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The mistake that the Government made was trying to transfer a complex system in disarray. Is the danger not that the Government now will take a system that is still in disarray and seek to transfer it again? It must be put right under Capita and then, at that point, a consideration can be made of its being brought back in house, not before.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain, and to take part in this debate about the definition and application of so-called grey-belt land. I thank my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) for securing this important debate and for his excellent opening speech. The first mention of the Government’s novel term “grey belt” came in their 2024 election manifesto. Labour MPs campaigned on a promise to release “lower quality ‘grey belt’ land”, which they described as scrub land, disused car parks and old petrol stations, alongside a commitment to “preserving the green belt”. Those policies were part of an overarching pledge to build 1.5 million homes by 2029. Just over two years later, however, and almost halfway through this Parliament, we are left wondering where it all went so wrong, because the Government are not releasing low-quality land, they are not preserving the green belt, and they are nowhere near their stated target of building 1.5 million homes. How could that be the case, given that they have such a mammoth majority with which to make it happen? The answer is that the concept of the grey belt was a fiction from the start. It is, and always has been, a thinly veiled conceit. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam and the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) highlighted, the grey belt has been talked up as low-quality land made up of disused car parks, but behind the façade it is usually found to be prime green-belt land. That is not just a political point; it is a factual one. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam pointed out, research from the Campaign to Protect Rural England has shown that by December 2025, of the 13 developments of 10 or more homes that had been approved by Government planning inspectors on so-called grey-belt land, 88% were earmarked for building on previously undeveloped countryside. To be clear, that is not disused petrol stations or low-quality land, but our local and valued countryside. What is worse is that those developments made up more than 90% of homes granted planning permission on allegedly grey-belt sites. With so much grey belt looking far more like green belt, at least according to the Government’s own NPPF definitions, what is the true definition of grey belt? For the sake of our concerned constituents, perhaps the Minister can explain what definition inspectors are working to, as it is clearly not the same as the one that has been codified and publicised. Even if the Government stuck to their stated definition of grey belt and refused to waver from it, we would still be left without a clear route to their target of 1.5 million homes. As the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster) pointed out, that is because the Government have done nothing to make development on previously developed land any more viable than before; indeed, they have made it worse. The Government have made an effort to increase and swiften planning permissions, but there has been no corresponding effort to make proposed sites more viable. The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 did much to silence the voices of democratically elected local councillors in order to push planning permissions thicker and faster through the system, but it did nothing to make building new homes more affordable. There has been no recognition at all of the barriers—largely been created by the state—that have been thrown in the way of developers. The top-down housing targets that our rural councils were saddled with, representing an increase of up to 487% in some cases, make sites no more viable; they just put more pressure on local planning authorities to grant more permissions. Superficially, supposedly grey-belt sites may be an attractive prospect for development because there are likely to be fewer complications than anticipated for brownfield development. However, when supposedly grey-belt sites are released, they might not deliver substantially more housing because the Government will still have done next to nothing to improve the site’s viability. The Government have imposed the golden rule of at least 15% affordable housing above local policy requirements, up to a 50% cap. Sites still come with a biodiversity net gain requirement; they still require landfill tax payments, they still have to meet building regulations and soon they will be subjected to the building safety levy. After a site’s release, some building will likely take place. But given the Government’s unwillingness to help to make brownfield sites more viable, we will be left with the lamentable scenario of losing chunks of green-belt land without getting anywhere near the required housing numbers. As the Government hide behind their own nebulous grey belt definition, they chip away at our local green belt without making a dent in their 1.5 million homes target. That is not progress; that is failure. The statistics show it too. It is estimated from the energy performance certificate lodgements data that the Government oversaw the net addition of just 392,400 homes between 9 July 2024 and 14 June 2026—a paltry 26% of their manifesto target. Far from using the green belt to meet their targets, they are ditching its protections and removing its special place in our communities, all for the sake of plodding progress towards an increasingly distant target. I am pleased to say that there is a way out of this malaise that dually serves to protect the green belt and build more houses. Instead of sham terms and shady insincerities, the Opposition stand for a genuine brownfield-first approach to building. We on this side of the Chamber will not just pay lip service to brownfield development but prioritise it and make it easier. It can and will be done. We all want to see more homes built, but they must be built in the right places, with local understanding and on brownfield sites first. That is the common-sense answer. It is the Opposition’s answer, and it is an achievable outcome. Further research from the CPRE shows that a large proportion of the Government’s lofty housing target could be swiftly met using brownfield land that already has planning permission. The CPRE estimates that up to 1.41 million homes could be built on existing brownfield land in England, based on data from local planning authorities’ brownfield land registers up to 2024. The same data shows that, as of September 2025, more than half of those sites had planning permission already. The 1.41 million amounts to 93% of the Government’s manifesto pledge. Perhaps when considering this, the Secretary of State may change her mind again and once more view 1.5 million homes as a viable goal rather than a “stretch target”, as she described it at the weekend. The Government must change course. The returning Secretary of State has already U-turned on her disastrous and costly programme of local government reform. Perhaps the Minister can use his platform to join Conservative colleagues and stand against concreting over our green belt. I hope he uses his time to do exactly that. I hope he also takes the chance to not just acknowledge but to respond to the concerns shared by hon. Members and take a better and fairer approach to our green belt.
