Conversion Practices (Prohibition) Bill

Robin Millar Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 1st March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

Let me begin by telling a little story that may surprise some Members who have made assumptions and judgments about my position on policies of this type.

When my party leader, Alex Salmond, introduced equal marriage to Scotland, it was done in a collaborative and supportive way, involving proper engagement with all members of the community. All the Churches were involved, through an assembly process. It was a smooth and positive campaign that delivered real, meaningful change. I have not availed myself of it, because I am happy to stick with the old-style civil partnership—my partner and I are very comfortable with that—but for those who want a marriage ceremony, it is brilliant.

After the introduction of equal marriage at the beginning of 2015, the Equality Network, which had led the campaign for it, organised a consultation on what the priority should be for equalities campaigning in Scotland. So I trundled off to Edinburgh on a cold dark March evening to sit in a room with a large group of people—transexual people, transgender people and gay people. I was the only politician who had turned up on that cold evening, and I was full-throated in my support for advancing disability and inclusion rights and the rights of transgender people. What I had never signed up for, however, was the insinuation of queer theory into the rights movement and the equality movement, and the pernicious effect that it would have. I had not realised how dangerous and disruptive that movement was until I spoke up, very politely, and said a simple thing: “Women are not being listened to in the trans debate.”

The response that stemmed from that simple statement of absolute fact has been horrific. People describe me as gender critical, but I am not transphobic—absolutely not. I have led my local Pride march for two years, I have introduced safe spaces for trans people, and I have relationships and friendships with people who are transgender and transexual. However, when I look at a policy through the lens of someone who has been involved in safeguarding and child protection throughout his professional life and I see a risk in that policy, it is my duty to point that out to legislators and to say, “This is dangerous.”

The reason I have brought that up and the reason it is relevant to the debate—I am coming to that; I can see that the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) is getting anxious—is that this policy does not sit in isolation from queer theory. It is part of the queer theory movement, and despite all the reassurances and despite the hon. Gentleman’s best efforts—and I believe that his speech and his engagement have been entirely sincere—he cannot divorce what he is attempting to do with this legislation from the activists who will have a very different reading of the words that he has spoken today, and the reassurances that he has given us. That is my great fear and concern.

I have risen to oppose the Bill not despite but because of the fact that I am a gay male who can see the dangers that it presents to gender non-conforming young people. I came out in the 1980s, when being gay was not fashionable and people could still be sacked for it, with no recourse or redress in employment law. In those days, my greatest allies were women: Women in the Workplace, the feminists who volunteered alongside me at Scottish AIDS Monitor, the women who worked alongside me in schools delivering drug and sexual health education to young people in response to the particular AIDS problem that we had in Edinburgh, and the women who walked alongside me on Pride marches. I remember that, and I value it.

It is so sad that the cause of improving the lives of transgender and transsexual people in the UK has been blighted by a campaign that can be described as, at best, divisive and aggressive. My family and I have been subjected to the full force of that campaign, which is the problem with this Bill. I believe the intentions of the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown are genuine, but it is against a backdrop of queer theory activists and heterosexual people telling me how I should define myself and what I should accept as a gay man. That is unacceptable. It is homophobia, and I do not care what anyone says.

Balancing rights and protections requires the consideration of every affected community, and every affected category within each community. Despite what is often said, neither queer theory nor gender ideology is about inclusion or diversity. It is an anarchic, authoritarian movement, the purpose of which is to disrupt and silence. Speaking up has not been easy, and the impact on my family has been enormous.

As a voter, I want to vote for a politician who I believe is telling me the truth. I do not want to vote for a politician who lies to me, who says that black is white or that Y is X. That will never be acceptable, which is why I feel a responsibility to live up to that standard. I have made this point before, but conversion therapy bans are part of a slate of policies which, in my view, are intended to insinuate queer theory into every facet of our culture and to control and limit freedom of thought, freedom of speech and freedom of expression. The clearest example is that I am somehow not same-sex attracted but same-gender attracted, and that I should therefore accept trans-identifying females as an acceptable partner. Thankfully, that is never going to happen because my partner and I have been together for 30 years and there is no way that will change—I do not have the energy to think about it.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

I try to listen carefully to these debates, and each time I learn much that is new. The hon. Gentleman brings a perspective to this debate that is completely outside my own experience, for which I thank him. He makes an important point about inclusivity, and I want to understand the implications. Is he saying that this Bill is effectively promoting an exclusivity, and that it is not inclusive? By describing the slate of queer theory policy, is he saying that this Bill would be unintentionally harmful well beyond its actual scope?

[Neale Hanvey]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and I will address some of those complex issues.

If we look at the Bill through a utilitarian lens, there is a desire to protect the few, which is a laudable and noble aim, but it would limit the freedoms of so many and would potentially inflict serious criminal harm upon them because of a lack of foresight of the consequences of some of the proposals.

As a counterpoint, and this speaks to events that have happened today, can Members imagine a circumstance in which it would be remotely acceptable for me to lecture my partner about how he should feel when somebody expresses a racist view towards him, how he should manage it and how he should respond to it? I would never presume to do that as that is absolutely not my place. By the same token, it is not anyone’s place to lecture women or LGB people, or force-team them with others and say, “You must campaign with them. You must accept their demands.” That is what queer theory is doing to our society

--- Later in debate ---

[Neale Hanvey]

Yes, that is an important point and refers back to the points made in the previous intervention. I have a very busy constituency office and I meet church leaders and different faith groups to talk about these issues. They are relieved that they have a Member of Parliament who is prepared to stand up on their behalf and ask the difficult questions. I have parents with children who are contemplating transition or who are desisting, so I deal with that.

I also have members of staff in the local health service who are finding themselves in a very difficult situation because queer theory has insinuated itself into the culture of all our institutions. The staff have no sense of privacy or dignity, and they are concerned about the privacy and dignity of their patients. That is why it is so important to name queer theory as the backdrop against which this legislation is being proposed, and my concern is that it would be the thin end of the wedge. The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown said that the Bill would be reviewed in four years’ time. Yes, we can have amendments and new clauses added to the legislation, but that goes both ways. The next time it is reviewed, all caveats could be removed. The full-throated queer theory doctrine could be forced into every part of our society, which is a risk that I am not prepared to leave unchallenged.

As I said, the Bill leaves young people at the mercy of radicalised activists online, and such activity is to be tolerated. There is no amendment to the Online Safety Act 2023 to prevent access to people who encourage and entice young people to sign up to irreversible medical and surgical treatments from which they can never row back. When someone stops puberty, they cannot restart it—that is it—and all the important developmental changes that happen during puberty are gone. Transitioning is not just about affirmation; it involves coercion, persuasion and unrealistic enticements, which lead young people who are living through desperately difficult times to believe that there is a quick fix for their problem.

The ideology underpinning all this is the real threat, and makes this legislation much more illiberal and much more difficult for young gender non-conforming people than section 28 could ever have been. That is the effect of this legislation: it would block therapeutic support for gender non-conforming young people and channel them, through unquestioning affirmation, into a lifetime of medical treatment and surgical limbo. We know that gender non-conforming behaviour is being used as evidence of gender dysphoria by non-experts in the classroom and in other professions. A significant finding of the Cass review was about the culture that existed at the GIDS clinic, and I ask all Members to reflect on the words of the brave detransitioners who were discarded by the “be kind” brigade of radicalised activists when they decided to desist. Kiera said:

“I became attracted to girls, but I had never had a positive association with the term ‘lesbian’ or the idea that two girls could be in a relationship. I wondered if something was wrong with me. I was adamant that I needed to transition. It was the kind of brash assertion that’s typical of teenagers. After a series of superficial conversations with social workers, I was put on puberty blockers at age 16. A year later, I was receiving testosterone shots. When 20, I had a double mastectomy. As I matured, I recognised that gender dysphoria was a symptom of my overall misery, not its cause.”

