What discussions he has had with the devolved Administrations on the effectiveness of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.
May I start by saying that the dream is over, and my commiserations go to Steve Clarke and the Scottish team now that they are out of the Euros? Us Scots will now turn our attention to Wimbledon, where we have won the men’s singles twice in the last eight years. I also congratulate Wales and England on proceeding to the knockout stages of the tournament, and I wish them well in that In answer to the question, it is a tragedy that drug deaths in Scotland are the worst in Europe and about four times those of England and Wales. The majority of the levers to tackle drugs misuse are delivered and devolved to the Scottish Government, including health, education, housing and the criminal justice system, but as the First Minister has admitted, they have taken their eye off the ball. The United Kingdom Government are keen to work with the Scottish Government to tackle this scourge, and the Minister for Crime and Policing, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), held a UK-wide summit in Glasgow. He also invited the Scottish Government to be part of a new scheme, Project ADDER, which aims to protect communities from the harm caused by drugs. The Scottish Government have, sadly, so far declined.
The Scottish Government intend to open an overdose prevention centre in Glasgow to tackle drug deaths and HIV infection rates. They are prevented from doing so by this Government’s reliance on the out-of-date, ill-fitting drugs legislation, the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Ahead of Saturday’s “Support. Don’t Punish” day of action, will the Minister speak with his Cabinet colleagues about the need to reform the Act and support the Scottish Government’s call for an urgent four nations summit on this issue?
As I said, all home nations have the same tools at their disposal, yet the drug death rate in Scotland is four times higher. There are no plans to introduce drug consumption rooms. The current evidence does not support their use. We do support, however, needle and syringe programmes to prevent blood-borne diseases, and the widening of the availability of naloxone to help prevent overdose deaths.
Whether he has had discussions with the Scottish Government on a public inquiry on the (a) Scottish and (b) UK Government’s response to the covid-19 outbreak.
Whether he has had discussions with the Scottish Government on a public inquiry on the (a) Scottish and (b) UK Government’s response to the covid-19 outbreak.
I draw the House’s attention to the words of the Prime Minister when he announced the Government’s plans for a public inquiry. He said that we should learn the lessons “as one Team UK” and that the Government “will consult the devolved Administrations”—[Official Report, 12 May 2021; Vol. 695, c. 137.] about the scope and remit of the public inquiry. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has started the conversations with his devolved counterparts.
The Scottish Government revealed earlier this month that they underspent their budget last year by hundreds of millions of pounds. That is a slap in the face to businesses across Scotland that are struggling without the financial support they need. Does the Minister agree that any future covid inquiry must examine whether the financial support offered to businesses by both Governments was sufficient and whether it actually reached those who needed it?
The hon. Lady raises a very fair point. This Government have provided unprecedented levels of support to people and businesses in Scotland. Some of that comes through UK-wide schemes such as furlough, but other money goes as a fund to the Scottish Government for them to distribute, and there are serious questions about whether that money has been used in the most effective way and gone to the people for whom it was intended. I very much hope that will be part of the remit of this inquiry.
One of the greatest tragedies in the coronavirus crisis has been the scale of the outbreak in care homes. I know from personal experience that that has caused untold misery and robbed families across the UK of our loved ones. The brutal reality is that that loss was multiplied because of Scottish Government and UK Government decisions to discharge hundreds of patients into care homes even after they had tested positive for covid-19. Does the Minister agree that any future pandemic inquiry must investigate how the discharge of those patients was ever allowed to happen?
I recall that, in a previous exchange, the hon. Gentleman mentioned that he had suffered some personal family losses as a result of the pandemic, and I again extend my sympathy to him. He raises an important question. I am pretty certain that those matters will be covered by the inquiry. As I say, the discussions to establish its remit and processes are under way. The issue of care homes in Scotland is, of course, a devolved matter for the Scottish Government, but we want this inquiry to be as wide-ranging as possible so that we learn the lessons from the pandemic.
I join the Secretary of State in congratulating Stevie Clarke and the whole Scotland team on cheering up a nation over the past 10 days or so. As we said in the 1970s, we had a dream. That dream died, unfortunately, last night, and it will now have to wait until Qatar next year for the World cup In recent weeks we have heard scathing criticisms from the Prime Minister’s former chief adviser about the UK Government’s covid response, which has no doubt cost many lives. We have even learned that the PM described his Health Secretary as “hopeless”. Most recently, their dither and delay in securing the borders of the UK has resulted in restrictions continuing beyond the initial date. Sadly, the people of Scotland have also been failed by the choices of the Scottish Government. We know from a recent freedom of information reply that the Scottish chief medical officer advised the Scottish Government to say nothing at all in response to the Edinburgh Nike conference outbreak last March. The Scottish public were kept in the dark. These are just some of the major issues, which include the two we have heard about from my hon. Friends this morning. Will the Government agree with calls for an urgent separate Scottish judge-led public inquiry into both Governments’ management of covid-19 in Scotland so that we can learn the lessons of covid and the grieving families can get the answers they so deserve?
In response to the hon. Gentleman’s first point about the tartan army, my experience is that while the spirit is often tested it is never broken, and I am sure it will sustain I do not think that, at this stage certainly, there is a need for a separate inquiry. We are still at the very early stages of establishing the remit of the UK-wide inquiry, which will cover both reserved and devolved matters. It is important that that inquiry looks at all aspects of the situation. We should also remind ourselves that this is an unprecedented challenge that Governments right across the world have faced. Inevitably, with the benefit of hindsight, different decisions would have been made. We are learning all the time. I do not necessarily accept some of the charges that the hon. Gentleman has made—on borders, for example—but lessons are being learned all the time, and the right place for permanent lessons is from the wide-ranging inquiry that the Prime Minister has promised to set up.
I am tempted to ask the Minister if he has ever filled any of London’s fountains with Fairy liquid, but that can maybe be kept for private discussion. [Interruption.] Exactly—only for cleansing purposes One of the most frustrating elements for many people is the inconsistency of the decisions that have been made. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has rightly criticised the First Minister both for mimicking the arrogance of the Prime Minister by failing to contact the Manchester authorities before announcing a travel ban and for its inconsistencies. Cases remain lower than they are in Dundee, yet Dundonians can travel all over Scotland while those living in Bolton, for example, are effectively banned from travelling to Scotland at all These varying decisions are having a devastating impact on key sectors. Take the wedding sector, for example. Yesterday I was contacted by a constituent whose wedding in Edinburgh is limited to 50 guests but will travel to London the following week to a wedding where guests are unlimited, and she was at the Glasgow fan zone last week with 3,000 other supporters. She is deeply frustrated, and I am sure the Minister can understand her anger. So does he agree that any covid inquiry should examine the consequences that have resulted from the refusal of both Governments to work together?
I am happy to confirm to the hon. Gentleman that to the best of my knowledge I have never filled any fountain anywhere with any domestic cleaning product Turning to the important points that the hon. Gentleman has raised, the issue between the Mayor of Greater Manchester and the First Minister is clearly not satisfactory, and I would urge them both to come to a very sensible arrangement to allow travel to resume between Scotland and Greater Manchester. The two Governments do work closely together. There are several meetings a week, whether between the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the First Minister or the Health Secretary and his counterparts, to discuss all these arrangements. At the end of the day, the Scottish Government have the ability to make their own decisions, but a lot of them are co-ordinated—particularly, at the moment, on the travel corridors. Of course we constantly look at all these decisions and have to make often snap judgments in the face of new evidence, but we do so in a way of co-operation as far as is possible.
What recent discussions he has had with the Scottish Government on efforts to reduce child poverty in Scotland.
Let me first take this opportunity to thank Department for Work and Pensions staff in Scotland and across the UK who have provided unprecedented levels of support to families during the pandemic. It is a mark of their dedication that the system has coped well with the extra demand that we placed on it We take child poverty very seriously. Through the joint ministerial working group on welfare, I regularly discuss welfare matters with Ministers from the Scottish Government and the Department for Work and Pensions. Our most recent meeting included a discussion of the new Scottish child payment, which was delivered through the powers in the Scotland Act 2016.
I join the Minister in paying tribute to DWP staff. Perhaps the Government could respond by giving them a decent pay rise this year. According to the Child Poverty Action Group, over two thirds of children growing up in poverty in Scotland live in a household where someone is actually working. That is a damning indictment of the economy under both the Tories and the SNP—low pay, insecure work and children growing up in poverty. Does the Minister accept that both Governments need a fundamental rethink of their strategy to tackle child poverty?
We are putting in considerable support in a whole range of ways, such as through increases in the living wage. One of the challenges of the pandemic is to ensure that new employment opportunities are there, and this Government and the Scottish Government do work well on co-ordinating our various schemes, such as the kickstart process, to make sure that those jobs are secure and sustainable for the future. It is not just about jobs, of course; it is also about issues such as the quality of education. I know there are significant issues with the stewardship of the Scottish education system under the Scottish Government.
The Scottish Government recently spoke of making the eradication of child poverty a “national mission”. Those are welcome words, but statistics released last month show that child poverty has risen in every single local authority in Scotland since the Scottish First Minister took office. Indeed, the last national mission for the SNP—there have been plenty—was closing the attainment gap, which the OECD has said will not be possible with the levels of poverty that exist in Scotland Of course, it is not just the SNP; the UK Government’s record is appalling, too. More than a decade of Tory government has created a society of low pay, insecure work and pushing families into in-work poverty. Both Governments are failing Scotland’s children. Can the Minister explain now what he is doing to try to resolve the shocking levels of child poverty in Scotland to show that this Tory Government really do care and to actually try to deal with some of the SNP’s failings in Holyrood?
The hon. Gentleman rightly refers to the OECD report, which came out this week and which I have read. It does contain some very worrying findings. It is yet another reason why the Scottish Government should be focusing on the day job of improving services for people in Scotland, rather than obsessing about constitutional matters. On the wider point he makes about child poverty, throughout this Government’s period in office we have done a huge amount of reform to increase the take-home pay of people at the lower end of the income scale. For example, we have massively increased the personal tax allowance, which allows people to keep more money in their pocket. However, that is just one example; there is much more work to do, and I work regularly with ministerial colleagues across Government looking at the cost of living and what steps we might take to improve matters.
What progress the Government has made in establishing the UK shared prosperity fund.
The UK shared prosperity fund will be the successor to EU structural funds, with decisions about how taxpayers’ money is spent being taken in the United Kingdom, rather than in Brussels. The £220 million community renewal fund, for which applications closed last week, will lead us up to publishing the shared prosperity fund prospectus later this year. We look forward to working directly with local authorities in Scotland on applications for the new UK shared prosperity fund. They know best what their communities need. This is real devolution in practice.
I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. Can he assure me that Scotland and all the other coastal and rural areas of the United Kingdom, including all the way to my constituency in Cornwall, will get their fair share of shared prosperity funding, and will he ensure that the money is distributed in a fairer way, better tailored for our economy?
The Prime Minister has previously provided assurances that our plans to replace structural funds will at least match the figures of the EU funding. We are confident that will start with the community renewal fund this year, and will lead next year into the UK shared prosperity fund, as I mentioned earlier, in April 2022. That will reach £1.5 billion in total, and I can assure my hon. Friend that her area will be receiving its fair share.
Under the EU structural funding arrangement, the Scottish Government played a role in determining the allocation of that funding. This ensured that funding was allocated based on the democratic choices of the people of Scotland, reflecting the priorities that they voted for. Will the Secretary of State now commit the UK Government to give the devolved Governments a formal say in the delivery of the SPF to ensure that democratic working continues?
What we are doing is working with all responsible delivery partners in Scotland, as I have said, and the community renewal fund will be an example of real devolution at work. We will be working with local communities and local authorities in ensuring that the projects respond to local wishes and meet local needs.
Lasting prosperity requires successful business people and, sadly, my constituency in Scotland lost one of our finest examples on Monday, when Alasdair Houston, the entrepreneurial chairman of the Gretna Green Group and a leading figure in Scottish tourism and agriculture, lost his long battle with cancer at the age of only 59. Alasdair will be remembered not just for his own zest for life and the transformational impact he had on his own businesses in the Gretna area, but for his passion for the Star of Caledonia, an iconic environmental structure being built on the Scotland-England border that will surely be his lasting legacy. Will my right hon. Friend join me in paying tribute to our friend Alasdair’s many achievements, but will he also agree that, whatever form the shared prosperity fund takes, it should reflect his spirit and support inspirational projects such as the Star?
I join my right hon. Friend in paying tribute to my close friend Alasdair Houston, and I send my deep sympathies to his family. Ali was a proud Scot, a lover of Dumfries and Galloway, and a formidable champion for Gretna, his home town, and the Star of Caledonia would be a very fitting tribute to him. He will be missed by many.
What discussions he has had with (a) Cabinet colleagues and (b) the Scottish Government on harmonisation of covid-19 guidance on international travel.
I and other UK Government Ministers are in regular contact with the Scottish Government and other devolved Administrations to try to secure the harmonisation particularly of covid-19 guidance when it comes to regulations on international travel, while at the same time of course respecting devolved competence in matters such as public health.
Golf tourism plays a major part in the local economy of North East Fife, particularly as St Andrews is the home of golf. There is a whole ecosystem built up around golf tourism, including accommodation, hospitality and inbound tour operators. The majority of these tourists come from north America and then travel to other golf courses around the UK, and there are concerns about the incoherent travel rules between the four nations and restrictions within the four nations deterring those visitors. Can I therefore ask the Minister to outline what steps he is taking to reach consensus, particularly in relation to the US?
I thank the hon. Lady for her question, which is pertinent not just for golf tourism but for whisky tourism and tourism in general across Scotland. The UK Government are committed to full alignment with the devolved Administrations, because we recognise the importance of such alignment for public compliance, as well as for business confidence and for tourism. We share the data, and we have created the structures to make that happen. However, we also respect the right of the devolved Administrations to make their own decisions on devolved matters. Thankfully, the differences in the exemptions, particularly for international travel, are not currently that material and can be justified as legitimate differences, but I do take on board the comments she made about golf tourism specifically.
This morning we heard that as a direct result of the baffling and inconsistent travel ban placed on Scots going to Greater Manchester, easyJet has cancelled its newly announced route from Aberdeen to Manchester, putting at risk many jobs in north-east Scotland. What work is being done, and may I beg the Minister and the Scotland Office to ensure that in the reopening of international travel, the same rules and regulations will apply around the entirety of the UK, instead of leaving the Scottish aviation sector and the thousands of people it employs at the mercy of a Scottish Government who have completely abandoned them?
My hon. Friend and I share a lot in common, not least the regular use of Aberdeen airport, to which he refers, and the fact that we both have wives who were not born in this country and unfortunately have not been able to visit their families for the last year and a half. That aside, on the specific issue about easyJet and the flight to Manchester, it has made a commercial decision, announced today, in response to the Scottish Government’s decision to regulate to prohibit travel to Manchester. The Scottish Government decision has been widely criticised as disproportionate; clearly Scottish Government Ministers will be keeping travel regulations under constant review, and there are calls for this regulation in particular to be reviewed in closer consultation with all interested parties. The Scotland Office would be happy to facilitate that, if helpful.
UK Government Ministers talk about a single approach, but, if we cast our minds back just a couple of months ago, travellers from India into Scotland faced managed hotel quarantine whereas the same travellers into England did not, and the consequences of that inaction are clear for all to see with the delta variant now dominant right across the UK. So I ask the Minister, does he regret the damage caused to Scotland’s covid-19 recovery as a result of his Government’s failure to follow Scotland’s lead?
What I regret, particularly considering the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, is that the Scottish Government did not, despite the repeated calls from the oil and gas industry, from MSPs, and from MPs who, like him, represent constituencies in the north-east of Scotland, give the same allowance for oil and gas workers from amber list countries that was allowed to them by the rest of the UK.
What steps he is taking to strengthen the Union.
What steps he is taking to strengthen the Union.
What steps is he taking to strengthen the Union.
The value and strength of the Union has never been more important or more apparent. The United Kingdom Government have supported all parts of the UK during the pandemic; that includes the furlough scheme, which at its peak supported nearly 1 million jobs in Scotland, the help of our fantastic military, and the UK-wide vaccination programme which means we can now see light at the end of the tunnel. The UK Government will lead our recovery from the pandemic, investing in communities right across the United Kingdom, getting young people into jobs and improving connectivity between all parts of our country.
The UK Government have been unwavering in supporting Scotland through the pandemic, from providing £14.5 billion in additional Barnett funding to protecting nearly 900,000 jobs through our furlough scheme. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this shows how the UK Government and the Treasury have protected lives and livelihoods across every part of this country?
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The support provided by the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom Treasury is staggering and simply unprecedented in peacetime. As he said, there are jobs being supported by furlough and an extra £14.5 billion provided to the Scottish Government through Barnett funding, and I would point out that 530,000 claims have been made in Scotland under the self-employment income support scheme, so far totalling around £1.5 billion.
Is it not the case that the success of our vaccine programme, which was a combination of successful UK Government procurement and then an NHS roll-out in the individual nations of the United Kingdom, is a fantastic example of the two Governments in Scotland—the UK Government and the Scottish Government—working together, which is exactly what we should see in the future? That demonstrates the strength of our Union, and we should fight to keep it in place.
I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. The vaccine programme has been a huge success, and it was UK-wide procurement delivering vaccines on a UK-wide basis.
The A68 links Darlington with Edinburgh and serves as an economic and cultural link between England and Scotland. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should be celebrating and strengthening connections between our two nations, and will he lend his support to the proposed improvements to the artery in my constituency as a means of strengthening our precious Union?
Yes, and Darlington has also been supporting the Scottish football team over the last few weeks. It is vital that we have good connectivity between all parts of the United Kingdom. Sir Peter Hendy, in his review, is looking at how we can improve that, and he will publish his report later this year, but I must say—I put it on the record again—that I was disappointed that the Scottish Government told their civil service not to engage in this work because, as ever, they want to put a grievance ahead of improving Scotland’s economy.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) successfully pursued a two-year campaign calling on this Government to publish the results of the secret polling that they commissioned, using public funds, to ask people in Scotland how they feel about the Union. Can the Secretary of State confirm that that information will be published in the next three weeks, as the tribunal has ordered the UK Government to do?
The hon. Lady makes a point that is one for the Cabinet Office to answer, but the Cabinet Office is very clear that it does not spend money on political polling or research.
I will move on from that rather bizarre answer. Today, we learned that the UK Government have used emergency covid funds to publicly fund further polls on the Union, in a contract given to close associates of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Would the Secretary of State say that that is an appropriate use of emergency funds, and will he back the SNP’s calls for an inquiry into this misuse of funds?
Again, I say that the hon. Lady should be at Cabinet Office questions asking the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to answer for his Department. Again, I have spoken to the Cabinet Office about this. It does not engage in political polling, and it is very clear about that.
It seems to me that this Government’s plan to strengthen the Union is to first sell out the fishing industry and then betray Scotland’s farmers. Can the Secretary of State explain how the Australia trade deal, which allows the UK market to be flooded with thousands of tonnes of cheap, factory- farmed, inferior-quality beef and lamb, is the golden opportunity the Prime Minister promised? How will it help Scottish farmers’ business?
The SNP has never found a trade deal that it likes.
Answer the question!
I am going to answer the question very clearly. The SNP voted against or abstained on all trade deals in the European Parliament and the one we have just done with the European Union. It is an isolationist party. The reality on the Australia trade deal is that it is upholding animal welfare standards. Under the World Organisation for Animal Health, Australia gets five out of five. We have safeguards in place to stop the market being flooded with beef or any collapse in price. We are very clear that we will protect our farmers, and this leads us into the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, worth £9 trillion. That will be a huge win for our farmers, and all the members of the farming community I have spoken to understand that. The SNP should see the big picture and understand that we are not going to reduce our animal welfare standards, that we are not going to flood the market, and that it will be seen very clearly in a few years’ time to have cried wolf.
If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 23 June.
Before we get under way, I point out that a British Sign Language interpretation of Prime Minister’s questions is available to watch on parliamentlive.tv.
Today marks five years since this country voted to leave the European Union. It has allowed us to take back control of the issues that matter to the people of the United Kingdom. It has given us the freedom to establish eight freeports across the country, driving new investment; to develop the fastest vaccine roll-out in Europe; to protect and invest in jobs and renewal across every part of the UK; to control our immigration system, and to sign an historic trade deal with Australia. It will allow us to shape a better future for our people. Over 5.6 million EU citizens have already applied to our EU settlement scheme, and I would encourage anyone who may still be eligible to apply ahead of the deadline next week. This week is Armed Forces Week, and I am sure that colleagues from across the House will wish to join me in thanking our fantastic armed forces and their families for their service to our country This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
Prime Minister, we are to host COP26. Our goal is net zero by 2050. To achieve that target will require innovative policies and a free market approach would help. Therefore, if we were to make solar panels compulsory for all new residential builds, we immediately create a large market. It will lead to innovation, lower prices, job creation and contribute towards our 2050 target. Will the Prime Minister support such a policy initiative?
My hon. Friend makes a very interesting suggestion which I will certainly look into, though I should caution that some homes do not have enough space on their roof or indeed have their roofs angled in the right way to make solar panels viable. What we are already doing is tightening our standards to ensure that new homes produce at least 75% lower carbon dioxide emissions compared to current standards, on our way to net zero by 2050.
Why, under this Government, has the number of rape convictions and prosecutions fallen to a record low?
One of the first things I said when I came to the Dispatch Box as Prime Minister was that I thought that rape prosecutions and convictions were too low. That is why we have the end-to-end rape review, that is why we have been investing in independent sexual violence advisers and domestic violence advisers—another £27 million—and that is why we have been investing more in the Crown Prosecution Service, with another £85 million. We are also dealing with the misery experienced by rape victims and survivors who have to hand over their mobile phones, which I think has been one of the evidential problems that has arisen in prosecuting rape cases. What we have also been doing is imposing tougher sentences for serious sexual and violent offences. It would have been good to have some support in that from the right hon. and learned Gentleman and from those on the Opposition Benches.
We all agree that the figures are appalling. The question is why. The Government’s own review makes it clear that rape convictions and prosecutions have halved since 2016—halved. We know that that is nothing to do with the pandemic, because this is a five-year trend and we know it is not because there are fewer rape cases being reported, because that number has gone up significantly, so let me return to the question that the Prime Minister has not answered: why does the Prime Minister think that rape prosecutions and convictions have plummeted on his watch?
Because, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows very well because he has some experience of this matter, there are considerable evidential problems, particularly in recovering data from mobile phones, and that has been an obstacle to the speedy preparation of cases. Too often, let us be frank, cases go from the police to the Crown Prosecution Service not in a fit state. Too often, those cases are not in a fit state when they come to court and there is not a good enough join up across the criminal justice system. That is exactly what we are addressing by our investment and with our end-to-end rape review. What would be good, Mr Speaker, is if we had some support from the Opposition for tougher sentences for rapists and serious sexual offenders. What kind of a signal does it send when they will not even back tougher sentences?
The Prime Minister knows very well why we voted against his Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill: precisely because it did more to protect statues than women. But since he has brought it up, let us address the central question. Prime Minister, 98.4% of reported rapes do not end up in a charge—98.4%—and therefore the question of sentence never arises in those cases. Since he has brought up the Bill—it is his main defence, it seems—can he point to what provision, what clause, what chapter, what part of that Bill will do anything to change the fact that 98.4% of reported rape cases do not end in charges and do not get to sentence? Which clause, part, chapter or words in that Bill? Point to one thing.
Let me point to sections 106 and 107 of that Bill, which Labour voted down, which would have stopped the early release of rapists at the halfway point of their sentences. What kind of signal or message does that send to people who commit crimes of rape? It is very important that the message should go out from this House of Commons that we will not tolerate serious sexual violence. I am afraid that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has not been supporting that message What we are doing now is bringing forward measures by investing in independent domestic violence and sexual violence advisers to ensure that victims and survivors of the crime of rape have people in whom they can confide and trust throughout that miserable period when they are in the criminal justice system. Another thing we are doing is recruiting record numbers of police officers, and I am proud to say that 40% of our new recruits are female, which I believe will be of great consolation and use to those who are victims and survivors of rape.
What an appalling answer. I asked the Prime Minister why 98.4% of cases are not getting into the system and he talks about sentence. That is the problem. If he thinks that is the answer, that is why we have got these terrible rates of conviction and of prosecution. The answer is: there is nothing in that Bill. The truth is, victims of rape are being failed. Those are not just my words; they are in the Government’s own report: “Victims of rape are being failed.” There is no escaping that appalling figure: 98.4% of rape cases ending without anybody being charged, and those that do get into the system take years to go through. Does the Prime Minister accept that cuts to the criminal justice system have contributed to that appalling situation?
No, because we have increased the numbers of people in the CPS by at least 200, and they are specifically dedicated to helping to prosecute the crime of rape and sexual violence. We are absolutely determined to stamp it out. This is a problem that has been getting worse because of the evidential difficulties caused by the data recovery process and a lack of unity and joined-up thinking between all parts of the criminal justice system. That is something that the Government are now addressing by more investment, by putting more police out on the street and by having tougher sentences. Finally, it would be good to hear the right hon. and learned Gentleman support it.
I spent five years as Director of Public Prosecutions, prosecuting thousands of rape cases. I do not need lectures, but I do know the impact of cuts in our criminal justice service. The Government cannot make significant cuts to the Crown Prosecution Service, 25% cuts to the Ministry of Justice, close half the courts in England and Wales and now pretend that a small budget increase will solve the problem This is about more than just cuts. The rape review is welcome, but it is weak. The Government’s Victims’ Commissioner described the review as “underwhelming” and said it could have been “10 times stronger”. That review is littered with pilots and consultations on proposals that have literally been discussed for years and years. It is so unambitious. Is it not the case that despite these shameful figures—they are shameful—the Government are still not showing the urgency needed to tackle the epidemic of violence against women and girls?
No, because we have also brought in the landmark domestic violence Bill—again, it would have been good if we had had wholehearted support from the Labour party—and no, because the Government have brought in much tougher sentences for serious sexual and violent offenders. No matter how much the right hon. and learned Gentleman wriggles and squirms, he cannot get away from the simple fact that, on a three-line Whip, he got his party to vote against tougher sentences for serious sexual and violent offenders. That is weak.
You can always tell when he is losing, Mr Speaker. [Interruption.]
Order. It is a very, very emotive and important issue and I need to hear the question and the answers. I certainly do not expect shouting from the Back Benches.
On the Prime Minister’s watch, rape prosecutions and convictions are at a record low, court backlogs are at a record high, victims are waiting longer for justice and criminals are getting away with it. This was not inevitable; it is the cost of a decade of Conservative cuts. Even now, the Government are not showing the urgency and ambition that is needed. The Justice Secretary has done the rarest of things for this Government and apologised, but I note that the Prime Minister has not done that today. It is time that he did—that he took some responsibility and backed it up with action. Will he do so?
