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Tag: 2022

  • Jim Shannon – 2022 Speech on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

    Jim Shannon – 2022 Speech on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

    The speech made by Jim Shannon, the DUP MP for Strangford, in the House of Commons on 1 December 2022.

    I congratulate the hon. Members for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) and for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) on securing the debate. I am very glad to say that the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), who is the spokesperson for the Scots Nats, and I never miss any of these debates. As men, we are very glad to be here.

    I welcome the news that earlier this week the UK hosted the preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative summit. The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) asked a question on this very issue at Prime Minister’s questions this week. At business questions today, I asked the Leader of the House a question along these lines. The Government have had the summit and they have shown, through the answers that the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House gave, that there is a commitment on this issue.

    It is important that the UK works towards recognising sexual violence in conflict as a line that is not to be crossed, with serious repercussions for the perpetrators of such an awful crime and the violation of a woman or child’s dignity. There are numerous factors that might put a woman at greater risk of violence, but there is one that I will focus on specifically; others will touch on other subjects. The factor I will focus on is women belonging to faith groups who face persecution on the grounds of their faith and the violence that goes along with that.

    Margaret Ferrier

    Sometimes a woman’s decision to wear a headscarf or modest clothing is described as oppression, but there are many women who say that their decision to display their faith in that way is not oppressing; they find it empowering. Does the hon. Member agree that respecting the choices that women make in expressing their faith is an important aspect of society empowering women and girls?

    Jim Shannon

    I certainly do; as always, the hon. Lady brings an aspect to the debate that truly helps to illustrate things.

    Persecutors target men, women and children in different ways and to different extents. Women invariably face a greater breadth of persecution, owing to the compounding factors of their faith and their sex, which unfortunately makes them an easy target for those who want to take advantage. It is probably no surprise that the targeting of women is strategic and malicious. Women are the ones who give birth to the next generation and bring up families. It is a great tragedy that their life-giving nature is violated by extremists and those with evil intent, as they take away their life of freedom and peace.

    A report by Open Doors on the persecution of Christian women and girls explains that in countries impacted by conflict in central and west Africa—Nigeria, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo being key examples—women and girls are at high risk of abduction. The report states:

    “Once taken, they are then forced to marry militants and bear children, who are used to boost the ranks of militant groups”.

    Such “forced marriage” is rape by another name. Horrifically, the bodies of women and girls offer an extra dimension of conflict for extremists and perpetrators of violence to wreak their destruction and their dehumanising actions.

    One example of such gender-based persecution is Leah Sharibu, who was kidnapped along with 110 other students from her school back in 2018. The Islamic State of west Africa refused to release Leah when she did not renounce her Christian faith. Leah is still waiting for release. When some of us were in Nigeria in May, we asked about her and we were hopeful that something was going to happen, but it does not seem that anything has happened. I hope that the Minister can give us some indication of what is happening. Leah has been forcibly married and raped since the age of 14. She now has two children born of that forced marriage, with little hope of being able to pass on the Christian faith that she believes in to her own children.

    Regrettably, Leah’s case is just one of thousands of such cases. How is it that eight years after Daesh launched a genocidal campaign against the Yazidis, with 2,763 Yazidi women and children still missing, nobody seems to be interested in this issue? I am not being critical of the Minister or the Government, but can we be given some indication about what is happening to those Yazidi women? It seems that they are off the radar for nearly everybody who I can think of.

    My hope is that the Government ensure that any funding given to support women and girls around the world targets women and girls who face vulnerabilities due to their faith, with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office recognising faith as a factor in such vulnerability. Defending women and girls should encompass all aspects of the UK Government’s overseas engagements. Therefore, the Department for International Trade should seriously consider any reports of gender-specific religious persecution as it negotiates trade deals and before it signs any new trade agreements. Our Government should take care about the human rights records of countries with which they trade. Turning a blind eye to the treatment of women in a country we benefit from is not something that I wish to hear about. I want to hear about how we are moving forward progressively and positively for women and girls.

    Finally—I am conscious of the time, Ms Elliott—increased efforts must be made to help women and girls who suffer violence and endure persecution because of their faith to reach safety. I will give another example: I am saddened that Pakistani Christian girl Maira Shahbaz is still in hiding after escaping her Muslim abductor in Pakistan. She is still waiting for the Home Office to grant her asylum claim. It is unbelievable. The facts are obvious; the evidence is there. The Right Rev. Philip Mounstephen, the Bishop of Truro, has said:

    “Tragic cases like that of Maira Shahbaz are a test case for the UK Government’s commitment to put freedom and religion front and centre in its foreign policy.”

    My comments today are a new call for the Government to do just that and make freedom of religion or belief a reality for everyone across the world.

  • Jackie Doyle-Price – 2022 Speech on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

    Jackie Doyle-Price – 2022 Speech on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

    The speech made by Jackie Doyle-Price, the Conservative MP for Thurrock, in the House of Commons on 1 December 2022.

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Ms Elliott. I am very grateful to follow the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth). I reflected on what she said, and I agree with every word. For a number of years, we have heard about how much emphasis this Government place on tackling violence against women and girls, but the statistics that she outlined show that so much of that is talk. It is about time that we started delivering, and making those interventions that challenge men and male behaviour.

    Let us not mince our words: this is male violence against women and girls; these are crimes perpetrated by men. In this place, men often take rather too much comfort in talk about great advances in equality, but the day-to-day lived experience of women is still poor. As the hon. Member for Bristol South outlined, we take decisions every day to protect our own safety. It is well documented that female Members of Parliament receive more abuse and harassment than their male counterparts. In 21st century Britain, that is not good enough, and we need collective action to tackle it.

