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  • HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE : Ultra-Low Sulphur Petrol [February 2001]

    HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE : Ultra-Low Sulphur Petrol [February 2001]

    The press release issued by HM Treasury on 21 February 2001.

    Financial Secretary, Stephen Timms, today met the major oil companies and Independent retailers to discuss how the introduction of ULSP was going, after the meetings he said:

    “The Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in the Pre-Budget Report in November that the Government would reduce duty on ultra-low sulphur petrol on Budget day this year, in recognition of its environmental benefits, subject to consultation and it being widely available.

    The purpose of this statement is to provide an update of that process and of how the introduction of ULSP is proceeding and to set out the steps the Government is taking to ensure the smooth transition to nationwide use of this fuel.

    Lord MacDonald and I have today met with the major oil companies to discuss this issue.  On the basis of that meeting, I am glad to say that we believe that the oil companies are on track to meet their target to supply ULSP nationwide at their retail sites by the end of March.

    Lord MacDonald and I also asked representatives of independent petrol retailers to meet us today.  They operate over 5,000 retail sites across the country.  Many are small businesses, often playing a vital role supplying rural and urban communities.

    Although some independents are already supplying up to 50% ULSP, their representatives indicated that they anticipate that it could take independent retailers longer to complete the nationwide transition to ULSP than for the major oil companies, because of constraints on the capacity of UK oil refineries.

    The independent retailers could move faster by increasing imports, but this might cause uncertainty in the wholesale and retail markets and would not necessarily be to the benefit of motorists.

    The Government’s objectives are to ensure that everyone should be able to share the environmental benefits of ULSP, and the benefits of the duty cut associated with it.  It is in the whole country’s interests that these objectives are achieved, and achieved as smoothly as possible.

    Any decisions on actual duty rates will be taken and announced by the Chancellor in the Budget itself but, as a sensible measure that will be supported by independent petrol retailers, to guarantee that all motorists would benefit from a cut in duty on Budget day, I can announce that the Government intends to match any reduction in duty on ULSP that is announced in the Budget with a reduction in duty on unleaded petrol for a temporary period until 14 June 2001.

    This will ensure that the introduction of ULSP across the country will happen in the smoothest way, and that car-drivers – especially in rural areas supplied by independent petrol retailers – will be able to benefit from any duty cut that is announced in the Budget for ULSP.   We want to match nationwide availability at the major oil companies with all motorists benefiting from any duty cut at independent stations too.

    In this way we best achieve our aims set out in November – first, that the long-term benefits to the environment are achieved; second, that motorists would be able to benefit from a cut in petrol duty on Budget day; and third, that the benefit would go to all motorists in all areas.”

  • HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE : Call to action on Global Child Poverty to meet 2015 Development Targets [February 2001]

    HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE : Call to action on Global Child Poverty to meet 2015 Development Targets [February 2001]

    The press release issued by HM Treasury on 26 February 2001.

    Chancellor Gordon Brown and Clare Short today called for a global campaign to fight child poverty and meet the 2015 International Development Targets.

    Speaking at a conference in London to uniquely assembled global participants – from developed and developing countries, Government and business, NGO and civil society, the UN, UNICEF and UNDP, the IMF and World Bank – the Chancellor stressed the need for urgent action, and for collective effort, with all groups present being individually accountable for what they can do to create stronger international action against child poverty.  He said:

    “Over 10 million children will die before the age of 5. 120m children are not in primary school. Each of us as partners must be prepared to make radical changes in the way we act so that the goals of 2015 can be achieved.”

    In inaugurating this global initiative, Nelson Mandela said:

    “I warmly welcome Gordon Brown and Clare Short’s conference as a start of a new initiative calling for collective action.  And I say to the delegates – find the courage to be bold.”

    International Development Secretary Clare Short said:

    “One in five of us live in extreme poverty. If we can together coordinate our efforts behind the leadership of developing county governments, we can achieve the international development targets. Only if we all collaborate can we achieve this enormous objective.”

    The Chancellor set out a range of new initiatives on education and health:

    On education the Chancellor said:

    “Today I am pleased to announce that the British Government will create, in Her Majesty the Queen’s Jubilee Year, a fund to help achieve universal primary education in the Commonwealth. The Government will provide new resources for this initiative. We will call on business to support this effort.”

    On health, the Chancellor outlined a series of measures :

    • A new international initiative to address the devastation caused by the killer diseases – particularly HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB, which are responsible for 5 million deaths a year.

    He announced his intention to :

    • Introduce new tax incentives for research and development into effective and affordable drugs and vaccines for these diseases, linked to increased commitments by the industry itself.
    • Remove constraints in the tax system on donations of drugs and vaccines – linked to increased commitments from the industry to make donations on a more consistent basis, in support of developing countries own health strategies

    Details on these measures will be set out in the Budget.

    • A new global purchase fund, both to encourage the development and delivery of effective and affordable treatments that do not yet exist, and for the treatments already available.

    Gordon Brown linked these new initiatives with a challenge to the pharmaceutical industry – to raise the level of R&D on diseases of the poor, and to work to provide the affordable drugs and vaccines that the world so desperately needs.

    The current level of R&D to develop new vaccines yet to be discovered for the world’s killer diseases is inadequate. The international fund for vaccines provides a new approach. Work will now begin urgently to specific and agree the terms of the new fund and to lead a new international crusade to mobilise political will and resources in support of this monumental challenge.

    Carol Bellamy, head of UNICEF, welcomed the new announcements on health saying:

    “It can help save the lives of children in developing countries by closing the gap, and giving them speedier access, to necessary drugs and life saving vaccines.”

    This new health initiative builds on the UK government’s commitment to better health delivery systems.  Since 1997 the Department for International Development (DFID) has committed £1 billion to strengthen primary health care in poor countries.  A report issued for the conference by DFID, the Treasury and the Cabinet Office’s Performance and Innovation Unit (“Forging a New Commitment: Tackling the Diseases of Poverty”) describes the Government’s comprehensive strategy in more detail.

    These initiatives and the themes of the conference will be taken forward through a series of international meetings throughout 2001 and beyond – by the UN, World Bank, and the G8. The UK will work closely with the Italian Presidency of the G8, to build on the announcements at the conference today by Italian Prime Minister Amato and Finance Minister Visco.

    NOTES TO EDITORS

    1. The keynote address to the conference was given by Nelson Mandela and Graca Machel, representing the Global Movement for Children. Other speakers included, in alphabetical order:
    Mike Aaronson Save the Children
    Giuliano Amato Italian Prime Minister
    Kofi Annan UN Secretary General
    Carol Bellamy Executive Director, UNICEF
    Matthews Chikaonda Malawian Finance Minister and Co-chair of HIPC Finance Ministers
    Rt Hon Don Johnston Secretary General, OECD
    Horst Kohler Managing Director, IMF
    Jean Lemierre President, EBRD
    Mark Malloch Brown Administrator, UNDP
    Bishop Diarmuid Martin Vatican Council for Justice and Peace
    Rev Agnes Mukandoli Mothers Union, Rwanda
    Gabriella Nunez de Reyes Honduran Finance Minister
    Francisco Songane Mozambique Finance Minister
    Vincenzo Visco Italian Finance Minister
    James Wolfensohn President, World Bank

     

  • Gordon Brown – 2001 Speech at the Child Poverty Conference

    Gordon Brown – 2001 Speech at the Child Poverty Conference

    The speech made by Gordon Brown, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, in London on 26 February 2001.

    1. Why children, why now?

    From here in London, Clare Short and I want to welcome and thank all of you who gather here today from every continent — leaders of global organizations and of Governments — each with your own proud history and traditions, each with your own unique record of service and commitment, who have come together because of :

    • our shared concern: for the many millions of the world’s children who live on the knife’s edge of bare existence;
    • our shared indignation: at the senseless tragedy of young lives lost to disease and despair
    • our shared belief: that the future we want for our own children is also what we want for all the world’s children;
    • and most of all because of our shared conviction that what can be achieved together by unity of purpose is far greater than what we can ever achieve acting on our own.

    It is by putting the needs of the young and the poor not only at the centre of social policy but at the centre of financial decision-making, economic policy  and international diplomatic action, we can ensure a better future – a future of health and hope – in which no child is left behind and every child, in every country, has the opportunity to make the very most of his or her abilities.