As I said to the right hon. and learned Gentleman—and I fought to have tougher action against rapists and sexual offenders throughout my time as Mayor of London; and, of course, to all the victims of rape and sexual violence, all the victims and survivors, of course I say sorry for the trauma that they have been through, the frustration that they go through because of the inadequacies of the criminal justice system. We are fixing that. We are fixing that by investing another £1 billion in clearing the court backlogs and ensuring that they have people that they can listen to and trust who will help them through the trials of the criminal justice experience. But above all, we are helping them by getting our courts moving again. The fastest, most efficient way to do that, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows, is to get our country moving again, which is what we are doing with the fastest vaccination roll-out anywhere in Europe. We are getting on with the job. They jabber, we jab. They dither, we deliver. They vacillate and we vaccinate.
The levelling-up fund is a superb opportunity for local areas like Calderdale Council to improve infrastructure and relieve the misery in local areas. With that aim, will my right hon. Friend take a serious look at Calderdale’s submission, which lacks support, has no consultation nor consensus with partners, and instead of relieving infrastructure problems, ploughs on with one of the council’s failed and doomed projects, which does nothing at all to level up and has no support locally?
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. The levelling-up fund has the potential to do massive good for Calderdale, and indeed the whole country, and I hope that Calderdale Council has listened to his strictures this afternoon and will act.
This morning, The Herald newspaper revealed that, in the middle of a pandemic, Tory Ministers secretly directed funds from an emergency covid contract to carry out polling on the Union. This evidence was uncovered in official documents submitted to the High Court, so the Prime Minister would be well advised to be very careful in his answer to this question. And it is a very simple question: did the UK Government use a £560,000 emergency covid contract to conduct constitutional campaigning on the Union?
I am afraid I am not aware of the contract to which the right hon. Gentleman refers, but what I can tell him is that I think that the Union, and the benefits of the Union, have been incalculable throughout the covid pandemic, and that for the vaccine roll-out, which I just mentioned to the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), vaccines have been pioneered in Scotland, brewed in Oxford, bottled in Wales and rolled out throughout the UK. I think it is a tribute to the Union that the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) seeks to undermine.
The Prime Minister has just demonstrated, not for the first time, that he has not got a clue. The answer to the question is yes. Whether it is redecorating the Downing Street flat or siphoning off covid funds for political campaigning, the pattern is clear: the Tories simply can’t be trusted. Let us be very clear as to what happened here: these emergency covid contracts were supposed to be used for things like personal protective equipment for our brave doctors and for nurses fighting covid. Instead, during the height of this deadly pandemic, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster used these emergency contracts to commission political research on—and I quote— “attitudes to the UK Union.” What is worse, he handed these lucrative contracts to long-term friends and former employees. In essence, this was a UK Government contract that sanctioned corrupt campaigning, Prime Minister. If the Prime Minister has even a shred of credibility, will he now commit to a full public inquiry on this gross misuse of public funds?
I cannot think of a better use of public funds than making sure that the whole of the UK fights the covid pandemic together, and that is what we are doing. Thanks to the UK Treasury, we were able to spend £407 billion supporting jobs and families in Scotland. We were able to use the British Army to send vaccines throughout the whole of the UK. I believe that the story of this last two years has shown the incalculable value of our Union and the strength of our Union, and that we are better together.
  The Prime Minister’s groundbreaking 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution has ambitious targets for a switch to zero-emission electric vehicles, and the UK’s automotive manufacturers are ready to deliver, with vehicle manufacture taking place close to where batteries are made, because of the high proportion of an electric vehicle’s cost and weight being made up by the battery. Coventry is the historic home of the car industry and the headquarters of Jaguar Land Rover, who made the car in which the Prime Minister travelled to Parliament today, so will he give his support to the proposal to build a gigafactory at Coventry airport?
I have fond memories of visiting my hon. Friend’s constituency and using an electric taxi. They thought that was impossible 15 years ago, but we got it done and we will make sure that his constituency and constituencies across the country are in the lead in building new electric vehicles for this country and for the world.
In Chesham and Amersham, several people told me how they struggle week in, week out to care for family loved ones while trying to hold down a job. They told me that they felt the Prime Minister was not interested in them, that he was not listening to them and that he did not care about them. Such inspiring working family carers are not unique to Chesham and Amersham. There are thousands in every constituency—no doubt in every seat across the so-called Conservative heartlands—with an estimated 7 million people juggling unpaid care and jobs last year. What is the Prime Minister going to do to make these people’s lives a little bit easier? When is he going to stop taking working family carers for granted?
I salute working family carers and people who look after loved ones, as they have done throughout the pandemic. What we have tried to do, as I have just said, is to look after families through the last 18 months to the best of this country’s ability, supporting them with furlough and with all sorts of schemes, in addition to putting unprecedented sums into social care. But there is nothing any Government could do, and there are no words that I could express, that would be enough to requite the care and love that is given by family carers to those they look after.
We are currently experiencing a housing crisis in Cornwall, where local people are being priced out of the market, whether to buy or rent, by prices being inflated due to the huge demand from people wanting to move to Cornwall to live or buy a holiday home. This is a long-standing problem, but in recent months it has become the worst it has ever been. As the Government bring forward their reforms of the planning system, can my right hon. Friend assure me and the people of Cornwall that this will not be about building lots of homes for wealthy people to buy, and that it will ensure that the people of Cornwall are able to access the homes that they need?
My hon. Friend raises a point that has been raised repeatedly with me in Cornwall, and we are absolutely determined to address the issue in question and to work with Linda Taylor, the leader of the newly Conservative Cornwall Council, to ensure that we build local homes for local people so that young people growing up in Cornwall have the chance of owning their own home.
While football clubs, charities and mums and dads in Sunderland and across our country were searching for that old laptop in the cupboard to give a child the data and device needed for learning during the pandemic and lockdown, the largest company in the world was throwing brand-new tech into landfill. Amazon does not pay its fair share of tax, it treats its staff badly and now it denies internet access to our poorest children. Will the Prime Minister join me today in unequivocally condemning that appalling practice by Amazon?
I was shocked and amazed to hear that computers were literally being sent to landfill in the way the hon. Lady describes, and I think the whole House would agree that the practice is bizarre and unacceptable. I am sure Amazon will wish to rectify it as fast as possible, but one thing that we are doing—to get to her second point—is ensuring that tech giants and other companies pay their fair share of tax on their sales within this country, thanks to the agreement that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor struck at the G7.
With new houses comes the need for new infrastructure, and in Aylesbury we particularly need better transport links, to cope with our growing population. Will my right hon .Friend therefore ensure that the Aylesbury spur of East West Rail is approved? There is a better business case for it than there is for HS2, and the spur has the great advantage of being the railway we do want, rather than the one we do not.
Yes, I can confirm to my hon. Friend that the Department for Transport’s review is looking at the design and construction of the Aylesbury spur, but I have to caution that the cost of construction of that spur is currently very high and we need to look at the numbers to ensure that they come down. I hope he may be helpful in that matter.
Every day, the Prime Minister strengthens the case for Scottish independence. His recent trade deal sees food producers in Ochil and South Perthshire subjected to unfair competition from low-welfare Australian producers—this is a country where animals can be transported to slaughter for two days in the baking heat, without water. So farmers join seafood producers, musicians and those in a host of other sectors who realise that his Brexit assurances were substance-free hot air. But may I ask him when he is planning his next covid-safe visit to Scotland? Please will he come soon, because every visit is a tonic for us and toxic for his Scottish Tory apologists.
I do not want to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but I am seldom away from Scotland and cannot wait to be back there as soon as possible, after the record poll secured by Scottish Conservatives at the recent election. Yet again we hear this abuse of Australia, which has high animal welfare standards, and a negative attitude to the opportunities that free trade offers this country and the people of Scotland. When is the hon. Gentleman going to stop running down Scottish agriculture and the potential of Scottish farming?
Will my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister join me in thanking Derbyshire police for their excellent work in rounding up, arresting and charging people involved in the recent incidents of stabbing, where one young man was murdered and others were badly hurt? The murder in Swadlincote, a very rare event, has caused concern among residents, but the very swift action taken by our Derbyshire police has taken the perpetrators off the street. Clearly, more police in South Derbyshire would be very much welcomed by our residents.
My hon. Friend is entirely right to raise the issue of the appalling murder in Swadlincote. We are making sure with our Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that such crimes are dealt with in a more expeditious way, with greater powers for the police. As I say, we are also recruiting 20,000 more police, including, she will be pleased to know, an additional 85 in Derbyshire.
During the Brexit referendum the Prime Minister promised that there would be no change in the rights of EU citizens in the UK, yet in a week’s time those without settled status will lose the right to work, rent a flat or access free healthcare. This Government have demanded repeated grace periods during the Brexit process, so will he now finally agree to extend the deadline for EU citizens?
The EU settlement scheme has been one of the great successes of our recent Brexit negotiations, and it has produced 5.6 million applications already; I seem to remember that we were told there were only 3.2 million or 3 million to begin with. Everybody knows what the deadline is. I hope people will come forward and do what 5.6 million other people have already done.
Large sections of the Waen, near St Asaph in my constituency, have very poor broadband connections. Top-up gigabit vouchers, provided via community fibre partnerships, have the potential to raise much of the £200,000 needed to address the situation, but there is a 24% shortfall. What can my right hon. Friend do to assist my constituents who are stuck in this position?
BT Openreach recently extended its offer of commercial coverage for gigabit broadband to services in my hon. Friend’s area—in the community that he mentions—and that is partly because of the super deduction in taxation in respect of investment that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced recently at the Budget.
  The Electoral Commission performs an important independent role in the regulation of UK elections. Whether it is investigating dark money or attempts to undermine our democracy, its role is critical to ensure public confidence in our democratic processes. With the Government seeking to neuter the Electoral Commission, what exactly is the Prime Minister planning that requires his Government to attempt to be able to direct the independent regulator?
For the sake of brevity, I think I can say absolutely nothing.
Has my right hon. Friend had a chance to review the recent Foreign Office announcement that Britain is to cut its support for tackling neglected tropical diseases by a staggering 95%? That will not only write off quite a considerable investment by British taxpayers in this important work, but mean that 280 million drugs, tablets and vaccines will have to be written off and burned or destroyed. Does he know that the World Health Organisation has said that this one act will lead to the maiming, the blinding, the disruption of the lives and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people Will my right hon. Friend accept and respect the statement that Mr Speaker made from his Chair on Monday 7 June, when he said that there must be a meaningful vote in this House on this matter? Will my right hon. Friend see whether such a vote can be brought forward before the end of term and the summer recess? If not, will he ensure that the 0.7% commitment is brought back from the start of next year?
I am told by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that there will be an estimates day debate on overseas aid, but I must say that I just do not accept the characterisation that my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell)—for all his expertise and learning in this matter—has just given of this country and our contribution to the fight against disease around the world. In spite of all the difficulties we face, we are contributing £10 billion in official development assistance this year—in spite of the colossal expenditure that the British state has been forced to make to look after jobs and families around the country. In addition to that, we are spending £1.6 billion on supporting COVAX and £458 million on supporting Gavi. Colleagues should remember that one in three of the COVAX vaccines that are, as my right hon. Friend knows, saving lives around the world is the direct result of the actions of the UK Government. The people of this country should be very proud of what we are achieving.
Yesterday was Windrush Day, the 73rd anniversary of the arrival of Caribbean people from Commonwealth countries in 1948, yet this year it is a reminder of the appalling failure of the Government’s Windrush compensation scheme, which has been so disturbingly slow and extensively bureaucratic that at least 21 people have died while waiting for justice and only 687 people have received any payment at all. Given the repeated delays and the failure of the Home Office to provide justice for the Windrush generation, does the Prime Minister now accept that the scheme must be handed over to an independent body to prevent prolonged suffering?
I accept the injustice that was done to the Windrush generation and renew the apologies on behalf of the Government for our share of responsibility. Yes, I do want to make sure that the compensation scheme is accelerated; I spoke to the people responsible for distributing it just the other night. I also said—I hope the House would agree—that I hope that in due time the name Windrush will be associated not just with that injustice, though it was appalling, but with the amazing contribution, sacrifice and effort of the Windrush generation to this country, that Windrush is a positive name for the people of this country, and that, indeed, Windrush is regarded as the Mayflower of our country.
When High Speed 2 was first proposed, the estimated cost was £37.5 billion. The latest estimate is over £150 billion, and rising fast. Is there a price at which the Prime Minister will accept that High Speed 2 is no longer value for money, or is he determined to build it irrespective of the final cost, whatever that will be? Would it not be better to put this white-elephant project out of its misery and get rid of High Speed 2, and instead deliver high-speed broadband—reliable 1 gigabit capability—at a fraction of the cost to every household? That would be much more useful for everyone in all our communities.
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of gigabit broadband. That is why the coverage has gone up, just since I have been Prime Minister, I think from 9% of our country to 60% this year. We hope to get up to 100% in the course of the next few years. I cannot agree with her, however, about HS2. The House did vote for it. It has the potential to do a massive amount of good in levelling up across the whole UK. Indeed, I think even the Liberal Democrats voted for it—I see the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) there—although you would not think it to judge from some of their recent campaigns, would you, Mr Speaker? But that is the thing about the Liberal Democrats: they can vote for one thing, then say another when it comes to elections.
When the covid-19 pandemic exploded, scientists warned that with rapid transmission more dangerous variants would emerge and that vaccines could lose efficacy in the face of mutations. Now variant upon variant has sparked surge testing, further lockdowns and the recent delay to the end of restrictions, with 41 people already reported to have the more virulent delta-plus variant. The Prime Minister held his vaccine donation as putting people squarely above profit, but that is lousy in the face of the fact that intellectual property is driving global supply shortages. Does he therefore understand why it is no use for the G7 to promise 1 billion doses at some point in the future when people are dying now, and when the success of our vaccination programme is under threat from emerging variants now? Will he reconsider his negligible vaccine donation policy and join over 100 countries in supporting the vaccine intellectual property waiver?
I really think it is satirical to say that the G7’s efforts have so far been negligible. What the G7 agreed at Carbis Bay was another billion, on top of the billion that has already been contributed. The UK is putting in, as the hon. Lady knows, another 100 million up to June next year. As for the points she makes about variants and vaccines, she should know that all the advice we have at present is that the vaccines are effective against all the variants that we can currently see.
Can the Prime Minister promise that the forthcoming planning Bill will not restrict the right of residents to have their say over what is built in their neighbourhood?
Yes, indeed. What we want to ensure— [Interruption.] Yes, because I will not have this misrepresented by the Liberal Democrats in the way that they do. I will not have it misrepresented by anybody, because what we want to do is ensure that we give young people in this country the chance of home ownership, which the Labour party would ruthlessly deny them. What we want to do, by our levelling-up agenda, is to help young people across the country and to make sure, by the way, that we relieve pressure on the overheating south-east and ensure that we build back better across the whole UK. That is the objective of our planning Bill.
I am now suspending the House for three minutes to enable the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.
Before I call Liz Kendall to ask the urgent question, I want to wish Helen a very happy birthday. It is a delight to be able to do so.
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State to make a statement on the Government’s plans for social care reform.
I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and for giving me the opportunity to talk about social care reform. I start by paying tribute to carers, paid and unpaid, for all they do in looking after people in their homes and in care homes every single day with kindness and compassion. To any who may happen to be watching or listening today, I say “Thank you for what you do.” Over the past year in government, we have rightly focused on supporting social care through the pandemic. This has included an extra £1.8 billion of funding, sending more than 2 billion items of free personal protective equipment to care providers, distributing more than 120 million covid tests to social care and vaccinating hundreds of thousands of care home residents and most of the care workforce While the pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to social care, it has also strengthened the argument for reform, and we now have the opportunity to build back better in social care. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a care system for the future, and I am hugely ambitious. I want a care system in which we can be confident, for our grans and grandads, mums and dads, brothers and sisters, children and grandchildren and, indeed, ourselves. I want people to be able to get the care that they need when they need it, and to have choices—to live life to the full in the way they want, living independently and part of a community for as long as possible, without facing an astronomical bill I want to join up health and care around people, so that it works as one system dedicated to meeting the needs of individuals, and giving them the personal care they want and need to live their lives to the full. I want the care workforce to be properly recognised and valued for what they do—for their skills, their compassion and their commitment. I want them to have more training, more opportunities and more prospects for career progression. I am committed to supporting unpaid carers not only in the care they provide, but with their own health and well-being, so that they can live their own lives as well as caring for others We are already taking steps on the road to reform. The health and care Bill will introduce Care Quality Commission oversight of local authorities’ provision of social care. It will also help to join up health and social care by putting integrated care systems on a statutory footing. We are working on our long-term plan for social care, and we will bring forward our proposals for social care reform later this year.
It has been 100 weeks since the Prime Minister promised to “fix the crisis in social care” with a plan he had already prepared, to give people the dignity and security they deserve. Since then, almost 42,000 care home residents have died from covid-19. Two million people have applied for support but have had their requests refused, and tens of thousands have had to sell their homes to pay for care. Families have hit breaking point, and staff have been appallingly let down. Even after all the horrors of the pandemic, nine out of 10 councils say that they face care budget cuts this year This week, we learned that Ministers cannot even be bothered to have a meeting to finally come up with the goods. That is not delivering dignity; it is abdicating responsibility, so can I try again with the Minister? When precisely will we see the Government’s plan? A vague commitment to some time later this year will not convince anyone, after all the delays and broken promises. Will the plan include a cap on care costs, so people’s life savings are not wiped out? That has been repeatedly promised and was legislated for seven years ago, but it has still not been delivered. Will there be proper proposals for people with disabilities, who make up a third of the users and half the budget for social care, but have been entirely absent from the debate? Where is the decent workforce plan to ensure that frontline carers get the pay and conditions they deserve, and that we end endemic staff shortages? Will unpaid family carers finally get the help they need, so that their own health does not suffer and they are not forced to choose between holding down a job and caring for the people they love In the century of ageing, we cannot build back a better future for Britain without a decent system for social care. This is as much a part of our infrastructure as the roads and railways are. Our country urgently needs a plan. The time for excuses is over. When will the Government deliver?
Of course we have focused on supporting social care through the pandemic over the past 18 months; that absolutely had to be the right thing to do when facing an unprecedented challenge. During the pandemic we not only supported social care, including, as I said, over £1.8 billion of extra funding direct to the care sector, but supported local authorities with over £6 billion of extra funding. But yes, we are determined to bring forward proposals for social care reform. We have been absolutely clear that we shall do that. The hon. Lady asked about particular meetings. Actually, the Health Secretary and the Prime Minister talk about social care reform all the time. In fact, I spoke to the Prime Minister only last week about social care reform. These are complex matters. The hon. Lady will know that nearly 25 years ago, Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair said that we needed reform of social care, but during the 13 years of Labour government, was there a plan for social care reform? No, there was not. We are the Government who are going to bring forward social care reforms. I would welcome her support for that. We are a Government who deliver. We have delivered Brexit, we are delivering vaccinations at a phenomenal pace, and we will deliver social care reform.
I know that the Minister is working hard behind the scenes to get a resolution to these issues, and I thank her for her efforts to do that. Does she agree that the NHS will fail in its objective to deal with the covid backlog if the social care system continues to export its most vulnerable patients to our hospitals, filling up hospital beds that cannot then be used to deal with the enormous backlog of cancer and other operations that we have? Does she also agree that the founding principle of the NHS—that no matter who you are, rich, poor, young or old, you should be able to access the care you need—is fundamentally undermined by the way we treat people with dementia, whereby people who are wealthy are able to pay expensive care home fees but people of limited means find that they are cleaned out of absolutely everything when a loved one gets dementia?
I thank my right hon. Friend for his support for our determination to reform social care. He makes an important point that we have to look at the NHS and social care together as the two parts of the system affect each other. That is one important reason why the health and care Bill needs to improve the join-up between health and social care. On his point about dementia, it is true that some people who suffer from dementia need care for very many years and this is extremely costly. That is one of the things we want to address as part of our social care reforms.
It is noticeable that while the UK Tory Government failed to mention social care reform in last month’s Queen’s Speech and have yet to deliver the long-awaited social care Bill, by contrast, under limited devolution, the SNP Government are establishing a national care service backed by a 25% increase in social care investment. What lessons has the Minister learned from this Scottish example? What recent consideration have the UK Government given to exempting the Scottish Government’s £500 thank-you payment for health and social care staff from tax and benefit deductions? As the settled status deadline fast approaches, the SNP is calling on the UK Government to automatically grant post-Brexit residence status to prevent a cliff edge for EU nationals and a black hole in Scotland’s care sector. Will the Minister urgently discuss this with Cabinet colleagues?
The Queen’s Speech reiterated our commitment to reform of social care, and that commitment has been reiterated many times by the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary. On the hon. Gentleman’s question about looking at other systems, of course we look and learn. We look at what works across and within England and around the UK, and in fact around the world. This is a complex thing to achieve and we are determined that we will bring forward our ambitious plans for social care reform later this year.
My interests are in the register I was delighted to hear the Minister confirm that the reform announcements will come later this year, and obviously a centrepiece of that will be the key question of how we get significantly more money into the social care system. But can she guarantee that the proposals will cover issues such as workforce planning, the need for changes in the housing stock to enable people to live in their own homes for much longer than they can at the moment, and the use of technology to ease their daily burden, all of which are essential for a sustainable and civilised social care system?
My right hon. Friend makes an important point about the breadth of the reform that is needed. I can confirm that we are looking at how we can support the workforce further, including by raising skills and improving training opportunities and career progression, and how technology can be used to support better care and more independence as well as providing more time for the workforce to do personal care rather than administration. On housing, most people want to live behind their own front door for as long as possible, surrounded by their own things and in their own communities, so that is also absolutely part of our reform.
New analysis for the Care and Support Alliance found that since the Prime Minister stood on the steps of Downing Street some two years ago and promised to “fix…social care once and for all”, 2 million requests for formal care and support from adults over 18 have been turned down by their local council; that is the equivalent of 3,000 requests being turned down every day, putting immense pressure on unpaid carers as well as the NHS. This shows the human cost of dither and delay, so will Ministers stop their internal spats and off-the-record briefings and commence cross-party talks immediately with the sector so that we can fix this issue?
We have of course had to focus on the pandemic over the last 18 months, but we are already working on reform. We are already consulting widely with the sector; I and the Department have together met and spoken to more than 70 different organisations and representatives of the care sector, from care providers to local authorities, and including care users and carers themselves. We will be working with this broad range of people, including parliamentarians; we need to build a consensus not only across Parliament but in society as a whole for our social care reforms.
Over the past couple of years I have spoken to many families across the Bolsover constituency who are affected by social care and all the challenges that we know the sector and those who work in it face. Does my hon. Friend agree that this should not be a matter of party political point scoring and that what we need is a sustainable solution? Will she commit to delivering that solution this year so that we can have a social care sector that is fit for purpose for many years to come?
My hon. Friend is clearly having conversations in his constituency, and he makes an important point about the scale and number of people who have involvement in the care system. There are over 1.4 million people who receive care, over 1.6 million people in the care workforce, and over 5 million unpaid or family carers. The scale is huge and is growing as more people need care. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that this is not a party political issue; we need to come together and build a consensus across Parliament, but also across society as a whole—and, yes, we will bring forward proposals for reform later this year.
I thank the Minister for her statement today on social care reform. An issue close to my heart is support for carers in the form of respite; in particular we have generations of young carers who need a break after the isolation of the pandemic. Will the Minister commit to making funding available specifically to provide respite overnights for carers who carry out their activities 24/7 and need support more than ever right now?
The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point about respite for carers. Being a carer is hard and back-up support and respite services help make it more possible, but frustratingly, during the pandemic many of those services have not been able to function as normal. I am currently working with Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government Ministers to help local authorities across England ensure that day services and respite care are fully restarted as that is very important, and I would like to see that across the whole of the UK.
I appreciate this is very difficult for the Minister, because until we actually know what the Government’s proposals are, she is answering questions based on assumptions and guesswork, but she will know that the main concerns of families are twofold: that they get adequate care; and that they will not have to sell their family home to provide that care. What assurance can she give that the Government will take into account the fact that people want to hold on to their family home? On the assumption that the value of assets will play some part in whatever formula we come up with, what account will be taken of the vast difference in prices of property in London compared with, for example, Cleethorpes?
I hope my hon. Friend will forgive me if I am not drawn on the assumption point that he made in the second part of his question, but what I can say to him is that the Prime Minister has been clear that he wants a social care system where no one needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it.
On Friday I met my constituent Phil, whose mother, given the state of her dementia, has gone to into a care home. The day before I met my constituent Denise, who is trying to keep her mum, who has Alzheimer’s, in her own home. I think they are pretty typical of most of our constituents, because in addition to the cost issue, they are dealing with the complexity of a system they do not have experience of, as well as trying to get the right quality of care. Can my hon. Friend confirm that the issues of cost, complexity and quality of care will all be dealt with in the reform proposals?
Yes, I absolutely can. We know that cost is a real problem, but there is also a real variation in quality of care. In fact, we are already taking steps on that. That is one reason why the health and social care Bill introduces an assurance or oversight system of the provision of care commissioned by local authorities. Yes, the breadth of the issues that my hon. Friend refers to is being considered in our reform proposals.
The 2018 Equality and Human Rights Commission report, “Housing and disabled people: Britain’s hidden crisis”, found that disabled people in the UK were not getting the support they needed to live independently. Three years on, we still have not seen any sign of the national strategy for disabled people which was promised this spring. Does the Minister agree that that is long overdue, and can she tell the House what her Government are currently doing to support people to go into independent living?
One thing I am very aware of is that often the debate about social care reform is a lot about care for older people, but that we should also make sure we are thinking at least as much about care for those of working age with disabilities. I and the Government certainly do think about that. We are working on the national disabled strategy, which I have contributed to. It will be coming forward shortly.
The Fed at Heathlands Village in my constituency is an amazing example of what care can and ultimately should look like, so I want to start by extending an invitation to the Minister to walk around The Fed with me to see what services really should look like. What can we do to ensure that The Fed is not just a torchbearer, but the norm?
I thank my hon. Friend for his invitation. I do my utmost to get out and about—at the moment, mainly virtually—but I am looking forward to being able to go on more visits in the weeks and months ahead. Absolutely, what I want to see is a high standard of care available for everybody across the whole country.
It is nearly two years since the Prime Minister promised to fix social care. In the intervening period, we have had the false promise that there was a ring of protection around social care homes. The Government’s treatment of people in care homes, their families and the workers in that field of public service is appalling. This is a highly politically charged issue. We tried to fix it when we were in government and were attacked by the Opposition. The Government have had a similar experience. The only way forward on this is for the Government to have cross-party talks on how we find a solution to this problem. Will she commit to doing that?