    I am pleased to see that some male Members have chosen to participate in the debate. I am not surprised to see my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), who has always shown some support for these issues, but I want to see a few more. It would be nice to know that more of our male colleagues are genuinely concerned about our day-to-day lived experience. I lay that down as a challenge. It is rather a substantial one for the Minister: it means that he perhaps has to compensate for the lack of interest among his colleagues. I hope that he receives my chastisement on their behalf.

    In the week that we heard in Parliament from Olena Zelenska about the atrocities committed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine, we are told that as many as 30% of the women of Ukraine have been victims of sexual crimes in the conflict. That is a clear reminder that rape remains a weapon of war. We talk about the preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative, which is good work, but what it rather euphemistically describes is the organised process of rape. We hear that in Ukraine the youngest victim is just four years old, and the oldest is 85. That is the brutality of war, but until very recently the experience of women in war was not routinely considered. I am pleased and proud that this Government have taken up that initiative—the conference was this week. However, it is all very well us telling the rest of the world and virtue signalling about the issue, but we still have to sort things out here. I am afraid that sexual violence remains a real challenge and a lived experience for everyone.

    It feels a bit “first world” to talk about some of the problems that we face here, but the trauma faced by any woman who is a victim of sexual violence is significant and lifelong. We must ensure that we deliver on our promises. We have enshrined in the NHS a commitment to a lifetime therapeutic care pathway for any victim of sexual violence. In practice, that does not happen. We know that very many women still wait for counselling months and months after an incident, and we know that is a barrier to bringing perpetrators to justice. When women relive what has happened to them, they re-traumatise themselves. They need support, but the NHS commitment is just words. Up and down this country, the local commissioning required to deliver it is not happening. We see victims of sexual violence as items of evidence. Their experience of trying to secure justice is utterly dehumanising.

    I could go on much longer, but I will obey your strictures, Ms Elliott. In this place, we too often approach these issues from the perspective of the pointy-elbowed middle classes, and the most vulnerable in our society are left behind. I will not stop beating up Ministers in debates like this one until we have proper protection for women in prisons. We are seeing sex offenders self-identifying as women and being able to enter women’s prisons; we had a rape only very recently. That has to be tackled. And I will not be happy, either, until someone engaged in sex work who is murdered receives as much attention as a nice, pretty middle-class girl. I will leave it there.

  • Karin Smyth – 2022 Speech on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

    Karin Smyth – 2022 Speech on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

    The speech made by Karin Smyth, the Labour MP for Bristol South, in the House of Commons on 1 December 2022.

    I beg to move,

    That this House has considered the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

    It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Elliott. I thank the Backbench Business Committee and the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) for their support in securing this important debate.

    This year, the UN’s 16 days of activism fall at the same time as the FIFA men’s World cup. FIFA decided to hold the competition in a country where women remain tied to their male guardian and need his permission for key life decisions on matters including work and travel. We also meet against the backdrop of war in Europe. As is all too familiar across the globe, women are being targeted through sexual violence. Thousands of women have been transported hundreds of miles from home and forced to build a life for themselves and their families in other countries. Our thoughts and solidarity are with them.

    In the UK, we are in a cost of living crisis and in the grip of an epidemic of appalling violence committed by men against women and girls. Those two facts are inextricably linked. The epidemic includes violence at home, violence in the playground, violence in the workplace, violence on the walk home from school, violence online and across social media, and violence brought to life through the grotesque barrage of freely available extreme pornography on every corner of the internet. The violence can be short, sharp and brutal; sexual and degrading; insidious and coercive; hidden behind closed doors or hiding in plain sight—it is everywhere.

    Our collective unwillingness to speak honestly about this epidemic is perhaps driven by the same thing that compounds the horrors visited on countless women and girls: shame. Unlike those women and girls, we should be ashamed—ashamed that women feel unsafe on our streets, ashamed that girls are unable to enjoy the same freedoms and experiences as boys, and ashamed that many of our public bodies are haemorrhaging trust as institutional misogyny blinds them to their basic safe- guarding obligations.

    The facts speak for themselves. The number of women murder victims is at a 15-year high—I repeat, a 15-year high. Rape prosecutions and convictions are at a historic low, and countless women victims are abandoning their trials due to delays that this Government created—delays in the Crown court are at a record high.

    Yet the collective response has remained essentially unchanged for generations. Instead of investing in things that would help prevent males from developing into perpetrators and improve women’s economic circumstances —education, policing, criminal justice and large-scale societal change around care—we focus on the result of that inequality, and women and girls remain reliant on “that chat”. “Don’t walk down the lane on the way home; stick to the main street.” “Keep your headphones off.” “Keep hold of your phone when you get off the bus and keep your house keys poking between your fingers.” “Don’t wear high heels. If possible, wear a big coat.” “Don’t go for a run tonight; it’s too dark.” “Stick the bins out in the morning.” “Oh, and if anything does happen, it will be your fault.” Women have to second-guess their safety on a daily basis.

    Although I say the facts speak for themselves, that is only because women have fought hard to ensure the accurate reporting and gathering of sex data. A woman is killed every three days. I commend Karen Ingala Smith and her work documenting the facts through Counting Dead Women, which is a phenomenal project. Data shows that domestic violence, already endemic across Britain, skyrocketed during the pandemic. There were 260,000 domestic abuse offences between March and June 2020 alone. Research by UN Women UK found that 71% of women in the UK have experienced sexual harassment in a public place, rising to 86% of 18 to 24-year-olds. In the first lockdown, a fifth of women and girls aged 14 to 21 were catcalled, followed, groped, flashed or upskirted, rising to 51% during the summer.

