in life, not putting down. They are the people who deserve every bit of help that we as the community as a whole, can give them. And it might be that whoever devised this government policy and they didn't do it in order to raise more money for the Exchequer, because that we know from the simple arithmetic is incidental. Whoever devised this government policy thought that they were going to damage the despised middle classes.

That's not who is being damaged. The people who are being damaged are the children who would have had an opportunity, which has now been taken away from them. And I hope that this government will recognise that while they say that they care about the 93%, I care about 100% of the children in this country, and the government is failing those at the margin, and it should change this policy.

13:37

Lord Caine (Conservative)

- -

Excellent. My Lords, I rise to support every word spoken by my support every word spoken by my noble friend Lord Lexden in his fine and typically erudite opening speech, and indeed, the words of all other speakers so far in this debate, it is telling that the government whips have not been able to muster a single backbencher to support the political choice to impose VAT on independent schools. I also note the lack of any speakers in this debate from the backbenches of the Liberal Democrats.

For the noble Baroness, the Minister today, it really is a case of herself alone. Can I also say what a pleasure it is to see my noble friend Lord Lexden, back in his place today. There are many noble Lords on this, on these benches, who have had reason to be indebted to him over many years, not least due to the fact that he gave a number of us our first job. So it is very good to see him back. My Lords, for the avoidance of doubt, and like a number of others in this debate, my entire schooling was spent in the state sector.

In my case, in the predominantly working class constituency of East Leeds, where the local MP, a chap called Healey, was for five years in charge of the nation's finances, where he presided over a severe debt crisis and bankrupted Britain. My Lords, I am talking about 50 years ago, but it does seem like today my final school, Temple Moore, was a fine grammar school that turned comprehensive some six years before I attended, though it retained some of the grammar school ethos during my time there in supporting my noble friend.

Therefore, I am clearly not defending anything from which I have ever personally benefited. Like my noble friend. However, along with others on these benches, I am utterly deplore and condemn the nasty, spiteful and vindictive war being waged against the independent sector by this Labour government. As has been pointed out since it became clear that VAT was going to be introduced following the 2024 general election, 106 mainstream independent schools have closed and there has been a net loss of 79, according to the Department for Education's own 2026 census.

The number of pupils educated in the independent sector has, as we have heard, fallen by over 33000 in the past two years. That is well over double the 14000 estimated by the government in the short term, and is rapidly approaching. The 35000 they said would be lost in the long term, though some studies predict the final total could be as high as 9000. And if anything epitomised the heartless approach of this Labour government, it was the decision to impose VAT in the middle of an academic year, with the inevitable consequences and traumas for schools, teachers, parents and, above all, students.

So will the government now commission a credible, independent review of the evidence, assumptions and modelling and forecasts underpinning these policies tested against experience since their implementation? My Lords, in my own area of Yorkshire, some particularly fine independent schools have been forced to close their doors. Fulneck, part of the historic Moravian settlement in Pudsey, which opened in 1753 during the reign of King George II and which educated, amongst others, Herbert Asquith and Diana Rigg. Mrs. Peel to some, as well as one of my closest friends, shut in July last year due to rising operational costs and falling numbers, I well remember on hearing the news, my friend texting me to say how devastated he was, a reaction shared by many others.

An institution that was part of that was at the heart of the local community, and a unique part of the heritage of the West Riding of Yorkshire is now gone forever. As the heart wrenching statement issued by Fulneck put it, this isn't just the end of a school, it's the end of a community and a history and a home for so many. At the same time. Queen Margaret's in York educating girls since 1901 was forced to shut, citing mounting financial pressures.

With the introduction of VAT, increased national insurance and pension contributions, and the ending of charitable status, business rates relief as major contributory factors. The site has recently been sold to a developer for a reported £5 million. They were followed last December by the oldest independent prep school in Leeds Moorlands, after 127 years. They too pointed to VAT, National Insurance and Business rates relief, and it's a similar story with Wakefield Independent School. And if I can briefly stray outside of Yorkshire like my noble friend Lord Lexton, I too was very sad this July to see the closure of Durham High School for girls after 142 years, not least because that's where my partner's three hugely gifted daughters, Imogen, Olivia and Libby, each received an outstanding education.

They are full of sorrow that the institution, which was hopefully set them up for life is no more. My Lords, I am the first to accept that there are a number of factors at play which can lead to school closures such as falling numbers. What is, however, now undeniable is the devastating financial impacts of the policies pursued by this Labour government. They have hammered the independent sector. As my noble friend Lord Redwood pointed out, with a triple whammy of business of increased national insurance, removal of business rates relief and the imposition of the of 20% VAT, the first ever tax on education for many independent schools struggling with tight margins.

This has been enough to finish them. As we have heard, the government seeks to justify all of this by arguing that their focus is on the 93% educated in the state sector. My Lords, given my own history, I will take no lessons on the importance of providing good state schools for everyone. Yet the argument that state schools will be improved by waging war on the independent sector is little short of madness. As my noble friend Lord Lexden pointed out, the education tax was supposed to help pay for 6500 more teachers.

But teacher numbers have actually fallen at a time when more students from independent schools that have closed have to be accommodated within the state sector, leading inevitably to higher class sizes for many. Then in June last year, we were told by Keir Starmer on X, as my noble friend stated, that the money was actually being used to invest in affordable social housing. So which is it? And of course, Labour's attack on the academies that they once championed risks the huge progress in the state sector, which under my party saw English students soar to the top of international league tables in reading and maths, and the number of schools rated as good rise from 68 to 90%.

My Lords, Labour government's rooted in socialist dogma, undermined academic excellence in the 1960s and 70s. And now this, back to the 1970s. Government is doing the same today. They should be utterly ashamed of themselves for the damage, disruption and distress that their policies have caused and continue to cause. And I look forward to a future conservative government reversing their nasty, cruel and vindictive policies.

13:45

Lord Blackwell (Conservative)

- -

Yeah. >> My Lords, I should declare my interest as a governor of an independent school, the Yehudi independent school, the Yehudi Menuhin School in Cobham. Like others, I'd like to share my thanks to my noble friend Lord Lexden for initiating this debate, and I share his views and those of the other speakers so far on the damage that this policy has done to the independent sector in general, the government should recognise that parents who send their children to independent schools are effectively paying twice.

They pay once through their taxation to support the state sector, and then they pay again. And they wouldn't do that, my Lords, unless they believed that they could achieve a better education or meet some special needs through paying double to go to send their children to an independent school. So if the government is in pursuit of fairness, rather than trying to bring down these high quality schools through additional levies, it would be much fairer to focus on bringing up the standard of education in the state schools so that overall, we had a better education system for the 100%.

But my Lords, I'd like to focus my brief remarks on the specialist schools, the specialist music and dance schools in particular. These schools offer a very unique, focussed education for a relatively small number of highly talented children. These children are supported and inspired by being in a peer group of other talented children who share their passion for music and that environment, and that support is simply not available in normal schools. And these handful of specialist music schools are shaping the next generation of musical leaders who are a national resource for a sector that is not only important culturally, but important economically.

Like other music schools, the new Dominion School attempts to operate a needs blind admissions policy. It seeks the most talented children who are capable of achieving the highest standards, regardless of their social background, their economic status, the ability of their parents to pay fees. But with only 93 pupils in that school providing a full academic education alongside specialist music training means that costs are very high. The full fees for a boarder amount some £50,000 a year and as a result, alongside a needs blind admission policy, only around 1 in 10 parents pay the full fees.

The rest need financial support to reduce the fees to the level they can support. VAT at 20% adds up to £10,000 on a £50,000 fee and proportionate depend on how much the parents contribute. My Lord, since parents who are being supported by bursaries and scholarships are already paying as much as they can afford, they cannot simply pay another 20%. This inevitably increases the demand for financial support to maintain their children at the school. Now we're fortunate in this country, the noble Minister knows, to have the government funded music dance scheme, which offers means tested support to support UK residents at these schools, but that has not kept pace with inflation over the years and has not been raised to pay for the VAT levy.

And these schools attract talented children from all around the world, many of whom aren't eligible for the NDIS grant. So for those coming from overseas, all the burden of funding bursaries and paying for the additional VAT, the parents can't pay falls on the school and the limited funds that schools are able to raise from charitable donations. And as others have said, there have been other financial pressures on these schools from inflation, from the national insurance increase, from the loss of business rates relief.

There will be further costs from implementing the loss of zero hour contracts on staff, many of whom are part time music teachers. So the VAT levy now poses a real danger to the financial viability of these specialist schools, which play such an important role in maintaining the UK's cultural leadership. I'd prefer the government to think again about the wider application of VAT to private schools across the board, as many other speakers have urged, but if they are not prepared to do that, could I please ask the noble Lady, the Minister, if the government would at least reconsider whether the unique specialist music and dance schools should be exempted from this policy?

13:51

Lord Black of Brentwood (Conservative)

- -

My Lords, I congratulate my >> My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on securing this debate and on his powerful speech. It's very good to see him in his It's very good to see him in his place. After a challenging few months. My Lords, this is a really important debate as the government frankly buries its head in the sand, wilfully refusing properly to monitor the impact of this dreadful policy. It falls to this House. To do so, I declare my interest as chairman of governors at Brentwood School and honorary president of the Boarding Schools Association.

I have three points. The first, a general one, about the implementation of this spiteful policy. When this government was elected, Keir Starmer made a great deal about restoring trust in politics before its first King's speech in 2024. He said the fight for trust is the battle that defines our political era well, trust is founded on honesty, but with this policy, Labour has always been far from honest. They said there would be limited impact on the numbers attending independent schools.

They were not honest. The number of pupils has fallen by over 33,000, as we've heard, double the 14,000 they glibly estimated. They said there would not be significant school closures. They were not honest. 106 mainstream schools have shut their doors, destroying jobs, displacing pupils and wrecking communities. They said they would use the money raised to fund new teaching places. They were not honest. The number of teachers has fallen. The government said it was closing a loophole, knowing full well this was no loophole.

It was not honest. Education has never been taxed and by introducing one, the government has in fact created a glaring anomaly. No wonder they did not want to undertake a proper consultation before introducing this policy. They knew they would be found out. And so they have been. This is not an education policy, but a class welfare policy which has hit children and hard working parents hard and it is fraudulent. How can the government claim to want to restore trust in politics when they so brazenly introduce a policy, knowing they are perpetrating a con trick on the public? It is breathtaking hypocrisy? Little wonder trust in politics is still so low, my Lords, nowhere has the impact on this policy been more harshly felt than on among our boarding schools, which is my second point.

The UK's boarding schools are the best in the world, a powerful tool of soft power, contributing significantly to our our economy. They're a jewel in the crown of the sector, with schools like Brentwood School attracting pupils from across the globe, 33 nationalities are represented among our borders, but VAT has hit boarding schools hard. The number of boarders at independent schools has dropped by 12%, to around 65,000 pupils between 2024 and 2026, a rate double that of the sector as a whole.

More than 25 independent schools independent boarding schools have either closed, announced their impending closure or stopped boarding entirely in the three years before the imposition of VAT. That figure was only nine, a third of the current rate, destroying the government's erroneous assertion that closures are simply part of a long term trend. That is nonsense. This is disrupted children's education put teachers and support staff out of work and had a profound impact on local communities, where their local boarding schools are a vital part of the fabric of local and community life here.

Given these stark statistics, can the noble Lady, the Minister, tell us how she plans to stop this deeply damaging trend and protect the remaining boarding schools in the sector? There is also, my Lords, an international aspect of this issue. The government's own international education strategy, published only in January, aims quotes collectively to grow education exports to £40 billion per year by 2030, and quotes promote the UK as a preferred destination to study well. To do that, the UK needs a healthy and competitive boarding school sector.

Yet the government's policies are deliberately undermining it. The number of international students independent schools is down 12% since the imposition of VAT. If government is to stand any chance of meeting its own ambitions, it will have to revisit this policy. My Lords, following on from my noble friend Lord Blackwell, my final point is about music and the arts, and I declare an interest as chairman of the Royal College of Music. Now the case has frequently been made in this House about the tragic decline of music education in state schools.

There's something this government, despite its promises, has absolutely failed to reverse. That has put a huge burden on the independent sector, both to protect the future of music as it dies out in the state sector, and to do what it can to support those in state schools who are desperate to learn an instrument or take part in an orchestra, or even just to sing, but who have no opportunity to do so. The role of independent schools in this area is vital.

It's not something, my Lords we have to do. It's something we absolutely want to do. In the last year alone, the Independent Schools Council has recorded almost ten 000 partnerships between independent schools on academic collaboration and enrichment. About 2500 of these centred on the arts, with over 600 schools providing over 2200 partnerships to support state schools with joint musical events, participation in music lessons, dance events, access to concert halls and many other areas. Schools like Brentwood, which has one of the finest music departments in the country, provide an excellent example.

This year, we're committed to an amazing project to offer all state, local, state primary schools the opportunity for their pupils to participate in a massed concert performance of Rutter's Mass for children at Brentwood Cathedral, part of an ongoing commitment to local partnerships. One of the reasons we're doing it is because, tragically, even singing so crucial to young lives is dying out in primary schools, and we want to help. But that takes time and money, something which is now under real pressure as a result of the imposition of VAT and the impact on revenues elsewhere in the country, we see other shining examples of partnerships to ensure children from state schools get access to arts education.

Their own schools can't provide. King's College School in Wimbledon partners with local schools to deliver an annual community drama production for more than 20 years, Lichfield Cathedral School's music partnership has enabled over 30,000 pupils in 500 schools across the West Midlands to benefit from high quality music education. The King's School, Canterbury, has for seven years provided pupils from Canterbury city centre schools with free access to orchestral instrument tuition. The list goes on and on. Yet the government's misguided policies have put all that at risk, and I can't understand why they don't see that.

As revenues come under pressure, it becomes more and more difficult to provide such partnerships, along with bursary funding, increasingly demand, particularly for quality music education. Who loses out? It's the children who lose out from this policy. My Lords, time is running out. This debate has revealed the appalling impact of the education tax on the sector. I hope the noble Lady, the Minister, will reflect on it and at the very least, commit to a fresh review of the impact of this policy, including the impact of the withdrawal of impact business rates relief, but do so with clear methodology and an open mind.

Preferably, that would be a credible, independent study. I also hope to hear from my own frontbench, although I suspect I may not. A commitment clear commitment to repeal this cruel tax when we return to office. Lords. My Lords reply. I've no doubt the noble Lady is, we've heard, will again say that she's interested in the 93% who go to state schools. And of course, she's right to be so. But I believe that a Minister of the Crown must be interested in the 100% and not ignore 7% of children.

Our Lord's great damage has been done to our world class independent schools. It's time to put dogma aside and put the interests of parents and children first.

14:00

Lord Shinkwin (Conservative)

- -

Yeah. >> Yeah. >> But it's a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Barker Brentwood, Lord Hay. I probably don't match his his passion and and clarity, but I'd like to join others in congratulating my noble friend Lord Lexden on securing this debate. And also I'd like to someone who benefited from an independent schools education as a scholarship boy with parents on the staff, I'd like to thank him for his leadership on this issue.

It seems incredible that almost two years have passed since we debated this issue in this House, and since I read it with the noble Baroness Symons dare to urge the then Secretary of State and Chancellor to take the s m and disabilities of the 90,000 pupils without an e c, p into account and exempt them from the extension of VAT to independent schools. I said then that they. And I looked to this Labour government to show them some understanding and compassion, and to give them hope.

But hope. There has been none. Instead, the policy was implemented regardless of the harm caused, especially to those pupils and their families. They were simply collateral damage in the wider ideological. To quote my little friend, dogmatic crusades against the so-called privileged class. No matter that many only attended independent schools as a result of pursued sacrifices made by their families, and at a time when the system underpinning state Senate provision is on the verge of collapse.

In the series of questions for written Answer two years ago, I asked the noble Baroness, among other things, what measures have been put in place to support children and the parents of children with autism and neurodiverse conditions required to move schools as a result of the education tax? What assessment the government had made of the capacity of local education authorities to accommodate and meet the needs of children with autism and neurodiverse conditions required to move schools? What processes the government have put in place to evaluate the impact on their mental health and educational attainment, and what stated stakeholder groups have been involved in developing such processes? At what intervals would the evaluations be conducted? I'd be very grateful if the noble Baroness Symons could answer those questions today, as I'm afraid.

Her response almost two years ago came nowhere close to addressing any of those points. The pupils with Sen and disabilities and their families still deserve answers. What Baroness Symons did say in her response to my questions was that the government did not anticipate that the VAT change the education tax, and I quote, would prompt notable movement into the state sector and any movement is expected to take place over several years. Listening to what has already been said in today's debate, I'm not sure that that has been borne out because according to the latest DfE figures, as we've already heard, the number of pupils in the independent sector has fallen by 33,231, or 5.6%.

My vote, to put that in context, it's already greater than the total movement into the state sector that His Majesty's Government projected by 2029 to 2030. So these figures aren't just notable. They are unprecedented. And I think it's fair to say that the number Baroness Sater minister's answer to my parliamentary questions has therefore failed the test of time. So I ask the noble Baroness Symons to say whether the original cost benefit assumptions and forecasts cited by Ministers, including the then Prime Minister, as justification for the punitive education tax, still stand if they do, where is the monitoring and evaluation of the assumptions and forecasts to back them up? My Lords, I'm sure we all look forward to seeing the results of the evaluation, which DfE has no doubt carried out in preparation for today's debate.

I'd be grateful if the member Baroness Symons to confirm that she will write to me to say when the results of the evaluation will be published, and that she will place the findings in the House of Lords library. Because unless and until she does, she should not be surprised if we reiterate the simple point that the education tax is not only disrupting provision, but it's also undermining the government's ability to fix the system, which is bankrupting local authorities as we speak.

Surely an unintended consequence of the policy is that more families are understandably seeking an E, C p for their child, thereby exacerbating pressure on the state because the state has bizarrely made private school independent school provision less affordable. My voice how does that make sense? My Lords, this counterintuitive policy reminds me that however much I respect and I do respect individual members on the Labour benches, I could never subscribe to socialism because this policy demonstrates that deep within itself lurks a self righteous bite and envy that blinds it to the tragic consequences of its actions.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the case of pupils with C and D attending independent schools. They and their hard pressed families deserve not just an answer, but a recent. I hope the noble Baroness Symons will show that the government is listening.

14:09

Lord Murray of Blidworth (Conservative)

- -

Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> My Lords. This sixth of the first. Steps for change. Remember them in the Labour Manifesto 2024. Read and I quote recruit 6500 new teachers paid for by ending tax breaks for private schools. This remains an incensing canard, as we have plainly seen. It is not the case that the numbers of teachers in state schools has increased by 6500. In fact, they have fallen. The worst of it was the idea frequently peddled that there were tax breaks for private schools.