1. Whether he plans to proceed with the legislative proposals in the Courts and Tribunals Bill to restrict trial by jury.
There are reports that the Government are considering tabling an amendment to the Courts and Tribunals Bill so that, in either-way offences, a judge will decide whether a defendant faces a jury or is heard by a single judge sitting alone. The legal profession has quite properly highlighted that this will lead to satellite litigation, with repeated appeals, and slow down the legal process. Will the Government finally listen to the legal profession, or will they plough on regardless?
I start by declaring my interest as an NHS consultant paediatrician, a member of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, a member of the British Medical Association and a mother of three children. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood) on securing this debate, alongside the hon. Members for Dartford (Jim Dickson) and for Ashfield (Lee Anderson). In particular, I thank my hon. Friend for his speech, which was hugely moving. I cannot believe that it has been such a long time since his illness happened, but it is great to see him looking so well today. I express my condolences to the hon. Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns) and thank her for the brave speech that she gave. I remember sitting in this Chamber a little over two years ago—I am sure you were there too, Madam Deputy Speaker—when the then Member for South Thanet, now Lord Mackinlay, received a rare standing ovation from the House and from the Gallery as he returned to Parliament following his remarkable recovery from sepsis. His journey has been incredible, and his story has brought renewed attention to a disease that kills nearly 50,000 people every year. For context, that is around the same number of people who die from bowel, breast and prostate cancer combined. However, with attention to prevention, early identification of infection, early diagnosis, better treatments and the avoidance of antimicrobial resistance, we can reduce that number and save people’s lives. As I said, raising awareness of sepsis and how suddenly it can change someone’s condition is vital, and the previous Conservative Government got the ball rolling in that regard. My right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt) adopted the UK Sepsis Trust’s “Just ask ‘Could it be sepsis?’” campaign in 2016 when he was Health Secretary. The Conservatives also backed sepsis research with more than £1 billion through the National Institute for Health and Care Research. Research is important, because it will help us to improve diagnosis and treatment and to better understand why some people get an infection and it makes them a little bit ill, but some people get an infection and it turns into sepsis. That was a good start, but of course, as always with medicine, there is more to do, and it was pleasing to see the previous Starmer Government build on this work by introducing the modern service framework for sepsis. We have modern service frameworks for other diseases, and it seems good to have one for sepsis specifically. The guiding light of this framework is the Government’s ambition to reduce sepsis deaths by 25% by 2035, with which I think we could all agree. But simply saying it will not deliver it; it has to have a plan, and the plan has to be deliverable and funded. What funding have the Government committed to implement that framework? As we know, early diagnosis is paramount, but sepsis is notoriously difficult to diagnose and very rapid. I remember seeing a patient whose mum had got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom—not something she did normally, and she was not quite sure why she had on that particular night—and when she was walking back along the landing, she thought, “It’s a bit cold—I’ll just check.” She checked her son had his blankets on and was warm, but as she did so, just in the light from the landing she spotted a little mark on the little boy’s leg. She turned the light on, and saw that he was developing the rash, which does not blanch, that goes with meningococcal sepsis. She brought him in, and he survived and he went home well, but I shudder to think what would have happened if she had waited till she woke up routinely at 7 o’clock in the morning. So someone was watching to make sure he was safe, and I am so glad that was the case, but it is so very rapid, as others hon. Members have testified. There is no single test. There is no single thing we can monitor or measure that helps. Flu-like symptoms mimic many other common illnesses, and on top of that, as we have heard, diagnosis and treatment are absolutely time-critical. The UK Sepsis Trust has developed the sepsis six—oxygen, cultures, antibiotics, fluids, lactate management and urinary output monitoring—and all these should be carried out within the first hour. The Government’s MSF commits to rapid diagnostic tools and more advanced genomic sequencing. What infrastructure and workforce investment is required by the Government to set this up, and over what timeframe do they envisage that it will be achieved? Talking about the workforce, the Government decided to ditch the previous Government’s NHS workforce plan to create their own, which is of course their right. However, their replacement was originally due to be published in early 2025 and was most recently promised as “imminent” just before the summer recess, but we are now well into September 2026 and there is still no plan. The Minister in the other place was asked for more details about the workforce plan, but her written answer simply stated that the Government “will provide an update on the 10 Year Workforce Plan in due course.” Could the Minister please update us on when this plan is going to be published, preferably with a date rather than an expression of “soon” or “imminent”? I want to mention group B streptococcal infection, which I have seen in paediatric practice, particularly in babies. It is a common bacteria that lives harmlessly in the gut or lower reproductive tract, but there is a risk that it can enter the bloodstream, causing neonatal sepsis when passed to newborns. The GBS3 trial is looking to prevent and reduce the impact of group B strep, and the Government’s framework commits to supporting that. Could the Minister tell us more about how the Government plan to do that? I also want to talk about prevention, which the Government have said is one of their big shifts in medicine. Some sepsis can be prevented or reduced, and research has shown that, for example, if ibuprofen is given to children with chickenpox, it increases the likelihood of their developing sepsis. We know that completing the antibiotic course is important. We also know that handwashing technique is important, and that keeping things clean is important, particularly in preventing the sepsis that is acquired in hospitals. Management of chronic disease reduces the risk, too, and then there is vaccination. Meningitis B is possibly one of the most scary infections and conditions that one sees as a doctor, because it progresses so quickly—and it can cause brain damage, amputations and death—but there is a highly effective vaccine, which was introduced for infants born from the middle of 2015 onwards. However, as the outbreak in Kent, Dorset and Berkshire showed last year, when three young people died, it can still come back in older children. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation met in July 2026 and suggested an increase in the vaccination schedule for those young people. It recommended that young children who had had one dose of vaccine should have another at age 15; that those who had not had the vaccine should have two doses; and that older people starting university should have a catch-up. Very shortly, it will be freshers week, and around 580,000 young people will head off to university for the first time with great excitement. University students are seven times more likely to get invasive meningococcal sepsis than people who do not go to university, and the Government have only managed to vaccinate 246,000 of those young people—something that the UK Health Security Agency issued a document about last week. It said that last year, 97% of invasive meningococcal disease in 15 to 24-year-olds was caused by meningitis B, so I will ask the Minister some questions that I asked her during last week’s vaccine debate and have not yet received an answer to. When is she going to review and respond to the requests for vaccines for younger children who have not had them yet—the doses at 15 and the two doses for those who have not had a dose yet? What is she doing to increase awareness among people starting university in the next week or so?
It is clearly important that young people are aware of the signs of infection, particularly such a serious infection, so I agree with the hon. Member about that. I am interested in what the Minister is doing to try to prevent these infections by ensuring that the right people have the right vaccines. The Government are changing the way in which vaccines are being commissioned from NHS England, which they are abolishing. [Interruption.] Madam Deputy Speaker seems to have a cough, so I will finish my speech. The integrated care boards are going to be responsible for vaccinations. How is that change going to impact vaccines, particularly for students who live in one place and go to university in another? To sum up, the Government’s ambition to reduce sepsis and sepsis deaths should be welcomed, and it is good to have the modern service framework in place. However, I am sure that charities such as the UK Sepsis Trust and families affected by sepsis would be most grateful if the Minister could provide further clarity on the Government’s road map and the funding required to reach this important destination.
Order. Many colleagues want to speak and we have limited time. Front Benchers will be called at 10.28 am, so I suggest everyone takes four or five minutes for speeches.
Order. We are going to struggle to get everybody in, so brevity, please, colleagues.
4. Whether he has set a target for the number of foreign national offenders in prison who will be deported.
In July, the then Mayor of Manchester, the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham), said that “nothing is off the table” and that he would “explore all possible options” to deport child rapist Shabir Ahmed to Pakistan. Where is the necessary draft legislation to amend the Immigration Act 1971? Where is the credible threat to Pakistan to turn off visas, and where is the credible threat to Pakistan to stop money and other assistance to that country if it does not co-operate?
T4. Prison officers do an increasingly tough job that most of us would not want to do or could not do, and the least they should be able to expect is to have their pensions and lump sums paid on time, yet thanks to the incompetence of MyCSP, Equiniti and now Capita, that is not happening. What is the Minister going to do about it?
The parties that are talking down the North sea oil and gas workers are the Labour Government here and the SNP Government in Holyrood. The Conservative party is standing up for the North sea oil and gas workers. When I quizzed the Prime Minister on approving Jackdaw and Rosebank, he said that he would “take a pragmatic approach”, and that we would see that in action soon, but we now hear that there are further delays because the Labour party wants to save face in a central London by-election. At a time when our energy security is at risk, will the Government put the national interest above the interests of the Labour party and approve Jackdaw and Rosebank as a matter of urgency?