Ritchie said:

“Homophobia was rife in the local culture, my family and school and it seemed to be the worst outcome ever to end up gay. My behaviours were policed by others for being too flamboyant or eccentric, and I struggled with fitting in with others. I latched onto the idea with an unfounded zeal, and not a single medical professional stopped me thereafter. I delayed my appointment for surgery for over two years, because I had doubts. But then they gave me an ultimatum and I knew that if was not going to go through with the surgery I would have lost my therapist. As soon as I was conscious, I knew I had made the biggest mistake of my life. My sex has been lobotomised.”

That is manifestly not informed consent. It is coercive and abusive, and it breaks all ethical principles of respect for personal autonomy. We need positive LGB and T messages, not false promises that personal struggles can be fixed by mutilating surgery and experimental drugs.

But it is not just lesbian and gay young people at risk. Sinead said:

“Transitioning evangelists on the forums tell young people like me that all will be well. After cutting my long hair short and wearing men’s clothes for a year, I was put on a 12-month waiting list for treatment at a gender clinic in Glasgow. I could not believe how easy it was. What I needed was counselling to uncover why I had come to loathe my body. Instead the professionals appeared to take what I said at face value. When I said I was in the wrong sex and wanted to be a man, they agreed and prescribed me with testosterone. No one ever told me the truth: ‘You’re not a man. It’s impossible to de-sex yourself.’”

The effects on those young people have been devastating, because they were denied the help they needed.

I pay tribute to Sex Matters and the team at LGB Alliance for their invaluable work standing up for the rights of young LGB people. I want to challenge a comment that was made earlier. Being lesbian, gay or bisexual is a sexuality. That is manifestly different from being transsexual. I am not indifferent; in fact, I feel passionate about trans people being looked after properly. But to say that, in order for my identity to matter, I have to be teamed with the trans community is completely unacceptable; it is homophobic. Those organisations that I mentioned have protected young people from a tsunami of lies. I cannot put into words how strongly I feel about this. I thank Keira Bell, Ritchie Herron, Sinead Watson and every other detrans person who has had the courage to stand up and speak out. I am absolutely humbled by the experience that they have gone through and their courage to put that into words. As Keira put it:

“it was the job of the professionals to consider all my co-morbidities, not just to affirm my naïve hope that everything could be solved with hormones and surgery.”

I acknowledge that this Bill seeks to provide access to therapy and, as we mentioned a moment ago, to address affirmation conversion practices. However, I ask the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown, where are the therapists? Where will they come from? Child and adolescent mental health services are already under enormous pressure. If through threat, fear or a chilling effect the trusted adults who can engage with gender-questioning young people or those who think they might be gay will be limited in who they can interface with, who will pick that up? Those young people will be left isolated, unable to speak to anyone about their sexuality. The chilling effect that this Bill risks is enormous. Where will the therapists come from?

The reality is that young people will be redirected to the quacks on social media. They will not be able to speak to a trusted adult. That risk has to be understood. The reality is that this Bill puts those it seeks to protect in harm’s way and restricts the support that they can draw on. This is the wrong legislation for young gay, lesbian and transgender people. It attempts to solve a problem that does not exist, and fosters a new, chilling homophobic culture—just like section 28.

I agree with the proposal from Sex Matters that any legislation should meet the following four policy aims: outlaw all medical or surgical treatment of minors to modify their sexual characteristics; outlaw medical surgical treatments performed on anyone who has not had the full implications of the treatment explained to them; make it a specific offence not to provide adequate information and ensure informed consent; and make it an offence to take a child abroad to get around the prohibition of modern conversion therapy. Sex Matters helpfully suggests that the legislation could use the model that was used for legislation on female genital mutilation and virginity testing.

The not-for-profit organisation the Gay Men’s Network was established to tackle modern homophobia, and I engage with it regularly. It agrees that the Bill is the extant modern conversion therapy scandal affecting gender non-conforming young people and others struggling with normal yet distressing pubertal body dysmorphia. Furthermore, the Bill risks embedding in statute the lie that gender non-conforming behaviour is evidence that some of those young people were born in the wrong body; that the normal development of puberty, which can never be restarted or repaired, should be arrested with chemicals; and that trauma or emotional distress can be fixed with cross-sex hormones or affirming the person on to an accelerated and irreversible pathway, which amounts to a policy of transing away the gay. That is wrong, and that practice must be the urgent focus. The evidence is there; it is widespread. We know of the huge explosion of referrals into GIDS, which is closing, but the service does not provide any follow-up. For lack of a better phrase, how can it do that to someone? How can it give surgical treatment and fail to follow it up? I cannot imagine that happening in any other field of medicine. It is completely unacceptable.

The Gay Men’s Network is concerned that an affirmation-only approach could easily be inserted as an amendment or a new clause if the Bill goes to Committee. Going to Committee does not mean that the Bill will be repaired; it could get worse, and we must be mindful of that.

[Robin Millar]

It is very generous of the hon. Gentleman to give way a second time. I am again struck by his perspective on the process of conversion, and specifically on the length of time. He is describing a situation whereby people are on a journey, making decisions and wrestling with something existential—their identity—and I wonder whether the Bill adequately addresses that. It seems to me that it addresses a one-off moment—an incident or an action, reprehensible though it may be —but does not deal with a lifetime of wrestling with one’s sexuality or sex.

[Neale Hanvey]

I thank the hon. Member for that observation. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) said that a young person has to wait 10 years, for example, for gender reassignment surgery, but during that time they will start on puberty blockers and other such medicines, and possibly cross-sex hormones, and the damage is done. Whether they have surgery or not is pretty academic at that stage, because irreversible treatment will have been administered.

The other point I would make in response to the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) is that there was an option not to introduce this Bill and move the issue forward. The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown could withdraw the Bill and we could establish a process of community engagement, through community assemblies, citizens’ assemblies or something of that nature. We could thereby have the debate we should have had five or six years ago, where everybody’s voice is valued, everybody gets to have a say, the Churches are involved right at the beginning and an accommodation is found that makes this kind of practice absolutely unacceptable—there is a clear output that this will never happen, but it does not have the strand of queer theory running all the way through it. That is the real problem.

Let me move on to the document on the Bill published recently by the Gay Men’s Network, because the hon. Gentleman addressed this in some detail and it is important to respond on some of the legal points. The GMN has among its number some legal experts, including a criminal barrister and an award-winning legal academic. It makes comments about the legislation under a few headings, the first of which is

“The wide net of criminal liability in the bill”.

The document states:

“The bill provides via clause 1, 4 and the Sentencing Act 2020 that:

a. a single act

b. the purpose and intent of which

c. is to change or suppress

d. sexual orientation or transgender identity

e. be a criminal offence if not excused by a defence in clause 1(2)

We draw attention to the terms ‘suppress’, ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘transgender identity’.

‘Suppress’ in comparative Scottish proposed legislation is defined widely, it includes, for example, a concerned parent forbidding an autistic daughter from wearing a breast binder because regulation of clothing is specifically cited as an act of suppression.

This bill proposes that the terms ‘Sexual Orientation’ and ‘transgender identity’ mean the same as in the Sentencing Act…this is problematic because that act defined neither term. It is important to note that the meaning of ‘sex’ (and therefore sexual orientation) is not settled in law and a Supreme Court Case on the subject is pending.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Robin Millar]

Specifically on the point about the way the debate has been conducted, and what I have valued in it, the Minister said that it has achieved in bringing to the surface the issues, complexities and concerns that are preventing—or at least delaying—the Government from introducing a Bill in this House.

