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Showing every spoken contribution, including 12,832 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
Does the Foreign Secretary agree that this action is unlikely to affect the policy of the Netanyahu Government? As I hardly need to remind him, Israel is a parliamentary democracy. Has he reason to believe that this action might affect the policy of the Israeli Opposition, and did he have any contact with the Israeli Opposition parties before coming to that conclusion?
I also welcome the statement. I would be grateful if the Secretary of State shared with the House a little bit about how the highly efficient age assurance system actually works. In particular, I confess to the fact that over 60 years ago my parents, recognising that my sister and I were rather precocious readers, lent us their tickets to the senior library, rather than the junior library where we were confined. What would there be to prevent a parent choosing to allow a child to use their phone under their identity, and would there be a penalty for doing so?
I beg to move, That this House has considered the Media Green Paper. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. I am grateful for this opportunity to debate the media Green Paper, a hugely consequential document that has profound implications for all our broadcasters, news publishers and technology companies. I welcome a lot that is contained within it. Nevertheless, it contains some extremely controversial proposals, and I regret that Parliament has not really had an opportunity to debate them since its publication. The consultation period has now come to an end, so I hope that the Minister will still take account of my contribution and those of other Members when considering the way forward. It is also regrettable that we have only an hour. I will try to keep my speech brief, because quite a few Members have made the effort to attend. I will focus on two issues that are perhaps the most controversial in the Green Paper. On the first—the suggestion that in 2034 we should move towards wholly internet protocol TV and discontinue digital terrestrial transition—I am generally supportive of the Government. There are clear benefits to doing so. It will represent a considerable cost saving to the broadcasters, as outlined in the Green Paper. Secondly, it will free up spectrum, for which there could be any number of alternative uses, and that will undoubtedly provide additional value to consumers. The third reason I welcome it is that it opens up an option on the other big issue, which is the subject of a different Green Paper and is perhaps the elephant in the room: the future of the BBC. The biggest argument against moving towards an element of subscription, at least, in the BBC is that that cannot be done while the BBC is subject to digital terrestrial transmission.
My right hon. Friend asks a perfectly valid question, and I want to acknowledge that there are concerns. We had a debate in Westminster Hall not that long ago, and a number of my colleagues—particularly from Scotland—turned up to express concern about the fact that the quality of reception via broadband in their constituencies is very poor and that the consequence of switching off DTT might be to prevent them from receiving television at all. That is clearly unacceptable. The proposal can go ahead only if we reach the position to which the Labour and Conservative Governments have aspired: universal access to high-speed broadband of sufficient quality to allow IPTV to be received.
I strongly agree, and that is the point that I was coming to next. A lot of the towers in the transmission network, which broadcasts digital terrestrial transmission, are owned by Arqiva, and they also carry the transmitters for commercial radio. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that if we turn off the television transmission, all the costs get loaded on to the remaining broadcasters—that is, the commercial radio stations. I therefore hope that the Minister will at least address that too, because the estimate that I saw is that it will potentially result in an increase in costs of more than 50% a year for commercial radio stations.
The hon. Member is completely right that this issue must be addressed before we proceed. There is also the question of cost, raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke). There are people who probably do have access to broadband, if they choose to pay for it, but they cannot afford to do so. They, too, would be severely affected if they were suddenly unable to receive television by that means. I support the ambition to reach a point in 2034 when we will be able to switch off DTT, but serious questions need to be addressed before we reach that point. I will turn to the other major issue of twofold concern, because the Government are advancing two parallel policies on the question of prominence. I was the Minister responsible for the passage of the Media Act 2024, during the previous Parliament. It is a great delight to see some familiar faces with whom I have worked with in the past on the officials’ Bench. The Media Act was all about ensuring that our public service broadcasters were still highly visible in a world where people are getting smart, connected TVs. It simply maintained the prominence requirements, which was important, as all the broadcasters agreed. It is now suggested that the same prominence should be extended to video-sharing platforms. I recognise and agree with the Government’s concern about the prominence of disinformation. I sit on the Foreign Affairs Committee, which did a big inquiry into disinformation. The best counter to disinformation is accurate, sourced, objective journalistic content, of the kind that public service broadcasters provide. Nevertheless, YouTube, the main video-sharing platform under discussion, was never intended as the vehicle for the big broadcasters. It is all about user-generated content. There is real concern that if the main broadcasters are pushed into greater prominence, some people will get less prominence. Those are the creators, start-ups and user-generated content. That undermines one of the original purposes of YouTube.
