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12,832 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them
For the reasons I have stated many times before, if we invest in and grow our tourism and hospitality economy, that will generate more footfall, people will enjoy their stay more, and that will create more jobs, including for young people.
I can certainly commit to look into it and to respond to the hon. Member in writing.
Of course it has not. First, devolution will be rolled out across the whole country, and significant rural areas are already covered by mayoral strategic authorities. That roll-out will include foundation strategic authorities, which covers places such as Cornwall. As part of the next stage of devolution, we are seeing a grow-out across the south of England and the east of England that will see more coverage. Fundamentally, it is for local leaders and local mayors to get together and work out what is right for their area.
That question is in line with a number of other questions that have been asked about youth experience accommodation. I have committed to go away and look at that.
Everybody will pay the levy, and they will benefit from the improved experience, not only in the immediate area, but in the types of events and activities that might draw in people. Where local leaders decide that the levy is right for their places, we believe that people will enjoy the wider benefits.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for this important debate, and the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) for so ably setting out the issues that our constituents face. Dartford, perhaps unlike many city centre constituencies, is not necessarily somewhere that would be associated with high levels of building safety problems, but we continue to see issues, including new and previously unidentified ones. The key point I want to make is about the length of time it continues to take to resolve these issues. When I was first elected in 2024, I was contacted by residents of a set of four blocks at Ingress Park in Greenhithe who had a long-standing fire safety issue, first identified as far back as 2019, when it was found that flats had combustible material in the balconies and inadequate firebreaks. Frighteningly for residents, there was even a fire on the site in 2023, which left four people injured, bringing home the need to get the building sorted. I have supported residents over the last two years, bringing together the developer and the managing agents to try to overcome the various obstacles to getting the works done. It was honestly with a sense of relief that I visited the buildings last week to see that the work was finally under way, with an end in sight to the cost and uncertainty with which residents had been living. From today’s contributions and the conversations I have had with other MPs, I think this case is indicative of how these cases can drag on for years, even when the developer has identified the need for remediation works and agreed to fund them. The second issue that I want to raise is that I am fairly astonished by the fact that we are still continuing to discover new issues. Partly, that is due to the now well publicised issues with fire safety surveys undertaken by, as the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) and others have mentioned, Tri Fire and Adam Kiziak, who was expelled by the Institution of Fire Engineers. One instance that brings home to me the seriousness of this is Heron Court in Ebbsfleet in my constituency, where residents have recently had a waking watch imposed upon them by managing agents FirstPort, who obviously receive much attention in this place, and who once again have taken action without the agreement of the residents or builders. Two of the four blocks at Heron Court are very slightly over 11 metres in height, and therefore in scope of the Building Safety Act. In this instance, there is a dispute between FirstPort, the managing agents, and Taylor Wimpey, the developer, about the fire safety report that has been undertaken, with one party not happy with it. Negotiations on access for a further inspection have been ongoing since the start of the year to try to clarify what work needs to be undertaken, which has left the building’s leaseholders facing a bill for the 24-hour waking watch, while having no levers to bring the other parties together to move the issue forward. I have asked to meet FirstPort and the developer in the coming weeks to try to find a way forward and seek assurances that leaseholders will not be hit with the costs of the waking watch. Particularly surprising is that some of the new issues occurring are, I think, in buildings built well after the terrible events at Grenfell in 2017, when lessons should really have been learned, so I hope that when the Minister responds—I welcome her to her place—she will be able to confirm that it remains the case that leaseholders should not be bearing the costs of these waking watches.
I thank my hon. Friend for her statement. I was glad to be part of the Committee, which looked at ways in which we could start to make the student finance system fairer. On the issue of whether we should reverse the threshold repayment freeze, we looked at a number of ways in which we could change the financing system to make it fairer—for instance, by freezing or even cutting the interest rate cap—and reversing the threshold repayment freeze was the best way to get help to the great majority of those repaying loans, no matter what their income. Does my hon. Friend agree?
