Oral Answers to Questions

Layla Moran Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2021 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

With reference to the Government’s commitment to end rough sleeping by 2024, whether he has plans to update the rough sleeping strategy to set out how that commitment will be met.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Eddie Hughes)]

Our focus in the last year has rightly been on managing the response to the pandemic and supporting tens of thousands of the most vulnerable people across our society. During the pandemic, we took unprecedented action to protect people sleeping rough or at risk of doing so. This saved lives and achieved huge reductions in the number of people sleeping rough: a 37% decrease in the latest statistics. Our ambition to end rough sleeping within this Parliament still stands. We are taking into account the lessons learned from our ongoing pandemic response, including Everyone In and the Protect programme, to inform our long-term plans.

[Layla Moran [V]]

The Everyone In scheme has undoubtedly been a success and led to incredible stories of lives being turned around in a housing-first approach that has support from all sides of the House. However, several councils have reported that the Government have instructed them, through the terms of the rough sleeping initiative funding allocations, to end the use of emergency accommodation for those sleeping rough, so signalling the end of the Everyone In scheme. To make matters worse, the rough sleeping strategy is still in need of updating following the pandemic. Were local authorities instructed to end Everyone In? If so, have charitable and third-sector groups been made aware so that they can fill in the gaps? When can we expect to see the updated rough sleeping strategy and, indeed, the promised review of the Vagrancy Act 1824?

[Eddie Hughes]

As is so often the case, the Lib Dems are more focused on two things: making plans—rather than taking action—and scaremongering. It is categorically not the case that either charities or local councils have been instructed as the hon. Member suggested. Indeed, funding through the rough sleeping initiative continues to fund people in emergency accommodation. More importantly, we should note that that is a temporary form of accommodation and it is incredibly important that we get people moved on to more permanent forms of accommodation. That should be the objective of all of us.

Vagrancy Act 1824

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) on securing this important debate, and I thank colleagues from across the House for taking part.

My goodness, it has been a long time coming, but it does look as though the Vagrancy Act might finally be scrapped. My simple question for the Minister is: when? How long do we need to wait for this review finally to be published? How long do we need to wait until this blight of a law is finally repealed?

As many have already said, the Vagrancy Act is an antiquated piece of legislation from 1824 and it has no place in modern society. It is 2021 and we are still criminalising people for rough sleeping. For years, the Liberal Democrats and colleagues from all parties have been urging action, and the price of inaction is high. Rough sleepers will continue to be arrested and prosecuted for being homeless.

I am told by those with lived experience that outside the official figures, there are many more people who may not be charged but who are threatened with the Act to get them to move on. From 2009 to 2019, 131 proceedings under the Act were brought by Thames Valley police alone. How much longer are we going to wait, and how much longer will the Government let this go on?

I started the campaign to scrap the Vagrancy Act in 2017, but the credit needs to go to the compassionate young people of Oxford. The genesis was a petition started by Oxford University students’ union and Oxford-based homelessness group On Your Doorstep. It arose in answer to the needless criminalisation under the Act of dozens of rough sleepers in Oxford. In February 2018, I introduced the Vagrancy (Repeal) Bill and raised it at Prime Minister’s questions.

Together with campaign lead charity Crisis and supported by Homeless Link, St Mungo’s, Centrepoint, Cymorth Cymru, The Wallich and Shelter Cymru, we officially launched the cross-party “Scrap the Act” campaign at an event in Parliament, with a 41-page report detailing the case against it. That included, critically, a lawyer-led review of the other Acts already in place to prosecute fraud and aggressive begging. MPs and peers from all parties heard stories from people who had lived experience of rough sleeping, and whose lives had been affected by the Act. It was heartbreaking, and we all resolved to do more to get the law repealed for good.

In August 2018, when the review was announced, we welcomed it as massive progress. Then we waited and waited. In January 2019 we debated it on the Floor of the House. It was again raised at Prime Minister’s questions with the then Prime Minister that February, and the Bill was introduced again in March 2020. When I heard the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government say on the Floor of the House in February this year—four years on from the introduction of the original Bill—that the Act should be scrapped, the word I said was “Hallelujah!”

Here we are in April 2021. The law is archaic and should be consigned to history, and I am delighted that the Secretary of State has said that he agrees. What now? The campaign has come a long way from its Oxford grassroots origin, and this debate is proof of that. I am saddened that the Secretary of State could not commit to a timetable in a letter to me last week. Will the Minister do that today? Will he guarantee that the repeal of the Vagrancy Act will be in the Queen’s Speech next month? This is the moment. I also agree with hon. Members who call for more, although I hope the Government will not use that as an excuse to delay the repeal.

The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 was a step change, and I commend the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for leading that work. I have been so grateful for his support in this campaign.

I also congratulate the Government on the Everyone In programme. I can tell the Minister that it has had a transformative effect on those who finally, for the first time, have a stable abode. I was told by council officers in Oxfordshire that the programme meant that, for the first time, many people engaged with the wraparound services that are available, and because for the first time they had the peace of mind of knowing where they were going to sleep night after night, it was possible to engage with them. That is why I believe that the “housing first” approach is certainly the way to go. We have had months of a pilot, in effect, during this pandemic. As outlined in the Public Accounts Committee report on the issue—led by me and the hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan)—that approach also saves money. It is not just the right thing to do; it is also the smart thing to do.

Above all, repealing the Vagrancy Act would indicate a step change in approach by the whole of society. I am sure that Members from all parties remember the death of Gyula Remes in Westminster underground station in 2018, one of the two deaths that year at the very feet of Parliament. How did Parliament react? By erecting a new gate, further down the entrance to the tube station, and pushing the homelessness out of our way—out of sight and out of mind. That will not do, but it continues. Just this morning, a member of my staff saw British Transport police moving on some rough sleepers from outside our tube entrance. When the staff member asked the police officer what had happened to the homeless people, the officer said, “We told them to get lost, in a nicer sort of way.”

We need a step change in our response to homelessness. Our response needs to be more holistic and more compassionate, and it has to start by repealing this cruel and needless law, which continues to be used to punish the homeless. It is a disgrace. We have produced the work detailing why the Government can move forward quickly. The Bill exists, so just pick it up. It sounds as though the review that the Government commissioned has come to the same conclusions as we did years ago. I ask the Minister to do the right thing. Let us act now together. Let us scrap the Vagrancy Act, and let us make up for the nearly 200 years of hurt that it has caused.

Homelessness

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I will come on to the strategy. I know the Good Shepherd centre’s work; in fact, I volunteered there as a child, growing up in Wolverhampton.

The centre of our work is our rough sleeping initiative. That involves our team of rough sleeping advisers working closely with local authorities to deliver vital services to help people who are sleeping rough. I take the opportunity to pay tribute to those local authorities, and the charities and organisations and their volunteers, who are taking part in the RSI. Our evaluation concluded that the rough sleeping initiative was working. It is seeing an almost one-third reduction in vulnerable people sleeping rough in those areas that are funded by the initiative, compared with what would have happened if those areas had not been part of the initiative.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

rose—

[Robert Jenrick]

We are keen for more parts of the country to benefit from the initiative.

[Robert Jenrick]

I think I have answered that question. We do not recognise some of the figures that we have heard. In fact, the evidence that I have seen has suggested that rent arrears have fallen over time, in the case of those individuals who have moved on to universal credit.

To support the rough sleeping initiative programmes such as those that I have visited in recent months, I allocated this week up to £112 million to fund the programme for a third year. That represents a 30% increase in funding for this already proven successful programme. Councils, charities and organisations throughout the country will be able to use that money to fund up to 6,000 new bed spaces and 2,500 rough sleeping support staff.

[Layla Moran]

The Secretary of State is being very generous in giving way. I am pleased to hear him outline the strategy for rough sleeping, but is he aware that rough sleeping in this country is illegal, under the Vagrancy Act 1824, which is still on the statute book? We are running a campaign with St Mungo’s, Crisis and others to have it repealed.

[Robert Jenrick]

As the hon. Lady may know, we are reviewing the Act; we are very aware of that and want to see it changed.

We are determined to build on the work of our Housing First programme pilots, which we have already heard about. The pilots, in Greater Manchester, the west midlands and the Liverpool city region, have already helped more than 200 people off the streets and into a home and provided each with a dedicated support worker. A further 800 people are due to benefit by the end of the programme.

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

As I am sure we all agree, even one person sleeping rough in this country is one person too many. I am delighted to hear that the Government are going to make sure that this does not happen by the end of this Parliament, but I want to ensure that everything that we can do now is also happening. We can do one thing immediately: scrap the Vagrancy Act 1824. That would encourage all agencies to take a much more holistic approach to the problem.

For those who do not know, only sections 3 and 4 of the Act are left, and the Act makes rough sleeping illegal. This growing body of opinion has been formed on the back of a campaign in Oxford run by the students, who could see with their own eyes how fast the number of people affected was increasing in our city centre. I brought the matter here and I am delighted to see how many Members from across the House have now taken it into their hearts, because the legislation does not, I believe, reflect our values. The stance is also popular; a new survey from Crisis shows that 71% of people do not believe that sleeping rough should be illegal.

I found myself in violent agreement with the thrust of the points raised by the hon. Member for Gravesham (Adam Holloway), who argued that in the case of many of the rough sleepers he has met, rough sleeping is actually a health issue. That is what we need to focus on.

It is all very well, in this room, to say that we want to change the law and take a different approach, but people also judge us by our actions. I draw attention to what happened last year, when the homeless gentleman died on our doorstep in the Westminster tube entrance. The answer to that from this place was to evict the group of homeless people who were there, and put up a gate. For shame! It means that now, as we walk in, we do not have to be bothered by that in the same way; they are slightly further down. I do not think that that reflects the values of Members in this House, and I think we need to do things as soon as possible to show what does.