    Let us look at the causes. In Bristol, the 2020 mayoral commission on domestic abuse, along with the joint strategic needs assessment, reported the variation in domestic-related abuse and crime across my city, from 7.1 per 1,000 in Redland to 79.9 per 1,000 in Hartcliffe and Withywood in my Bristol South constituency. Analysis in the UK and internationally has consistently found vulnerability to domestic violence to be associated with low income, economic strain and benefit receipt.

    Earlier this month, the chief executive officers and directors of the End Violence Against Women Coalition joined more than 80 other organisations to warn that the cost of living crisis is having a devastating impact on women, putting them at greater risk of violence and abuse. It is a sobering report. Many women face the choice of staying in an abusive situation or experiencing financial hardship or destitution. Relocation to safety, disruption to employment, and access to legal advice all come with a hefty price tag. These circumstances are only worsening in the cost of living crisis, as women are dominant in low-pay, insecure work in the public sector, care, retail and hospitality. All those sectors are being squeezed, putting more and more women and children at risk of harm, destitution or even death.

    At exactly the same time as demand for support to escape abuse is increasing, already overstretched specialist services have been confronted with rising bills to operate their life-saving services. Frontline organisations, such as refuges, are facing steep energy bills, and staff are covering the cost of service users from their own pockets, including feeding women who have not eaten for days.

    I hope that the Minister has been listening carefully—I thank him for that—but we have had enough of listening. We do not want any more time for “that chat”. We need to raise women’s economic status up the political agenda in all our political parties. We need to help women to access paid work at decent pay levels, with access to affordable childcare. We need to ensure that benefits are made in such a way as to ensure that women do not become dependent on their male partners. We need to ensure that women are not penalised for non-contribution as a result of caring. We need to ensure that the issue of financial abuse as part of abusive behaviour is recognised in the Government’s strategy to address violence against women and girls.

    There are some first steps that would help. It would be helpful if the Minister would agree to implement some of the following: put a rape and domestic abuse specialist in the police force in England and Wales; overhaul the police standards system, including vetting, training and misconduct, to ensure that victims get the best possible service and support from the police; bring in a domestic abusers register, which would allow authorities to track perpetrators and prevent them causing harm to more women; and set up specialist rape courts, which would end the traumatisation of victims by the system. Let us make the UK a beacon of progress.

    Alongside that, we need a recommitment to the importance of empirical data as fact. Data must be accurately compiled and accurately sex disaggregated in order to fully understand the impact of all crimes on women and girls. To tackle endemic sexism and sex-based violence, we must count sex, just as it is vital to combat discrimination against other groups. The need to accurately record separate and additional data is obvious. The offending patterns of men and of women show the highest differential of all, so we need to monitor the sex of the victims and perpetrators of all crimes.

    My hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) stated recently in this place that at least six regional police forces now record suspects’ sex on the basis of gender identity, following the advice of the National Police Chiefs’ Council. Data based only on self-identified gender is not accurate data on which to build a violence against women and girls strategy, or to effectively plan services that support all victims and target all perpetrators, whatever their sex and however they identify. I could not agree with my hon. Friend more. Data is key to protecting women and girls from violence, and I hope the Minister can confirm the need for sex to be recorded by police forces in England and Wales.

    We talk often in this place of equality. We often celebrate the very presence of women and girls in sporting teams, on boards, in leadership roles or in politics as an end point. It is not. For as long as every woman and girl lives in a society that remains in itself so unequal, and presents such dangers, we should perhaps pause and reflect.

    Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)

    Earlier this year, the UK ratified the gold standard set by the Istanbul convention, but it has decided to opt out of article 59, which protects migrant women. Does the hon. Member agree that this defeats the point of the convention? There should be equal protection for all women, and this creates a hostile and discriminatory environment for some of the most vulnerable women in the UK.

    Karin Smyth

    The hon. Member makes an excellent point; I agree. I am sure that the Minister, or my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Ms Brown), will address it later from the Front Benches.

    As we reflect, let us remember that the great feminist writer and thinker, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, once said:

    “Your feminist premise should be: I matter. I matter equally. Not ‘if only.’ Not ‘as long as.’ I matter equally. Full stop.”

    Let us hope that, when we gather again next year, not only have the statistics become slightly less depressing and the Government response slightly less dispiriting, but we have taken some steps, however small, toward empowering every woman and girl to believe that they have a right to live a life where they matter equally—full stop.

  • Elliot Colburn – 2022 Speech on Beddington Incinerator

    Elliot Colburn – 2022 Speech on Beddington Incinerator

    The speech made by Elliot Colburn, the Conservative MP for Carshalton and Wallington, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons on 1 December 2022.

    I beg to move,

    That this House has considered permit variation processes for waste incineration facilities.

    It is pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I thank the Chairman of Ways and Means for selecting today’s debate, especially because doing so involved a change to the Order Paper at short notice. I appreciate the opportunity to bring this matter to Westminster Hall today. I also thank the Minister for attending; it is great to see her back in her place. She will have heard much of what I am about to say when she was in her role previously, not just in my speeches in Westminster Hall but in our many conversations. I am grateful that she is willing to listen to me talk on the topic once again.

    It will come as no surprise to colleagues that the topic of my speech is the Beddington incinerator in my Carshalton and Wallington constituency. The facility can currently process over 300,000 tonnes of non-hazardous residual waste a year. The waste is imported from four south London boroughs and further afield, as well as coming from my own borough, the London Borough of Sutton. Since the site completed commissioning in 2019, it has been bedevilled by problems, and to this day my constituents suffer because of a number of issues regarding the site.