I would just remind the hon. Gentleman of the unprecedented level of support we have given to the social care sector during the pandemic, as I mentioned a moment ago. I know it has been extremely hard, but that is why we provided over £1.8 billion-worth of funding, free personal protective equipment, access to testing, and, of course, priority in the vaccination roll-out. On his point about needing to build a consensus around social care reform, I am already talking to parliamentarians across parties. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago I had a really helpful session with the all-party parliamentary group on adult social care. I look forward to continuing to work with colleagues across the House.
Will the Minister ensure that quality of care for the person needing it is central to the review? Can we learn lessons over the safe discharge of people from hospital into care settings? Will the NHS ensure that in future GP and nursing care, where needed, is available to support those patients on discharge?
One thing I will say is that during the pandemic GPs and primary care in general have really stepped up to support those in care homes in particular, with every care home having a point of contact in primary care to ensure the support from GPs that those residents require. Yes, quality is at the centre of our proposals for social care reform.
We all know that commissioning in social care is broken. The price paid for care is too low, the wages paid to carers are too small and there is a lack of training and professional development for carers. I would like the Minister to address the issue of home care being commissioned by the minute—it is the only publicly funded service commissioned or measured by time. Will the social care plans address that? She could do worse than look at the GMB’s ethical care commissioning charter to see a way forward.
Some really interesting and important work has been done on commissioning, looking at the outcomes of care rather than being so focused on inputs, which sometimes leads to the situation described by the hon. Member. One of the opportunities of the oversight system that we propose through the health and care Bill is that it will shine a light on the different ways in which local authorities commission care and give more visibility to what works. Those ways of commissioning that do not lead to such good outcomes can therefore learn from others. We look forward to seeing an improvement in how care is commissioned and, therefore, the care that people receive.
Fixing our social care system is the biggest long-term challenge facing the country. However, for all the scale and complexity of the issue, fundamentally it comes down to money. We must find a way to fund our social care system fairly and sustainably. Will the Minister assure the House that she will work on a cross-party basis to bring forward reforms as soon as possible so that we can prevent the appalling situation in which people are forced to sell their home to pay for care?
I can absolutely assure my hon. Friend on that point. One of the things we are committed to addressing is the situation where people may have worked all their lives to purchase and own a home and pay off a mortgage but then find themselves faced with a care bill of a size that uses up the value of their home when, perfectly reasonably, they want to be able to pass something on to their family.
When I was a care worker, I was lucky enough to work alongside care workers from across the world. We know the sacrifices that all care workers have made during the pandemic and how care home residents were put at risk by the Government’s covid response. There has now been over a decade of empty promises. When will there be a plan for social care that offers more for these heroes than just a badge, some bin bags for PPE and a failure of an NHS boss in waiting who does not value the efforts of overseas healthcare workers?
I absolutely respect the experience that the hon. Member brings to this House, but I do not agree with quite a bit of what she said. We have done our utmost to support the more than 1.4 million members of the social care workforce during the pandemic, and our thinking about the care workforce puts them front and centre of the social care reforms that we are developing. That, of course, is because the quality of care is so much dependent on that fantastic workforce. I am determined that they continue to be front and centre of our work on reform. As I said, we will bring forward proposals for reform later this year.
A world-class healthcare system cannot exist without effective and sustainable social care. The health and care Bill is an important step, but will my hon. Friend ensure that the social care reforms go further in integrating health and social care so that everybody who needs care can get the tailored support that they need?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The proposals in the health and care Bill are just a step on the road to reform, but they are an important step. That step includes the joining up of health and social care in integrated care systems and putting those on a statutory footing, and the oversight arrangements for social care provided and commissioned by local authorities. We will be building on those plans in our long-term plan for social care reform.
I am sure the Minister will agree that the two conditions that people most fear getting at some point in their lives are probably cancer and dementia. Yet, if someone gets cancer, the NHS will take care of them and the taxpayer will fund their treatment; if they get dementia, broadly speaking that is not the case. As has been said already, surely the only way through this is a significant injection of money. That means being honest with the British people that, collectively, we will have to pay for it. Does she agree that we would be right to say to the British people that they should pay an extra penny on income tax for social care, so that people do not have to lose their home and their dignity if they lose their health?
I would not want to upset the Chancellor by talking about tax policy at the Dispatch Box, but, as I have said to colleagues—and, in fact, as the Prime Minister has said—one of the things that we are committed to as part of our social care reforms is ensuring that nobody should have to sell their home to pay for their care.
People across our country will have breathed a huge sigh of relief when the Prime Minister stood on the steps of Downing Street and exclaimed that he had a “clear” and “prepared” plan to solve the social care crisis, but almost two years have passed and there is still no plan in sight. Indeed, the Minister has said today that the Government are still working on a plan. What is the hold-up? Who is obstructing the Prime Minister—or was he simply misleading the nation as usual?
The hon. Member asks about the hold-up. As I have said quite clearly, we have had a pandemic, which has been an unprecedented challenge for our country, our Government and our social care system. In fact, all those working on social care in the Department have been focused on our pandemic response for most of the past 18 months— perfectly rightly, I think the House would say. Thankfully, as we emerge from the pandemic—thanks to the fantastic vaccination efforts across the country, meaning that a huge number of those in care homes and care workers have been vaccinated against covid—we are now able to focus our attention on social care reform. That is why we will be able to bring forward our proposals for reform later this year.
Despite repeated promises by successive Governments, our social care system has not received the attention it deserves, and my constituents want to see that attention. Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Government will honour the promise that we made to the British people and deliver the long-term solution that the sector needs?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right; reform has been talked about by many Governments. One of the challenges is that people say, “Social care is broken and we must fix it”, but different people mean different things. Some are particularly concerned about what are called catastrophic costs, including the problem of people selling their home to pay for their care. Others are much more concerned about care—and rightly so—for working-age adults and the increasing costs for those of working age with disabilities. For other people, it is about questions of housing or technology. We are hugely ambitious about our social care reforms and want to bring this all together into a long-term plan for social care.
Instead of bringing forward plans to fix the social care crisis as the Prime Minister has promised, the Government intend to put in place a legal framework for a discharge to assess model, whereby NHS continuing healthcare and NHS-funded nursing care assessments can take place after an individual has been discharged from acute care, instead of before. The Government have told me that an independent evaluation of the implementation of the hospital discharge policy is currently under way, and that it is due to report this autumn. Will the Minister tell us why the Government are pressing ahead with this policy, despite not yet fully understanding the impact that it is having on patients and unpaid carers?
I would not see this as either/or. We have said that we will bring forward proposals for social care reform. To the hon. Lady’s point about discharge, it is well known at that, particularly for an older person, spending a long time in hospital can be harmful to their prospects of recovering and living a good quality of life. I have seen that in my own family as well as knowing that it is a long-standing challenge across our health and social care system. It is absolutely right that we should take steps to support people to be discharged from hospital to home when they are clinically ready.
I very much welcome the plans for integrating the NHS, local authorities and social care providers. Can the Minister assure us that the plans will not lead to any more centralisation or bureaucracy in the system, and that, on the contrary, we will see more local flexibility, more choice and control for patients and, crucially, more support for the families and community groups that are so important in the delivery of social care?
Yes, absolutely. One of the strengths of our social care system is its huge diversity, with the different forms of social care and the different ways it works in different communities. In fact, that has been one of the challenges for the Government during the pandemic, because we are reaching out to over 25,000 different organisations, but actually that diversity is a positive thing, so I will continue to support it in the years ahead.
Today marks 700 days to the day since, on the steps of Downing Street, the Prime Minister told the nation that “we will fix the crisis in social care once and for all with a clear plan we have prepared” For clarity, this was before the global pandemic hit. I know, and the Minister knows, that the market has failed, and that that failure has been exacerbated by the pandemic, not created by it. Is it not time for the Minister to face the inconvenient truth that the only way to fund social care is through progressive taxation, with a diverse range of in-house services guaranteeing workforce standards and service user choice, under the umbrella of local government?
The hon. Lady is right to say that when we went into the pandemic, the social care system already needed reform. That was well recognised, and that was why the Prime Minister committed back in 2019 that we would bring forward social care reforms—[Interruption.] I am not going to talk about tax policy here, but I can reassure her that we are working on our social care reforms and will bring forward the plan later this year.
The report of the joint Health and Social Care and Housing, Communities and Local Government Committees, of which I was a part, left open the possibility of insurance-type solutions for adult care funding, as successfully operated in many countries comparable to our own. That would have advantages of finance, focus and structure. Given how hugely ambitious my hon. Friend has said she is on this, can she confirm that both insurance-based solutions and an enhanced role for local government remain options for her and the other key decision makers when determining the way forward for adult care?
I thank my hon. Friend for his involvement on the Health and Social Care Committee, whose reports I find really helpful; they provide great insight and contribute to the conversation. He alludes to the different models for paying for social care, and clearly there are many different approaches. We have been considering them, but I am not able to go into detail here and now. I will have to ask him to wait until we publish our proposals for social care reform.
This pandemic has starkly demonstrated the unequal footing of social care alongside the NHS in this country. The Prime Minister’s announcement back in 2019 that he had a social care plan ready to go has been clearly shown to be untrue, and according to Age UK, 1.5 million older people are going without the care they need. People living in areas with a low council tax base, such as Newcastle, have seen their local council tax precepts rise because the Government have shifted the burden of paying for social care on to those who can least afford it. I agree with the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), that the time for excuses is over, so what is the Minister doing to ensure that the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary stop making empty promises so that we can start building much-needed cross-party consensus on this issue without any further delay?
We are working on our proposals for social care reform, and we are working across the sector. As I have said, I am already talking to and meeting those across the sector—care providers, representatives and, in fact, users of the care and carers themselves. This is complex. There are reasons why there have been discussions about this for many years without proposals for reform being brought forward. We are hugely ambitious, and we want to get it right. That is why I make no apologies that we are taking some time, but as we have said, we will be bringing forward our proposals for reform later this year.
Across Sedgefield—from Hurworth to Thornley and Piercebridge to Bishopton—many people are concerned about the cost of social care and how they are going to cope with it. With property prices in my constituency at about 30% of London ones, any use of that property value to pay for care just becomes catastrophic. The average weekly cost of care is substantially more than average earnings, so I understand the concerns they all have. Can I press the Minister again on ensuring that we do not leave them in a situation where they have to sell their house to fund such care?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Care is expensive, and about one in seven people end up spending more than £100,000 on their care. Many people do not realise that care may cost them that sort of amount. It can take them by surprise, so people are not ready for that kind of cost. Yes, people who have worked hard and saved all their lives for their home can be devastated by the value of that home going on the cost of their care. That is why we are determined that this will be one thing that we address in our social care reforms.
The 42,000 care home residents who have died of coronavirus during the pandemic are, sadly, just a recent example of how our social care system is failing. The Prime Minister stood on the steps of Downing Street 700 days ago and promised to fix the social care crisis. The bereaved families and everyone whose family depends on our wonderful social care workers deserve answers. Social care staff cannot do this on their own. Those who need the crisis to be fixed need certainty, not the ambiguity of “later this year”. So Minister, no more delays—give us a date. Tell us: when will the Government finally publish their plan and fix the social care crisis?
Let me say to the hon. Member: we have said we will publish proposals for social care reform, and we will; we have said we will set out a long- term plan for social care, and we will; and we have said we will reform social care, and we will.
Residents in Blackpool spend a higher percentage of their income on council tax than those anywhere else in the whole country. Although allowing councils to implement the social care precept has brought in much-needed revenue, it has in some cases placed a disproportionate burden upon ratepayers. While the case for reforming social care is clear, does the Minister agree that we require a national funding model to meet the costs, and that they cannot fall disproportionately on councils in deprived areas?
I thank my hon. Friend, and I recognise the situation right now. That is one reason why we are providing £3.8 billion in grants for adult and children’s social care this financial year, which has gone up from £3.5 billion in the previous financial year. Of course, looking ahead in our reforms, we do have to make sure that the way social care is paid for is fair across the country.
I was a carer for my daughter Maria for almost 27 years, so I know the demands that carers face every single day caring for those they love. Does the Minister really believe that £67 a week carer’s allowance is a fair amount for round-the-clock care, and will this amount be raised under the Prime Minister’s “prepared” plan for social care?
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for the hours, the love and the effort that she has put into caring herself. She knows, from her own experience, the experience of carers across the country and what it takes in time, physical effort and emotional effort Carer’s allowance is not intended to be somebody’s income; it is intended to support people with some of the costs of caring. It is primarily led by the Department for Work and Pensions, but I can say that I am committed to ensuring that there is support for unpaid carers and family carers, and, as I said earlier, ensuring that, as well as caring for and looking after others, those individuals should be able to have time for themselves to lead their own lives.
Does my hon. Friend agree that a Dilnot-style proposal would reward and incentivise people who had not saved or used financial planning to pass their assets and savings on to relatives or to trusts? A German-style social care premium would be a much fairer system. We would all pay a small amount to cover those who were hit by the catastrophic costs to which she has referred. When she makes proposals, will she include perhaps two or three, including a social care premium, so that we can have a proper debate on this important issue and try to achieve cross-party consensus?
I do not on this occasion agree with my hon. Friend, but I do very much appreciate his consistency and his commitment to ensuring that we have an informed conversation about the funding options for social care, as well as his well-informed drawing on international examples.
From providers to staff to those cared for, the sector really feels abandoned, and has been abandoned, by the Government during the pandemic. In Warwickshire, we have lost 347 people during the past year or so. We have heard that two years ago the country was promised by the Prime Minister an oven-ready plan. There was nothing. Globally, we are the sixth wealthiest country. Other, less prosperous nations have resolved the issue. Why cannot we, and when will the Government publish their plan?
I remind the hon. Member about the unprecedented support we have given social care during the pandemic: extra funding of £1.8 billion, over 2 billion items of free PPE to providers, a new system of distributing PPE direct to care homes and other care providers across the country, distributing over 120 million covid tests to care providers, and vaccinating hundreds of thousands of care home residents and the care workforce. We have been supporting the social care sector to our utmost during the pandemic, and we will introduce our proposals for reform of social care.
May I reiterate the point made by the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) about the importance of hospital discharge and of assessment happening while someone remains in hospital? As one who has experienced this at first hand, I know that in taking care of a loved one it is important that accountability and pathway care structures remain in place. Does my hon. Friend agree that the time for action on adult social care reform is now, that we must be bold and courageous, and that we must put an end to the second-class service many disabled adults and elderly people are receiving right now?
It is really important that discharge is carefully planned and that there is care and support at home for somebody when they are discharged from hospital, but it is also really important that we ensure that people are discharged when they are ready to leave. I saw that with my own grandmother, who ended up spending months in hospital owing to problems with her being discharged. Goodness, I wish that she had been discharged sooner—that would have been so much better for her. It is right that we support people to be discharged when they are ready to go home, and we should press ahead with doing that, although we must also ensure that support is there for people in their home.
If we are truly to see the full integration of health and social care, that will require us also to see the full integration of the funding of health and social care—free at the point of need, contributed by all. When the Minister brings forward her proposals, will she ensure that that is an option we can consider? Will she bring forward those proposals ahead of debating the health and care Bill, so we actually know what we are trying to debate in that piece of legislation before talking about social care?
I cannot at this point go into the details of the proposals that we are working on for social care reform. I have tried to give the House today a sense of the breadth and scale of our ambition. As to the point on timing, the way I see it is that the health and care Bill is a step on the road to reform, including the statutory role of integrated care systems and the development of the assurance system. I do not see them tied together in the timing in the way she sets out. What I can say is that we will be bringing forward our proposals for social care reform later this year.
First, I wish the Minister a happy birthday. Can she reassure the House that the focus will remain steadfast on patient outcomes and happiness as part of the health and care Bill?
I thank my hon. Friend very much for his birthday wishes. I was not particularly planning to spend my birthday in this way, but it is a pleasure to talk about social care reform because I feel strongly about it and am clearly spending a great deal of time working on it. What really matters is making sure that the outcomes and the experience of care are better for people. What really matters is that people get to live their lives to the full, whether they are of working age or older, and get to live as independently as possible, as part of a community and with their own front door for as long as they can. It is the outcomes of care that really matter.
The Minister’s responses today further confirm that social care and the millions who rely on it are simply not a priority for her or this Government. It was recently reported that the Minister leaned on Public Health England to alter its proposed advice to care homes in the pandemic, from ensuring that those discharged from hospital tested negative for covid to not requiring any testing of patients at all. That led to more than 30,000 deaths. Will she take this opportunity to apologise to those who lost loved ones?
Actually what the hon. Member has just read out is completely untrue, completely misleading and does not reflect for a moment what has happened. I am very disappointed to hear her read it out.
Rotherham Council is benefiting from the £120 million that this Government are making available to councils to boost staffing levels, which helps residents across Rother Valley to receive the best quality care. Does my hon. Friend agree that, as we begin to work to build a world-class care system, ensuring care homes have the staff they need is a vital first step?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. At the heart of care is the workforce. They are the individuals who are providing the care and who make the difference day in, day out for those who need their important care. Absolutely, I want to make sure that we have the workforce across social care. We need to ensure we have the training there and greater career progression opportunities for those who work in social care.
It has been reported that the Prime Minister is in favour of finally implementing the cap on care costs legislated for in 2014. While that would be welcome, it would do nothing to support working age adults with a disability to live independently, nothing for the 1.9 million older people with unmet needs and nothing to improve pay and conditions for care staff. Does the Minister recognise that a cap on care costs alone does not go far enough, and can she confirm that further measures to deal with these other needs will be part of any reforms?
I hope the hon. Lady will forgive me if I am not drawn on specific models of funding or paying for care, but the Government and I recognise that we have on the one hand the challenge of catastrophic costs and the problems some people face of having to sell their home to pay for their care, which many Members have mentioned already today, but also we have the other part of the system, which is those who receive care funded by the state. Many of them are of working age, as well as there being older people. She is right: in our social care reform, we need to look across the breadth of the system.
I thank the Minister for her responses to the questions so far. As part of Warrington’s £22 million town deal, the town is launching an innovative social care academy, in partnership with Warrington & Vale Royal College, to tackle the shortage of trained carers, so that residents in my constituency receive the best quality care. Does she agree that initiatives such as that, which address an identified skills gap, will mean that both care homes and in-home care in Warrington will have tailored and targeted support? Would she like to come to see the academy when it is up and running?
My hon. Friend outlines a fantastic example: that is a really good use of town deal funding by Warrington. The academy—there are examples around the country—does an important thing in raising the profile of the social care workforce and developing their skills, which are so important. I absolutely support this initiative and, as and when the time is right, I would be delighted to visit.
I thank the Minister for responding to the urgent question, and I am suspending the House for two minutes.
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the vaccination of UK military personnel serving overseas.
As soon as our hugely successful covid vaccination programme was launched, I wanted to ensure that our armed forces would have access to vaccines as quickly as possible, so we tasked the Department with ensuring that nobody would be disadvantaged by serving our country abroad. This means people would be offered vaccinations no later than they would have at home, and that those who needed to would be vaccinated before they left the UK Our critical outputs, including the continuous-at-sea deterrent crew and the quick reaction alert air crew, have rightly been prioritised. We have also in recent days completed 100% vaccination for our carrier strike group. I can confirm today that sufficient vaccines for all of our people in all overseas locations have now been dispatched. We are in the process of getting the few remaining people who are awaiting their vaccines their jabs. For those on active operations overseas, we have administered first doses of vaccine to 95% of those eligible and 61% of them have had their second dose. I can assure the House that every single eligible person across Defence, at home or abroad, will have been offered at least their first vaccine dose by 19 July, in line with the national programme.
I am grateful for that reply but it does miss out a lot of detail. It gives me no pleasure whatsoever during Armed Forces Week, when we celebrate the military’s invaluable contribution to our nation, to raise this urgent question as to why we do not have a bespoke vaccination programme for our personnel who are deployed overseas In our national battle to tackle covid here in the UK, we have relied on our military from the start—in building Nightingales, driving ambulances, mass testing and, of course, running hundreds of vaccination centres across the country—and yet, when we ask them to return to their day job, those deployed overseas are not fully vaccinated. A reported outbreak of 80 cases in our recent UN mission to Mali illustrates the dangerous consequences. This outbreak would have devastated our operational capability and, indeed, the safety of the mission It is standard protocol to inoculate prior to deployment. If we protect our troops against yellow fever, anthrax, malaria, typhoid and a host of other infectious diseases, why not covid when we have these vaccines now? Our NATO allies are doing just that. The USA, France, Holland and Germany all have fully vaccinated their deployed troops, so why have we not? I understand that our NATO partners have in fact expressed concern that the Queen Elizabeth battle group departed without all personnel having received two vaccines and, indeed, our Gulf allies have also registered their concern that our personnel based in their stations abroad are without the vaccines. This is an easy call to get right, but it is also an irresponsible one to get wrong and arguably a potential breach of the armed forces covenant and our duty of care to our valiant armed forces. However, the picture would be incomplete without registering the MOD’s internal attempts to address this. We must make that clear, but I hope that Whitehall is now listening, and I am sure that the country would want to see key worker status granted to all personnel currently overseas. That is what would resolve this issue. With this challenge now out in the open, in supporting this call, can I ask the MOD to fully vaccinate all our sailors, soldiers and air personnel as a matter of urgency?
I thank my right hon. Friend for asking the urgent question. I have not had any representations from NATO partners or Gulf partners sharing any concerns over our vaccination programme, so he may wish to share with me or my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State any such representations that he has received so that we can discuss those with our colleagues in other Ministries of Defence. I am also slightly surprised that the MOD’s vaccination programme has become such a matter of urgent attention for him and others in the House, because we have had a series of parliamentary questions on this matter over the last six months, and in all of them, we have been very clear that the MOD’s position is that people would receive their vaccinations overseas in line with their age cohort here in the UK.
That was wrong. It was absolutely wrong.
Whether that was right or wrong can be a matter of debate, but the MOD position has been very clear throughout. I happen to believe that it is the right decision, because there was no decision to prioritise other professions beyond those within the NHS—military medics, it is important to say, were all vaccinated as a matter of priority alongside their NHS colleagues while they were working in high-risk covid environments The other thing that I would just pick up on in my right hon. Friend’s response to my initial answer is his assertion that 80 people on our deployment to Mali had covid. That is simply not the case. The correct figure, as was answered in a parliamentary question last week, is that cumulatively, since the deployment began, 24 people have tested positive for covid. If you will indulge the detail of that, Madam Deputy Speaker, there were six positive tests in March, two in April and one in May for the Chinook detachment, and two in December, six in January, one in February and six in March for the long range reconnaissance group.
This is frankly shocking. Defence Ministers have failed in their first duty to our armed forces, which is to ensure that they are properly trained, equipped and protected when they are deployed overseas, especially in conflict zones such as Mali. Six months ago, when Labour called in this House for Ministers to ramp up testing and to set out a clear plan to vaccinate our troops, the Defence Secretary said: “We are working on a list right now of who we can prioritise”.—[Official Report, 12 January 2021; Vol. 687, c. 189.] Why was it not done? Why was top priority not given to troops sent overseas? The Minister has just said it is only being done in line with the national programme. The MOD has been clearer, saying recently: “UK personnel have been vaccinated in line with national priority guidelines…which saw vaccines rolled out to priority groups in order of age and risk.” These are guidelines for civilians in Britain, not for troops fighting terrorists, 3,000 miles from home, in countries with jab rates among the lowest in the world— it is still at only 0.2% in Mali. I say to the Minister that that is wrong. How on earth did the Defence Secretary not stand up for the forces he deployed to Mali, Kenya, Oman, Afghanistan and elsewhere? These troops train together and fight together; they should be jabbed together How many and what proportion of UK military personnel deployed abroad, country by country, have contracted covid? How many have now been double jabbed, and when will all of them be done? Have all those deployed on core defence tasks, such as the continuous at-sea deterrent, now been double jabbed Will the Minister comment on the circumstances of HMS Defender in the Black sea today Finally, will the Minister now make full vaccination mandatory before overseas deployment? The Australians made that commitment in February, and it is high time British Ministers now did the same.
The detail of vaccines and positive tests by country is held, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I am not sure you would indulge me if I were to go through the spreadsheet. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would accept it if I were to write to him and place a copy in the Library, so it can be a matter of record The headline stat, as I said in my answer to a parliamentary question last week, is that 98.6% of people deployed overseas have had their first dose, and 56% have had their second dose. I accept that there could be a debate on all professions, whether they be clinicians in the NHS, teachers or members of the armed forces. We made a judgment that, where the medical facilities are sufficient to safely administer the vaccine in a deployed environment, those people would receive their vaccine in line with their age cohort in the general UK population. Where it is not possible to do that, such as with the continuous at-sea deterrent, they were fully vaccinated before deployment I am also grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising the activities around HMS Defender in the Black sea earlier today. No warning shots have been fired at HMS Defender. The Royal Navy ship is conducting innocent passage through Ukrainian territorial waters, in accordance with international law. We believe the Russians were undertaking a gunnery exercise in the Black sea and provided the maritime community with prior warning of their activity. No shots were directed at HMS Defender, and we do not recognise the claim that bombs were dropped in her path.
While it is, of course, welcome that 98.6% of our service personnel overseas have been vaccinated, just for reassurance, of those men and women serving overseas and their families back here in the UK, can my hon. Friend confirm that it is now and will be a priority of the Ministry of Defence, if it is not already, to ensure that all those serving overseas in our name, for this country, have access to both their jabs as a matter of urgency?
First, let me just correct myself for fear that I have inadvertently misled the House: the figure for all overseas deployments is 95%; 98.6% refers to the deployment in Mali. I apologise for that inaccuracy My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Given where we are in the national vaccination programme, one might argue that that is now the case, as everybody is within days of receiving their first jab. In fact, the way that the vaccination programme was administered whereby everybody over 50 received their jab in one go towards the front end of the priority groups at home meant that many in their 50s and 60s overseas—although in the defence population that is not very many—ended up receiving their jabs ahead of their age group in the UK. Likewise, for those under 40, jabs were effectively being rolled out in line with people in their 40s here in the UK. That means that many of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and airwomen who were in their late teens or 20s were getting their jab well ahead of their contemporaries.
I think many of us are shocked to hear some of the Minister’s comments today. He seems proud of the numbers testing positive in Mali. We should not have any testing positive at all because they should have received a double vaccination When we are sending troops into a conflict situation, they must be given appropriate personal protective equipment, including vaccination against whatever the threat is, and clearly covid is a big threat at the moment. The Government have a duty of care to those in the armed forces to ensure that they are able to carry out their duties and that operations are not threatened by illness. There is a potential threat to national security as well. Why have the Government not prioritised the armed forces for vaccination, regardless of whether they are serving at home or abroad? Can the Minister assure me that from this point on, personnel will not be deployed overseas without receiving both doses of vaccine? How many Royal Navy ships have had to restrict their operations due to covid outbreaks?