The Government insist on a review and are waiting for that to conclude, but it is not necessary. Crisis, which I have been working with, has done that. It can show how it is possible to repeal not just section 4 but also section 3. To those who say that the Act is not used, I say that it is. In 2018, 11 people were prosecuted for sleeping rough. That is not right; it must be stopped. Let us make this the year that we scrap the Vagrancy Act.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Hall]

We are holding safeguarding reviews where appropriate, but I am happy to continue that conversation with the hon. Gentleman, and to take up his offer to meet the domestic abuse charity that he mentioned.

In West Sussex, people who sleep rough will be directed away from A&E, and supported to access more appropriate and suitable healthcare services.

A number of colleagues from across the House raised the issue of social housing, including my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), with whom I enjoyed visiting some of these services over the Christmas period. My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) put on record his experience on the matter, and spoke passionately about the importance of choice and supply. The hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) was a passionate advocate for her constituents and the issues they raise. I am always happy to speak to her about those issues in more depth. We have committed to increasing the supply of social housing, and have made £9 billion available through the affordable homes programme to March 2022, to deliver approximately a quarter of a million new affordable homes in a wide range of tenures, including social rents.

[Layla Moran]

Will the Minister give way?

[Luke Hall]

I am afraid I will not at the moment.

Since 2010, we have delivered more than 464,000 new affordable homes, including 331,000 affordable homes for rent. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) raised his concerns about temporary accommodation. Temporary accommodation means that people are receiving help and support, but of course we want to see those individuals and their families moved into settled accommodation as soon as possible, and on a permanent basis. We recently announced £263 million of funding for local authorities to support the delivery of homelessness services—an increase of £23 million on this financial year. That funding will also support prevention programmes to help those who are at risk of becoming homeless.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Will the Minister give way?

[Layla Moran]

Will the Minister give way?

[Luke Hall]

I will not at the moment, but I will come back to some of the issues that have been raised in the debate.

A number of colleagues, including the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), raised concerns about welfare and the local housing allowance. We have of course delivered on our commitment to end the benefit freeze, and the majority of people in receipt of housing support will see their support increase as a result.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Hall]

We are providing specialist funding. I am happy to go into that in more detail with the hon. Gentleman.

We understand that enabling access to and better outcomes from services that prevent mental ill health, improve mental health support recovery and promote good mental health will contribute to our ambitions to end rough sleeping. That is why, as part of our strategy, the Government have committed £30 million of funding from NHS England over the next five years for specialist mental health support for those who are rough sleeping.

[Layla Moran]

rose—

[Luke Hall]

I will now address the point that the hon. Lady raised about the review of the Vagrancy Act. I know that she has written extensively about this issue and raised it in the House before. My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) also raised it today. They both put on record their experience in and work on this issue. Our rough sleeping strategy committed to reviewing the Act, as they know. We are clear that nobody should be criminalised for simply having nowhere to live and sleeping rough. Because of the engagement with stakeholders that we have undertaken, we know that this is a hugely complex matter with diverging views between charities, the public sector, police forces and local authorities. That is why we believe that this review is the right course of action for now.

I want to address some of the wider points that have been raised on rough sleeping. This issue has been highlighted by a number of Members across the House, including my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), who talked about the £470,000 rough sleeping initiative grant funding going into his constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford referred to the encouraging signs that her local authority is seeing through the funding. Our commitment to tackle this issue is demonstrated very clearly by bringing forward by three years the commitment to end rough sleeping altogether by the end of this Parliament.

Our strategy sets out a far-reaching £100 million package to help people who sleep rough now and to put in place the structures that will end rough sleeping completely within the next five years. This means preventing rough sleeping before it happens, intervening at crisis points, and helping people to recover with the kind of flexible support that meets their needs. Across Government, we are working with a renewed ambition to scale up our successful programmes, such as the RSI, and to devise new interventions to meet this important manifesto commitment. We are providing a further £437 million in 2020-21 to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping. This marks a £69 million increase in funding from the current year and builds on the £1.2 billion that we have already invested over the spending review period to April this year. We have also expanded the Government’s support through the rough sleeping initiative this year, with £46 million of funding, including £12 million for areas joining the initiative. We expect that to deliver 750 staff and 2,600 bed spaces this year.

This has been an important debate on what we all understand to be a complex and challenging issue that the Government are determined to permanently address. We are glad to have had the opportunity to explain our considerable ambitions—

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Layla Moran Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate on this incredibly important matter. I thank the hon. Members for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) and for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) for supporting the application, along with all the members of the Public Accounts Committee. I also thank the hon. Members for Redcar (Anna Turley) and for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western), who submitted similar applications that have been lumped in with this debate. I also give my thanks in advance to everyone who wants to speak today; I will be as quick as I possibly can.

Local government spending is a story of unsustainability and inequality. According to the Local Government Association, which is holding its conference as we speak, funding to local government and business rates have fallen by £4.1 billion since 2015. Councils have far less spending power, but here is the rub: our local councils are having to deal with a big growth in demand for key services. Taking into account the decrease in Government grants, subsidised a bit by the increase in council tax, our councils have lost nearly a third of their spending power over the last nine years, and key services are suffering.

We all know what that means, at its heart, for the most vulnerable in our communities. Since 2010 the number of homeless households has risen by 33%, the number of looked-after children is up by nearly 11% and the number of people aged 65 and over in need of care has increased by 14%. It is great that we are living longer, but central Government have not grasped the nettle.

The combination of with higher national insurance contributions, the apprenticeship levy and the national living wage means that councils are at breaking point. Given the major stresses on children’s services and adult social care, I will focus on those today, but there are many others, and I look forward to other Members making contributions about their local area.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

For childcare and other local authority services, central Government have shifted funding away from a grant system and on to business rates. Shopkeepers, in particular, are now finding it difficult to carry on their business. Central Government have also failed to deliver on social council housing, which is an indictment.

[Layla Moran]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. In fact, spending on services has decreased by 19.2% in real terms, which is not sustainable.

In my local area, Vale of White Horse District Council is a good example. We won the council from the Conservatives in the last round of local elections, and now we have sight of the finances. I am sure this is not unique in the country, but there is not enough money to fund the basic statutory services that the council is expected to deliver. The council is therefore eating into its reserves at an alarming rate. Coupled with that, an outsourcing agreement that was meant to save the council £50 million, and in fact has saved nothing, is projected to cost the taxpayer money. We are in a dire situation in the Vale.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The situation in the hon. Lady’s area is mirrored in Harrow, where the council has lost over 97% of its revenue support grant since 2010 and is really struggling. Is it not therefore particularly sad that neither of the two Conservative candidates for the premiership are talking about these issues at their hustings?

[Layla Moran]

I hope today’s debate will be a clarion call to them and others about the importance of local government in delivering key services.

The resilience of local councils across the country is a focus of the National Audit Office’s work, and it has real cause for concern. The message I have received from my friends at today’s LGA conference is twofold. First, we must remember that councils are multi-million pound companies, yet they do not know where their funding is coming from past next year. How on earth are they expected to plan without any sense of the medium term, let alone the long term?

Secondly, if we are to shift the burden from central Government to local government, income generation needs to be made easier. Across the country, I am not aware of a single council that has successfully used the referendum mechanism to raise council tax. This is not working. We need another way to make sure councils are properly funded.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Between 2011 and 2015, according to the NAO, 25% of the central Government grant to councils was cut. Does the hon. Lady regret the role of the Liberal Democrat coalition Government in such a heavy level of cuts?

[Layla Moran]

When I was a candidate, I, too, fought against these cuts, particularly those to children’s services. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am a teacher, and I was seeing the effect the cuts would have. Interestingly, the data show that some of that was fat that could be trimmed off. [Interruption.] Let me finish. [Interruption.] Just look at the transcripts from the Select Committee on Housing, Communities and Local Government. In 2012-13, there was an increase in efficiency, but I will concede that after that point the cuts should have stopped. The point of today’s debate is to move forwards. Having been elected in 2017, I hope the hon. Gentleman will join me in looking forwards and not backwards.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Layla Moran]

I am moving on. I am not going to give way.

[Mr Betts]

The hon. Lady just referred to the Select Committee.

[Layla Moran]

I will come back to the hon. Gentleman in just a second.

Let me move on to adult social care, because it is really important. The Chancellor’s extra £750 million for social care in 2019-20 falls drastically short, given that the funding gap for adult social care is expected to reach £3.6 billion by 2025, according to the Local Government Association. This is a vital government service and central Government responsibility is shared between two Departments. I have many questions for the Minister, but one is: where on earth is the adult social care Green Paper? The situation is no longer sustainable. The adult social care sector in England accounted for 1.34 million jobs in 2016-17, yet, according to the National Audit Office, it has been 10 years since a national workforce strategy has been published. Furthermore, 43% of those aged 80 or over in England in 2016 needed help with activities for daily living, yet only 20% actually received the help they need. Demand is increasing and less is being provided—and to fewer people.

[Mr Betts]

rose—

[Layla Moran]

And of course I happily give way to the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Mr Betts]

I am not sure the hon. Lady will be quite so happy when she hears what I have to say about the matter. Again, this is typical of the Lib Dems, is it not? We see collective memory loss about what happened between 2010 and 2015, and them now washing their hands. Does she accept that the biggest cuts in real terms per year in adult social care happened between 2010 and 2015, and she and her colleagues in the Lib Dems bear equal responsibility for that?

[Layla Moran]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point. As I say, I am looking forwards.

On adult social care, the Liberal Democrats are proposing—I would be curious to know whether Labour is planning the same—a penny in the pound on income tax to add to the social care budget, in order to sort out the short-term funding issues. That has to be just a short-term solution. The longer-term solution is not this tit-for-tat political to-ing and fro-ing; it has to be a cross-party effort to find a long-term settlement that will last for decades, not years.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I entirely agree with the hon. Lady on this. The Select Committees on Health and Social Care and on Housing, Communities and Local Government issued a joint report on the future funding of social care. One of its recommendations was a social care premium—an insurance based model like the German model. Would her party engage with that, on a cross-party basis, involving Conservative Members and Members on those Benches?