I am pleased to co-sponsor the debate alongside the hon. Members for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood) and for Ashfield (Lee Anderson), both of whom are fellow officers of the all-party parliamentary group on sepsis. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire for that amazingly moving and revealing speech and for sharing his experience in a way that I hope all Members will take note of and that will make a difference to the way the Government take these issues forward. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for this debate on Sepsis Awareness Month, with World Sepsis Day having taken place on Sunday. I was pleased to welcome my constituent, John Snow, to Parliament last year and am extremely appreciative that he is with us today in the Gallery, alongside his wife Karen and his daughter Gracie. John developed sepsis in 2024. After first believing he was suffering with muscle pain, the situation rapidly deteriorated, resulting in hospital admission with heart attack-like symptoms and his lips turning blue. John and Karen were not aware at this point that John had many of the signs of sepsis. Within hours, his kidneys had shut down, needing dialysis, and his body went into septic shock with doctors putting him into an induced coma. It was unclear if John would survive, and the coma lasted for two weeks, during which time John was transferred from Darent Valley hospital in Dartford up to St Thomas’s just across the river from where we are now. After a month, thankfully, John pulled through. But this good news was accompanied by the desperately difficult decision from his doctors that he needed to have a quadruple amputation. He has received amazing support from the Dartford community, which has rallied round to help fund support for his family. A special mention must go to the wonderful Dartford working men’s club, led by the amazing Nick Byram. The club not only held fundraisers for the family but has held sepsis awareness events to ensure that more people know the symptoms. Notwithstanding this great community effort, there remains so much to do to improve post-infection support for people like John. I have been privileged to have kept in touch with John and Karen during John’s exceptionally brave recovery journey. When we met in July, he told me of the exceptionally long delay he was experiencing in receiving his new prosthetic hand. John was cast for the prosthetic at the end of last year, but due to issues relating to the move of his local prosthetic centre, it was not assembled, leaving him worried that his body may change and the prosthetic would not fit. The challenges that causes are compounded by the fact that he cannot have the casting for the second prosthetic hand until he has had the first one for a year—a timer that has not yet been able to start. John has also experienced delays and dysfunctions with his facial surgery, which he is currently undergoing with the support of surgeons and doctors. John’s case illustrates how much we have to do to spread knowledge about sepsis and to improve care for those who have it. As others have done, I commend the campaigning work of Lord Mackinlay of Richborough, who has not only helped to raise awareness of sepsis in our health system, but has met John and provided encouragement to him in his recovery journey.
What the hon. Member and I have described is the mark of the man. Not only has he suffered that appalling setback in his life, come through it with huge brio and is an active Member of the other place, he has gone the extra mile to help others in the same predicament. I cannot thank him enough for the work he has done for those who have experienced sepsis and for my constituent John. As Craig himself would say, sepsis remains something we do not know enough about, and what knowledge we have is not as widely known as it should be. I thought it would be helpful to remind all those present and anybody watching of the signs to look out for in adults, as set out by the UK Sepsis Trust: slurred speech or confusion; extreme shivering or muscle pain; passing no urine in a day; severe breathlessness; it feels like you are going to die; and skin mottled or discoloured. If you or another adult develops any of those signs, it is important to seek urgent medical attention. John’s story highlights both the work we need to do to raise awareness of the early signs of sepsis and how we support those who have been diagnosed with it. There remains too little data on sepsis, with inconsistencies in the definitions used across the country. Office for National Statistics data indicates that sepsis was mentioned on the death certificate in 27,971 deaths in England in 2025, but that is almost certainly not the full story.
Absolutely. The data problems are much wider than simply understanding who has died with sepsis as a related cause and who has suffered sepsis at some point in the system. All the prevention and early diagnosis issues that my hon. Friend has highlighted go to the heart of the problems we have with data, and I hope the Minister will address that in her response. I very much welcome the sepsis modern service framework, which was published last July and contains a much-needed plan to improve prevention, recognition, diagnosis, treatment and recovery for people affected by sepsis. It should mean that doctors are equipped to spot sepsis sooner and improve outcomes for patients like John and others who have been mentioned this evening. I hope the Minister will outline how the modern service framework will change the way the NHS supports John and others recovering from sepsis, so that the delays he has experienced in getting his prosthetics and the delays other people have experienced in the system become a thing of the past.