First, I would like to challenge the hon. Lady: I am not sure that correcting the assertion that there had been 80 positive cases with the fact that there had been 24 shows pride in that fact; it is just correcting the record in response to the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) in the first place It is certainly the case that everybody who is deploying on operations now has been jabbed. That goes without saying given that we are now at the stage where everybody under the age of 40 has had their jab. It is not necessarily the case that everybody has had two jabs and not necessarily possible to accelerate that. The Royal Anglian battlegroup, for example, who have just deployed to Mali, have had their first jab. They will receive their second when the appropriate period of time has passed between jabs. Otherwise there is no point in jabbing them because the effectiveness of the vaccination will not be as high as it should be. However, we have certainly reached a point in the vaccination programme where everybody who is being deployed has been vaccinated.
Clearly we must make sure that there is availability of vaccinations, and we must do everything we can to build public trust right across society, including our armed forces, in the effectiveness of the vaccinations. There has recently been some press comment about what the Government might do with those in the armed forces who refuse to accept the vaccine. I seek two reassurances from the Minister: first, that the maximum will be done to persuade them of the advisability of having a vaccination; and secondly, that they will not have their careers damaged because of their refusal to accept the vaccine.
The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. It is not in our gift to order people to take a medication should they not wish to do so. Prior to deployments where we have been seeking to fully vaccinate beforehand, we have been having a conversation with those who have expressed concern to try to reassure them that the vaccine is entirely safe and that it is in their interest to take it. I can absolutely assure him that anybody who needs to be removed from an operational deployment because of their unwillingness to take a vaccine is not in any way career fouled as a consequence.
The reports of events in the Black sea remind us of why families worry when they have serving personnel at sea or serving abroad. Can my hon. Friend reassure the constituents who have contacted me on this issue that the vaccine roll-out programme to our brave men and women is going well and will hit the targets he has outlined?
I certainly can. The second doses will all be deployed so that everybody overseas gets them as soon after their first dose as is medically advisable. Achieving that is not without challenge: getting these doses forward can require quite a logistical effort given some of the locations in which our people serve, but that has gone well and it is testament to military planners in the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Medical Services that that is the case.
It is obviously deeply troubling, no matter how many service personnel who have been deployed have now got covid—whether the number is 80 or 28 or whatever the clarification the Minister has given—that there are also media reports that those personnel did not have enough test kits or enough space in order to self-isolate. Can the Minister clarify that he is doing all he can to get test kits out to those service personnel who are defending us, as it should be the first duty of Ministers to protect service personnel who are protecting us, and can he ensure that any troops deployed in the coming months on operations will have everything they need in terms of testing and space to self-isolate if, unfortunately, they contract covid-19?
We do not recognise the reports in the press about lack of access to testing equipment; I have been assured that testing equipment was available in all theatres. The article to which I think the hon. Gentleman refers was about Mali, and there was certainly sufficient testing equipment in Mali at the time the article refers to The ability to self-isolate is slightly more challenging in some military settings than in others; in submarines, for example, it is quite hard, but in many other deployments it is perfectly possible. We do our best to make such provision available, but obviously field conditions are at times a slightly austere environment, in which case that is not always possible.
I welcome the update on vaccinations for our forces. While the MOD has a clear responsibility to protect its people, does the Minister agree that our forces will always get on with the task in hand and will generally be comfortable with risk in the face of adversity, a lesson that can perhaps be extended more broadly to our fight against the pandemic today?
My hon. Friend is right of course that people in our armed forces do accept a heightened risk. However, the risk that they offer to accept is ordinarily one that is posed by the enemy, and we in the MOD certainly do not assume that they are willing and able to accept a higher risk of infection from a virus. The judgment that was made was not around their acceptance of risk; it was made around the fact that military personnel are invariably young, fit and healthy, so when decisions were made about the prioritisation of vaccine it felt correct—and I stand by this now—to prioritise the vaccination of those who were more elderly and vulnerable at home rather than those who were younger, fitter and healthier and serving overseas.
We are all aware of the rigid, dogmatic vaccination policies of the Health Department bureaucrats and the utter failure of the Health Ministers to inject some common sense—they really are hopeless—but the Minister’s pitiful response today shows that Defence Ministers have meekly gone along with this. So the real question is why did our Defence Ministers not show some backbone by standing up for our troops and insisting on vaccines before deployment, if necessary forcing a decision for the Prime Minister? Can the Minister explain that failure?
I think I have answered the question already. We made the case for priority vaccination for those whom we felt needed to be vaccinated because it was unrealistic to vaccinate them other than as a priority right at the start of vaccination programmes—the nuclear deterrent quick reaction alert aircrew for example. Thereafter it was perfectly possible to safely vaccinate members of the armed forces in line with their age cohort, and the correct judgment was made in prioritising those who were more elderly and vulnerable at home.
We now have a clear position whereby two vaccinations are required, with a period of time obviously required between those vaccinations to maximise the efficacy of the vaccine. Will my hon. Friend give me an assurance that when we are vaccinating our armed forces, we are ensuring not only that the intervals between the jabs are maintained, but that we are allowing a period of time after the second jab is provided before our armed forces are sent on deployments, so that they are given the maximum possible protection from covid-19?
I cannot do that, because we have made sure that our forces have received their first jabs in line with or ahead of their contemporaries in the general population. They will receive their second doses at the appropriate time thereafter—once deployed, in the case of those recently deployed to Mali. I think that is an appropriate way of doing this. These are young, fit and healthy people, and they will get both their first and second doses well ahead of their contemporaries at home.
Can I say to the Minister that there is a clue in his title: Minister of State for the Armed Forces? It is about standing up for our armed forces. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar), I find it astounding that the Minister has just followed Department of Health guidance, rather than saying that there is a priority need, as the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) said, for people to have been vaccinated before overseas operations Let me ask the Minister directly about the 28 personnel —or whatever the number is, because he gave me a different one in a written answer about Mali the other day. What operational effect did that actually have on our contribution to the multinational force that is out there, because that is the key test? I just find it unacceptable that we did not vaccinate people against covid before they went.
First, there is an important point of fact: the battle group to which the right hon. Gentleman refers deployed in December 2020, before any vaccine had been certified. It would have been impossible to have vaccinated the Light Dragoons battle group before they were even deployed.
Not true.
It is true; they deployed in December 2020, and I believe that the first vaccination of a civilian in the UK was in December 2020. I do not see how the right hon. Gentleman could expect that to have been the case. He also asked a question about operational output, which is the right question to ask. As the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) and others who were briefed by the commanding officer of the Light Dragoons last week will perhaps be able to reassure him, there was no impact on operational output.
Although this is a question about defence personnel overseas, it would be remiss of me not to take a moment to thank the members of the armed forces who have helped with vaccine roll-out at home, including those from Leuchars, based in my constituency. May I ask the Minister, what discussions did the MOD have with deployed military personnel—such as the British Armed Forces Federation and other associations for military personnel—before deciding on the strategy that has clearly been the subject of this urgent question?
I echo the hon. Member’s thanks to all those military personnel who have been involved not just in the vaccine taskforce, but in all other parts of the response to the covid pandemic, particularly those in her constituency. Clearly, decisions such as this are initially decisions for policy makers in Government. I think that I have been very clear about our willingness as a ministerial team to own the decision that we took; I think it was the right one. I know that the chain of command have every confidence that the vaccination programme that we have set ourselves to deliver is indeed delivering. There were no conversations beyond that with any of the agencies or organisations that she mentioned.
My hon. Friend will be aware that there are a good number of British troops deployed in the Kurdish region in northern Iraq, training the peshmerga in their ongoing military fight with Daesh, and we know that Daesh seeks to capitalise on some of the chaos of the pandemic to make advances. I understand that our deployment in Iraq will be growing slightly over the next year, so will my hon. Friend assure me that anybody deployed there will be fully vaccinated, and that the troops who are training and who are still engaged in military operations have equal access to the vaccine?
I can reassure my hon. Friend that 96% of people currently serving on Op Shader—that will include those who are based in Cyprus as part of the aircrew—have been vaccinated, and 31% have had their second dose. I can assure him that they will receive their second doses as soon as it is medically advisable for them to do so. I cannot, however, tell him that it is policy to vaccinate the troops with whom they are partnering.
Will the Minister publish details of the risk assessment that was undertaken to determine why our troops were not fast-tracked for vaccine before deployment in high-risk areas?
I will write to the hon. Gentleman.
Look, this is just wrong and the Minister should admit it. Our service personnel deserve full vaccination before deployment on overseas missions. When the US, France, Germany and others have fully vaccinated their forces, it does not seem right that we are behind the curve on this. He says that all personnel are now single-jabbed but there is no point in providing second jabs unless the required time has elapsed for them to be effective. I get that, but can he make it clear to the House whether that is the 12-week extended gap that the public have to wait for, or the three-week gap that the vaccine manufacturers recommend?
I will write to the hon. Gentleman if this is incorrect, but I believe that we are working on around a four-week gap.
I thank the Minister for his reassurance that HMS Defender was not coming under fire earlier today in the Black sea. In Armed Forces Week, when we thank and celebrate our whole armed forces community, will the Minister join me in thanking all who were involved so invaluably in the vaccine roll-out in all four nations of the United Kingdom? Will he reassure me that, from the youngest recruit to those approaching retirement, all our armed forces will be prioritised for vaccinations?
I certainly join my hon. Friend in celebrating all who serve and have served in our nation’s armed forces, and in thanking them for doing so. She will have heard in my responses to previous questions that we are vaccinating the vast majority of the armed forces community, with the exception of those involved in nuclear deterrence and other niche tasks, in line with wider priorities. In reality, the way that delivery has taken place means that the vast majority of our armed forces, who are in their late teens and 20s, are being vaccinated ahead of their contemporaries in the general population. The decision was taken some months ago that we would not vaccinate the armed forces ahead of the general population, and that we would instead prioritise those who are more elderly and vulnerable.
We now come—
rose—
Oh, I am so sorry! How could I possibly miss out the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)? I would never wish to do so.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I saw you looking around, and I wondered whether you would look for me in my usual spot We have so much to thank our service personnel for, and they put a lot on the line to serve, in terms of their family life. Those families back home have grave concerns about their service personnel who are serving overseas, and those who are serving overseas have concerns about their families back home. What has been done to assure the members of those families, both at home and away, that they will be safe and sound and will see each other again?
The hon. Gentleman was probably waiting for you to start the Adjournment debate before he intervened, Madam Deputy Speaker, as is his normal fashion. He raises an important point; as someone who served overseas on operations, I knew I was okay until I was not, but for those who are left behind—the families of our serving personnel—there is a daily worry about their safety and the threats they are facing. Indeed, many colleagues in the House have written to me on behalf of parents and loved ones of people deploying to seek reassurance about the vaccination programme, and we have made sure that that has been given to them, so that families understand that their loved ones will be vaccinated while in theatre. The families of our armed forces are as vital a part of the armed forces community as those who serve, and the hon. Gentleman has given me an opportunity, in Armed Forces Week, to remark on their steadfastness and the important role they play in maintaining the fighting power of our armed forces.
That concludes the urgent question, and I thank the Minister.
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. First, I would like to apologise to you and to the House. I was not expecting to be in the Chamber today and my attire is that of somebody who does not like the heat in London, so first I should apologise for that. I wanted to ask whether you could enable me to seek an apology from the Prime Minister—who has inspired me, in my attire, to come to the Chamber today—for referring today at Prime Minister’s Question Time to questions about the pitiful rape conviction rate in our country as “jabber”. When questioned about the falling rape conviction rate, the Prime Minister asserted that this was merely “jabber” and not something that sees, for every 60 people who come forward to say that they have been raped, one charge—and that does not even cover convictions I would also like to ask you whether you could help me correct the record on some of the other things that the Prime Minister said today at Prime Minister’s questions. He asserted that clauses 106 and 107 in the new Bill would increase convictions. They have absolutely nothing to do with that; they are about sentencing, and I speak as an expert in the field. He also stated that the Labour party had not supported the Domestic Abuse Bill. As one of the key authors of many of the clauses in it, I must say it was a huge surprise to me to hear that the Labour party had not supported the Domestic Abuse Bill, so I am not entirely sure why the Prime Minister asserted that. But more than anything, what I seek today is an apology from the person who is meant to keep our streets safe. Currently, if you are a woman or a girl in this country, the Government are failing.
I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order, and for giving me notice of her intention to raise it. May I also say that I greatly appreciate her apologising for her attire, which of course in places other than this Chamber would be perfectly chic, but she is right to note that there is a certain dress code for the Chamber, which it is important that we all observe. However, I fully appreciate that the hon. Lady was not planning to come to speak in the Chamber today, and there is always the exception that proves the rule As to the very serious matter that the hon. Lady has raised, she asked me if I can take steps to correct the record about what the Prime Minister said, and the answer to that is no; answers given and statements made by Ministers, or indeed by any other Member of this House, are not a matter for the Chair. The hon. Lady clearly has one opinion and the Prime Minister has a different opinion, and the purpose of this Chamber is to allow both of those opinions or evaluations of the facts to be freely expressed. The hon. Lady has taken the opportunity to put her interpretation of the facts and to point out that that differs from the Prime Minister’s interpretation of the facts The hon. Lady raised another matter which is of importance, and that is the use of language. It was so noisy in the Chamber today—I suppose that is refreshingly good in some ways, because at last we can have a significant number of Members present—that I certainly could not be quite sure exactly what was said at any one point, but if it is the case that the Prime Minister or, indeed, anyone else speaking in this Chamber is in danger of giving offence by the actual words that they have used, especially on a very sensitive subject—undoubtedly, the subject of rape and the prosecution of rape is the most sensitive—I simply encourage all Members to remember the words of “Erskine May”: “Good temper and moderation are the characteristics of parliamentary language”, and that moderation should be observed at all times Having said that, the hon. Lady has made her point very well and I am sure that it will have been noted not only on the Treasury Bench but more widely. I thank her for that Bills Presented Planning (Proper Maintenance of Land) Bill Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57) Jonathan Gullis presented a Bill to make provision for increased fines for failures to comply with a notice under section 215 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 14 January 2022, and to be printed (Bill 130). Plastic Pollution Bill Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57) Mr Alistair Carmichael, supported by Ed Davey, Wendy Chamberlain, Wera Hobhouse, Tim Farron, Layla Moran, Sarah Green, Daisy Cooper, Jamie Stone, Christine Jardine, Munira Wilson and Sarah Olney, presented a Bill to set targets for the reduction of plastic pollution; to require the Secretary of State to publish a strategy and annual reports on plastic pollution reduction; to establish an advisory committee on plastic pollution; and for connected purposes Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 4 February 2022, and to be printed (Bill 131).
Did the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) say the 14th of February?
The fourth day. I have other plans for the 14th. [Laughter.]
I am glad to hear that—so do I I will now briefly suspend the House in order that arrangements can be made for the next item of business.
Before I ask the Clerk to read the title of the Bill, I should explain that in these exceptional circumstances, although the Chair of the Committee would normally sit in the Clerk’s seat, in order to comply with social distancing requirements, I will remain in the Speaker’s Chair, which is so much more comfortable and from which I can see better, although I will be carrying out the role not of Deputy Speaker, but of Chairman of the Committee. The occupant of the Chair should, in Committee, normally be addressed as the Chair, rather than as Deputy Speaker Clause 1 Duration of Armed Forces Act 2006 Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Clauses 2 to 6 stand part Amendment 7, in clause 7, page 4, line 27, at end insert— “(4A) Guidance under subsection (3)(a) must provide for charges of murder, manslaughter, domestic violence, child abuse and rape to be tried only in civilian court when the offences are alleged to have been committed in the United Kingdom.” This amendment would ensure that the most serious crimes – murder, manslaughter domestic violence, child abuse and rape - are tried in the civilian courts when committed in the UK. Clause 7 stand part Amendment 1, in clause 8, page 9, line 19, at end insert— “(aa) a relevant government department;” This amendment, with amendments 2, 3 and 4, would place the same legal responsibility to have ‘due regard’ to the Armed Forces Covenant on central government and the devolved administrations as the Bill currently requires of local authorities and other public bodies. Amendment 39, in clause 8, page 10, line 2, at end insert— “and (g) in relation to accommodation provided to service people in England, a requirement for that accommodation to meet the Decent Homes Standard.” The intention of this amendment is to ensure that all service housing is regulated in line with the minimum quality housing standard which pertains to whatever part of the United Kingdom that housing is situated in. Amendment 2, in clause 8, page 11, line 18, at end insert— “(aa) a relevant department in the devolved administration in Wales;” See explanatory statement for Amendment 1. Government amendment 8 Amendment 40, in clause 8, page 11, line 38, at end insert— “and (e) in relation to accommodation provided to service people in Wales, a requirement for that accommodation to meet the Welsh Housing Quality Standard.” See the explanatory statement for Amendment 39. Government amendment 9 Amendment 3, in clause 8, page 12, line 32, at end insert— “(aa) a relevant department in the devolved administration in Scotland;” See explanatory statement for Amendment 1. Amendment 41, in clause 8, page 13, line 9, at end insert— “and (e) in relation to accommodation provided to service people in Scotland, a requirement for that accommodation to meet the Scottish Housing Quality Standard.” See the explanatory statement for Amendment 39. Government amendment 10 Amendment 4, in clause 8, page 14, line 4, at end insert— “(aa) a relevant department in the devolved administration in Northern Ireland;” See the explanatory statement for Amendment 1. Government amendments 11 and 12 Amendment 42, in clause 8, page 14, line 27, at end insert— “and (d) in relation to accommodation provided to service people in Northern Ireland, a requirement for that accommodation to meet the Decent Homes standard for Northern Ireland.” See the explanatory statement for Amendment 39. Government amendments 13 to 15 Amendment 6, in clause 8, page 18, line 7, at end insert— “343AG Section 343AF: report The Secretary of State must lay a report before each House of Parliament no later than three months after the day on which this Act is passed on how the powers in section 343F (Sections 343AA to 343AD: power to add bodies and functions) will work in practice.” This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out how powers in the Bill could be used to widen its scope to address all matters of potential disadvantage for service personnel under the Armed Forces Covenant including employment, pensions, compensation, social care, criminal justice and immigration. Clauses 8 and 9 stand part Government amendments 16 to 23 Clauses 10 to 13 stand part Government amendments 24 to 30 Clauses 14 to 26 stand part New clause 1—Waived fees for indefinite leave to remain for serving or discharged member of the UK armed forces— “(1) The Immigration Act 2014 is amended as follows (2) In section 68, after (11) insert— ‘(12) No fees may be charged in respect of a serving or previously serving member of the UK armed forces, or their family members, applying for indefinite leave to remain under Appendix Armed Forces of the Immigration Rules.’” This new clause would amend the Immigration Act 2014 to waive the fee for indefinite leave to remain applications for any current or previously serving Members of the UK Armed forces, and their families. New Clause 2—Duty of care to service personnel— “(1) The Secretary of State must establish a duty of care standard in relation to legal, pastoral and mental health support provided to service personnel involved in investigations or litigation arising from overseas operations, as defined in section 1(6) of the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans Act 2021 (2) The Secretary of State must lay a copy of the duty of care standard under subsection (1) before Parliament within six months of the date on which this Act is passed (3) The Secretary of State must thereafter in each calendar year— (a) prepare a duty of care update, and (b) include the duty of care update in the Armed Forces Covenant annual report when it is laid before Parliament (4) The duty of care update is a review about the continuous process and improvement to meet the duty of care standard established in subsection (1), in particular in relation to incidents arising from overseas operations of— (a) litigation and investigations brought against service personnel for allegations of criminal misconduct and wrongdoing; (b) civil litigation brought by service personnel against the Ministry of Defence for negligence and personal injury; (c) judicial reviews and inquiries into allegations of misconduct by service personnel; and (d) such other related fields as the Secretary of State may determine (5) In preparing a duty of care update the Secretary of State must have regard to, and publish relevant data in relation to (in respect of overseas operations)— (a) the adequacy of legal, welfare and mental health support services provided to service personnel who are accused of crimes; (b) complaints made by service personnel or their legal representation when in the process of bringing or attempting to bring civil claims against the Ministry of Defence for negligence and personal injury; (c) complaints made by service personnel or their legal representation when in the process of investigation or litigation for an accusation of misconduct: and (d) meeting national standards of care and safeguarding for families of service personnel, where relevant (6) In subsection (1) “service personnel” means— (a) members of the regular forces and the reserve forces; (b) members of British overseas territory forces who are subject to service law; (c) former members of any of Her Majesty’s forces who are ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom; and (d) where relevant, family members of any person meeting the definition within paragraph (a), (b) or (c) (7) In subsection (1) “duty of care” means both the legal and moral obligation of the Ministry of Defence to ensure the wellbeing of service personnel (8) None of the provisions of this section may be used to alter the principle of combat immunity.” This new clause will require the Secretary of State to establish a duty of care standard in relation to legal, pastoral and mental health support provided to service personnel involved in investigations or litigation arising from overseas operations. New clause 4—Report on dismissals and forced resignations for reasons of sexual orientation or gender identity— “(1) The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a report on the number of people who have been dismissed or forced to resign from the Armed Forces due to their sexual orientation or gender identity (2) The report under subsection (1) must include cases where— (a) there is formal documentation citing sexuality as the reason for their dismissal; or (b) there is evidence of sexuality or gender identity being a reason for their dismissal, though another reason is cited in formal documentation (3) The report under subsection (1) must include recommendations of the sort of compensation which may be appropriate, including but not limited to— (a) the restoration of ranks; (b) pensions; and (c) other forms of financial compensation (4) The report must include a review of the cases of those service personnel who as a result of their sexuality have criminal convictions for sex offences and/or who are on the Sex Offenders Register (5) The report must include discharges and forced resignations back to at least 1955 (6) The first report under subsection (1) must be laid no later than 6 months after the day on which this Act is passed (7) The Secretary of State may make further reports under subsection (1) from time to time (8) In this section, “sexuality or gender identity” includes perceived or self-identified sexuality or gender identity.” This new clause requires the Government to conduct a comprehensive review of the number of people who were dismissed or forced to resign from the Armed Forces due to their sexuality and to make recommendations on appropriate forms of compensation. New clause 6—Duty of care for alcohol, drugs and gambling disorders— “(1) The Armed Forces Act 2006 is amended as follows (2) After section 20(2)(d) insert— ‘(e) the person is dependent on, or has a propensity to misuse, alcohol or drugs.’ (3) After section 20(3) insert— ‘(3A) The Secretary of State has a duty of care to offer a specific pathway for support and treatment for current and previously serving service personnel who experience— (a) a propensity to misuse, alcohol and drugs, (b) alcohol or drug dependency, and (c) gambling disorder (3B) The Secretary of State must include in the annual Armed Forces Covenant report— (a) the number of people accessing treatment and support as set out in section (1), and (b) the current provisions for rehabilitation facilities for Armed Forces personnel who are experiencing a propensity to misuse or have a dependency on alcohol, drugs and gambling.’” New clause 7—Indefinite leave to remain payments by Commonwealth and Gurkha members of armed forces— “(1) The Immigration Act 2014 is amended as follows (2) In section 68 (10), after ‘regulations’ insert “must make exceptions in respect of any person with citizenship of a Commonwealth country (other than the United Kingdom) who has served at least four years in the UK armed forces, or in respect of any person who has served at least four years in the Brigade of Gurkhas, such exceptions to include capping the fee for any such person applying for indefinite leave to remain at no more than the actual administrative cost of processing that application, and” This new clause will ensure that Commonwealth and Gurkha veterans applying for Indefinite Leave to Remain following four years of service will only pay the unit cost of an application. New clause 8—Armed Forces Federation— “(1) The Armed Forces Act 2006 is amended as follows. (2) After section 333, insert— ‘333A Armed Forces Federation (1) There shall be an Armed Forces Federation for the United Kingdom for the purpose of representing members of the Armed Forces in the United Kingdom in all matters affecting their welfare, remuneration and efficiency, except for— (a) questions of promotion affecting individuals, and (b) (subject to subsection (2)) questions of discipline affecting individuals (2) The Armed Forces Federation may represent a member of the Armed Forces at any proceedings or on an appeal from any such proceedings (3) The Armed Forces Federation shall act through local and central representative bodies (4) This section applies to reservists of the Armed Forces as it applies to members of the Armed Forces, and references to the Armed Forces shall be construed accordingly 333B Regulations for the Armed Forces Federation (1) The Secretary of State may by regulations— (a) prescribe the constitution and proceedings of the Armed Forces Federation, or (b) authorise the Federation to make rules concerning such matters relating to their constitution and proceedings as may be specified in the regulations (2) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1), regulations under this section may make provision— (a) with respect to the membership of the Federation; (b) with respect to the raising of funds by the Federation by voluntary subscription and the use and management of funds derived from such subscriptions; (c) with respect to the manner in which representations may be made by committees or bodies of the Federation to officers of the Armed Forces and the Secretary of State; and (d) for the payment by the Secretary of State of expenses incurred in connection with the Federation and for the use by the Federation of premises provided by local Armed Forces bodies for Armed Forces purposes (3) Regulations under this section may contain such supplementary and transitional provisions as appear to the Secretary of State to be appropriate, including provisions adapting references in any enactment (including this Act) to committees or other bodies of the Federation (4) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament (5) This section applies to reservists of the Armed Forces as it applies to members of the Armed Forces.’” This new clause would create a representative body for the Armed Forces, akin to the Police Federation, which would represent their members in matters such as welfare, pay and efficiency. New clause 9—Investigation of allegations related to overseas operations— “(1) In deciding whether to commence criminal proceedings for allegations against a member of Her Majesty’s Forces arising out of overseas operations, the relevant prosecutor must take into account whether the investigation has been timely and comprehensively conducted (2) Where an investigator of allegations arising out of overseas operations is satisfied that there is sufficient evidence of criminal conduct to continue the investigation, the investigator must within 21 days refer the investigation to the Service Prosecuting Authority with any initial findings and accompanying case papers (3) An investigation may not proceed after the period of 6 months beginning with the day on which the allegation was first reported without the reference required in subsection (2). (4) On receiving a referral under subsection (2), the Service Prosecuting Authority must either— (a) order the investigation to cease if it considers it unlikely that charges will be brought, or (b) give appropriate advice and directions to the investigator about avenues of inquiry to pursue and not pursue, including— (i) possible defendants to consider, (ii) possible explanations to consider for the circumstances giving rise to the investigation, and (iii) overseas inquiries and seeking the help of overseas jurisdictions (5) Where the investigation proceeds, the Service Prosecuting Authority must monitor and review its progress at intervals of three months and must on each review make a decision in the terms set out in subsection (4) (6) On the conclusion of the investigation, the investigator must send a final report with accompanying case papers to the Service Prosecuting Authority for the consideration of criminal proceedings (7) After receipt of the final report, the facts and circumstances of the allegations may not be further investigated or reinvestigated without the direction of the Director of Service Prosecutions acting on the ground that there is new compelling evidence or information which might— (a) materially affect the previous decision, and (b) lead to a charge being made (8) The Judge Advocate General may give Practice Directions as he or she deems appropriate for the investigation of allegations arising out of overseas operations (9) For the purposes of this section— ‘case papers’ includes summaries of interviews or other accounts given by the suspect, previous convictions and disciplinary record, available witness statements, scenes of crime photographs, CCTV recordings, medical and forensic science reports; ‘investigator’ means a member of the service police or a civil police force.” That schedule 1 be the First schedule to the Bill That schedule 2 be the Second schedule to the Bill Government amendments 31 to 38 That schedule 3 be the Third schedule to the Bill That schedule 4 be the Fourth schedule to the Bill That schedule 5 be the Fifth schedule to the Bill.