As one of the originators of the local democracy reporting service, of course I agree with my hon. Friend. It is incredibly important to have a thriving local media sector, and the BBC plays an important role in maintaining that. Anything that promotes BBC content would, I hope, equally promote local content, which has not had the same degree of attention that it deserves.
That is perhaps even more relevant to the second prong of the Government’s proposals, which is about social media. I will come to that point, but before I finish talking about local media, I want to mention that another of the Government’s flagship policies is devolution. If we are to have more power given to local authorities, mayors and unitary authorities, people need to know what they are doing, and the absence of local media is a real problem in that respect. It will become ever more important to promote local media. Lastly, I want to come to the second prong, which is about the prominence or promotion of trusted news providers on social media. I have to say that this policy gives me some considerable concern. There are lots of problems around definition. First, what is news? Secondly, what does “prominence” mean for a social media platform on which people access a personalised feed based on their previous content choices? There are practical difficulties with that. I know the Government have already put in place the concept of recognised news publishers under the Online Safety Act 2023, but that had a very different purpose. The problem I have is with the idea that a Government agency of some kind will be saying, “This is a trusted news provider, and therefore this is not,” and deciding, or at least seeking to influence, where those providers appear in people’s feeds. I take the point from the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) that young people are turning more and more to social media, but I do not think that this policy is the answer, because it looks to me like a very dangerous extension of Government interference in the freedom of the press and the right to free speech. I would like the Minister’s assurance that there is no linkage intended to any form of regulation. The idea that perhaps news providers might be given prominence if they accept a regulatory structure that the Government want would be equally dangerous. In some ways, I think that this problem is better addressed by the measures that we have already put in place. We have the digital markets competition regime, which is only just coming into effect. The Competition and Markets Authority could be doing much more to require the platforms to make public the algorithms they use to promote content. Before we go down that road, which carries real jeopardy, I hope that we will look instead to use some other measures that have already been put in place to ensure that reputable news providers get the position that they deserve in search terms and search, and also the rewards attached to them.
I thank all hon. Members who have participated in the debate. The number of Members present indicates that this is a subject that deserved more than an hour; I welcome the Minister’s recognition of that point and his suggestion that there may be further opportunities to come. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to put on the record some points about which I have concerns. I look forward to the Government’s coming forward with further proposals once the consultation has been considered. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the Media Green Paper.
The UK’s success in liberating the Falklands in 1982 was achieved when we had considerably greater naval resources, but it also could not have been achieved without the support of the Reagan Administration. Does the Minister not agree that that shows why it is extremely important to maintain close relations with the United States and not do anything to put those in jeopardy?
I welcome the intent that the Secretary of State has set out this afternoon, and the urgency with which she will require the relevant companies to act. I think she knows that I sympathise with the Government in respect of the complexity of this legislative area and the challenge that they face, but she may also know that my ongoing concern has been the compatibility of the individual measures that the Government may take with the ongoing responsibilities of these companies under the Online Safety Act. Would she be prepared to meet me to discuss that in a little more detail?
7. What steps he is taking to improve public sector productivity.
May I welcome the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to her new role? If she has any questions, may I recommend an excellent book by a former Chancellor, which has a number of tips? [Laughter.] The public sector is 20% of our national output, so it offers a major opportunity for the Government to improve our national productivity. Was it wise to give the ASLEF train drivers on the Avanti West Coast route an above-inflation pay rise without any apparent productivity quid pro quo? With the public finances so tight, should the rule not be that above-inflation increases must have productivity gains sitting alongside them?
The hon. Lady is reading out a list of very good charities; I congratulate her on securing this debate. May I draw her attention to Ripple and Alice Hendy, to whom we at the Centre for Social Justice gave an award? Her “brown shield” technical device means that every time someone searches for a harmful site, something pops up to tell them where they can go for help and support. That has had a huge effect and needs to be rolled out further into schools and so on. I know that the hon. Lady knows that charity.