I am grateful to have the opportunity this evening, just before we rise for recess, to raise the case of George Low, a Dartford resident who was tragically murdered in Cyprus in August 2016—now 10 years ago. Before I give an outline of the case, I want to pay tribute to George’s parents, Martyn and Helen Low, who are with us tonight in the Gallery. Since my election two years ago, I have had the opportunity to meet them, and I never fail to be struck by their dignity and determination to seek justice for their son. I also want to mention my predecessor as Member of Parliament for Dartford, Gareth Johnson, who I have spoken to in depth about this terrible case. He raised it repeatedly with Ministers in the previous Government and travelled to Cyprus himself to seek action. He pursued every avenue he could to support the Low family, and I pay tribute to him. I want to speak tonight about the attack on George and his friend Ben, what we know about the subsequent events, and the very difficult context in which this case sits. I have tried to keep the information to which I will remain to material that is already in the public domain. George, who was only 22 years old on the night of his murder, was holidaying with friends in Ayia Napa, in the south-east of Cyprus, as many people from the UK continue to do. It was the last night of his holiday, and he was coming home to the UK the next day. George had worked in Ayia Napa previously, but was back in the UK beginning what looked like it was going to be a highly successful career with the Acorn Group estate agents, which paid a touching tribute to him after his death. The inquest into George’s murder, which took place in Maidstone several years later, heard how a dispute occurred in the area near The Bell pub in the early hours of 14 August 2016. After this disagreement, two men returned with a knife, resulting in George being stabbed in the neck and tragically dying. The names of the two suspects, Mehmet Akpınar and Sali Ahmet, have been widely reported since that time. George’s friend, Ben Barker, was also stabbed four times in the back, but thankfully survived. I pay tribute to Ben’s family for their continued support to get justice for George. The police collected substantial evidence from the incident—including, I understand, the knives used—but before any arrests could take place, the two suspects fled across the border to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Despite their arrests for a series of different offences, they were not handed back to the Republic of Cyprus for trial. That same week, George’s parents made the first of a number of visits to Cyprus, beginning their fight for justice for George. It is believed that both suspects later made their way to Turkey, where, as far as we know, they remain to this day. Since 2016, there have been two inquests: one here and one in Cyprus, which the family attended. Both suspects have faced trials in the north for crimes related to illegal entry violations and have served time in prison as a result, but were not extradited to the south to face trial for George’s murder. One suspect was then deported back to Turkey, and the other ended up in Turkey via a circuitous route. The one trial that has taken place related to the murder was of the girlfriend of one of the suspects—Mehmet Akpınar. She faced trial in 2016 for the assistance provided to him after the murder took place and would, I hope, be a witness in any potential trial. The diplomatic situation in Cyprus and with Turkey remains extremely difficult, and there is limited co-operation between the two communities in Cyprus. It remains the case that there is no extradition treaty in place between Turkey and Cyprus to allow the suspects to be sent there for trial. Additionally, the constitution in Turkey specifically prohibits the extradition of their citizens for any offence. That makes the prospect of a trial taking place in Cyprus limited, despite the Cypriot authorities possessing evidence that seemingly would make a prosecution possible. The Low family have been ably supported by the organisation Justice Abroad and barrister Michael Polak, whom I am pleased is in the Gallery tonight. They are acting pro bono, and Michael’s expertise in this complex situation is greatly appreciated. He has repeatedly written to the Attorney General of the Republic of Cyprus over the last 11 months to ask that they release the evidence they possess to the family, but he has not yet received a response. Recent news coverage, including by the BBC, has included confirmation from the Ministry of Justice in Turkey that “the investigation was referred to the Hatay Public Prosecutor’s Office which has subsequently issued a decision of non-prosecution (no grounds to proceed) in respect of Mr Mehmet Akpınar.” The report does not include any comment on the second suspect, which I hope may be some grounds for optimism that his prosecution in Turkey may still remain possible. The BBC report also includes the claim that a request for legal assistance in connection with the investigation had been made by the Turkish Ministry of Justice to the UK, but that it had not received a response. The family are keen to assist Turkey and to receive an update from the Turkish authorities. Regrettably, our repeated requests for a meeting with the Turkish embassy have not yet provided any result. One of the suspects is, I understand, a dual Bulgarian-Turkish national. I appreciate the willingness of the Bulgarian embassy to meet with my predecessor, the previous MP for Dartford. I believe that the UK Government can play a key role in securing justice for the Low family, given the strong relationship that they have with both Turkey and Cyprus and their long-standing position as one of the guarantor powers of Cyprus’ independence and territorial integrity. I am grateful to the Minister for her time today. I will now set out the questions that I hope she can answer. First, could she provide any clarity on the request that was made by the Ministry of Justice in Turkey to the UK Government for legal assistance and why it has not been answered? Secondly, will the UK Government make a request to the Cypriot authorities to release the evidence they hold in this case to assist a prosecution in another jurisdiction? I understand that were the suspects in the UK, a prosecution may be possible here. Will the Minister’s Department engage with the authorities in Turkey to discuss the prospect of a prosecution and how evidence might be transferred? I appreciate that the Minister may not be able to say everything that she might wish to here in the Chamber, so would she be willing to meet with me, the family and their barrister to discuss the issues that I have raised today in more detail? At the time of his death, George’s daughter was eight months old. I understand that now, aged 10, she looks very much like him—a sweet reminder to George’s family. It is my abiding wish in this case that George’s daughter must not grow to be an adult without seeing justice for her dad.