    Yet today we can predict with grim precision that as long as children’s needs are seen as incidental and not integral to what we as Governments do; as long as they are a part and not at the heart of all policy decisions we make; each and every day of this year 30,000 children will lose the fight they are waging for life.  Seven million children will perish before reaching their first birthday.  Over ten million will die before the age of five.

    And let us not equate mere survival with strength: in the developing world, 150 million children are underweight, at severe risk to their mental and physical development.  Worldwide, 120 million children go without even five years of schooling, their chances crippled by disease, natural disasters and war before life’s journey has even begun.

    This is the face of poverty today in the places and among the people left behind – staggering, disfiguring, galling, grinding poverty: the face of global poverty is the face of a young child.

    And it is an affront to our basic belief in the equal worth, and inherent potential, of every human life.  It is a challenge to the values at the core of our character.

    Those of us in the developed world, many of whom are enjoying unprecedented plenty, must regard poverty on this scale not only as an economic challenge, but also a moral imperative of the highest order.

    I agree with those who say that good times are as stern a test of character as bad times.  In this era of prosperity, more than ever, the world’s children must become our cause.

    In that spirit, let us start by paying tribute to the powerful example set by Nelson Mandela and Graca Machel.  No two individuals have done more to speak up for the future.  And when Nelson Mandela tells the children of the world —

    ‘If I could promise you every one of your days will be a day of leaning and growing, I would but I promise you what I know I can deliver: to work every day in every way to support you as you grow’;

    And when Graca Machel says —

    ‘I have seen how one year of school changes a child … I have seen a generation of children armed with education lift up a nation’;

    Then we know that, as we approach the UN Special Session on Children this September, these two leaders are inspiring – and Carol Bellamy and Unicef and UNDP are assembling – a new global partnership for children so wide, so powerful and so determined that no obstacle should be allowed to impede its    path of progress.

    For if this is a moment of urgency, it is also a moment of profound opportunity.

    Today we are also privileged to be hearing from Horst Kohler and James Wolfensohn, who have just returned from a pathbreaking trip to Africa…

    • who heard the clarion call of an extraordinary coalition of faith groups, NGOs and multilateral organisations…
    • who together brought the world’s richest nations to whom so much is given, and the world’s poorest nations whose needs are greatest, into a unique alliance to tackle debt and poverty – an alliance whose work, even as the first 22 countries secure debt relief, has only just begun.
    • leaders who because they recognise the need for  a virtuous circle of debt relief, poverty reduction and sustainable development, have, along with Kofi Annan, the United Nations, Unicef, and UNDP, committed themselves to an historic joint declaration from which there is no turning back.

    It is the first official joint declaration of the IMF, World Bank, OECD and UN that ‘poverty in all its forms is the greatest challenge to the international community.’

    It is a resolution to work together to meet the 2015 development targets, not least:

    • halving the number of people living in  poverty;
    • enrolling all children in primary school;
    • and reducing by two thirds infant and child mortality rates.

    and it is a partnership against poverty which to succeed will demand new and concrete commitments;

    and the purpose of this conference today is to examine the detailed means of reaching these goals.

    2.  The purpose of this conference – a call to action

    First, if we are to realize our shared goals we must embrace our shared responsibility – by setting out the practical steps each partner must take, for ends  will mean precious little without the means to achieve them.

    Too often, the world has set goals like the international development targets of 2015 and failed to meet them.  Too often, we have set targets, reset them, and reset them again, so that our ambitions, in the end, outdistance our achievements.

    Indeed, though our targets are achievable, we are already in danger of missing the mark.  Projecting forward, we can see our trajectory will fall far short on education, on health, on poverty.

    So it is not enough that we have made a pledge.  As Mr Mandela and Ms Machel have written: ‘please hold us to it.’  theirs is a simple and powerful plea for the accountability we all must demand of ourselves  and demand of one another.  For if the sum of our actions amounts to no more than its parts, we will be fated to ask ourselves, in the year 2015, ‘why did we fail?’

    If the worldwide debt campaign has taught us anything it is that we advance only if we advance as one.  For we are not powerless individuals, but together have power.  We are all rich and poor, old and young bound in one vast network of mutuality, across all the lines that might otherwise divide citizens of different countries, perhaps, operating from a thousand different centres of energy, conscience and conviction, but members of the same global community, the same moral universe.

    Because our shared responsibility does not diminish our individual accountability, our conference must have a second purpose.  We must not only set ourselves on a specific course of action, but each of us as partners must be prepared to make radical changes in the way we act so that the goals of 2015 can be achieved.

    Marching with us are not just the memories of those who lost out when we have failed in the past but the hopes and expectations, the dreams and ambitions, of millions of young people who look to us for the future.  And their voices must be heard too.

    And so as the UK Government we make this declaration: that as we discuss with all of you how to meet these 2015 goals, we will be ready to reshape our policies, adjust our expenditures, and refashion our priorities so that the actions of each of us make possible the attainment of the goals set by all of us.  And we ask all other participants to do likewise.

    Here in Tony Blair’s Government, Clare Short has been a true leader in changing the UK approach, crafting concrete, comprehensive policies for the problems of global poverty; increasing her aid budget by 2004 by 45 per cent in real terms, and untying all our development aid; ensuring that development assistance be directed to country-owned and community-driven poverty reduction strategies; renouncing Britain’s right to benefit from any of the highly indebted poor countries; bolstering conflict prevention with a new Africa fund and by banning for 62 countries export credits for unproductive expenditures; and because growth through trade is one of the best means of lifting people up, committing with all EU states to open our markets to all products made in the least developed countries, and to strengthen their voice in the WTO.

    And today we hope that in our declaration each of us can move forward –  making new commitments that ensure that the work of each institution enhances the work of the other, and that the whole of our actions becomes greater than the sum of our parts.

    Commitments from –

    • the IMF and World Bank: that the detailed commitments in the poverty reduction strategies, including targets to reduce child poverty, will be implemented in practice at the centre of economic and financial policy;
    • from the UN family: to support developing countries in making health and education a priority;
    • from developed countries: to increase and untie their aid commitment, and to open their markets;
    • from developing countries: to create community-driven poverty reduction strategies and make them the centre of economic policy;
    • and from NGOs and faith groups: to coordinate their efforts in giving voice to the voiceless and empowering the powerless.

    4. A call to action — to create the virtuous circle

    And today as we issue our call to action, a call that we hope will be heard   and heeded by all Governments, and resonate far beyond these walls and these borders, there are two areas on which action is imperative: education and health in the world’s poorest countries.

    First, we know that education is a precondition of progress personal and national – the very best anti-poverty strategy, the best economic development program.  There is simply no better means to empower the powerless, to put their future directly in their hands.  Education should be the birthright of every child.

    The case for investing in primary education is unanswerable and remains mostly unanswered.

    In the past decade, primary enrolments have increased at twice the rate of the 1980s.  Still, tragically, 130 million children do not attend primary school.  two-thirds of these are girls. Almost half of all African children and one-quarter of those in South and West Asia are being denied this fundamental right, this basic root of all opportunity.  It is little wonder, then, that 900 million people over the age of 15 are illiterate – one sixth of the world’s population.

    Public expenditure per pupil, in the 19 least developed countries, is less than $40 — compared to $200 per pupil in developing countries, and $5,300 in more advanced economies.

    So there is more we must do; and that approach must begin with aid.  Since 1997, the UK has increased its commitments on education by £500 million.

    But no aid budget, and no one nation, can achieve enough on its own.  And because multilateral action is essential, it is crucial that honoured in action is the commitment made by 180 countries at the World Forum on Education at Dakar to achieving quality basic education for all, with a special emphasis on education for girls.

    And we must build on that commitment, as Graca Machel agrees, extending into the refugee camps and even beyond the confines of the camps into the areas of conflict themselves, helping ensure that one day, not even war or its aftermath will be an excuse for denying a child his or her basic human right of a decent education.

    I know that with Prime Minister Amato addressing us by video link, and Finance Minister Visco speaking to our lunch, Italy, president of the G-7, has a new proposal for world wide action; and I am also pleased to announce that the British Government will create, in Her Majesty the Queen’s Jubilee Year, a fund to speed the introduction of universal primary education in the Commonwealth.  It is a fund to help the 75 million children in Commonwealth countries who lack a basic education, by building fair and effective education systems and creating new opportunity for girls and disadvantaged groups.  And we will call on business to support this effort.