[Miriam Cates]

I completely agree. Despite the wide range of views expressed in the debate, we still have not established what it is that is not yet illegal but should be made illegal. That is why I do not believe this Bill should progress through Parliament. In fact, I do not actually think we can legislate safely in this area at all.

I do not want to rehash other hon. Members’ comments, but I have two particular concerns about the Bill and its drafting. First, we have already referred to the fact that a DPP would have to give permission for a prosecution to be brought. On the face of it, that sounds like a sensible safeguard, and certainly it is a good thing that private prosecutions cannot be brought, but from looking on the CPS website, it is clear that the permission of the DPP just means the permission of any Crown prosecutor, and all it would take is for one Crown prosecutor who particularly wants to secure a conviction on these terms to bring that case. Case law would then be made, and then the chilling effect that so many Members have referred to would indeed be achieved for parents, teachers and therapists.

The other safeguard that is very much lacking in the Bill as drafted concerns the ability for a Secretary of State to amend the Bill through a statutory instrument—in other words, a Henry VIII power. A number of Members who have spoken today in support of the Bill support it only because of the particular exemptions for therapists, parents and religious leaders, and those exemptions could be stripped out by a Secretary of State through statutory instrument. That ability to amend the Bill in future beyond all recognition and all agreement of the House in itself makes the Bill unsafe.

My particular concerns are for parents who sadly absolutely could be criminalised under this Bill. I agree that the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown has tried hard to create these carve-outs for parents, but if a parent in exercising their parental responsibility is found by a court to have committed an action that counts as conversion therapy, how would that court then find that that parent has been acting in the best interests of the welfare of the child? That seems highly unlikely to me and very likely to lead to parents being prosecuted, or at least to feeling that they cannot speak freely to their children, as they would wish to keep them safe and prevent them from making irreversible decisions.

I am also concerned about therapists. Again, I can see that the hon. Member has made significant attempts to create a carve-out for therapists delivering exploratory therapy and talking therapies, but unfortunately the carve-out includes that a therapist must be acting within the regulations of whichever body they are affiliated to. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these regulatory bodies, including the NHS, have signed up to a memorandum of understanding that essentially means that anything else but affirming a person’s gender identity is against those regulations. Again, this exemption, though well meant, unfortunately does not count for anything.

An example of a problem that could be caused came from a lesbian lady I met last year. She told me that she had experienced gender dysphoria since her teenage years. She had sought out a private therapist to help her to come to terms with her own female body and to live happily and successfully as a lesbian woman with a partner. She chose that therapist because they had a predetermined purpose of helping her not to move to a transgender identity. Unfortunately, that therapist, who I think many of us would agree should absolutely be allowed to practise on those terms, would be criminalised under this legislation because of their predetermined purpose to suppress a transgender identity. If such a purpose were made illegal, the lady I spoke to would no longer have access to that kind of therapy. Nobody in this place could really argue that that therapy is harmful. It is fully consensual, and we should not be criminalising those conversations.

[Robin Millar]

My hon. Friend is being generous, and I commend her on the points she is making, because these are legitimate questions we ask of the Bill. Perhaps she can answer this. It seems to me that in clause 1(1), in the absence of specificity about behaviours and in the reliance on the interpretation in clause 4 of those words “purpose and intent”, in effect we have legislation that is creating a form of thought crime.

[Miriam Cates]

I absolutely agree. Although Members have spoken about abuse and persistent patterns of behaviour—all of which are certainly serious—the reality is that in the drafting of the Bill, a single act could be brought as a criminal offence. There are not sufficient safeguards in the Bill to prevent that from happening.

For example, let us say that I was a primary school teacher and a girl came to me and said that she felt she was actually a boy and that she had been born in the wrong body. If I said to her on one occasion, “No, actually you are a girl. It is great being a girl”—perhaps she is gender non-conforming in some way, and she thinks that means she is not really female—I probably would not be caught by this Bill. But if I said that to her repeatedly—in other words, if I told her the truth and guided her, as adults should guide children—I very much would be caught by this Bill, especially if I were a gender-critical feminist who had put things on social media that prove that I did not believe in gender identity ideology, for example. Those are exactly the kinds of behaviours that we absolutely cannot criminalise in a democratic and free society.

Parents and children are my principal concern here. In the past two years, my inbox has been full of tragic stories of children, often girls, often same-sex attracted, often autistic, who have been groomed online and often by activist groups, sometimes in schools, into believing that they are actually boys. Sadly, some of these children have gone on to be prescribed puberty blockers, and cross-sex hormones. Some are actively pursuing radical surgery that will leave them infertile, unable to breastfeed, and with medical problems for the rest of their life. It is already difficult enough for parents, teachers and employees to speak out against this ideology. The hon. Member for somewhere in Scotland—

Post Office Horizon Scandal

Robin Millar Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Prime Minister for his announcement and I welcome this response from the Minister. I know that a lot of work has gone into this issue, but the energy and attention he brings is well received across the House. This is the right thing to do.

Notwithstanding the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), it occurs to me that important information has emerged in evidence during the process of prosecutions so far. The Minister, if I understood his response correctly, referred to “malevolence” in behaviour. Will he ensure that whatever process unfolds will contain a mechanism by which information that would be useful for consideration in further action will be gathered and collated, given that people will not necessarily have the mechanism of a court case and a legal testing of their situation?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I am keen to engage with my hon. Friend to make sure that we get what he needs. Malevolence is the right word in this respect and it is important that we learn the lessons from that, in terms of both private prosecutions and the wider inquiry. We are very keen to do that, but of course I am happy to engage with him to make sure that we address any lessons he thinks we need to learn. This is not just a lessons-learned exercise; we want to hold people to account, but there are also lessons we can learn. It is important that we learn them, and I am happy to talk to him about what he thinks we should do, in addition to what we have set out already.

Horizon: Compensation and Convictions

Robin Millar Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

There are three compensation schemes for good reason—it is not ideal to have three different schemes, but we are where we find ourselves. We have the Horizon shortfall scheme, the group litigation order scheme and the overturned conviction scheme, and it sounds as though the hon. Gentleman’s constituent would fit into the Horizon shortfall scheme and should be able to apply to that. I am happy to make sure that he is aware of the route that his constituent can take. In assessing financial loss, consequential losses are a part of that assessment, and it sounds as though there is a case for consequential loss in that particular case. It can certainly be something that financial compensation takes into account. With regard to the families of deceased individuals, they can still claim to the same compensation schemes and should be compensated in exactly the same manner and to exactly the same degree.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

The building on Queens Road in Craig-y-Don in my constituency, where Alan Bates served the community as sub-postmaster, is now a charity shop. It is one small reminder of the damage that has been done to lives and livelihoods across the country. I welcome the Minister’s statement and his tone. I welcome the progress that the Government are making, but I also know that he has seen the interim report from the inquiry. He has heard the mood of the House this evening, which is that a great scandal requires a great response. Does he agree with me that, in addition to prompt payment of fair compensation, now is the time to consider legislation for the overturning of unsafe convictions, to consider the powers of the Post Office and to consider Fujitsu’s status as a framework provider for Government contracts? Does he agree that we need to see justice where actual wrongdoing has occurred, and soon?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work that he has done on this, and I share his ambition on delivering. This has been a great scandal and we need a significant response to it. Our discussions today with the Lord Chancellor were very much along the lines of attempting to do something unprecedented in this space, and we are working on that right now. I hope to give my hon. Friend something more definite in that regard in the coming days.