The definition of a Scotch single malt whisky is that it must be mashed, fermented and distilled at a single distillery in Scotland, but for English single malt, some of those steps may happen away from the single site. Does the Minister not feel that it would be better to have a consistent definition of a single malt whisky, and that that would be easier for consumers to understand?
I understand the hon. Member’s view about leaving fossil fuels in the ground, but does she not agree that, while we still need fossil fuels, it is much better for jobs, for the environment and even for the Exchequer that we produce our own oil and gas rather than rely on imports from elsewhere?
The hon. Member has agreed that we will need oil and gas for years to come, so can he clarify the Liberal Democrats’ position? Do they support Rosebank and Jackdaw? Do they support new licences? Do they support jobs up in Aberdeen?
Does the Minister agree that if we produce our own oil and gas, that gives the Exchequer more money? If the Government want then to use that to take money off people’s bills, that is up to them.
I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and for giving me advance sight of it, and we all thank Lady Justice Thirlwall and her team for their incredibly important work. As the Secretary of State said, the report is both thorough and devastating. These were crimes that shook our whole nation, and no one who has not lost a child in this way could possibly imagine the depth of the parents’ suffering. The task now for the NHS, for the state and for us as parliamentarians is to ensure that from their unthinkably terrible loss will at least come reliable guards against such a tragedy happening again, for sadly this is not the first or only time that serial, tragic, avoidable deaths have occurred within our health service. There are themes that recur: the dismissal or undermining of whistleblowers; concerns about institutional or personal reputation, or about organisational disruption, hampering the primacy of focus on immediate patient safety; and because the idea of a healthcare worker deliberately harming patients is, naturally, so unthinkable to decent people, alternative explanations are sought instead. Today we are not at the stage where the Secretary of State is able to say that the Government accept all the recommendations in full, and we understand that it is a very substantial piece of work. She said that they will consider the entire report and set out a full response. When does she anticipate that will happen? In the time available, I will just ask a few questions on a subset of the aspects here. We welcome the points on the suspicion of deliberate harms protocol. The Secretary of State is absolutely right that the message has to get out that, in such cases, suspicion is enough. We must change the way that people think about that. The report notes that the existing “freedom to speak up” system has operated unevenly through the NHS, and that there remains a need for a national oversight body, although the National Guardian’s Office is no more. The report says that many NHS staff still do not feel that it is possible to raise patient safety concerns without risking career detriment. What else can be done to establish independent escalation pathways outside the management hierarchy? I worry that some of what is there is being removed. If an individual exhausts a trust’s mechanisms for raising concerns, they could currently go to the council of governors at the trust or to NHS England, but both will be abolished by the Health Bill. So if a consultant reports a concern to the board and does not get a hearing, where do they go? Is the Secretary of State the next stage in that line? I must also ask about another of the Government’s current proposed changes: the abolition of the Health Services Safety Investigations Body. Neither HSSIB nor its predecessor body existed at the time of the murders and, in any event, HSSIB was not set up to investigate individuals, criminal activity or deliberate harm. However, it did create a legally protected safe space for staff to sound alarm bells confidentially outside the normal line manager hierarchy, and that could help to break silences and contribute to the cultural changes that are required. The report states that HSSIB is at present “fulfilling a needed function”, so will the Secretary of State reconsider the proposal to end it? To many people, an obvious question arising from these terrible cases will surely be that someone up the chain must have noticed the sheer numbers and the severe statistical anomaly in fatalities. The report notes that there was an alert signal in the data in 2015, but the analysis was only being reported on with a long lag. Clearly what is required is real-time reporting and automated analysis to identify abnormalities in deteriorations or unexplained deaths that triggers immediate and independent external review. The Secretary of State mentioned that the near real-time process is now in place. Can she say how close that comes to being fully real-time and automated—though not only automated but, of course, complementing human understanding—to trigger independent external review? The inquiry’s findings on this also link to its recommendation that NHS systems become interoperable by the end of 2028. Does she think that timetable is achievable? Recommendation 1, as the Secretary of State mentioned, is on the use of cameras in cots, with remote monitoring for parents, and the Department is to set out a road map by March. Remote monitoring has of course become widespread in people’s own homes, and there is cot-side video in use at quite a number of trusts. But this would be rather more than what is typically in place in those hospitals today. Can she outline her initial assessment of how this can be achieved and by when? One of the most sobering findings is that in Lady Justice Thirlwall’s review of recommendations from previous inquiries into NHS bodies over 30 years, although some significant changes have been made, many recommendations have not been implemented. She supports the formation of a Joint Committee of Parliament to ensure that recommendations are pursued, and she recommends that the National Audit Office audits implementation of statutory inquiries into the NHS. I think I heard the Secretary of State say they were going to create an internal hub—really? I ask her to consider whether that is enough. Would it not be better, in the spirit of the duty of candour, if these things were done through the institutions—through the National Audit Office and with this Parliament? Our thoughts and prayers remain with all those families in the unimaginable pain of their loss. Although nothing now can undo that pain, it is vital that all possible lessons are learned and, more importantly, acted upon with determination and urgency.