What rot. Step back and look at the system as a whole. Parents of children at private schools who pay tax, and I declare my interest as one such parent not only pay handsomely for the educational places used by their children, they are also not using the places to which their children are entitled in the state sector, funded, of course, by their own taxes, a point made so ably by my noble friend Lord Blackwell. And of course, those places not taken up in the state sector can then be used by other children.

All this is very far from being a tax break for private schools. The former system was a system of mutual benefit. As my noble friend Lord Alton. He is my friend, obviously so correctly said during his speech. Our national neighbours do not tax education. In fact, it would be contrary to EU law for them to do so. As my. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton said during his speech, the ability to impose VAT on school fees was a Brexit benefit.

The United Kingdom seems to be the only country in the world which chooses to tax charities which provide education, a factor which speaks for itself. This government should learn lessons from the sensible, civilised and mutually beneficial approach to private education taken by the Irish government, an approach which recognises the benefit both to the child and to the state itself of a flourishing fee paid education sector. The Irish Government has a system which recognises the fact that parents have paid by taxation into a state education system, which they have elected not to use.

Ireland has roughly the same proportion of pupils in fee paid education 6 to 7%. Yet in the Republic of Ireland, the state pays the salaries of all teachers and special needs assistants working in recognised private schools. Fees are set each year by the school and they are, of course, much reduced as a result of the policy and therefore fee paid education is much more widely accessible. The justification for this system was pithily stated by Norma Foley, the then Minister for Irish, the Irish Minister for education, in a response to a question in the Doyle on the 16th of April 2024, she said this.

If the parents of children in the fee charging sector choose to send their children to the schools in the free education system, the state would have to fund those school places. Quite so, my Lords. Here, though, as the noble Lord Lord Blackwell pointed out, parents pay twice and now pay VAT and other additional levies on education charged by this government. And this extra tax revenue is used for what? Not more teachers as promised. Presumably it's spent on the ballooning welfare budget and the interest on the ever increasing national debt.

As we've heard from my noble friend Lord Lexden, we have 33,231 fewer pupils in the fee paid sector over the last two years, 106 mainstream schools have closed and of those which have opened, 90% have been specialist schools which benefit from government funding, not least via Ahrc, and are largely exempt from VAT, a point already made, but which certainly bears repetition. There are certainly many fewer mainstream school places. There are no winners from all this.

Again, as my noble friend Lord Lexden said in Scotland. Analysis from Biggar Economics, published in April 26th, showed that the VAT raise there was costing more money than it was raising, and the same will surely be shown to be true in England. British private education is a world leader. Why damage something we do so well among the best in the world undermined, it seems, only for the sake of dogma. So over 100 schools closed, thousands of staff have lost their jobs.

Thousands of children have had their education disrupted at a formative time in their lives. State pupils have lost the benefit of the use of facilities, which they would have been able to use as a result of partnerships between the fee paid and the state sector. As clearly again set out by my noble friends. And this is a trend which will surely continue and accelerate. No one wins from this policy. As my noble friend Lady Lang so eloquently said, the whole community suffers.

Can the noble Lord, the Minister, point to a single child who has benefited from the policy, remembering not a single extra teacher has been hired, it.

14:15

Lord Fuller (Conservative)

- -

My Lords, I attended a boarding school in the 80s and was the school in the 80s and was the governor of another one for ten years in the 20 tens. I spoke two years ago at the noble Lord. Lord Lexington's debate is. It hardly seems as it was two years, but it is. And it's great to see him back in his place. But I regret to say that things are even worse than the warnings that we issued at the time. More children impacted, more schools closed, and none of the revenues to pay for more state school teachers who are now having to work harder than ever.

The damage hasn't just been to the charities that run these schools, or to parents ambitious for their children, or especially to twice as many children than the government expected displaced with disrupted schooling, subjects not taken to examination, peripatetic activities curtailed and friendships broken. Oh no. The collateral damage has spread much further than that which we foretold to the staff. Now, back in 2024, I bumped into a man wearing a Langley School polo shirt. It turned out he was responsible for running the minibus enterprise, comprising 27 vehicles together with drivers himself, assistants and mechanics, a 35 person sustainable transport business all under threat.

His colleagues, cooks, cleaners, matrons and greenkeepers. Not just the teachers. These are the working people engaged in those that education and I want to speak for them and for the market towns where these schools don't just support the economy, they are the local economy. In the shires, 106 mainstream schools have closed in places like Banbury, Bedstone, Hazelmere, Windlesham and Warminster, lovely places with wonderful high streets and a much wider, wider range of pubs, cafes and shops than their populations would normally sustain.

These aren't just market towns, these are factory towns. The schools are the factories, factories of education and learning. They underpin those economies, not just with their direct employed staff, but with local ecosystem of contractors and tradesmen in areas, many with few alternative employment opportunities, they are damaged. The damage is also to the national economy, where education has been a valuable, invisible export. Not that Labour understands these things. We've heard about the additional burden of business rates £100 million and National insurance, but it's hard to quantify the impact on the 93% of state educated children whose classes are now more crowded, who are forced to travel further as their attachment attachments have been made full up.

Surrey is a case in point. A county where the parents to to echo Lady Lang are born with sharp elbows. My Lords, if you start to treat these charities as businesses, why should they behave as charities? We've heard about the impact on the music and the arts, but cancelling bursaries for the child prodigy or scholarships for exceptional sports women from disadvantaged families helps nobody and only drives social inequality as well as harming our national sporting life. We are all poorer for this.

Why should these charities have bursaries, scholarships, public access to facilities in the evening during the school holidays? If there is no incentive or regulatory reason to do this, government has failed the public interest test. I will not echo the important points made by my noble friend Lord Shinkwin about SEND. But my Lords, these schools are the solution to that, not the problem. I visited the headmaster of a public school in Norfolk. 30% of the roll are supporting S e, n d or other children of other families in difficult situations.

That is truly public interest, something that this government has swept away. And of course it hasn't raised any money. Labour's class obsession has resulted in a net cost to the Exchequer. They have. The government has displayed a financial ignorance of the dynamic impact of this policy because if this schools are forced to close, you're looking at the loss of pay and the payment of benefits. The fundamental premise this is a revenue raiser is a false one, because the really rich have just shrugged it off.

Whilst the thriving children of police officers, nurses, firefighters, soldiers and airmen, working people with aspiration and ambition for their children, they've felt the full force and it's benighted. So many who have their own challenges, who just can't thrive in the state sector and for whom at least specialist private classes have been an option. But that's been pushed out of reach. Well done Labour attacking those with the quietest voices who need the greatest help. But it's not hard to see why this has been worse than expected.

My Lords, I was a governor of a school with just 450 places. It typically made a surplus of about a quarter of £1 million a year to fund Re-investment. It did not have a lot of fat on its back. It was a charity. And in all these

**** Possible New Speaker ****

cases, the fees from about half a dozen Both. Borders made the difference

**** Possible New Speaker ****

Borders made the difference between profit and loss, surviving or failing. The finances were finely balanced, so the fees from just five borders amounted to the just five borders amounted to the entire profit of the charity. If just five families found they couldn't afford the extra five couldn't afford the extra five grand a year or so, then all the 450 children in that school fell on the state. I wonder this leverage, which has tipped these schools over the edge and spoilt the life chances and exam success for hundreds of others, whilst adding to the burdens in the 93% who employ are educated by the state, throwing thousands of lower paid staff, journeymen, local suppliers and yes, teachers on the dole.

It was always going to be the case. This policy has failed in its objective. It was dishonestly framed as a money spinner, but it's just been a class war pursued by the hon. Member for Sunderland, who is pursuing her personal obsession with class, with children paying the price. Yeah, the Prime Minister said things were going to be different. It turns out he's just the same. Jealousy, envy and grievance perpetuating the class war, not providing the social mobility that a a scholarship or a bursary can unleash.

My my Lords, there is so much more I can say. But this. These proposals, born out of populist electioneering sloganeering, have resulted in more elitism and social inequality, less opportunity for those with talent, for the most modest background, less charitable purpose for which the local communities will suffer. Slipping down our national and international sports rankings. Less choice, fewer experts, sports exports and stunted economic growth a catastrophic effect on the economic base of our market towns and their small tradesmen, working people in isolated areas put out of work, struggling parents additional burdens on local authorities listed buildings left to moulder, and driving even more children to the oversubscribed state schools.

The real victims here are amongst the lowest paid and most educationally challenged. Whilst our economy is weakened and their soft power that helps earn our place in the world is damaged along outside our global reputation. By levelling down that export which the world used to beat a path to our door for. Very good.

14:24

Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (Liberal Democrat)

- -

My Lords, can I also join other noble Lords? Well, welcoming Lord noble Lords? Well, welcoming Lord Lexden back to his rightful place and also to thank him for securing this debate. I better also declare an interest like other noble Lords have done that I didn't actually go to independent school. I went to a comprehensive park house school. Sadly, no more was demolished many years ago. I wasn't here two years ago when this debate around independent schools and VAT took place, but I suspect those that were here probably might have seen some of the old speeches being brought back in, because I thought the debate today was about the impact of the VAT.

So I'm going to stick to that in terms of how that's infected. And the more important question is that in what impact has actually had, and properly evaluate whether the assumptions on which they were based on were correct. My understanding is, since January 2025, private school fees have been subject to VAT at 20%, while from April 25th, most charitable independent schools in England lost their 80% business rate relief. The government estimated that VAT would raise 1.5 billion in 20 2526, rising to 1.7 billion by 2930.

Whilst the business rate measures was expected to rise a further 70 million to 90 million a year. As Liberal Democrats, we believe profoundly in equality of opportunity. A child's education opportunity should not be determined by the wealth of their parents or the postcode in which they happen to be born. And the long term answer, therefore, must be a state education system in which every child can access an excellent school with properly funded Sen provision, excellent teachers and genuine opportunities to progress.

But we should not confuse that long term ambition with the immediate question of whether this particular policy is delivering what was promised. There are approximately about 560,000 pupils in independent schools in England. The latest figures show that number fell by about 3.8% in the year to January 26th, but the total pupil numbers across all schools also fell by 1.2%, reflecting wider demographic changes. That distinction matters, my Lords. Before implementation, the HMRC estimated that VAT would eventually lead to 37,000 fewer pupils in independent schools, of whom approximately 35 would move into the state sector.

It estimated that additional cost to the state sector would eventually reach around 270 million a year. The OBR similarly estimated around 35,000 fewer private school pupils and around 3 million additional state school spending. But there is important unanswered questions here. How did the modelling move from 37000 fewer pupils in the independent education to approximately 35,000 additional pupils in the state sector? What assumptions were made about where those children would go and and what ages would they transfer and would they entry primary schools, secondary schools or sixth forms? And how would the impact of various varied geographically, and how many and how many would be home educated or leave the UK education system altogether? These are not technical details, my Lords.

They determined that the actual policy consequences of the policy. I'm particularly interested in the figures used for the cost of additional state school pupils. If we are going to assess whether the policy represents good value for money for the taxpayers, we need to know whether the estimated cost captures the real marginal cost of additional pupils, including buildings capacity. Teachers send and high, high, high needs provision and post 16 education, or whether it's essentially an average funding. There is another issue which deserves much greater attention.

My Lords, the children and families behind the statistics. I've spoken to parents in my home city of Sheffield and also a few friends here in London who have made enormous sacrifices to pay independent school fees. They are. They do not necessarily regard themselves as wealthy. Some have given up holidays, delayed moving house or made other financial sacrifices because they believe their child's education is worth that commitment. Some families have historically just managed to afford fees, may now be unable to do so, and the impact may be particularly significant for children receiving bursaries and scholarships.

We should not assume that the consequences of higher fees fall equally across the independent sector. A very wealthy family, my Lords, may be able to absorb the substantial increases, but a family already stretching its finances to keep a child in a particular school may not. And I also want to raise the question of teachers. One of the arguments for the policy is that revenues raise will support state education. This is entirely legitimate question, but if we want to improve educational outcomes, we need to ask what happened to the teaching workforce? My Lords and I hope when the Minister rises, she will address this issue.

The independent sector employs teachers who could potentially work in the state schools if independent schools respond to higher costs by reducing staffing, while state schools simultaneously struggle to recruit and retain teachers, the consequences deserve careful examinations. My Lords, the government's original modelling assumed that schools would absorb some of the costs passed on through higher fees and make efficiencies. The OBR estimates that effective VAT rate of 15.5%, which roughly two thirds of the cost passed through fees. HMRC estimates average fee increases of around 10%, although it recognises substantial variation between schools.

So what has actually happened? My Lords, the Independent Schools Council reports that among schools responding to its survey, average fee increased by 4.4% between January 25th and January 26th before VAT and nursery fees. We now have the beginnings of evidence, but not yet the complete picture. My Lords, this is what. This is why I believe the government should commit to a proper post implementation evaluation. I'm grateful to the Association of Families of Independent Schools for drawing attention to this issue for me.

I do not suggest that this analysis should simply be accepting. My Lords. Indeed, this is principle applies to every source of evidence in this debate. The answer is not to commission a review designed to reach a pre-determined conclusion. It is to commission an independent and credible assessment of the evidence, assumptions, modelling and forecasts and test them against what actually happened since January 2025. We need to examine pupil numbers, destinations, school closures, fee increases, bursaries, staffing, geographical effects, send provision and actual additional costs to the state sector.

We should also assess the combined effects of VAT and the removal of business rate relief, rather than examining each measure in isolation. My Lords, the government made a significant policy intervention in education and taxation. It is entirely reasonable for Parliament now to ask whether the evidence is matching the forecast. So I have two questions for the Minister before I sit down. First, would monitoring and evaluation of the original assumptions and forecasts has taken place? Who is responsible for that work and whether and when will the results be published? Secondly, will the government consider commissioning an independent review of the evidence assumptions modelling forecast underpinning these reforms tested against the evidence emerging since implementation? Because if these measures are to be justified by the benefits they are intended to deliver for the state's education, then we owe it to the taxpayers, parents, teachers and above all, children's to ensure that those benefits are measured properly.

We should follow the evidence wherever

**** Possible New Speaker ****

it takes us, my Lords. My Lords, I join with others to thank the noble Lord Lord Lexden for securing this debate and to welcome him back to his place. As welcome him back to his place. As I'm also relatively new to these to this House. I have not had the pleasure of spending time with him, pleasure of spending time with him, and I'm very glad that that opportunity may now arise. My Lords. opportunity may now arise. My Lords. I would like to start by quoting from the repeat statement, and what the noble Baroness, the Minister said in response to questions by me earlier today.

I had been asking about preserving all that was good

14:33

Baroness Cash (Conservative)

- -

in our education system and seeking reassurance that we would do that. The noble Baroness, the Minister, challenged that, saying that there was more work to be done. We should now not place in aspic the education system and recognise the areas where, notwithstanding the areas where, notwithstanding the progress, there is more work to be done because I'm afraid a disadvantaged gap still exists for disadvantaged gap still exists for our children, and it is stubbornly wide. A gap between regions is widening. We have a send crisis that is growing, and 1.5 million children persistently absent from school, and a doubling of those educated at home since 2019.

And now a million young people, all educated during the last 16 years, not in education, employment or training. So simply standing still and resting on our laurels will not be good enough for our children. You might wonder why I've quoted the noble Baroness Minister in this debate, and it is to identify the fact that this change was made at a time when there was no possibility of providing the children who were removed from the private system. As a result, with an excellent education elsewhere in the state system.

And I will come back to that. But first, I'd like to thank my noble friends and the noble Lord Lord Alton for their contributions today, and I'm grateful that they saved me from repeating in detail the numbers, and particularly my thanks to Lord Lexden for his very comprehensive summary of the facts and the data around all of this, and the impact of it. I even find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with my noble Lord Lord Mohammed, in challenging a review of all of this and the actual effects that were predicted versus what has taken place since.

Two significant facts have emerged in the debate today. One, the data produced around Scotland, and the fact that, as we can already see in England, this change has not had the predicted effect and has. Is indeed costing the Scottish Government a great deal more, and is predicted for that to increase. And the second point of note is that the anomaly created by this government, by making this change as identified by the noble Lord Lord Alton, in respect to EU law, the government's predictions we have heard plenty about and how wrong they were.

I won't repeat those, but I have them in mind as we continue. The point being this, that the noble Baroness, the Minister, I hope, will have heard what I believe was a collective cry of pain and loss from the speeches on the Opposition Benches today. At the heart of this are real children, real families and really hard consequences for all of them. Even if one agreed with the principle of this policy, its timing and its implementation was at best indifferent, indiscriminate and, yes, punitive.

For 50 years since fat was introduced, education in this country was exempt and that exemption was not removed. In a September at the beginning of the school year. But in the middle, halfway through. And worse than that, half way through some children's GCSE and A-level courses, it was removed before anything had been done. As we've heard from Lord Shinkwin about a special needs system which the noble Baroness, the Minister herself today has said is already under extreme strain.

Tribunal appeals take up to 14 months. It was also removed before a single one of the promised teachers had been recruited. And we've heard from a number of my noble friends today about those numbers. There was indifference, unquestionable indifference. The government knew what would follow, not only via debates here and in the other place, but we know from their own policy. Note that they accepted in advance that children with special needs who moved schools would suffer disruptive impacts, to say the least.

The wealthiest absorbed it. A number of my noble friends have identified this today. Baroness Laing, in her very powerful speech, has called attention to the extremely unfortunate and regrettable statement by the Secretary of State for education that she is interested in 93% of this education. Children in the education system, whatever her intent. It is a message that has landed a body blow on the seven. The families who couldn't absorb it are the ones we've heard about.

Today. More than 96,000 children in independent schools receive special needs support without a plan. Every one of those families pays this tax now in full. Tim Barrow, father of three from Hertfordshire, two of them with special needs, withdrew his sons from their independent school in order to keep his ten year old daughter, whose needs were the greatest in hers. The policy, he's quoted as saying, forced him and his wife to determine which of our children's educational needs takes precedence.

No parent should face that. No parent with children with special education needs should. I would ever have imagined facing that under a Labour government. Leanne Gunn, whose son Charlie uses a wheelchair and will be in a wheelchair for life, took the government to court alongside other families. She says she will work all her life to pay his fees because there's no other option for him. Those are the families who lost two families of modest means at low fee faith schools.