With regard to Fujitsu and individuals, we think it is right for the inquiry to be given time to ascertain who did what, who did not do what, and who is responsible for the scandal. When the inquiry reports in due course—it should be concluded by the end of this year, with a report hopefully soon after—we should be able to make decisions on those areas at that point. Certainly, our prosecution authorities should be able to make decisions with clearer sight of the information and the evidence that has been ascertained.

Draft Equality Act 2010 (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Robin Millar Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 General Committees

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

I thank you, Mr Hollobone, for the chance to speak in this debate, even though I too do not have a vote. Can I extend my thanks and gratitude to hon. and right hon. Members present? I know that these Delegated Legislation Committees are sometimes a bit of a chore, and as the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East has said, this maybe is not the best vehicle for examining some of the detailed legal considerations. Certainly it has been a challenge to me as I have looked at it. However, I do have some concerns about regulation 3 of the regulations before us.

I echo the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge that the existing provisions will be, in her words, on steroids as a result of this. We all recognise the importance of the Equality Act 2010, and the provisions and protected characteristics within it. Likewise, we recognise the importance of provisions for addressing direct discrimination and indirect discrimination, but this seems to extend that further to be an associated indirect discrimination. I hence have this concern about a kind of gold-plating of the regulation that we have, which I would suggest works pretty well at the moment.

I have two particular concerns: one is to the direct effect and the other is to desirability. I will take direct effect first. The Minister proposes to make these regulations under section 12 of the Retained EU Law (Reform and Revocation) Act. Now, that section gives a “relevant national authority”, in this case the Minister, power through regulations to reproduce the effect of any retained EU law that has direct effect. That is, EU law that, under section 2 of the European Communities Act 1972, has legal effect without further enactment. As the explanatory notes and the REUL dashboard make clear, regulation 3 reproduces the effect of the case that we referred to as CHEZ previously, which has been described by my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge. That decision expands the scope of indirect discrimination under the Equality Act, so as to confer a right of action on claimants who suffer alongside victims of indirect discrimination, even if the claimant does not share the same protected characteristic.

It is therefore unclear to me whether this judgment has direct effect in UK domestic law, and it follows then that it is unclear whether the Minister has powers under section 12(8) of the REUL Act to reproduce the effects of CHEZ. I ask the Government to delay enactment of the regulations until such time as this question has been fully explored and satisfied or, if I might refer to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, at least until we have had time to be regaled by him on the points of law on that matter.

I will turn to the question of desirability. Regulation 3(2) provides that persons with the “relevant protected characteristic” must suffer “particular disadvantage”, and people without it must suffer “substantively the same disadvantage”. This begs the question, what does “substantively” mean, in the Government’s view? Does it mean that the disadvantage has the same cause or that it is the same extent of disadvantage? It would be helpful to clarify this. This is important because regulation 3 does not actually safeguard the concept of discrimination, in so far as I understand it. The purpose of indirect discrimination is to protect minorities in particular, but instead of protecting minorities particularly, this new law protects anyone generally who suffers disadvantage. Why are the Government trying to protect discrimination by effectively diluting it into non-existence? I am happy to be challenged and corrected on these points but this is my understanding of it.

I will give an example. The law currently sets height requirements for police candidates, and says that those are indirect discrimination because they would put women at a particular disadvantage. The Government want to expand the law, it appears, so that short men will have the right to sue for sex discrimination because they then suffer the same disadvantage. It begs the question whether it is the purpose of equality law to protect short men or anyone who suffers a comparable disadvantage. There are important ramifications: I am concerned this new law will expose employers to unlimited damages, if they are then found liable. As somebody with an engineering, rather than legal, background, I hope my colleagues will forgive me if I have stumbled over this, but how will employers keep on the right side of the law? I am looking for practical application here.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I welcome the incorporation of this judgment and I will give the hon. Gentleman a different example. Let us say that an employer has discriminated against LGBT members of staff, and actually that discrimination includes somebody who is not, in fact, LGBT, but is perceived by an employer to be. This judgment would surely then allow that person to also seek damages. I do not think that this would be objectionable from any point of view, would it?

[Robin Millar]

The hon. Gentleman has done two things: he has exposed my engineering, rather than legal, background, and he has raised a very good question, which I look forward to hearing people with a legal mind tear apart and pick apart in consequence. I thank him for that.

[Miriam Cates]

My understanding is that the protection already exists, as I explained in my speech, but the point of this new legislation would be to allow someone who is outside and not connected with that group of people who have been classed, perhaps incorrectly, as LGBT by the employer to claim the same discrimination. We already have that protection in our law, but this would put it on steroids, for additional people to claim who do not necessarily suffer the disadvantage at the moment.

[Robin Millar]

My hon. Friend, as usual, makes a thought-provoking point. The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East talked about the limitations of a Committee discussing detailed legal points.

To return to the practical application, how can a human resources officer foresee all the individuals who might suffer some disadvantage under these regulations and bring a claim in the employment tribunal? That is unworkable. In particular, how will employers satisfy themselves that the disadvantage is justified in each case, when they cannot possibly foresee each case?

I am grateful for your indulgence, Mr Hollobone, and that of the Committee. I think these are profound questions. I tread softly and lightly into this space, but I think it has been important to raise these issues. I urge the Government to respond to them in a timely fashion so that these regulations are not enacted in haste.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Caulfield]

My hon. Friend is suggesting that we revoke the legislation that we are considering, which provides the protections that I set out in my opening speech. It is certainly the Government’s view that it is important that we retain those protections, whether they relate to discrimination against women going through pregnancy, disabled people or others with protected characteristics. To clarify, the way the instrument interprets the CHEZ ruling is not new legislation. As I set out, the CHEZ judgment was before the implementation period, so it is already a basis on which judgments are made. Because it falls under the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act, this statutory instrument just puts that on a domestic footing.

[Robin Millar]

I fully acknowledge the challenge of debating such a detailed subject in this setting, but given that the ruling exists, why do we need to enact the measure through regulations now? There is provision in place.

[Maria Caulfield]

The reason is that the provisions currently fall under section 4 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and that if we do not replicate them under the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act, they will fall. That would mean that protections for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding fall at the end of the year. That is why we need to replicate them.

Let me touch on the point about whether the measure provides expanded powers—I think “power on steroids” was the phrase that was used. The legal advice is that CHEZ can be interpreted as already giving horizontal rights, so we are not introducing such rights through this statutory instrument. Even if it did not give such rights, section 13 of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act, which Parliament voted on, gives Ministers powers to resolve ambiguities and remove doubt or anomalies to facilitate the improvement of the law. That is the power that that Act provides. We believe that the CHEZ ruling already gives horizontal rights, but even if it did not, the Act gives leeway to Ministers to tidy up those provisions.

PANS and PANDAS

Robin Millar Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you today, Mr Dowd. I congratulate my colleague on the APPG, the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain), on securing the debate and on giving such a comprehensive account in her opening remarks. I also acknowledge the work that the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) has done on the matter here in the House.

As the chairman of the APPG on PANS and PANDAS, I also extend my gratitude to the organisation PANS PANDAS UK. I have had the privilege of working closely with Vicky and the team, and have seen at first hand their tireless efforts as the only charity in the UK that supports children and families living with the conditions. Their advocacy and community support work continue to prove invaluable for patients, carers and healthcare professionals alike.

Like most of us here in Westminster Hall this morning, I was first made aware of PANS PANDAS UK when a constituent contacted me to discuss their case. Separately and much later, a dear family friend contacted me to say that her daughter had also been affected. I recognise many of the descriptions given by the hon. Member for North East Fife of the circumstances that they had to deal with at home. In my speech today I will set out three key issues that have become apparent to parents and interested professionals over the years: first, the misinterpretation of symptoms; secondly, the subsequent misdiagnoses; and, thirdly, the significant problems that such misdiagnoses cause for children with these conditions.