I wrote to the Cabinet Office in January in response to constituents’ concerns about late payments, dreadful customer service and, in some cases, desperate pleas for pensions to be released. Shortly after, I met Capita representatives; they made assurances that pension arrears would be cleared by the end of April and that overall service levels would be restored by June. Those were hollow words: both targets were missed and everything has got worse. One constituent told me that he had given 43 years of service to the Royal Navy. He retired in October last year and is still waiting for his pension forecast to arrive. That is nearly a whole year. My case workers have been exhaustively responding to constituents who are attempting to access statements and payments. In January, I wrote to the Cabinet Office but we are still waiting for movement on this issue. I suspect that my caseworkers are doing a better job than those hired by the Government, who have somehow seen an increase in the number of complaints. I do not think that bringing the contract in-house will make a difference—
Does my hon. Friend agree that since the Government have got involved in this situation, the backlog has got worse? Does he think that they should prevent Capita taking on any more Government contracts until this is sorted out?
As the Minister knows, technology is being used in many different forms to threaten women. A Gosport domestic abuse survivor, Harmony Hayman, is still living in fear of a former partner eight years after leaving the relationship, and he has used an illicit mobile phone from prison to contact her. She is now living in terror of the Government’s decision to release domestic abusers early from prison. Will the Minister look at Harmony’s petition, in which she calls on the Government to look into how domestic abusers are able to perpetuate their abusive behaviour from within prison, and also to review their eligibility for early release?
I must admit that I am really puzzled by the Minister’s statement. The visitor levy is not going to be ringfenced for tourism, so how does he know that it will go to its intended destination? The levy will not be capped. We normally tax things to stop people doing them, not to encourage them to do more of them. What evidence can he offer to demonstrate that this measure will bring growth, as he says? What work have the Government actually done to prepare for this measure? How will they know whether hospitality businesses—let us face it, they are already collapsing in their droves following decisions that the Government have already taken—will survive yet another tax being imposed on them?
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain, and to take part in this debate. I take the opportunity to formally welcome the Minister to her role. The turnout for the debate shows the strength of feeling of hon. Members of both sides of the House. I join them in expressing my deepest sympathies to the civil servants and families of civil servants who dedicated their lives to public service and who have been left without the pensions they earned throughout that service. Recent updates from the civil service pension recovery plan show that although progress has been made, thousands of families are still waiting for retirement quotes and pension payments. Of particular concern is the number of older cases involving bereavement, death in service and ill health that have yet to be resolved, as highlighted in the most recent updates. I trust that the Minister will use the opportunity of this debate to highlight what further steps the Government are taking to ensure that those cases are dealt with. An adequate explanation from Ministers for why they allowed Capita’s contract to administer the civil service pension scheme to go ahead in the first place has been entirely absent. I know, and the Minister will no doubt point out, that the contract was signed in November 2023 under the last Government. The last Government agreed to a two-year transition period with clear milestones that Capita was required to meet to take over the administration of the scheme without causing disruption to service.
I could not agree more. It was under this Government’s watch that it became clear that many of the milestones were not being met, and Ministers failed to take the necessary action to ensure a smooth transition and prevent such disruption. That was certainly not through lack of warning, given that both the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee published reports in the weeks and months before Capita was due to take over administration of the scheme highlighting a clear risk that it was not ready to do so. Ministers said they received personal assurances from Capita on its readiness to take over the scheme, and they have not said why they chose to believe those claims despite the findings of the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee. Will the Minister clarify who in her Department authorised the go/no-go decision in November 2025, clarify what criteria were used to make that decision, and commit to publishing all documents relating to that decision with only necessary commercial redactions? Ministers have spoken at great length about potentially insourcing the civil service pension scheme in the future, but they appear far less willing to consider using powers that they already have at their disposal under the Procurement Act 2023 to address issues with suppliers.