    The first issue is that the incinerator is statistically the No. 1 polluter in the London Borough of Sutton. Emissions limits have been breached on literally hundreds of occasions, with more than 20 incidents relating to carbon dioxide and 40 incidents relating to volatile organic compounds, plus many more invalid reports. The promised Beddington Farmlands restoration project has been delayed again and again, and protected ground-nesting birds have been killed by predators because of failures to keep water levels from dropping. Local roads have been damaged, congested and polluted by regular waste vehicle movements. The rise in nitrogen dioxide from gas canisters and recreational drug taking has caused multiple explosions at the facility, which have risked the safety of the workers and pushed emissions up with every occurrence. In addition, recycling rates have fallen by over 6% in the London Borough of Sutton alone. I will delve into all those problems, and more, later.

    We were regularly reassured by the Lib Dem-run council—I note that not a single Liberal Democrat Member has turned up to the debate—that, following sign-off, the operator would not submit any future variations. Well, surprise, surprise: barely three years since the site was first developed, Viridor has indeed submitted an application to the Environment Agency to vary its environmental permit to enable enhanced operations at the Beddington site. In layman’s terms, that means that it wants to burn more waste at Beddington. That will mean more vehicle movements, which will mean more emissions, and more problems for my Carshalton and Wallington constituents.

    The application for the variation was submitted way back in January, but the Environment Agency has only in recent weeks launched the public consultation on it. Over the past 11 months, I have had various conversations with Viridor, the council, councillors, community groups and residents about the proposals. During that period, it has become clear that the application is totally inappropriate. Given that this is a live application undergoing consultation, the Minister is limited in what she can say, but I want to make some points. What sparked the need for the debate was not the content of the application and the proposals alone, as serious as those issues are; in addition, I have found that there is extremely limited community engagement and influence over the processes for determining these applications. I hope that we can discuss that in more detail.

    The regulation of incinerators in England is split between the Environment Agency and local authorities, with the EA regulating incinerators with a capacity greater than 3 tonnes per hour for non-hazardous waste and 10 tonnes per day for hazardous waste. That has been the case for the Beddington incinerator in my constituency. Incinerators below those levels are regulated by local authorities.

    The environmental permit sets conditions that limit the discharge to air, water and soil of specified substances. The regulations require public consultation on some permit applications, but do not prescribe the methods of consultation. That can cause inconsistencies in the level of engagement that communities are offered around the country. Once an operator has an environmental permit, changes in the operation of the facility may require it to apply to vary the permit. It must apply to the regulator to vary the permit conditions when proposing a change that would mean that a permit condition can no longer be complied with. The Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 require the Environment Agency to consult on any new application or applications involving a substantial change.

    Despite potentially significant cumulative impacts on communities following permit variation, there is no mechanism for local authorities to directly influence the determination. Unlike for initial applications for incinerators or other comparable major planning, environmental or licensing proposals or changes to conditions, communities are essentially frozen out of the decision-making process for permit variations for incinerators.

    The Beddington site was first given the green light by Lib Dem-run Sutton Council back in 2013. The environmental permit allowed for the processing of up to 302,500 tonnes of waste per annum. The variation was granted in December 2020 to allow for the processing of up to 347,422 tonnes of waste per annum, based on the increase in availability, but Viridor is now looking to increase capacity to 382,286 tonnes per annum. That is a 26% increase in waste at the site since it was originally approved at the application stage.

    In the past 12 months, slightly over 65,000 vehicle movements have been made to the incinerator. The draft proposed variations would increase projected vehicle movements to up to 76,000 per year. That is a 17% increase. Despite those shocking figures and the significant impact the variation will have on the community, there is a noticeable lack of discussion about the cumulative impacts of permit variations.

    Paragraph 47 of the Government’s planning practice guidance for waste highlights the importance of the cumulative impacts of intensifying existing waste management sites and the need to engage with communities:

    “The waste planning authority should not assume that because a particular area has hosted, or hosts, waste disposal facilities, that it is appropriate to add to these or extend their life. It is important to consider the cumulative effect of previous waste disposal facilities on a community’s wellbeing. Impacts on environmental quality, social cohesion and inclusion and economic potential may all be relevant. Engagement with the local communities affected by previous waste disposal decisions will help in these considerations.”

    Despite that, the increase in traffic generated by intensifying incineration at the Beddington site cannot be taken into account by the Environment Agency when determining whether the application is appropriate. Its website states that residents are not allowed to talk about vehicle movements and the impact their emissions will have when the application is determined because it is a planning matter. The irony will not be lost on Carshalton and Wallington residents that one of the Lib Dems’ arguments for building the incinerator in the first place was that it would reduce the number of vehicle movements needed on the site.

    The incinerator has been operational for barely three years, and this is the second permit variation application to land on the Environment Agency’s doorstep. If this one is approved, what is to say that there will not be another one and another one and another one years down the line? At what point does the intensification of the site and the cumulative impact that it has on the community at large warrant an entirely new permit or planning application?

    Residents in Carshalton and Wallington did not vote to burn more waste, then a bit more a few years later, then a bit more a few years later. They did not vote to expand the incinerator’s reach, with waste brought to our area from another borough, then another and maybe another. They did not vote for more vehicle movements, potholes and exhaust fumes—they were originally told that vehicle numbers would fall. They did not vote for an increase in air pollution when they were told again and again that incineration is better than landfill. They did not vote for Beddington Lane, the road where the incinerator is located, to seem permanently to have roadworks, causing massive traffic displacement across the constituency. And now here we are at the precipice of another attempt to vary the incinerator’s permit, a decision that will be taken out of local hands.

    Blame cannot be laid solely at the feet of the process or regulations that are being followed. Lib Dem-run Sutton Council birthed the incinerator into our borough and has been incubating it for years while turning a blind eye to scandal after scandal, betrayal after betrayal, until the grotesque expansion of the incinerator risks transforming Beddington into the dumping ground of south London. That was the Lib Dem vision for Carshalton and Wallington—one that never appeared in any election manifesto.