First, according to a survey by PANS PANDAS UK, 95% of GPs do not know about these conditions, and 19% of affected parents said that their paediatrician was aware of these conditions but considered it too controversial to diagnose a child with any of them. As a result, many children with PANS and PANDAS receive multiple diagnoses, often of more widely recognised conditions with overlapping symptom profiles, including anxiety disorders, sensory processing disorders, ADHD and Tourette’s syndrome; some 31% of children with PANS or PANDAS are diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder. That shows a clear lack of appropriate training for health professionals and means that the wide-ranging symptoms of these conditions are not being recognised as potentially linked to one of these conditions.

Secondly, continued misdiagnoses cause significant delays in the identification of PANS and PANDAS and the provision of effective treatment. Currently, there is no specific test that will prove or disprove the existence of the conditions, so a diagnosis must be made on the basis of an analysis of the patient’s medical history, a review of their current symptoms and a physical examination. Laboratory work and additional testing can be ordered to identify an infectious trigger, rule out other diagnoses and inform treatment plans, but all of that relies upon a clinician’s basic awareness of these conditions.

PANDAS is listed in the international classification of diseases by the World Health Organisation, and two sets of international peer-reviewed treatment guidelines exist. In fact, it is international clinicians currently working in this field who emphasise the importance of early diagnosis of PANS and PANDAS to reduce the risk of patients developing disabling chronic neurological conditions. Understanding the symptoms and detecting them early is crucial to patient outcomes.

Thirdly, we cannot underestimate the strain that these conditions place on parents, families and the children affected. Many families across the UK struggle to access any healthcare provision at all for these conditions on the NHS. In the same PANS PANDAS UK survey of parents that I referred to earlier, 47% of respondents said they had not received any treatment from the NHS and 37% said that, as a result, they have had to seek private healthcare Too often, access to adequate health provision for families depends upon a parent’s ability to carry out research and advocate for their child, and then fund private assessment and treatment.

As we have heard, the misdiagnosis and misinterpretation of symptoms has led to children being sectioned or admitted to psychiatric hospitals, and subjected to treatments that are ineffective, inappropriate or harmful. Families who have been rejected for referrals, or bounced between doctors and psychiatrists who are reluctant to consider a PANS PANDAS diagnosis or who are unaware of the conditions, must either watch their children deteriorate or somehow scrape together enough money to consult someone who has appropriate experience in the field. Private and overseas treatment must not be the only viable option for appropriate care in a nation that rightly prides itself on having an inclusive and accessible health service.

It is evident that significant change is needed in the UK to ensure that children receive timely and accurate diagnosis and the appropriate treatment and support that they need. We know that the underlying cause of PANS and PANDAS is suspected to be an abnormal immune and inflammatory response to infection, so my first request is that research into post-infectious disorders is given adequate funding and is accelerated across the UK. That is necessary if we are to see an improvement in the training and guidelines given to clinicians regarding these conditions.

Secondly, as the PANS PANDAS working group, we are pressing for the swift development of a UK-wide consensus on the treatment of children presenting with acute-onset neuropsychiatric symptoms. As I have already highlighted, without appropriate training and guidelines, UK clinicians are currently ill-equipped, so thirdly, we need to prioritise the development of clinical pathways to ensure that children and families do not continue to suffer as so many have suffered already.

I thank the UK Health Minister who is here today, the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), for her interest and I invite her to meet members of the APPG, PANS PANDAS UK and representatives of parents to hear their experiences first hand. Listening to the experience of patients is the first step in ensuring both that they receive the support they deserve and that we can secure the changes that are needed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Caulfield]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. NHS England has been happy to work on such issues with the working group. It is embarking on work to roll out a nationwide surveillance study designed to identify the signs and symptoms because, again, it is probably unlikely that we will reach a definitive test that will ever give us a diagnosis, and it is about matching symptoms with a diagnostic criteria. NHS England has committed to doing that, and the Department is happy to support it in its work.

There is the issue about how quickly antibiotics should be prescribed and dispensed, but while one antibiotic may work for one child, it may not work for another, and it is sometimes a case of trial and error before the appropriate treatment is found. Although there is an evidence base for the treatment of symptoms, such as obsessions, compulsions and tics, it is recommended that children and families affected should be offered evidence-based treatments. That is why we absolutely need to build that research base to provide evidence-based guidance to clinicians, whether they are in primary or secondary care. At the moment, NICE says that it does not have the evidence base to put that guidance together, whether that relates to psychological treatments or to medications such as antibiotics. The commitment I can give today is to push and work with the working group, organisations and Members in this place to try to develop that research base.

[Robin Millar]

I have been struck by a couple of things in the debate—one is the cross-party consensus, but another is the uniform distress that Members have relayed. On the point the Minister just made about whether treatment is psychiatric or medical, one of the key points is that PANS/PANDAS is often confused as being psychiatric when it is an infection that has proven susceptible to treatment with antibiotics. That is the kind of basic step forward that we are hoping for today.

[Maria Caulfield]

I absolutely agree. I acknowledge that while the symptoms mimic a mental illness, there is very often a physical cause for those developments. That is why we need to build that evidence base with research to back the guidance that we can give to clinicians who, as colleagues have said, may not be aware of the condition or how to manage it.

Training on PANS is now included in the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health curriculum. In April 2021, the British Paediatric Neurology Association issued a consensus statement with the faculty of child and adolescent psychiatry at the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Following concerns about variation in how it was being interpreted across the UK, the new PANS PANDAS working group, as we have heard today, which is being supported by NHS England, issued a statement recommending the development of appropriate service models and pathways back in February. I am keen that we support the working group in its important work bringing the key organisations together so that we can get that consensus out to clinicians in the field.

The work that the working group has done highlights that all children presenting with acute onset neuropsychiatric symptoms should receive a full medical evaluation and signposts clinicians to existing international peer review treatment guidelines. As I have said, while NICE currently has no plans to issue guidance, should the evidence base develop further, and should there be an opportunity to do that, we would look to update clinical policy. NHS England would then consider the development of care pathways for those living with PANS/PANDAS. The key is building that evidence research base.

We have the evidence to sufficiently demonstrate that PANS and PANDAS are discrete disease entities. I hope that answers the question by the hon. Member for North East Fife on whether we recognise that. We absolutely do, but we do not have the evidence and research base on assessment, diagnosis, treatment and management. However, the Department is funding research into rare diseases through the National Institute for Health and Care Research, which is spending over £1 billion a year every year on research particularly into rarer conditions. It welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, which would include PANS and PANDAS. Applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards made on the basis of importance to the topics of patients, health and care services.

The National Institute for Health and Care Research does not just provide funding; it will also provide guidance, whether for academics, clinicians, researchers, the working group, charities or any other organisation. I am happy to organise introductory meetings with the National Institute for Health and Care Research. It has met other groups to explore the types of research it would support and that would build an evidence base. I strongly encourage researchers with an interest in this area to come forward with proposals so that we can develop that evidence base and make real inroads.

Other countries are not necessarily leading the way. Not many countries have international guidance on the issue. I cannot remember which hon. Member referred to this, but the UK and the devolved nations have an opportunity to take a lead, build that evidence base and develop guidance on that basis.

I assure colleagues that I am committed to ensuring that those with PANS and PANDAS get the care they need. We need more high-quality research into these conditions. That is the only way we can get better outcomes for patients. I am happy to meet both the APPG and the working group to take this forwards, because there is an opportunity to develop our knowledge, increase awareness and ultimately to have better outcomes for those children affected.