It is a pleasure, Dr Allin-Khan, to serve with you in the Chair for this vital debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Naushabah Khan) on securing it. It is a sad fact of life in Parliament that we have not debated this issue enough, including on the Floor of the House of Commons, because the death toll in Sudan dwarfs anything else that is going on around the world at the moment, despite the amount of time that we spend discussing issues other than this one. I absolutely agree with the figures that the hon. Lady cited about the terrible death toll in Sudan, which is something in the order of 400,000, yet I suspect that even that is an underestimate. If it is, perhaps between 1 million and 1.5 million people in Sudan have been killed or wounded just in the direct conflict. Then, of course, there are all the people who have been displaced; she also gave those figures and I absolutely agree with them, too. Today, I will focus on following the money, because it seems to me that if we were to stop the money, we would stop the war. In particular, I will focus on the role of the UAE in all of this, which I think is an abomination. Frankly, the UAE’s Administration is a disgraceful one anyway, and I will go on to say why. It is now absolutely clear, from the work of the prominent human rights organisations and many media outlets that have conducted investigations into RSF fighters, that those fighters are using weapons supplied by the UAE. If not manufactured in the UAE, the weapons are certainly re-exported to them on a regular basis and in vast numbers, along with ammunition. Furthermore, Colombian mercenaries have arrived in Sudan, who were no doubt recruited from an organisation that is very close to the leadership of the UAE. In September 2025, the Government of Sudan estimated that the number of Colombian mercenaries in Sudan was getting on for 500, but other estimates suggest that the real number is between 1,500 and 2,000, and growing. We believe that that is the direct result of what has been happening in the UAE. The Global Security Services Group is the organisation contracted to hire those people, and it is also involved in the supply of weapons. The GSSG is owned by an Emirati businessman, Mohamed Hamdan Alzaabi, who has business interests in security firms jointly with Ahmed Mohamed Al Hameeri, the secretary-general of the UAE’s Presidential Court. The links to what is going on in Sudan have been very clearly established. GSSG continues to be closely tied to the Government of the UAE. Its website states that it is the preferred security provider for the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Presidential Affairs, and there is evidence that two military bases in Abu Dhabi were used as training facilities for mercenaries—the list goes on. My question to the UK Government is this: why in heaven’s name are we not sanctioning key operatives in the UAE now? I am the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Magnitsky sanctions and reparation, and I say that it is high time that we imposed sanctions on those key UAE operatives. We can also look at the links back to Sheikh Mansour, who has well-documented ties with the leader of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, and has even been described as Hamdan Dagalo’s closest ally in the UAE. In March 2023, Premier League clubs, apparently unanimously, that they would not allow individuals involved in human rights abuses to own clubs, yet Mansour is still in charge of Manchester City. The question is, why, and why are the Government so determined not to pursue these individuals? I suspect that the reason involves a lot of money in investments and the ownership of football teams, but that should not stop the Government from pursuing these people, because the UAE would be very suspect in that. Even if that were not enough, the UAE is involved in the most appalling abuse. British citizen Ryan Cornelius has spent 18 years incarcerated, even though the UN has claimed that that is completely wrong and unjudicial and that he should be released. The Abu Dhabi bank has continued to pursue him, and he has not seen his family for close on 19 years now. He is a British citizen, but how often have representatives of successive Governments, when they have visited the UAE, named him or said anything about him? The answer is “Very rarely.” All they do is tokenistically raise the issue and move on, as they pursue more money. We know that Mohammed Ibrahim al-Shaibani, who is the chair of the Dubai Islamic bank and head of the Dubai Ruler’s Court, is responsible for Ryan’s detention for 18 years and is very close to the leadership of UAE. It is time that we cracked down on this organisation and showed it to be the pariah that it is. It is behind all that is going on in Sudan and the abuses of British citizens who should be released. Unless the Government are prepared to step up, sanction key individuals, and prevent them from owning football teams, investing in the United Kingdom and enjoying their shopping trips here, we will not be the nation that we should be.