    There needs to be a mechanism to ensure that communities have greater influence—more than just a single written consultation—over these processes and the determination of repeated major permit variations. Communities need to be able to hold regulators and those who make these decisions, whether that is the local authority or the Environment Agency, to account.

    I have organised my own petition to oppose Viridor’s expansion plans and to call for them to be dropped. Already, almost 1,000 local people have signed the petition and said no to the expansion plans. I would hazard a guess that that is far more than will respond to the official consultation, because very few people are aware of it and there is no direct outreach engagement from Viridor or the Environment Agency. The application was submitted almost a year ago, but there has been hardly any promotion of the consultation. We are now firmly in the consultation period but, unfortunately, it falls in the middle of the Christmas period, when people will be distracted by other things.

    Oddly, I am pleased about something. The Environment Agency has understood that the Beddington proposals are of high public interest, and it proposes to hold a second consultation once the current one has closed. However, there are other ways to improve engagement with the community, such as holding multiple public information events in residential areas, and a public hearing, which would allow stakeholders to provide evidence in support of their views directly to the body that will make the decision. Although not perfect, those activities would at least help community awareness and mitigate the feeling that the decision is being made by a faceless organisation far away from the local area.

    Separate to the process of determination and consultation, there are other ways to mitigate issues with the content of permit variations. It is within the scope of the Environment Agency to assert conditions for permit variations. For example, a condition could be added to ensure the operator installs metal detectors and magnets to extract any recyclable or harmful metal materials before they are burnt.

    I mentioned the scourge of nitrous oxide canisters, which can be purchased legally, in many circumstances to achieve a so-called legal high. I am sure other hon. Members will share their experience of seeing such canisters littered across the streets. They have to be disposed of, so they get into our waste stream and end up being incinerated. When they make contact with high heat, they explode, potentially causing damage to the plant, massive operational difficulties, and danger to the people who work at or live near the site.

    Viridor has launched a public information campaign to make it clear that such canisters should not be put into residential bins. I support that campaign and welcome those efforts, and I hope we can send a message from the House today that we support efforts to ensure that gas canisters do not end up in bins. However, I would go a step further. Viridor is already using metal detectors and magnets to extract harmful metals at another site; the Environment Agency should stipulate the installation of similar technology in Beddington as a condition for the permit variation.

    On a similar note, I find it appalling that we still do not understand how much recyclable waste is sent for incineration in this country. There need to be clear, measurable recycling targets that operators must adhere to. The proponents of incineration often point to recycling as a metric of their success and evidence that incineration is better than landfill. While the latter is certainly true—no one disputes that, and no one wants to see a return to waste being put into the ground; that is, of course, the worst of all options—the same cannot be said for the effect of incineration on recycling rates. As landfill sites have begun to close and be phased out, incineration has picked up much of the demand, nearly quadrupling in the past decade from 12% to 44% of our waste management capacity. However, recycling rates have barely moved in that time, from 37% to 43%—just a 6% increase.

    That is not coincidental or unrelated. According to worrying research by the House of Commons Library, data from the 123 waste authorities shows a negative relationship between recycling and incineration. In other words, higher incineration means lower recycling, and vice versa. I saw that at first hand when I visited the incinerator in Beddington. Recyclable materials will always find their way into the wrong bin—of course they will—but there must be processes to filter them out.

    I have also been informed of investigations from other areas of England where specific recycling bin bags have been sent to incineration. Indeed, a local group in my constituency, and in boroughs in south London, put tracking devices in bins and found that they ended up in the incineration room at the incinerator. They were not being recycled but shoved straight in to be burned. That is an absolute scandal. Research from Zero Waste Europe reveals that more than 90% of materials that end up in incineration plants or landfill could be recycled or composted. Ninety per cent! That is huge.

    Even when waste is turned into energy, recycling is still the better option. It can save up to five times the energy produced by burning waste, which is not a renewable resource, creates toxic pollution, and potentially emits more carbon dioxide than some hydrocarbon-powered plants. In other words, incinerators need waste, whether it is recyclable or not, to have an effective business model. I do not think that we can call that recycling.

    However, there is some good news, which could help us phase out incineration and should be considered before expanded or future incineration sites are approved. That is, of course, the deposit return scheme, which has seen recycling rates rocket in more than 40 countries and is due to be rolled out here in the UK.

    The resources and waste strategy sets out the Government’s plans to reduce, reuse and recycle more than we do now. Their target is to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste throughout the life of the 25-year environment plan. The groundbreaking and world-leading Environment Act 2021 introduced powers to introduce a deposit return scheme for drinks containers. That will prevent billions more plastic bottles from going into landfill or being littered or incinerated. I believe that that will help to change consumer behaviours, with potential knock-on effects for other environmental activities, and will reduce the need for more incineration.

    The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has consulted twice on introducing a deposit return scheme in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, most recently in 2021. I understand that Ministers anticipate a scheme being introduced in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in late 2024 at the earliest, subject to the outcome of the second consultation. I would be grateful for an update from the Minister, but that represents a realistic yet ambitious timetable to ensure that DEFRA implements a DRS that is as effective as possible in achieving the UK’s objective of boosting recycling levels. It will offer greater opportunities to collect higher-quality, uncontaminated materials in greater quantities, thus promoting a circular economy and reducing the need for incineration.

    The UK Government plan to halve the amount of waste going to landfill or incineration in England by 2042. Proposals to expand existing sites, such as the one at Beddington, directly contravene that ambition. England currently has 15.6 million tonnes of operational incineration capacity. If consented capacity was built, that would grow to more than 28 million tonnes, while feedstock—the amount of waste to be burned—is expected to fall to around 13.4 million tonnes by 2042. That is less than the capacity we have now, and it would mean that we had 14.7 million tonnes of excess capacity in England—and that is without any of the further 3.7 million tonnes of capacity that is currently in the planning system being granted. Despite that, the Environment Agency is unable to take into account issues around national overcapacity when determining permit variations such as the one for Beddington.