The Court of Appeal had to observe that they would still and could still resort to home education when they found against them and sent the problem back to Parliament. It was punitive. There is no question, from what we've heard today that it was punitive. No one in government weighed what these schools give to the communities around them, and the value of that, not just economic value, human value. Some examples of what these schools do. Christ's hospital, 470 years old, 650 of its 900 pupils hold means tested bursaries, and it provides 15% of all full bursaries in the independent sector.

The London Academy of Excellence in Stratford is a free sixth form, sponsored and staffed with support of independent schools. It has produced more than 150 Oxbridge offers in eight years. Over a third of them to pupils on free school meals. And I could go on, but every closure extinguished that, giving that community outreach. Permanently punishing the children who benefited. And of course, we've seen this beginning of the transition. Applications by independent faith schools into the into the state sector.

And on an issue, a very serious issue arising at Barnard Hill Academy, where the state system now appears to be allowing and funding a school which mandates the wearing of a hijab for children as young as seven. The school, when this was revealed during the week, said that they had changed their policy. They did. They said it wouldn't be mandated for non-Muslim girls in this country. It is unlawful to mandate religious dress for any girl of any age, of any faith.

It's complete breach of the Equality Act. And I hope that in as this has been exposed, perhaps the one silver lining of the whole policy that the noble Baroness the Minister will undertake here today to reassure us that this will be addressed promptly, my Lords. No government should have contemplated moving tens of thousands of children, taking that. Taxing the education of the rest, unless and until it could provide every child with a place in an excellent school, until special needs provision worked and until the teachers it promised were standing in classrooms at the very least.

Now the government should set out how it will replace the loss of the community contributions. And I support the call by a number of my noble peers today, including the noble Lord Lord Mohammed, that there should be a review into this policy. May I add one? One last thing. I forgot to address. I do apologise, which is that of course I can reassure my noble friend Lord black, that we will indeed and have pledged to repeal this policy a.

14:43

Baroness Smith of Malvern, Minister of State (Education) (Labour)

- -

My Lords. Can I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Luxton, for having secured this Luxton, for having secured this debate and for the long standing interests that he's taken in independent schools and the families that they serve? It is very good to have him back on these benches, and I wish him well. I will respond fully to the debate and with evidence to the points that have been raised. But before I do that, can I just comment that I do understand that there are very strong views about this issue, but I can't help thinking that, more characteristically, for this House, it might have been better with a bit less questioning of the character and motives of me and my colleagues, verging in one case, on unparliamentary language.

In my view, the motion before us asks this House to take note of the impact of VAT and other tax changes on private schools since the 1st of January 2025. It's right that we should do so. These were significant reforms debated extensively both inside and outside Parliament before their introduction, and it's entirely proper that we continue to scrutinise their effects. The government's position, however, remains clear. Education is central to our mission to break down barriers to opportunity. We want every child, regardless of background, circumstance or where they happen to live, to have access to an excellent education.

That means ensuring that public funding is directed where it can have the greatest impact, and that difficult decisions about taxation are taken fairly and responsibly. It was for that reason that the government ended the VAT exemption on private school fees. From the 1st of January 2025, and removed charitable business rates relief from private schools in England from April 2025. As the government set out at the 2024 budget, these measures combined would raise more than £1.8 billion a year by 20 2930 to help support investment in public services, including education.

The government remains confident in these costings, which were certified by the Independent Office for Budget Responsibility. The OBR actually revised the expected yield up slightly by an average of £40 million per year. In November 2025. So these measures are raising more than expected when they were announced. This was, of course, also a manifesto commitment, and the now government, in its manifesto, also set out a range of ways in which the revenue earned would be used. Whilst of course it isn't possible as this is non hypothecated to directly link this spending, I would and I.

I feel it's appropriate to identify some of the links between those areas identified in the manifesto and increased spending and provision. We're spending more than has been raised to improve our schools and to deliver our commitment to the 94% of children who attend state schools. We're increasing our overall core schools budget by £2.3 billion in 2020 627. We have now achieved 71.6% of our 6500 additional teachers target. There are 4654 more teachers, 3008 more teachers in secondary and special schools in 2020 five, 26 and 1646 more teachers in further education than in 2020 425.

We're investing £18 billion this year in post 16 education and skills, which includes funding for careers and work experience with over £86.4 million funding for careers related activities. In July 2025, we announced that funded support for the Nuffield Early Language Intervention Programme would continue for a further four academic years. We are building and expanding nurseries in schools, providing £82 million of capital funding to over 600 primary and maintained nursery schools across phases one and two of the school based nursery programme, which will create over 11,000 new nursery places by September 2027.

As at March 2026, 60% of pupils in schools and learners in further education in England are covered by a mental health support team as part of the National Youth Strategy. The government is committed to establishing 50 young futures hubs by March 2029. All things that we said in our manifesto that we would do and we have done. Let me say at the outset that the government recognises the valuable contribution that many private schools make to our national life. Private schools do educate hundreds of thousands of children, provide specialist provision, deliver bursaries and scholarships, and work in partnership with state schools and local communities.

Nothing in these reforms was intended to undermine those contributions, and nothing in the government's approach seeks to remove parental choice. And I understand as well the international impact of our private school sector, which is why I raised it and pushed for further opportunities for our private schools in Saudi Arabia earlier this week. The question before us is not whether private schools make a contribution. They undoubtedly do. The question is whether it is right that private education should have continued to benefit from tax breaks that are not available to most other goods and services.

This government concluded that it was not. It is important to place recent changes in their proper context. The government always expected that applying VAT to private school fees would lead to some movement of pupils into the state sector. That was explicitly factored into our analysis before the policy was introduced. Our estimate remains that around 35000 pupils may move into state funded education over the course of this Parliament. That represents fewer than 0.5% of the state school population. At the same time, we must recognise the wider demographic picture.

Falling birth rates are affecting pupil numbers across the education system. The latest available data show that overall pupil numbers have fallen across all sectors, not solely within private schools, and it would therefore be wrong to attribute every change in enrolment solely to the introduction of VAT. The evidence points to a combination of factors including demographics, local market conditions and broader economic pressures. As Ministers have consistently stated, the trends seen thus far remain broadly consistent with the assumptions underpinning the original policy.

It is, of course, sad when any school closes. I understand the impact on parents, on children and on communities. School closures, however, of course, can be influenced by a range of factors, not just the VAT policy. And while we accept that VAT may have compounded pressure already on private schools, closures cannot be attributed to it alone. Private schools, like other organisations, can close for a number of reasons. Demographic change, financial sustainability, governance issues, regulatory concerns and mergers have all contributed to school closures.

Long before these reforms were introduced. And I did think that at least a couple of the examples used by the noble Lord, Lord Lexton, given my understanding, particularly of the history of Malvern, Saint James, were perhaps not the best examples of the impact of VAT and possibly had more to do with the new ownership of those schools. The government's assessment remains that closure rates are within historical patterns and do not demonstrate systemic failure across the sector. On average, 75 private schools closed per year over the 20 years before the tax changes.

A total of 60 schools closed in the 2020 425 school year, and 67 closed in 2020 526, so below the average of previous years. And we also note that private schools have continued to open. The picture is therefore considerably more nuanced than some commentary has suggested. The government has continued to monitor place availability closely. There remains substantial spare capacity across the school system, with hundreds of thousands of unfilled places nationally across primary and secondary schools in England. Overall, pupil numbers have declined by 1.2% between 2025 and 2026, so state funded primary and secondary schools have fewer pupils and sufficient capacity for the.

For the new school year, 98.7% of applications to primary school led to an offer from one of the preferred schools, and the same is true for 96.4% of secondary applications. And both of those figures represent an improvement on last year. Local authorities retain statutory responsibility for securing sufficient school places, and continue to plan effectively for local demand. To date, no authority has suggested that pupil movements associated with these reforms have created pressures that cannot be managed within existing arrangements.

The government, therefore, remains confident that the state sector can accommodate any additional pupils arising from the policy, and that reflects the position that Ministers have consistently set out to Parliament. Concerns about children with special educational needs do deserve careful consideration, and I recognise the points that the noble Lord Lord Shinkwin made not only in his contribution today but in previous debates and as he says in his questions. The government has always recognised that children with Send can require highly specialised provision, and that stability of placement is particularly important.

That is precisely why protections exist for those children whose private school placement is named in an education, health and care plan and funded by a local authority. In such circumstances, local authorities are able to reclaim the VAT incurred. Those arrangements remain in place and continue to provide protection for some of the most vulnerable children in our education system. We will continue to monitor outcomes closely and remain committed to improving support for children and young people with Send wherever they are educated.

I note that the tax changes, in fact, have not led to fewer pupils. Pupils with send at private schools. Indeed, the number has increased slightly and that does include those without EHC, where the number at mainstream independent schools has grown from fewer than 98,000 in January 2024 to over 101,000 in January 2026. But for the majority of children with Send that attend that attends state funded schools, we want every child to have the best start in life with the help available earlier and locally when families need it.

Every child thrives, achieving and thriving. The Schools White Paper, published in February, set out our intentions. We will ensure that children get the right support in their early years, setting school and college. We will invest in new training for all staff and better buildings equipment and make sure that every setting has access, access to expert professional support when it is needed. We will create a new offer for children who need additional support called Targeted and Targeted Plus layers. Children in early years settings, mainstream schools and colleges can benefit from education and health professionals without long waits for assessments for children and young people with complex needs.

We are developing new specialist provision packages designed with experts and tested with parents to set out exactly what support and resources are required for specific needs. Parents should, of course, be able to choose where they educate their children, but we must move away from a system that forces children that the parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities to feel they have to move their children where they can afford to do so. We will restore parents trust in the Send system.

These changes will be introduced gradually, but we are already investing up. But we are investing £7 billion more on Send compared to 2020 526. My Lords, what matters now we continue to examine the evidence clearly, as noble Lords have called for today. The government has done so throughout implementation and will continue to do so. We will keep monitoring pupil movements, school capacity, school closures, send provision and the wider health of the sector. Where concerns arise, they will be considered seriously and responsibly.

However, after more than a year of implementation, the evidence available to us does not suggest that the fundamental assumptions behind the policy were misplaced. The education system continues to function effectively. State schools continue to have capacity. The independent sector continues to educate hundreds of thousands of pupils, and the reforms continue to support the government's objective of raising funding to improve opportunities for children and young people across the country. Once again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for bringing this important issue before the House and allowing me to respond, as I say, with evidence and commitment to ensure we continue monitoring this policy.

14:58

Lord Lexden (Conservative)

- -

My Lords, I thank, as is >> My Lords, I thank, as is customary, all the speakers whose contributions today have been, I think, for the most part, think, for the most part, especially powerful, many rooted in personal experience. We've had almost total unanimity of voice about the devastating impact on independent schools of the education tax, and it was notable that, as my noble friend Lord Caine pointed out, not a single voice on the. Was heard from the Labour benches prepared to defend this policy.

Now the range of important topics have covered bursaries, the impact on local economies, partnerships, impact on state schools and loss of opportunity, the vindictiveness has been of introducing VAT mid-year, the closure of historic institutions, music education and the threat to specialist music schools special needs, the impact on boarding schools and the doubts surrounding the economics on which this policy is based. That really is the central issue that has been brought out because of the widespread belief that economics is not placed at the heart of this, but of vindictiveness towards independent schools.

Now, the Minister is so confident in her policy and the figures and data that she has used, she will surely have no reluctance in putting them, putting the issue to the test by establishing the independent inquiry review, for which so many speakers have said, rightly called. So I end by thanking all those who have contributed, contributed, and I beg to move.

15:00

Deputy Lord Speaker Baroness Barker (Liberal Democrat)

A question is that this motion be agreed to. As many of you shall say, content. Of the contrary, not say, content. Of the contrary, not content. The contents have it. My Lords, perhaps Lords would like to Lords, perhaps Lords would like to

**** Possible New Speaker ****

Thank you. Thank you. I Thank you. I will.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

Questions Questions for Questions for a Questions for a short Questions for a short debate. The mental health of those working

**** Possible New Speaker ****

The mental health of those working in agriculture. The Bishop of Hereford. My Lords, I am grateful for the

15:01

Short debate: Mental health of agricultural workers

>> My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this issue in your Lordships House. I declare my particular interest as a patron of the Agricultural Chaplains Association and Bishop of the most rural diocese in England, clergy rural diocese in England, clergy and agricultural chaplains across my diocese and indeed across the nation are on the front line of the

15:01

The Lord Bishop of Hereford (Bishops)

- -

pastoral response to the mental health crisis among agricultural health crisis among agricultural workers. They are so often the ones who show up in times of crisis and sit with people at their moments of sit with people at their moments of greatest need. They provide comfort to the families of the recently bereaved and take funerals. bereaved and take funerals. Although it is imperfect, evidence suggests that British farming communities experience mental communities experience mental health concerns and likely rates of suicide disproportionate to the general population of Britain.

The Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institute's 2021 Big Farming survey found that almost a fifth of their respondents knew someone who had attempted suicide in the last five years. Indeed, 94% of British farmers agreed that poor mental health is the biggest hidden problem facing farmers today. According to the Farm Safety Foundation's 2025 report. There are multiple reasons for this. Farmers are the worst affected by the recent turbulence brought on by climate change. In only the last 18 months, we've experienced our two hottest summers on record and an extremely wet winter.

Farmers are devastated by the loss of their crops due to wildfires, flooding and extreme heat, and the pests and diseases they bring. They've been forced to eat into their winter forage reserves, rework irrigation systems and add flood defences. The threat of extreme weather and climate change is keeping farmers awake at night. They're faced with tackling the worst bluetongue outbreak the nation has faced, bearing the costs of veterinary bills, vaccines and other associated expenses. The financial burden is considerable, but so too is the emotional strain of dealing with disease, uncertainty and livestock losses.

I want to take a moment to thank the noble and learned Lord Birt Baroness Mallalieu, and I hope you'll forgive me if I pronounce that wrong for her written support ahead of today's debate, she drew my attention to the extraordinary pressures being felt across the wider agricultural support network. She told me that kennels collecting fallen stock in her area have at times been visiting as many as 140 farms in a single day. A stark illustration of the enormous strain that climate related pressures are placing on the wider industry.

Second, as farmers consider their approach to the future, they're doing so against a backdrop of continual policy and regulatory change. The other places Defra Select Committee's 2023 report on rural mental health highlighted the stress caused by changing regulatory frameworks and support schemes. Farmers must necessarily take a long term view of their business, yet find themselves navigating a constantly shifting landscape of environmental incentives, land management requirements and biodiversity obligations. Farmers are resilient, and even if they disagree with policy, they will make it work.

If they have consistency. The current challenging environment of food security suggests the need for significant cross-party collaboration for a longer term, stable regulatory and policy framework. Alongside this uncertainty sits intense financial pressure, rising costs for fertiliser, fuel and machinery have squeezed already tight margins for many concern around their farms, long term viability remain a constant source of anxiety. A remarkable farming support charity in my diocese We Are Farming Minds reports growing numbers of farmers struggling with money worries, insecure tenancies, family disputes over farm succession, legal issues and the challenge of keeping businesses afloat amid volatile markets, paperwork and administration.

At a further burden, a fifth of those living rurally report poor mental health due to social isolation for agricultural workers. This is exacerbated by long hours working alone and the increasing closure of farmers markets, which are places of community as well as commerce. Many also express a sense that farming is undervalued by wider society, despite the essential role farmers play a point well made by the noble Lord Levin in his supplementary question earlier today. At the same time, cultures of resilience within farming communities can create a stigma around discussing mental ill health, discouraging people from seeking support when they need it most.

And of course, in times of mental crisis, many farmers have access to firearms and agricultural chemicals, making timing timely and preventative support critical. Yet there are also reasons for hope across the country, communities, charities and frontline organisations are developing innovative ways to reach those who might never walk through the door of a traditional mental health service. Some organisations choose to bring life saving community to farmers, like the Monthly Butty Van, a joint project between the Diocese of Hereford and the Methodist Church, which offers to farmers a breakfast, hot drink and conversation.

Others organise pop up wellbeing clinics at livestock markets and agricultural shows like Health Huts, which offer both mental health advice and medical assistance. Still others train the people that farmers already trust. The DPJ Foundation equips industry professionals to spot mental health symptoms and runs a share the Load Counselling service. I'm grateful to have met with the Minister earlier this week to discuss the wellbeing of farming communities, and I thank her for her sustained advocacy on behalf of farmers and for the careful attention she's given to the many interconnected pressures affecting the sector from mental health and welfare support, through to the practical regulatory challenges that shape everyday life on farms.

I warmly welcome the government's Farmer Welfare Grant, a timely commitment of £1.5 million over the coming three years. It's heartening that the Minister recognises that behind every harvest and herd are men and women carrying burdens of isolation, anxiety and financial pressure that too often go unseen. Through this funding, projects such as the van will be better equipped to continue their vital work. I recognise, of course, the financial constraints under which the government is operating and the difficult choices Ministers face across public spending.

In that context, this funding is a welcome and valuable investment. However, grants are a precision tool. Their scope is limited, their budgets are finite and their duration temporary. While this funding is due to run until 2029, charities and support organisations need longer term certainty if they are to recruit and retain skilled staff, build trusted relationships within communities and plan effectively for the future. I hope, therefore, the Minister will consider how this promising start might be developed into a more sustainable funding settlement.

However, as the Minister and I discussed in person, improving mental health in farming is not simply about responding to crisis, it is about creating the conditions in which farmers and farming can thrive. The Minister has rightly been engaging with practical issues such as on farm reservoirs and water storage, and I welcome efforts to reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens where possible, prevention and early intervention should be at the heart of the government's approach. If awareness of mental health challenges become second nature across the sector, we can identify problems sooner, connect people with support earlier and help prevent avoidable tragedies.

In doing so, we can build a healthier farming workforce and more resilient rural communities.

15:10

Baroness Shephard of Northwold (Conservative)

- -

My Lord, we are indebted to the right reverend Prelate for so graphically describing the often ignored problem of mental health in rural communities, and the part that uncertainty and unpredictability, unpredictability play in that problem. My Lords, this issue is a deeply serious matter. Problems of access, transport links, availability of professional help for health problems. All of these are more difficult in sparsely populated rural areas. And the prosperity and above all, the confidence of the farming sector are at the very centre of the whole rural economy, from jobs to sales of seed and fertiliser, machinery, food processing and livestock, veterinary services and retail and hospitality.

If farmers prosper, so do our rural communities. My Lords, farmers produce 60% of our food. They care for our environment. They are frequently leaders in rural communities, taking part in local government, school management and our churches and chapels. But isolation, long working hours and financial pressures, often unpredictable, make theirs a lonely job. Farmers have to take their decisions alone, as we all know, and as the right reverend Prelate has said, they have access to firearms and pesticides.