It is a privilege to speak to the Armed Forces Bill before a Committee of the whole House. Indeed, it is fitting that the Bill should come before the Committee during Armed Forces Week, when we celebrate and commemorate Her Majesty’s armed forces Before speaking to the Bill, I want to express my gratitude to the members of the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill, some of whom are here today, and to thank them for their rigorous and professional approach to the work of that Committee. I commend their published report In simple terms, the Bill’s primary purpose is to renew the Armed Forces Act 2006—
Will my hon. Friend give way?
I will.
I thank the Minister for giving way. I wanted to get in early to mention the armed forces covenant, which means a lot to me, as I will explain later We have many proud veterans in Wolverhampton who have given so much for this country, and the armed forces mean loads to them. When the diary permits, will my hon. Friend come to Wolverhampton to meet those veterans and hear at first hand what the covenant means for their lives?
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I would be delighted to accept an invitation to Wolverhampton. I acknowledge and applaud the magnificent work he does in Wolverhampton to support his veterans. I hope the Bill is well received by them, and we thank them for their service The Bill will deliver improvements to the service justice system and, most importantly, it delivers on our commitment to enshrine the armed forces covenant in law.
I thank the Minister for giving way so early in his speech. Unlike the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson), I can say that I was delighted to see the Minister when he came to Northern Ireland last week. I am glad that Northern Ireland got ahead of Wolverhampton on the issue—no offence to my colleague Will the Minister spell out clearly at this early stage that veterans in Northern Ireland will be treated equally to veterans from any other part of the United Kingdom, and that no impediment will be allowed to get in the way of veterans being treated fairly and equitably across the United Kingdom, which they should and must be? Will he assure us that the legacy issues will be brought before the House before it rises for the summer?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I was very pleased last week to meet several veterans’ groups, both of home service and of overseas service, to hear about their experiences. The Government are committed to driving towards parity of provision for all veterans, whether they be of home service or overseas service. In terms of legacy issues, he will know that work is ongoing within the Northern Ireland Office, and the Government are absolutely committed—and full of resolve—to delivering the closure that our veterans need with honour and finality.
I really appreciate what the Minister is saying. He knows how vital this issue is. I do not underestimate the Government’s commitment, but I am concerned about the dead hand of officials and political activists in Northern Ireland. Will there be finality on this matter in July? Will a statute of limitations be introduced then?
I cannot get into the timing, and it would not be useful for me to do that at this time. I know that work is continuing apace and that it is a top priority for both the Prime Minister and the Northern Ireland Office. I share the hon. Gentleman’s sense of urgent desire to see this delivered The covenant was introduced in its current form a decade ago, and it has undoubtedly had an enormous and very beneficial impact for many within our service community. However, too often, the experience of the covenant depends on where someone lives, so more does need to be done. The Bill delivers for our service personnel and veterans by, for the first time ever, creating a duty for relevant public bodies across the whole of the United Kingdom to pay due regard to the principles of the covenant in the areas of housing, healthcare and education. The Bill represents a significant milestone and delivers on a key manifesto commitment to enshrine further the covenant into law In the area of housing, the duty will cover those bodies that are responsible for social housing, homelessness policy and the administration of disabled facilities grants, which can be vital for injured veterans. In education, we know that our service families sometimes face challenges due to their mobile lifestyles in accessing suitable school places for their children, including those with special educational needs. The duty will therefore ensure that the needs of service children are properly understood. In healthcare, much has already been achieved, but service families and veterans still sometimes experience disadvantage, often caused by their mobility or by healthcare requirements resulting from service. The duty will apply to all bodies that are responsible for commissioning and delivering healthcare services across the UK. Housing, healthcare and education are the essential areas, but to future-proof the Bill there is a provision to allow the scope of the duty to be expanded beyond those areas.
Will the Minister give way?
I am delighted to give way.
When the Command Paper was launched in 2005 by Bob Ainsworth, we had cross-Government work and armed forces champions in Departments because it was about central Government standing up to help veterans as well. Why, therefore, does the scope of the Bill exclude central Government Departments?
It does not need to include Government Departments, because that provision is already made. There are Ministers in every Department holding the lead for veterans’ issues, and the Secretary of State is accountable in his annual report. Therefore, the provision for making central Government accountable is already in place.
The Minister says that, but in effect it is not in place, because there is no redress. I must say that I am disappointed with the powers of redress in the Bill even in the areas where they are included. What are the powers of redress against Departments in respect of the covenant—not in respect of any other type of complaint there might be? How would a veteran ensure that the covenant was implemented by the Department of Health and Social Care at a national level, and what redress is there?
The right hon. Gentleman knows that, in terms of all national provision, Ministers are accountable, as I am being accountable right here, right now. What we are dealing with today is the local provision. If individuals feel that they have not had adequate provision and are disadvantaged, they could pursue the route of judicial review in the worst case. We believe that, at the local level, most local authorities want to get this right, and we are just laying out best practice examples for them to follow.
Will the Minister give way?
I will give way one last time before I make some significant progress.
Can the Minister give me the same reassurance when it comes to Departments in the devolved Administrations, such as the Scottish Government?
Absolutely I can, and I am very pleased to I turn to the technical amendments. Amendments 8 to 15 relate to the armed forces covenant, amendments 16 to 23 and 31 to 38 amend the service complaints provisions, and amendments 24 to 30 relate to the provision on driving disqualification.
Will the Minister give way?
I am delighted to give way to my right hon. Friend.
Can the Minister confirm, before he gets technical, that the overriding consideration in all this is that servicemen, servicewomen and their families should suffer no disadvantage by virtue of their military service? There will be test cases arising from the guidance to which he has referred in which people say, “Look, I’ve been disadvantaged because I’m in the armed forces.” The acid test has to be what they would have got from the system if they had not been serving. Surely that is the guiding star in all this.
My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. That is the fundamental basis of all this, and that is at the heart of the statutory guidance. We are confident that local authorities will bear that in mind in the way they afford provision in the critical areas that I have described, but of course there may be test cases and we will take note of them if they arise A number of Opposition amendments and new clauses have been tabled. I want to concentrate on the key ones that specifically relate to the service justice system and the armed forces covenant. Amendment 7 seeks to ensure that the most serious crimes are automatically tried in the civilian courts when committed by a serviceperson in the UK, thereby undermining the current legal position that there is full concurrent jurisdiction between the service and civilian justice systems. The amendment would mean that the most serious offences, when committed in the UK, could never be dealt with in the service justice system, even though the Lyons review recommended that the most serious offences could and should continue to be tried in the service justice system with the consent of the Attorney General The Government have a more pragmatic approach. We are confident that the service justice system is capable of dealing with all offences, whatever their seriousness and wherever they occur, bolstered by improvements recommended by the Lyons review, such as the creation of the defence serious crime unit and improvement to the support to victims. The service police, prosecutors and judiciary are trained, skilled and experienced. Victims and witnesses receive comparable support to the civilian system, for example through the armed forces code of practice for victims of crime, which we continue to keep updated in line with civilian practices. The amendment would remove the valuable role of independent prosecutors in allocating cases to the most appropriate jurisdiction Clause 7 improves and strengthens the protocol between service and civilian prosecutors to determine where cases are tried. That improvement will bring much-needed clarity on how decisions on jurisdiction are made and will ensure transparency and independence from the chain of command and Government. To be clear, the aim of this approach is not to increase the number of serious crimes being tried in the court martial. The civilian prosecutor will always have the final say. I therefore urge the Committee to reject amendment 7 Amendments 1 to 4 would create a duty on central Government and devolved Administrations. Clause 8, as it stands, covers public functions in healthcare, housing and education exercised by the local or regional bodies that are responsible for those services. Those are the key areas of concern for our armed forces community. Central Government’s delivery of the covenant is regularly scrutinised, as I referred to in my answer to the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), and the Armed Forces Act 2006 requires the Secretary of State for Defence to lay an annual report before Parliament. Devolved Administrations and other bodies are given an opportunity to contribute their views to that report. That duty to report will remain a legal obligation, and it remains the key, highly effective method by which the Government are held to account for delivery of the covenant Amendments 39 to 42 seek to ensure that all service housing is regulated in line with the local minimum quality. These amendments are unnecessary because, in practice, 96.7% of MOD-provided service family accommodation meets or exceeds the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s decent homes standard. The amendments would introduce an unhelpful disparity across the UK and would not achieve their intended effect, because local authorities that fall within the scope of the current duty are not responsible for the provision of service accommodation, so these amendments should be withdrawn The provision of high-quality subsidised accommodation remains a fundamental part of the overall MOD offer to service personnel and their families. Over the past decade, we have invested £1.2 billion in single living accommodation and another £1.5 billion will be invested over the next 10 years. Additionally, we are rolling out the future accommodation model to improve choice, and I am pleased to report that the forces Help to Buy scheme has helped more than 24,000 personnel to buy a new home over the past seven years New clause 9 seeks to introduce artificial timelines for the progress of investigations. These are operationally unrealistic. They do not take account of the nature of investigations on overseas operations and could put us in breach of our international obligations, including under the European convention on human rights, to effectively investigate serious crimes. The right hon. Member for North Durham will be aware, following my letter to him on 7 June, that the detail of this new clause has been provided to Sir Richard Henriques for consideration as part of his review into investigations, and I am confident that Sir Richard will consider this matter very carefully.
I thank the Minister for his letter, but let us be honest, we are in this mess because of his predecessor, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), who promised that the issues around time limits and investigations would be in this Bill. When I address my amendments, I shall read them out at length. I welcome the fact that they have been referred to Judge Henriques, but the question is: when will they then be implemented? Are we going to have to wait another five years for a new armed forces Bill before that happens? Otherwise, the Minister is going to have to find legislative time to implement them. There is an opportunity to do it now and, frankly, we should do it now.
I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I think we have to wait and see what Sir Richard Henriques reports. It is not appropriate to propose changes while his review is ongoing, so we will wait and see, and we will respond when he formally reports.
Will the Minister give way?
Yes, I would be delighted to give way before I crack on and make progress.
I accept what the Minister is saying, but his predecessor promised, when he got into a real mess on the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill, that this issue would be addressed in this Bill. It is clearly not going to be, and has now been kicked into the review. My concern is the real issues that will leave members of the armed forces open to vexatious accusations for another five years. The only way to deal with that would be to find legislative time to bring in a new Bill, but I urge the Minister to just do it now.
We have to do it the right way round. We totally acknowledge the central importance of getting investigations right in terms of delivering for our people. We will not seek to reverse-engineer the schedule of work that is before us; we will wait for Sir Richard Henriques to report, then we will calmly consider the best way forward. What I will commit to today is an absolute resolve to deliver a rigorous and sound investigation system, because it is the lack of such provision that has bedevilled our armed forces people over the last 20 years. We do take this very seriously indeed Moving now to new clause 2, the Government take very seriously their duty of care for service personnel and veterans under investigation. This was debated at length in the other House during the passage of the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill, and I have engaged with Lord Dannatt, who tabled the original amendment. I therefore wish to highlight two brief points. First, service personnel are entitled to receive comprehensive legal support; and secondly, a full range of welfare and mental health support is routinely offered to all our people. This support is available both while someone is serving and through the dedicated support to veterans through the NHS’s Op Courage in England and its devolved equivalents. We are striving for a gold standard of care and the Secretary of State’s written ministerial statement on 13 April details the significant progress made In the case of veterans, we continue to deliver further improvements through the veterans’ strategy, so new clause 2 is unnecessary and could result in unintended consequences. A duty of care standard risks becoming a one-size-fits-all approach, leaving personnel without the right support at the right time. The difficulties of drafting such a duty of care would inevitably mean the involvement of the courts and additional litigation. We are clear on our duty to provide the correct support to our personnel, both serving and veterans, and I urge the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan) to withdraw new clause 2.
It is a pleasure to speak from the Dispatch Box on this important legislation ahead of Armed Forces Day on Saturday. This Armed Forces Week is a chance to recognise and celebrate the service of our nation’s forces at home and abroad, past and present. Up and down the country, physical and virtual events will be held while the Armed Forces Day flag is flying proudly on buildings and famous landmarks around the UK. I was delighted to attend the flag-raising ceremony here in the House on Monday, where Mr Speaker set an example by signing the covenant. I look forward to events this weekend in my home city of Portsmouth, the heart and home of the Royal Navy Today is also Reserves Day, so I would like to take the opportunity to celebrate their contribution to our national defence and resilience. This year in particular has seen reservists contribute to the covid support force, providing medical and logistical support, as well as deploying skills from their professional lives. They remain a unique asset, the hidden heroes among us, balancing work and training. It is vital that they are better integrated into our forces It is timely that the Bill comes back before the House today. Labour supports our armed forces and welcomes the principles behind the Bill, which provides a rare opportunity for the Government to deliver meaningful improvements to the day-to-day lives of our forces’ personnel, veterans and their families. Its unusual legislative journey means that we have had a chance to consider it in detail and have a genuine cross-party discussion on how improvements can be made. That is the spirit in which Labour has approached the Bill. We have worked with service personnel, veterans, service charities and colleagues from across the House to get the very best for our forces in this once-in-a-Parliament piece of legislation. I want to pay tribute to the local authorities, service providers, charities and voluntary organisations that are working hard to make the covenant a reality across the United Kingdom. I also want to thank those who served alongside me on the Bill Select Committee and the hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) for his leadership in the Chair. Despite that considered and expert input, however, the Government have consistently refused to hear and address fundamental concerns about the Bill. In doing so, they are missing an opportunity to deliver real improvements to the day-to-day lives of service personnel, veterans and their families. Labour’s amendments offer Ministers a fresh opportunity to get that right Turning to amendments 1 to 4 and 6, first, evidence from charities such as the Royal British Legion and those delivering services for veterans on the ground has reinforced Labour’s concerns that the Bill is too weak and too narrow. The Bill piles new and vague legal responsibilities to deliver the covenant on a wide range of public bodies, but mysteriously they do not apply to central Government. In practice, this would create a farcical reality where a chair of school governors has a legal responsibility to have due regard to the armed forces covenant, but Government Departments, including the Ministry of Defence, do not. As the Legion itself has pointed out, many of the policy areas in which members of the armed forces community experience difficulty are the responsibility of national Government or based on national guidance. Ministers must not be allowed to outsource the delivery of important promises in the armed forces covenant. Also, the Bill’s limited focus on housing, healthcare and education risks creating a two-tier covenant. This could start a race to the bottom on standards in other areas and will bake in the existing postcode lottery on access to services. Social care, pensions, employment and immigration are among the long list of areas we know will not be covered by this once-in-a-Parliament piece of legislation as it stands.
Does my hon. Friend agree that that provision is vital? In the evidence sessions for the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act we heard moving testimony from Major Bob Campbell, who was reinvestigated over many years. One stark thing that he said was that he felt abandoned by the MOD. Supporting individuals who are going through these investigations is vital, and without what is being proposed, individuals such as Major Campbell will continue not to get the support that they deserve.
I thank my right hon. Friend for that point. He was a tireless advocate for the points that he raised in the Bill Committee and I know that we will continue to work together to make sure that the Government listen to our demands.
I am delighted that the shadow Minister will continue to pursue that matter. Will he ensure that the principle then extends to those who have served at home, to make sure that the commitments that have been made about resolving the legacy issues and addressing these vexatious issues that have arisen from some very contemptible people will be addressed expeditiously? Will he join me in encouraging the Government to get that matter on to the Floor of the House before the summer recess?
I thank the hon. Member for his remarks. I know that he has also been expressing these concerns for quite some time. It is unsatisfactory that we are still hearing from Government that they are thinking about this. We need certainty for those affected, and I hope the Government bring forward proposals as soon as possible New clause 4 would begin to repair the damage done by the previous treatment of LGBT+ veterans. The Committee will know that the ban on homosexuality in the British armed forces was lifted in January 2000 by the then Labour Government. During the ban, many were dishonourably discharged or forced from service, losing access to pensions and benefits. Some were also stripped of medals that they had earned during their service There are practical impacts from that discrimination, such as the loss of pension and the inability to wear ceremonial uniforms or medals. Those are all humiliations that should not be endured by anyone who has served our country. Some may still be on the sex offenders register, which is simply outrageous, but there will also be untold challenges for mental health and wellbeing. I therefore take this opportunity to thank Fighting With Pride for its compassion and courageous work to support those impacted by this issue and for working with us on the new clause. I also place on record my appreciation for the campaigning of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) on this issue In February 2020, the Government announced that former armed forces personnel who were dismissed from service on the basis of their sexuality could apply to have their medals restored. That is an important first step towards justice for those who were thrown out of the armed forces simply because of their sexuality. New clause 4 encourages Ministers to continue that work first by setting out the numbers affected, and then by considering the restoration of ranks, pensions and other forms of compensation that would be appropriate. Only then can we be appropriately honouring those who have served our country with courage and distinction Finally, new clause 8, titled “Armed Forces Federation”, would establish a representative body for the armed forces akin to the Police Federation. It would represent its members in matters such as welfare, pay and efficiency. It has been clear for some time now that the armed forces need independent advice and representation. Witnesses that came before us on the Bill Select Committee have reinforced that, and we continue to hear shocking stories of abuse within units. We have also heard that continued delays discourage the use of the service complaints system and concerns persist that careers will be under threat if personnel complain Most members of the armed forces have endured a real-terms pay cut for most of the last decade. Given the renewed emphasis that Ministers appear to be placing on the value of people as assets to our national defence, the time has come to formalise representation and support for service personnel on issues such as welfare and pay. The federation would not be equivalent to a trade union for the armed forces, in that it would not conduct or condone any form of industrial action or insubordination with the armed forces. The federation would work with the Ministry of Defence to put in place a form of understanding that could deal with such issues. It would also recognise the importance of the chain of command. Although the proposal might be seen as radical or dangerous by some, other nations including the United States and Australia already have similar models embedded in existing command structures. Our armed forces give their lives for us. Ministers should seize this opportunity to give them a real voice In conclusion, taken together, Labour’s amendments would truly deliver improvements for our forces personnel, veterans and their families. It would be the height of hypocrisy if the Government were to heap well-deserved praise on service communities to mark Armed Forces Week while voting against their interests in the Commons today. Labour continues to stand squarely behind our armed forces, and we take the delivery of the promises made in the covenant seriously. For us it is not about a performative show of support at a politically convenient moment, but an enduring commitment to honour the promises our society has made to those who serve. The Tories like to talk up their commitment to our armed forces, but it is Labour that is working with colleagues across the House to make sure we get the very best for them, for today and tomorrow During Armed Forces Week, this Government should not just celebrate and thank, they must also deliver for our forces communities.
It is appropriate that this Bill has come back to the House in the week in which we celebrate Armed Forces Day. I add my thanks to members of the armed forces who are currently contributing to our fight against covid, and I pay tribute to them for their service. It was disappointing to hear earlier that members of our armed forces are still being deployed overseas without being fully vaccinated I take this opportunity to give a shout out to the team from Kayak 4 Heroes, who are currently undertaking a journey of 1,400 km from Land’s End to John O’Groats, by kayak, around the coast of the United Kingdom and along some of our canals and waterways. I am sure the whole House will join me in wishing them the very best of luck in their endeavours I have made it clear throughout the passage of this Bill that it lacks the punch required to make a real difference, and the Bill’s commitment to the armed forces covenant falls far short of what it ought to be. Many stakeholders, including the Royal British Legion, have argued that the Bill should go further in strengthening the covenant in law, but many areas have been missed out, such as visas for Commonwealth personnel, pay, DWP issues and proper representation for serving personnel I join the shadow Minister in paying tribute to the group from Fighting with Pride, Caroline Paige and Craig Jones, for working so hard to undo some of the injustices of the past. Labour’s proposed new clause 4 is an opportunity to take this further. We have started to recognise that there have been injustices, and we know that many individuals who were convicted of sex offences in the armed forces lost their pensions and continued to have the label of “sex offender” in civilian life, for undertaking a consensual relationship with another person. There are real issues here that still have to be addressed Many people were also discharged from the armed forces following spurious allegations that were not related to their sexuality, although their sexuality was the real reason for it. It will be very difficult for us to capture the number of people involved, so I urge the Minister not just to take proposed new clause 4 seriously but to look at how we identify these individuals and put right the wrongs that have been done to them Labour’s amendment 7 addresses the service justice system, and the Minister has given us assurances this afternoon that he will be implementing many of the recommendations of the Lyons review. That is good, but I still argue that sexual assaults would be better dealt with in civilian courts, which have far greater experience of such cases. We do people an injustice by continuing to go through a military system, where that experience is not always present. While the Minister is implementing some of the recommendations of the Lyons review, I ask him to undertake an annual review of how it is operating in practice The Minister also gave us assurances on service accommodation, but these accommodation issues are repeatedly raised, year on year, by serving personnel. The recent National Audit Office report on single living accommodation describes a litany of neglect, and accommodation for families often falls far below the standards we would expect.
I am listening to my hon. Friend with great interest. Does she agree that those who are dedicating themselves to service should receive a cast-iron guarantee of decent accommodation?
It seems totally obvious that decent service accommodation should form the absolute basis of any agreement and any expectation that personnel have, so I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend It is incredible that the Bill as it stands will not strengthen the accommodation offer. Our series of extremely modest amendments—amendments 39 to 42—asks that service accommodation matches the standards that are set for civilian housing in each of the four nations of the UK. This should be a matter of straightforward agreement across the House. We should not be asking service personnel to put up with accommodation that we would not ask civilians to accept. I therefore do not see this proposal as being in any way controversial, and I hope that Members will support it Many of the veterans and families who contact me do so because of a lack of support from the Department for Work and Pensions on pension issues, including widows’ pensions, but all these things are out of scope of the Bill. In fact, it seems that all the most pressing and difficult issues for veterans are out of scope. This really is a missed opportunity The SNP has for a long time advocated a far more comprehensive way of representing the interests of the armed forces. We look at the examples of many of our NATO allies, which benefit from armed forces representative bodies that personnel can use to make sure that their needs are catered for. We are used to hearing arguments from Members on the Government Benches that we could not possibly countenance such a body as it could undermine the chain of command or encourage strike action. However, as the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan) said, such a federation would be like the Police Federation. It would not allow strikes and it would not impact on the chain of command, but it would give a voice that, at the moment, is sadly lacking. When we are looking at ensuring that the covenant is properly fulfilled, such an organisation would substantively carry out that role. I believe, despite the Government’s arguments, that the real reason for resistance to this is that it would give our forces and veterans a voice. I am pleased that Labour has joined us in our position, and we will support its new clause 8 because it would go a long way towards addressing some of these issues The Scottish Government have taken a number of their own initiatives in areas that are covered in the Bill. On housing, they offer funding from affordable housing programmes to deliver homes for disabled ex-service personnel. On employability, service leavers are offered fixed-term appointments in the Scottish Government. On education, Skills Development Scotland is retraining Scottish veterans to address the skills gap, particularly in the nation’s cyber-security workforce. On health, the Scottish Government have committed to ensuring that all personnel and veterans can access the best possible care, and have provided funding to Combat Stress and Legion Scotland for mental health first aid training. Of course there is always more that we can do, but the UK Government should be looking to mirror these examples of good practice.
Giving credit where it is due, I am of a similar opinion that the Scottish Government’s move to offset the bedroom tax by their own hand—from their own money—has been of considerable help to veterans who might not be in the best medical condition, because a loved one can stay overnight and help them out. Would not all of us in Scotland agree that we encourage the UK Government to follow suit?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his recognition of the work that has been done around the bedroom tax. He will understand that it is often vital for veterans who have been injured in service to have an additional supposed “bedroom” that can actually hold equipment that is required for them to deal with their injuries and possibly help with their rehabilitation. Again, it seems a very easy thing to take on to help those who need this support We will also be supporting Labour’s new clause 7 on capping fees for Commonwealth and Gurkha veterans. There is great support across the House for this group of veterans. It seems grossly unfair that we should welcome these individuals into our military, ask them to put their lives at risk and then hit them with thousands of pounds of fees, because it is not just about the cost for themselves; if they have family overseas who they want to bring over to the UK, they are suddenly faced with fees of thousands and thousands of pounds. That is simply not good enough. I hope that the Government are learning lessons from things such as the Windrush scandal when looking at people who have come to this country to help and contribute, in whatever way that is. Given that there is such widespread cross-party support for the Commonwealth veterans, I urge the Government to accept the new clause The time and effort spent on this Bill should have been an opportunity significantly to improve our offerings to the armed forces, but I am doubtful. Without the ability to enforce—without the teeth it needs—the Bill will sadly fall short. If this is a once-in-five-years or once- in-10-years opportunity, many of us will be disappointed, but we will continue to engage with the Government and the Minister in the hope that we can make a real change for those who are serving. I think it is recognised throughout the House—this is one thing on which we can all agree—that we want to improve the circumstances in which our forces serve and the practical problems that they hit. I thank the Committee for listening and hope we can move forward in as consensual a way as possible.
As many Members will have gathered now, I have a passion for defence, having served as a young soldier in the Army and spent most of my adult life in and around the defence arena. I have also been fortunate to sit on the Armed Forces Bill Select Committee. I pay tribute to all Members across the Committee for the way in which we worked together for the good of our armed forces; it has been an enjoyable and eye-opening experience. Today I want to discuss the amendments relating to the armed forces covenant, which, as hon. Members will see, is very personal to me and I think will massively support our armed forces Prior to being an MP, I was an armed forces champion. I got to see the difficulties that regions could have in trying to put forward the armed forces covenant, and how much it would impact different people. Enshrining it in law is a massive step forward. I also have first-hand experience of the benefits of the armed forces covenant, and I think it is right to draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that I received treatment at one of the trauma units that were brought forward through the armed forces covenant I have spoken in the House in the past about when I was shot and the after-effects, which ended up in me wanting to take my own life. Having been told that I was no longer the Army’s problem when I had left and had to fund treatment myself, I was not in a good place The Committee can imagine, then, how happy I was to hear about the armed forces covenant. I felt that somebody actually cared. Sadly, it came too late for me, because I had to battle those demons for 15 years before I could get away from the problems that I faced. I thank God that I came through that dark period.