    We must also act – every bit as swiftly and purposefully – on health.

    We know that the poorer the family, the less healthy the child. And we well know the cost, human and economic, of infectious disease in developing countries.  Diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and diarrhoeal diseases kill 8 million children a year.  In South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe, half of all 15-year olds are expected to die of aids.  In sub-Saharan Africa, where AIDS is the leading cause of death, AIDS will cut the GDP of some countries by 20 per cent.

    These are dread diseases. But let us not forget that they are also preventable.  This knowledge shames us even as it spurs us on:

    • as much as half of all malaria deaths could be prevented if people had access to diagnosis and drugs that cost no more than 12 cents;
    • a quarter of all child deaths could be prevented if children slept beneath $4 bed-nets.  In Africa, only one per cent of children do;
    • millions of lives could be saved by TB medicines, which are 95 per cent effective and cost as little as $10 for a six-month treatment;
    • and millions of cases of HIV could be prevented through well-targeted, low cost prevention and care strategies.

    Where these strategies have been implemented, they have brought results.  The latest UN figures show that however limited their resources, poor countries that make treatment and prevention a priority can stem the spread of HIV and AIDS as Uganda, Thailand and Senegal have, and cut TB deaths by 50 per cent, as China, India and Peru have.

    There is more that developing countries can do to reduce disease and despair; yet there is a natural limit imposed by their ailing economies.  The countries that most urgently need to devote more resources to health care are the countries that spend the least on health care.  For example, in 1999, per capita health spending in sub-Saharan Africa amounted to $86 — a mere fifth of the world average.

    So there is more we must do; and, again, we must do it together.  Ours should not be isolated interventions; everything we do must mesh with current efforts to improve health.  This government has today issued a paper on the merits of a comprehensive approach.

    And today, on behalf of the British Government, Clare and I are pleased to announce two new proposals to improve health in the countries hit hardest.

    First, where only 10 percent of all biomedical research is devoted to diseases that overwhelmingly affect the world’s poor, we will create new tax incentives to accelerate the research done on diseases like AIDS, TB and malaria.

    I am further prepared to match that tax credit for research done in the United Kingdom with a tax credit for research done elsewhere.  But such a proposal must be met by a corporate commitment to create new drugs and vaccines in ways that truly meet the needs of the poor and sick.

    And if the pharmaceutical companies were prepared to increase the availability of treatments on a pro bono basis – treatments that are genuinely needed – we would be prepared to match that commitment by considering it as a tax deduction.

    Second, a purchase fund – providing a credible commitment to create a market for current and future treatments in developing countries – would surely serve as a strong incentive to develop and deliver affordable treatments.

    That is why, in a joint effort with Italy, the President of the G-7, the UK proposes that a new global purchase fund for drugs and vaccines be created.  Both for treatments that do not yet exist but could be developed in time – for AIDS and malaria, for example – as well as for those that already exist and need to be purchased now.

    Again, I call on the pharmaceutical companies to join us.  I call on them to step up to their responsibility – to recognize the scale of the challenge we face and to respond on an equal scale, by developing and delivering affordable treatments for the world’s poor.  Because, quite simply, we cannot save lives and raise hopes without their commitment.

    Conclusion

    Our purpose, Nelson Mandela has said, ‘is to get specific commitments… and specific results.’  And if we can do this in the world of tomorrow, countries can be defined not by land mass or military might as in the past but by the health and the achievement of new generations: the truest test of our progress is that a mother in sub-Saharan Africa can give birth without fear; that a child in South Asia has sustenance and shelter; that a young man or woman possesses the tools and skills and education it will take not only to live, but to thrive, in the 21st century.

    And so here in 2001,

    • led in our efforts by Nelson Mandela and Graca Machel;
    • summoned to act by the cries of children;
    • indeed inspired by the children I have seen in Jakarta living above open sewers, yet with eyes still bright with expectation and hope;
    • moved to action by school-pupils in Uganda who we will hear about today, who because of debt relief will now see classrooms with roofs, schools with teachers , and school lessons with  books;
    • shocked into even greater action by aid worker after aid worker describing mothers fighting to save the lives of their newborn children and, in that struggle, losing their own lives too, avoidable tragedies multiplied a million times over;
    • encouraged by the new commitments by the IMF and World Bank and the UN family;
    • and inspired by charities, churches, and companies who are engaged as never before.

    We can see what the world – firm of heart and united in spirit – can do and will do – not as isolated acts of charity, but as wave upon wave of caring, collective endeavour, and compassion in action … flowing from this moment, and this year, to 2015 and well beyond.

    From London in February to Washington’s IMF and World Bank meetings in April, from Genoa’s G-7 meetings in July to New York’s UN Children’s Summit in September, at every moment, our thoughts are on and our inspiration drawn from the needs of children in Jakarta, Bangladesh, Uganda, and anywhere and everywhere that poverty and injustice exists, so that we will achieve our goal, the goal of decent minded people everywhere in the world, that no child is left behind.

  • HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE : International Action Against Child Poverty conference- Concluding statement by Clare Short and Gordon Brown [February 2001]

    HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE : International Action Against Child Poverty conference- Concluding statement by Clare Short and Gordon Brown [February 2001]

    The press release issued by HM Treasury on 26 February 2001.

    CONCLUDING STATEMENT BY CLARE SHORT, SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND GORDON BROWN, CHANCELLOR OF EXCHEQUER

    Background

    We enter the 21st century with nearly 10 million children dying every year before their first birthday. 12 million die before their 5th birthday. And 120 million children are without even 5 years of schooling. In the face of these tragic facts – and in the year of the United Nations Children’s Summit – all the participants at the conference today recognised we must do much more to tackle the poverty of today’s children and so build hope for the next generation.

    Child poverty and the seven international development targets

    Over the last ten years the nations of the world have agreed upon seven international development targets to be achieved by 2015. Achieving these targets would mean halving the proportion of children living in poverty, making primary education accessible for all children, ending discrimination against girls in education, dramatically improving the health position of the poorest children and their families and finally reversing the trend of environmental degradation so that there is a sustainable world for our children to inherit.

    Reaffirmation of commitment to seven international targets

    Today, we all therefore reaffirmed our joint commitment to making every possible effort to reach these international targets and acknowledged the need to intensify our collective efforts. We aim, through achieving these targets, to offer this generation of poor children the opportunities denied to their parents.

    Roles and responsibilities

    We all welcomed the stronger leadership role that developing countries are starting to play, such as through the Millennium Programme for the Renaissance of Africa and the Poverty Reduction Strategy process.

    As representatives from developed and developing countries, the private sector, non-governmental organisations, faith communities and multilateral institutions, we recognise the need to work within our powers and responsibilities to ensure that a greater effort is made to guarantee that the International Development Targets are met.

    Our joint responsibility for the targets must reinforce, not diminish, accountability for the outcome. We all have a joint responsibility to work towards these goals, with each accountable for actions within specific responsibilities.

    Today, we agreed to work together to commit to a clear set of specific actions for which we will all be individually accountable.  These commitments will enable us to deliver the international targets and so break the intergenerational cycle, which would otherwise mean that today’s poor children would become the parents of tomorrow’s poor children.

    Our discussions today have been a key step in the process of developing such a set of actions. But we will need to work together over the coming months to develop these further, with the aim of finalising them in time for the UN Special Session on Children.

    We therefore welcome the specific commitments made by representatives today in particular that

    UNICEF will

    • continue to invest in programmes to reduce infant and under-five mortality and promote child survival;
    • increase the share of resources for basic education to ensure all children get a quality primary education, with a special emphasis on girls.

    UNDP will

    • ensure that UN development agencies focus their efforts around realisation of the Millennium Declaration and the achievement of the International Development Targets;
    • work with government, civil society and private sector partners to support nationally owned, inclusive Poverty Reduction Strategies;
    • ensure that the UN system plays a full part in facilitating both government led programmes and donor co-ordination;
    • help developing countries set, measure and reach national poverty reduction and human development targets. To this end, UNDP will support country teams produce, in partnership with developing countries, regular national reports which benchmark progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Declaration and the International Development Targets;
    • aggregate national reports into the Secretary-General’s annual report on progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Declaration and International Development Targets;
    • upgrade the quality and impact of National Human Development Reports;
    • make the Secretary-General’s Global Compact ‘local’ by organising action-oriented dialogue among stakeholders, including business, civil society and government, with a view to promoting sustainable and broad-based economic development.