I fear that some noble Lords here today will have had first hand experience of suicides within within their own rural communities. I certainly have, and my noble friend Lord Fuller, who comes from the same county, will also have had that experience. And the right reverend Prelate has graphically described the situation. And RABI survey found that 47% of the farming community experienced high anxiety rates, much higher than in the rest of our community. Many organisations have been set up across the country over time to help, and I can recall when I was at the Ministry of Agriculture in the early 1990s, we worked with the RABI and the Royal Show to promote better access to help with mental health for for farmers.

In 2008, the agricultural community in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex set up the organisation Yarner. You Are Not Alone and it continues to provide a full time, dedicated and confidential helpline with trained advisors and access to counselling. And my Lords, this statistic speaks for itself. Alarmingly, its helpline calls and the durations of those calls have increased by nearly 40% in the last year alone. Climate change, floods, drought, storms, the extraordinarily international situation, supply shortages, ever increasing energy prices and massive uncertainty surrounding future food supplies have combined to create an unprecedentedly difficult time for the whole agricultural sector and, importantly, very high anxiety rates for those working in it.

Uncertainty with regard to your livelihood is one of the principal causes of depression. Now, we all understand that uncertainty is built into farming. Farming is all about planning to planning ahead, what to drill, when to harvest, when to invest in irrigation systems, machinery, livestock, how to find new markets. All of this in constantly shifting circumstances. And farmers have to plan not just for one year, but for several seasons ahead, taking account of the whole farm and those working on it.

And this is why the government's shock inheritance tax announcement not only taxing our very means of food production, but also its future, was received by with disbelief by the whole rural community. That's right. And there have been other shock and sudden changes in support for agriculture from this government, frequently at short notice, as was the case with SFI smashing into smithereens forward planning within the sector. Now, I always at this stage accept the noble Baroness, the Minister.

She has taken every possible chance that she can to make improvements for the farming community where it is possible. But I must say, my Lords, that kind of uncertainty, uncertainty within your own livelihood can be very difficult to handle in an industry already fraught with uncertainties, especially if it is caused by government, as has regrettably happened during the past couple of years. And it is particularly serious. Indeed, I would say it was unacceptable because at this time of global uncertainty, a safe, affordable and sustainable food supply is central to our national security.

Professor Tim Lang, in his 2025 report for the National Preparedness Commission, stated that strong and resilient, productive capacity is essential in facing global climate events, geopolitical disruptions, wars and blockades, and fragile food supply chains. He added that food security should be treated as part of our national infrastructure planning, as indeed it obviously must. The mental health of those who produce our food, their and productivity, and of those who live in rural communities, important, they already live with the anxiety and uncertainties which are part of their way of life.

The government should not add to these uncertainties with sudden cuts or policy changes. They should instead recognise the vital role they play in the very survival of our nation. A Minister in the other place recently advised that in the light of the current situation, geopolitically, we should be stocking up our food cupboards that we need to make our own food supply both secure and healthy, before we can follow that. Minister's advice will be obvious to the noble Lords taking part in this debate, and I hope and believe to the noble Baroness the Minister.

15:17

Lord Fuller (Conservative)

- -

Well, said Baroness Meyer. >> Well, said Baroness Meyer. >> My Lords, I'd like to thank also the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Hereford, for bringing Bishop of Hereford, for bringing this debate. It's an important one, which is very much at the forefront of many people's minds. Even the Prime Minister has agreed that the war on the countryside has gone too far. Of course, it's not his fault that so many in the countryside choose to end their lives before their time, but the constant and cumulative attacks on the way people choose to live their lives in the sticks cannot help their mental health.

It's not easy when you're underappreciated, misunderstood, isolated, under financial attack from low prices, high costs, discriminatory tax and ever burdensome regulations. You see, oftentimes the city dweller looks down on the country mouse who lives in the sticks. Well, it's they're just so provincial, you see. And that attitude is a problem because nobody should be taken for granted or patronised in this way. It demeans them. And a governing party that promotes that notion. Now, I play a leading role in the fertiliser industry.

I've got a degree in agriculture. I'm a director of a large farming business. I've grown up amongst the landowners, farmers, contractors and all those who work amongst them since, well, since as long as I can remember. So I know more than most. If you're an outsider, it's easy to misunderstand how these rural communities function. Close social ties formed over generations make it hard for outsiders to get in. But out in the countryside, the economy is based on small businesses, so many are one man band affairs.

Unlike in the cities where larger firms are split into basic commercial functions, into directorates or departments, the farmer is simultaneously the sales director, the purchasing director, the head of finance, the health and safety coordinator, head of Operations, contracts manager, HR, executive regulatory affairs officer and government relations advisor all by himself or herself. But that's bad enough. But there are other weighty risks which don't affect other businesses. Weather risks three bad harvests on the trot, corn prices down and input costs high have left cash tight.

A farmer who did everything right this year still found yields down by 30%. And we've heard already that livestock farmers are already feeding winter grub. These are uncertainties over which none of us, or they have any control. There's a particular issue amongst tenant farmers on the rent quarter day, and I'm delighted to see the noble Baroness, lady Rock, whose rock report into farm Tenancies is in her place. She knows the pressures to. But when the best you can achieve financially is a black zero, and relying on imports to fill the gap is uncertain.

What's our government's solution to this growing crisis? Well, government, I'm afraid to say, is harming the social life in the countryside, which more than anything helps people unburden their thoughts and share the pressures they're under. The country pub closed down by new taxes on glass bottles, sky high electricity bills, National insurance and the need to offer guarantee at hours. And now new taxes for those pubs with rooms to rent overnight and new overnight stays are going to add to that burden.

The agricultural show societies, which do as much as anything to improve the social glue from those that live outside the M25, are at risk because HMRC is failing to follow their own rules by docking £20 million of VAT. When the matter was clear and determined by the tribunal. Country sports, a big social support and driver of the local economy are to be banned, curtailed or subject to onerous licensing restrictions imposed by townies who thinks that milk comes from Tescos, not cows.

And with BP's financial support a distant memory, so many SFI subsidies and grants are restricted to hobby farmers rather than feeders. Of course, I'm not so churlish as to say that £65 million for new reservoirs isn't welcome, but frankly, it's not a drop in the bucket. And then we have Natural England's regulatory ignorance on stocking rates, wilfully, wilfully misunderstanding the vocation of being an upland farmer. And this morning, those villains, again at the Natural England's, have perpetuated a nationalisation of nature, with a predatory pricing scheme on nature.

Levies that are at a stroke. Destroy destroys the equity in the private nature markets by using a made up discount rate of 2.05, when the government is borrowing at nearly 6%. These are the nature schemes. Those under pressure have personal solace in creating, but the government agencies chop them off at the knees. We have got a government that has spent two years putting our English farmers at a competitive disadvantage against EU competitors. We're to have new taxes on fertiliser in January.

Yet in the EU those taxes are now recycled back to the farmers in a pointless money go round, which demonstrates they have no place in the first place where we have technical advantage in genetic breeding, black grass chemistry or even bioethanol. Our government seems content to trade those advantages away. In late night phone calls to the white House, or an SPS deal the white House, or an SPS deal that is sleeping rather than dead. The country, the farmers and the people who work in the countryside have to be concerned, as we should all be, by a land use framework that contemplates fully 20% of the productive farmland in our nation being applied to solar and other non-farming uses.

My Lords vibes alone aren't going to feed us. When Norfolk's breadbasket is converted to forestry. As the map in that land use framework contemplates, it's not clear where these productivity gains are going to come from. One thing's for sure, though, we're only going to get that 20% productivity gain with new investment. And when you're down on your luck and feeling sad for yourself, where is the incentive to invest not just in your business, but on our national farm security, food security? But worst of all, as my noble friend lady Shepherd has said, the hammer blow of these taxes that only apply to family businesses, which apply generational principles and long term patient capital which don't apply to pension funds, hedge funds or sovereign wealth.

And of course, you have to feel for those people who haven't even got seven years to go but have been recklessly placed under an intolerable burden, having taken the best advice to hold on to their farmland, feeling now that they're a burden to their families. Because, sad to say, Labour has removed the English farmers safety net. So now we get to the crux. When you're on your own and it seems that everyone hates you when it seems you're facing global headwinds, unsupported, no matter how professional you may be, no matter how many qualifications you have attained, no matter how large the financial mountain you have to climb to break even still, let's make a profit.

You can see why many can't see a way out. The facts are that the instruments of death are all around these people the shotgun, the veterinary medicines, the rat poison, the chemicals, the loneliness and it isn't the fault of Ministers that some individuals have come to take these things. But government has brought us to a place where the cumulative impact of abandoning food security, attacking our cultural ways of life and failing to recognise that farming in trouble must be dealt with, have instead had a war on the countryside that's gone too far.

There is hope that the new administration in Downing Street, with their pie and pint successors, so we'll recognise this war will be reversed, not just for the farmers but for the social life of Britain, for the security of our nation. And like my noble friend, I pay tribute to the NFU, the CLA. You are not alone in any other number of charities and programs that allow people to lift their eyes from the gutter. They give hope and a sense of value to those who live in the States.

And where there is hope, then salvation will follow. And that's the route to healing minds, not terminating them.

15:27

Earl Russell (Liberal Democrat)

- -

My Lord, it's it's a. Pleasure >> My Lord, it's it's a. Pleasure to speak in this debate, and I'm very grateful to the right Reverend, the Lord Bishop of Hereford, for securing the debate and for the compassion and clarity with which he opened it, which, combined with his rural knowledge, really gave us a very good introduction. And I must admit, the the thought of the butty van sounds like a very good way of helping to make things better as best we can.

The first debate I had in this House in my name was on children's mental health, and obviously I have climate change in my position within my party. So I come to this debate with those two threads very much in my mind. And in truth, they're all part of of the same thing. I thought Baroness Shephard of Northwold said it very well. If farmers prosper, so do our rural communities. I do just want to take issue with one point that Lord Fuller made in his speech.

I would like this debate to concentrate on what we can do in terms of helping our farmers and practical solutions to the unique set of problems that they face. And to my mind, to frame this as city against country is too easy a dichotomy, and one that I don't feel is particularly helpful in moving this debate forward. There is no doubt that our farmers face a blizzard of competing and unavoidable pressures, and many of them have been named by all speakers.

Climate change the increasing unpredictability of extreme weather, growing financial strain, social isolation, long working hours, regulatory upheaval and a historic stigma based on self-reliance that keeps too many from of them, from seeking the help and the support that they deserve. Research consistently shows that UK farmers have worse mental health than the general population. I was going to go through some of the statistics from Rab from G H, Q12 from the Farm Safety Foundation, but actually those figures have been mentioned.

But what is true is that the farmers face greater rates of mental health than other comparable workers. And my Lords, these rates are unacceptable and that this is not a new problem. Friends in the other place have raised it. This issue has been raised across parties. What I'm also struck by is the fact that we don't have enough research on the scale of the problem. And actually, a lot of this work is being done by charities. And actually a lot of the statistics we have are now a bit historical.

So I guess my first question to the Minister, can I ask the Minister what what actions the government might take to actually try and improve the government's understanding of the rate and scale of these problems, and will the government do more now to widen access and help provide support directly to our farmers? The question names three pressures. Before I start on those, I want to say it would be a mistake to treat them as separate. The truth is that these are all intertwined and compounded and they interact together.

But I will look at them as separate threads. But I think it's important that we understand that. The first was economic uncertainty. So we have had obviously a big change in government policy. And we that process has been, to say the least. It's been slow and uneven. We've had the basic payment scheme, the move to Elms, and this is basically left farmers with a great deal of uncertainty within that change process. And it's that uncertainty that farmers increasingly tell us time and time again that creates the greatest stress and pressure points.

So the other thing I'd like to ask the Minister is to to look again at what more the government can do to commit to a proper multiyear funding settlement so that farmers can have greater certainty for long term planning and budget cycles? I strongly believe that we are the real opportunities also for, again, we've we've had solar. We've had Lord Fuller talked about 20% of solar on farmland. I don't recognise those figures at all. The figures I have are less than 1% by 2050, but I actually believe that that there's there's a real opportunity.

A quarter of our farmers already use alternative forms of stable income to offset the increasing losses from climate change itself. So I wanted to ask the Minister today there's been an announcement on GB energy and community energy today, which is welcome. But what more could be done to actually help provide renewable energy to farmers to help provide a stable source of income? Second has been mentioned is obviously related to this is regulatory change. I'm not against regulatory change. We need to have this, but this needs to be better communicated.

It needs to be signposted and it needs to be done with farmers and not to them as as as an afterthought. It's it's that uncertainty and rapid changes that causes them anxiety and leads to these tragic situations. So better communication and actually the government doing much more to use trusted intermediaries to help deliver and communicate those messages is something we heard on the Environment and Climate Change Committee. So third, obviously, is the environmental and climate pressures. And obviously, we're increasingly moving to a cycle where we are having extreme flooding.

Your fields are flooded, you can't plant your crops. Then we move to extreme heat. And that heat and sunlight destroys the crops in the field. We've talked about the worst harvest. The Minister is is well aware of that. But I will put this figure, the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit estimates that cumulative harvest losses across 24, 25 and 26 amount to £5 billion in real terms for our farmers. So our farmers are very much in the front line of climate change, and we need to do more to support them.

I note in the in the debate, the the warm thanks that was given for the farming welfare grant and particularly the work that the noble Baroness, the Minister has done on this. And I recognise that as well. But I do think we need to take that further. I do think there's a need for more support. I think we need more imaginative ways of actually reaching farmers and actually getting into what is actually quite a hard community to get into and to have these difficult conversations.

And I want to put on record my support and the support of our benches for the various charities and organisations from the farming community network, DPJ Foundation, RABI, the Farm Safety Foundation's Yellow Wellies campaign, all of these organisations that are working extremely hard to help support farmers. And I think as well, I think it's important for all of us to say that if if there happened to be any farmers or anybody knows farmers that are struggling, it is it is absolutely essential that they get the help and the support that they rightly deserve.

I think my final message to the Minister is that we need to do the changes that we need to make, need to be made with farmers and not done to them. I think for me, that's one of the most important things that government can do to help improve this situation.

15:35

The Earl of Effingham (Conservative)

- -

My Lords, please let me thank the right Reverend prelate, the Bishop of Hereford, for Bishop of Hereford, for highlighting what we know to be an incredibly serious issue for the agricultural sector, and I highlight my register of interests as receiving rental income from an agricultural grain store. My Lords, it is unclear to many why the government does not appear to borrowing costs at 28 year highs, hurting hard working people, have been coupled with punitive taxes specifically targeted at those in agriculture.

It is a fact that these are choices made by this government. It should therefore be no surprise to noble Lords that only 15% of rural, rural residents believe this government cares about the countryside. Nearly half feel the government has actively waged war on their communities. The Countryside Alliance has identified 27 harmful policies since 2024, which negatively impact rural communities, the most significant of these being the government's changes to agricultural property relief and business property relief.

My Lords, the actions of the party opposite suggest they are simply not listening to farmers who repeatedly explain that most family farms do not have liquid assets to sell. Since the family farms tax was announced, investments in their businesses were either paused or cancelled in order to save for inheritance tax costs. As a direct consequence, as my noble friend Lord Gardiner puts so well during the recent oral question, that means lower investment in innovation, lower investment in food production, and lower investment in the very reservoirs that so many people want to see.

Almost 1 in 4 family farms and businesses have reduced headcount. It is absolutely no surprise that the frightening question being asked in so many quarters is, does this government care more about Social Security than national security and food security? The noble Baroness, Lady Batters, former president of the National Farmers Union, has warned that our food self-sufficiency is plummeting. And, my Lords, it was only yesterday that the noble Lord Lord Lemos from the government Dispatch Box, talked quite rightly about mental health support for prisoners on licence, and His Majesty's loyal opposition would say absolutely, of course, yes.

But, my Lords, what about mental health support for farmers who have committed no crime but have lost their livelihood due to this government's policies? My noble friend Baroness Shephard highlighted Yana, the the You are Not Alone helpline. Its calls are up 40%. And this is just one example. So why did the government close the £10 million mental health support fund for farmers? The Farming Resilience Fund, which came in under a conservative government and what will now replace it? My Lords, the 2025 McCain Farm Debts report found that 90% of farmers feel the UK economy is negatively affecting their farms financial position, with 86% feeling pessimistic about the UK's long term food security.

51% considered leaving farming altogether due to financial constraints, and 40% believe they may be forced to exit the industry within the next decade. These are not the actions of a responsible and decisive government. Do any noble Lords disagree that we need to ensure our long term food security and therefore, as a result, we have a duty of care for both the physical and mental health of our farmers, who work every possible hour of the day.

The right reverend Prelate reminded us that behind most pieces of food that we eat is a human being, a farmer, my noble friend Lord Fuller was entirely correct when he said, the farmer is the chief executive, the chief financial officer, the human resources director, the compliance director. My Lords, these are immense pressures for just one person or one family to navigate. Last month, members in the other place signed a letter to the new Prime Minister calling on the government to fully reverse the farming and inheritance tax changes, the response to which was we will look again the noble Baroness, the Minister said.

She will ensure that the new Chancellor is aware of the strength of feeling on this matter. Well, my Lords. Actions speak louder than words and the entire farming community is waiting. It is not just the family farms tax, it is the increased employer national insurance costs. It's the higher energy costs. It's the accelerated decline of delinked payments. The cumulative wrecking ball of this government's policies. As my noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton put so well at the campaign for the countryside launch on Monday.

We have no national security in less. You have food security and it is surely crystal clear that we should be looking after our farming communities, not

**** Possible New Speaker ****

destroying them. thanking. The Right Reverend, the Bishop

**** Possible New Speaker ****

The Right Reverend, the Bishop of Hereford for securing this debate today? And I'm very grateful for the opportunity to discuss what for the opportunity to discuss what actually is a really, really important topic. And I'm also grateful to him for coming over to DEFRA to discuss these issues more broadly. Earlier this week. As the broadly. Earlier this week. As the right reverend Prelate and others have very rightly said, farmers are facing challenges on multiple fronts. That's that's financial, economic, regulatory and environmental pressures.

Anyone like like myself who lives in a rural community cannot fail to be aware of the problems that farming

15:43

Baroness Hayman of Ullock, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Labour)

- -

has been facing. And in recent years, there's also been a growing awareness of the importance of mental health and mental health support in the farming sector. So support in the farming sector. So we are fully committed to to safeguarding the mental health of people in our agricultural and farming communities, and we are farming communities, and we are working closely with the sector to understand the pressures and to ensure that our farmers are supported as best they they can be. The government recently announced £343 million for up to 159 new NHS mental health centres, and they are going to be opening across England from this autumn and will bring a crucial support directly into neighbourhoods.