When the Government deal with our allies and friends the Americans, they might remind them about the disputed islands that they are in charge of—Wake Island, Navassa Island, Bajo, Swains Island, Guantanamo Bay—all of which have been supported by the United Kingdom. Should we think about not supporting them? Of course not, but we might just mention them. When we retook the Falklands, the British Government had at their hands 52 frigates and destroyers and well over 100,000 soldiers and naval personnel. Does the Minister not think that the best message we could send would be to get our defences back up?
Those of us who love the Jewish people and faith know that the reason why they have overcome all the empires that have tried to destroy them is that they are primarily people of the book and not the sword, but what is happening in the west bank is violent and egregious. It is worse than stopping the two-state solution; it is ethnic cleansing. Does the Secretary of State agree that the Israeli Government could quite easily differentiate between general trade and trade to these illegal settlements? Does he agree that there is no reason, when our country fully supports the right of Israel to defend itself, why this should affect our intelligence relationship? As the longest serving member of the Conservative Friends of Israel, I am proud to say that I absolutely and fully support what he is doing today, because it is about standing up for freedom, for morality and for justice for all people in this world.
I join that long list of UK Ministers who have raised, at the very highest level in Israel, the most egregious practices in the west bank, designed specifically to prevent a two-state solution, only for Israeli policy to double down. Accordingly, I congratulate the Secretary of State.
Order. I am afraid we now have to move on to the wind-ups.
I did not impose a time limit, but there is always half an hour at the end for the wind-ups. You have been a Member of this House now for over two years. You must realise that in an hour-and-a-half debate, there is an hour for the speeches and half an hour for the wind-ups.
You are shaking your head; I am sorry you have not been able to learn on the job, but I am not going to accept criticism for calling the Front Benchers at half-past to enable them all to participate in this debate and, hopefully, give a chance for the person who initiated it to have a few words at the end. I am almost lost for words, because the hon. Gentleman should have realised when we got to half-past that that was the end of the time for Back Benchers and when the Front Benchers start speaking. But anyway, perhaps—
No, I am not going to accept a further point of order. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will learn from what has happened this morning.
I am as keen as anybody to get on with discussing the Health Bill, but this topic is too serious an opportunity to miss, given that the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) has raised such important issues. I really commend his speech and his initiative. Everybody should read it. All I want to say is that a kind of unilateral disarmament on AI is not going to solve the international problem. China, Russia, North Korea, Iran: these are not respecters of international treaties or international laws, even if they were to sign such treaties or laws, and we do not want to disable our own industry. The jury is out on whether AI is an extinction-threatening phenomenon, but I really do commend the hon. Member for raising the topic. I hope he will forgive me for opposing the Bill because I want the debate to continue. Question put (Standing Order No. 23) and agreed to. Ordered, That Alex Sobel, Jess Asato, John McDonnell, Afzal Khan, Dr Allison Gardner, Bambos Charalambous, Sir Desmond Swayne, Charlie Maynard, Manuela Perteghella, Ben Lake, Yasmin Qureshi and Wera Hobhouse present the Bill. Alex Sobel accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the first time; to be read a Second time on Friday 13 November, and to be printed (Bill 142).
Will the Minister give way?
On the question of how the CQC leadership becomes conflicted, will my hon. Friend reflect on the fact that, in an Adjournment debate I held in July, the then Patient Safety Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), made it clear that the person responsible for deciding what safe space information might be released would be the chief executive of the CQC? If the chief executive of the CQC is to see all that information, how would he or she not be able to use it, or be tempted to use it, when he or she inspects hospitals for the purposes of the CQC? Would the safe space not then be hopelessly conflicted, and therefore lose public confidence?
I would very much have liked to have discussed the medical devices questions arising from the Bill. The Minister made an incredibly short speech about that important matter. It is quite clear that these provisions are part of the covert dynamic alignment with the EU and the covert rejoin agenda being pursued by the Government. It raises all sorts of constitutional questions, but those are not for today. I will concentrate on HSSIB. I rise to support amendments 1 to 4, which would remove the abolition of HSSIB from the Bill. The Government have singularly failed to make the case for removing this crucial safety investigation function. It did not exist until recently, and now they want to scrub it out. I suspect that is because too many people in the health system do not like being held to account by an independent investigative body.