    IMF and World Bank will

    • continue actively to use the International Development Targets as a common framework to guide policies and programmes and to assess their  policies’ and programmes’ effectiveness;
    • help governments to broaden participation and develop greater ownership of macroeconomic, structural and social policy issues;
    • support governments in developing programmes, policies and budgets that are in line with comprehensive poverty reduction strategies and which are pro-poor and pro-growth, shifting support towards activities that demonstrably benefit poor people and promote both equity and efficiency;
    • ensure that appropriate social impact analysis is undertaken of  structural reform measures, so that countervailing measures can be put in place to support groups adversely affected by reforms;
    • ensure appropriate flexibility in fiscal targets of IMF programmes (such as in post conflict situations, in response to unexpected external shocks;  and to ensure that development assistance is genuinely additional to a country’s own resources);
    • assist governments to improve accountability of public resource management (including by providing regular assessment in their IMF review);
    • assist governments to cost and regularly assess what needs to be done in order to achieve their poverty reduction targets and the International Development Targets;
    • strengthen support to countries by further decentralisation of World Bank functions and expertise.

    UK will, and encourages other developed countries to

    • make every effort to increase development assistance;
    • increase the proportion of development assistance going to the poorest countries;
    • untie all development assistance;
    • coordinate their efforts more effectively and ensure development assistance is directed at the needs of the poorest, without consideration of the convenience of the donor;
    • base their assistance on countries? own Poverty Reduction Strategies by:
    • limiting the administrative burdens placed upon recipient countries;
    • ensuring compatibility with countries? budget-setting priorities and procedures work;
    • ensuring donor support is used in support of long-term reform programmes;
    • ensure that level of development assistance is predictable;
    • work to remove barriers to market access for all goods from least developed countries;
    • ensure export credit supports to poor countries are not used for unproductive expenditures and tighten controls on small arms transfers;
    • renounce the right from this year onwards to any benefit from the historic debt owed by the HIPC countries, in addition to committing to write off 100% of all bilateral HIPC debts starting at decision point.

    Developing countries will

    • analyse macroeconomic policies for impact on poverty reduction;
    • ensure that poverty reduction policies fight all aspects of inequity in their countries;
    • ensure that Poverty Reduction Strategies demonstrate how they will enable International Development Targets to be delivered;
    • adopt fully costed programme budgets and comprehensive long term expenditure frameworks;
    • strengthen capacity to spend debt relief savings and new assistance effectively on poverty reduction programmes and on improving the quality of services;
    • take the lead in co-ordinating donors, NGOs, faith groups and the private sector in supporting country Poverty Reduction Strategies;
    • continue their efforts to empower the poor, by integrating participation into all their democratic structures;
    • work to strengthen the accountability of financial management systems so as to eliminate corruption;
    • accelerate efforts to improve domestic resource mobilisation to increase domestic funding for poverty reduction;
    • tightly limit new external borrowing for productive purposes;
    • improve the access of the poor to equitable justice systems;
    • intensify efforts to promote peace in their regions;
    • strengthen health care systems and access for poor people (including putting in place universal primary health care systems) so that existing HIV/AIDS drugs and the new support investment treatments can be made available to all.

    Private sector and medical research community will

    take the lessons and commitments made today to a parallel conference on the role of business to be held later this year;

    • develop at that conference an action plan to meet this challenge.

    Group of seventeen NGOs will, and encourage other NGOs, Faith groups & committed individuals to

    • raise public awareness regarding the outrage of child poverty and build global solidarity with poor girls, boys, women and men as they struggle to secure their rights and better their lives;
    • in partnership with poor communities and southern civil society organisations work to overcome the causes of poverty and injustice and specifically to:
    • ensure that the poorest and most marginalised including children speak and are heard in the decisions, processes and institutions affecting their lives including Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers and other resource allocation processes;
    • ensure all decision makers are held accountable to poor people of all ages for concrete progress towards the realisation of rights and the achievement of the International  Development Target;
    • campaign and advocate north and south for urgent action on international debt, trade, education, health, HIV/AIDS, conflict and violence and other key issues impacting directly on the ability of poor countries and people to secure rights and achieve the International Development Targets;
    • assist government and communities through funding expertise and other inputs in developing sustainable and participatory solutions that improve  the daily lives of poor children and their families.

    Next steps

    We all agreed on the need to take action and to pursue any further measures necessary in the months and years ahead to ensure the 2015 targets are met in every country.  We will be doing this in all the fora we all work in, such as the HIPC Finance Ministers meeting in June 2001, the UN Special Session for Children in September 2001, the World Bank and IMF in the Spring and Annual meetings, and as we develop national and international policy.  The aim will be, year by year, country by country, to improve the impact of our work in support of the world’s poorest children.

  • HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE : Andrew Smith announces sale of 51 percent of Partnerships UK to Private sector [February 2001]

    HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE : Andrew Smith announces sale of 51 percent of Partnerships UK to Private sector [February 2001]

    The press release issued by HM Treasury on 27 February 2001.

    The Treasury is seeking private investors for a 51 per cent stake in Partnerships UK, the wholly owned government company set up to develop and implement more efficient public private partnerships (PPPs) and to promote the development of Wider Markets projects, Chief Secretary Andrew Smith announced today.

    By selling a 51 per cent stake, the Treasury plans to raise a minimum of £22.5 million of equity by private placement with qualifying institutions. Prior to completion of the Offer, it is expected that Partnerships UK will have a capital base of £45 million. Each potential qualifying investor will be invited to invest between £1 million and £5 million.

    Speaking about the announcement to dispose of a majority shareholding to the private sector Andrew Smith said:

    “The opening up of the market in this way is a significant development in the PPP sector in what is becoming an increasingly mature market place.

    By turning Partnerships UK into a public private partnership the Government is creating a key market opening for private sector shareholders, keen to seize the opportunity to help the public sector deliver modern, high quality public services.

    Partnerships between the public and private sectors are the cornerstone of the Government’s modernisation programme. With Partnerships UK already pioneering a business model in a strong private sector market they are well positioned to play a pivotal role in developing and expanding the PPP market and to bring private sector disciplines to bear on public sector procurement.

    PPPs bring with them new challenges that require specialist skills and a high level of expertise. With their high calibre management team and skilled practitioners with significant public and private sector experience and their public sector mission, I expect Partnerships UK to remain at the cutting edge of project improvement and development for years to come.”

    Derek Higgs, Non Executive Chairman of Partnerships UK said:

    “This move marks a major stepping stone in Partnerships UK’s business plan. Having access to new capital will accelerate the fulfilment of PUK’s public sector mission in driving forward successful PPPs.

    The initial response has shown that interest in investing in Partnerships UK is high and we look forward to working with our public and private shareholders to make the business a success.”

    James Stewart, Chief Executive of Partnerships UK said:

    “Partnerships UK is already fully operational and working on a wide range of PPP projects. The move to a PPP and the raising of capital will be the springboard to develop the business further.

    We are confident that we can drive forward the Government’s ambitions to see effective public private partnerships. Partnerships UK will strive to be at the forefront of the development and implementation of better, faster and stronger PPP transactions, helping to deliver value for money public services and efficient utilisation of public sector assets.”

    The Private Placement offer will close on 27 March 2001. The basis of allocation under the offer is expected to be announced at the end of March. Following the completion of the Offer, Partnerships UK will be 51 per cent owned by the private sector and 49 per cent owned by the public sector.

    N M Rothschild & Sons Limited is acting as Placement Agent for and financial adviser to the Treasury in connection with the offer for sale by the Treasury to certain qualifying institutions. Partnerships UK’s financial targets will be to achieve a rate of return of its investors which is commensurate with the risks of its activities.

    Following completion of the Offer, Partnerships UK will become a public private partnership : a joint venture with the public sector owning a minority interest and the private sector owning a majority. The governance structure is designed to balance private sector disciplines with Partnerships UK’s public sector mission. A majority of board members will come from the private sector and the public sector will be represented by two non-executive directors appointed by the Treasury. The wider public interest will be represented through an Advisory Council made up of representatives from Government departments, Devolved Administrations, local authorities and other public bodies from amongst Partnerships UK’s clients.