But the noble Lord Earl Russell asked. I thought what was a really important question was just about better data and evidence around mental health issues, and I thought you might be interested to know the suicide prevention strategy for England set out an ambition to conduct and commission research and data linkage projects, and that includes how to support DEFRA to look at agricultural workers to understand the unique challenges and in order to to respond appropriately. We've also been looking at how people across England can benefit from faster and better mental health support.

There have been 800, 8500 additional mental health workers recruited since the end of June 2024, and that meets a key government target that we had set. But also, if we focus specifically on agriculture, we are tripling the previous funding that was available for farmer welfare, mental health and wellbeing support. And that comes through the new farmer welfare grant of £1.5 million available over three years. And that builds on the success of the previous grant, with the funding supported targeting interventions to strengthen personal and business resilience in the agriculture sector.

The noble right reverend Prelate, the noble Lord Bishop of Hereford, mentioned the grants and the fact that they are only temporary and that charities need certainty to to plan beyond this. So, as part of the Farmer Welfare Grant, we were particularly interested in receiving applications which should prove longevity. So we've been engaging with the sector and understand that some organisations are planning to use funding to launch initiatives which can become self-sustaining when the grant period ends. So we're interested in looking at how more work we can do on that, because, of course, the grant applications closed last week, and we'll be looking at all those outcomes shortly.

In addition, we continue to fund the farming community network that provides BTP affected farmers and their families with a national free to access business and pastoral advice service, and the right reverend Prelate, in his introduction, also talked about the importance of prevention and the noble Lord Earl Russell talked about the need for practical solutions. So what I think is really important, instead of us talking about, oh, we're doing this and we're doing that, and we're doing the other, we're putting a sticking plaster on here.

We actually really need to understand the root causes of the stress, anxiety and poor mental health that farmers are suffering from. So they don't reach crisis point. That has to be what we have to, to, to focus on. There are a number of ways we've started to do this. One is to make the supply chain fairer. So farmers are protected in contracts with supermarkets. Fair dealing rules. As the the the noble Lord opposite will know, have already been interested for dairy and pig introduced for dairy and pigs, and we're now looking to do the same for eggs, combinable crops and fresh produce sectors.

Because as we've heard really strongly today, I think that farmers need certainty. And also it's one of the reasons we published the farming roadmap so that farmers have a clear direction towards a future for farming underpinning, underpinned by the four priorities of profitability, productivity, sustainability and resilience. Because we have to build a resilience because of the changing climate challenges, the global conflicts that farmers are facing through through climate change. So supporting British farmers and boosting the nation's security are key priorities for the government, because the most resilient farms are profitable, precisely because they're able to work with the environment.

So that's why we're backing this shift towards lower impact input, more sustainable farming systems. One of the things that came across strongly, though, was about the the issues around isolation and loneliness. We know that that the that also means that accessibility of mental health services is more challenging in rural communities. And poor accessibility can further undermine the wellbeing of those who need that mental health support. So we have included tackling loneliness and isolation as an objective for the farming welfare grant, and also the Farming Collaboration Fund will enable local farmers to come together, not just to share costs and reduce risks, but importantly, to socialise and to to meet their to meet their peers.

Just quickly. I know the noble Lady Baroness Shephard talked about falling stock. We have met to discuss fallen stock recently and are going to be working with the fallen stock sectors to understand current pressures, to look at how we can support farmers who are struggling with with their stock, particularly regarding bluetongue. I think it's also important to to remind noble Lords that we published our response to Baroness Batters Independent Farming Profitability review that that review has been mentioned.

We've we've published our response in June. And we are we are we are implementing a number of our recommendations in order to to take proper action, to grow profitability. And we also, of course, know how hard this summer has been for farmers. Dry conditions have clearly placed huge pressures on farming businesses. We've had reduced grass growth, lower forage availability, lower crop yields. We know farmers have been feeding what should have been the autumn the winter food early, which is putting again further pressures on as we go through the year.

So I was really pleased that the Prime Minister did announce the £65 million package of support in August to support farmers affected by those conditions, and to look at how we can further build resilience. We are also looking to build to to invest £2.4 billion over the next two years to improve flood resilience. And we have a new Flood Resilience Taskforce because we've been concentrating a lot on drought, but we know we are likely to have a stormy, potentially very wet winter.

So we need to to to look at with support ahead of ahead of that. And again, I do think there's been some real issues for farmers around wildfires this year. Wildfire has been worse this year hugely than in than than last year, for example. And we know it can have an absolutely devastating impact on farms and farming. And it is a national security issue. DEFRA funding does embed proportionate wildfire risk assessment and mitigation within land management activity, but we're trying to better understand, as a government, the impact of the kind of fires that we've had this year, and not just about what we need to do to better support recovery, but also to build greater resilience for the future.

And I did also just want to to mention that in July of this year, we published the Future of Rural England report. And that report sets out key recommendations for government action to help rural communities unlock their full potential. And these recommendations were informed by the work of the Rural Task Force, which is a group of external rural stakeholders and departments right across Whitehall which have been convened to identify how government can support rural businesses and communities to tackle rural disadvantage and also unlock the potential of the rural economy.

And what we're now doing in DEFRA is looking at that, that report and working out how we can best implement those those recommendations, because many of those recommendations will help to unlock some of the support mechanisms we need for for farmers and others living in rural communities. I am about to run out of time, I'm afraid. But again, I just want to just close by again, thanking all contributions. It is an important issue. We do need to take this issue extremely seriously.

So can I thank the right reverend Prelate, the noble Lord Bishop of Hereford, for bringing us together again. To everyone who's contributed and to continuing, I hope to work together to look at how we can improve both mental health support and prevention in the first place.

15:53

Deputy Lord Speaker Baroness Barker (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, perhaps we might have >> My Lords, perhaps we might have a quick break when noble Lords Motion for debate. The Prison and Probation Service Lord Farmer.

15:54

Debate: Prison and probation service in England and Wales

15:54

Lord Farmer (Conservative)

- -

My Lords, I'd like to thank all those who are going to contribute this afternoon. I think it's quite an impressive list, and I'm looking forward to hearing some valuable contributions to what is, at the present time, a very important subject. So thank you for making time off. A very busy week, and I would particularly like to welcome Lord Leveson making his maiden speech here, and looking forward very much to hearing his wisdom, which I know he has a lot of in this regard, my Lords, I received a very supportive email also from the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Gloucester, who is a prisons bishop.

She's at the College of Bishops this week and is unable to attend. And she just wants us to know that she would have been here if she could have been here. But this is a highly relevant debate to the public. The current state of our prisons and probation service constantly plays out on front pages of newspapers and online media sites. One of my pleas today is that politicians resist the media drama, particularly of a single case, and and keep rehabilitation at the forefront.

And the fact that punishment is deprivation of liberty, not grim conditions. On today's news, we heard temporary prefabricated cells, sized for one, are now being fitted with bunk beds. Ten years ago or more. Former chief Inspector Nick Hardwick described such circumstances to the Commons Justice Committee, as many prisoners are now effectively living in toilets. So headlines around prison spaces running out should not be ignored. In August 2026, the total prison population was 86,843, 97.6% of the usable capacity, as around 96% are men.

It's unrealistic to treat the women's estate as a readily available solution to male overcapacity. The government's female offender strategy omits. Some have committed crimes of such gravity that custody is the only sentencing option. Of course, women should be in prison if they have committed serious offences. The range of contributors to current major capacity pressures include the increase in conviction for sexual offences, many historic. But their devastating effects on victims do not expire. Sentencing inflation of 45% over the past 15 years, a response in no small part to penal populism has also clogged up our prisons.

And today's need for early release of prisoners is a predictable consequence. It is ironic that a lock em up and throw away the key mentality necessitated the proposed earlier release of Highness criminals at the top of the new Prime Minister's in-tray of wicked policy issues. Early releases started under the last conservative government, with its end of custody, supervised licence emergency response, which allowed eligible prisoners to be released up to 18 and then 70 days before their automatic release date.

But eligibility excluded many serious offences. Also during the 20 tens. The government then did find money for new prison places, which will only become available under this government. The availability and this government will will get the credit. Whatever short termism does not work in penal policy, even when a prison has opened under a highly experienced governor, it takes time to fill up. Gradually. We are building a community, not stocking a warehouse. But the current scheme of early release cannot be characterised as a continuation of end of custody, supervised licence.

Moving the standard release point from 50% to 40% and now 33% represents such a significant change in the proportion of the custodial sentence spent in prison. That sentencing is becoming increasingly meaningless. This is very worrying for public confidence in the courts and judiciary when they are under exceptional strain. We need sentences that are understandable and reflect the seriousness of the crime, but also recognise the possibility and need for rehabilitation. Given Lord Leveson's independent review of the criminal courts, I hope he will comment on this and will say no more at the present time.

One of my main points today is that the issue of prison capacity took the last government's attention away from rehabilitation, and that trend has continued. The terms of reference for the Rudd review barely mention it. So whilst whilst it is a theme in the call for evidence, it does not look like a priority. Neither document mentions the importance of good relationships, despite them being essential to rehabilitation and to many other. Rudd review priorities like safety, decency and strategy for future prison build.

Yet I find HMPPS staff very committed in this area. They are transforming prisons Directorate is creatively building the importance of relationships into future prisons, but it's hard for them to build this culture without the oxygen of ministerial and political support. The 2016 White Paper, my first review for the government, was announced in prison. Safety and reform was also focussed on Rudd review. Emergency issues such as safety, security, new built prisons and staffing pressures. However, it treated rehabilitation prisoner reform as equally important and called for a huge cultural and structural change within our prisons, a transformation away from offender warehouses to disciplined and purposeful centres of reform, where all prisoners get a second chance at leading a good life, unquote.

The Moj's own data showed the powerful positive rehabilitation effects of contact with families and significant ties. They exceed those of, say, education and employment, and provide the motivation for the latter. Hence, my review said relationships should be the golden thread running through all the processes of prison and probation, narrowly seeing this as only good family visits misses the fact that everything is mediated through relationships, however difficult it might be, to define and cost them relationships between governors and their officers, officers and the prisoners, prisoners And other prisoners.

The prison and the community that surrounds it, the prison estate and the society. It is part of the culture of prisons and probation needs to change to a relational approach becomes business as usual, working with the grain of what it is to be human rather than against it. That is how professionals and the Youth Custody Service strive to operate. Yet when young people make the transition to the adult estate, they still too often fall over a cliff edge into a relational desert.

It's ten years since the government commissioned my first review and accepted all its recommendation, but its emphasis on relational culture is frequently cut across by policy decisions. In response to understandable public outrage over non-attendance at sentence hearings, prison rules have been changed so governors can remove all social visits for up to 27 days and restrict social visits to one visit in every 28 days for up to 84 days. As a general sanction, prisoners children can still visit, but that rules out a very large range of other potentially prosocial visitors.

And when relationships wither, as they can quickly do when you're in jail, this might remove a key reforming influence on a troublemaker. One of the most extrovert prisons I visited, HMP Norwich with its tourist cafe run by prisoners in open condition, holds a surgery for family members so the deputy governor can hear their concerns every week. She told me about the mother fighting her teenage sons corner, when he'd given her a sob story about how badly he'd been treated and how she turned that mother into an ally by saying he's doing himself no favours.

You need to help us help him get through this as well as possible. I'm also concerned about fathers in prison who might might lose parental responsibility when the Courts and Tribunals bill abolishes the Rebuttable Presumption in the Children Act 1989 that children's best interests are typically served by both parents involvement. Being in prison does not automatically make someone a bad or damaging father or mother, but. But removing the presumption will make it easier to argue that they are not needed.

Can the Minister confirm if any guidance will be issued to mitigate that possible unintended consequence for these parents and also their children, at a profound legal disadvantage? If it does become law? Such examples suggest a culture is still punitive rather than rehabilitative. The problem with culture is its apparent intangibility for policy purposes, but its effects are anything but intangible. Where there is a culture of each government department or public service working separately and territorially, people fall through the cracks between operational silos.

That still happens despite the duty to refer when people are at risk of being released homeless from prison. Some local housing authorities work very well with prisons and probation and secure accommodation for prisoners, despite similar pressures on their housing stock as less integrated local councils. According to Nacro, 12% of people living leaving prison were released into homelessness last year in the northwest, compared to more than 20% of people released in South Central. If agencies in every region collaborated as well as in the northwest, there would be 3700 fewer people released to homelessness every year.

This would potentially prevent 1500 offences. The proven re-offending rate of those released homeless, 76% was more than twice that of those released from custody into settled accommodation, at 36.4%, 4500 inmates will be released early in ten tranches between 1st October and 1st of June next year, in addition to the 4500 regular releases that take place each month, prisons and probation are on the front line of the Prime Minister's pledge to end rough sleeping. Almost 1 in 6 are released homeless and the most recent snapshot found half of all rough sleepers have been in prison at some point, and 15% of them have been released within the last year.

This government's National Plan to End Homelessness calls out the deficiencies of the duty to refer, and promises to legislate for a duty to collaborate as soon as parliamentary time allows. I tabled amendments to the Social Housing Bill to seize that legislative opportunity, but unfortunately to no avail. I was even told by the responding Minister that the duty to refer was working fine, so am I. My amendments, which would have brought the government's own proposed reforms into statute, were not needed.

It was a rather like an Alice through the Looking Glass moment. May I ask the Minister if he can report any new progress on bringing the duty to collaborate into law, and what is being done to ensure that they have good relationships and someone is there when they're released, not just accommodation. One of the most effective ways to prevent homelessness after release is to maintain existing family and other relationships, or enable prisoners to build supportive connections both inside and outside prison.

Effective peer mentoring schemes are creating valuable communities of support that start in prison, but go beyond the gate for prisoners who have no contact with their families and cannot hope to have sex offenders, for example, lumped together as universally heinous also need to be given a second chance. Programs like these should become business as usual when well supervised. They can be powerfully therapeutic. Trusted relationships can bring home the criminogenic influences a prisoner has to shrug off. If they are to change, they create a sense of agency and dispel despair.

Peer support can be game changing for the 25% of male and female prisoners who are care experienced. The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act requires prisons and probation to share corporate parenting responsibilities as part of a new, highly relational approach to care leavers. And peer support is key to fulfilling these. Can the Minister provide an overview of the spread of peer mentoring in prisons and support in English and Welsh prisons, and if there are any plans to integrate them into the probation service? The 19th century social reformer Elizabeth Fry branded our violent and squalid prisons the nurseries of crime.

She said the better the actual state of our prisons is known and understood, the more clearly will all men see the necessity of these arrangements by which they may be rendered. Schools of industry and virtue. I'll just finish on one neglected relationship I've already mentioned, between the prison and probation system and wider society, most prisoners will be released back into that wider society, which needs to know and understand what it takes to reform someone who has transgressed, how to prioritise rehabilitation, and how to prioritise good relationships while still being appropriately tough on crime.

I beg to move.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

The question is that this motion

**** Possible New Speaker ****

be agreed to. Lord Farmer on securing this debate, and I'm grateful for the debate, and I'm grateful for the way in which he's opened it up to. I thought he was probably going to be a little bit more critical, and be a little bit more critical, and in turn, I'd been writing a somewhat counter speech. But I myself want to speak primarily about rehabilitation, which is a subject which is mainly focussed on, as he said, one of the big factors

16:09

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Labour)

- -

that's been an influence has been 30 years of sentence inflation, 30 years of sentence inflation, more and more and longer and longer prisons being sentences being prisons being sentences being handed out. And I too look forward to the maiden speech of Lord to the maiden speech of Lord Hannett of Everton and with great interest to see what he may have to say on this. And of course, there's say on this. And of course, there's been 30 years of underinvestment in in the courts, in prisons, in the probation services, and of course, in in rehabilitation as been the Cinderella right at the end of the line from all governments.

But services have been particularly hollowed out, I believe, since 2010, when George Osborne's austerity programme was introduced. Then. Then there was the calamitous, I believe, social experiment in part privatisation of the probation service, which came from the conservative government and a failure to build new prison places so that we're still waiting for new ones to come on stream, as has just been mentioned. So Labour in 2024 inherited a demoralised and understaffed workforce, with prisons full almost to capacity.

We were almost at a point that without radical action, the the country faced the prospect that courts would not be able to send criminals to jail because there was no places in which to incarcerate them, and I'm glad to say that we have not shied away from that challenge. And I want to congratulate all those who have been involved in trying to right the wrongs, especially the now departed prison Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Simpson, for the outstanding work he did that, I believe was recognised across the whole of the chamber.

He did this with enthusiasm and he endeavoured to end journeys particularly, which will appeal to Lord Brady myself to generalise the work on rehabilitation of prisoners, especially those with addiction problems of drugs, alcohol and the growth, more recently, of problem gambling, on which the noble Lord Lord Foster of Bath has done such valiant work. And I'm sure we'll be hearing more of that from him today. In addition, he recruited Professor Dame Carol black. She was especially brought in with her expertise to assist in these long standing addiction problems and in rehabilitation.

My Lords, rehabilitation of offenders whose crimes are driven by drug alcohol addiction is a crucial part of. To reduce re-offending. But currently, I believe surfaces are still not fit for purpose. For example, half of all people on probation have a drug or alcohol problem, and over half of the people arriving in prison are assessed as needing drug or alcohol treatment. Intensive drug alcohol rehabilitation programs in prisons were delivered to 11,000 people. That was in 2012.

We don't keep the figures now on what is being done, but the guess is it's something in the order as low as 2000 a year. The terrible fall away there. The Sentencing Act envisages increased early release of community centres sentences instead of short periods of imprisonment for for offenders addicted to drugs or alcohol. But there are no plans to ensure these people get adequate treatment if their addiction is not treated. We will see high rates of reoffending and licence breaches.

Dame Carol will be giving an update of progress report entitled from Hope to Delivery, Drug and Alcohol Treatment under a new government. She'll be doing this in Committee Room five on Wednesday the 14th of October, and I hope that as many of us present today and others will be there to hear the work that you've been doing to try to address, particularly addiction issues in linked into rehabilitation, so that we can then, in turn, look forward to a more detailed programme of action being taken on rehabilitation and recovery.

And I'd be grateful if the noble Lord, the Minister, can give us an indication of how they're likely to respond to the reports which have been coming from from that from from the den, my Lords, I'm also involved in some rehabilitation work being trialled shortly in a Kent addiction recovery centre that welcomes prisoners into their numbers. We're endeavouring to develop an AI companion link to the 12 step recovery programme so that prisoners there and it will be entirely safe.