[Layla Moran]

I absolutely agree with that. Those calls were led by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who has been working on this issue on a cross-party basis. We have to do this together or we are not going to do it at all.

I now come to children’s services, an issue that, as a former teacher, is very close to my heart. Councils are overspending on these services, too—they did so by £872 million in 2017-18. The Public Accounts Committee has reported that 91% of authorities overspent. We are talking about young vulnerable children here. Something odd is happening, because although the number of children in the population has gone up, increasing by 7% since 2010, the number of child protection assessments has increased by 77%, on average, across the country. Worryingly, however, the figures are really different depending on the area of the country, suggesting that best practice is not being spread. For example, Camden Council has decreased the number of children that it has in looked-after care but other parts of the country have increased this by more than 90%. What are the Government doing to ensure that what some councils are clearly doing right is being spread? Meanwhile 42% of all local councils are rated as good or outstanding by Ofsted—but that means 58% are not. That is atrocious. We need to make sure that councils are held to account. My understanding is that Ofsted is so overstretched that it has for the moment suspended the rating of local councils. Will the Minister clarify whether that is true?

The final thing I wish to talk about is prevention. I serve on the Public Accounts Committee, and my colleagues and I are interested in value for money for the taxpayer. I am deeply concerned that the changes to children’s centres and youth services are not delivering value for money. In fact, worse than that, they are failing the young people of our country. The decrease in the number of Sure Start centres in Oxfordshire has meant that we cannot reach the same number of families as we did previously.

Meanwhile, the head of Ofsted said in her annual report:

“The evidence suggests that these cuts to youth and other services are a false economy, simply leading to greater pressures elsewhere.”

The Minister will know that in 2015 the Government axed the Audit Commission. Who is looking after the money? When something is cut in one Department, what effect is it going to have elsewhere? I am told that the responsibility is now in the purview of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, but it is not transparent. In the reports that the Public Accounts Committee has seen, it was not obvious that everyone knows what is going on. That is a key ask of the Minister: who is looking after the money? From what we have seen, not enough people are.

The lack of someone looking after the money has an effect on things such as the schools system. Schools have now become a repository for every other issue that has happened in local government, and we see the same with our police. I am sure many Members know of similar issues to those that I see in respect of special educational needs and disability funding: there just is not enough money adequately to support the children who need education, health and care plans. Why, when schools are already under funding pressure, are they being asked to provide the first £6,000 towards any plan? Surely it would make more sense that if a child has a need, that need is fulfilled.

Similarly, when are we going to see the Government address inequalities in the system, such as those relating to young carers? They are required in statutory legislation to undergo an assessment of what they need, but there is no legislation that follows through on that and says that they have to be provided with the things they have been assessed as needing. Who is dealing with those kinds of inequalities?

[Gareth Thomas]

One pressure that the hon. Lady has not mentioned is homelessness. Although we on the Opposition Benches will not be surprised by the Government’s lack of additional revenue to tackle homelessness, does she not think it particularly odd that the Conservative party, which claims to be the party of the armed forces, is doing nothing about the scale of rough sleeping among veterans?

[Layla Moran]

As I said at the beginning of the debate, we have seen a rise in homelessness. It has been a particular focus of mine on the Public Accounts Committee, and the hon. Gentleman might be aware of my campaign to scrap the Vagrancy Act 1824. We need to make sure that the fact that we are a compassionate nation is reflected in all parts of policy. I could not agree with his point more. As he rightly pointed out, there are many things that I have not touched on, but I am sure other Members will. This has just been a quick canter around the finances in the estimates.

I hope that the Public Accounts Committee’s reports on local government spending and sustainability are bedside reading for all Ministers, because they make recommendations that I sincerely hope Ministers will take seriously. When the Minister responds to the debate, please can we have answers on the following? First, where is the spending review? How on earth can we expect councils to plan for the medium and long term when they do not even know where next year’s money is going to come from? Secondly, where is the fairer funding review? The Government have moved the burden of taxation from central Government to local government, but the underlying inequity in the system still exists. Thirdly, linked to that, where is the business rates review? As was alluded to earlier, local economies are suffering because of a lack of joined-up thinking. Finally, a refrain that I hope and am sure others will continue: where is the social care Green Paper?

We need all four together before we can achieve genuine value for money in what local councils deliver. Anything else is a false economy. All of us see the knock-on effects of these Whitehall spending decisions in our postbags. We also see the desperation of people who come to us because they feel that their local councils have failed them. However, half the time, it is not local councils that have failed them; it is central Government. Local government is vital. It is the coalface—it is where real policy meets real people. I hope that today’s debate will be a clarion call. Local government may not always be sexy, but it is certainly significant. I thank all colleagues for being here and the Backbench Business Committee for enabling us to have today’s debate.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to catch your eye in this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), who is a highly valued member of the Public Accounts Committee, of which I have the honour to be deputy Chair. It is clear from her speech that she is extremely knowledgeable about this area, particularly about education, on which she is the Liberal Democrat spokesman.

I also pay tribute to other Members who have helped to secure this really important debate. The reason it is so important is that local authorities are by far the largest devolved form of government in England. They deliver a range of vital services, such as education, planning and social services. The money devoted to local government, and therefore to the effectiveness of these services, is vital to the people of this country, which is why, for the first time in 27 years in this place, I wanted to speak in an estimates debate, but particularly in this one on the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

It is a disaster for the people covered by a local authority area when it runs out of money and centrally appointed commissioners are brought in to oversee the finances, as we have seen in Northamptonshire County Council. We need to look very carefully at the role of section 15 officers, who have issued more than 114 notices of loss of financial control since 2010-11. We particularly need to encourage the Government to be intrusive in their inspection of local audits, because it is possible to spot when a local authority is beginning to get into trouble far sooner than was the case with Northamptonshire, thereby possibly avoiding bringing in the local commissioners.

As the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon said, the finances of local government are fairly parlous at the moment—resources fell by 34% in real terms between 2010-11 and 2017-18. Paragraph 12 on page 9 of the National Audit Office report states tellingly that overspending and the use of resources were not fully financially sustainable over the medium term. I encourage my colleagues on the Front Bench to look very carefully at this whole matter.

Local government is now facing a funding gap of £3.1 billion by 2019-20, which is estimated to rise to a staggering £8 billion by 2024-25, according to the NAO. Local government spending is being stretched significantly as we face the demand for services way outstretching available funding. This year, for example, Gloucestershire County Council has had to raise its council tax in every district to make £21 million of savings to deal with the financial pressure. To simply keep up with the county’s demand for services, council tax payers now need to provide nearly £295 million.

Children’s social services are a particular worry in the county and across many education authorities. It is the No. 1 financial pressure on Gloucestershire’s 2019-20 budget, as the authority will spend an additional £16.3 million on the most vulnerable children and young people in the county. Ofsted made a monitoring visit to Gloucestershire’s children’s social services in April—its sixth monitoring visit since our local authority was judged to be inadequate in March 2017. It is promising to see that progress has been made. However, that progress was deemed to be slow, and we cannot continue to fail to provide good enough social services for our most vulnerable children and young people.

Throughout the country, 42% of children’s social services are rated good and we spend some £8.8 billion on them, but 91% of local authorities have overspent in this area and we need to understand why. We had the education debate yesterday, and although there is a record amount of money in education overall—rising from £41 billion in 2017-18 to £43.5 billion in 2019-2020—the problem is with distribution. That is the case for my local authority, and I suspect that some of my colleagues on both sides of the House who are in the f40 group would agree that the distribution of money is critical. For example, an authority such as Hackney is getting £6,500 per secondary place, yet some schools in Gloucestershire are below the fair funding amount of £4,800 per secondary place.

[Layla Moran]

I apologise for intervening, as I have already spoken for a long time. I am a vice-chair of the f40 group. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the current calls from the f40 are about not just distribution but quantum? The “Together for Education” event that took place across the way in Westminster on the weekend before last called for an extra £2.2 billion a year in the education budget, because the f40 group recognises that we can redistribute all we want but the quantum also needs to rise.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I accept what the hon. Lady says. The problem is that it is about not only the money that schools get, but the costs that central Government keep imposing on schools—pensions, the apprenticeship levy or other expenditures. The costs keep going up, so the amount that schools have to spend is squeezed every year.

The Government need to do two things. First, they need to consider the quantum, as the hon. Lady has said. Secondly, when they impose an additional tax or an additional cost on a school, they need to consider very carefully how that school’s budget is being squeezed. We want to give our children the fairest possible start in life, and allocating adequate resources to education is almost the most important thing a Government can do, which is why I feel so strongly about this issue.

I also feel strongly about children’s special needs. The amount that Gloucestershire is spending in this regard is going up and up. I am grateful to the Government for providing an additional £1.35 million this year and next to deal with the problem, but they need to understand the causes of the increased demand in special needs, and education, health and care plans. The Government probably need to ring-fence this budget so that we do not get into the situation that we did this year, whereby Gloucestershire County Council was going to top-slice its general schools budget by up to 0.5% to deal with the problem. It is currently entitled to do so, but that is not fair on schoolchildren in general, which is why the Government need to ring-fence this budget.

Local enterprise partnerships—where local authorities contribute a significant amount of money, certainly some of the expertise and some of the governance—are rather variable, as we discovered from the NAO report. Some work extremely well; some work far less well. Some are governed extremely well; some are governed less well. There is geographical overlap in some, but not in others. If the Government wish to deliver their industrial strategy to the best possible degree, they need to look at the whole matter of LEPs quite carefully.