The Minister shakes her head, but she is yet to give a good reason as to why this measure is in the Bill. When we had an Adjournment debate in July with the then Minister for patient safety, the hon. Member for Birmingham Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), she could not answer the question of who would conduct independent safety investigations in the NHS after the abolition of HSSIB. She said that safety investigations would be conducted by the Care Quality Commission, but she could not actually claim that they would be independent; as my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) demonstrated, they would not be. If, as it seems, it is intended that safety investigations should be carried out by the CQC unaffected by the transfer, why make the transfer at all? How much is this transfer going to cost? I asked the Minister, in a letter I sent her after the debate in July, to give us the information on how much the transfer of all this would cost. Nothing has arrived. I never had a reply to the letter. Of course, the Government have changed the Minister and the new Minister for patient safety, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson), is not in the House today. I rather suspect that she is more sympathetic to this argument than the Minister sitting on the Front Bench today. In our earlier exchanges we discovered and once again exposed how the safe space will be brutally compromised by the fact that it will be housed in a regulator with, inevitably, other ulterior motives. The chief executive of the CQC is wantonly conflicted in terms of looking after the safe space, so he cannot be the one left in charge of that function. The real point here is that we are missing the opportunity to save so much money. Governments keep having public inquiries. The EPUT—Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust—public inquiry, affecting my constituency, cost in its first year £5 million, and in its second year it is costing another £5 million. The whole budget for HSSIB was only £6.3 million a year, yet it does scores of investigations, not just one inquiry. The Ockenden inquiry cost £14 million. If we could save just a fraction of the cost of medical negligence, which is £3.6 billion a year, HSSIB would pay for itself.
Will the Minister give way?
Children are facing unacceptable levels of sexual harm online, and they need protection. When the Government do the right thing, I will say so, although it has taken them rather a long time to get to the right place. Many children use older phones handed down by family members. How will the Secretary of State ensure that children using devices with older operating systems are fully protected?
I just want to pick up something, because I have not studied the proposal to turn off the digital Freeview signal in enough detail. Every house would need an internet supply, so would that supply be provided free or would people have to subscribe to get it in?
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. Universal accessibility is vital in this debate. I agree with much of what has been said so far, but I am concerned about the switch-off of free-to-air as it stands. In the year I was elected, 2010, there were strong proposals to switch off the FM and AM signals. We are now 16 years down the line, and long-wave has just been switched off; the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) about losing the ability to do a long-wave broadcast are important to bear in mind. We keep talking about the technology moving along and about being able to access broadcasts on cables and the internet, but that will never be true for people who live on canal boats, for example. With digital television, these days someone can just stick up a Squarial, point it in roughly the right direction and get their television channels—my wife and I have taken holidays in a canal boat and in a camper van, and we have been able to do that. A camper van is slightly different, because it is probably used more for leisure purposes, but there are people who live on canal boats. How are they going to get an internet connection? Technology may move on, but it worries me that we say, “In order to solve this problem and that problem, you are going to have to buy or rent something, or in some way or another enter into a contract to receive something that you currently get free.” The BBC is one of the most valuable institutions this country has, because it is able to be a public service broadcaster. It loses its way at times, when chasing ratings and saying that it has to be in competition, on some things that only a public service broadcaster can deliver. If we say that people will have to pay something or other to be able to get television, surely that completely destroys a licence fee. People will be not only taxed to watch television, but charged again to actually be able to use the thing that they are paying a tax on. The BBC has to maintain a free-to-air service, however that is delivered. I am not sure that that technology is there yet but, once it is, it will be vital that people are not charged for it. The way forward is having tried and tested technology. A lot of us went out and bought DAB radios when they came out. Most of those DAB radios are now in the bin, because DAB+ was brought out and Classic FM stopped broadcasting on DAB; my previous car did not have DAB+, so I had to go back to FM to listen. I am sure we