I can think of at least two buildings in my constituency that have been determined urgent life-critical but cannot be remediated because of delays in getting the certificates they need from the Building Safety Regulator. That leaves residents facing large insurance costs, unable to sell, and stuck with damp and mould and a whole range of other issues. Does the hon. Member agree that the Building Safety Regulator needs the resources so that residents are not left trapped in their homes for years?
Dozens of my constituents have been waiting months on end for their pensions, but I want to raise just one case. My constituent Cally came to see me in February this year. Her mother, Sarah Mitchell, died in August 2025. Despite repeated efforts from my team, Capita still cannot locate her details. Sarah died before getting her pension, and Cally is still waiting for her survivor benefits. I hope the Minister agrees with me—and, it sounds like, everybody in the Chamber—that the shameful cases raised today show that Capita is not fit to deal with this contract. [Interruption.]
I represent a seaside constituency in Bournemouth West, and the vast majority of my hoteliers are supportive of an overnight levy, in part because Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council has axed its stand-alone tourism department, and because we get 10 million visitors every summer and no increase in resources to deal with that. In his opening remarks, the Minister mentioned that most other G7 and European nations have some sort of overnight levy, and people who have travelled in Europe are really used to that. Can he tell us what lessons the Government have taken from such experiences overseas?
Despite the MOJ not collecting figures for the number of people in prison for joint enterprise, we know that there are hundreds, but the Law Commission has sadly confirmed that it will not look at that area of law under the homicide review. Does the Secretary of State intend to look at this most difficult area of law to reform it, and what will happen to those prisoners convicted of joint enterprise crimes under the early release scheme?
As a Cornish MP, I welcome this measure. It is important that local leaders, particularly those in non-mayoral areas, will get the opportunity to make this decision in consultation with businesses in their areas. Will the Minister confirm that emergency and temporary accommodation, as well as low-cost holiday options such as tents and caravans, could be excluded from the levy?
A report commissioned by the Ministry of Justice and published in 2023 found limited evidence of unaccredited child contact centres. Protocols make it clear that as part of family court proceedings, the judiciary and the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service should refer families only to centres accredited by the National Association of Child Contact Centres. There are, however, clearly issues with the sector, in terms of cost and accessibility, and we will always seek to improve it.
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important issue. Where it is safe to do so, we would always encourage parents to have contact with their children. The courts encourage this; it is always in the child’s best interests to have that contact. Where contact centres are necessary, they need to be close to home and, clearly, affordable. This sector is independent of Government, but if it is not working, as we are hearing from my hon. Friend, we will look into it in due course.
On 1 September, the Lord Chancellor announced from this Dispatch Box a further £4.5 million to better support and supervise children, in order to move them away from criminality. Earlier this year, we published the youth justice White Paper, and we are getting on with the job of delivering that reform across the country.
My hon. Friend is right that youth services and support for early intervention is at the heart of tackling reoffending. We know that 80% of adult prolific offenders commit their first offence when they are a child, so early intervention is crucial. Dealing with young offenders is at the heart of what we published in the youth justice White Paper earlier this year and what this Government are doing.
My hon. Friend is right that tackling reoffending and youth crime needs a cross-Government effort. It is an issue for the Department for Education, the Home Office, the Department for Work and Pensions and indeed the Ministry of Justice. That is why on Thursday I will be in No. 10 North with colleagues from across Government launching our new strategy to devolve youth justice services so that they serve places and localities and the people within them.