I can assure you. Prisoners there will be given a companion 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. If they're in need of someone to give them advice, which had been based on the 12 step program, we've managed to interest Stanford University in the USA in this, and we're hoping that King's in London will be associated to to validate a doctoral research project which is being set up alongside it. We've also got enthusiastic support of the charity Forward Trust that the Minister will know, I'm sure, do such valuable work in recovery and rehabilitation within.

For those leaving prison, they. And we see this project as having considerable potential in assisting with rehabilitation and I'm wondering, therefore, if the Minister could give an indication of whether or not. If we get this off the ground, there may be a possibility to trial it in prison, because it does have great prospects of meeting some of the many deficiencies we currently have in not having the numbers around to help people in

**** Possible New Speaker ****

rehabilitation. I'm delighted to follow the

**** Possible New Speaker ****

I'm delighted to follow the noble Lord Lord Brooke, and I join with him in congratulating the noble Lord Lord Farmer, not only for the tremendous work that he's done in this particular area, but done in this particular area, but for also securing the debate and for his excellent opening speech. I

16:16

Lord Foster of Bath (Liberal Democrat)

- -

for his excellent opening speech. I also look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Leveson. My Lords, just over a year ago, the Justice and Home Affairs Select Committee, which I chair, published Better prisons, Less Crime. We quoted witnesses who described the Prison Service operating in or at a verge of crisis. We acknowledge the failures of successive governments, but our purpose was not to catalogue failure. It was to identify practical ways forward and our starting point.

Echoing what the noble Lord Lord Farmer said was simple that we ought to understand the role of prisons. We said that punishment for the prisoner is the loss of liberty, and the role of prisons is to protect the public by reducing re-offending and that required, we said, purposeful activity, education and training as a noble Lord, Lord Brooke said. Treatment for mental health, drug, alcohol and gambling problems, and preparation for life after release. It also requires relationships as again, Lord Farmer said, particularly family relationships, because they are really important.

Yet distance from home, restrictive visiting arrangements and limited digital access can make contact unnecessarily difficult. Family contact cannot be treated and must not be treated as an optional extra. Our report found that purposeful activity overall was woefully inadequate. Prisoners spending up to 23 hours a day in cramped cells with little help, leading them to constructive, free, crime free lives when they leave with consequences that are predictable boredom, frustration, self-harm and violence with a cost to the taxpayer of approximately £54,000 per prisoner per year, we get very little benefit from that expenditure.

And it's not merely a failure of prison management, it is a failure of public policy. Of course, overcrowding is a major cause, but it's not the whole explanation. We identified longer sentences already mentioned excessive use of custody, bureaucracy, restricting governors autonomy, inadequate recruitment and training of staff, poor assessment of prisoner needs, a backlog of repairs and complacency. Frankly, within the MoJ and HMPPS. For each of those problems, the committee made recommendations to release capacity for work on reducing reoffending and public protection.

Yet little more than a year later, the picture remains deeply troubling. Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons only this weekend in a newspaper article, recently described the system as awash with drugs, organised criminals operating with impunity, serious violence going on punished and prisoners struggling to control, let alone rehabilitate those in their care. A prison system which cannot maintain order, cannot properly rehabilitate prisoners, one which fails to rehabilitate, stores up more crime for the future.

And the impact of all this on staff is equally serious. In the last 12 months to July, My Lords prison officer numbers fell by the equivalent of seven officers per prison and sickness rate. Sickness absence rose to 12.4 days per officer per year, compared with the national average. Of 4.4. For all other workers. We cannot expect officers to deliver rehabilitation in an unsafe, understaffed and demoralising environment. Overcrowding is not going to disappear quickly, recalls are adding substantially to the pressure.

Ten years ago, My Lords, one person was recalled for every 3 or 4 released in the first quarter of this year. For the first time ever since records were kept, more people were recalled to prison than were released. Recall prisoners now account for approximately one seventh of the prison population at a cost, according to Nakura, of £750 million a year. These figures raise all sorts of questions about whether the system is operating intelligently or just recycling people through custody at enormous cost, so I urge the Minister to revisit the committee's recommendations with much greater urgency than has been so far, so far.

Just a few quick suggestions. In the time that remains, we must reduce the number of people sent to prison unnecessarily. We know that well-run, probation and community sentences cost less and can produce lower reoffending. I welcome, of course, the replacement of short prison sentence with community sentences, but I believe we can go much further and that means doing other things. The noble Lord Lord Brooke referred to the issue of gambling disorder. It is a ridiculous situation that courts currently can make changes to the sentence they give to people who've got drug and alcohol problems.

By linking treatment orders to a non-custodial sentence. But there are no similar treatment orders in relation relation to gambling disorder. So I urge the Minister to look at that particular issue. I hope we'll also look at the way in which we are funding and developing our probation service. We'll hear all sorts of fine words from the noble Lord, the Minister, about the government's £750 million. But I would point to the simple fact that since the day our report was released to July of this year, the total increase in number of probation staff is 11.

And we are now in the situation where the government is actually using an ad agency to try and find additional people at a cost of £150 million. And I hope the noble Lord, the Minister will tell us whether a. That is true, and secondly, whether he believes that that is good value for money, and in particular, whether that's actually coming out of the £700 million as a apparently very expensive way of filling staffing gaps, my Lords, we also know that the huge pressure on probation officers is one of the key causes for the recall of prisoners, because it's so much easier if there's a licence infringement to send people back to prison, rather than taking up more time to deal with them.

Thirdly, I hope they'll look at our recommendation again about the importance of prison education. My Lords, the government accepted our recommendation. They said that prison education was vitally important. And yet in the time since our report was produced, the budget for education in prisons has been reduced by at least 25%. And it has meant that some 300 people who deliver that service have now lost their jobs. We can do other things, too, by looking at the way we help prisoners when they leave prison, and I would urge the Minister as a final point, to have a look at the work that is being done at HMS Doncaster, where we are bringing together all sorts of different agencies to help prisoners the day they walk out of prison.

My Lords, there is a lot that needs to be done. Only today the unions have written to the Prime Minister talking about the piecemeal approach to dealing with the multiple problems within the justice system. They urge a more joined up approach. I hope the Minister will look at that letter. It gives a lot of good advice to how we could move forward with the government working more effectively

**** Possible New Speaker ****

together on these issues. I'm delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord foster, and his noble Lord, Lord foster, and his most interesting speech. This is an excellent debate on really crucial excellent debate on really crucial issues, and I'm so glad that Lord Farmer has managed to bring it forward. I would also say how glad forward. I would also say how glad I am that the noble Lord, Lord Leveson, has joined us. He will add Leveson, has joined us. He will add a great deal to this House with his expertise on criminal law.

I've been looking at another report, the Justice Select Committee of the

16:25

Baroness Butler-Sloss (Crossbench)

- -

other place that has dealt with. It's called Ending the Cycle of It's called Ending the Cycle of Reoffending, and it sets out in stark terms the present state of stark terms the present state of the prison estate, the lack of adequate education of prisoners or adequate education of prisoners or purposeful activity referred to by Lord foster, the failure to educate Lord foster, the failure to educate children and young people, the lack of sufficient health and welfare provision, particularly those with mental health or behavioural problems, gross overcrowding and, as has already been said, the cells in the cells.

For most of 24 hours, the disrepair of prisons. Princeton was closed very shortly after the last government renewed the lease, although they knew that the prison would have to be closed. There are problems with recruitment and retention of prison officers, and I'm not surprised. There's a lack of training of prison officers, not only initially, but won promotion and it suggested in the Justice Select Committee report that governors needed some training. They also point out there's a lack of involvement by governors and the opportunity for governors to make decisions on who, in fact, should be employed in the particular prison.

This background from the Justice Select Committee is, it seems to me, a sad introduction to this much needed debate. One might ask, who on earth would want to be a prison officer? We've heard not only for myself, but also earlier, what happens to them? The need for rehabilitation of prisoners is obvious for their sake and the sake of the public. If we just bang up people, mainly men, as we largely do, there obviously the more likely to offend and fill the prisons again.

And it seems a vicious circle. Many years ago, as a judge, I visited Exeter Prison. I saw an absolutely splendid workshop, training prisoners and how to make and repair furniture. I went back about three years later. I asked about the workshop. It was closed. I asked why they. They present. Officer said it was so busy taking people to the courts. They hadn't got time to look after the workshop. Oh dear. In the present circumstances, rehabilitation of overcrowded prisons and a lack of resources, it does seem difficult to resolve rehabilitation.

But the prevention of reoffending and some training of those inside seems to be crucial for the benefit of prisoners. But much more important, the benefit of the public. There have been some very successful drug and alcohol magistrates courts in the past working on addict offenders. Surely there should also be more residential units for drink and drug offenders under probation orders. If the offender doesn't finish the course, he goes to prison. But some at least might not re-offend.

The female prison population is, as we all know, very much smaller. Many, if not most, women who offend have been victims of abuse. I'm not suggesting that no woman should go to prison, but I do suggest that many would be better off out of prison with appropriate probation orders and with, of course, support and help to live in the future. The 2007 Corston report gave very good advice on women offenders. I don't know how far her recommendations have been implemented, but she recommended, among others, there should be a woman centred approach to the.

In the judicial system, early diversion and efforts to identify and address the root cause of offending. There are excellent initiatives dealing with women, but they should. And they should be encouraged and increased. Another problem, of course, is how to deal with prisoners upon release, and. This has already been referred to. The early releases are leaving, I gather, prisoners without the help to prepare for time out of prison. There seems little point in release if there isn't sufficient help, both inside and when they are outside.

There are too many offenders who commit offences on release in order to go back to prison, because where else can they go? And we have, of course, a serious lack of housing. What I don't know is where the overwhelming need to improve the prison estate should start. So I shall listen with great interest to the Minister as how something at least can be done. Both the prisoners and the public require it. I would just add that the noble Lord Lord Farmer raised the issue of the deletion of parental responsibility in a coming Bill that, as I understand it, would require a divisional decision and I would hope that judges would not remove parental responsibility as a matter of course, but only if the person in prison is unsuited to be able to exercise it.

And I think he perhaps is worrying too much about that particular proposal.

16:31

Lord Bellamy (Conservative)

- -

To follow the noble Baroness, >> To follow the noble Baroness, Lady Butler-sloss, and also to express my appreciation for the outstanding speech by the noble outstanding speech by the noble Lord Lord Farmer, and to thank him for introducing this debate. My Lords, I propose to address only one point already raised by the noble Lord Lord Foster of Bath, namely, the question of recalls to custody. Let us just concentrate on that for a moment. In the past four years recalls to custody of prisoners released under licence have more than doubled in the last four years.

As has already been pointed out, in the last year, there were 51,000 recalls to prison that exceeds the number of persons sentenced by the courts to prison, which was 47,000. So for the first time, recalls now are greater than persons going to prison in the first place. A recall rate of 5000 represents a rate of recall of about 1 in 5 of those under supervision. And as the charity Nacro points out, in 2017, the rate was about 1 in 13.

Have we seen an increase in risk in the last ten years? What is going on here? There is no evidence of increase in risk, but we have now, according to Nacro, reached a situation where for every ten beds freed up by the release of a prisoner, nine are refilled by recalls to custody. My Lords, this highly regrettable situation threatens seriously to undermine the government's early release scheme because, as already been pointed out by the noble Lady, Lady Butler-sloss, what is the point of early release if it is followed by a recall? Clearly, the present situation also greatly complicates the management of prisoners within the prison system.

And as already mentioned also, I think by Lord foster is costing the prison service around £750 million a year. Surely money better spent on supporting prisoners on licence in the community. But my Lords, the most devastating effect recall can have is on the prisoner concerned, including perhaps the loss of employment, the loss of accommodation and, most importantly, the destruction of any progress there may have been towards rehabilitation and the total interruption of the process of rehabilitation, which is so rightly emphasised by my noble friend Lord Farmer, and by all noble Lords who have so far spoken Lords, those of us who have been around for a while will remember that 20 or 30 years ago, in admittedly very different circumstances, the culture of the probation service was that recall was a last resort.

Indeed, it could be a. Regarded as a sign of professional failure to have to recall someone that was under one's own supervision. But today, the culture seems, for whatever reason, to have swung 180 degrees in the other direction. And recall has become the first resort, not the last. I fully accept that the problem is very difficult, but it seems to me there are only three possibilities. The first possibility is that the prisoner was not properly prepared for release, or was not properly looked after.

Once released, or that post-release support was inadequate. An important case in point is if the prisoner is recalled because of homelessness, a point already raised by noble Lords. That seems to be a major factor. And again, according to Nacro and again, I think, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath last year, 15,000 released prisoners were homeless on the day of release. What hope have we got? What hope do they have to remain out of the the prison sphere? So lack of preparation or lack of support for prisoners in the community is the first thing.

The second possibility is that licence conditions are too tough or inappropriate or not tailored to the needs of the prisoner concerned. Are we holding prisoners to licence conditions that they are not capable of achieving, that are too heavy, are not perhaps properly designed, given the lack of support, the mental health problems, the drug problems, particularly emphasised by Lord Brooke, the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, or in all these circumstances, the Chief Inspector of Probation has himself criticised, quote, excessive licence conditions.

So maybe you're just imposing a obligations on people they can't meet. And both those two points really amount to setting prisoners up to fail. What chance have they got if they're not properly prepared and the licence conditions are too onerous? The third possibility, however, is risk aversion in the probation service, and it is right to bear in mind that that service has, over the years, lost. Many experienced staff, is understaffed, is managing huge caseloads in very difficult conditions.

73% of recalls are for breach of licence conditions. There is widespread concern that those recalls are often triggered by minor or trivial breaches of licence conditions, recalls, I suggest, should be primarily for reasons of public safety and should not be for minor breaches of licence of licence conditions, and there should be stronger rules and clearer guidance on this point. So I would ask the noble Lord the Minister, is the dramatic increase in recalls in recent years a matter of concern to the government? What is the government? What, in the government's view, are the reasons for that increase, and what is the government doing to tackle those underlying causes? Finally, my Lords, may I add my own welcome to Lord Stevenson of Liverpool, to whose maiden speech we are much looking forward.

16:39

Lord Leveson of Liverpool (Crossbench)

- -

My Lords, it is with real diffidence that I rise just three diffidence that I rise just three days after my introduction. But the way in which we treat those convicted of crime, and in convicted of crime, and in particular, what happens to them both when in custody and in the both when in custody and in the community, has been a real interest of mine for some 60 years. It stems from my time as an undergraduate, visiting Oxford Prison and being involved in organising camps for children from approved schools, and later on in relation to the mental health of those in custody, which was an interest, encouraged me by my late father, who was a consultant psychiatrist.

This was in Liverpool, for which over 40 years I was proud to call my home. I am also grateful to the noble Lord Farmer for initiating this debate, and thus for allowing me the opportunity to express some views on this critical area. I must first, however, express my thanks to my two splendid supporters, the noble and learned Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers and Burnett of Maldon, who were both chief justices for whom I worked along with the noble and learned Lords.

Lord Woolf, the late and very much lamented Lord Judge and Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, to whom I also pay tribute. I would also like to thank the noble Earl, the Earl of Kinnoull, and those in the Convener's office for their kindness and encouragement and express my real appreciation to the clerk of the parliaments, to Black Rod, and to all those who work in this House, and who have been so generous with the time that they have given to a new boy.

That's not a phrase I would have used of myself very recently. It is an inestimable honour for me now to be part of this House, although I am concerned whether I can live up to the expectations which have been expressed by most of the speakers this afternoon. Let me start with the number of remand prisoners in custody. On the 30th of June, 2026. Of the 885,858 in custody, 10,242 were untried and 5144 were convicted but not sentenced. For those awaiting trial.

Presumed innocent, their lives are on hold for those awaiting sentence. They cannot start to engage with the sentence plan many may make may wait months, if not years, for a co-defendant to be tried so that all convicted can be sentenced together. What of those who have been sentenced? Rehabilitation is identified as a requirement of section 572 of the Sentencing Act 2020 for adults and is mandated by section 37 of the Crown and Disorder Act 1998, as the principal aim of sentencing for those under 18.

These are core requirements getting lost as both prison and probation officers seek to contain and provide such support as they can to the unsustainable number of people with whom they have to deal, both in custody and in the community. There have been far too many reports into prison conditions. I still possess a copy of the Woolf report, which followed the prison disturbances in HMP Manchester in April 1990. I was then responsible for the prosecution of prisoners for conspiracy to riot and other offences.

The average prison population that year was about 45,000, and on the 1st of June 1990, there were 20,785 prison officers and 994 auxiliaries. On the 7th of September 2026, the prison population was 86,868, of which 67,652 were in public sector prisons, which, as at the 30th of June, now employed 22,001 full time equivalent prison officers and 5661 operational staff. So for just less than 13 extra 1300 extra prison officers, there are roughly 50% more prisoners.

I quote from Lord Woolf's overview. The members of the Prison service as a whole, against heavy odds, have managed over a number of years to contain an almost impossible situation by showing immense dedication, courage and professionalism with over twice as many in custody. That is even more so today. As for activity in prison, the recent annual report of the Chief Inspector of Prisons identifies that in many prisons, services have been cut. His word brutally, with many teachers, as we have heard, made redundant.

With few exceptions. Attendance in education, training and work is often appalling and insufficiently prioritised with short working days. Similarly, the annual report of the Chief Inspector of Probation speaks of an organisation grappling with serious systemic challenges with an increasingly large and complex caseload and an increased proportion of that caseload in the community. In short, he says, too few staff, too little experience managing too many cases. The report of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, Better Prisons, Less Crime, identifies that reoffending represents 80% of the cost of offending.

It is therefore important to examine the challenges of those who are facing and serving sentences, the vast majority of whom will in fact rejoin the community, where the. Sooner or later your Lordships may be familiar with the figures, but with thanks to the Howard League for Penal Reform, I summarise in 2024 five assessment in England identified 57% of adult prisoners as having learning difficulty or disability, over half men, and over three quarters, almost three quarters women identify with mental health problems.

And as your Lordships have heard in 2021, Dame Carol black published an independent review which identified one third of prisoners as having serious drug addiction. In a survey undertaken by the chief Inspector, 41% referred to the ease with which illicit drugs could be obtained in prison in category B training prisons. It was 57%. In large part, that is the cohort which society has to address education, along with support and treatment for mental health and drug issues, together with training to allow those released to be able to aspire to obtaining work, are all critical if we are to prevent the revolving door of repeated offending.