    Another cumulative impact of these proposals, which is being swept under the carpet, frankly, is on Carshalton and Wallington residents. I could speak all day, as I think I have demonstrated, about the Beddington incinerator and its continued impact on my constituents. However, I will wrap up my remarks to allow colleagues to speak and to hear what the Minister has to say.

    I will just end by saying that Carshalton and Wallington has suffered as a result of continual failures by the Lib Dem council to hold the incinerator to account. The council forced it on residents in the first place and now it is doing nothing about it. Now, due to the processes that are in place, we are at risk of being on the receiving end of even more waste, more vehicle movements, more incineration and more emissions. There are alternatives to this and conditions that could mitigate the impact. I hope that the Minister can shed a little more light on the work that the Government are doing to phase out incineration and introduce other measures, such as the deposit return scheme.

    Carshalton and Wallington residents must have a voice in this debate and they should have a say on whether their community—our community—takes on more of south London’s rubbish to burn. The motion states:

    “That this House has considered permit variation processes for waste incineration facilities.”

    We need to consider the cumulative impacts of incineration and the impact of expanding incineration sites. The residents of Carshalton and Wallington have considered it, I have considered it, and I do not think that the process to vary environmental permits is working in the best interests of communities.

  • Lucy Frazer – 2022 Speech on Unadopted Roads on New Housing Estates

    Lucy Frazer – 2022 Speech on Unadopted Roads on New Housing Estates

    The speech made by Lucy Frazer, the Minister of State at the Department for Transport, in the House of Commons on 1 December 2022.

    I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) for so powerfully articulating his constituents’ and many other constituents’ concerns regarding unadopted roads. He talked about constituents who are often paying full council tax but are forced to live on private roads riddled with potholes and devoid of basic necessities such as streetlights, road signs or litter bins. My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) also raised the matter of Knights Meadow, which is causing concerns. I believe we all can agree that, irrespective of whether a housing estate is old or new, no one should be forced to live on a street that is so poorly maintained that it negatively impacts their quality of life.

    First, I will directly respond to the recommendations that my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire has made, especially in relation to section 278 and section 38 agreements, as well as the guidance in Wales to which he referred. Then I would like to identify some of the steps that the Government are already taking to strengthen the enforcement powers of local authorities and to make sure that roads are properly maintained. Then I will address some of the broader points raised by my hon. Friend.

    I take this opportunity to reassure my hon. Friend that I am committed to working with him and Members across this House to make sure that we can find the right solutions to the problems he has highlighted. I am not only happy to, but would be delighted to meet him and share the benefits of his research and expertise and to discuss this issue in more depth so that we can find the right answers to these questions.

    Turning now to my hon. Friend’s recommendations, he mentioned that in Wales a good practice guide has been adopted by local highway authorities and house building federations. He noted that in the pre-application stage, the highway authority is involved. If five or more properties are served by public highways, the highway authority serves an advance payments code notice on the developer within six weeks of building approval.

    In England, the Department for Transport has issued clear and simple guidance to councils to help them navigate some of the complexities surrounding new developments and the adoption, maintenance and upkeep of roads. They can use that guidance in those initial conversations with developers before a road is built, and long before they become major headaches for parties, not least homeowners themselves.

    The Department for Transport also published an advice note in 2017 on road adoption and made some significant updates to it in August this year, with some useful advice on bonds and fees. I would be happy and keen to talk to my hon. Friend about how we can further improve on this work that the DFT has done.

    Caroline Nokes

    My right hon. and learned Friend makes an important point about the guidance that the DFT has already published and given to major house builders. The point I want to make is that as in the case of my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), the developers in my constituency are major house builders. These are people who should have had this guidance over many years and who know how to build roads of an adoptable standard. Will my right hon. and learned Friend use the considerable heft of her Department to summon them in and suggest that they start using the guidance already available to them?

    Lucy Frazer

    My right hon. Friend makes a very valuable point, and I would also be very keen to speak to her on this issue, because she clearly has the same issues in her constituency, as we all do, and is very interested in this point. We do raise many issues with house builders, and I can add this to the list to raise, because it is important that the guidance is followed and that we get solutions.

    My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire suggested that England needs more national standards. As he knows, under the Highways Act 1980, section 38 agreements allow new roads built by developers to become public highways, with the cost of maintenance falling to the public purse. It is certainly possible for local highways authorities to adopt streets for which they are not currently responsible, but this is usually agreed at local level, not national level, between the developer and the council. It is true that councils can use section 38 to step in if a developer fails to keep its promises regarding a new road or street. The legislation already gives highways authorities the power to do that, but there is no legal obligation on them to do so, so ultimately it is a question for the relevant council. I understand that the Department for Transport’s position is that it does not intervene in operational issues, and that it does not have powers to make statutory or impose national standards. That said, I do think it is important we continue to discuss this issue to ascertain what more can be done.

    It is worth saying that the local highways authority cannot of course always adopt a road on a new development each and every time, not least because that may not be what residents themselves want. The road may also be incomplete or not built to the right standard, and the drainage may not yet have been adopted by the appropriate body. For whatever reason, when a road is not adopted by the local highway, liability for maintenance automatically falls to those who own the properties facing the road. What that looks like may vary depending on the housing development, but by and large estate rent charges are the main way in which residents pick up the tab for a road’s maintenance. The problem arises when homeowners are unexpectedly slapped with bills to maintain roads they did not even know they were responsible for and, worse, when they challenge the estate rent charges, they find that they have limited rights to do anything about it.