May I say what a pleasure it is to follow the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson)? He is a fellow member of the Defence Committee and always speaks with authority and passion. Do I agree with him? Yes, I do. I do not wish to make a party political point, but the genesis of the covenant was the Command Paper from the Labour Government in 2005 and the work that Bob Ainsworth— I pay tribute to his work on this issue—took forward, resulting in the covenant. It was sad that, in respect of one of the Armed Forces Acts—I think it was in the early years of the coalition Government—when we asked for the covenant to be put into statutory law the Government at the time opposed it I believe I have served on every Armed Forces Bill for the past 20 years, either as a Minister or as a Back Bencher. Like others, I pay tribute to the members of our armed forces, as we come up to Armed Forces Week. This is an important day in terms of saying thank you, but we should have in our mind every day the work they do for us to keep us safe I rise to speak to my new clause 9, and I do so with frustration and disappointment that this issue has not been addressed. I have spoken on many occasions to say that we need to make sure that our armed forces are not faced with these frivolous and vexatious claims, but the Government have made a complete mess of this We had the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act, a piece of legislation that was not necessary at all. The issues in it could have been covered in this Armed Forces Bill, but, as with the worst legislation we see in this House, it came out of rhetoric and election slogans and when it came into practice it did not do what it said on the tin. That was a missed opportunity When we took evidence in the Committee that considered the overseas operations Bill, it was clear, and not just from Judge Jeff Blackett, a former Judge Advocate General, that we stop frivolous and vexatious investigations and stop the torture—I will use that word—of reinvestigation that people such as Major Bob Campbell went through for 17 years by sorting out the investigation process. That is not—the Minister alluded to this in relation to my new clause 9—to say that we just ignore accusations or wrongdoing. We should not do that, but we have to have a proper managed system, which is overseen by judges, to ensure that there is timely investigation, and those investigations that are not found to be of any veracity should be dismissed at an early opportunity. We could do that through the proposals in my new clause I moved similar amendments to the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill—I believe they were new clauses 8, 6 and 7—which would have put time limits on investigations, as I say, not dismissing evidence, but making sure that the investigators need, after a certain period of time, to bring their evidence before a judge to see whether it warrants further investigation. That would have been a way forward. That Bill was oversold to a degree that was obscene at times, with people believing that the Bill would stop investigations and the ambulance chasing solicitors. It did nothing of the sort. It did not get to the root cause, which is investigations. As Judge Jeff Blackett said in evidence to that Committee: “The Bill is effectively looking at the wrong end of the telescope.”––[Official Report, Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Public Bill Committee, 8 October 2020; c. 120, Q246.] It was looking at the prosecutions—limiting prosecutions —rather than dealing with the investigations I am on record as saying that, like most Members of this House, I would not want members of our armed forces to face vexatious claims or investigations. However, when I moved those new clauses, the Minister at the time, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), said that those issues, which had been raised not just by Judge Jeff Blackett but by many other campaigners, would be dealt with in this Armed Forces Bill. This new clause today is an attempt to address those issues I think that it is worth recapping what the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View said last November on Second Reading of the overseas operations Bill in response to the concerns raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), who raised the idea of time limits. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View stated that “time and again the issue of the investigations”— comes up, “but he knows that they are for the forthcoming armed forces Bill and will be addressed there.”—[Official Report, 3 November 2020; Vol. 683, c. 258.] He then went on to accuse my right hon. Friend of being disingenuous for raising the matter. I ask the Minister today: when will these matters be addressed? A clear promise was given then that they would be included in this Bill. [Interruption.] Well, they were not, because the Government got into a right pickle. Having not addressed them in the overseas operations Bill, if that was where they wanted to do it, they then set up the Henriques review, which was a good civil service way, as we have seen over the years, of kicking things into the long grass, but it has left a gap. These issues were not addressed in the overseas operations Bill and they are not going to be addressed in this Armed Forces Bill either That leaves a real issue: when will that legislation come forward? These are sensible proposals, which were put forward in evidence to the overseas operations Bill by Judge Jeff Blackett and others. As I have said, those proposals would have ensured that we had judicial oversight of investigations to ensure we did not have a rerun of what we have had with the Iraq Historic Allegations Team, or Operation Northmoor. Those allegations went on for years, which meant that armed service personnel who were being accused of torture, suffered, in some cases, long delays while their cases were being looked at. I suggest that Members read the evidence of Major Bob Campbell to the overseas operations Bill, because that poor man not only went through long delays, but reinvestigations, investigations and investigations. That should have gone at an early stage. My new clause would do that. We would have judicial oversight. May I just re-emphasise this point for anybody who is listening carefully? This is not about putting members of our armed forces above the law. The new clause is saying that these matters should be investigated. It is saying not that we should have no investigations, but that those investigations should be timely and dealt with We have now got into this mess where we have the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act in place, which does not deliver on most of the hype that went with it. We also have the Armed Forces Bill going through, but, clearly, the Government will resist putting anything in it about investigations as they have kicked it into the ongoing review. Again, we do not know when that review will report. As a veteran of the last 20 years of Armed Forces Bills, I know that they come round every five years. If I am still in the House in five years’ time, I shall no doubt be dragged into the next one. But five years is a long time for people to wait for this legislation. The only other option is that the MOD will secure Government time to bring in a specific Bill on investigations. You will know, Ms Winterton, that Government time is very precious and trying to fight and argue for a Bill will be very hard, so I do not see that this matter will be addressed for another five years. That is just not acceptable This leads me on to another issue that was raised earlier, which is the issue around Northern Ireland veterans. One of the worst things that we can ever do in politics is to make promises to people and then not deliver. What has happened both with the overseas operations Bill and the claims that have been made to our Northern Ireland veterans is a disgrace. It is clear to me that the Government will not bring forward a Bill before the summer recess; I struggle to understand how they are going to bring such a Bill forward. That is not just letting people down, but being completely dishonest with people. Brave service men, mainly, from ordinary working-class backgrounds across this country went to Northern Ireland to do their duty, to protect not only the citizens of Northern Ireland but those of the UK, and we are letting them go through this tortuous process. I would have more respect for the Government if they came out and said, “We can’t do it, so we are just going to leave it”, rather than what we have got at the moment.
After that speech, who on earth would be a Defence Minister? It is a great privilege to speak during Armed Forces Week. We have a clear responsibility in this place to support Her Majesty’s forces, so the timing is neat. As Chair of the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill, I am familiar with the Bill. It is a good Bill, but may I commend to hon. Members the Select Committee report and the subsequent statement made in this House on 22 April? Both were fully objective and the result of painstaking analysis and debate within the Select Committee. Yes, we did not agree on every issue. In fact, we did not agree on many issues.
It was remiss of me in my contribution not to thank the hon. Member for chairing the Select Committee. He got thrown in at the deep end at the last minute, but I think all members of the Select Committee thought he did an excellent job and ensured that everyone had their say. May I put on record my thanks, and I am sure that of other Members, to him for the way in which he chaired the Select Committee?
I thank the right hon. Gentleman —my friend—for those kind words. It was a real pleasure to chair that superb Committee. The report was pretty good. I believe it to be a framework for what lies ahead and perhaps even a template for what we do with this standing legislation in five years’ time. We are progressing all the time, and the future looks good I want to discuss two areas: the statutory guidance and the latest amendments to the Bill. First, I thank the Minister for his written response to the Select Committee report and for the draft statutory guidance, which we have now got. We must acknowledge that the covenant is already with us. It has been signed by the vast majority of councils all over the UK, including in Northern Ireland. In fact, it has its 10th birthday at this point in time, so what better present could there be than to bring it into statute The door is already open for the statutory guidance, and it is a good bit of work so far. I welcome the fact that it places a due regard on the placeholder, that it recognises rightful outcomes, that it reflects the unique sacrifices and obligations on HM forces and that it places a legal obligation on the delivery of health, accommodation and local support from councils. It also provides examples of good practice and pragmatic guidelines on how that is to be provided I note that prescriptive performance targets are still absent, but it may be that it is impossible to apply any meaningful metrics and tools to this area. I do not believe that councils are in any doubt about what is expected of them after 10 years, but—it is a big but—it may be that guidance is still needed on how they will be held to account if they do not meet their obligations. I read with interest the line in the guidance that: “Covenant duty does not mandate public specific delivery outcomes or advantageous treatment of the Armed Forces Community. It only mandates that consideration takes place…when exercising certain functions” That worries me, as the local authority complaints process does not cut it in terms of what I believe is still needed. Simply inviting disaffected personnel to contact their MP fills me with horror. I urge the Minister to please look again at this, dig deeper and do the right thing I turn to the amendments. I am comfortable with what the Government have tabled, and I want to talk to a handful of the others. New clause 1 would amend the Immigration Act 2014 to waive the fee for indefinite leave to remain applications for any current or previously serving members of the UK armed forces. Similarly, new clause 7 provides that foreign and Commonwealth veterans applying for indefinite leave to remain following four years of service will pay only the unit cost of an application I am clear in my mind that the Government have this key issue in hand, and I welcome the consultation recently announced by the MOD and the Home Office. I personally wish to see an amnesty for those F and C personnel who slip through the net, and I agree that it is right to abate the cost of visa fees as a function of time to incentivise longer service. As a former commanding officer of the largest and most diverse unit in the British Army, I say that is the right way to go, even though it may set a precedent for other Departments. New clause 2 would require the Secretary of State to establish a duty of care standards in relation to legal, pastoral and mental health support provided to service personnel. The MOD takes very seriously its duty of care for service personnel and veterans, and over the years it has established a comprehensive range of legal, pastoral, welfare and mental health support for service personnel and veterans. We have come a long way from the early days of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, with which I am very familiar. The covenant has also been enshrined in law, so I think that the new clause may be redundant at this point New clause 3 would require the Government to publish a report on changes to personnel numbers across all services and to detail the impact of reductions on operational capabilities. However, none of that is a closely guarded secret. The MOD recently published its Command Paper “Defence in a competitive age” and noted that the size of the Army would be reduced. I believe that that new clause is also redundant; the information is out there New clause 4 would require the Government to conduct a comprehensive review of the number of people who are dismissed or forced to resign from the armed forces due to their sexuality and make recommendations on appropriate forms of compensation. Restorative justice is difficult due to the policies that were legally enforceable at the time, but I am comfortable, for now, that the Government are making strides to tackle this, not least by restoring medals and engaging much more broadly with the LGBTQ+ community. That is absolutely the right thing to do As for new clause 6, the duty of care for alcohol, drugs and gambling disorders is already there. It is called good leadership—and also the covenant, which is being enshrined in law Lastly, new clause 8 is laudable, but we are not there yet. The new clause would create a representative body for the armed forces, akin to the Police Federation, which would represent its members in matters such as welfare, pay and efficiency. The Government have not been persuaded at this point that there is a requirement or a groundswell of support for a federation along the lines that have been suggested The interests of armed forces personnel are already represented through a range of mechanisms, not least, again, the chain of command. Furthermore, the Service Complaints Ombudsman provides impartial scrutiny of service complaints made by members of the UK armed forces regarding any aspect of their service life. However, for the Minister’s benefit, I would, in this case, welcome an independent body to provide additional rigour for service complaints. In my experience, service complaints are very awkward, and it may just be that taking them out of units and out of the chain of command is the right thing to do To conclude, one of the main criticisms of the Bill is that it does not go far enough, but as an ex-serviceman I refute that. Any new legislation has to be deliverable, proportionate, pragmatic and responsible, and has to attract the necessary due diligence and analysis, for it needs to consider the effect on those it relates to, and no Government can write cheques they cannot cash, as they have to maintain the fundamental ethos and integrity of the organisation itself. Our armed forces are pre-eminent in their field and must be afforded the autonomy they need to do their job. So this is about evolution, not revolution, and I believe that we will get there in due course through what the Select Committee has recommended I say to those who wish to turn this unique organisation into what they would wish it to be by clipping its wings, softening its operational capability and ignoring its hard edge or negating the importance of the chain of command: please be careful what you wish for.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland), and I was privileged to serve on the Armed Forces Bill Committee; he was an excellent Chairman of it and it was a really worthwhile exercise. There are a couple of issues that I took an interest in and hope to talk a little about today. I am also looking forward to joining the armed forces community in Liverpool on Saturday New clause 4 seeks to right an historical wrong. Some 21 years ago, the ban on homosexuality and LGBT+ personnel serving in the armed forces was lifted. That ban inflicted staggering cruelty on those men, and some women, who had stepped forward to serve their country. Between the mid-1950s and 1996 the men of our armed forces who were thought to be gay were arrested, searched and questioned by officers trained for wartime interrogation. In many cases that went on for days before they were charged, often without legal counsel or support, and on many occasions arrest was based on little evidence. Heterosexual men were falsely accused by service police officers, losing careers and in some cases homes and families. And after harrowing investigations these men were led away to military hospitals, where they were subjected to degrading and shameful medical inspections conducted in accordance with confidential Defence Council instructions held by every unit of the armed forces. At court martial, in the moments before those convicted were sent down, operational medals and good conduct badges were ripped from their uniforms. They typically served six months in prison for the military criminal offence of being homosexual, and it is staggering that that continued until 1996, and that the administrative dismissal of LGBT+ personnel continued for a further four years, until January 2000 As these members of the armed forces walked from prison they were dismissed in disgrace with criminal records as sex offenders, which from 1967 had no civilian equivalent. As they left through the main gate they were commonly given letters instructing them to never again use their military rank or wear items of uniform, for example in remembrance at the Cenotaph, and they continued to obey those letters. Their names were erased from the retired lists of the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force as though they had never existed. They were cast out of the armed forces family, outed to their own family and friends, and lost their homes and their financial stability. Their service record cards had the top corner clipped and were marked in red pen with the annotation, “Dismissed in disgrace”, causing many a lifetime of employment issues. And in the past, in their moment of need they were shunned by military charities—something that has now changed. However, there has been no such remedy from Government or the Ministry of Defence. The Committee heard at first hand from the charity Fighting with Pride—I believe the Minister has met them—accounts of those affected, and how they live today amidst the ashes of their former service careers LGBT+ veterans are scattered across the UK, often away from military communities and living a life starkly different from the one they hoped for when they joined the forces. In the 21 years since the ban was lifted, nothing has been done to support those individuals. As Canada, Germany, the United States and other nations prepare, assess, make reparation and put right a shameful wrong, it is long overdue for the UK, which persisted with the ban for longer and implemented it more zealously than many other countries, to do the same Those men and women deserve an apology on behalf of the nation from the Prime Minister in Parliament. They must be supported on the pathway to royal pardons, be restored to the retired list and have their medals returned. Prohibitions on their use of rank and on the wearing of berets at the Cenotaph must be revoked. They need resettlement support, which we offer to all other members of the armed forces, and they must be fairly compensated and have their pension reviewed in recognition of their service and the hardships they faced then and now. Until that is done, this will remain a matter of national disgrace, and it will stand in the way of the Government’s stated wish to be a global exemplar for both LGBT+ and veterans’ communities New clause 4 would place a duty on the Ministry of Defence to find out where those veterans are and how they have fared, and to make recommendations to Parliament on what must be done to right this wrong My own new clause 6, which touches on issues around addiction treatment, would place a duty of care on the Secretary of State. Just this week, it was reported in the Daily Mirror that more than 8,000 UK troops had needed medical support with respect to alcohol in the past six years. Here, I want to thank the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson) because I know that his talking so openly will help many people who are listening to him We know that rates of addiction among the armed forces population are much higher than those among the general UK population. The unique demands of military life, and the serious trauma, violence and loss, make that no surprise. A culture—I say this without judgment—in which harmful drinking rates are considered normal, where vulnerability is a weakness and seeking help is seen as failing to meet the demands of service makes treatment and recovery even harder. Too many veterans end up in mental health crisis, homeless, in prison or committing suicide The charity We Are With You provides specialist services for veterans through its Right Turn programme. The majority enrolled in its programmes are those who left service many years earlier, which poses the question for the Government, what more can be done to increase early intervention? For many people, asking for help with alcohol and drug use, however necessary, is incredibly difficult. Denial, fear, pride and shame stop people seeking the specialist support they need, and that is no different for our service personnel, veterans and their families. If anything, those barriers are all the more difficult to overcome. I met with Adfam—a charity that supports family members of those with substance use problems—and we discussed its 2020 research report, produced in collaboration with the University of York and funded by the Forces in Mind Trust. Families shared the impact of the heavy-drinking culture in the armed forces, with many describing the use of alcohol as frequent, heavy, expected and normalised, and used as part of, and in response to, all situations and occasions. That normalisation means that problems with excessive drinking are not seen as problems Aside from the heavy-drinking culture, those families shared their experiences of another culture—the culture of silence. Families say that their loved ones were expected to be stoic, strong and infallible. Veterans and their families are too often left feeling further isolated and vulnerable A small number of charities provide specialist support to those veterans and their families. Tom Harrison House in Anfield, around the corner from my office, is the only residential veteran-specific treatment centre in the UK. I have got to know veterans there. I have heard of their experiences and their struggle to get the support and understanding they need. Many have co-occurring mental health diagnoses and complex needs, and have been struggling with addiction for many years. I have not met one person there who has told me that the support they got came with any help from the armed forces One veteran told me: “From the Army, I went straight to prison and did a long spell there. I then went home for a year. I then lived on the streets for 12 years. During that time I was using drugs and drinking, I couldn't stop drinking and became an alcoholic.” Another veteran told me: “I gave my life to service, I was trained to lack empathy; conditioned to survive; asking for help was a weakness; encouraged to drink and when there was nothing left for me to give, I was discharged, without any re-conditioning, no support; completely alone.” Peer support is key in addiction treatment and key to the success of Tom Harrison House, and veteran-specific services are having great successes.
I thank the hon. Member for his kind words earlier. I want to stand with him on Tom Harrison House. One of my friends with whom I served was literally at death’s door and it saved his life. Now, he is helping other people with addictions and the problems that he went through. Credit for having it in your constituency; it is an amazing organisation.
I am delighted to hear that and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making the effort to let us know that in the Chamber Armed forces charities provide life-changing services, particularly for those with substance abuse problems, but access remains a postcode lottery. I think it is wrong that the state takes so little responsibility for ensuring that veterans receive the treatment they need. Requiring public bodies to give due regard to the principles of the covenant is not enough. The Bill was an opportunity to set measurable national standards that would end the current postcode lottery through the armed forces covenant. Once personnel have left service, they rely on the NHS and local authorities, and of course on the UK’s third sector organisations which provide excellent help and support. Their work is fantastic, but the MOD has a responsibility to those men and women that it has shirked for too long For too many veterans, their service to this country has come at a devastating cost. Drink and drugs are often an escape; a way to cope, a way to manage or medicate mental health conditions and past trauma. One of the worst failings of the system is that many drug and alcohol services simply do not have the competencies to deal with mental health issues in-house and many mental health services are not able to offer support if a patient presents with substance use disorders. Being bounced between services effectively prolongs people’s suffering for longer and longer.
I have listened with interest to the hon. Gentleman talking about veterans. I will make two points if I may. First, of course, not all veterans are mad, bad or sad. The picture you paint is very negative. The vast majority of veterans in this country live very successful, happy, fulfilling lives. My second point is this. I visited Veterans Aid yesterday in London, which is a very impressive organisation focused very much not on alleviating symptoms, but on outcomes. Do you agree that outcomes is the right way to go?
Order. I just offer a gentle reminder that we speak through the Chair, rather than directly.
I take the hon. Member’s second point and I would not want to be painting a negative picture. I am speaking on behalf of the people I have met in my constituency who have come through Tom Harrison House and elsewhere, who have suffered a great deal in their lives I will finish on some points made by Dame Carol Black in her independent “Review of drugs: phase one report”. She says: “The number of residential rehabilitation services have reduced significantly, removing a core treatment component for those that need it to support their recovery”, and: “Some areas are starting to ‘ration’ treatment, setting higher thresholds for those who can access it and/or just offering a minimum service due to workers having such large caseloads.” The question for the Government is: if mental health services are failing the general population, what use is a law that gives due regard to service personnel and veterans? Regardless of people’s training or dedication to their duty, mental health disorders, including addiction, do not discriminate, and I simply want the MOD to take greater responsibility for and interest in these issues.
Thank you for calling me, Dame Rosie. I am sorry not to be able to contribute to this debate in person, but laryngitis means I have to stay at home in Breconshire, and I apologise if my voice does not last the duration of this speech Like many others, I want to start by congratulating the business managers on the timing of this Bill, but in reality every week should be Armed Forces Week. Honouring those who have served as well as those who continue to serve should not be a one-off event. I am excessively proud of the UK armed forces, but in particular of those based in my constituency at Brecon barracks, Sennybridge training area and the Infantry Battle School—not least the soldier I live with, and here I declare an interest in that my partner is a serving member of the British Army Like so many this weekend, I will be joining Armed Forces Day events in the constituency. I am looking forward in particular to meeting the daughter of a true British hero in Builth Wells on Saturday. Violette Szabo initially joined the Women’s Land Army when war broke out and the Auxiliary Territorial Service in 1941. She worked for F section in the Special Operations Executive, but during a mission in France she was captured and imprisoned by the Nazis. She was executed in Ravensbrück concentration camp, and she was posthumously awarded the George Cross—the highest honour given to civilians. Walking along the Embankment in London, hon. Members will see a statue of Violette, one of the very few military women to be commemorated. I am deeply excited to be meeting her daughter, who now lives in Cilmeri in my constituency, and to have the opportunity to pay tribute to her mother and to all those who have served and continue to serve There is much to welcome in this Bill that will make a meaningful difference to the lives of serving personnel and veterans. However well intentioned they may be or however thoughtfully suggested by the same focus groups that advised the leader of the Labour party to start valuing the military, I will not be supporting the Opposition’s amendments I particularly want to single out clause 8 of the Bill, which strengthens the commitment to the armed forces covenant. The covenant is 10 years old this year, and it is something we should all hold dear. I must also declare another interest in that my partner’s mum is the chief executive of the Armed Forces Covenant Trust. His is something of a military family Clause 8 compels public bodies to have due regard to the covenant, and I would urge my local authority—Powys County Council—and the Labour-run Welsh Government to pay close attention to it. At present, Powys County Council is proposing to close Llanbedr school, which is a thriving primary school in my constituency. Along with my colleague in the Welsh Parliament, James Evans, I am deeply opposed to the closure of the school, but it is largely because a number of military families will once again find themselves displaced. That is deeply wrong. I spoke to a mum whose partner has recently started a two-year posting in Brecon, and if Llanbedr closes, they will be forced to find yet another school for their three children In campaigning against the school’s closure, I have tried to learn more about the Welsh Government’s plans for military families. I was directed to a specialist website, which does not work. People simply cannot find out what the Welsh Government want to do for military families who are searching for a consistent education as they move around the United Kingdom and even abroad. I know the Minister is powerless to keep the school open, but I would be keen to meet his officials to learn more about how the UK Government and Welsh Government could be working together to ensure that military families can rely on an uninterrupted education. I cannot let the Minister escape without yet another plea for the decision to close Brecon barracks to be reversed. His colleague the Minister for Defence Procurement has kindly heard me a number of times and knows I warmly welcome the commitment to keep 160th Brigade in Brecon itself, but I will have to continue to bang on until this nonsensical decision is reversed. Brecon barracks is an integral part of the defence estate in Wales. It is the home of the Army in Wales and it deserves a permanent home—one that is fit for the future and that honours its history The Minister was in Wales this week and I am deeply grateful to him for his visit. It shows his commitment to the armed forces across the Union and his willingness to ensure that Wales is not left behind. However, with the number of service personnel and veterans living and working in Brecon and Radnorshire, I am concerned that the Welsh Government are content for them to be left behind. We have a large veteran population in Wales—around 140,000—but we are still the only nation in the UK not to have a dedicated commissioner for veterans. During this year’s St David’s day debate, the Secretary of State for Wales confirmed that he was actively exploring ways in which the UK Government could establish Wales’s first veterans’ commissioner. However, the ball is now in the Welsh Government’s court, and since February nothing has happened In Wales, we have eight armed forces liaison officers, who do fantastic work, but without one overarching commissioner there is no one to ensure that mental health provision, for example, is as consistent for those who live in Ystradgynlais as it is for those who live in Wrexham. At this point, I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton), who has done so much work on this issue. I urge the Minister to continue his engagement with the Welsh Government and to get them to put the interests of veterans in Wales above the need constantly to frustrate the Conservative Government in Westminster I was incredibly moved to see a large parade of veterans streaming through Brecon a few weeks ago. They were there to support the former soldiers who face prosecution following their service in Northern Ireland. Although I could not join them in person on the day, I give them my full support. These vexatious prosecutions must end. Without any new evidence, there is no justification for the continued harassment of former soldiers The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, this morning heard from the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who confirmed that he will be bringing forward a Bill shortly, but shortly is too slow; we cannot waste any more time. It was not appropriate to include Northern Ireland veterans in the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act 2021 for the very obvious reason that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, but there must be no further obstacles to this legislation. All serving personnel should be treated equally and it is more than time that the Government righted the wrongs done to those who served in Operation Banner.
It is a pleasure to follow my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Fay Jones), and to speak in support of several amendments that would improve the welfare of serving soldiers and former service personnel. As we are in Armed Forces Week, I would like to pay tribute not only to the tireless campaigning of organisations such as the Royal British Legion, but to veterans in my constituency of Ceredigion. I pay particular tribute to the efforts of the Ceredigion armed forces community covenant partners, especially to Captain Colin Jones MBE and his work with the Ceredigion armed forces veterans hub. Together, they run regular breakfast clubs across the county and have organised a series of events to raise money for good causes, the most recent of which took place just last Saturday. Colin climbed Yr Wyddfa, the highest mountain in Wales, blindfolded, in aid of Blind Veterans UK—a feat that was followed in the evening by a friendly but very competitive football match between the old boys of Aberystwyth FC and the old boys of the Royal Welsh Regiment I support new clause 1, which would amend the Immigration Act 2014 to waive the unjust fee levied on current or former serving members of the UK armed forces and their families when they submit applications for indefinite leave to remain. Such a measure would cost very little. It has support on both sides of the Committee and would have a profound impact on those it affects. It would also, of course, signal the support of this place for service people and their families Furthermore, I welcome amendments 1 to 4, and particularly amendment 2, which would require the Welsh Government to pay due regard to the armed forces covenant. This amendment is crucial in ensuring access to housing and other sources of wellbeing for veterans in Wales, while respecting the devolution settlement. It is important because although the armed forces are clearly a reserved matter, many aspects of their care, from housing to healthcare to education—matters that have been discussed by other hon. Members this afternoon —are devolved, with responsibility for implementation lying either with the Welsh Government or at a local authority level It is therefore essential to establish what expectations the Bill places on the Welsh Government and local authorities. With that in mind, I hope the Minister will inform us of what discussions he has had with the Welsh Government to streamline access to these services and ensure parity across the four nations, particularly given that not all armed forces charities and support networks have as strong a presence as we would like in some parts of Wales Equally, I ask the Minister to respond to the Senedd’s Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee’s report on the Bill and its recommendation that amendments should be pursued requiring the Secretary of State to obtain the consent of Welsh Ministers before issuing or revising guidance under proposed new section 343AE of the Armed Forces Act 2006, as well as before making regulations under proposed new section 343AF. That is particularly important given that the Government are no longer seeking a legislative consent motion from the Senedd. If he is able to refer to those points in his summing up, I would be grateful I commend the amendments tabled by my hon. Friends in the SNP that would require accommodation provided to service people in the respective nations of the UK to meet certain standards. It is appalling that, while the Government oversee procurement disasters, trumpet budget increases and laud the sacrifices made by our armed forces, they are still to commit to providing basic standards of accommodation for our service people. These amendments would address that, and I urge the Government to support them Finally, I note my support for new clause 2, which would establish a duty of care standard for legal, pastoral and mental health support for service personnel in investigations or litigation arising from overseas operations. Establishing a duty of care in these instances is the responsible and right thing to do The new clauses and amendments I have addressed today would make a meaningful impact on the lives of current and former service personnel. They are all considered amendments and have been tabled in good faith, and I hope the Government will use the good will apparent on both sides of the Committee to ensure that the Bill works with the devolved Governments to improve the standards of care and support received by our armed forces community.