    As the successor to the Treasury Taskforce, Partnerships UK will aim to make PPPs a success, working in partnership with public bodies. Partnerships UK has been set up to help the public sector deliver:

    • fast and efficient development and procurement of PPPs
    • strong PPPs that build stable relationships with the private sector;
    • savings in development costs;
    • better value for money.

    Partnerships UK plc has entered into a Framework Agreement with the Treasury for up to five years under which Partnerships UK will continue the work of the Treasury Taskforce, providing general support to the Treasury, the Office of Government Commerce and other parts of the public sector.

  • HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE : The IMF commends UK Economic Policy [February 2001]

    HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE : The IMF commends UK Economic Policy [February 2001]

    The press release issued by HM Treasury on 28 February 2001.

    The IMF has “commended” the UK Government “for the continued strong performance of the UK economy”.

    At a discussion in Washington on 23 February, the IMF said that “plans to increase public investment in infrastructure and human capital are justified in light of the evidence” and welcomed the Government’s efforts “to enhance competition, innovation and entrepreneurship”.

    The Directors agreed that “sound fiscal and monetary policies, underpinned by transparent medium-term policy frameworks as well as sustained implementation of structural reforms” have contributed to the strength of the economy in recent years. They also “expected output growth would remain robust” while “prospects for inflation remain benign”.

    Against this benign inflation outlook, the Directors noted that “even after taking into account recent spending decisions, the fiscal position remains sound and fully consistent with the authorities medium-term fiscal framework”.  The Chancellor agrees entirely with the Directors’ conclusion that “additional fiscal stimulus would limit the room for further interest rate cuts”. That is why he has made clear that he intends in the Budget to lock in the tough fiscal stance set out in the pre-Budget report and Budget 2000.

    Commenting on the IMF’s report, the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, said:

    “I welcome the IMF’s report. It outlines the importance of economic stability and the contribution of the Government’s macroeconomic framework to the ongoing success of the UK economy.  Moreover, it highlights the contribution of our prudent and cautious approach to managing the public finances to these successes in recent years.

    I agree with the IMF that boosting UK productivity performance is a key priority to achieving higher long-term growth and sustained increases in living standards.  Our approach recognises the importance of economic stability and strong policy frameworks, combined with microeconomic reforms and policies to enhance competition, innovation and entrepreneurship, for building long-term economic strength, high levels of productivity growth and rising living standards for all.”

    As was the case last year, at the request of the UK Government the IMF is today publishing its Article IV staff report on the UK economy in full, along with the record of the IMF board discussion, and the UK’s statement in the board meeting.

    Commenting on publication of the Article IV and associated papers, the Chancellor said:

    “The publication of the IMF’s report on the UK economy clearly demonstrates our commitment to open up the IMF’s scrutiny process.  Making available clear independent information on policy is an essential part of the new international financial architecture.”

  • HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE : Myners Report on Institutional Investment [March 2001]

    HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE : Myners Report on Institutional Investment [March 2001]

    The press release issued by HM Treasury on 6 March 2001.

    Paul Myners today published his report on institutional investment, commissioned by Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown in his Budget speech on 21 March 2000.

    In response, the Treasury said :

    “This is an important report. The Chancellor will respond in tomorrow’s Budget. The Government will also publish a joint DSS/HMT document on the future of the MFR.”

    HM Treasury and DSS announced the publication of a consultation document and joint review of the future of the minimum funding requirement (MFR), which applies to most occupational pension schemes, on 14 September 2000.

    Paul Myners published his views on the MFR ahead of his main report on institutional investment in a letter to Gordon Brown and Social Security Secretary Alistair Darling on 8 November 2000. This was to enable respondents to the joint review to take account of Mr Myners’ views during this consultation, which closed on 31 January 2001. The Treasury and DSS will take account of all views received in its announcement on the outcome of the joint review.

  • HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE : Credit Unions get improved powers to help tackle financial exclusion [March 2001]

    HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE : Credit Unions get improved powers to help tackle financial exclusion [March 2001]

    The press release issued by HM Treasury on 12 March 2001.

    Help with debt and easier access to mortgages for the financially excluded will be available from 1 April under measures to boost credit unions, Economic Secretary Melanie Johnson announced today.

    Savers, including young people, will also benefit from steps towards deregulation of credit unions. These include :

    • increasing the savings limits for young people to £5000 – the fixed limit for adults.
    • enabling all credit unions to offer secured loans for seven years and unsecured loans for three years, helping members with debt problems.
    • enabling credit unions meeting stricter regulatory requirements to offer secured loans for 12 years and unsecured loans for five years, helping members seeking longer loans, eg for house purchase.

    More flexible loan periods permit credit unions to offer easier repayment arrangements to their members. This should assist some of the larger credit unions to offer more substantial loans and increase their capacity to offer mortgages.

    Welcoming implementation of the proposals on 1 April, Miss Johnson said :

    “This is good news for everyone, but particularly the financially excluded, for whom credit unions offer alternative access to financial services. These measures mark an important step towards improving the service which credit unions are able to offer savers and borrowers.

    Enabling them to save more will encourage young people to join credit unions and get used to planning and managing their finances sooner. Greater loan flexibility will make it easier for credit unions to help members overcome personal debt problems and to compete for mortgage business.

    Credit unions are an effective way of widening access to affordable credit and savings opportunities to those who cannot or do not want to deal with mainstream financial services providers. The movement is growing and there are now around 700 credit unions in Britain with assets of over £200 million.

    We wish to see the movement grow and to realise its potential. But individual credit unions must be effectively managed and offer appropriate safeguards to make them attractive to those looking for better ways to manage their money and financial affairs.

    The measures which will come into force next month will ease the regulatory burden and help the credit union movement to grow further and faster and attract more members.”

  • Richard Allan – 2022 Speech on NHS and Social Care Workers [Baron Allan]

    Richard Allan – 2022 Speech on NHS and Social Care Workers [Baron Allan]

    The speech made by Richard Allan, Baron Allan, in the House of Lords on 15 December 2022.

    Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)

    My Lords, it is clearly very timely that we are able to have this debate today, when the concerns of staff in the NHS are making the headlines. It follows a series of exchanges on related questions during the week. It may appear to the Minister that I am acting as something of an understudy to my noble friend Lady Brinton. If so, that is a correct impression as I hope to take over her position as the Front-Bench spokesperson from the new year, assuming that I pass muster today and am not fired before I start the job. Before I get on to my substantive remarks, I should declare a non-financial interest as a director of a not-for-profit called the Centre for Public Data, as I will touch on relevant issues during my comments.

    I will start by talking about nurses’ pay. I will not rehash the arguments we have had through the week. The Minister has made his case for leaving decisions to the independent NHS Pay Review Body—I have read its report and it is certainly very thorough—but I ask him to reflect on whether this process works at a time of extraordinary inflation. I think it is correct to say that inflation is now higher than at any time during the review body’s existence; the last time we were close to this was in the early 1990s.

    The Minister has argued that nurses can make their case for a rise that reflects the inflation we have had this year, during the next review process that will start in early 2023. That may indeed, and we hope it will, lead to a meaningful uplift in pay for 2023-24, but it will still leave nurses facing huge increases in the cost of living now, with the next award still some way off.

    In a normal year of 2% or 3% inflation, people can carry those increased costs in the expectation of a later pay rise, but that will clearly be much harder for them when price rises are in the double digits and there is no prospect that they will come down across the board. It seems reasonable to look at whether the independent pay review process needs a mechanism that can be triggered in such exceptional circumstances; otherwise, the risk is that staff will feel that they cannot wait for pay to catch up with prices, that they will leave the service and that this will make the staff shortages that are the subject of this debate even worse. As staff shortages get worse, conditions get worse for those who remain.

    On the social care side of the equation, I know that the Minister is acutely aware of the knock-on effects of there being too few places in social care for people who should be coming out of hospital. We have discussed that in Questions about the ambulance crisis—another thing that is coming to a head over the next few weeks and months.

    It is just over a year since the Government published their strategy for reforming social care on 10 December 2021, but since then we have had two new Prime Ministers and seen major planks of that strategy jettisoned along the way. Yet the problems remain acute and are in need of long-term reform and commitments, just as they were in 2021.

    I hope the Minister can shed more light today on how the Government intend to ensure that there are sufficient social care places, and especially how they can do this when local authority budgets are being squeezed and the care home providers face increased costs, all of which tends towards fewer rather than more social care places being available. The Health and Social Care Committee in another place estimated that we will need another 490,000 social care jobs by the early 2030s—all this while we are not even filling the current vacancies.