I could not agree more, and I am about to come to that point. We have all seen our inboxes full of horror stories of individuals who have been caught up in this situation. I therefore ask the Minister specifically to confirm whether the Government will refer Capita to the Debarment Review Service, or does she intend to allow Capita to continue freely bidding for public contracts while the Government take months to complete their review of insourcing? It is clear that the mishandling of the civil service pension scheme is the result of not only corporate failures on the part of Capita but the Government’s failure to manage the contract effectively. Ministers should reflect on the Government’s shortcomings in regard to that before outsourcing blame elsewhere. However, I am aware that the Minister took a keen interest in this subject from the Back Benches and I will work constructively with her to try to find a resolution to an issue facing many thousands of people up and down the country. It is absolutely right that, while we try to understand how we got to this point, we must work more closely together to try to resolve it. That is in the interests of the civil servants and their families who have been so deeply impacted by this travesty. I therefore look forward to hearing what plans the Minister has to take this issue forward and resolve it as quickly as possible. I look forward to her response.
As you are well aware, Mr Speaker, 5 million people visit the beautiful East Yorkshire coastline every year, so any tourism tax would have a devastating effect on the local economy. The Minister says that he has developed a framework and that there is more work to do. Where there are larger mayoral areas—for example, my area of Hull and East Yorkshire—can he guarantee that any money raised in towns such as Bridlington or Hornsea will be spent there, rather than in a larger conurbation such as the city of Hull, and will he ensure that is the national framework for any mayor who wishes to introduce a tourist tax?
Order. The hon. Lady did point out the conventions and courtesies of the House. She has to ask the hon. Member if he will give way. It might be helpful for everybody if I add that interventions should be through the Chair. Please do not face the back of the Chamber. It makes it incredibly hard for the microphones to pick up comments and, indeed, it is quite discourteous to the Chair to turn your back on me.
That brings us to the Front-Bench contributions. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Before we move on, I want to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood) for his bravery in sharing his personal story and, of course, to the noble Lord Mackinlay in the other place, who has spoken on this subject so often and with such power.
That brings us to the Front-Bench contributions. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Q Given the concerns that you have raised, how likely is it that the Bill will restore confidence in the asylum system? If that is not likely, what else would you like to see in it that would restore confidence? Vicky Tennant: I go back to what I said: legislation is only part of the answer. There are elements of the Bill—particularly those that focus on trying to ensure the quality, efficiency and sustainability of the appeals process—that, if made to work successfully, could contribute to building public confidence in the system. As I said, UNHCR recognises that public confidence is what underpins the refugee convention; we can all speak about the law and the refugee convention, but what is needed to deliver these things in practice is public support for welcoming refugees and for a well-functioning system. On what would be needed in addition, there is a lot of work under way, particularly to make the first instance decision-making process quicker and to improve the quality of decision making. UNHCR has been working directly with the Home Office on that front for some time, and we have been encouraged by the progress. As I said, it is also about the ability to remove people who are found not be in need of international protection. One can do that only if there is a well-functioning system and there is confidence that it gets the decisions right. Safe, regular routes are a big part of a well-functioning, fair system. From the public perspective, what we see consistently in the polling and the various surveys that have been done is that the British people want to welcome refugees. There is support for maintaining the UK as a place of refuge, and the more safe, regular, managed pathways there are to do that, the more it can be delivered and that confidence can be sustained. That cannot be a replacement for access to territorial asylum, which is where it can sometimes be very challenging. As UNHCR, we recognise the challenges the Government face in addressing the crossings in the channel. Nobody wants to see a situation where people are forced into dangerous journeys and where the business is essentially controlled by smugglers and criminals. What is really essential is that you have a good, functioning system for considering asylum claims quickly and removing people who are not in need of asylum, and that also involves the management of arrivals in a sensible way. Partnership with international partners is an absolutely critical aspect of that, including with France but also with other international partners. That is about co-operation upstream to make sure people have alternatives and do not feel they have no alternative but to move onwards, but it is also about co-operation around the management of arrivals at UK borders. The international standards, the refugee convention and the European convention on human rights provide that common baseline that enables the UK to work with international partners in trying to find solutions to these common challenges.
Q I do not wish to cut you off, but I asked the question to all three panellists. Eleanor, briefly, please. Eleanor Lyons: Very briefly, touching on part 5 of the Bill in particular, I do not think we will restore confidence in the asylum system by weakening protections for victims of modern slavery. I welcome some parts of the Bill, including better advocacy for child victims of exploitation, devolving decision-making pilots, and work around tackling forced labour in supply chains, but that should go further than it does at the moment. Fundamentally, the Bill makes it harder for safeguarding professionals to identify victims of exploitation in communities across the country, including child victims and UK national victims, and I do not think that that restores public confidence in the system. Unfortunately, I think it erodes confidence that we are not safeguarding cohorts who need our help and support, who do not get the right to remain even if they are confirmed to be victims of modern slavery.