The hon. Member is right. It is an issue in my constituency as well: I hear about it a lot from constituents and see it for myself outside my constituency office in Dinnington. How the police enforce the law on our streets is obviously a matter for them, but I have been introducing reforms in the youth justice system to implement more rigorous community punishments for young offenders and, critically, to look at parenting orders. It is not just a job for Government to ensure that young people turn their back on crime; it is also their parents’ responsibility, and we want to ensure that that responsibility is felt.
The hon. Member is right to raise the issue, as death by dangerous driving is a horrific crime. In fact, straight after questions I will be meeting a victim of that very offence and next week I will meet the chair of the Sentencing Council. We can certainly look into how we can ensure that those who celebrate such offending are treated in the right way.
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise this issue. Some 80,000 disabled people are unable to access funds that are legally theirs, and that is a disgrace. This is a complex issue, because mental capacity is a complex area of law and we must have due regard to the safeguarding mechanisms, but it cannot be beyond the wit of this place, or indeed of the Government, to overcome that obstacle. I met the leader of the Liberal Democrats last week to discuss this issue, and we are going to make progress in the coming weeks.
I am not just happy to meet them; I am keen to meet them. If we are going to improve the family justice system, we need to hear from those who have experienced it. We are rolling out child-focused courts, which will help, but we have to improve productivity more generally, and we are getting on with that.
I understand the force of the hon. Lady’s question. I will look into that immediately the moment this session ends, and I will meet her behind the Speaker’s Chair to confirm how we do that.
Yes. My hon. Friend is a massive champion of this issue. There are over 200,000 children of prisoners across the country. I am working closely with the Department for Education to ensure that we can identify them. It was a manifesto commitment and we are making strides; we now need to go further. In response to her invitation, I would be happy to be there at the end of November.
The people affected by this issue have worked hard, done the right thing and put money aside for the future, and of course the consequences when things go wrong are dreadful. One of my constituents has experienced a catalogue of errors lasting more than six months, from a £27,000 mistake about a lump sum to a tax code error that still has not been resolved. That is just one case among many. People are spending hours on the phone only to be fobbed off, paperwork is going missing, money is taking months to arrive and lives are being ruined. Capita’s response is arbitrary targets that come to little or nothing. Will the Minister say what will happen if Capita continues to set itself targets and then miss them? The Government’s action so far is welcome, and it is entirely right that Capita should be audited. Can we have progress on this, please? Can the Minister also tell me who will pay the interest on any delayed payments? A pension, of course, is about money, but more than that, when they have tried to sort out this mess with Capita, my constituents have been left feeling that they do not matter—but they matter very much. This is not Capita’s money; it is their money, and every single penny must go where it belongs.
8. What steps he is taking to help tackle AI-based violence against women and girls crime in online spaces.
Violence against women and girls is hardly new, but perverts and abusers now have the ability to generate huge amounts of appalling content at lightning speed, and we are not able to respond quickly enough. What can the Government do to give Ofcom the power and ability to crack down on disgusting online content more quickly, so that we can keep women and girls safer?
I beg to move, That this House has considered the administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I thank all hon. Members from both sides of the House for attending on a one-line Whip, which shows the strength of feeling. Their presence proves that the unresolved problems that have emerged for many in Liverpool West Derby represent a national scandal requiring a national response. In my constituency alone, 35 people have contacted me with serious concerns about the administration of their civil service pension. I speak for them, and for civil servants, pensioners and bereaved families across the country being badly let down. They have served the public, paid into their pensions and planned their retirements in good faith.
These civil servants are entitled to expect accurate information, pensions paid when they are due and accountability when things go wrong. With the permission of my constituents, I want to place on the record three West Derby cases. Dave Barlow has spent around 18 months trying to obtain up-to-date pension information. He tells me that he has not received an annual benefit statement for several years. Dave, who is reducing his working week partly to care for his elderly parents, is due to begin partial retirement on 6 October, yet he still does not have the information needed to plan his finances. He was given no guarantee that his pension would be ready, no timescale for his statement and, incredibly, was told by Capita to approach his employer for hardship support if necessary. Think about that—a civil servant may have to seek hardship support because the private company paid to administer his pension has totally failed to do its job.