    A key further element in the Government’s approach to improving NHS staffing is their new commitment to publish a long-term workforce plan. This has been widely welcomed, particularly the fact that the Government have committed to it being independently verified.

    In that context, I encourage the Minister to consider two aspects of the plan in order to make it as useful as possible. First, it should be as rich and granular as possible in the data it provides on the workforce, so that groups who are interested in particular conditions can see what is happening in their area of interest. For example, Parkinson’s UK has been in touch, flagging that it finds it hard to understand the level of filled and vacant posts for staff specialising in the care of people with Parkinson’s. There is current data available from NHS Digital, but it does not have the granularity needed. It is a common complaint that, once you aggregate data or spread things out in averages, you often lose sight of the most important information. Knowing that there is a 10% average vacancy rate in a particular region is not especially helpful if there is a 30% vacancy rate in the area of concern. I hope the Minister is able to commit, in that process of workforce planning, to publishing as much granular data as possible.

    Secondly, it is important that full datasets are made publicly available and regularly updated for that independent scrutiny to take place. The more that people are able to look at the data, the more robust the plan will become. NHS Digital has been publishing useful staffing data and releasing this under the open government licence, so that other people can reuse it. This model should be further developed as part of the workforce strategy, adding the projections that the Government are going to make and any other data that is being collected and used within the strategy. Transparency of this kind can be painful for a Government as people will query or challenge their data and models, but that pain will lead to improvement over time.

    The final area I want to raise in this short debate is the tools that we provide to NHS and social care staff. This is a particular passion of mine, as I spent several happy years working for the NHS in the early part of my career, implementing information technology systems. Back then, we were plagued by major IT system failures—none of the systems I built were in that category, I might add. An excuse often used was that the size and scale of the NHS meant that it needed bigger and more complex systems than anyone else’s.

    Fast-forward to 2022, and we can see that many services are operating at much greater scale than the NHS is today, and they are using tools that are fast and extremely user-friendly. When done well, IT systems make life easier for workers but, when done badly, they add to their stress and perceived workload. There are still too many instances of this latter effect in the NHS. In her article in the Guardian last week, Tara Porter described how poor IT meant that she ended up seeing fewer, not more, patients. This was a significant factor in the decision that she took to leave the NHS as a psychologist, after more than two decades working in the service.

    I venture to quote Aldous Huxley in his 1946 introduction to Brave New World. He called for a world in which:

    “Science and technology would be used as though, like the Sabbath, they had been made for man, not … as though man were to be adapted and enslaved to them.”

    This maxim is well worth bearing in mind as we rightly continue to introduce new technology into health and social care. It should work for staff and patients, making their lives easier and improving outcomes; they should not end up feeling like they are working for the machines.

    To conclude, I hope the Minister can reflect on the genuine problem of pay rises lagging behind living costs in times of extraordinary inflation. I would like to hear more about the Government’s current thinking on the long-term strategy for social care, after the recent chopping and changing we have seen since it was published. I hope that he can assure us that rich data will be made publicly available through the new workforce strategy so that others can independently verify it, and indeed do their own modelling. I do not expect him to have any quick fixes on the information technology solutions as this is such a long-running saga within the health service, but I look forward to engaging with him on this and other issues over the coming months.

    Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)

    My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam, for raising this issue today. As he says, this debate is extremely timely. I have to say that I am a bit surprised and disappointed that so few speakers have signed up for this debate. It is obviously for noble Lords to make their own decisions about which issues they wish to raise, but this one is crucial. You only have to look at the front pages of today’s newspapers to realise how important this is.

    There is a whole range of issues that could be raised in discussing these issues; I will focus on just two. That is in no way intended to diminish the importance of other issues. As a veteran of the long-lost and unlamented healthcare Bill, I am glad mention was made of the workforce plan. There was a whole debate then in which the Government were resistant to introducing a workforce plan, but it has suddenly become a priority for them. Maybe there is a case there that they need to listen.

    The first of the two issues I will focus on is pay in general, and because today is today, I will talk about nurses’ pay. Secondly, I am going to take this opportunity to talk about pensions in the National Health Service and, in particular, the impact of taxation rules, particularly the annual allowance and the lifetime allowance, on employment in the NHS. When I first thought of contributing to this debate, I thought I would have less time and would focus on just that issue. However, now I have the luxury of 10 minutes, I have expanded my remarks.

    First, pay is an issue across the whole service. All workers within the National Health Service have seen problems with their pay and the need for action to be taken to overcome the clear requirement to sort out the problems that we face. I do not think there is any question that there are big problems and that sorting out pay is a crucial element in resolving them. It is not the only answer, but it is the one I am focusing on today.

    In particular, I am focusing on nursing, where we have compelling figures: there are 47,496 nursing vacancies. No doubt the Government will tell us that they have increased the number of nurses, but there is still a horrendous level of nursing vacancies. Over 7 million people are waiting for treatment in the National Health Service, and there are 363,000 people who are out of work because of long-term illness. So, pay is one of the direct measures to address those issues. I hope the Minister will say that he recognises that, even though the Government believe that they are under various constraints. The issue, therefore, is not about whether we can afford to meet the demands that have been made for improved pay; the issue is, with the problems faced by the health service, can we afford not to sort out pay?

    To be clear, I support the nurses’ demand for a significant pay rise, achieved through collective bargaining. The Government cannot hide behind the independent pay review process because it is clearly broken. I will not undertake a full analysis of the pay review process today, but sticking the word “independent” into a phrase does not make it independent. The Government appoint the members of the pay review body and issue a remit letter that sets out what they can do. It is no criticism of the members of the pay review body to say that this is not a truly independent process: they have to play the cards that they are dealt.

    The nurses’ action today—the fact that they are on strike—is a clear indication of the gravity of the problem. CPIH, the agreed appropriate prices index, has increased by about 33% since 2010. Private sector earnings have gone up faster than that, by something like 40%, providing a real-terms increase. Public sector pay in general has gone up by a lesser amount: it has gone up by only 28%, which is a 5% real reduction. Within that, the nurses have done particularly badly, with an increase of under 20%. So there has been a real-terms reduction of over 10% over the last 12 years. One can only admire their moderation in seeking to recover only half of that fall in real terms. A similar case can be made for other groups of employees within the health service, but the Government have to recognise that the way to see this issue resolved is to accept the RCN’s request for direct negotiations. The so-called independent pay review process is just not working any more.

    On pensions, a consultation is of course currently under way, and the Government say that this will

    “retain more experienced NHS clinicians and remove barriers to staff returning from retirement.”

    This is actually the Government’s second go at this issue: some regulations have already gone through, but we will have a debate, which I am looking forward to, with the Minister early in the new year on the previous set of regulation changes—and now we are going to get a different set, following a period of consultation. Unfortunately, my regret Motion on the first set still stands. They will be insufficient to address fully the problems with staff retention in the NHS arising from the NHS pension arrangements that the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee described in its report last autumn as a “national scandal”. The committee was of course chaired by the current Chancellor of the Exchequer.

    Given that we will have another debate, and probably further debates on further regulations, I will spare the House a full discussion of this issue—I do not have enough time for that in any event. The issues are complicated, but they are explained on the BMA website, and I invite noble Lords and noble Baronesses to see what the issues are. I admit that, in the regulations currently under consultation, the Government do address one particular issue about the mismatch of the CPI on various indices—but that was not the only problem, and they do not propose to address one of the worst problems. So I am using this opportunity to focus the Minister’s mind on this issue, which we will return to. I hope that he will perhaps give us a commitment today that he will take the issue seriously and take part in further discussions.

    Lord Bird (CB)

    It is wonderful that we get the chance to discuss this very serious matter. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that it is pity that so few Peers wanted to participate in the debate. I am sure they are all busy because it is Christmas and there are lots of things to do; God bless them all, whatever they are doing.

    About five years ago, after I first came into the House, I really cheesed off a number of doctors. I know that because, in response to a Question on the lack of doctors, I made the observation that the problem was not that we did not have enough doctors, but that we had too many patients. My noble friend Lord Crisp, who is a mate of mine now, said that he does not go for those supply-side arguments—I did not even know what he meant, but I could understand that he was cheesed off with me. One of the big problems is that we have a health service—which includes nurses, in particular; a subject I would like to talk about, because I have known loads of them—that is always finding it very difficult to make ends meet.