The fire and rescue service in Gloucestershire is currently run by the county council, but there is considerable pressure from the Home Office to transfer it to the police and crime commissioner. We have already had one inquiry and the proposal was rejected, yet the police and crime commissioner still wishes to overturn the decision. I say to my colleagues on the Front Bench that a considerable amount of resource and effort is being wasted by continually bickering over this matter. The fire and rescue service, I say loud and clear, is well run in Gloucestershire. The county council supports it, as do, I think, most Conservative colleagues—certainly, I support it very strongly. It should remain where it is.

We need to get local government funding functioning properly. This is a really serious problem. The Government wish to move to a new form of funding—the core rate support grant—in local government in 2021. That means that there are vital decisions that they need to make quite quickly. The proposal is that councils should keep three quarters of the revenue, down from 90% originally, but fundamental decisions on how this will work are coming very late in the day. No council should be under financial pressure, because of the tier splits, to move to 75% retention. We need to decide what the distribution system should be. If Westminster Council, for example, keeps 75% of its rate support, it will be awash with money, whereas a council in the north that keeps 75% will be in severe shortage. The councils need to know. As the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon says, it is only fair that the funding system for councils both for next year and the year after are made very clear fairly soon.

The other side of the coin is that the Government have a target for building 300,000 more homes each year. Councils will be able to do that only if they are properly incentivised by the council tax system. They need to be able to work out what that system is going to be. As part of the local government finance reorganisation, what will the incentives be for councils that want to expand their council tax base, as with the incentives to expand their business rate base? Again, the Government need to make some decisions on this. They need to tell us whether the new homes bonus will remain, and in what form, to give councils that incentive.

This is a huge field. I think I have cantered over some of the main areas, and others will do the same.

Vagrancy Act

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I am grateful to the House for allowing me to raise the issue of the Vagrancy Act 1824 on this of all evenings, when others out there might be forgiven for thinking that we do nothing other than talk about Brexit.

I have been campaigning to repeal the Vagrancy Act for well over a year now. In fact, my campaign began in response to a petition by the Oxford University Student Union and Oxford-based homelessness campaign group On Your Doorstep. I want to give them full credit for starting this.

The Vagrancy Act is a cruel and outdated piece of legislation. It was aimed at tackling the rise in homeless veterans after the Napoleonic wars, and even then it was controversial, with the great abolitionist William Wilberforce suggesting that it was too catch-all because it did not consider people’s individual circumstances. Nearly 200 years later, it is still used to criminalise people for sleeping rough or begging.

Between 2014 and 2016, more than 3,000 homeless people were dragged before the courts in violation of the Vagrancy Act. That is only the tip of the iceberg, as many more individuals will have been arrested but had their cases dropped, or the Act will have been used as a threat to move them on.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. This issue affects us all. Just last week in my constituency, I had to deal with a homeless person in great need. Does she agree that the use of this law to target people who are sleeping on the streets or begging should be stopped, and instead councils should work with compassion and care to help people who are desperate and find a way to make our social care system work for that individual, as opposed to simply moving them on, as helpless and hopeless as they were before? Compassion and care—that is what we need in society.

[Layla Moran]

The words “compassion and care” will repeat themselves in what I have to say tonight, and I could not more agree with the hon. Gentleman. The signal that this sends to others about who we are as a society is why I believe this Act needs to be repealed as a matter of urgency.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is quite right to refer to William Wilberforce. He acknowledged at the time that the Act did nothing to take into account personal situations and the reasons behind homelessness. As she said, his words ring true two centuries later. Does she agree with me, and I think with the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), that in a modern society it is far more effective and compassionate to use time and resources to help those who desperately need that support, rather than relying on this blunt piece of legislation on the statute book, which, as Wilberforce pointed out, does nothing to help those living on the streets and simply criminalises the vulnerable?

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran]

I could not agree more with every word the hon. Lady said. Indeed, if we want an example of how badly the Vagrancy Act can be used, last year Windsor Council suggested, just before the royal wedding, that local police use the Act to “clean up the streets”. That was a disgraceful display, but, unfortunately, it is not uncommon. The Act is a common tool that is available to the police across the country.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing this very pressing issue to the House. Does she not agree that it is particularly cruel, given that a lot of homeless people are actually ex-military men who have devoted their lives and given their commitment to this country? They are on the streets for various reasons, but we should treat them in a very different way, rather than punishing them when they were originally prepared to give their lives for this country.

[Layla Moran]

In fact, this comes back to why the Act was controversial 200 years ago, let alone now. The use of the Act is damaging and counterproductive in tackling rough sleeping. Rather than addressing the root causes of homelessness, which we all know are incredibly complex, the Act simply displaces people from one area to another, which is particularly problematic given that the funding of support is still to an extent based on local connection.

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Layla Moran]

I give way to my constituency neighbour.

[Anneliese Dodds]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent case, and I am very pleased that it is one that my party supports as well. When I have had discussions with rough sleepers—at the new hub, O’Hanlon House, the Porch, the Gatehouse or, indeed, doing a St Mungo’s round—in every case those discussions showed that people really need the support she is talking about, rather than to be criminalised, which can of course set them back substantially. Does she agree?

[Layla Moran]

I completely agree. Indeed, we know very well from our city how much our local constituents care desperately, and care and compassion, as has been mentioned, is actually the driving force behind why people care so deeply about this matter. The legislation acts as a barrier to cultural change. It sends a message that the act of rough sleeping itself is morally wrong, and it treats people who are sleeping rough as a negative problem to solve, rather than individuals in need of positive support.

In 2018, I met the Leader of the House on this matter, and asked if she could help me to repeal the Act. She was sympathetic, but she told me that some homelessness stakeholders wanted to keep the Act in place. This was reaffirmed by the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mrs Wheeler), who is the Minister for homelessness, when we met last year. However, in my second meeting about this with Ministers, I got positive engagement. I am disappointed that the Minister for homelessness is not on the Front Bench today, because I am going to answer some of the questions she raised in the meeting. However, she made the point that the Act was used to encourage rough sleepers to get off the streets and into shelters.

I listened carefully to those arguments, and I continue to disagree with them. The thing is that threatening rough sleepers with the Vagrancy Act to coerce them into shelters is not the way to help them. It is paternalistic and it claims that it is for their own good, but it actually has the opposite effect. In a survey of people sleeping rough carried out by Crisis, 56% said that enforcement measures such as the Vagrancy Act contributed to their feeling ashamed of being homeless, and 25% said that following an enforcement intervention their alcohol consumption increased. What does that say about the effect of the Act on the human level?

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does not the hon. Lady agree that many homeless people have nowhere else to go during the day, and they are therefore just moved on time and again? The only solution is to ensure that people have secure housing, and the Government target nine years from now is, quite frankly, far too late.

[Layla Moran]

The hon. Lady is exactly right. Using the Act just moves the problem on; often, it does not tackle the core issues behind what is happening.

This is my first question—of many, as the Minister will not be surprised to hear. Who are these stakeholders who wish to keep the Act in place? I would be genuinely grateful for a response, because they certainly do not include the homelessness charities with which I have been working, or the outreach managers whom St Mungo’s surveyed in 2018; 71% of them believed that the Act should be scrapped. One said:

“The Vagrancy Act takes a moral view on street activity giving no consideration to the complex reasons behind any such activity such as begging and rough sleeping. It is widely agreed that criminalizing addicts and homeless people serves no purpose apart from to further push them to the fringes of society, towards further impoverishment and stigmatization. I agree it should be scrapped”.

Surely we should listen to the views of professionals, who see at first hand the Act’s damaging impact on rough sleepers.

When we met last year, the Minister for homelessness argued that she does not want to criminalise homeless people—I believe her—but that she supports the use of the Vagrancy Act to combat “aggressive and persistent begging”. I went away and did my homework, just as I, like a good teacher, would have told my students to. Legal advice to Crisis concluded that the actions criminalised by the Vagrancy Act are covered by many other provisions in criminal law:

“Much of the language is archaic. The conduct it seeks to criminalise appears to belong to a different era. Legislation other than the Vagrancy Act, if correctly and carefully applied, provides a much better and modern framework than what remains of the Act”.

The Public Order Act 1986 and the Fraud Act 2006 are good examples of legislation that could and should combat aggressive begging. Indeed, in a debate in Westminster Hall, the Minister for homelessness acknowledged that

“Local authorities and police are equipped with a wide range of enforcement powers to combat issues arising from begging…Particularly flexible are the powers contained in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014”—[Official Report, 17 January 2018; Vol. 634, c. 386WH.]

If there is other legislation in place, why is the Vagrancy Act needed at all?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Jake Berry)]

The hon. Lady is doing an excellent job. I ask this so that I can respond to the debate properly. She made the point that criminalising people who are homeless or begging damages the ability to help them. She went on to say that other Acts may also criminalise them and that they should or could be used instead of the Vagrancy Act. Is there a contradiction in that statement? Would she like to clarify that, just to enable me to respond more fully?

[Layla Moran]

I will come to that later, when I will ask the Minister to extend the review that his Department is carrying out of this legislation to include all that other legislation, but I would point out that the Acts I mentioned are about aggressive begging, which is different, of course, from being genuinely homeless; we need to make sure that the two are not conflated.

In some parts of the country, the Vagrancy Act is not used at all. Chief constables can decide to use the Act at their discretion, and it is used in only 34% of the country. Why does it not have to be used in 66% of the country, and why is it used in 34% of it? Furthermore, use is planned to decrease to 7% of areas. Is the aim to shut this door? However, the Act is still there, though it has been repealed in Northern Ireland and Scotland. If it is barely being used, why not just repeal it?

[Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

The Act was repealed in Scotland in 1982. Every night, when I go from a full House here to my flat, I pass six homeless people while crossing the bridge to St Thomas’s Hospital. A young girl—18 years old—arrived there last night. She was sitting on the bridge with a bag. I did not know how to approach her, or what to do. That is happening here, and there have already been two deaths outside this House. We have to look at the Vagrancy Act, and I applaud the hon. Lady for bringing the subject to the House.

[Layla Moran]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. His passion is palpable. This measure is receiving wide cross-party support in the House and I would like to take a moment to thank all hon. Members for being here for the debate. It means so much to the community.

I was very pleased to hear that a review is on the cards. I speak to homelessness charities and they are a little frustrated that there has been no announcement on when it will take place. That is important, but I do ask why we need one at all when the situation is blindingly obvious. I encourage the Minister to widen the scope and ambition of the review. There should be a wider assessment of enforcement, for example on the use of public space protection orders and dispersal orders that give the police and local authorities the power to penalise the act of rough sleeping itself. We need a cool-headed assessment of whether that actually helps the people we seek to help. I believe that the Government want to help, but I wonder if the stick approach now needs to be changed.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that measures such as the Vagrancy Act not only criminalise homeless people, but put into the mind of the public that they are criminals and, as a result, they receive worse treatment? In Brighton, one homeless person was murdered last year and many others are regularly attacked. Removing the Act would show that it is not acceptable to treat people who have ended up in dire circumstances in that way.

[Layla Moran]

I agree entirely. The principle of no enforcement without support is vital. As funding for local authorities has decreased, there is often not enough money to tackle the root causes and to give the support to those who are at risk of homelessness or who are homeless. Rather than spending money enforcing laws that punish people and move them on, in the long term it would be a far better use of taxpayers’ money to invest properly in the very welcome Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which I have no doubt the Minister will mention, and to ensure support is in place to prevent homelessness from happening in the first place.

We all know that the causes of homelessness are complex. The Government need to do more to support local councils in providing services to combat those root causes. The Homelessness Reduction Act is a welcome start, but it cannot be the end. It is clear that the Vagrancy Act, among other Acts, is the lowest hanging fruit—it just makes problems worse. We need a more compassionate and preventive approach to tackling the national scandal of homelessness.

Repealing the Vagrancy Act would be an easy first step. It would not take any money, just a three-line Bill. The private Member’s Bill is waiting there and I am desperate for it to receive support. I think it would receive support from all corners of the House. I am sorry to say—this is the way with private Members’ Bills—that it was blocked on First Reading. However, we are seeking another First Reading soon. I am delighted that the Labour party is now supporting the Bill—that is brilliant—as are St Mungo’s, Centrepoint and Crisis. There is a real swell in the campaign from across the political spectrum and beyond.

The Vagrancy Act is a symbol: what sort of country do we want to be? Rather than being a cold-hearted mean-spirited country, I believe we should show compassion and care to those who need our help. I ask the Minister to push as hard as he possibly can at the open door to scrap the Vagrancy Act.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Jake Berry)]

This is the first time I have heard the hon. Lady talk on this subject in the House. I congratulate her on the tone of the debate and on how heartfelt and passionate she is on this very, very important subject. I congratulate her, too, on securing tonight’s debate.

I want to live in a country—I think we all do—where no one should ever have to sleep rough. That is why the Government have committed to halve rough sleeping by 2022 and end it by 2027. When I first entered Parliament in 2010, before I did this job as a Minister, I worked for the then Housing Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps). We worked together then, as part of the coalition Government, on how we could come together across government, and I think also on a cross-party basis, to tackle the scourge of homelessness. That is why I am pleased that the Government published our rough sleeping strategy in August 2018, which set out, as I think has been acknowledged across the sector, an ambitious programme building on three core pillars. Before I answer the hon. Lady’s questions, I want to expand on them briefly to help us all understand the context of the debate.

First, we want to prevent rough sleeping before it happens. That is hugely important and is our key target. We then want to intervene at crisis point, again to try to prevent rough sleeping from ever occurring. For people who find themselves rough sleeping, we need flexible support that meets their needs and enables them to leave the streets. That is why we committed £1.2 billion of funding over the spending review period to tackle homelessness. We implemented the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017—the hon. Lady correctly said that I would mention it—to put prevention, which is key, absolutely at the heart of our approach to tackling homelessness.

We must ensure that people get early support to prevent them from ever becoming homeless, and we must provide support on a broader basis than ever before to help people off the streets. We have started to do that through the introduction of pilots such as Housing First, the rapid rehousing pathway and the private rented sector access fund to help people leave the streets and find a sustainable stay in accommodation.

On the hon. Lady’s main point, the Government are clear that no one should be criminalised in this country for having nowhere to sleep. That is quite wrong, and we are determined to tackle it. We have made it clear in the guidance that public space protection orders should not be used to target people who are simply sleeping rough or are homeless. Rough sleeping on its own does not have, or is very unlikely to have, an unreasonable detrimental impact on a neighbourhood, and therefore those orders should not be used. On the point that the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) made about the real price of homelessness that we see every night in London, we all understand that we should not target or criminalise people who are simply homeless or sleeping rough.

People are convicted every year under sections 3 and 4 of the 1824 Act, to which the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon referred, but we have seen that they are used to target persistent begging and public order offences in public places. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady is shaking her head, but that is what our rough sleeping advisory panel’s research shows. She asked who is on the advisory panel. That information is publicly available. It includes Crisis, Shelter, St Mungo’s, Homeless Link, the Local Government Association and others.

[Layla Moran]

For clarification, I asked which stakeholders agree that the Vagrancy Act can be used. At least three of the charities that the Minister mentions have said to me that they do not, so who wants it to be used? As he can see, I am listening, and I want to understand who wants this and why, so that I can get to the bottom of it. Who are they?

[Jake Berry]

If the hon. Lady would allow me to develop my argument, I will attempt to answer her question.

Of course, other legislation is used. The hon. Lady mentioned the Public Order Act 1986 and the Offences Against the Person Act 1861—another very old piece of legislation that makes persistent begging in public places an arrestable offence. She asked why laws other than the Vagrancy Act are not used. It is because they have a higher burden of proof and harsher penalties are often—although not always—attached to them than to the Vagrancy Act.

Budget Resolutions

Layla Moran Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Thursday 1st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Vince Cable (Twickenham) (LD)]

I want to develop a point that was made by the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who said that for many people the Budget was actually a pleasant surprise—it has promised them tax cuts and spending increases—but that in doing so the Chancellor is taking a big risk with an economy that is not particularly strong. It is not particularly strong because, as the Treasury forecast shows, the growth rate looking forward is abysmal—it is about 1.5%, which is one of the worst in the developed world—and that is quite apart from the poor growth at the moment.

The growth rate is also based on a fundamentally optimistic assumption. Quite apart from the lag on growth caused by Brexit at the moment, the assumption in the Treasury forecast is that the Government will land a deal, and not just a deal but a good deal, with a smooth transition to a trading arrangement not greatly different from the present. Well, it might happen—pigs might fly—but it is optimistic and, if that expectation is not realised, the economy has very little resilience. We have very high public debt, as the Government acknowledged. The domestic savings ratio is appalling—I think it is the worst in the developed world and is now negative. The corporate sector is heavily leveraged, as Governor Carney pointed out the other day. All of this is reflected in the current account deficit, forecast to be 4% of GDP, which is one of the worst in the developed world. If something goes wrong, there is no longer an inflow of capital and the exchange rate falls; we have had a devaluation of 17% since the referendum and we will have another one.

The main criticism I have of the Budget is that it may have seemed comforting, but the Chancellor did not actually confront the real issue that we have to face: how do we have a mature debate about how to end austerity? That is going to involve people paying more tax, and the issue is how we do it, and how we do it in the fairest and most efficient way. As the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) has pointed out, we have not really got to the end of austerity, or even to the beginning of the end of it.

For most parts of public spending, there is a continued squeeze. That is true of schools. We did partially protect them under the coalition, but that is no longer happening. Colleges, which are necessary to deliver the Government’s training and apprenticeships, have been cut to pieces. Local government is potentially in an appalling situation. That means a squeeze on social care, which means that the money going to the health service will be wasted because it will have to accommodate lots of elderly people who should be at home. Bankrupt councils, many of them Tory county councils, will be forced to raise council tax, so we will get a tax increase, but it will be a tax increase by stealth, rather than by confronting the matter openly.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

On the schools point, does my right hon. Friend agree that the wording the Chancellor used in relation to money for the “little extras” was insulting to teachers, who, day in and day out, find that they have to reach into their own pockets to deliver the basics in schools?

[Sir Vince Cable]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am amazed that the Chancellor is not even aware of this. Many mainstream schools have seen cuts in teaching assistants, teachers, curriculums and so on. This will be compounded because there is nothing in the spending envelope that offers any hope that the problem is going to be dealt with.

That leads on to the question about how tax should be raised. The Government have offered tax cuts in the form of lifting the tax threshold for low earners and for middle earners. In principle, lifting the tax threshold is an attractive policy. I like to think that I was the author of the one we introduced in government. It was strongly resisted by the Conservatives at the time, but they have subsequently adopted it and claimed credit for it. The attraction was not just that poorer people pay less tax, but that the marginal rate of tax is removed when they move out of the welfare system, which encourages work.

In an ideal world, everybody should have a tax cut, but there is an issue about priorities here. Extending the tax cut to the upper threshold is, frankly, something that the country simply cannot afford. At a time when universal credit is being only partially financed following the cuts made by the Osborne Budget three years ago—only about half of that cut has been reinserted—that should be the priority. It is absolutely wrong that priority has been given to lifting the upper tax threshold. Because the two proposals are amalgamated in the Budget statement, I and my Lib Dem colleagues—and, I hope, others—will vote against this.