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises: Great Yarmouth

Robin Millar Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)]

First, I direct the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I do so specifically, not least because I feel passionately about small and medium-sized enterprises. I worked in them and ran them before I came to Parliament, and now I am again working with family businesses. A constituency such as Great Yarmouth is absolutely reliant on those SMEs—in fact, it is not so well known that our whole economy is. I will explain that in a moment.

My father ran a business, and I have always had a strong relationship with Great Yarmouth because his business—an SME that employed people—had a factory there. Because of how SMEs integrate into the community, even today, some 30 or 40 years since my father left that business, people who worked for him are still running a part of that business in Great Yarmouth. They are employing people who will go on eventually to run that business, and maybe they will set up their own businesses to form part of the Great Yarmouth business community.

Some 37,000 people in my constituency—roughly half of my voting constituency—work in SMEs. There are some 3,000 SMEs in Great Yarmouth. That sounds like a lot, but it is no surprise because across the country something like 99% of businesses qualify as SMEs. More than 50% of our working population work for SMEs. That is a huge number, and that is important, because these businesses drive our economy.

I have a strong interest in the housing industry. I was the Housing Minister, and I remember working with great house builders and household names, and some of the great multinational companies that we see started as sole traders and grew to be the big names that we know today. In sectors across our economy, there are big-name brands and companies employing people globally who started as family businesses. Some of them still are family businesses.

We need today’s S’s to become the M’s of tomorrow and then to become the big companies that grow our economy. We get very focused on the big names, and they play a hugely important part, but for constituencies such as Great Yarmouth—particularly coastal communities where the tourism and hospitality industry plays such a key role—SMEs are at their heart.

SMEs play a part for the big companies as well. The oil and gas and renewable energy industry has a huge presence in Great Yarmouth, particularly in servicing. Companies such as Seajacks, which work around the world, are from and based in Great Yarmouth. They are there because an entrepreneur from the oil and gas industry had an idea, took the risk and developed it in Great Yarmouth. Now, he is employing people from across Great Yarmouth. When clients come to companies like Seajacks and others in the energy industry, they often take their clients, visitors and customers for lunch in places like the Imperial Hotel in Great Yarmouth, and restaurants like the Waterside, or Planet Spice in Ormesby. Those businesses are integral to big and medium-sized businesses. It is a symbiotic relationship. Our economies work because of all of those layers.

Small businesses are generally family-owned businesses. If not, they are at the very least locally owned or locally run. That means they have a very keen interest in the community, which they show by sponsoring local sports teams or cub scouts, or just by being involved in the community and knowing their staff who are a part of the community. The businesses are an important part of it. We have spoken in this Chamber a lot, and in my roles in government I have spoken a lot, about the pub industry and why pubs are so important to our communities. They are SMEs and a hugely important part of the community. Like many other businesses, if they have a regular customer who has not been in the pub that day, they may be the first in the community to realise there is a problem.

An SME owner or manager will generally know all their staff. In my business, before I came into Parliament, I knew all our staff by name. That does not happen in a conglomerate, but it happens in small and medium-sized businesses because their owners and managers are a part of that business and community. They also respect the local community in a different way—not to say that big companies do not respect their communities—because they are so reliant on it for their customers and their staff. They are much more integral to the local community, and much more focused on how they can work for it and support it. That matters, because that is what binds our communities together. It also ensures we can deliver social mobility. People can move and work in businesses in different sectors across the country, knowing that wherever they need to move to and wherever they want to work, there is a community they can be a part of; not just a housing estate or a business but a community, and the business will be a key part of that.

SMEs, particularly in hospitality which is so vital to constituencies like Great Yarmouth, have had a really tough time. As we came through the covid pandemic, they arguably had some of the toughest situations to deal with. In many ways, it was one of the fastest industries to recover, because we all wanted to get out and about and do things while we had the opportunity to do so, but those businesses still need help. VAT has been an issue for them since it has come back up, particularly compared to some of our competitors around the world. They also have to deal with business rates. SMEs find business rates to be a challenge, as they have to deal with high street values and prices, while competing with conglomerates that have out-of-town business rate values and prices. Any business we talk to will say there is a need for us, at some stage, to ensure that we are cognisant of the challenge of business rates, seasonal worker schemes across hospitality—and agriculture in a constituency like mine—and the wider basis of regulation and tax.

We all want things to be safe and regulated, but we have to remember that big companies can deal with that more easily. They can put teams together to manage it. It will be a cost to them, but they can manage it. SMEs often do not have the resource to do that. They need flexibility to be able to work with their workforce. They often have very small margins and need to be focused on their customers, rather than on what is sometimes seen to be unnecessary regulation and red tape, so we all have a duty to focus on that.

The Minister will be absolutely cognisant of that. From conversations we have had over the years, before either of us were in government, I know how successful he was in the business sector and I know how well connected he is with the SMEs in his constituency, so I know we will be singing from the same hymn sheet. He has a reputation across the sector as someone who understands the sector and wants to deliver for it—something we all want to do. I just want to take this opportunity to be very clear about its value and importance, and to put on the record what we all know, which is why these businesses matter so much to our communities.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a really interesting speech. There are many different points I would like to pick up on, not least the similarity with my own constituency, which is also a coastal community that is highly dependent on tourism for its economy. He made a very interesting point about pubs being close to the people and often being the first to detect when things are wrong—when people are missing. Does he agree that pubs and all hospitality businesses are very often the first to indicate when there are problems? Just today, I was with a group of colleagues talking about the impact of energy pricing on the pubs and hotels in their constituencies. The phrase, “They are the canary in the coalmine,” was used. Does he agree that that is the case, and that energy pricing is proving to be a real problem for them at the moment?

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend is spot-on. That challenge has been fed into me recently by a number of businesses: they have asked what more the Government can do to ensure there is collaboration between the Government and industry to deal with energy pricing. The rise in energy prices is one of the big challenges coming out of the problems of covid and particularly the abhorrent invasion of Ukraine by Putin. The Government have rightly put protection in place for households, and I congratulate them on that, but many businesses are still struggling with rate rises of up to 400%. They are often businesses working on small, single-figure margins—often of 1% or 2%.

The pub industry is tough: it is hard work making sure the client and customer is happy and has a good experience. We need to make sure that we have the support in place to not lose more pubs. We all know we are losing pubs and that lifestyles are changing. It is not necessarily the Government’s responsibility to fix all those issues, but we do need to be cognisant of what more we can do to work with the energy industry to ensure that we have the biggest possible impact for businesses, as some of their rising costs through inflation go back to the challenges from rising energy prices.

My hon. Friend is right, too, that the hospitality industry is one of the first to see any warning light for our economy, as, indeed, is the housing sector. If we want more houses to be built across our country, we need SME house building businesses to be building. I know some of the chief executives of our big house builders. One of them, who sadly has passed away now, always said to me when I had responsibility for the sector in government that one of the challenges today is that the regulation and the restrictions on housing make it very difficult for people to do what he and some of his competitors did in the past—those big house builders that started as sole traders—which was to borrow money and get through the planning process in order to build even one or two homes.

If we were able to invigorate SMEs in the housing sector to build those small numbers of homes in our villages and towns across the country—wherever we need them; in the right places and of the right quality—that would make a huge difference to our economy, because it has a knock-on effect. It is not just about the house, which itself improves social mobility; it is about everybody who is employed in building the house, and about the person who moves into it going to buy some paint or whatever else to decorate it. That all adds to the economic boost and growth for our country, and it is why we benefit by about 1% of GDP for every 100,000 homes built in this country.

Our hospitality industry is a canary in the mine showing what condition the economy is in, as my hon. Friend said. Those businesses I was talking about earlier—the larger and the medium-sized businesses—entertain clients and customers, and hospitality notices first if there are fewer of them, if those businesses are taking less time to entertain because they have fewer customers and visitors, and if we as individuals are spending less money in hospitality.