It is interesting how, when we listen to a debate, our own speech changes according to what we have just heard. To give credit where it is due, the description provided by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) of what it was like to be homosexual and serving in the armed services rang a very strong bell with me My father had a much-loved cousin—he is dead now —who rose to a fairly high rank in the armed forces. Of course, all his life he was a homosexual. I remember him describing to me, not long before he died, what it was like to live a lie, because he did not dare come out or admit to his sexuality. He eventually came out in his 80s and had a partner before he died, and it was great. That always sticks with me, so I compliment the hon. Gentleman What the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), and the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) said about indefinite leave to remain, which has been mentioned many times in this debate, is very important. New clause 1 stands in my name, and I want to take it as far as possible. I hope the day will come when interpreters or anyone who has served Queen and country, and frankly risked their life, will be afforded the most assistance to become a permanent part of our country I have mentioned this several times in the past, and I want to make a point that I do not think other Members have touched on. In doing this sort of thing, word gets back to the countries these people originally come from, and that generates good will. Recruitment is the theme of my speech, and that good will helps us address a problem that I have heard about over and again in my four years in this place: that we are not recruiting the numbers that we need. We should never underestimate the importance of good will when it comes to recruitment I would be obliged if the Minister would pass on my thanks to his colleague, the Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. Member for Wells (James Heappey), who kindly hosted a most interesting briefing about Mali. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), was there as well. When we heard what was being done by our services personnel in Mali to ensure peace and to do good in the world, it really did sound very good indeed and was very encouraging.
It is a privilege to speak in this debate, particularly on Reserves Day and ahead of celebrating Armed Forces Day on Saturday. It is a pleasure to follow so many excellent speeches, particularly that by my Welsh colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Fay Jones) The passage of the Bill through Parliament this year is particularly important because it will put the armed forces covenant into legislation. Of course, the covenant is not new, but has been in operation in its current form for nearly 10 years. During that time, significant progress has been made to improve the lives of armed forces personnel, veterans and their families. More than 6,000 organisations and every local authority in the UK has pledged to support it However, the covenant is still just a pledge and individual members of the armed forces community still suffer disadvantage when accessing public services. This is often because of a lack of awareness of not just the covenant but the unique contributions that our service personnel make. The Bill will impose a legal duty on relevant bodies to have due regard to the three principles of the covenant. This is our promise to those who are serving or have served: they and their families will be treated fairly I come from a service family—my grandparents met in the RAF. I have RAF Valley in my constituency, and I am proud to be on the RAF section of the armed forces parliamentary scheme. I understand that going into the armed forces is a unique career choice. People hand themselves and their family over to the service of their country, with all that that entails I am fortunate to work closely with RAF Valley. Group Captain Andy Turk’s whole force team at the base is a very close-knit and supportive community, and I hold regular meetings with the service personnel and the private sector organisations based there, including Babcock, BAE Systems and Affinity. I represent both civilian and service constituents and their concerns are my concerns. RAF Valley is one of the largest employers here on Ynys Môn and I am consistently pushing very strongly, both informally and formally, how important these skilled jobs are in my constituency. Indeed, I had a meeting today with the Minister for Defence Procurement, which included an invitation to visit RAF Valley over the summer What strikes me most about the whole force team at RAF Valley is not what they do for the country, but what they do quietly in the background for the local community. Yes, training our future fighter and helicopter pilots is what we shout about, but it is their commitment to Anglesey that makes them truly part of our island. The station is as much part of Anglesey life as Anglesey life is part of the station, so my message today is this: when people think of the armed forces covenant, they should not think only of the contribution that our forces make to our national security; they should remember also the huge contribution that they make to our everyday life With RAF Valley here on Anglesey, the community enjoys so many benefits. The team helped us to secure hosting of the 40th anniversary of the Island games. They have provided critical skilled volunteers for our Royal National Lifeboat Institution, mountain rescue and local first responder groups. They host award-winning youth outreach programmes such as the Jon Egging Trust, support the learning and mentoring Profi project and partner with Careers Wales and STEM Cymru projects. They provide local junior football and tennis camps, on-site science, technology, engineering and maths activities and events for local schools. Padre Michael Hall of the station charities committee raises vital funds for a range of north Wales charities and organises a Santa drop for the children staying in Ysbyty Gwynedd Hospital over Christmas. They run beach cleans, they are custodians of a stretch of our beautiful coastal path, and they do so much more The armed forces covenant is our country’s thank you. It is a thank you for all that our armed forces do, and I take this opportunity to say personally diolch yn fawr—thank you—to RAF Valley for all that it does. I am proud that this Government are enshrining the armed forces covenant in legislation, so that our services personnel and their families receive the recognition that they deserve for their courage and years of commitment to us.
First, let me put on record that my thoughts are with the crew of HMS Defender as they go about their job with the usual dedication and skill today. Let me also say that despite what certain news agencies may have said today, Crimea is in Ukraine, and all on the Scottish National party Benches hope that the Russian Federation ends that illegal occupation as quickly as possible Today’s reminder that those members of our armed forces do a job like no other is pertinent and the opportunity that we in this House have through this legislation is a solemn duty, which I do not doubt all who are speaking today approach with the requisite seriousness. That does not mean, however, that we all share the same optimism about the Bill. While the idea of bringing the armed forces covenant into law is a welcome step forward, I still feel that there is going to be little in the Bill that will be genuinely transformative for the lived experience of armed forces personnel and veterans My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) and constituency neighbour has already spoken about her amendment on armed forces housing and I will not add much to that, other than to say that it is the type of small change that could make a real difference to the home lives of personnel wherever they are on these islands. More substantively, it is an amendment that makes an important point about how we should see the armed forces personnel not as a special class or caste of a group of our societies that seeks to defend that societies’ values. They cannot do this in substandard housing. The very least we should offer them is that which is available to the rest of society and, in this case, make sure that they are housed safely and warmly. I am determined to say every time these sorts of debates come up that those of us here would do well to think of our serving personnel less as heroes, and more as human beings, with the same needs as the rest of us: fair pay and conditions, the right to private and family life and ready access to secure accommodation. That is taken for granted for every other type of public sector employee, so why is it not for armed forces personnel? In fact, come to think of it, despite being to the best of my knowledge the only group of public sector employees to have a dedicated legislative session every five years, armed forces personnel have demonstrably poorer outcomes on almost every scale. How can that be There may be a metaphor in here. We are told that the Armed Forces Bill meets by convention as a Committee of the whole House before Report and Third Reading. Given that the Bill Select Committee was rushed through in a few short weeks, I cannot understand why we are now inserting another stage or, indeed, why the amendments that the Government are bringing today could not have been brought to the Select Committee I note with particular puzzlement yesterday’s statement from the Minister for Defence People and Veterans, the hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty). He is a fellow Docherty, with roots in Donegal and Glasgow and with whom I enjoyed working on the Defence Committee. He stated that further scrutiny would “delay the Bill’s passage, placing undue pressure on the deadline to renew the Armed Forces Act 2006.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2021; Vol. 697, c. 27WS.] I would certainly like to think that the next time an armed forces Bill whizzes through the House, we get a wee bit more time to discuss the really important issues at hand. As the arcane workings of this place continue to baffle both Members and personnel alike, we avoid being able to discuss the type of wide-ranging changes that could make a real difference to the lives of personnel, although that is probably the way that the Government and the Ministry of Defence like it. Maybe I am just being cynical My final points are in regard to the Opposition amendments relating to the service justice system, which my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) will be supporting. From my work on the Defence Committee, it is clear that the service justice system needs a radical and profound overhaul, and not just the modest changes proposed in the amendment. With the next armed forces Bill, it is time that we think about bringing together all the service police forces, streamlining the processes and ensuring a more robust service justice system that works for all I conclude by thanking all my colleagues on the Bill Select Committee for their work over the past few months —especially the Chair, the hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland), because I know it is the first time that a Bill has been considered in a hybrid way—and the Clerks and those in the Public Bill Office who have helped us navigate this legislation. We owe it to service personnel, in whose name the Bill will be enacted, to make it more straightforward in the future.
It is always a pleasure to speak in any debate on the armed forces, but particularly this week, as we recognise the huge contribution they make, today on Reserves Day and Saturday on Armed Forces Day. I also take this opportunity to thank the Armed Forces Parliamentary Trust. Through the scheme that it runs, I have been able to see almost every week the incredible work that our armed forces do day in, day out They say an organisation is only as good as its people, and nowhere is that more true than in the armed forces. Through the Bill, not only do we maintain our armed forces on paper, but it means that the hundreds of thousands of men and women who serve in the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force, the British Army and the Royal Marines can continue to serve Queen and country. They are the best, the brightest and the most courageous among us As we debate clause 1, we must consider why we need the armed forces and why they are still relevant in today’s world. In my view, the argument is stronger than ever before. Turning first to our domestic need, in the fight against covid-19, defence has supported literally hundreds of requests from citizens, the NHS, local authorities and Government Departments. In Lancashire, we have seen that through testing, vaccine deployment, planning, logistics and so much more. They have made a huge contribution, often behind the scenes and always without fanfare. However, this domestic demand has never come at the expense of their core activities. Only last month, we saw HMS Queen Elizabeth set sail as part of the carrier strike group—a huge tasking of personnel from all the services, not just those on board the carrier itself but on the frigates, destroyers and submarines, as well as the aircrew, that go with it.
I pay tribute to the men and women who serve our nation in uniform and our veterans who have selflessly sacrificed so much to protect this great nation. They deserve our utmost respect, gratitude and thanks. I also give thanks to the armed forces and veterans breakfast club in Bury where people work to help veterans, their families and service personnel, bringing the entire community together and reducing social isolation. They meet throughout the week. This should be commended and I put my thanks on record today I warmly welcome this Bill. I have the utmost confidence that it will ensure that veterans are treated fairly when accessing key public services, as well as improving the service justice system. As chairman of the all-party group on alcohol harm, I make particular reference to new clause 6 with regard to alcohol disorders. Although I appreciate the reasons that the Government are not bringing forward a measure at the moment, it needs to be explored further so that we do our utmost to ensure that anyone who has a disorder, a dependency or a need—whether they are a recent recruit, still serving or a recent veteran—can be given the help they need throughout their life. In particular, the Bill will enshrine the armed forces covenant into law, increasing awareness among public bodies of the unique nature of military service and improving the level of service for members of the armed forces community in regard to their healthcare, housing and education. I imagine that every Member of this House is aware of veterans out there who have been unable to access help and services that they desperately need, so I warmly welcome the covenant being enshrined in law However, our veterans deserve more than the appreciation of a grateful nation. They have protected and built our country, and they deserve our tireless commitment to advancing their opportunities. We must build a brighter future worthy of their sacrifice and that of their families. That is why I welcome the funding announced in the Budget by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in support of veterans welfare. An additional £10 million will be invested in the armed forces covenant fund in 2021-22, which will deliver charitable projects and initiatives to support veterans’ mental health. This latest funding is in addition to the annual Government contribution of £10 million to the covenant fund I welcome the funding announcement, but the veterans community in Bury needs more support. There is currently very little provided for them. Since my election to this House, I have been working with other leaders in the borough, with the council and with my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly), to try to bring our own veterans hub to the town of Bury. We are proud of our military heritage; we are a regimental town, looking after the Lancashire Fusiliers. The veterans hub would seek to deliver housing and employment skills, further education, family support and health and wellbeing I have visited numerous veterans hub operations across the surrounding areas, and I pay tribute to the services in Wigan and also in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Antony Higginbotham). The positive impact that a local veterans hub can have is clear to everyone. Can the Minister tell me what we can do to ensure that veterans receive the support that they need, no matter where they live, and what funding would be available from the MOD to help set up a veterans hub locally in Bury? We must reaffirm our fundamental promise that, just as the military leaves no one behind on the battlefield, we will leave no veteran behind when they come home.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) and an honour to speak in this debate in Armed Forces Week and on Reserves Day, especially because I am proud to have the Royal Marine Reserve headquarters in my constituency. Ahead of Reserves Day, I visited them last week and was able to thank them personally for their service. They put in a hard day’s work all over the country, then travel to their reservist centre to train for the Royal Marines, no less. They offer amazing service to our country, and I am very proud of them and grateful to them There is much to welcome in the Bill, which will support our armed forces personnel and their families. I echo the words of colleagues on both sides of the House in recognising and celebrating the work of our armed forces and their ongoing efforts to make our country and the world safer. We cannot put a price on safety. Only when our own safety is compromised, or when we do not have it, do we realise how important it is to us every day. I worked with aid workers in Bosnia during the war, and I have seen the difference it can make to a whole community not to have that safety, so I value it very much Our armed forces have had to adapt all their work and all their training at speed during the pandemic, and I commend them for that. I am also thankful for the work they have done to support frontline efforts to tackle the pandemic. They really have stepped up when we have asked them to. It is for this reason that, while I support the aims of the Bill, I think it is a huge missed opportunity and could have gone further. It needs to go further if it is to deliver real improvements to the day-to-day lives of our service personnel and veterans and their families.
As a fellow member of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill could have gone further in addressing mental health provision for veterans, given the fact that they have to wait 37 days to receive a face-to-face appointment for mental health services, compared with the Government’s own target of just 14 days?
I agree with my hon. Friend: this Bill could have gone further both in putting all aspects of the covenant fully into law, and in its scope The Bill does not fully enshrine the armed forces covenant in law. It seems to absolve central Government from responsibility for delivering the covenant, as has been outlined by my colleagues. It does not make sense to place new responsibilities on a wide range of public bodies, from school governors to local authorities, to deliver the covenant, but not to include central Government. Does the Minister agree that the Government are effectively outsourcing the delivery of these important commitments and also evading their own responsibility on issues such as pensions, social care and mental health services? For that reason, I support amendments 1 to 4. They would place the same legal responsibility to have due regard to the armed forces covenant on central Government and the devolved Administrations and remove that glaring discrepancy My second point is that the Bill is just too narrow. Service charities are rightly concerned that this Bill contains nothing specific on issues such as service accommodation, employment, pensions, compensation, social care, criminal justice and immigration. The scope of the legislation must be wide enough to ensure that all areas of potential disadvantage are addressed. Our armed forces personnel and their families should not suffer disadvantage in any area. By setting a legal standard that is below existing voluntary commitments in some areas, the Government risk creating a two-tier covenant and a race to the bottom on services for forces’ communities where we should be providing the gold standard The Bill, as it stands, does not cover all the commitments made in the covenant, or all the public bodies responsible for delivering them It contains powers for the Secretary of State to expand these, so why not include them? Will the Minister clarify how and when these powers might be used? These issues are why I am supporting amendment 6 this afternoon. This Bill does nothing to address the shameful scandal of visa fees for Commonwealth veterans. I know that there is support in all parts of the House for addressing this, so I urge Members to vote for the new clause. The Government’s long-awaited proposals, currently being consulted on, will help just one in 10 Commonwealth veterans. We know what the Commonwealth veterans want, need and deserve for their service, so why not just put it in the Bill? The proposed changes do not apply to family members of those who have served or who have been medically discharged, meaning that it will help only a minority of those affected Commonwealth service personnel have contributed an enormous amount to our national defence. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude. Extortionate visa fees have left non-UK veterans facing financial ruin and feeling abandoned by the country for which they have potentially laid down their lives. They have served with courage and distinction, and we thank them and then do not give them the rights that they deserve. The Government’s long-overdue proposals are insulting to those personnel and will continue to prevent non-UK veterans from living in the country for which they have fought. Moreover, the proposals will reduce retention and recruitment rates, as has been outlined Under new clause 7, Commonwealth and Gurkha veterans who have served four years would pay cost price—they would pay just over £200 instead of £2,389 for an indefinite leave to remain application. Those with families will have to pay nearly £10,000 to apply for a right to remain. We did not ask them for that when they potentially laid down their life for us and for our country. We ask far too much of them, and put far too high a barrier for the indefinite leave to remain application. This is a move that the Royal British Legion and organisations such as Citizenship for Soldiers have long campaigned for, and I pay my respect to them both for their campaigns and for speaking up for so many people. I urge all hon. Members to support the new clause The Government like to talk up their support for our service communities, and rightly so, but they are not delivering. It is time for Ministers to deliver the promises of the covenant in full for every member of our armed forces, veterans and their families. I often think that our armed forces personnel lose out because they are not allowed to wear their military uniform out and about, and I absolutely understand the reasons for that. None the less, in countries such as America, armed forces personnel are thanked everywhere they go. They are given special treatment and respect for their service to their country, and rightly so. But our armed forces personnel often do not feel that respect; they cannot because they cannot wear their uniform. The covenant goes a long way to saying how much we respect our armed forces personnel and their families, but it could go a bit further to achieve that. The Opposition’s reasonable and constructive amendments are designed to get the very best for our forces from this legislation, so I urge hon. Members from all sides of the House to support the amendments.
Order. I have now to announce the result of today’s deferred Division. On the motion on the conference, November and Christmas Adjournments, the Ayes were 567 and the Noes were three, so the Ayes have it [The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]
I thank the Minister for the assurances he provided from the Dispatch Box in his opening remarks. I also pay special thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) for the diligence with which he conducted the Bill Select Committee. I must also pay special tribute to my friend and colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson). Whenever he recollects and provides details of his experiences, he never fails to move me and, I know, many other Members in this Chamber. Thanks are also clearly due to the Armed Forces Parliamentary Trust, particularly given the efforts it has put in, and, of course, all the military establishments that have continued with the armed forces parliamentary service during this difficult time of restrictions due to covid. It has been invaluable to me to be a member of the scheme, even with all the constraints that covid imposed One of the key messages that I take away from the last 18 months is that our military all do their job with a conviction that I find difficult to equal elsewhere. In fact, calling it a job is probably wrong: it is in fact a way of life. It is not a life of luxury. Indeed, it is not a life with many of the things that most of us take for granted. It is a life that they know might one day put them at risk. I thank all of them and their families and pay tribute to the veterans from my constituency of Dudley North and beyond Before I entered Parliament, I chaired an armed forces covenant committee in the Black Country, where I saw at first hand the difficulties faced by our brave personnel and their families—if they had any family—simply because of the nature of their jobs. At that point, the covenant was a voluntary commitment, with inconsistencies across the country. I am therefore delighted that this is being enshrined in law so that the support somebody receives in Dudley will be the same as that given in Portsmouth and, indeed, perhaps in Dover While I was chairing the covenant committee, I was never able to find the answer to one simple question: how many people had we helped and were we actually helping? I am a very outcome-focused person, and while I could not doubt the well-meaning and positive intentions of all the partners supporting the covenant—the local council, the local NHS trusts and so many more—I had a hard time quantifying the benefit, even though the covenant is clearly a great step forward. My plea to Ministers is therefore to seek ways to evidence what impact the covenant is having on veterans and their families. That will help partners to improve their offer together and demonstrate the great value in the armed forces covenant.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Rosie. I wish to speak in opposition to new clauses 1, 2 and 3 I thank my colleagues who served on the Select Committee for the Bill, which was so ably led by my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland). The Bill as it stands will protect our armed forces not only while they are serving, but once they have completed their service, delivering on the manifesto commitments on which we were elected It is fitting that we are debating the Bill during Armed Forces Week. Only this morning, on Reserves Day, I was privileged to attend a flag raising ceremony here in Darlington, attended by veterans, reservists-and youth trainees, in recognition of their service and to express the thanks of the people I represent. In my Second Reading speech, I reiterated the words of those armed forces veterans in Darlington, who support the Bill. The Bill will impose a legal duty on UK public bodies and local authorities to have due regard to the principles of the covenant, ensuring that armed forces personnel, veterans and their families are not disadvantaged because of or by their service when accessing key public services. I am satisfied that, with the Government new clauses, this Bill will right the wrongs of the past to provide the protection our armed forces personnel and veterans need and deserve. That being said, I welcome the Government’s acknowledgement that more can always be done With regard to new clauses 1 and 7, the Government have already stressed that they are aware that the current system places financial liability on non-UK service personnel and are currently consulting on a policy to waive fees for personnel at the conclusion of their military service. I look forward to the consultation’s end next month. Similarly, in regard to new clause 2, the Government have already set out their desire to provide gold standard provision for veterans and I am glad that Ministers have stressed the importance of that duty of care. In regard to new clause 3, the Government have outlined at length how the armed forces are adapting to new challenges that we face across the globe This Bill enshrines the armed forces covenant in law and impacts veterans in all our constituencies. I am proud to be supporting the Government this evening in delivering an important promise to those who are serving and those who have served us so well.
I welcome the opportunity to pay tribute to all serving armed forces personnel and veterans, thousands of whom are based in my Stockport constituency and across Greater Manchester. We all owe a debt of gratitude to them I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan) and for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) and the hon. Members for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) and for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) for tabling new clause 7, which deals with “Indefinite leave to remain payments by Commonwealth and Gurkha members of armed forces” It is vital that we recognise the sacrifice that these brave men and women make for our country, and they should be recognised and rewarded accordingly. The very least the UK Government can do is forgo the cost of remaining in our country. I also pay tribute to all Gurkhas, as well as to the work of the all-party group on Nepal and the efforts of my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma), who has tirelessly campaigned for justice for the Gurkha community I am especially grateful to Mr Peter Millns from the Stockport veterans breakfast club for all his work in supporting the veteran community in my town. He has a long and distinguished career in the military, including a tour of Bosnia while serving in the 1st Battalion the Cheshire Regiment during the conflict in 1993. The work he and many like him do is crucial to providing the support and camaraderie that many serving personnel and veterans need There are 2.5 million veterans living in the UK, and it is vital that they are not simply forgotten about once they have served our country and put their lives on the line for it. Veterans such as Mr Millns in my constituency require funding for community services such as a veterans hub in Stockport town centre, a place where serving and former personnel can receive support for housing, employment and public services such as healthcare. That is vital in helping many integrate back into society after tours of duty and once they retire. In order to do this, they need Government support in the form of a fair funding package to all local authorities so these hubs in support of our veteran community can be rolled out across the nation. Voluntary organisations do incredible work, but it should not be left to them to make up the shortfall in Government support. Too often, the armed forces covenant is not upheld and the promises made do not match the reality experienced by our service communities, from substandard housing to poor veterans’ mental health and social care Earlier this year, a highly critical report by the National Audit Office revealed that tens of thousands of troops live in substandard accommodation, while the Ministry of Defence refuses to pay for £1.5 billion-worth of repairs, meaning that half the rooms in MOD barracks would fail to meet the current building regulations. That is no way to treat those who have put their lives on the line to keep our country safe. The Government also need to reduce the waiting time for access to affordable and social housing and improve the existing armed forces housing stock, much of which is dilapidated and has often fallen into disrepair. The Bill places a legal responsibility on councils to deliver on the covenant in the areas of housing, healthcare and education, but, crucially, without providing any extra funding to do so. The Government must therefore implement the armed forces covenant fully in law and increase its funding As I have alluded to already, Commonwealth military veterans who have served with the UK military and put themselves in harm’s way for our nation should be afforded the exact same privileges as British nationals. However, the Royal British Legion has warned that they are facing a “desperate situation” due to visa fees of thousands of pounds for those who want to stay in the UK following discharge from the military. This situation must be urgently rectified, and the visa application fees for military personnel from Commonwealth countries must be abolished urgently. Failure to do so would leave many facing deportation The UK aims to recruit 1,350 people from Commonwealth countries each year, up from its previous target of 200. We now have more than 6,000 Commonwealth personnel who currently serve in the armed forces.
Does my hon. Friend agree that those individuals have a huge contribution to make post their military career to British society, whether it be the NHS or other public services, and that by not doing what he says, we are missing an opportunity for the experience that they gained in their service to this country to be given back to the country?
I fully share my right hon. Friend’s views. These people could be invaluable in our society, contributing to all sections of the community, and the Government should urgently resolve this matter. Many of these people are exempt from immigration controls during service, but that is removed immediately on discharge. That is no way to thank them after years of loyal service for our country. We should be rewarding them rather than penalising them.
Thank you, Dame Rosie, for the chance to contribute to this debate on an issue very close to my heart. Let me put on the record how pleased I am to see the Minister in his place. He has been a good friend of mine over the years—a good friend of us all—and we look forward very much to hearing what he has to say I declare an interest as a former part-time soldier, having served in the Ulster Defence Regiment and the Territorial Army Royal Artillery for 14 and a half years. That may have given me my interest in this issue, but the armed forces parliamentary scheme, which other Members have referred to, has given me a greater overview of what happens. It has given me an opportunity to see what the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy do, and to have a more strategic overview of what it all means, so it really has been good to do that New clause 3 refers to a report on personnel numbers in the armed forces. I have to put on the record, as others have—the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) referred to it—my disappointment that the personnel figure for the forces has dropped. In 2004, under Labour—that was long before I came here; I was in the Assembly at the time—there were some 207,000 personnel. That has dropped dramatically I worry that, as others have said, we have come to the stage where viability becomes a key issue and there is a question about whether we are able to respond to all the places in the world where there is conflict. We have heard reference—it may have been from the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) on the SNP Front Bench—to Mali. We know that British soldiers have a key role to play there and elsewhere in Africa. The level of terrorism in central Africa—Gabon, Nigeria, Mali and other areas in that part of Africa—is rising, and we have a role to play. We have a role to play in the far east as well. I do have great concern about that In Northern Ireland over the years, we have been very fortunate to have had a good level of recruitment. We never needed conscription in Northern Ireland, because people volunteered in great numbers in the first and second world wars and in every conflict since. Perhaps Ministers—maybe not this Minister, but another Minister or the Secretary of State—would confirm that the number of TA personnel has been increased in Northern Ireland. The recruitment of TA personnel in my constituency of Strangford and in Newtownards, the town where the two regiments are located, shows great improvement Moving on to the amendments that have been selected, I support my colleagues who brought forward new clause 1 regarding waived fees for indefinite leave to remain for serving or discharged members of the UK armed forces and, similarly, new clause 7. We have much to be thankful for historically because those Commonwealth members who joined our ranks served with courage and dedication. Many paid the ultimate price in the service of democracy and freedom while wearing the uniform in service to our royal family and to Queen and country.