Beyond that, what this country now needs above all is a mature, grown-up debate about how the end of austerity will be managed. It is going to involve higher taxes for almost everybody—obviously, mostly at the top end, but there is going to have to be a general increase in taxation. I am afraid that the Chancellor’s pretence that we can have our cake and eat it is not realistic. It will rebound on him and on the Government.

Rating (Property in Common Occupation) and Council Tax (Empty Dwellings) Bill

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

Does the Minister agree that in addition to all the measures in the Bill, the Government must get their own house in order? Some 10,000 Ministry of Defence homes are left empty; does he not think it is slightly ironic that we are discussing this issue when the Government have so many homes that are not being put to use?

[Rishi Sunak]

I am not aware of the precise statistics for the Ministry of Defence, but in general we encourage all organisations and private owners to bring empty homes back into use. The Bill will apply to all homes. As far as I am aware, there is no statutory exemption for MOD housing, but I am happy to look into that and write back to the hon. Lady. As an MP who represents a constituency with a heavy military presence, with Catterick garrison on my patch, I know well the issues relating to serving personnel and their families having access to good-quality accommodation. I hope that there are few empty homes in my area and that they are all being well utilised. I thank the hon. Lady for bringing that issue to my attention.

It cannot be right that while many households are waiting to find a house to call home, thousands of properties stand empty, some for many years. Beyond that, homes left empty for the long term can often be a blight on a neighbourhood, as well as sites of crime and antisocial behaviour. I am pleased to say that the Government’s record in this policy area is strong. We have ensured that local authorities have powers and strong incentives to bring empty homes back into use.

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran]

I thank the Minister for paying tribute to my colleagues in the House of Lords who led on this amendment. Does he agree that another issue is land banking? It is all very well if homes are being brought back into use, but we also have an issue of land that is often kept for a very long time. What does he intend to do about that?

[Rishi Sunak]

I agree that land banking should be looked into. The hon. Lady will be aware that my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) is currently looking at that issue. Interim findings have been published and more findings will be coming out shortly. I hope that she will be happy to wait for the findings of those reports.

Nor are we proposing to change any other arrangements for charging premiums. It will rightly remain a matter for local authorities individually to decide whether and what premium to charge. In making these decisions, local authorities should of course consider local circumstances, as we have discussed, as well as the guidance issued by the Government.

It is right that we target particularly the homes that are empty for excessively long periods in this way. To be sure, they are likely to be few in number— potentially 11,000, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes)—but where they exist, they can indeed be a nuisance and a blight on their community. Such properties may even become sites of crime and antisocial behaviour. It is right that local authorities are equipped with greater powers in these difficult cases, where a 100% premium may be ineffective. We are proposing that these higher premiums come into effect slightly later than the original measure, which was announced at last year’s autumn Budget. This will give homeowners sufficient notice of the change. The 200% premiums will come into effect from 1 April 2020, and the 300% premiums a year later. The original proposal, of which people have had good notice, will come into effect from 1 April 2019, as planned.

We recognise the crucial importance of ensuring that premiums are applied fairly. That is why in 2013 the Government published guidance reminding local authorities to take into account the specific reasons a local property is empty, as indeed we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). In the light of this amendment, I can confirm that the Government will take a fresh look at the guidance with the aim of publishing revised guidance ahead of the introduction of the 200% and 300% premiums. This refreshed guidance will be subject to consultation, of course, and we will welcome the opportunity to benefit from the experience of local authorities, council tax payers and others when the time comes. In particular, we are keen to ensure that the guidance clarifies that premiums must be applied with due consideration to issues facing low-demand areas and cases of hardship. We expect to revisit the wording of the guidance to set out clearly the Government’s expectation that premiums are not applied where homeowners can demonstrate that their properties are genuinely on the market for rent or sale and appropriately priced.

Another area we expect to consider is cases where homeowners, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East noted, are struggling to complete or afford renovations that are necessary before the property can be occupied or sold on and where they can demonstrate progress and hardship.

I am delighted to bring forward this amendment, which has been termed the escalator amendment. I am grateful to all colleagues, the Select Committee and partners in the rating agencies for helping to get this amendment and this Bill to the House. By strengthening the incentive for owners of long-term empty properties to bring them back into use, this amendment will surely come as good news for local government, for families seeking a place to live and for the affected local communities as a whole. I commend it to the House.

National Planning Policy Framework

Layla Moran Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

First, may I wish my right hon. Friend a very happy birthday? I can reassure her that what we have set out today is very much focused on brownfield first, and the protections we have set out in the past for gardens remain in place.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

Before the Government go ahead with new garden towns between Oxford and Cambridge, will they commit today to a full public consultation on both the corridor and the route for the Oxford-to-Cambridge expressway?

[Sajid Javid]

What was last said on that, by the Chancellor at the Budget, has not changed. We have accepted the recommendation of the National Infrastructure Commission of up to five new garden towns and villages along the corridor. We have not yet decided exactly how that will be done or where they will be. Obviously, the placement of the infrastructure that goes alongside that is important, and I can reassure the hon. Lady that as we work on that, Parliament will be involved.

Homelessness

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

It is a great pleasure to introduce this estimates day debate on the spending of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government as it relates to homelessness. I would like to start by thanking the hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) for co-sponsoring the debate. I also thank colleagues on the Public Accounts Committee and the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, all of whom supported our bid to the Backbench Business Committee. I am delighted that so many Members wish to speak.

I draw Members’ attention to the reports of the Public Accounts Committee and the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee that are listed on the Order Paper. It was a real eye-opener to work on the Public Accounts Committee as a lead member on that inquiry, alongside the hon. Member for Chichester and the Committee’s Chair, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier). I will focus my remarks today on that report, which is well worth a read.

The Public Accounts Committee heard and read evidence from a wide range of witnesses. I would especially like to thank St Mungo’s for hosting us and showing us its exemplary work, which led in large part to the questioning we went on to do. The report, which received widespread media coverage, made a number of recommendations on how the Government could more effectively co-ordinate and prioritise spending on tackling rough sleeping and helping all homeless households. These issues are of huge concern across the House and across the country, but they are of equal concern to very many members of our communities, especially on such a freezing day, in a week that is unusually cold.

In my constituency of Oxford West and Abingdon, residents regularly raise concerns about rough sleeping and provision for homeless people—it is the No. 1 issue at the moment. I pay tribute to the incredible work being done in my constituency, especially by Homeless Oxfordshire, formerly known as Oxford Homeless Pathways. It has told me that in Oxford alone it is reaching out to, on average, two new people a day who are seeking its help.

Recent news reports have highlighted a heavy-handed approach by Oxford City Council, with notices issued threatening homeless people with fines of up to £2,500 if they did not move their belongings. The treatment of homeless people in our city has sparked outrage from the public. There is now real determination, and not just in Oxfordshire but across the country, to ensure that we treat those who are sleeping rough with the dignity and respect they deserve.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech. Does she agree that we should also be concerned about some of the campaigns that have arisen aimed at the “fake homeless,” including one campaign in Devon that has led the police and Torbay Council to intervene because of the risk of vigilantism? Does she agree that, in the face of rising rough sleeping and homelessness, we should be taking a generous approach to those who are most vulnerable, not seeking to label them as fakes?

[Layla Moran]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I completely agree that a compassionate approach is absolutely what is needed.

Following a campaign by Oxford University students, I was pleased to be able to introduce a private Member’s Bill earlier this month aimed at repealing the archaic Vagrancy Act 1824, a Dickensian law that is no longer fit for purpose.

Oxford is not alone in seeing an increase in the problem of homelessness. Anyone who has visited a town or city centre recently will know that rough sleeping is now at crisis levels. Indeed, the Public Accounts Committee concluded that homelessness is a national crisis, with the number of rough sleepers rising year on year since 2010, doubling to over 4,100 in 2016. Crisis estimates that the figure is now as high as 9,000, and possibly more. Last summer in England there were over 78,000 households in temporary accommodation—this is not just about rough sleeping—which is up by 65% since 2010. Then there are the hidden homeless: the sofa surfers or people staying temporarily with friends and family who escape national statistics on rough sleepers.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Is my hon. Friend as concerned as I am that youth homelessness is one of the largest factors contributing to those figures, due to the benefit cut for 18 to 21-year-olds? Is it not time we reintroduced those benefits?

[Layla Moran]

Yes, I agree. In fact, joined-up thinking between Departments is a theme that I will return to later in my speech.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech. Does she agree that it is important to tackle homelessness before it happens? The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which will come into operation in April—I was proud to sit on the Committee that scrutinised it—will deal with this by alerting services of the risk 56 days before people become homeless, and indeed the Government are providing £73 million to help local authorities tackle this.

[Layla Moran]

I am indeed getting to that point, at which I will be very generous in my comments.

I am sure that hon. Members are aware of the scale of the problem. How can we not be, when we heard the story of the gentleman who died right on our doorstep in the underpass of Westminster tube station just a few weeks ago? It is clear that the House needs to take this issue much more seriously, and I am sure that many of our constituents would agree.

It is worth repeating some of the key statistics from the Public Accounts Committee’s report. There has been a 134% increase in rough sleeping since 2011. The average life expectancy of a rough sleeper is only 47. People on the street are 17 times more likely to be the victims of violence than those in settled accommodation. Children in long-term temporary accommodation miss far more days of school, at an average of 55 days a year. The country is seeing record problems including record numbers of rough sleepers, and huge increases in the number of families living in temporary accommodation and in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, sometimes for two and a half years at a time. It has never been more important for this House to ensure that the Government are spending enough—and, critically, that they are spending wisely—to address this problem of national significance.