    Andrew Selous

    I am aware that some unadopted roads go back decades and decades, but it does concern me that in a major new development on the east of Leighton Buzzard in my constituency, where residents moved in only in 2003, the roads are still not adopted. It is 20 years later, and I really think it is entirely reasonable that the people buying those homes would think that these issues would have been sorted out by the developer with the agreement of the local authority. Does the Minister get the importance of these issues not just dragging on and on, and the need for quite swift resolution?

    Lucy Frazer

    I do totally understand the point. As a local MP, I have worked with developers and streets to get to the position where roads are adopted so that the local authority can take over. I totally understand the point my hon. Friend is making, and I look forward to the conversations we will have about how we can address this further.

    Coming back to the estate rent charges, we and the Government recognise that this is a real concern for homeowners, and we are actually tackling it. We intend to legislate to give freeholders on private and mixed-tenure estates the equivalent rights of leaseholders, which means they will be able to directly challenge unfair estate rent charges. For the first time, they will be able to apply to the first-tier tribunal to appoint a new manager who can better handle the estate rent charges and is more responsive to what residents want, because as my hon. Friend said in his speech, they sometimes think they can do this better than the developers or agencies themselves.

    My hon. Friend also talked about his concerns when developers fail to build roads to adoptable standards. When that happens, we want councils to take the toughest possible enforcement action. This is where the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which is currently going through this House, has a pivotal role to play in strengthening the hand of councils. Our reforms will remove the current four-year time limit that applies to some breaches; in future, it will be 10 years for all breaches of planning control. We are also doubling the maximum period of temporary stop notices from 28 to 56 days, and at the same time we are focused on closing existing loopholes that let developers obtain planning permission after a breach has occurred.

    Caroline Nokes

    May I just ask the Minister whether any of those powers will apply retrospectively, or is this just going forward? Will my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) and I still be dealing with a 20-year-old case in his constituency and one that has certainly been rumbling on for 10 years in mine when the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill has passed?

    Lucy Frazer

    I am very happy to get back to my right hon. Friend, but I assume that in any event the maximum is 10 years for a breach of the planning controls.

    Caroline Nokes

    Very briefly on that specific point, we have existing problems, but my question is whether the new legislation will act retrospectively to tackle the existing problems, or is this only going to solve future problems that have not yet occurred in developments yet to be built?

    Lucy Frazer

    I am very happy to get back to my right hon. Friend on that specific point, but we do recognise that if developers flout the rules and breach conditions they will also run the risk of being hit with unlimited fines.

    The status quo is that when a new development is granted planning permission, councils can use section 106 planning obligations to make sure developers build roads to an adoptable standard. It is important to stress that when residents have a complaint about the local planning and highways authority that has not been adequately resolved, they can also complain to the local government and social care ombudsman.

    I want to finish by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire and my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North for securing and taking part in this debate. It is an important issue, and we in the Government do not underestimate for a second the misery that unadopted roads can inflict on our residents. Be in no doubt that we get it that poorly constructed, poorly maintained and poorly funded roads and street lights blight neighbourhoods, erode people’s pride in the place they live and, ultimately, can ruin lives. Where loopholes have been exploited, councils have been lacking enforcement powers and homebuyers have found themselves powerless to challenge unfair bills, we are already changing the law to put things right. I am very grateful for the constructive thoughts of my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire on where there is further room for improvement, and I look forward to further conversations.

    We are committed to working with councils, the housing industry and hon. Members from both sides of the House to raise the bar on the quality and safety of roads and streets in all developments, and to level up communities by ensuring that vital infrastructure and services are right there on the door step when they are needed. That is our ambition, and that is what we are determined to do.

  • Andrew Selous – 2022 Speech on Unadopted Roads on New Housing Estates

    Andrew Selous – 2022 Speech on Unadopted Roads on New Housing Estates

    The speech made by Andrew Selous, the Conservative MP for South East Bedfordshire, in the House of Commons on 1 December 2022.

    I am grateful to Mr Speaker for granting me this Adjournment debate on unadopted roads and the lack of facilities for new housing estates.

    I know that new housing can be a controversial issue. Some of the biggest issues in my constituency relate to general practice capacity and police numbers not increasing sufficiently in line with the building of thousands of new homes. I want everyone to be well housed in well-designed communities with, crucially, adequate local facilities. I am sure we would all agree that safe roads to drive on, speed restrictions, traffic calming, street lights, pedestrian crossings, parking enforcement, and litter, dog and grit bins, and regular collections from them, are all things we have a right to expect in England and Wales in 2022. Asking for them is not asking the earth.

    Yet the current position is that many hundreds of thousands of our constituents do not have those basic amenities, which those of us who are lucky enough to live on adopted roads take for granted. As I will argue, the lack of street lights, parking enforcement, pedestrian crossings, pavements, and speeding restrictions make living extremely dangerous at times for those residents. Unadopted roads are subject to surface drainage issues, leading to a higher risk of flooding, and mortgage lenders sometimes withdraw funds from prospective buyers if a road is not adopted.

    Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)

    This is such an important debate. My hon. Friend highlights the issue of drainage. May I draw the Minister’s attention to the situation at Knights Meadow in North Baddesley in my constituency? The drainage there has been designed outside the parameters of adoptability by the drainage authority, so there is no chance of the highway above the drain being adopted either. We are left in the horrendous situation whereby the homeowners can expect no solution to it, while having to cope in the meantime with sub-standard facilities, roads and drains.

    Andrew Selous

    On the last visit I did with Anglian Water in my constituency, I learned that water companies are not actually statutory consultees in new planning applications. The good local authorities talk to the water companies, but in my view, the companies should be statutory consultees, to avoid exactly the issue that my right hon. Friend raises.