It plays an important part in the economy. People think of hospitality in places like Great Yarmouth as being just there for visitors, but it is there for business as well. In Northern Ireland, I spoke regularly to businesses who would use the hospitality pull of Northern Ireland as part of the sales pitch for their business in the engineering sector. It is a very important sector for our economy, and it thrives and relies on those SMEs.

The majority of that sector is SMEs. Big companies like Haven Holidays have a huge presence in constituencies like mine, but it is the small businesses that knit things together and support people across the villages and the coastal towns. I have seen that at first hand in Hemsby in Great Yarmouth, where almost all the businesses are independent or family-owned. They have come together to protect the coastline and literally defend the homes of people, and they have helped people who have lost their homes when they have fallen into the sea because of the coastal erosion we have had over the last few years. There have been some very dramatic circumstances. The businesses with a sense of passion for their community —the publicans and business owners in Hembsy—have come together to drive the campaign to make sure we get the support for the residents who need it, as much as for the businesses themselves and the visitors who come to enjoy the beach that we want to protect.

I have seen time and again the importance of SMEs across the whole of the UK economy, as I have outlined. Many people—the majority in our country—are employed in SMEs. I know the Minister is cognisant of this, but in everything we do we should always be thinking about what more we can do to help today’s sole trader become a small business, and today’s small business become a medium-sized enterprise, with a view to how they grow into the big plc of the future; because without doubt for me in Great Yarmouth, our small and medium-sized, predominantly family-owned, businesses are the heartbeat of the constituency, and they end up being the heartbeat of our country.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)]

I am sorry that I cannot emulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) by speaking without notes, but I will do my best to ad lib a little. I thank him for securing this important debate. I love his words that SMEs drive the whole economy. It brought back the words of Winston Churchill about the private sector; he said that some people see private enterprise as a predatory tiger that needs to be shot. Some people see it as a cow that needs to be milked. Few people see it for what it really is: the strong horse that pulls the whole cart. That is exactly right. Everything we see in the public sector and in this House is paid for by the private sector, the taxes it raises and the jobs it creates.

I totally agree with my right hon. Friend on the title and the primary content of this debate—SMEs are the most important part of the sector. As he said, I started a very small business and grew it over time, but the pressure we were always under as our business grew was from smaller businesses starting up and putting pressure on our market share. I listened carefully to his points about his father’s business and the legacy effect it has had on Great Yarmouth. That is my experience. Many people go into business for the potential financial reward, but also for the legacy: the jobs they can create and the business that they leave behind. That has a long-lasting effect on towns such as Great Yarmouth.

The Department for Business and Trade is seeking to make the UK the best place to do business in the world. We want to make it easier to do business every single day. My ministerial colleagues and I, as well as many others including my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, are for business because we are from business. We understand how this works.

My right hon. Friend made the point about smaller businesses that start up and grow to become larger businesses. That is the fundamental basis of our strategy to scale up Britain. We want the start-ups to become scale-ups. That is one of our areas for development. We are No. 1 in the OECD for start-ups per capita, but in a survey of 14 OECD nations, we were 13th for scale-ups—businesses that have 10 employees or more after three years. That is our focus, and there are three key focus areas underneath that: access to finance, support and advice, and removing barriers and red tape. Those are critical issues for the SMEs I speak to.

When we speak about business, it is important to speak about the entire world of businesses in all sectors. Hospitality is very important in Great Yarmouth, where 23% of all jobs are in the tourism industry. In his intervention, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) rightly said that the hospitality business feels that cold wind first, but also sees the benefit of the improvement in the economy first, too. It is truly the canary in the coalmine, as he put it.

In Great Yarmouth there are some fantastic opportunities for the future, not least in green energy. My right hon. Friend pointed out the businesses that are benefiting from that. I am aware of ASCO, which employs more than 100 people, providing services to the North sea opportunity that is green energy—30 wind turbines on the Scroby sandbank. There are many more opportunities in that sector.

In the Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth enterprise zone in his constituency, South Denes energy park and Beacon Park are boosting innovation and growth in the region. More recently, investment through the Great Yarmouth town deal and the future high street funds, building on previous support from the local growth fund, is helping the local area by supporting jobs and growth in that region.

I will go into some specifics about the three areas of focus I referred to earlier. First, access to finance is one of the primary concerns for small businesses as they open their doors and grow. We work closely with the British Business Bank to improve access to finance. I am pleased that as of March 2022, the British Business Bank programme has supported over 96,000 small and medium-sized businesses nationally with over £12.2 billion of finance. The programme is designed to bring benefits to start-up businesses, businesses with high-growth potential looking to scale up and businesses looking to stay ahead in the market.

I know my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth has supported many initiatives in his time in this place, such as the important start-up loan scheme, which has delivered around £1 billion of finance to 100,000 companies. Those unsecured loans are vital to many people who cannot access finance to start a business. In his constituency, 95 loans have been provided, to a value of almost £800,000.

Inclusion is a priority of this Government, so I am pleased that in terms of all the start-up loans issued up until April 2023, 40% went to women, 20% went to people from a black, Asian or minority background and 32% went to people who were previously unemployed. Those are all disproportionately high numbers, which we should welcome.

Within the space of access to finance, we are also undertaking the payment and cash flow review. We know that is an issue for SMEs and we want to make it easier for them to be paid, as that is another source of finance. We have improved our equity finance offering through schemes such as the regional angels programme, supported by the British Business Bank, and the enterprise investment scheme, the remit of which has been extended.

We are looking at potential new opportunities on the back of open banking. Open banking was a huge success in this country and has been emulated around the world. There are now 7 billion API calls every month for open banking, connecting one banking app with another, and there are other fintech solutions. Open finance provides the opportunity to completely liberate opportunities for SMEs to access finance. Rather than going to their own bank and asking for a loan, they can ask many different providers for that finance, which will increase choice and opportunity.

[Robin Millar]

The Minister is following the speech given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) with another very interesting and helpful speech about what SMEs need. He is describing the Government’s role in creating an environment in which SMEs can flourish. Will he comment on the importance of the regulation to which he referred, not just to say that there should be as little of it as possible but to set out what regulation is effective? Will he comment on whether it is right for the Government to intervene when the market is failing?

Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Bill

Robin Millar Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 24th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain]

Yes, it absolutely is, and I will go on to clarify that in my remarks. The Government’s only excuse for their refusal to tackle the exploitation of working people before their support for this Bill is that Ministers were too busy hailing the alleged benefits of being on zero-hours contracts. The reality is that the advantages of these contracts asserted by the Government are frankly alien to people on them. What they face is no utopia of flexibility, but a prison of exploitation by bad bosses at worst or a world of uncertainty at best. As has been pointed out during the passage of the Bill, people are often compelled to accept shifts that they do not want—and so they struggle to work—because they know that if they turn them down, they may not get any hours at all in future.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

I am listening carefully to what the hon. Member says, and I note his response to my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan). My Aberconwy constituency is known for its tourism, hospitality and all that comes with that, including shift working. The reality for many residents in my constituency is that zero-hours contracts give them flexibility to juggle family and other commitments and to balance a range of employment. Does he accept there is some virtue of this model for some people some of the time at least?

Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Bill

Robin Millar Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 24th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Daly]

I think I am going to have to say “I agree” a lot in respect of these interventions.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

My hon. Friend only has himself to blame for this: he has opened up a rich vein, because this is important. Only this week, I had the opportunity to sponsor an event in the House with the charity Hft, which works with people with learning difficulties, particularly on such simple issues as addressing obstacles to the workplace. Does my hon. Friend agree that, in the work equation we all make, and that as employers we need to make as well, there are important things such as dignity and meaning attached to work, and reducing barriers and improving the flexibility of working arrangements is key to unlocking that for so many people?