I agree and fully endorse my Lord, the Lord farmer's observations when he emphasised the importance of maintaining family relationships. The recent Nacro report. As your Lordships have heard, over 15,000 people homeless on their first night out of prison. In short, it all requires a move away from simple containment in prison to active measures to assist those in custody to find a bed and work towards living a useful life in the community. A plan is essential, of course, there will be some who are so dangerous that this is not an option.

But those are not the bulk of those in custody, but support both while in prison and then in the community is critical, and the Prison and Probation Service must be equipped both with personnel and resources to do so. That will be expensive, but nothing like as expensive as receiving them back into prison or keeping them there. There are other great benefits of promoting rehabilitation. The prison population crisis is very real. If more can be supported in the community and reoffending minimised, there will be more room for those who should be remanded into custody and those who are dangerous.

Remand prisoners will be kept nearer their court of trial. The police will be able to provide greater focus on offences that cause great public concern, including violence against women and girls, other serious sexual and violent offending, phone, petrol shop theft and more. It will be clear that although this debate is about prisons and probation, the crisis is much wider. Every aspect of criminal justice requires urgent attention. Some courts are listing trials for 2030. Criminal justice reform could be my mastermind specialist subject, but I would not dream of testing the patience of the House by going through my recent review.

It's sufficient to say that there are solutions which I look forward to discussing with and urging upon your Lordships, working with all to address the challenges that it faces. INBI end by observing that we must not forget the human beings behind all these issues the victims, the witnesses and the offenders. The state must facilitate the early identification and detection of crime. It must, within a reasonable time, ensure its prosecution, and it must do all it can to promote the rehabilitation of convicted offenders.

If it does not, it is failing in one of its most important responsibilities.

16:49

Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (Crossbench)

- -

It is a very special privilege, first, to have listened to the first, to have listened to the speech of the noble and learned Lord Leveson of Liverpool, and now to have the chance to add a few remarks. I wish, first of all to convey the apologies of Lord Barnett and Lord Phillips of worth, that events of elsewhere detained them, and they're unable to be present. But I have that pleasure. Indeed, it is now more than a quarter of a century ago that has.

What I still think of us as youngish judges, though alas! No longer. So I think I can safely say that we started to work together with the responsibility for the circuit system, and in particular, for the way in which criminal justice was administered by the courts under the leadership of that great Chief Justice, Lord judge, Lord judge would have been especially proud and delighted to have been here today, because he would have seen this as an inevitability.

Like Lord judge, Lord Leveson had enormous experience of the common law across all of its aspects, but particularly in criminal justice. And he brought that experience to bear both in trials and on appeals and, as importantly, in the leadership he gave to in the successive appointments he held to improving the criminal justice system. And in the many reports and reviews he has conducted to that end. But his experience is much wider. I have not the time to go through it, but one particular example is in.

Occupies the time of your Lordships House from time to time, and that is the work of the of his as the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. He is a man of enormous talent and will bring huge benefits to this House. Now I need said none of that, because the proof of what he will bring is in all your expectations, which were amply justified, but modestly. Of course, he said he was a little worried he might not live up to it.

His mastery of the criminal law and the criminal justice system is enormous. And indeed, as I have found over that quarter of a century, I almost always agreed with everything he has said. And I can take that opportunity of saying so today, because I do not wish to add, because I could not possibly improve upon his analysis of the difficulties facing the criminal justice system. I too, like others, your Lordships, are extremely grateful to Lord Farmer for obtaining this debate and to the many speeches that have been made about what needs to be done.

The list is almost endless, but I want to address one overarching problem, and that is what can we do best and that is what can we do best with what money we get? I, I recall some years ago that this was exemplified by the first matter we have to address, and that is rigid discipline over money, something no doubt you fear that I have gone over to the Treasury's or should I say the dark side, but it is important to have discipline and in the last Labour government in the early 2000, I remember when reforms were thought of, you had to prove what effect it would have.

And this was then checked by the Home Office. They had something called the Home Office model, which showed that if you created an offence, then it would need so many more prosecutors, so many more judges, so many more prison places. I deeply regret we don't do the same now on the most important aspect, which is at the heart of today's debate, the massive increase in prison sentence lengths of which everyone has spoken. And I think that is the first thing we must do is to bring back a fiscal discipline so we know what money we have, because only with knowing what the money we have can we do things properly.

It is no use. And I and the late Lord judge have been bitterly critical of the constant increase in sentence lengths without consideration of how was this to be paid for without either putting prisoners into squalid conditions, or cutting the really good things that are done in prison and in particular, education? So that, I think, is the first fundamental question we need to work out what we can pay for with the money available. The second fundamental question is then to turn to explain to the public what we are capable of doing.

And this is, I think, a shared endeavour of us all, because we cannot go on as we are. And it seems to me that what we must return to is first of all, for example, truth in sentencing. If the judge says you get five years and you spend half of that in prison and half in the community, that is what we deliver. But we've had to go away from that because we have not told the public the truth, that there is only a limited amount of money available, and we can only do so much with it.

And so I very much hope that this fundamental question will be grappled with by us all. I warmly can commend this government for what it has said about it. It has taken an unknown, a huge amount of courage and a sense of justice to do it. The greater task ahead is to adopt the same attitude, to explaining to the public that if this is the money available, this is all we can do and prison sentence less must come down.

We must use prison spaces more effectively and they will be better for that. That is, I think, the next task facing this government. You.

16:56

Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-affiliated)

- -

My Lords. >> Not for the first time, I'm feeling a bit outclassed and overawed by the legal and judicial expertise in this place that has produced so many excellent speeches. I'd like to particularly thank the noble Lord Lord Farmer for inviting us to talk about the state of prisons and probation services, but I do want to start by making some broader points about context, because during the week we've seen the extraordinary sight of 92% of the citizens of an Oxford village in Piddington, population 358, voting in a symbolic referendum to become independent from the United Kingdom.

In interviews with residents, there's been a common theme the state is exposing them to danger. Housing 1250 young male asylum seekers in nearby Bicester Garrison means, quote, our safety, security and freedoms are under threat. To paraphrase one woman, if these men need government leaflets to explain that sexually abusing children or raping women is wrong, I'm frightened to go out alone. I will become a prisoner in my own house. And that's my theme. In a way, this sentiment of actually being a prisoner in your own house is not confined to leafy villages, but it's felt in towns and cities throughout the country, and it's not confined to asylum policies.

And indeed, one key issue that has been a lightning rod for worries that state policies are indifferent to public safety, is the early release scheme. For example, those women who now feel frightened in their own homes as victims of domestic abuse worried that their early released tormentors may show up on the doorstep. Somehow law abiding, the law abiding or unfairly becoming the victims of failed state policies. So whilst normally I'd want to use today's debate to talk in detail about prison reform, because I'm passionate about improving educational initiatives in prison especially, and I hate the lack of purposeful activity available.

There has been so well described by the noble Lords, and I thought a magnificent speech by the noble Lord Lord Farmer. But it's also true that it's become particularly difficult to convince the public that the MoJ should prioritise improving the treatment of prisoners in jail when so many are being released out of jail before they've spent served their time. Discussing rehabilitation feels meaningless when the very purpose of prisons, at least in the sense of punishment, of punishment, in terms of deprivation, of, of, of liberty, not cruelty or to protect the public as a purpose or to let alone rehabilitation, to reduce reoffending.

It is hard to discuss those purposes when they're made a mockery of by successive governments failure to deliver prison expansion, and now the makeshift solutions to deal with the fallout. The problem with early release schemes is that they outsource the problem onto our into our communities, literally dumping it on our streets. The public are rightly furious that criminals now won't serve the sentences that the law that we make here thinks appropriate for their crimes. Recent polling shows 69% are against the early release scheme, but more troubling, 68% say they've lost faith in all government's handling of criminal justice per se.

At the forthcoming annual Battle of Ideas festival, organised by the Academy of Ideas, which I run to declare an interest, one of the panel debates is entitled Let Abusers Out Early Solving the Prison Crisis, and that's proving to be an unexpected festival sell out hit. And I think the reasons when I talk to people are for recurring themes that get raised. There is a perception that the early release scheme, alongside the Sentencing Acts presumption a Sentencing Act, has a presumption against prison in favour of community sentences.

And with the even further reductions in release dates to a third of sentences served, people just feel that sentencing has become a joke and that it's less a pragmatic response to a lack of prison space than an official ideological turn against incarceration as punishment. And but that this is happening without public debate or consent, then there is also a worry that the prison crisis is diminishing the diligence of policing in pursuing certain crimes. I mean, what is the point of arresting shoplifters or burglars if they cannot be threatened with the prospect of prison? A third concern is that early release is a lazy reaction to the crisis.

Why not other emergency options, perhaps the prison equivalent to NHS nightingales? Or are you sorry, renovating the thousands of empty prison cells currently out of action, or even tackling those shocking facts that we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Leveson, in his brilliant speech, I thought about those kept on remand as part. Such a large percentage of the prison community. That really is a disgrace. And a final concern raised in is in response to the government's reassurance that early release prisoners are not being released freely, but will be under close supervision.

Yet probation services themselves admit they aren't equipped to cope, but also the whole paraphernalia of control and surveillance in the community, curfews and electronic tags, formal restriction zones, the wearing of high vis jets, jet vests can only result in the whole swathes of local areas feeling more like open air prisons for all, rather than a free society. Now, possibly the only good thing to have come from the prison crisis is indeed Prime Minister Andy Burnham's commendable announcement that he will at last end the injustice of IPP prisoners.

I confess that I got emotional hearing an ex type prisoner, Mark Conway, from Ungrip, declaring that it was a day that thousands of families have spent years fighting for. But he also stressed that implementing the decision needed to be swift and transparent. And that is where the euphoria is dampened. Last week, I received this message from Stacey Cluff of the injustice of IPP campaign, and I think it's worth us all listening to her words, she said. I think it is great what Andy Burnham has said, but he has left IPP prisoners and their families with a different mental torture by not making it clear what is going to, what is going to what it's going to look like.

And they still have no definite date to count down to. My partner said all the IPPs in Welland have gone downhill as the hopes were raised by the announcement, but there is no time frame and so they are all worried. It is a false hope. What if there is an election in Labour, a voted out, then back to square one. They have now been left with uncertainty. If the government don't end it, there's going to be more suicides. And I gulped at that.

Stacey continues. The thing is, he could order probation to release the prisoners without any new requirements, and no new legislation would be needed because of executive powers created in 2012. Powers that they've never used. They should also be recommending that anyone going up for parole with no new crime or charges on a recall should be granted release and have their licence terminated and give them a supervision order instead. So my advice to the noble Lord, the Minister, is to recommend to the MoJ that you give Stacey a job, because she's got it all completely right.

As far as I'm concerned. There's so many inequities in the way that IPPs continue to be treated, not just that we need to have those things happen more quickly. But I do think that when you hear, for example, that IPPs, even who are granted parole, are often kept in prison for months and months and months

**** Possible New Speaker ****

due to a lack of Approved accommodation on the outside. There are things that need outside. There are things that need to be done fast. And while the noble Lord, the Minister defended the principle of recall questions the principle of recall questions this week, the fact that the number of IPS recalled without any criminal charges has gone up from criminal charges has gone up from 70% in 2023 to 77% in 2025, should worry him. I hope that the noble worry him.

I hope that the noble Lords have a good recess. I will be at number ten North on Monday along with an anti IP time limit. Anyway,

**** Possible New Speaker ****

thank you. May I begin by congratulating and thanking my noble friend Lord and thanking my noble friend Lord Farmer for introducing this debate, and for doing so with his usual and for doing so with his usual calmness and analysis. Every time he speaks on this subject. And he. he speaks on this subject. And he. He is a renowned expert. The House listens with great care and we did listens with great care and we did so again today. I also would like to welcome and to congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, both on his arrival here, but also on his maiden speech.

He should not feel in the least bit embarrassed about waiting. Only 2 or 3 days after his introduction, for before addressing the House. He should have done so on the first

17:06

Lord Garnier (Conservative)

- -

day and on the second, and on the third, and I hope he will on many days after this. Because, as the days after this. Because, as the noble Lord noble and learned Lord Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd has said Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd has said correctly pointed out, he was a correctly pointed out, he was a judge and will be a member of this House who will provide great wisdom House who will provide great wisdom and great analysis and a great sense of justice to anything that he brings his mind to bear.

I want to thank, whilst I have been sitting there, both the noble Lords, for helping me. Just over 1516 years ago with the introduction of the Deferred Prosecution Agreement, which they as successor presidents of the Queen's Bench Division, assisted me in my political guys, they. In their judges role, bring that criminal justice tool into fruition. And it seems a little strange to me when I last appeared in front of the then Sir Brian Leveson, when he was sitting in court, he was about 20ft above me.

The layout of this chamber allows me to be ten feet above him. I shall save that, my Lord, as the noble Lord. Lord foster mentioned a little while ago the Justice and Home Affairs Committee of your Lordships House produced a report on the state of our prisons, and to some extent it mirrored the report made by the House of Commons Justice Committee. I think it's fair to say that neither of those reports was complimentary about what they had looked into and what they had found, and equally, it's fair to say that, nor did they say anything that we didn't already know before.

And until prisons become a politically important and. Politically important subject of real and regular interest to prime Ministers and Secretaries of State for justice, despite the hard work of junior Ministers in the other place and on the front bench here, very little can be achieved. Now I am a cracked record in human form. For years now I have been complaining about the state of our prison estate. What we do to improve the lives and prospects of those in prison, about the provision of education and employment opportunities for those in and those about to leave prison.

We recycle offenders on an alarming scale and out, into and out of prison, and then back again. The reoffending rate varies marginally from time to time, but the general picture is deeply depressing for a hard pressed prison governor, a good day is when nothing happens. No one. And by that I mean both prison staff and prison prisoners themselves. No one dies. No one gets stabbed. No one gets punched. The infrastructure of the prison functions, the movement of people from the accommodation wings to the places where out of cell activities are supposed to be happening.

It takes place without incident and on time. No one throws drugs over the walls or flies them in by drone. The provision of food and medical supplies is efficiently administered and delivered without mishap. That's a good day, but they're very rare. Now. Sadly, there aren't many good days for prison governors or their staff or for the prisoners. And as I said, this is not a new state of affairs. It will continue as it has done for decades under both Labour as well as under conservative governments.

And it will get even worse as we overcrowd the prisons and create or permit the continuance of squalid and uncivilised living and working conditions within them. They are in so many respects, hopeless places. I once said to a local journalist, when I was a member of Parliament that all prisoners should obviously have walls, both to keep the prisoners in and to keep the public out. But those walls should also have large windows in them so that the public could see into them, into the presence to know what is being done on their behalf inside.

And the prisoners could see out through those windows so that they could see that there was a community out there that would welcome them back if they were rehabilitated, if they could learn to read and write, if they could get off drugs, if they could become social beings, they could become employable and so on. And the local journalist looked at me and said, you clearly haven't thought of the public expenditure implications of building all those windows. And I think he was being serious, which is rather depressing.

Now I suffer from analysis paralysis, and I accept that reciting what's wrong is easy. Doing something about it seems to be impossible. My Lords, this scandalous injustice must stop the tiresome blame game played by successive governments is unproductive and it does us no credit, still less achieve anything. I have recently written a letter to the new Prime Minister, and I gave a copy of that letter to the noble Lord, the Minister Lord Lemos, and I hope, and I'm sure he has read it.

He probably keeps it by his bed and is setting it to music. Now. We don't need, as the justice unions have indicated today in their statement, we don't need a Royal commission to investigate our prisons and to make robust recommendations. We know what is wrong. What we require is a government to do something about it. What we need is determined action, led by a Prime Minister and by a Secretary of State, politically motivated, and who are are able to provide the political motivation and to command the system that they oversee to do what is required.

Everybody who has already spoken has indicated what is required. It just requires leadership. And action, and I urge the Minister to run round to number ten this evening and to say that he's ready for action.

17:13

Lord Winston (Labour)

- -

My Lords, I too, have very >> My Lords, I too, have very little experience in this area, but I thought I did have something that I thought was worth saying from a professional point of view. The my experience of prisons is not as a personal. But I have been inside prisons to see sick patients. When I was on call at Hammersmith Hospital and indeed when they were actually probably quite seriously ill. But this was being ignored. But finally, there was no doctor present at the weekend.

I was the obstetrician on call, so dealing with deliveries and surgery. But as a surgeon, there was nobody else to go to see the male patients in the male, in inmates of Wormwood Scrubs. And then since then, having seen the absolute squalor and appalling circumstances and the lack of hope and the complete negligence in of people really understanding what was behind these, these these people suffering and seeing one of these patients being brought in to the Hammersmith hospital still actually handcuffed.

So I couldn't actually examine his abdomen, made me realise how far we had sunk in our society and I was. That was combined too, with another patient who was in in custody and was there for several years. His wife had been a patient of mine who had been desperate for children. She'd been trying for a child almost ten years, and she was getting older and older. And her husband recently had been sentenced and was in prison, I think, for four years.

And I had spent a year trying to persuade the authorities who were completely indifferent, including many of the people in the Home Office, that we needed to get some sperm from this man. We didn't need to do in vitro fertilisation. Simple artificial insemination would be all that we needed. It was the most difficult tussle that at the time they broke a rule. Finally, because of the persistence, actually it got into the newspapers and nobody in the newspapers understood the suffering that was behind that.

But actually, as has been said in this debate, it made a difference later on to the cohesion of that family when the child was born. And I'm quite proud of that moment. I want to say, too, that the letters I've had from prisoners sent to me by the Howard League of Prison Reform show just some terrible lacks, which we've been talking about. The overcrowding is massive. There's one patient, one one prisoner who is quite clearly autistic. He points this out.

He's obviously has other mental health disorders, and he says he's constantly surrounded by constant noise. He can't sleep, he's there, and he is absolutely unable to express his mental condition, which, of course, as an autistic person is extremely sensitive to noise. This is not at all typical, and it's simply that nothing can be done about it in that environment. Another another inmate talks about the lack of training, the lack of rehabilitation. He says sometimes it might just be finally available when you're ready to be released for the first time, and no chance of the trade schools.

What is interesting about all of these letters is that they're really not hysterical. They're very calm. They're very limited in what they complain about, but they come to the point very well, my Lords. We have a human brain, which is one of the most complicated objects in the known universe. It has about 100 billion neurones. Each of those neurones will be connected up to 2000 times to other areas of the brain. What we know is that as the neurones develop and as we learn, those new connections are found as a result, you can actually see this now under a microscope.