Q The same question, briefly, Will. Do you also have any international experience that it might be worth us hearing about, maybe from Australia and so on? Dr Prescott: Building on what the others have said, there are obviously bits in the Bill that are very positive. The expansion of the reporting requirements—again, you have learned a bit from the Australian experience and the Canadian experience—into public sector organisations is obviously very positive. But, to build on the earlier point, the ultimate way to improve confidence is to improve processes in the system. It is about making sure that organisations have a dedicated point of contact so that there is someone who is directly responsible for modern slavery in first responder organisations. It is about improving and standardising training so that people know what signs to look for when they are dealing with potential victims. That is the best way to stop the last-minute claims, which, though small in number—I think Eleanor said they are less than 2%—have a disproportionate psychological effect. That will also be much better for victims. A lot more attention needs to be on improving the processes, improving the training and making sure someone is actually responsible in first responder organisations.
Q In answer to Matt Vickers’s question, you said that, as a result of the Bill, exploiting our borders will be less attractive for organised criminals. What specific measures in the Bill does your organisation think contributes to that assessment? Helen Rance: The strongest deterrence effect will come from sustained law enforcement activity. If we can continue to disrupt facilitators, seize boats and engines, and target criminal finances, it will have an effect on the operation of organised immigration individuals and networks. The Bill makes it harder and less attractive for those networks to operate within the United Kingdom.
Q You can do all the things you have described without the Bill, so what in the Bill will make it easier for your organisation to “smash the gangs”? Helen Rance: Smashing the gangs, to coin a phrase, really comes with a lot of different measures and policies. Target hardening and making the UK less attractive is just one of those measures. I do not think there is anything specific in the Bill, other than making the UK a tougher environment for criminals to operate in and less appealing for them to exploit.
Q Can we briefly return to clause 1(8), which I think you described, Professor Ekins, as a poor attempt at an ouster provision. Would you be able to describe why you think that? If it was better drafted, what would the constitutional and practical benefits be from that clause? Professor Ekins: We have a long tradition in our country, and in the common law world more broadly, of interpreting ouster clauses—clauses in legislation that would limit the jurisdiction of the court on judicial review—narrowly. The courts take for granted that Parliament is probably not going be excluding their supervisory capacity; if a provision is going to genuinely exclude that capacity, the courts expect it to be spelled out categorically, in black and white. There is a long history of their looking at a clause that you might have thought, especially if you had not really been attending to these clauses and their tradition and reception, did say that, and interpreting it to have a much more limited effect or no effect at all in practice, whereas the point was perhaps to exclude review. Looking at that clause and knowing what I do about the history of the reception of those clauses, I just do not think it will be understood to mean, “There can be no judicial review of a decision of the adjudicative body that, for example, is procedurally unfair, or that is so unreasonable that no adjudicative body would have reached it.” Now what it might do, and I think this is how it would be read, would be, “No judicial review challenges to that adjudicative decision on grounds of error of law, because, if you think there is an error of law, you appeal to the upper tribunal.” Fine: it would have some limited effect there. But if the point was to categorically exclude judicial review of adjudicative decisions of this body—and I do not know whether that was the policy of the Government or quite what the drafters had in mind—it certainly will not achieve that. I say “certainly”, I think it is probably the case, but I think it is very unlikely. If you drafted a different ouster clause, then one might have more hope that it would be effective; in a sense, you could specify and categorically exclude the particular grounds of judicial review that you as Parliament do not want this decision of the body to be subject to. Then, in a sense, you are taking full responsibility for what judicial review should look like in relation to this body after the legislation comes into effect. Parliament has in recent years enacted some more thoroughgoing and careful, if you like, precise, ouster clauses along those lines. These are sometimes called partial ouster clauses, because they do not categorically exclude judicial review, but they very severely limit it. There is one such ouster clause in the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022, which protects some decisions of the upper tribunal from judicial review. That model could be applied here. I should add there are some drawbacks to so doing, because this new adjudicative body, as our previous discussion may suggest and I think the structure of the Bill shows, is not a court. It will be an adjudicative body with some independence, but it will not be like the upper tribunal, which, frankly, is just like the High Court in a different mode. The constitutional case against doing it is certainly stronger than was the case with the upper tribunal; but, if Parliament takes the view that there should be no judicial review here or it should be only on these specified grounds, then there are other models available for drafting an ouster clause. If I were in your shoes, I would not rest content with clause 1(8) as it stands.
Q That is very helpful, thank you. Do you want to add anything, Dr Casey? Dr Casey: Yes, I agree. I will just say that I think that, because the Independent Immigration Appeal Authority will not be a judicial body, the courts might be more anxious in scrutinising whether a clause ousts judicial review. At the moment, the way it is drafted, as a public lawyer you read a clause trying to oust and you think how a court would read it. I can imagine a court looking at that at the minute and inserting brackets and making it “A (rational and reasonable) decision of the IIAA”, and interpreting it in that respect.