Having looked at the supplementary estimates—dare I say that I have not read them line by line?—it seems that the Ministry proposes an overall reduction of £470 million in its resource budget. I would be grateful if the Minister told us what impact this is likely to have on homelessness. But this is not just about overall spending; it is also about how effectively the money is spent. The Public Accounts Committee has expressed concern over how effectively taxpayers’ money is being used. There have been some welcome developments, including the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. Southwark Council, one of the local authorities that serves my constituency, is a trailblazer for the Homelessness Reduction Act and has been much praised by the Minster’s predecessor for its implementation work on the Act and its good prevention work. Within a matter of months, Southwark Council will have to issue redundancy notices to the staff that it has recruited to implement the Homelessness Reduction Act, unless the Government can confirm their ongoing commitment to fund the implementation of the Act. Does the hon. Lady agree that the Homeless Reduction Act, which I and many other Members supported, will be a wasted opportunity to address homelessness unless the Government make that commitment?

[Layla Moran]

I absolutely agree. Indeed, I will make that point myself later. We need to ensure that the resources are available to make this work.

Local authorities spent £1.1 billion preventing and tackling homelessness in 2015-16, but the Public Accounts Committee found that there were problems: a lack of guidelines on how they should spend the funding they receive and what outcomes they are aiming for. The increase in spending to address homelessness coupled with ongoing cuts to local authority budgets means that councils are struggling to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place. Instead, their funding is being spent on tackling homelessness after it has already occurred.

According to the National Audit Office report that underpinned our inquiry, spending on temporary accommodation, which is often poor, has risen from £622 million to £845 million. Meanwhile, countries such as Finland that have prioritised prevention are saving an average of £13,000 a year per homeless person. The key feature is that such countries give homeless people a stable place to stay, where they can rebuild their lives.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady therefore welcome the £28 million investment in the Housing First initiative, which is very much along the lines of the Scandinavian model to which she refers?

[Layla Moran]

I will, of course. Any money in this area is a good thing, but I do have a concern about the supplementary estimate for 2017-18 that I want to raise with the Minister.

The estimate proposes a reduction in current spending on preventing homelessness, from £265.8 million to £263.6 million. It also proposes to remove £25 million of capital funding previously allocated for reducing homelessness that will now not be spent in 2017-18. Given that the NAO and the Public Accounts Committee were both clear that there needs to be a focus on preventing homelessness in the first place, these figures are a cause for concern.

I very much welcome the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, as did the whole Committee. Our concern, however, was that far too much sway was put on the Minister for that Act alone to be the panacea. It is not going to work without extra funding available to councils in order to implement it and without funding for truly affordable rents, particularly social rents.

Let me highlight the case of one of my constituents, who lives in a rented house in Abingdon with her two children, one of whom has autism. She recently contacted me because, despite working full time, she cannot afford her rent and is terrified of eviction. She has looked high and low, but cannot find anywhere to live in Abingdon. This story exemplifies the crux of the issue. The report showed that the main driver of the current rise in homeless is the spiralling rents in the private rented sector. As a nation, how did we get to the stage where a mother in full-time work cannot afford a roof over her head?

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Surely building more houses can help to reduce homelessness. Does the hon. Lady welcome the £9 billion that the Government have put towards building more affordable and social housing?

[Layla Moran]

I do welcome it, although I worry. As the hon. Gentleman will know, given that his constituency is in Oxfordshire, even something “affordable” in Oxfordshire is not really that affordable when people want to buy. The prices are 80% of market value, but in a grossly inflated market. The key issue is that very little social rented accommodation is being built in our county and across the nation.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Layla Moran]

I have to make some progress. I am sorry, but I am mindful of what Madam Deputy Speaker said.

The estimates show a £259 million reduction in Homes and Communities Agency funding for starter homes and a £72 million reduction this year in affordable homes spending. This worries me. Meanwhile, the estimates show a significant increase in funding for Help to Buy. But those who are about to become homeless are very far from accessing Help to Buy: they have no spare cash, so how are they meant to raise the money for even a small deposit? The estimates also show that capital spend on other housing programmes will fall by £1.2 billion—a reduction of 40%—from £3 billion to £1.8 billion. Help to Buy is useful, but it is certainly not the fix-all solution. The Government have got the emphasis wrong.

Liberal Democrats would like to see a more ambitious programme of house building, but one that aims to be truly affordable—not 80% of market value—and that, critically, also includes rented housing. We have yet to hear from the Government how they are going to achieve that, in the latest Budget or elsewhere.

We also need to consider that people become homeless for a number of other reasons, the most common of which is the end of a private tenancy. Decreasing numbers of houses available for social rent means that local authorities are having to rely on private accommodation providers. This accommodation is often of a poor standard and does not offer value for money. There is a problem with landlords who do not want to accept people in receipt of housing allowance, and we suspect that universal credit will make this situation much worse.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is making an incredibly powerful speech, and a lot of personal commitment has clearly been put into addressing this issue. She mentioned universal credit among other policies. Given that this has contributed to the problem, is it one of the policies that she is most embarrassed about her party pursuing while in government with the Conservative party?

[Layla Moran]

I am afraid that that is not what this debate is about; I am going to move on.

The NAO has found that

“changes to Local Housing Allowance…are likely to have contributed to the affordability of tenancies for those on benefits, and are an element of the increase in homelessness.”

The key point about joined-up thinking predates any Government. If we are truly to tackle the issue of homelessness, a key recommendation of the Committee’s report is that not only should the money and the provisions of the Homelessness Reduction Act be available, but that we also press Governments to work together.

My last point is that a taskforce from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is meant to be leading this work, yet we were shocked to hear that the previous taskforce met only three times between 2015 and 2017. My understanding is that, as of last week, the new taskforce set up under the Homelessness Reduction Act has not even met once. It is critical that the Government take this matter seriously. Those who are homeless are in dire straits. They deserve not just our compassion and care, but, critically, they need us to find the money to put a roof over their heads. That is the best thing for them and, in the spirit of these estimates day debates, it is the most cost-effective thing to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran]

I thank every single Member who contributed to this excellent debate this afternoon. In particular, I thank the hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) for co-sponsoring it and the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who made some incredibly good points about the sorts of things that we need moving forward. I also mention my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey), who gave the geekiest speech of the day. Exactly the point of these estimates day debates is to follow the money. If I have learned anything on the Public Accounts Committee, it is that by following the money, we can get to the heart of the difference between words and action.

I thank the Minister for replying to many of the questions that were asked and for the clarifications that she provided. I found it disappointing, however, that there was still not a clear strategy on how we will build the new social homes that we need for the future. [Interruption.] The report was clear. I am also happy that she will come back to the House to update us in future. Let us keep talking about the money; in the end, in some ways it is the most important thing.

Question deferred (Standing Order No. 54).

Space Industry Bill [Lords]

Layla Moran Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 2—Potential impact of leaving the EU on the UK space industry (No.2)—

‘(1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, lay before Parliament a report setting out a summary of any discussions between the UK Government and the European Union on the future relationship between the UK space industry and the European Union, following the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union.

(2) The report under subsection (1) must make reference to, but is not limited to—

(a) options for future cooperation and partnership between the UK space industry and the European Union; and,

(b) any new arrangements with, or proposed access to, EU space programmes, following the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union.’

This new clause would ensure that Parliament is kept up to date with negotiations between the UK and European Union in regards to the UK space industry, in order to provide clarity to the UK space industry

[Layla Moran]

I rise to speak to new clause 1, which is in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends and would require the publication of an assessment of the impacts of leaving the EU on the space industry. I do not wish to take up too much of the House’s time rehashing the arguments about the impact of Brexit on the space industry, as many such arguments were made on Second Reading, in Committee and in the other place, but I briefly want to place on the record the industry’s continuing concerns, which should require the Government to publish an assessment of the sort set out in new clause 1. I will take each of the areas that I would like to see in such a report in turn, starting with research and development and Horizon 2020.

The Minister is a former Science Minister, so I do not need to explain to him the importance of certainty for scientists in the space industry. Sadly, however, we still do not have that certainty so many months later. The UK is a net beneficiary of EU space funding, contributing 12.5% of the total budget but winning contracts worth 14% of total spend. The British space industry needs a guarantee of continued access to research and development funding, expertise and facilities currently provided at EU level after the UK leaves the EU. Of course, the European Commission also provides space-related research funding through Horizon 2020, and the Government have said they will guarantee successful bids made by UK participants before exit. However, beyond that the sector has had only warm words, and it needs certainly beyond the next few years. The Government’s science and innovation discussion paper states that the UK would “welcome discussion” on remaining a participant in certain EU science and innovation programmes.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

If the guarantee is only for another two years, there will be a profound effect on research and development, particularly in universities. If there is no guarantee beyond that, there will be a great deal of uncertainty for both universities and the industry.

[Layla Moran]

The hon. Gentleman is right, and my constituency is affected by such uncertainty.

I repeat a point that I made during the passage of the Nuclear Safeguards Bill: we must remember that this is not just about funding. At a recent hearing of the Public Accounts Committee, of which I am a member, witnesses were clear that the most valuable asset we have as a nation is our ability to attract human capital. To put it bluntly, the funding follows the brains. There is real consternation across the entire science industry that European scientists are actively looking to move, if they have not already, to more welcoming countries. Their lives are more than just their jobs; this is about where they live, love and participate in the community, so the tone of this debate matters hugely. It is therefore critical that we maintain freedom of movement for the world-class scientists, specialists and technicians who contribute to the space industry, so that we keep those brains and the funding here.

Patrick Wood, CEO of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, an existing supplier to Galileo, has said that

“there are still a lot of unknowns”

about whether UK space companies will be able to access high-quality staff post-Brexit, noting that UK space infrastructure companies

“have a high percentage of staff that come from across Europe”

partly due to a lack of UK applicants. Aerospace companies are heavily reliant on the rapid movement of workers between different sites. A favourite fact of mine is that Airbus moved employees 80,000 times between the EU and the UK in 2016. It even has its own jet shuttle between Toulouse and Broughton. Any additional border checks between the UK and the EU could therefore prove a significant burden.