Although I said that fees were the biggest issue, we have heard from a number of Commonwealth veterans that they were not made aware of the requirement to apply at the appropriate point and that they have found themselves in a difficult situation over their immigration status. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is an awful lot of work to be done here, particularly when veterans are discharged from the armed forces?
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and wholeheartedly agree that there are things to do. I hope the Minister will respond to her, and also to me, because I endorse what she has said. It is obvious to me that whenever issues are brought to the attention of Ministers and the Ministry of Defence, things do happen—for instance, the status of the Afghan translators has been changed owing to perseverance and lobbying inside and outside the House—and I suggest that if there is an anomaly to be addressed, we should do that. The way to do it is for our Minister to respond, and I hope he will do so Let me return to the fee, which stands at £2,389 per person, despite the unit cost to the Home Office of processing an application being just £243. I always try to be respectful in the Chamber, but when I see figures of £243 and £2,389, I wonder to myself, “Where’s the money going?” For a family of four, the fee would be £9,556. People do not move on their own; they move as part of a family, so I believe consideration should be given to all the family I agree that the Government have found some way to acknowledge the debt in that they have proposed dropping fees for personnel who have served more than 12 years, but that does not include any provision for the families, I understand. If the Minister is able to reassure me on the matter, I will be more than happy to respect that This must change, and I fully support new clauses 1 and 7 with respect to those who fight to protect these shores. We cannot refuse entry by way of fees, which could take years to save, and perhaps more years to pay off. This small step could change lives and bring working families to enjoy what they have served to uphold. When someone serves, it is not simply their life that is changed; it is the life of the entire family. That is the issue. During the urgent question on vaccinations earlier today, I made a point about families to the Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. Member for Wells (James Heappey). It is not just one person who is involved, but a family, and often a family of four or more. The immediate family must be part of the equation at all levels I welcome some of the work that has been done in relation to veterans. I have a deep interest in veterans owing to the service rendered by my Strangford constituents. Many people have joined over the years and some have lived with the problems of post-traumatic stress disorder. I see the hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) in his place. I thank him for his recent report, which has gone some way to addressing those issues I want to make a point about a charity called Beyond the Battlefield. It started 10 years ago in my constituency. There are many charities, but I want to speak about this one. Last year, it looked after 850 veterans. Whether it is benefits issues, social housing, health issues, family issues or legal advice, the help that it gives is incredible. Many people that the organisation helps are those who have fallen under the radar; other charities do not pick them up and they face real problems. In particular, I commend Annemarie Hastings and Rob McCartney for the work they have done through Beyond the Battlefield The charity organises a walk at the end of May called “A Big Dander”. If someone goes for a walk or a long run, somewhere at the bottom of that is what we call a dander—just take it at your leisure. Connor Ferguson and Ian Reid covered 430 miles in two days, crossing seven peaks and raising some £15,500. I commend them for that. Beyond the Battlefield survives on contributions and volunteer charity events like that one, and it does tremendous work I turn to the armed forces covenant. The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Fay Jones) referred to her wish—it is my wish as well—to have the armed forces covenant in situ, not just here on the mainland, but for the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and in particular Northern Ireland In the background information, I see that the Committee “welcomed the Bill’s proposals” and referred to “the areas of housing, healthcare and education in the last 12 months…the effectiveness of the legislation and comment on future scope…a memorandum to the Defence Committee two years after the legislation is enacted to enable the Defence Committee to conduct post-legislative scrutiny into how the Act has worked in practice.” I want that covenant for my constituents in Strangford and all those across the whole of Northern Ireland who have served Queen and country in uniform, so that they have the same rights as they would here In the same spirit, I lend my support to amendments 39 and 40 on the standard of housing in the armed forces. Family units sacrifice to serve and it is vital that we do right by them. How can we expect a man or woman to serve with focus if they are worried about the housing in which their family reside back home? How can they serve with focus if they are concerned that their child’s asthma—this is one issue that has come to my attention—is worsening because of damp in their housing? The answer is that they cannot. It is their duty to sacrifice for us and they do so willingly. We in this House must do the same for them and address the issue of decent housing for families. It is sad that we need to legislate in this way, but the fact is that some Army housing is not fit for purpose and funding must urgently be allocated for those family homes. I am coming to the end of my contribution, Madam Deputy Speaker In my constituency, I have an Army couple—one person from Northern Ireland and one from England—who refuse to put their five-year-old into Army housing, so they private rent. It is not because they want to be better than anybody else. It is because the rented accommodation that they were offered just was not suitable for their child or for them; indeed, I would suggest that it is not suitable for anybody. Given that they have had to private rent, their decent wage is taken up almost in its entirety by rent and childcare When we ask people to serve, we take them away from the support of siblings and parents who might be able to mind their children, yet—with great respect—we do not provide enough for them to live comfortably when doing so. It is little wonder that many families choose to split their time by keeping a base in one town to which they travel on weekends and when on leave, and another only for work. One step towards a good working family is providing housing that is fit for purpose that families can live in together and save the money that they can while working on base, and doing away with the use of very costly private rentals I am immensely proud of our armed forces, as we all are in this House. We stand in awe of those who serve in uniform, whether in the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force or the Army. We are so proud of what they have done for us, and I believe that we in this House have to do our best for them, with gratitude for their service and for their families, who are part of that service. We need to give them the best; unfortunately, we are not there just yet.
I thank all Members who have spoken today for their thoughtful and sincere contributions, and I wish to put on record again my gratitude for the effective chairmanship of the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill by my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland). I also wish to thank the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan) for the constructive tone of his remarks today. He rightly spoke at some length on the historic hurt suffered by those dismissed from military service purely for their sexual orientation—this related to new clause 4. We also heard welcome remarks on that from the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden), who made a moving speech, and the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone). So I want to put clearly on the record the fact that the historical ban on homosexuality in the armed forces was absolutely wrong and there was horrific injustice as a consequence of it. We will go all out to address that injustice. We are resisting new clause 4 today because we believe that if we accepted that, it would complicate our efforts to address at pace this injustice. But getting after this historical hurt and delivering justice for these people is at the heart of our veterans’ strategy, which I will be announcing later this year. I have met Fighting with Pride already to that end. So we will address this injustice with compassion and deep urgency. Many Members mentioned settlement fees in relation to new clauses 1 and 7. New clause 1 stood in the name of the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, but other Members spoke to it, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell, the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake), my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Antony Higginbotham), the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson), my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson), and the hon. Members for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who also mentioned the cases of Afghan interpreters. I am pleased that they are now coming to our country for the sake of refuge. Let me be clear again that the provisions for settlement fees are out for public consultation, which will conclude on 7 July. I cannot pre-empt what it will find, but I am optimistic and expectant that we will deliver a good and honourable result for those who serve and deserve to be able to settle without exorbitant and unjust fees The right hon. Member for North Durham returned to the familiar theme of investigations, and I am pleased to confirm to him this afternoon that Justice Henriques will report by the end of the summer, at which point we will consider with sincerity and rigour the recommendations within that report. I have no doubt that we will communicate further on this subject.
I have been a Minister in the Ministry of Defence, so will the Minister just clarify what he means by “the summer”, because there is a big difference between what we all know as the summer and what the MOD knows as the summer? Is he referring to what we recognise or will it be later in the year?
I am pleased to confirm that that means summer this year, not summer next year I was pleased to hear from a trio of Welsh MPs: my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Fay Jones), the hon. Member for Ceredigion and my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie). The hon. Member for Ceredigion questioned whether or not we should have had a legislative consent mechanism in relation to this Bill. I am happy to confirm to him that that is not required—we have taken legal advice on that. My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire referred to my recent visit to Wales, when I was very pleased to meet veterans and members of the armed forces and to hear about the very important work of armed forces liaison officers in relation to the local delivery of the armed forces covenant. We had discussions about whether or not there is a need for a veterans commissioner for Wales, and I would hope that all three Welsh Members who spoke today would support that notion, because it would, in addition to the armed forces liaison officers, deliver some value for our defence people and our veterans. I urge the Welsh Government, as I will do in future meetings, to look at that very seriously We were pleased also to hear from the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes), who brought his usual good cheer and sincere interest in defence affairs to the Chamber virtually. My hon. Friend the Member for Burnley referred, quite rightly, to the valued work of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, through the trust. He spoke about the centrality of people to everything we do in defence, and I thought that was very apposite. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) spoke about the breakfast club in Bury, and about the challenges faced by veterans and servicepeople when it comes to alcohol. I have noticed a discernible shift in the drinking culture in the armed forces: it is becoming much less of a thing. During my visit to Wales, I met serving members of 1 Para, who said that the gym is the new bar. That is quite interesting, compared with my experiences as a young soldier 20 years ago. Of course I spent a lot of time in the gym, but I was also committed to time in the bar. I think that culture may be shifting. I will be happy to support my hon. Friend’s efforts in Bury South—if he was in his place, I could give him that personal commitment—and the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly) to support veterans at the local level The hon. Member for Putney made a fitting tribute to the magnificent Royal Marine reserve unit in her constituency. I can confirm that if she comes to Aldershot, she will see a lot of armed forces personnel cutting around in public, in the garrison and in Tesco. She would be very welcome to do that My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi) also mentioned the Armed Forces Parliamentary Trust. My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington and the hon. Member for Stockport mentioned the valuable work that veterans do to support their local communities I think we were all moved by the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson). His moving testimony of his personal experience of the armed forces covenant, both as someone in despair following service and then as an armed forces champion, caught the House’s attention and was very welcome Ten years ago, the covenant was relaunched to set out our nation’s promise to honour the immense contribution and commitment of our armed forces people. Ten years on, we are going further still. Anyone who has served their country knows that they should never face disadvantage because of their service. Today, we honour our servicepeople and our veterans. This Bill delivers, and I commend it to the House Question put and agreed to. Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clauses 2 to 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 8 Reserve forces: flexibility of commitments Amendment proposed: 1, in clause 8, page 9, line 19, at end insert— “(aa) a relevant government department;”—(Stephen Morgan.) This amendment, with amendments 2, 3 and 4, would place the same legal responsibility to have ‘due regard’ to the Armed Forces Covenant on central government and the devolved administrations as the Bill currently requires of local authorities and other public bodies.
It is a great pleasure to talk about the success story that is English wine in English Wine Week, but I am happy to expand the designation to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. My constituency, Arundel and South Downs, has one of the largest collections of vineyards in the United Kingdom, with a combined 309 hectares. Vineyards making up that hectarage are among some of the best in the country, including Nutbourne, Redfold Vineyards, Coldharbour, Tullens, Stopham, the Wiston Estate and Woodmancote vineyard. In that respect, I draw the House’s attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests or, more accurately, the lack of any entry. With the summer months now upon us, I am always happy to volunteer myself as a professional consumer of their products I am also the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for wine of Great Britain, of which I see a number of members here this evening. I am pleased to announce that it has 53 Members from across the House. Through my role as chair, I have had the pleasure of working closely with Simon Robinson of Hattingley Valley, who sadly informed us that he will be stepping down as chair of WineGB in August. I pay tribute to him for his work, but I also welcome his successor, Sam Linter of Bolney Wine Estate. I am sure that we will have a great time promoting English wine together.
May I first thank my hon. Friend for his leadership of the English wines group and for his expansive way of making it for all this country One of the issues raised by English wine producers, and in particular by producers of sparkling wine, where we are doing really well, is that we ought to be able to bring in half-litre bottles. [Interruption.] Forgive me; I am being asked to go to the pub. We can sell still wine in half-litres and some English wine growers suggest that, now that we are free of EU rules, it would be a good idea to do the same for sparkling wine.
I thank my hon. Friend for that eminent suggestion. As we know, the only thing better than half a litre of English sparkling wine is a full litre, but why would we seek to deprive choice to the consumer? Perhaps the Minister and her colleagues will pick that up when she responds Wine, as we know, has a long history on this island, having been introduced by the Romans. By the time of the Normans, who indeed chose Sussex to land, more than 40 vineyards were listed in the Domesday Book—one of the earliest censuses on record—proving that their produce has always attracted the attention of the taxman. There was healthy growth in the wine industry in the late medieval and early-modern period, with 139 vineyards recorded at the time of Henry VIII’s coronation. Indeed, to this day, just over the road, there is a legacy of Henry’s prodigious taste for wine in the form of his personal cellar, now buried—or so they claim—under the Ministry of Defence. English wine has done exceptionally well in recent years and is now repeatedly recognised as a contender among some of the world leaders in the industry, with England winning more gold medals in the Sommelier Wine Awards than France.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing this issue forward. Does he not agree that British goods of a high quality, such as English wine, should be available for sale in each corner of this wonderful United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and that Greenfields wine, which I think he omitted to refer to, should be promoted in my constituency of Strangford just as Echlinville gin, made in Kircubbin in my constituency, should be promoted in Arundel?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for reminding us of the importance of the single internal market. I would be delighted to promote his Echlinville gin to my constituents in Arundel and South Downs I was talking about awards and the quality of our English products. In recent months, Nyetimber—another vineyard in my constituency—won four awards at the 2020 Champagne and Sparkling Wine World Championships. Closer to home, we should not forget the excellent work done by Trevor Clough and Jason Humphries at Digby Fine English—also in my constituency—who have been awarded the contract for the House of Commons gift shop’s first ever official sparkling wine, meaning that every visitor to this House can leave with a genuinely sparkling souvenir. It is happening not only in my constituency but across England, and it has been a pleasure to hear from hon. Friends about a wealth of other first-class wine estates.
Right across England, and indeed even in North Yorkshire—which might sound very northerly for a wine—there are the wonderful, award-winning Ryedale vineyards that produce the fantastically named Yorkshire’s Lass and Yorkshire’s Lad white wine. It really is top-drawer and worthy of that award. Does my hon. Friend think we might push the Treasury to introduce some incentives for our smaller wine growers—cellar door relief, for example, or perhaps small vineyards relief—which would encourage more tourism to our lovely constituencies as well as more wine sales?
My hon. Friend makes a fantastic point. I look forward to consuming Yorkshire’s Lass or Yorkshire’s Lad. We should certainly support our small producers in what is, as I will go on to say, a growing industry in the United Kingdom A number of other colleagues have joined me to talk about the wine estates in their constituencies. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) has mentioned the Chafor vineyard in his constituency, and I see on the Front Bench the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), who plays host to Bolney, and Kingscote in East Grinstead English sparkling wine has had a very busy year despite the pandemic. With the current trend to stay local and to buy local due to the pandemic, the industry has adapted well to current restrictions. WineGB data suggests that the industry saw an increase of 30% in 2020 on the previous year, with 7 million bottles sold, and we have a great deal more to look forward to. Dermot Sugrue, winemaker at Whiston Estate, wrote recently that the 2020 harvest is “in a word: Superb. Best…since 2003 & 2011.” Peter Gladwin, the proprietor of the Nutbourne Vineyards, told me that he believes in some ways covid restrictions have helped the UK wine industry. Buying local, staycations and the multitude of good publicity have all boosted direct-to-consumer sales Wine tourism has also seen an increase in the lockdown, with more visitors than ever heading to our UK vineyards and wineries for their holidays, enhancing—and this is a very serious point—the rural economy and much-needed employment. A recent report commissioned by the South Downs National Park Authority, which itself does an excellent job at promoting English wine, estimated that we have seen 33,000 visitors coming to our 51 vineyards and 11 wineries If the authors of a recent report on climate change—another very serious topic—are to be believed, the South Downs wine harvest will only grow. Today, just 0.4% of agricultural land is currently used for viticulture, whereas the report estimates that up to 34% of land could be suitable in the future. This potential is already apparent in the wider country, as 2021 has seen 1.4 million vines planted, and over 5,000 acres have been planted over the past five years With restrictions easing, we cannot stop here. We must continue to try to help this great industry grow, and one way to help is through taxation. Wine Drinkers UK explained to me that currently excise duty on a bottle of still wine is £2.23 plus VAT, while excise duty on a bottle of sparkling wine is £2.86 plus VAT. There is literally a bubble tax. Maybe it is the forerunner of a broader tax on carbon emissions, but I have to say it does seem like a really odd place to start.
My hon. Friend makes a very good point there. It is absurd of course because if it is a tax to prevent people from drinking more alcohol, the alcohol content of sparkling wine is rather lower than that of still wine, so it is actually even more healthy for people to drink sparkling wine than still wine.
I thank my hon. Friend for his endorsement of the health benefits of sparkling wine, and I am sure he himself is a sparkling example of that as well. In the long term, I am confident that such a change in taxation would be a good deal for the Chancellor Another current issue that the wine industry in Britain is facing is the lack of seasonal workers able to come over and help with the harvest. There is currently only one UK college I am aware of that promotes the very highest level of viticulture course, and that is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), which is Plumpton College. Its principal, Jeremy Kerswell, is very engaged in expanding this space and stepping into that opportunity. I believe that, together, we can find a happy balance between gaining seasonal workers, but also encouraging more British people to take up the wonderful career opportunities offered in viticulture. On the subject of Government hospitality and patronage of home-grown wine, I have tabled a number of written questions in this House, from which I learned that in March of last year English wines made up only 10% of the Government wine cellar. However, I am delighted to report that Government are busy rectifying this oversight. In 2018-19, 49% of wines purchased for Government hospitality were English or Welsh, and that has improved this year to 73%—a commendable direction of travel and one we should really celebrate in English Wine Week Since I became chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for wine of Great Britain, the members and I have been pushing the Government to promote English wine as much as possible. It is something I will continue to champion, and I was grateful for the commitment given in this Chamber last week by my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams), as a Foreign Office Minister, that he will encourage all British high commissions and embassies to stock their cellars with home-grown produce. This would help, support and encourage the growth of the English wine industry on a global scale. Boosting exports is a major cause for optimism. Today we drink far more Australian wine than the Australians drink English wine, so there is an opportunity to redress that imbalance thanks to the new outline trade deal agreed by the International Trade Secretary. Such opportunities will be firmly on the agenda, or the menu, at the SussExport event to be hosted by Wilton Park this July for all export businesses in Sussex English Wine Week is also an outstanding opportunity to celebrate the community institutions that serve our local English wine—the great British pub. Pubs provide a warm welcome and a safe place to enjoy company, perhaps a glass of English sparkling wine, and often delicious food. Many are cherished and characterful buildings used for hospitality over the centuries To help our hard-pressed hostelries, I have launched a South Downs pub guide to encourage my constituents and visitors to the South Downs back to the booths, benches, beer gardens and bar stools of these local favourites. From the Foresters Arms in Kirdford, to the Thatched Inn in Hassocks, to the Holly Tree in Walberton to the White Horse in Graffham, all points of the compass in Arundel and South Downs are well served by an array of local pubs. I am thankful to Squires garden centre and Harwoods Land Rover for making this guide a possibility. It is not yet quite, as they say, available in all good bookshops, but copies will be available in time for unlocking on 19 July. In the meantime, it is at southdownspubs.com I believe that it is important to celebrate and support this growing British industry in any way that we can, from promoting it on the international stage to ordering a bottle or two occasionally for ourselves. It is successful, sustainable and with plenty of room to grow.
I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this debate given that we have a little more time due to the previous business finishing early. I really congratulate my hon. Friend, and neighbour, the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) on securing it. I am very covetous of his constituency because it includes the best vineyards in the country in the county that has the best vineyards in the country. It is with great pleasure that I endorse everything that he has said about English wine I speak with some long-term experience. Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as a vacation job, I used to work at the English Wine Centre in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) in the village of Alfriston, where I grew up. In those days, English wine was an altogether different beast. It had been reinvented by Guy Salisbury-Jones down at Hambledon in Hampshire, the home of cricket, and was largely an occupation taken up by retired colonels and the like as a sideline and hobby The quality of English wine in those days was somewhat questionable, so we had to think up imaginative ways of trying to promote it. One of those we came up with was having an English wine festival; it was rather more down to quantity than quality, which appealed to those who came. Then, in 1984, we founded the great English wine run, which mimicked the Beaujolais race bringing the new Beaujolais across to the UK. Instead, we took English wine across to a bunch of unsuspecting Parisians, ending up at the George V hotel in Paris. About 100 teams took part. Some were dressed up as famous English generals who had conquered the French in battle; of course, there were many that fitted that bill. We had double- decker London buses, surfboards, helicopters and vintage Rolls-Royces. We appeared, each of us, with our two bottles of English wine that we delivered to the finishing point at the George V hotel to the unsuspecting French who did not really want to drink it But today English wine is an altogether different beast. Forty years on from when we had those English wine runs, which we did for four or five years, we can now, with huge pride, hold up a bottle of English wine and it will hold its own with the best the French champagne industry can throw it. As my hon. Friend said, we now have countless vineyards that are winning in blind tastings internationally across the globe against the French, who thought they were the masters of producing sparkling wine. English sparkling wine is better. We have benefited from climate change, we benefit from the same latitude as the champagne district and we benefit from a similar terroir, particularly on the south downs, where the 51 vineyards in the South Downs national park have that chalky terrain that makes the best grapes to turn into English sparkling wine. So it has been a great success story, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I am sure that the odd drop has passed your lips occasionally in the past We need to celebrate the industry, and the Government need to get behind the industry a little more. We are now producing 7.1 million bottles on 10,000 acres across the country, mostly in England but some in Wales and apparently on a vineyard in Scotland—with a certain whisky tinge about it, I should think. We have 800 vineyards —and growing—employing many thousands of people and, really importantly, encouraging wine tourism as well. In Sussex, we have something called Sussex Modern, which was invented by the proprietor of Rathfinny, which is probably going to become the largest English vineyard and is a great success story. Sussex Modern combines vineyards with cultural and artistic sites for people coming to have a holiday in Sussex, just as they might go down to the south of France, to Bordeaux or wherever. They can take in some vineyards and some culture, history and heritage as well, and they can do it all in the United Kingdom, regardless of pandemics and everything else This is a really important, quality industry, and we want help from the Government. It is more expensive to set up a vineyard in this country, owing to the cost of land, when you are starting from scratch, so some more generous capital reliefs as part of agricultural aid might be something the Government would like to consider rather more generously. It is absurd, now that we are no longer constrained by taxation rules from the EU, that we are paying such a high tariff of tax on English wine. The equivalent tax in France is simply pennies—or euro cents—whereas here it is a much bigger chunk of the cost of the wine. It is also absurd, as I mentioned earlier, that we are paying a higher rate of tax on sparkling wine when it has a lower alcohol content—usually 11% compared with still wine at around 13 or 14% I know that, when the Minister replies, she will celebrate this industry—I have seen her taste much of the stuff in her years in this House—but will she have a word with her ministerial colleagues in the Treasury as well? This is a huge success story. It is part of Britain is GREAT, it will help to sell the UK around the world, and it would be nice to get that recognition from the Government with some financial advantage. In the post-common agricultural policy world in which we now live, the world is the English wine industry’s oyster and much of the south downs still can be developed under vineyards in the years to come. Thank you very much for this opportunity, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I look forward to hearing great things from the Minister. We can all then retire to the bar and have a sparkling wine from England.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) for organising this refreshing debate. It has been a really enjoyable end to today’s proceedings, but it has also raised some important matters, which I will endeavour to go through English Wine Week gives us a really good opportunity to come together to celebrate all that is good about English wine, and it is true that the growth in the sector has been phenomenal, with growth of 150% in just 10 years. Other sectors can only dream of such growth We have more than 3,500 hectares under vines at the moment, located on 770 vineyards spread across the country. It is great to have representatives of some of them in the Chamber this evening, and not just of Digby and Nyetimber, with whose products many of us are now familiar, but also my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), who talked about Yorkshire’s Lad and Yorkshire’s Lass, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), who represents so many great growers, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), who represents Bolney and Kingscote, and my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), who was here earlier It was great to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who is also a very experienced wine drinker. It was good to hear his experiences of the great English wine run. I think it is fair to say that, in his lifetime and mine, the reputation of English wine has rightly changed enormously, and he made that point extremely powerfully The growth is impressive, but this is very much just the beginning. WineGB predicts that, by 2040, we will be producing 40 million bottles a year and as much as 70,000 hectares could be under vine. Large champagne houses, including Pommery and Taittinger, are working with vineyards and wine producers here, for the climatic reasons that have been rehearsed by my colleagues The industry anticipates that, by 2040, the wine sector will account for up to 30,000 new jobs. A significant part of this new economy is tourism, with 150 British vineyards now open to the public. There was a very useful article about that in the Telegraph yesterday, suggesting where people might visit on their summer holidays Our excellence in education is also significant. The quality of wine education at Plumpton, which was mentioned, is rightly recognised around the world. I was pleased to talk earlier to the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex. She told me about a very exciting scheme: the DWP is working with Plumpton on a sector-based work academy in viticulture to produce and train up the workers we need for the future of this sector I met WineGB recently to discuss what more the Government can do to support the sector. We continue to work on the application for a new geographical indication for Sussex wine; of course, that is where the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs is. That application is being processed within our new domestic GI scheme, and it is progressing well My hon. Friend mentioned the excellent report from the South Downs national park. The writers of that report are prepared to countenance a truly massive expansion of viticulture in the region. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs officials are taking the report very seriously and will be meeting the report writers next month to discuss how we can take the practical issues forward together It is also important to discuss marketing. We are truly a wine-loving nation. The trade is very important to us. By volume, we trade more wine in this country than anywhere else in the world. A fifth of our food imports by value are wine. English consumers clearly love wine, but—I should bring us down to reality—99% of the wine we drink currently is not produced here. We need to come together to boost sales among local consumers, which very much fits with our mantra this year of “Buy British, buy local, buy sustainable” I will look at the regulations post Brexit to ensure that they work in the best possible way for this industry. The points about taxation will, I am sure, have been heard by Her Majesty’s Treasury, and it is right that we are looking at how future farming schemes can fit this sector in a way that the common agricultural policy just did not We also need to ensure that English and Welsh wine benefits from our work on exports. At the moment, 10% of what we produce is exported, and the food and drink element of the GREAT campaign has made real progress in China, the US and Japan. We will continue to showcase excellent English wine. My hon. Friend and his APPG are right to challenge us on Government hospitality, and I will continue to work with him on that I am pleased to say that, in December last year, the UK joined the Organisation of Vine and Wine, which should help us shape the rules around winemaking on an international platform. We are very grateful to both WineGB and the Wine and Spirit Trade Association for working so closely with us on both that and other issues. I encourage Members across the House to raise a glass this evening to this flourishing sector. I look forward to the day when, as a treat, we no longer have a glass of champagne but we can together have a glass of Sussex Question put and agreed to.