[James Daly]

I agree. As has been said in relation to the importance of flexible working for family and all sorts of other reasons, it is important that a statement is made in law. Flexible working is already in the legislation that has been referred to, but we must make it very clear that this Parliament supports it if it can happen.

One of the things that concerns me about flexible working is the definition. We have already discussed the best form of flexible working, and there are sectors of the economy and parts of the workforce that are currently enjoying it, but I want to make this serious point. During the pandemic, flexible working was a necessity. My local authority decided to allow the vast majority of its staff to continue working from home. That may be a good or a bad thing—who knows?—but that was its decision.

However, there are considerations to be made. I have serious concerns about the impact of taking a huge sector of the workforce out of Bury town centre because the money that those people bring in to the urban centre is very important. I support flexibility in the sense that the hon. Member for Bolton South East set out, but it is not an open invitation to local authorities simply to continue arrangements that were put in place during the pandemic. What we are looking for is not flexibility for flexibility’s sake, but a system that allows proper access to the workforce for people who are being excluded and gives flexibility to people who have very good reasons to request it.

We often talk in the generality about a lot of things in this place, but the vast majority of the workforce in this country work in small and medium-sized enterprises of nine employees or fewer, such as in the sector that I worked in all my life. We must not underestimate the requirements on small businesses. Politicians can stand up and say words that make them feel good about themselves, but people still have to pay wages. There has to be a business there to allow flexible employment. Flexible employment cannot be imposed upon a business that cannot afford it. In vast sectors of the economy, it is simply impossible because people need to be in an office.

In my sector—this is why I mentioned my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—the challenges during the pandemic of being a conveyancing solicitor working from home were incredible. I would argue strongly that people in my sector need to be in the office. There needs to be that team environment, because it increases productivity. I am sure that it would work very well in other sectors of the economy, but we have to be open and honest about this. We cannot just impose principles on business if they cannot afford to pay the bills.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

For the second debate running, it is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon).

Over recent years, not just since the pandemic, flexible working has revolutionised the way people go about their employment, their business and their day-to-day lives. That is visible in my constituency on the daily commute: getting on the train at Haddenham & Thame Parkway on a Monday or a Friday, the car park is noticeably emptier. When people get to Marylebone and try to get on the tube, they can get on the platform at the first time of asking; if they try it from Tuesday to Thursday, they have to wait four or five tube trains before they can get on one to get wherever they are going. On the trains, on the underground and on public transport generally, the sheer volume of people who have gone on to a more varied working week is clearly visible—the days of nine-to-five are well and truly gone, and people are working in much more flexible patterns.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) on her Bill. As others have said, it seeks to provide greater balance by giving everybody—no matter who they are, no matter how senior or junior they are, and no matter what their station within their particular business—the ability to better engage to get a working pattern that is right for them and for their business and that ensures we have a buoyant, growing economy. The growth of technology such as Zoom, Teams and all the other video conferencing software has, to a great extent, enabled the ability to work remotely that others have spoken about—to do three days in the office and two days at home, or whatever it might be.

However, I have considerable sympathy with the view expressed by my hon. Friends that we cannot just take that technology to be a replacement for the office. We cannot say that Zoom and Teams mean that everybody should always be able to work from home and never go into the office, because that brings many disadvantages—not least, from my perspective, for people starting out on their careers and trying to get up the ladder in their places of business. I would argue that it has always been the case that graduate entrants, apprentices or people starting off in whatever business or profession they have chosen do not learn the most from textbooks, from university or from whatever degree they have done, or by some process of osmosis; they learn from the people further up the ladder. They learn from going to the next rank up and saying, “I’m struggling with this particular bit of work, I’m struggling to get my head around this.” They learn by asking for the advice of more senior colleagues.

In encouraging flexible working, although I am a huge fan of it, we absolutely must not throw the baby out with the bathwater by going too far. I say that without any technical interest to declare, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I do have three small children at home. Without flexible working—particularly for my wife, because we all accept that being an MP is not particularly flexible and that we absolutely have to be here at certain hours—our childcare arrangements would be an absolute nightmare, and that would certainly be to the detriment of my children.

I will focus most in my comments on the issue of childcare. Enormous steps forward have been made, not least by Governments since 2010, in supporting families with childcare—the 30 free hours that the coalition Government brought in is one example. However, I know from my own constituency that lots of parents struggle with childcare and with being able to pursue the careers that they want. They find that difficult within the confines of many working practices and set-ups around the country. Everything we can do to ensure that working parents are able to pursue their career of choice and fulfil their professional dreams, while not being punished for having, loving and wanting to bring up children, is to the good.

When the Minister responds to the debate, I urge him to look beyond the Bill, which is a strong starting point, and to ensure that we continue to lock in family-friendly practices, where necessary through regulation—although I am generally sceptical about whether we have to regulate for everything to get the best result—so that we are as family-friendly as possible.

Another point that came up earlier highlights or double-underlines the need for there to be a balance—a balance that, as I said a few moments ago, the Bill does support. I am thinking of the impact that flexible working can have on localities and geographies: towns, villages and cities where business plays a big part. Think of the impact on hospitality during the rail strikes in December, when no one was able to come into London—on the cafés, pubs and bars, and all the businesses set up over the years to support workers who buy their cups of coffee and get their lunches on their way into work and socialise with colleagues or friends after it. We cannot allow too much remote working to undermine our towns and cities and the businesses set up within them.

To conclude, I would like to briefly commend the comments made earlier, not least by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly). We can use flexible working not just to support those with childcare needs or the other things I spoke about earlier, but to ensure that there is a clear path into employment for those who, as my hon. Friend mentioned, suffer with autism or other disabilities—to break down those barriers and ensure that there is a place of work, a career and a professional path for absolutely everybody in our society. That might mean slightly different hours or some days at home and some in the office, but we have to be certain that the Government, the state and this Parliament have made things as accessible and open as possible for everybody with a particular need, in a way that the old system—if I may call it that—did not allow. The Bill goes a very long way towards redressing the balance and opening up much greater flexibility.

[Robin Millar]

It strikes me that the argument my hon. Friend is making is that such flexibility must be inherent in our response to the changes we are seeing in society. There are changes in personal circumstances, such as the points he made about caring for his children—I was glad to hear that he would not throw them out with the bathwater. There are changes in the marketplace and, indeed, in the travel patterns of consumers—I think of my constituency of Aberconwy, which has a tourism-based economy that relies heavily on seasonal working. Is that the thrust of his argument?

[Greg Smith]

As ever, my hon. Friend puts it far more eloquently than I could. He has hit the nail on the head, certainly on the seasonal aspect of some businesses and the changing times that we have all seen, not just through the pandemic but in recent years. If we want to have the most dynamic, growing, buoyant economy, we have to ensure that the paths into employment and by which people hold down employment—seasonal, permanent or whatever it might be—are allowed for in regulation. It is important that we do not dictate too firmly to businesses how they must go about their practices, but we must ensure that they are fair and open with their employees, so that nobody feels left behind, unable to enter the workplace or held back in some other way.

Indeed, that principle goes beyond business and into the public sector. To back up an argument I made a few moments ago, I am a member of the Transport Committee, which has looked at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency. All right hon. and hon. Members probably grappled with delays in the issuance of driving licences and heard nightmare stories from their constituents. One of the causes of those delays, stemming from the pandemic, was the inability of DVLA staff to access the weight of documents that people had posted to Swansea and to process them from home.