That excellent point is well made, and I will raise it in my speech.
A point well made. James Burke works for the Department for Work and Pensions in the Child Maintenance Service. James entered partial retirement, reducing his working week salary by about 20%, with his pension intended to replace the lost income and provide a lump sum. Neither has arrived. With his mortgage due for repayment on 30 July, his borrowing increased and his provider told him it could not offer a new product. James made nine calls to the helpline, sometimes waiting around two hours. He was promised resolution, then told payment was imminent before being informed that no timescale could be provided.
I agree completely with my hon. Friend. I will not be taking any more interventions, because people have put in to speak. Another of my constituents, Karen Morrow, took early retirement at the end of June. She will not receive a state pension for another two years. The civil service pension she earned was supposed to supplement her income. After two years of delay and inaction, she was told that her documents would be uploaded by 4 August and she might receive her pension by the end of that month. August came and went, and Karen received nothing. She has chased every single week. On her latest call, she waited three hours to be told only her that her case would be escalated—with no payment, no explanation and no reliable timescale. Karen has been left without an income since the end of June. The circumstances of the constituents’ cases I raise may differ in nature, but the pattern is the same: they earn their pension, yet carry the debt, uncertainty and stress created by a failing system. These are not minor administrative errors; they are major failures with serious human consequences. It is not just my constituents and many others around the country waiting for their pensions who have been failed by Capita; it is Capita’s own staff as well. Workers employed by Capita, including many in my city, have reported to the Public and Commercial Services Union that they are suffering due to the company’s failure to deliver on the contract. They struggle physically and mentally as a result of inadequate staffing levels, insufficient training, poor processes, inappropriate IT systems and constantly changing demands. More than half of Capita’s workers who took part in a PCS survey said that they experience stress every day or most days, with a quarter responding that they are frequently extremely stressed. One PCS member described their day-to-day experience: “every day is draining and it’s always a massive relief when my working day is over.” Many are resigning because working conditions have become intolerable. More than 75% told PCS that they are considering leaving their roles. Is there any wonder we are in this mess? We know that Capita has failed in its duty to run the civil service pension scheme, but clearly it is also failing its own staff. The Government’s actions confirm the scale of the crisis. In February, Ministers said that they were working to bring most aspects of the service back to expected levels by June. That deadline was missed. In July, after sending two separate letters to the Cabinet Office in December and March, the Government confirmed, in response to a written parliamentary question of mine, that Capita had failed to restore standard contractual service. Ministers rightly withheld the £9.9 million, deployed independent auditors, appointed a remedial adviser at Capita’s expense and recovered the cost of Government surge teams. Last Friday, Karl Flinders from Computer Weekly, having covered the scandal over the last year, reported that the Cabinet Office is establishing a team with direct access to Capita’s systems to independently validate its data. That is welcome, but is it not extraordinary that the Government have relied on Capita’s own management information in the first place? The contractor under scrutiny has been supplying the figures by which its performance is judged. How can Capita possibly be held to account in the way that it clearly needs to be? Despite those repeated interventions by the Government, on 7 September more than 1,000 bereavement cases were still more than 100 days old, alongside 308 death-in-service cases and 288 payment cases. Around 900 retirement quotations also remained from the backlog that Capita committed to clear. Bereavement, death-in-service and retirement are not cases on a spreadsheet; these are human stories—people facing some of the most difficult moments in their lives. The sequence is clear: a deadline was set, missed and followed by emergency measures, yet hundreds remain trapped in the backlog. Progress is welcome, but progress is not resolution. The question is no longer whether there has been a serious failure—that is absolutely beyond dispute. The question is when will civil servants, pensioners and bereaved families finally see the end of it? I have raised this repeatedly with Ministers; sought Cabinet Office engagements with the PCS general secretary, Fran Heathcote; supported parliamentary motions; and tabled questions on the backlog, compensation, sanctions and bringing the service back in-house. I secured this debate because constituents are still coming to me in absolute distress. This brings us to the fundamental question of outsourcing. We are told that outsourcing delivers efficiency and transfers risk, but when Capita failed, civil servants