On Galileo, the European Commission is demanding the right to cancel existing contracts with UK companies that are constructing the £10 billion Galileo satellite navigation system unless the UK negotiates a new security relationship with the EU. If no long-term agreement can be found, UK companies may only be able to retain their contracts by setting up EU subsidiaries. With them will go the tax take, the brains and the supporting jobs.

Finally, I turn to the crucial effect of leaving the single market on supply chains within the UK space industry. Last year, I asked the Minister, in his former role, a series of parliamentary questions about the impact on the UK space sector supply chain of leaving the single market, but sadly there was not much in the answers to give heart to the industry. It has just not received the answers that it needs. Stuart Martin, CEO of the Satellite Applications Catapult said that

“Brexit represents a risk to the United Kingdom in sustaining its leadership position”

among sectors such as satellite manufacturing and navigation services. He also stated that the UK needs to sustain its leadership role within the European Space Agency and maintain access to the single market. Before anyone says, “But we will stay in the European Space Agency,” yes we will, but we must not forget that a quarter of its funding comes from the EU.

It is clear that the industry needs certainty on all those issues. We have had warm words, but not enough action. The Government’s shambolic handling of impact assessments and sectoral analyses, as well as this week’s uncertainty over future customs arrangements, is not inspiring confidence among the space industry. There are few specific commitments or guarantees in the Bill, so it is not unreasonable for the Government to publish an assessment of the sort that new clause 1 would require, and I hope that the Minister will consider doing so.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

I start by passing on the apologies of my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), who has been heavily involved in the Bill since the beginning. Unfortunately, she is extremely unwell this week and has uncharacteristically heeded her daughter’s advice by staying at home, but she is no doubt watching from her sickbed.

I rise to support new clauses 1 and 2, which attempt to ensure a proper assessment of the potential damage that an extreme Brexit could cause our space industry. During the passage of the Bill, we have had a glimpse of the opportunities ahead for the UK’s space industry, but this relates to the wider reaches of the EU. The EU funds space research through Horizon 2020, and we want to ensure that we remain a player beyond that point. Although the European Space Agency is separate from the EU, it does still receive significant funding from it, so we need to know whether the Government have made any assessment of the impact of Brexit on our space industries. Given the previous impact assessment fudge, the answer is probably, “Probably not, but if we have, we will not be publishing it anyway.” That is simply not good enough. The new clauses make it clear that the Government will make that assessment and will publish it. If they do not accept these amendments, the question must be: what do the Government have to hide?

The European Commission has made it clear where it wants to go on space, so do the Government intend to remain part of the strategy and programme it has outlined? If we are not an integral part of the European space programme, what will be the impact on our viability as a spaceport centre, compared with other spaceports located within the European family?

How will we retain access to EU research and development projects, which are so important to our space industry? As has been mentioned, how will changes to freedom of movement affect this industry, an industry that exchanges talent across frontiers on a regular basis? Not all that talent will be at a salary threshold that allows easy access to the UK. Will we retain full access to programmes such as Galileo and Copernicus? Will we be marginalised in EU procurement decisions?

Those are all important questions for the Government to consider now, and they should be included in any impact assessment.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Joseph Johnson)]

Like the hon. Members for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) and for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), the Government want the UK to make the most of the opportunities that lie ahead. We want the UK to be a go-to place for scientists, innovators and tech investors in the years ahead. We intend to secure the right outcomes for the UK research base, including our space community, as we exit the European Union.

As hon. Members will remember, the agreement that successfully concluded phase 1 of the exit negotiations in December 2017 made it clear that, as part of the financial settlement, the UK will remain part of Horizon 2020 until at least the end of this budget period in December 2020. As part of the new deep and special relationship with the EU, recognising our shared interest in maintaining and strengthening research collaboration, the UK will seek an agreement that promotes science and innovation, including on space, across Europe now and in the future. We would welcome a specific agreement to continue collaborating with our European partners on major science, space research and technology initiatives, and we will be approaching the upcoming negotiations on that basis.

New clause 1 would require the Government to undertake an assessment. As Members will remember, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union provided the relevant Select Committees with reports on many sectors, including the space sector, on 27 November 2017. The space sector report contained a description of the sector, the current EU regulatory regime, the existing frameworks for facilitating trade, including between countries, and the sector views on it. Ministers have a specific responsibility, which Parliament has previously endorsed, not to release information that would undermine our negotiating position, and I know Members present understand that position.

On new clause 2, the Government’s September partnership paper set out our intent with regard to discussing options for future co-operation and partnership with the EU through the EU space programme. The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union has given a clear undertaking to the House that he will keep the relevant Select Committees informed of progress in discussions with the EU Commission on EU exit matters. That commitment to openness needs to be balanced with the overriding national interest in preserving our negotiating position.

I recognise the interest of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) in how our future relationship with the EU will help support the continued strong growth in the space sector—it is an interest the Government share—but I hope he will appreciate that we cannot enter into commitments to inform Parliament about the EU exit negotiations on a sector-by-sector basis, through various bits of legislation. In the light of that, I ask the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon to withdraw new clause 1.

[Layla Moran]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New clause 3

Publication of regulations

‘(1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, lay a report before Parliament setting out details of the regulations issued under this Act.

(2) The report in subsection (1) must include, but is not limited to, regulations that have effect for licences for—

(a) spaceports;

(b) launch operators;

(c) satellite operators; and

(d) range control operators.

(3) Before exercising their duties under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must consult the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive and have regard to their views in respect of any proposed regulations.

(4) As well as consulting those in subsection (3) the Secretary of State must consult with—

(a) UKspace, and

(b) any other such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.” .—(Carol Monaghan.)

This new clause would require the Secretary of State to publish clear guidelines on the regulations issued under this Act.

Brought up, and read the First time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr John Hayes]

I intend to speak briefly on this issue, having heard what the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) said and having looked at these matters in my previous life, as it were. Liability is salient to this Bill. The Government have acknowledged that in what they have said and in the changes they have already made as a result of our consideration in Committee.

I pay tribute to the new Minister for the work he has done on this. It is right to say that he is continuing discussions with the industry. As the hon. Lady said, there is a fragility about the industry. That is not to say that it is not successful, growing or doing wonderful things, but when one innovates or is on the margins of innovation, as this industry is bound to be, given that it is pushing the frontiers ever further, of course one is in a risky business. To gain the necessary investment to make that innovation happen and to take on board those risks, one needs to create a framework of certainty, and the certainty is to some degree about liability.

If I may say so, though, there is a simpler way to deal with the hon. Lady’s points. As I said, I shall be brief. I notice that the Government have already made changes to clause 35(3), where the word “may” has been changed to “must”. They could make similar changes to clause 34(5). Were the Government obliged to make regulations to deal with liability, I think that would go a long way towards satisfying the hon. Lady. I have sufficient trust in the Minister and his Department to know that even with the word “may” in the provision, it is likely that, following the discussions that he and others are having with the industry, further regulations will be introduced for the very reasons the hon. Lady set out in a measured and moderate way.

It is vital that we create the investor confidence that will allow the industry to grow and, as I have said, push forward the frontiers of technology in what is necessarily a risky business. This can be a great success and the Bill takes us a long way towards enabling that success. To get the issue of liability right will be the icing on the cake, but as everyone who has ever dressed or consumed a cake knows, the icing is vital—it is what draws us in, encourages and seduces us to consume the cake. With that overture, I hope that the Minister can provide the reassurance that the industry and I seek and that on that basis the hon. Lady might see fit to withdraw her new clause, although that is a matter not for me but very much for her.

[Layla Moran]

I rise to speak briefly to amendments 1, 2 and 3.

Amendment 1 deals with the catch-all powers in the Bill and, at your discretion, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall seek to press it to a vote. In the House of Lords, the Government agreed to remove the Henry VIII power from the Bill in response to concerns expressed by my Liberal Democrat colleagues in the other place and by Lord Judge, the former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. However, there is still a need to go further to tackle the Government’s power grab.

Several stakeholders have expressed concerns about the Bill’s skeletal nature. In particular, the House of Lords Constitution Committee said that some of the powers in the Bill were “very broad” and that the Bill would be

“challenging for Parliament to scrutinise meaningfully”

because so many of its powers were delegated to Ministers. That Committee also expressed concerns about a power in clause 68 that allows Ministers to make regulations but which might prevent people from being able to take the Government to court for judicial review because the Government could easily argue that their powers were within the Bill’s scope. The power permits the Government to make almost any law relating to

“space activities…sub-orbital activities, and…associated activities …carried out in the United Kingdom.”

That covers pretty much anything to do with the industry.

In response to the raising of such concerns in the other place, the Government suggested that there was no need for concern and, according to Baroness Sugg, that the powers were needed to

“deal with any unexpected circumstances.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 28 November 2017; Vol. 787, c. 613.]

I am afraid that that is not good enough. Liberal Democrats remain concerned that the scope of clause 68 is far too wide. We believe that, if the Government are not willing to remove the power or to limit its scope, it is only right and proper to increase parliamentary scrutiny of legislation passed under the power, which is why I shall seek to divide the House on amendment 1, which would require any new secondary legislation passed using clause 68 to be subject to the affirmative procedure.

[Mr John Hayes]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point, but she must know that a Bill of this type essentially establishes what I called earlier a framework of certainty. This is a highly innovative industry and technology changes very rapidly. To be prescriptive about what the future might look like would be a woeful error. There has to be a degree of flexibility in the Bill, which she risks limiting by being prescriptive at this stage.

[Layla Moran]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I disagree that the amendment would prevent innovation. I think it would be absolutely fine. The affirmative procedure is employed in 13 other parts of the Bill. Parliamentary scrutiny should not just be waved away, as it has been in other Bills. All we are asking for is the affirmative procedure, which would allow Parliament to scrutinise regulations that little bit more.