    Before I talk about that, I will address prevention. In fact, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, who sits on the Front Bench as Education Minister, made a very interesting point in an Oral Question on Tuesday: she said that she visited a school where they had taken the kitchen and moved it into the classroom. I thought that that was absolutely brilliant, because most of the young people I know—I have five children, so I have been through this—eat crap. By eating rubbish, they are laying down problems for later life. I have eaten more crap than anybody, but, for some strange reason, I am still here at 76 and everything seems to be working, so I might be the exception that proves the rule.

    The idea of moving food, in a revolutionary way, into the classroom so that children can see the science of eating and of making and keeping themselves happy was great to news to me, because I am a preventionist. I came into the House of Lords to get rid of poverty, not to make the poor a little more comfortable. I keep telling people that, some of whom have said that they are irritated by it, but I will keep saying it. Unfortunately, there are too many people in the system who are concerned with keeping the poor more comfortable. I will return to the point: the idea of educating our children so that they know the importance of food and what food does to the body is of incredible importance. I would like the National Health Service to live up to its actual name, rather than becoming a national “I’ll get you back to health” service.

    I was around in the early days of the NHS. I remember all the exercises we had to do in the playground, organised by public health bodies, and the capsules and the milk. I also remember that about 20% of the NHS budget in that post-war period was for prevention, because it did not have enough money. So I am very interested in the idea of prevention and will stick with it again and again.

    What has happened to the NHS, more than at any other time in its history, since 2010 onwards, when we had to pay off the bankers’ mistakes by buying the banks and passing the cost on to the poorest among us? The NHS has become an even bigger social sponge, soaking up the contradiction thrown up by people in poverty. The BMA admits that 50% of the people who present themselves with cardiac arrest are suffering from food poverty. So what happened during the 2010 to 2016 coalition—sorry about that, mates—was that the nature of the NHS changed, and more and more parts of it were about trying to keep alive people who were eating poor and living poor. If we look at the facts and figures, when we entered the Covid crisis, hospitals were 85% full. That is almost full, because you need 10% to play around with. A lot of that was because more and more poor people were making their way to the hospital and the doctor’s surgery. They were trying to make up for the fact that they had become ill and could not maintain their lifestyle, because they were on the edge of poverty.

    There is another big issue, which is the problem with the Treasury. No Treasury since the Second World War has got behind nurses in the way it should have got behind them—and hospital cleaners, porters and all the other people who make a hospital run. The principal reason for that is this myopia in the absolute middle of the Treasury. It divides the world between the public good and the people who contribute, and the contributors are the fintech people in the City of London who put money into the Treasury. Then there are the people who work for the public good and public life, and they are always going to be treated in a cheaper way, because the Government will not stand up and say that there is an enormous value that echoes throughout the whole of society if we pay our nurses, hospital cleaners and workers as well as doctors. We must embrace the idea that public service, whether that is driving a train, climbing up a ladder when there is a fire or working in a hospital—all these people are in public life. They are not takers, they are givers. I find it very difficult when I see the way we divide the world between those who take and those who give. It is not true at all.

    We know that one of the big problems with the NHS is that it is too full. What if we had made the investment, if Governments of all political persuasions after the Second World War had said, “We are going to have a war on poverty. We are going to destroy poverty.”? Some 40% of all the money spent by government is spent on trying to get away from the problems thrown up by poverty. Our poor nurses are at the sharp end and are underappreciated; they are unable to pay their own way; they cannot breathe. The Royal College of Nursing said recently that nurses are suffering because their heating and food bills are rising, and they are being hit in the same way as everybody else.

    I would like the Government to stop and to look at what works and what does not work. I have been saying this to Governments since I came here. I want them to stop, look and say, “How can we change this?”, rather than giving us a very small amount here and there. I want them to end this situation where the heroines of our hospitals are now being described as antisocial, whereas once they were social.

    Baroness Merron (Lab)

    My Lords, it is a pleasure, as always, to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bird, who speaks as he finds. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Allan, on bringing this important debate to your Lordships’ House at such a crucial time. Just this week, the Institute for Fiscal Studies published a report that found that, even though the NHS has more staff on the payroll today than it did in 2019—something I am sure the Minister will want to remind us about—it is, however, treating fewer patients and backlogs are at a record high. I hope the Minister will offer some explanations as to why this is so when he comes to speak.

    We know there is a recruitment and retention crisis across the NHS and social care sector, and on the day, as noble Lords have referred to, that nurses are taking unprecedented industrial action, it is worth reflecting on Health Foundation estimates that have found that, at the current rate of exodus from the workforce, by 2030-31 there will be a shortfall of 140,600 full-time nurses. On the point of nurses’ pay, which has been raised today by noble Lords including my noble friend Lord Davies, I raise with the Minister his reply TO a question I put yesterday, when he said:

    “we have always followed the recommendations of the independent pay review body, as Governments of all colours have done since 1984.”—[Official Report, 14/12/22; col. 664.]

    Will he review this assertion and come back to the House? To raise just one example, Chancellor George Osborne took the decision to override the public review body’s recommendation and put a freeze on all public sector pay. I look forward to hearing from the Minister on this point.

    More broadly, with health and care staff well-being at an all-time low, and bearing in mind that the NHS lost more than 500,000 days to poor mental health in August alone, and the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, about the importance of the prevention of ill health—something I very much agree with—how will the Government seek to tackle the root causes of absence due to poor mental health in our NHS and social care sector?

    As the noble Lord, Lord Allan, and other noble Lords have said, for the past two years Ministers have promised us that a workforce strategy is coming. When will that actually be before us? As my noble friend Lord Davies reminded us, the Minister’s predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, repeatedly promised, when we were discussing the Health and Care Act, that work was under way, it was all in hand and we did not need legislation to make it happen. Indeed, the Minister himself has repeatedly promised that the workforce plan will be coming soon, so perhaps we can hear some more facts. When will we know the timetable for publication and implementation? Will there be a formal consultation process? I know the Minister will understand that commissioners need to plan, and staff and patients need reassurance. So, when will this House and stakeholders see the timelines? How comprehensive will the plan be and, most importantly of all, will it be costed and fully funded? It really is time that we had some answers and some concrete dates for publication.

    The two pillars of health and social care are inextricably linked. Social care is not just an add-on to NHS workforce needs, as we see from these alarming figures: there are 13,500 people who are in hospital as we speak and medically fit to leave but cannot be discharged, because of the lack of home and community support, particularly in domiciliary and care homes. We know that we have a problem before us. The backlog of social care assessments, estimated by ADASS at 500,000, means delayed assessments for people in need and their carers, and not enough funding or staffing to carry out these assessments or to ensure that the right support is available and can be provided and delivered. This means that people are taking up bed spaces and are in the wrong place, when they should be in their homes and in the community.

    Worryingly, the latest NHS figures show that over 145,000 people in England have died while waiting for social care over the past five years. This is a very bad state of affairs, so can the Minister say why the £500 million promised some time ago to help support hospital discharge is being paid out only this month and next? As I and other noble Lords have repeatedly raised in this Chamber, why has there been delay when there is such an imperative for immediate action?

    We know that care workers are paid poverty wages and leaving in droves; there are currently 165,000 vacancies in the social care sector. How will the Minister be encouraging people to join the sector? Will there be encouragement for existing care workers to stay when they face a lack of decent standards, fair pay and proper training?

    On the matter of social care, I take this opportunity to commend the excellent report from your Lordships’ special Adult Social Care Committee, so ably chaired by my noble friend Lady Andrews. I hope the Minister will read the report carefully, if he has not done so already, as we will be pressing strongly for a full debate in your Lordships’ House as urgently as possible in the new year. When will the Government’s response be ready and published?

    The report warns that the continued invisibility of the adult social care sector is damaging both to people who need social care and to the unpaid carers who provide care at a time of increasing need, rising costs and a shrinking workforce. There is also the failure of improved carer support and payment for vital care workers. If only all these absences could be put right, they could be the key to getting the extra staffing in place that is so desperately needed.