I have wonderful photographs of this actually happening. When there's a change in the environment, you can see how these kind of synapses connect up other nerves, nerves. If those stimuli in that environment are constantly repeated, you end up learning more and more. You actually inherit the fixed learning that you need as you get old. What we have, of course, here in prisons is exactly that. We have an environment which is constant and constantly against the right kind of learning.

And so inevitably we end up with whole people who are already damaged, but then have damaged more than their brains have been damaged by us. This is something which we should really recognise. Very importantly, it's essential that that environment is absolutely critical and it is absolutely appalling. I can't leave without saying briefly how much I valued the noble Lord, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, on his wonderful maiden speech. It's not accustomed to keep on going on about new.

This is an exceptional. It was an exceptional speech, and I think what is so wonderful is to see crossbenchers of his calibre coming into this House to improve the knowledge, the experience that we actually desperately need in this chamber. So I think we should be so grateful that he is here and his speech, particularly today, is a very good start. I want to say, finally, that this is this is not a private matter. We this is central way. We discuss all the time in this chamber schools.

We discuss, discuss defence all the time. We discuss health care again and again. We ask the same questions at Question time. How often do we talk about the shame of prisons? We think. Of course, the prisoners are ashamed. No, we should be ashamed because this is our shame as a society. We need to change this and we need to do a colossal amount about it. And as these prisoners know, the prison system is under collapse at the moment, it is really seriously threatened and therefore there is a threat to ourselves, not our safety, but our wellbeing as people, as humans.

Let

**** Possible New Speaker ****

us remember our humanity and let's try to do something about it. Yeah. It's a great. Pleasure to follow

**** Possible New Speaker ****

It's a great. Pleasure to follow the noble Lord Lord Wilson. And I would also like to thank the noble Lord Lord Farmer for securing this important debate. And I pay tribute to all the work he does on this subject. I would also like to welcome and congratulate Lord

17:20

Baroness Sater (Conservative)

- -

Wilson on his excellent maiden speech. The pressures on our prisons and probation service are stark, as Lord Farmer has spoken about so articulately today. We have already heard the government has announced up to £500 million of additional funding for probation and community services, alongside at least 1300 additional trainee probation officers in 2026 and 2026 and 2027. However, the strain on probation has been building for a long time, as we've heard from many today, and and many in the justice system have raised serious concerns about whether even this substantial investment will meet the scale of the challenge.

Finding and retaining workforce is a major challenge. Whilst caseloads continue to rise. The latest workforce figures, published in August, show that the probation service is almost 2000 full time equivalent officers below its target level. That is a significant gap and with the changes to changes to early release arrangements next month, probation will have even more on their plate, especially with an increased emphasis on intensive provision, electronic tagging and monitoring. Alongside the the increased casework. My Lords, where does that leave effective and meaningful rehabilitation, especially when reoffending rates remain high? If we are increasing the demands of probation, we must also also ask whether we are giving it the capacity to deliver the rehabilitation that reduces reoffending.

Perhaps there are more important lessons we can learn from the youth justice system. My Lords, last Friday we had the Second Reading of the Youth Justice Board Bill brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Oates, where concerns were raised about the government's proposed changes to its functions and responsibilities and the extra burden placed on the MoJ. I'm not certain that the MoJ needs any more responsibilities or work. As a former youth magistrate and former member of the board, I have seen first hand what the youth justice system has achieved.

The marked fall in youth offending and youth custody is an extraordinary achievement. It is not always how you spend the money, it is where we spend it. Perhaps one of the most important lessons that can be learned is the holistic approach that has been taken in youth justice. As His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Probation, Martin Jones said earlier this year of youth justice and I quote, we have all the building blocks of success and we need to ensure that we carry that across into the adult system.

Those building blocks could also help us address the challenges faced by young adults as they transition into the adult system. As Lord Farmer has mentioned today, as we know, those aged between 18 and 25 have some of the highest rates of reoffending, and crucially, it is a period in which effective intervention can change the trajectory of a young person young people's lives. So if we get the right interventions, it would mean fewer victims, fewer people returning to prison and ultimately a better use of taxpayers money.

We know that this age group is an important stage of development, education, employment, relationships, independence and independence are still taking shape while maturity is still developing. Therefore, we should think of the 18 to 25 age group as as more a coherent end to end cohort with much greater continuity between the youth justice services and adult probation. An issue, an issue, again, which Lord Farmer has spoken about today. But rehabilitation is not only about what happens after someone leaves prison.

It also depends on what happens while they are in prison. And this is where purposeful activity matters, as Lord Foster of Bath has already highlighted, education, skills, training and physical activity can all contribute to a purposeful prison regime and to an effective rehabilitation. For many people entering prison with existing health needs. As highlighted by Lord Brooke, access to the right support plays the important part in their rehabilitation, and yet purposeful activity remains a serious weakness in our prisons.

As His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor has highlighted. Of the 38 men's and women's prisons inspected in 2024 2025, 28 were rated poor or not sufficiently good for purposeful activity. And this matters not only in prison but through the gate. To my Lords, probation needs, the resources and time to build partnerships with employers, charities, training providers, families and communities. This is fundamental to the success of rehabilitation as a noble Lord Wood Timpson said. And I quote, by tackling the root causes of offending and giving people the second chance they need, we can help them rebuild their lives and stay on the straight and narrow.

Therefore, may I ask the noble Lords Minister, how can we expect the probation service to have the capacity to tackle the root causes of offending, when there are so many other pressures and pressures on the system? My Lords, we know that the true test of probation is not simply whether it can monitor someone when they leave prison, it is whether it can help them turn their lives around and build a better future culture. Once again, can I thank the noble Lord Lord Farmer for securing this excellent debate here?

17:26

Baroness D'Souza (Crossbench)

- -

My Lords, may I begin by. Farmer for providing the opportunity for such a vital debate, and then may I say how very delighted I am to see the noble and laundered Leonard, Lord, Lord Lumsden, sitting on the Crossbenches, and to thank him for his excellent, wise but very sobering maiden speech. My Lords, I speak as the honorary president of the Zahid Mubarak Foundation, known as MP, which was founded some 25 years ago following the murder of Zahid while on remand in a young offenders institution, he was placed in a cell with a known racist who had a history of extreme violence.

The subsequent public inquiry uncovered 186 missed opportunities to protect Zahid and exposed institutional racism within the Prison service. The didn't exists continues to exist to promote racial equality in prisons, and runs innovative programs to enable greater racial equality and indeed, in leadership. In the 25 years since the murder of Zahid, there have been a series of initiatives and reviews to improve racial equality in the Prison service and in the criminal justice system. Despite this, my Lords, there is a worrying.

There is worrying evidence of significant racial disparities in both prisons and more widely in criminal justice. 27% of the prison population in England and Wales comes from ethnic communities. However, if the prison population were to reflect the UK's ethnic makeup, there would be 9000 fewer men and boys in prison. Offenders from ethnic minorities have a disproportionately higher likelihood of receiving custodial sentences, even after taking higher not guilty plea rates into account. Defendants from minority ethnic groups are far more likely to be remanded in custody.

Custody and black prisoners serve a far greater proportion of determinate sentences. The use of force against black prisoners is much higher. The most recent figures show 409 incidents per 1000 1000 black person black prisoners, as compared to 209 incidents for white prisoners. The prison prison Inspectorate's Annual Report for 2020 425 aggregated the data from sample sample surveys, broken down between white prisoners and all other ethnic groups. The latter category consistently expressed more negative experiences than their white peers, on 69% of the topics covered.

The other ethnic group category was significantly more likely to report negative experiences. These included access to jobs and the library, medical appointments, education and training opportunities, and help in preparing for release. So, my Lords, there's no denying that there are there continue to be racial disparities in prisons. The question is, what more can be done? A commitment by the Minister to work with voluntary organisations, including the Zahid Mubarak Trust, to monitor, for example, for example, the implementation of the progression regime, which will be introduced by the 2026 Sentencing Act, would be very welcome, since there is genuine concern that ethnic minority prisoners will not benefit to the same extent as white prisoners.

Finally, my Lords, it is disturbing that there is no national plan or strategy to promote racial equality in prisons. His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service has nominated senior civil servant race champions, and it has a national team with a brief to advance racial inclusion. However, a letter to the co-director of the Zahid Mubarak Trust on the 1st of May of this year from the briefing and correspondence team of Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service stated, and I quote, there is no single overarching strategy or action plan focussed specifically on reducing racial disparity within prisons, nor is there a centrally held budget dedicated solely to race equality.

At a local level, prisons are required to maintain their own diversity and inclusion plans, which are tailored to local needs and are not consolidated into a single national document. Budgetary responsibility for related activity sits locally, rather than being captured within a single, centrally held budget. Real civil service language. Of course, my Lords, it makes sense for local initiatives to be tailored to the local situation in a particular prison, but it is difficult to see how continuing racial disparities can be tackled effectively without an overarching national strategy and action.

Plan to promote racial equality in the prison system.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Farmer for introducing this debate, and I thank all noble this debate, and I thank all noble Lords for their speeches today. With congratulations to the noble With congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Leveson of Liverpool, for his excellent speech. The capacity of prisons across the country remains a concerning problem, with a prison population problem, with a prison population expected to reach between 92,400 and 100,000 by November 2032, although the government have pledged 14,000 new prison places by 2031, serious progress is needed to meet that target progress that is not yet apparent.

The government have delivered 700 fewer prison cells than last year, and no new prisons have been planned or approved since the Labour government took office in 2024. These new prisons will be essential

17:32

Lord Reay (Conservative)

- -

to increase the prison capacity, so hopefully there will be evidence as hopefully there will be evidence as to how they will reach that pledge. There is also a problem now. The There is also a problem now. The problem of immediate availability is similarly severe and as was is similarly severe and as was discussed only last week at the criminal justice reform Statement. criminal justice reform Statement. There are 4000 operational prison places that are not in use. The noble Lord.

The Minister, did not set out what steps the government were taking to ensure that these existing places could be utilised. So I pose the same question. How will the government address the issues of officer shortages to allow those places to be used? We have heard from the sector that retention is a huge problem among prison officers. What specific steps are Ministers taking to improve retention? I now turn to the probation system, where serious concerns have been raised about the electronic tagging system.

In July, the National Audit Office expressed concerns regarding public safety if the electronic tagging system was rapidly expanded to reduce the prison population. Their report noted that between 10 and 50% of alerts resulted in breach notifications being sent to the relevant officials. Further to that, serious and minor breaches were both treated the same. Will the noble Lord the Minister, ensure that all tagging breaches are dealt with? Last week, my noble friend Lord Wolfson asked about the barriers posed by articles two and three of the European Convention of Human Rights and targets for the number of foreign national prisoners being deported, to which the noble Lord.

The Minister said he would come back to. Will the noble Lord the Minister, do so now and share how they intend to address these barriers? I look forward to the Minister's response.

17:35

Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (Liberal Democrat)

- -

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord Lord Farmer for securing this debate and for his excellent opening speech. The noble Lord has opening speech. The noble Lord has campaigned tirelessly on prison reform, as he has on family life. So he unsurprisingly stressed with So he unsurprisingly stressed with others the importance of contact with their families for prisoners. My Lords, we have heard a brilliant, sympathetic and far reaching maiden speech from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson. Our new boy, as he modestly described himself, were we, for our part, are honoured to have such an extremely distinguished new boy, and we will continue to benefit greatly in this House from his wisdom, his incisiveness, and his humanity.

My Lords, this government inherited a crisis in our prisons and probation service with Lord Brooke. I pay tribute to the noble Lord Lord Timpson for the progress he made in tackling this as prisons Minister. His presence in government will be missed. My Lords, until the Sentencing Act. As Lord Brooke said, the threat of our criminal justice system collapsing for want of prison space was all too real. The last government recognised this problem far too late and introduced a haphazard series of crisis early release schemes.

But without offering any long term solution. We have at last put the management of determinate sentences on a more organised footing, moving towards an earned progression model. Restructuring such sentences in an orderly way, with the first third of sentences to be spent in custody, and the second third, barring bad behaviour to be served under intensive supervision by the probation service in the community. For this second stage, offenders will be subject to tagging and a series of tailored restrictions as necessary, designed to address concern among victims and the public on security and safety grounds.

Following prisoners release from custody stage three, the last third will then be spent on licence. I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, that we must be clear with the public about what we are doing and why. So, my Lords, we must hope the new system will work with the aid of extensive use of better technology. There is evidence from Texas and elsewhere that gives grounds for optimism, though I should add that I would have preferred to see earned release with more emphasis on rewarding good behaviour in custody, rather than simply punishing misbehaviour.

Moreover, my Lords, many have pointed out that the length of prison sentences has doubled in recent decades. Our sentences are longer than almost everywhere else in Europe, and there is no evidence that longer sentences reduce reoffending or aid rehabilitation. On the contrary, offenders serving long sentences in overcrowded prisons become institutionalised and lose hope. Suffering, as the noble Lord Lord Winston pointed out, increased mental damage over time as they do so. Overcrowding is made worse because there are too many unconvicted people in prison on remand, and for far too long as the as Lord Leveson said, and too many are unnecessarily recalled for inadequate reasons.

As my noble friend Lord Foster and Lord Bellamy argued then, far too many people receive prison sentences rather than community sentences, which would genuinely address their difficulties. The noble and learned Lady Baroness Butler-Sloss spoke of treatment of addiction within the community, which prison cannot realistically replicate. And she was right. My Lords, I invite the government to continue along Lord Timpson's path of according a greater priority to developing a more humane and effective penal system that prioritises reducing reoffending and rehabilitation, that moves away from the wasteful and ineffective use of ever longer sentences of imprisonment.

In response to ill advised press and public demand and the media drama, as Lord Farmer put it, we must improve conditions in many of our unhealthy prisons. We must continue to increase staffing levels and help dedicated staff in assisting prisoners to turn their lives around. Instead of aggravating drug addiction, mental health issues, appalling violence and criminality in our prisons, lack of education and training, and consequently unemployability our prisons and probation services must be dedicated to addressing and overcoming these issues.

That was the essence of the noble Lord Lord Garnier argument, with which I agreed fully. These issues are often worse for black prisoners, as the noble Lady Baroness D'Souza said, my noble friend Lord Foster and Lord Brooke also spoke of gambling addiction, also needing urgent action which cannot be provided in prisons. Furthermore, my Lords release from prison is not the end of the story. The probation service has a huge challenge to be effective in continuing the rehabilitation of prisoners on release while tagging, and the enforcement of restrictions on released prisoners movements and exclusion orders and the like are very important as safeguards for victims and for the public.

The probation service is about much more than tough offender management. Our probation officers do a fantastic job. However, to reduce re-offending, the probation service must have the numbers, the space, the resources and the training to be able to assist clients with accessing mental health and addiction services. Education, training, employment and of course, housing. As Lord Farmer stressed. To train, a new probation officer takes at least 15 months and the application process adds a further six months.

So we worry that the extra £700 million for probation services. Welcome as it is, may not cover both the extra work needed for rehabilitating offenders and coping with the increased demands of intense supervision of many more prisoners released into the community. A point well made by the noble Lady, Baroness VATA. So I repeat the question I asked the Minister last Tuesday, to which I had no answer. What contingency plans are in place to provide further funds? Should this allocation allocation of 700 million prove inadequate? But even with the implementation of the Sentencing Act and increased work by the Probation Service, the shortage of prison space will not go away.

Even the most optimistic predictions suggest that the prison population will rise again. Add to that the need to replace many of our older and unsuitable prisons in crying need of replacement, and we will inevitably need more space. My Lords, the government is optimistic on prison building, but we cannot build ourselves out of this crisis. So clearly more and more suitable space is necessary. I'm concerned that the proposal to build more cells into existing prisons may increase pressure on other facilities within those prisons.

Furthermore, building more new prisons involves long delays. The Minister says the government has acquired suitable land and that they can mitigate the delays inherent in designing and building new prisons. I hope he will forgive me for being sceptical about that recent experience of planning applications for prisons and local objections to such applications gives no reason for optimism. It is therefore very important that we consider a realistic assessment of the demand for new prison places and test it against a realistic programme of acquisition and building of new prisons.

Furthermore, any prison building programme must allow for sufficient headroom to allow prisoners to be housed in prisons located with their needs and rehabilitation in mind, including, as Lord Farmer said, the need for prisoners to be close to their families and communities. Shuffling prisoners around an overcrowded prison estate throughout the UK is a recipe for failure of rehabilitation and for failure in the drive to cut reoffending and for increased public expense, a point which follows from the analysis of the noble and learned Lord Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd.

That means more crime and the public continuing to be let down by a penal system that is not only inhumane, but one that continues down a road that has failed in the past and threatens to fail us again unless we genuinely concentrate on developing and funding an approach which works, and an approach which works will ultimately bring benefits in falling crime and in reduced public expense. expense.

17:45

Lord Lemos, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Labour)

- -

18:06

Lord Farmer (Conservative)

- -

Yeah. >> I think I'm I'm the barrier between everyone and recess. What I would say is, just to begin with, I think this has been a really very good debate, a very valuable debate, and it's been a collaborative debate. We we've worked together. There hasn't been partisanship. And I think that's been very important because this is a very important subject. And to be quite frank, it's a very depressing subject. And I think the reasons for depressing have become apparent from many of the speeches today.

And I would just compliment, I think, every single member who has contributed today have been excellent contributions. And I hope that the Hansard of this debate will actually get some publicity, because it needs it. People people need to see clearly the problems that are going on in the prison estate, but they also need to see how we together can work and cooperate. And I very much liked the emphasis, in a way, on the prisoner as a human being, that that came out in a few speeches.

The learned Lord Leveson and Lord Winston also mentioned that, but it came over in many speeches, and I would particularly concur with everybody else. It was almost an honour to have Lord Stevenson making his maiden speech in this debate, and I. I think it was a hugely valuable contribution. So I'm not going to go on and on, because we do need to get to recess, and it's been a long day, but I would just thank you all for your valuable contributions.

I do hope it gets widespread across Parliament and in into the departments of government, but also, in fact, a little bit out there to, to the wider public that they understand the problems that is in the prison estate at the moment.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

And with that, I'll. Withdrawn. The question is that this motion

**** Possible New Speaker ****

The question is that this motion be agreed to, as many of that opinion will say, content contrary, not content. The contents have won.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

not content. The contents have won. My Lords, we are about to go on recess. So I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank all the this opportunity to thank all the staff of the House for their hard work and support, and, of course, wish them and indeed all your Lords, very restful recess and enjoy your very restful recess and enjoy your party conference if you're attending. And with that I beg to move the house. Do now adjourn.

10:30

Introduction(s): Lord Wormald and Lord McCobb

This debate has concluded

Return to start of debate - Return to top of page