cleared the backlog, employers provided hardship funds and Government-appointed auditors and MPs became an escalation route, so where exactly was the risk transferred? Administration was outsourced; responsibility was not. A private company holds the contract while the public sector picks up the pieces, and all the while our constituents carry the consequences. This is the failed ideology of outsourcing laid bare: born under Thatcher, followed by successive Governments of all colours in the name of efficiency while delivering absolutely the opposite and putting the burden on ordinary people. Whether it is Fujitsu in the case of the Post Office Horizon scandal, or even our failing water industry, how many more examples must we bring before this House before the political establishment finally accepts that this experiment has completely failed? Today I ask the Minister for three clear commitments: recovery, compensation and accountability. First, on recovery, will the Minister set out a firm dated timetable for returning the scheme to normal service? That must include clearing overdue cases and urgently prioritising those without income and those with serious welfare, bereavement and ill-health cases. As part of that, the Government must also commit to publishing the number and age of outstanding cases until that has been achieved. The parliamentary caseloads that MPs have received on this issue should also be highlighted. Secondly, there is compensation. When failure creates debt, higher borrowing costs, mortgage problems or reliance on hardship support, people should not face another battle to regain the position they would have been in had the service worked as it should have. Will the Minister provide a clear, simple and accessible route to compensation for financial loss? Thirdly, there is accountability. The Government have announced a public interest test under which contracts worth more than £1 million will be assessed for in-house viability before renewal. If ever a service justified considering whether public provision would be more resilient, reliable and accountable, surely this is it. After months of failure under the administration of Capita and every indication that problems will persist, surely we have our answer. Will the Minister commit to bringing the administration of the civil service pension scheme back in-house, to put it back in the service of the people it exists to support? This is not an attack on the staff working hard to clear the backlog; it is about the system and the political choices that have put us in this position. David should be able to reduce his hours to care for his elderly parents, James should not fear losing his home, Karen should not be left without an income and spending hours chasing her pension, and the other 32 constituents who contacted me should not need their Member of Parliament simply to access the pension service they were promised and have earned. Civil servants have served our country and our communities; they have paid into their pensions and planned their futures in good faith. They have kept their side of the bargain; it is time for the Government and the system for which they are responsible to keep theirs. I ask the Minister for three things: recovery, compensation and accountability. The administration may have been outsourced, but responsibility cannot be outsourced with it. It is time for the system to do its part for our civil servants.
Does my hon. Friend agree that the failure of the private sector in this instance, which also affects pensioners in my constituency, shows the benefits of the Government taking control and in-sourcing this pension scheme once and for all to deal with the issue?
I thank my hon. Friend for her Committee’s excellent work on the important issue of student loans and for the good communication that she maintained with my Select Committee during her inquiry. The Education Committee concluded earlier this year that there is a genuine crisis in the financial sustainability of our universities as a result of many different pressures bearing down on them. Does she agree that if the Government do not bring forward additional measures to improve the long-term affordability of student loans, as she recommends, the risk is that more and more young people will decide not to pursue a university education? That would not only mean that they miss out on the potentially transformative impacts of such an education, but serve further to undermine the financial viability of our universities.
I thank my hon. Friend for her statement and for the work of the Public Accounts Committee on this important issue. I have seen at first hand how unbelievably difficult it has been for my constituents who were victims of the Windrush scandal to get compensation from that scheme. The Windrush compensation scheme was not co-designed with victims, and it forced victims to apply to the very Department that had done them wrong through processes that were unwieldy and Kafkaesque in their bureaucracy. I therefore welcome the Public Accounts Committee’s recommendation that an independent body should oversee the design of compensation schemes. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is wrong that victims of the Windrush scandal were not afforded access to independent legal representation in making their applications? Does she agree that the Government still have the opportunity to correct that, and should do so forthwith?