    I want to ask the Minister about another authoritative report, which was actually commissioned by the Government. It is an academic research paper from the independent think tank the King’s Fund on tackling the NHS’s 7 million—the number who are waiting for care. This is a devastating report, warning that a “decade of neglect” by successive Conservative Administrations has weakened the NHS to the point that it will not be able to tackle the backlog. The King’s Fund reports that years of denying funding to the health service and the failure to address its growing workforce crisis has left it with too few staff, too little equipment and too many outdated and poorly maintained buildings to perform the amount of work that is needed. How do the Government respond to the findings of the very report that they commissioned?

    Finally, just yesterday, 33 months after the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 to be a pandemic, the Guardian newspaper spent 33 hours inside the NHS, reporting from inside a hospital, an ambulance service, a pharmacy and a GP surgery. When responding to what turned out to be yet another exposé of how bad 33 hours on the front line of the NHS can be, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine’s president said that the single biggest issue exposed

    “was the struggle to discharge medically fit patients”.

    When we hear this from the lead emergency medicine doctor in the country—a cry for urgent action to bring reinforcements to the creaking health and care workforce—how will the Minister respond to that call?

    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Markham) (Con)

    I thank noble Lords. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Allan, for introducing the debate. I look forward to working with him, just as I have enjoyed working with the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton—I hope he does pass muster. I am pleased to respond to this Question for Short Debate on the steps we are taking to support the NHS and social care workforce. We all agree that this is an important issue and that we are all indebted to the people who work tirelessly in our health and care services.

    Helping the health and social care workforce manage their mental health and well-being is important and we are committed to helping staff recover. That is why we encourage adult social care providers to invest in mental health and well-being services for their staff. The NHS People Plan and the NHS People Promise set out a comprehensive range of actions to prioritise staff well-being. Boards, leaders, non-exec directors and managers across the NHS are being asked specifically to consider the health and well-being of all their staff as a priority.

    As the winter approaches, we know that the system has not rested over the summer. It has been fighting the pandemic for years and we know the drain that that has caused. We know that this winter, with rising cases of Covid and flu, we are putting more pressures on staff, alongside the pressures of the cost of living. We understand those pressures and the need to support the workforce. I will try to answer some of the questions more directly later, but we understand the need for the £500 million fund to help with discharge and workforce support.

    We understand the importance of pay in making people feel looked after in what they do. We have accepted the recommendations of the latest independent pay review body in full. I apologise if I made a mistake. I thank the noble Baroness for kindly and gently putting that forward. I will go away and make sure I correct that. I thank her again for the way that was put forward.

    We have given more than 1 million non-medical NHS workers a pay rise of at least £1,400 this year, which is equivalent to 4% to 5%. We deeply regret that some feel the need to take industrial action despite that. I will address the specific questions on the pay review and the impact of inflation later.

    This is more difficult with care workers, because they are paid by people outside our control, so to speak. Our only hope is that with around 70% of the total payments in this area going to wages, the £2.8 billion and £4.7 billion of additional funding will find their way into the pockets of the people who need it. That is something we will encourage. At the end of the day, if you cannot recruit and motivate a workforce, you will not have the care you need—it is simple.

    Alongside looking after our staff, we know that demands on the NHS and social care are increasing. Expanding the workforce has to be a priority. While the numbers are increasing—I will not repeat the statistics I often give out—we know we need to do more in this space.

    I may be going a little off-piste here, but I think we can be more creative and flexible in the way we do that. I do not think we are making enough use of apprenticeships and other routes in. I give the example of my mother, who left school at 15 with no qualifications, became a mother with three kids and then, in her 30s, found a way into nursing, first as an SEN—an easy entry path—and then as an SRN. Eventually, she became a midwife and worked for more than 20 years in the health service. We need more of those sorts of routes.

    Would it not be great if we had a modular system so that a person working at a dentist’s for two years could qualify as a dental nurse? Instead of working in Wetherspoons for most of their training, their part-time work could be in that profession, using and honing their skills. Would it not be great if a dental nurse who was good at their job knew that their qualifications were part of the way towards becoming a dentist? The team is looking at those modular systems in terms of that flexibility. Training and development is clearly a key part. We are funding more places. In the nurse space, it is not limited. There are more than 70,000 nurses in training as part of that, but clearly the workforce plan needs to set out whether we need to be doing more in this space.

    I know that we all welcome the workforce plan and I appreciate the comments from all Members of the House, particularly those opposite, that have for a long time been, quite rightly, that we need to do it. I think that we are all pleased that we are doing it. I completely accept the need to ensure that it is detailed enough to be useful, for want of a better word, and that it needs to be iterative, which will involve other people. I understand that such transparency brings pain, because you have inputs from other people who do not always agree with you. However, you get a better product at the end of it. I am afraid that I cannot give more information on a timetable yet, but I will press for more information.

    I accept that inflation makes annual pay reviews more difficult. That is the problem with inflation. We have tried to make exceptions for the nurses in the past. Offering what I hope is a sensible view, as we were saying in the debate yesterday, April is not that long away. If we could expedite a process for the independent pay review body, maybe that would be a sensible way forward, where people feel that there is recognition of the impact that inflation has. Sometimes inflation can mean that you need quicker answers than you might normally expect.

    On the social care space and the long-term strategy, I know that Minister Whately is very focused on this, to an amazing degree of detail, and on the impact of that £500 million fund and the results. I accept that it took a while to get that money out, and I partially take the blame. We wanted to ensure that it was going out in the right places, which took a bit more time. I hope and expect it to have been worth that time to ensure that it is targeted in the right place. That £500 million is the first instalment, with up to £2.8 billion next year, particularly in the places that work.

    I know that it is a favourite thing for the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, to bring quotes to the Chamber. I liked this one, and look forward to hearing more, particularly as Aldous Huxley is one of my favourite authors. Clearly, we need to make science and technology work for the NHS and not the other way round. On the point around productivity and the IFS, candidly, a lot of that is down to poor systems and the work that must be done to improve that, as the IFS rightly states. We are looking to address these things through the estates programme and the £10 billion per year capital spend, which is a big increase on previous years. In some areas, productivity has gone backwards, but in many areas it has not. We must understand what conditions are enabling us to increase productivity and how we can use that to help those areas that are not as productive as before to catch up and overtake.

    I will try to answer some of the other questions. On pensions, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned, there will be a further debate on this in the new year. It is a serious issue that, let us face it, we need a solution for, because we know it means that people are voting with their feet and leaving the service. Clearly, we need a solution to it all. It is something that we are taking seriously, with detailed work. We can discuss it further in the new year.

    I have to admire the passion for prevention in the speech from the noble Lord, Lord Bird. One of the pleasures of this job is sharing an office with, or being fairly close to, Chris Whitty, and seeing many of the things that he brings such intelligence and value to. If you speak to him about prevention, he will talk about his concern right now for those people who missed out on heart checks—the 50 to 65 year-old cohort who did not have a heart check during Covid. That is one of the things that needs to be high up the list of the things to address in the prevention agenda.

    On the other points, I will need to give the noble Baroness some more detail in writing on the findings of the report she mentioned. Given that we are running out of time, as ever, I will provide a detailed response to anything I have not managed to cover.

    In conclusion, I again thank noble Lords. I agree with the sentiment that it would have been nice to have had a lot more contributions, but through this programme of work, including by supporting care employers and commissioners, we are helping to build the robust and resilient workforce the NHS and social care systems need for the future. We are working to ensure that the country has the right people, with the right skills and in the right places, and that they are well supported and looked after so that they can in turn look after those who need our great NHS and social services.

  • HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE : Removing Barriers to Investment by Pension Funds [March 2001]

    HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE : Removing Barriers to Investment by Pension Funds [March 2001]

    The press release issued by HM Treasury on 15 March 2001.

    Trustees of occupational pension schemes will benefit from the removal of a barrier to investment in venture capital later this year, Economic Secretary Melanie Johnson announced today.

    The measure implements one of Paul Myners’ recommendations, as part of his review of institutional investment in the UK, to reform the law on investment in limited partnerships whose purpose is to undertake investments in private equity.

    Miss Johnson said :

    “This is a change which will be welcomed by the occupational pensions industry. It is a significant and useful measure that will make it easier for pension funds to consider investment in private equity.

    It is fully in line with the Government objective of encouraging greater investment in private equity as part of the drive to increasing UK productivity.”

    The change will be implemented at the same time as other key provisions of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA).

    Miss Johnson also announced today that the target date for the commencement of these provisions, known as N2, will be no later than the end of November 2001. The actual date will be confirmed as soon as it is possible to do so.