all have certain digital radio sets that now do not pick up many channels at all. The industry changing what a person can receive on, after they have already invested in new equipment, is also something that must be looked at. My constituency has a lot of people who live on canal boats; I am sure many other constituencies do too. We must give careful consideration to those areas: where there is not a solid land point of contact permanently, how are we going to make sure that people receive the things that they currently get and pay a licence fee for? The licence fee is not a television licence fee; it is a licence fee, because it covers the radio broadcast as well. If it slowly gets to the point where people say, “I am already paying for this, so I am not going to pay for that,” it will remove a whole host of radio, and I think that radio is the most important thing that the BBC does. I very rarely watch television news now, because it is just a second-by-second diatribe as the broadcasters try to fill in a gap all day long, whereas anyone who listens to radio news will actually get the news in half an hour. There is probably more news in the 6 o’clock news on Radio 4 than in two hours on one of the other broadcasters. There are some very sensible programmes; it is a great pity that “The World Tonight” is coming to an end, although replacing it with “Newshour” from the World Service could be very useful. However, there could be some unforeseen circumstances if we are asking people to pay twice. Given the reputation of the television licence, they may stop paying it. Fundamentally, I want to make sure that we do not take away the ability even to receive television, and that we keep considering whether people may be land-based and whether they can get that connection.
On that note, does my hon. Friend also make that link to the licence fee? The reason we have a licence fee, rather than paying through general taxation, is so that the BBC does not fear decisions that Ministers may make. The Government say they want to renew the licence fee, but at the same time are putting in place something that would take away the very reason for a licence fee instead of taxation.
Let me say at the outset what a pleasure it is to see my good friend, the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), in her place replying to this debate. The whole House was delighted to see her promotion in the recent reshuffle. It was long overdue, and I look forward to how she replies to this debate to work out the benchmark for her appearances on future occasions. The weight of documentation that I hold in my hands will give the House some indication of the weight of the problem that the organisation of retirement property management companies presents to many of our constituents across the country. My remarks are principally motivated by the lamentable behaviour of a company called Cognatum Estates, which runs three facilities in North Dorset: Home Farm in Iwerne Minster, Castle Gardens in Shaftesbury and Walpole Court in Puddletown. I have had constituents from those three facilities come to see me on many occasions, as well as write and email, with a growing list of concerns that seem to go absolutely ignored. Those constituents should not take it particularly personally, because Cognatum has been presenting problems in other constituencies too. The hon. Members for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) and for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) and I met Cognatum representatives some little while ago to talk through the concerns that our constituents were sharing with us. They met, they listened and then they wrote to us to say, “Thank you very much indeed. We will never meet you again. Everything in the garden is rosy. We don’t recognise the evidence that you have given us.” There is a real problem here, and the Government need to act. Unfortunately, I think I may be correct in highlighting a point raised by my constituent Jean Wilkinson, a resident of one of the Cognatum properties. She wrote to me as follows: “It is also important to highlight that a significant number of residents are elderly and in poor health. As a result, many do not feel able to raise concerns or advocate for themselves. This creates a situation where important issues risk being overlooked and where residents feel they do not have a sufficient voice.” I have had a number of emails from across the country and from other constituents that effectively mirror and echo that point. Madam Deputy Speaker, I know that you too have had issues in your constituency, albeit with a different company—we were talking about it earlier in the day. Too many property management companies view their residents as elderly cash cows. They are people who have worked and saved hard, want to be independent in their older years, and do not want a huge amount of fuss and bother—they just want a quiet, peaceful, dignified, sensible, grown-up sort of a life. As one gets older, I am certain that one becomes a little less bullish in challenging and questioning authority. Anything for a quiet life: “If the service or management charges go up and I am not given a particularly clear explanation or cogent argument to support it, well, I’ll just write the cheque and pay, because it is the line of least resistance.” I am absolutely convinced that that is now a deep-set and ingrained way in which a lot of those companies operate.