Saving for a secure retirement is a baseline expectation for the people I represent. For some members of the civil service pension scheme, that expectation has been replaced by unanswered emails, long phone calls and an indefinite wait. That frustration is compounded by the fact that they are not waiting for a favour but for their own money. I will never forget a woman who came to one of my summer coffee mornings. She had worked all her life and to mark her retirement had booked the holiday of a lifetime with her husband. Instead of being able to enjoy that holiday, it was punctured by the anxiety caused by Capita’s incompetence. There is a power imbalance: retirees know that they are owed and Capita knows there is a problem, but Capita is the only one able to fix it. People are left screaming into a faceless bureaucracy, somewhere inside which their pension is trapped. I know the Minister cares as deeply as I do, and I look forward to hearing of the work she is doing to ensure that we fix this urgently for my constituents.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) for securing this important debate. I thank all hon. Members who are here this morning. Nine years on, a number of them have rightly raised the tragic incident at Grenfell Tower. As a London MP, I vividly remember the night of 14 June 2017. My son had been born a week earlier, on 7 June. Watching TV throughout the night was like watching a horror film with flames and black pieces, not knowing that the black pieces coming out of the building were people jumping. It is right that this House is united in continuing to scrutinise the pace of remediation and the support available to those affected. Many residents across the country have lived with uncertainty about the safety of their homes, their financial security and their ability to move on with their lives. We recognise the impact that building safety can have not only on people’s homes, but on their wellbeing and peace of mind. Nine years on from Grenfell, we have to be honest and say that there can be no justification for unsafe buildings remaining unaddressed. Although significant progress has been made, more than 4,000 buildings have been identified as requiring remediation, and too many residents continue to face the consequences of failures that they did not cause. That is why this Government are committed to speeding up remediation, ensuring that those responsible bear the cost of making buildings safer, and strengthening protections for leaseholders and residents. Our objective is clear: to remove barriers to remediation, speed up delivery and ensure that people can feel safe and secure in their home. Since the launch of the remediation acceleration plan, more than 420 additional buildings over 11 metres have completed cladding remediation through the Government-funded scheme and the developer remediation contract, meaning that some 35,000 more residents are now living in safer homes. The Government have approved £2.1 billion of funding for cladding remediation since the plan was launched and have committed to more than £1 billion to accelerate remediation in the social housing sector. But we recognise that further action is needed. We are considering how we can go further to protect residents, particularly those who fall outside existing protections, and to ensure that no responsible party can avoid its obligations. That is why we will build on the foundations established by the Building Safety Act through the forthcoming remediation Bill and our wider programme of building safety reforms. The Bill will provide greater clarity and certainty about which buildings require remediation and the standards that must be met. It will strengthen regulators’ ability to check delay and non-compliance. It will improve routes to recover remediation costs from those responsible and ensure that residents have a pathway to remediation even where responsible entities fail to act or are unable to meet their obligations. Taken together, these reforms will strengthen accountability across the system and help to ensure that buildings are made safer faster. I turn to some specific issues raised during the debate. The hon. Members for Surrey Heath and for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) raised the issue of PAS 9980. As hon. Members will know, PAS 9980 was developed by the British Standards Institution. The Government sponsored the BSI to review and update it to ensure that it remains fit for purpose and captures best practice, looking at the learnings since it was introduced in 2022. As the hon. Member for Surrey Heath outlined, the BSI published an update to PAS 9980 yesterday. I do not agree with the hon. Member’s characterisation. PAS 9980 provides an industry-wide accepted methodology to enable qualified and experienced assessors to undertake the fire risk appraisal of external walls. It provides a consistent and proportionate building-specific approach to risk assessments and helps to achieve the right solutions for each building, keeping residents safe while preventing unnecessary and disruptive works. As the update highlights, it has improved the clarity of the structure and usability of PAS 9980, with the aim of achieving greater transparency and consistency by assessors. It does not, however, materially change how risks are assessed, so fire risk appraisals of external walls undertaken using a previous version of PAS 9980 will remain valid. Government remediation programmes require that fire risk appraisals of external walls be undertaken using this methodology. To further safeguard quality and ensure consistency in assessments, the remediation Bill will mandate how external wall assessments are carried out, to align with our best practice remediation programmes and ensure a nationally consistent approach to remediation work. It will also establish mandatory auditing of fire risk appraisals of external walls in law. This requirement will reinforce trust in both the assessors and the outcomes. I hope that that helps to reassure hon. Members. Several right hon. and hon. Members rightly mentioned the issue of fire risk assessors. Fire risk assessors perform a critical safety role, and it is essential that they are fully compliant and competent. We have therefore accepted the full recommendation in the Grenfell Tower inquiry phase 2 report for mandatory certifications of fire risk assessors. To meet the recommendation, we intend to bring into law mandatory compliance requirements for fire risk assessors to perform that vital role, subject to parliamentary approval and timescale.