Q Clause 23 would empower the Secretary of State to require successful asylum seekers to pay costs for the support that they had during their passage through the system. To what extent might asylum seekers factor that into their decision making? Jon Featonby: I will take that decision making in a few stages. In terms of whether that measure will deter people from coming to the UK, I do not think it will have any real impact at all. A previous panel touched on how complicated this body of law is. For those who have engaged with successive immigration Bills, it is quite complex. To expect somebody who is seeking protection to follow it, and to expect Parliament or even organisations such as the Refugee Council to be the main place that those people get their information, does not reflect reality. We are concerned about the potential impact on decision making because it is important to remember that asylum support is available only to those asylum applicants who would otherwise be destitute. The Home Office puts in place quite a high bar for someone to even access support. Our concern is that if people are aware that they may be faced with debts of around £10,000, that will prevent them from accessing support. Their alternative then is to remain destitute. That is obviously very bad for those individuals and families, but it is also well established that putting people in destitution has negative consequences from a public health point of view and for wider communities. We are also concerned by that provision because, although it applies to anybody who receives asylum support, with some minor exemptions, the majority of people who will ever be in a position to even start to pay back that money are people who are going to go on to get protection. We are concerned that that will take money away from people who probably have very little in the first place and that, because not having paid back that money could be a bar on settlement in the future, it could lead to people looking to borrow the money from quite dangerous moneylenders, putting people at risk of exploitation at that point. It is quite hard to work out exactly what this will look like because there is not much detail in the Bill, but there are potentially disincentives for refugees to work. In our work at the Refugee Council, we see that people want to be able to work—they want to contribute—and the people who we support into employment, including employment in the NHS, are contributing. We think a far better use of time and resources would be to help refugees to overcome some of the barriers that they face, particularly in employment. That would allow them to contribute far more to the UK, including from tax receipts.
Q My question is for you, Alp, picking up on some of the earlier commentary. You made reference to Australia, Denmark, the USA and Greece, which have reduced numbers applying for asylum through measures that bear no resemblance to the Bill. What should we put in the Bill to replicate the success of those countries? Alp Mehmet: We could start by declaring our intention to come out of the ECHR. Human rights can be dealt with perfectly well by a country like ours without our having to be signed up to the ECHR. We could also pull out of the Council of Europe convention on action against trafficking in human beings. We should announce that the Human Rights Act 1998 will be repealed. All of that would allow us to deal with the sort of people who are, understandably, looking for a better life. I have no problem with that, but are we really saying that anyone and everyone of 118 million will be able to come here? This may sound relatively minor, but the other thing I would do is put the onus on arrivals—we used to call them passengers in the old days. We should put the onus on the migrants arriving to satisfy the immigration official dealing with them of their bona fides. That is what used to happen. Our courts have pushed us in the opposite direction: we now have to disprove. If we do not have any evidence to back that up, we are effectively saying, “Okay, we can’t prove it otherwise. We don’t know who you are. You haven’t got a passport, but we’re going to give you the benefit of the doubt, because the Home Office can’t provide the evidence to do otherwise.” That is absurd. It is also dangerous. Those are the things that I would include in the Bill. Perhaps you would expect me to say a lot of that. Look at what the Americans have done. Whatever anyone feels about some politicians in the United States, they have nevertheless been successful in closing the southern border to illegal immigration. We should put in place effective measures to stop those coming across the channel not just in boats, but in other ways. If the French were sensible and serious enough to stop the whole thing, they should volunteer to take the migrants who make their way to us from there, as should the EU. That is not going to happen anytime soon, I suspect. All in all, I am a little disheartened by the Bill, the measures in it and what is likely to happen.
Q In the view of the International Rescue Committee, what safe routes should be opened up today to deal with the issue that you have just described? Angela Afzal: We welcome the safe routes that the Home Secretary has recently announced. We think that they are a positive development. There has been a wide consultation with communities and stakeholders, and the approach has allowed communities to offer consent for the refugees who come to them. There can be planning for people arriving so that services are ready. Our experience shows that that is when you get good refugee integration and good social cohesion. We welcome the offer of complementary safe routes, so that people who want to come here to study and work, but are not able to access the usual immigration rules—
Q May I just stop you? I appreciate what you are saying, but you are not answering my question. If you do not think that the Bill will be adequate to stop people from crossing the channel in an unsafe way, how many legal routes would your organisation want to open up? Angela Afzal: I am starting by saying that we welcome the three new safe routes; that development has gone alongside this. Our main concern with the Bill is clause 21 and the impact on refugee integration. Ultimately, we would like to see safe routes so that people can arrive here from regions and do not have to travel to Europe—