I agree fundamentally with the hon. Gentleman. I will come on to that matter in a moment, because there are two very specific areas that I think require attention. Cognatum does not get off scot-free because of one doggedly determined constituent, Peter Wintle, who lives in Home Farm of Iwerne Minster. He has cogently and sensibly asked questions over the years of Cognatum, only to be met with very little in reply. The issues that Peter has raised with me on behalf of those residents, which are echoed by others, is the absence of management transparency—a key and important thing—and accountability of the companies involved, as well as a lack of clear communication that sets out in easily digestible form information that residents require and openness on finance, explaining why service charges go up and why repairs or maintenance are being done in a certain way. There is a lackadaisical and tardy attitude in responding to issues and complaints raised by residents—all things that should not be expected. The complaints system is not worthy of the name. In the case of Cognatum, because of the way it organises itself, there are also unaudited accounts, which make it incredibly hard for anybody to follow the line on the balance sheet. I give way to the hon. Gentleman, without whom no Adjournment debate would be complete.
I agree. That goes back to the point I made a moment ago that too many of these companies see their residents as a soft or easy touch. They think that their residents will just suck it up and simply write the cheque.
I agree with my hon. Friend and with his constituent, Alex Roll, who has been in contact with me via Facebook. I take the point that my hon. Friend makes on her behalf, and that she makes on behalf of countless others, which is that these companies are inclined to effectively hunt with the hounds and run with the hare at the same time. When somebody dies and the property then goes up for sale—sometimes, because of the restrictive covenants, the resale can be a slow and difficult business—not only do these companies receive a fairly significant clawback at the point of sale, but they demand service charges to be paid while the property is vacant or while probate is awaited. They really are trying to milk it from both ends, and I just do not think that stacks up in the court of public opinion as being fair or justifiable. One should be able to say, “This property is vacant. We will not levy the service charge, as that will effectively be included in the clawback that we get at the point of sale,” because there is clearly no resident in that property using those services.
The hon. Lady expresses it very well, and I agree with her assessment entirely. It is the age and vulnerability of many—the “anything for the quiet life” factor—that is being exploited to the max. I want to mention specifically the hon. Member for Surrey Heath—although in this campaign he is very much my hon. Friend. We have been working together very closely on issues relating to Cognatum. He has Mytchett Heath in his constituency, and the issues being raised by his residents mirror those being raised by mine, and it is not a pretty picture.
I think it manifests itself in all quarters of the United Kingdom, but not all companies are culpable. My other campaign is on the regulation of the funeral sector; it is the rotten apples in the barrel that give the whole sector a bad name. It is on them that attention should be focused.
I will not, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, because we want to hear from the Minister. I am told that Cognatum and its subsidiaries claim small companies exemptions, meaning that there are no independent audits and the directors control the financial disclosures. Inconsistent and exceptional accounting items suggest financial irregularities. The company operates on a “going concern” basis, despite significant inter-company debts, and the auditors do not sign the reported financial statements, raising accountability concerns. That suggests, as the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) and others have suggested, the need for regulation. I have two asks of the Minister. The first is to have a thorough assessment of the effectiveness and independence—or rather, the lack thereof—of the Association of Retirement Housing Managers. They are populated in the main by current operators. Effectively, colleagues are being asked to mark other colleagues’ homework. I do not think that is sustainable or desirable, and it needs looking at. A number of my constituents believe that there is a rather lackadaisical approach to following the requirements of section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. I know that the Government have been doing some work on that, so it would be interesting to hear what the Minister has to say. In closing, I am grateful to colleagues from across the House who have supported me in this endeavour. I pay tribute again to the hon. Members for Surrey Heath and for Honiton and Sidmouth for the work that the three of us have been doing with regard to Cognatum. We did say that there would be an Adjournment debate if Cognatum was not prepared to engage and try to pull up its socks and improve the operation and service that they give to their residents, so this is a debate literally of their own making. This sector has grown up quite quickly; it is still quite novel in this country. People are still finding their way, and I think we are probably only on the first or second generation of residents experiencing the pitfalls of both resale and clawback issues and the lack of accountability that exists in the management and maintenance of many of these places where people live. These people have chosen to live there. They have invested a significant sum of their money so that they can live a retired life in dignity.
That is a good suggestion. Anything has to be better than the status quo, which is neither defensible nor indeed desirable.