    On the safety issue, are we going to let the situation continue like this until—God forbid—a child gets killed? Road safety is a real issue, as I will illustrate. The Fletcher Road estate in south Gloucestershire is not adopted, and the traffic regulation order to bring in a 20 mph zone will not come in until the entire estate is complete, which could take 10 years. Last year, a child was seriously injured on the estate, and the accident safety report concluded that if the road had been properly constructed, and had speed humps, surfacing and a 20 mph limit, it would have been safe.

    The Levelling Up Secretary has quite rightly used his righteous anger to make massive progress on dealing with the cladding issue and, most recently, with the mould issue. My request to him is to make it a hat-trick on behalf of hundreds of thousands of people who are paying full council tax without basic facilities, many of which are designed to keep them safe. During the American war of independence, the cry went up, “No taxation without representation.” Why is it that we require residents on new estates to pay full council tax while receiving very much less than full council services? Many residents are now paying twice for identical services. On the Castle Mead estate in Wiltshire, residents will pay the equivalent of band D town council tax to a management company to use the open spaces around their homes, while still paying full council tax. That does not seem fair or right.

    The last full survey of unadopted roads was conducted by the Department for Transport in 1972, when it was estimated that there were 40,000 unadopted roads in England and Wales, covering some 4,000 miles of road. It is very concerning we do not have figures for the situation today.

    Let me take the Minister on a tour around my constituency. On Theedway in Leighton Buzzard, three street lights do not work—all close to an assisted living residence where many people have mobility issues—and there is no parking enforcement or road signage. All that is dangerous. In nearby Copia Crescent, one street light is on 24/7 while the other is broken. Local residents do not know which developer to go to for these issues to be fixed. In nearby Grebe Drive, Goldfinch Road and Fraserfields Way, residents report dangerous speeding, no traffic calming, no speed enforcement and churned up verges. One householder is having difficulty selling his property because his road is not adopted, so we are making people’s main asset more illiquid and reducing the ease with which they can move. Properties in Clay Furlong and Claridge Close were sold in 2003—when the first residents moved in—but nearly 20 years later, the roads have still not been adopted. That is simply not good enough.

    In Dunstable, the residents of Harvey Road have never had street lighting, and they have to navigate round potholes—that situation has gone on since at least 1961. A resident of a new estate being built at Tilling Green in Dunstable tells me that she has no street lights and that parking on junctions is extremely dangerous. She has had no reply from her management company about those issues. A constituent from the new Eleanor Gardens development in Dunstable tells me that Taylor Wimpey told her that it had handed the estate over to the council, while Central Bedfordshire Council said that it was unable to help because the handover had not happened. Homeowners—with all their pride and excitement about their new homes—have been left in the lurch again, not knowing where to turn to have multiple problems sorted out.

    Caroline Nokes

    I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and I assure you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I do not intend to intervene all afternoon. My hon. Friend makes an important point about homeowners not knowing where to go. They assume they should go to the council, but then find that the road is unadopted. They then assume they should go to the developer, but then find that a management company was set up and that, in many cases—such as for several estates in my constituency—it simply does not respond.

    Andrew Selous

    In a typically insightful intervention, my right hon. Friend makes exactly the right point. If she is able to stay until the end of my speech, I will outline a number of potential solutions that I am excited about. There are things we can do that do not require money and may not even require legislation, and which would make a difference. I am not just outlining the problems; I am coming up with solutions, which is what we in this place are here to do, is it not?

    Bidwell West—a huge new area in my constituency—has all those issues. They were first brought to my attention by a young couple from Centurion Way who are proud of their new home and want to be proud of the area they live in. They came to see me in my surgery in June to ask for litter bins. The adoption manager from Linden Homes would not even agree to speak to me when I raised the issue with the company. The leader of Central Bedfordshire Council told me that some developers have in the past worked with the council to install and empty litter bins before the roads are adopted. If some developers can do that, why can’t all of them?

    A mother from Bidwell West tells me that her nine-year-old daughter is scared to walk to school because there are no pedestrian crossings. There have already been numerous head-on crashes on her new estate because of the lack of signage and speed restrictions. There are now large potholes appearing in some of the roads, and the lack of lighting is dangerous for dog walkers and another pedestrians on these dark winter evenings.

    A resident from the Kyngshouton estate, north of Houghton Regis, tells me that Persimmon indicated to purchasers that the roads would be adopted by the local authority, but five years later, that has not happened. The residents pay for council tax and a service charge to a management company where the majority of directors are Persimmon staff, and despite the residents having been told that there would be a director election process, that has not been forthcoming. Why should the residents have to pay twice? They also believe they could do a better job running the management company than the Persimmon directors. My hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) has told me that at Holyoakes Field First School there are no road markings and no parking near the school, resulting in children and parents having to walk on the road, which is extremely dangerous.

    I am particularly indebted to the briefing I have received for this debate from the Reverend Tim Haines, the pioneer community worker for Bidwell West. He points out that on new developments it is not clear who is responsible for what—the very point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) has just made—and that at the very least we need a stakeholders working group, comprising builders, housing associations, landowners, the local authority and residents. Every developer with a responsibility for street lights and so on should have a named, available point of contact for residents and council officers to contact.

    I am grateful to the Local Government Association, the National Association of Local Councils and the Home Builders Federation for the briefing they have provided to me for this debate. I am optimistic that a better future can be created, but it will need the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to take a lead and establish best practice requirements with penalties for failure to comply.

    Some local authorities report that developers start building a road before entering into the section 38 agreement or try to vary the terms of the local highway authority’s section 38 agreement. In other cases, the developers may build a road very slowly and not finish it or not build the road up to the local highway authority standards. The sewerage authority may also take time to adopt the sewers under the new road. The road may be finished, but there could be outstanding construction defects that the developer needs to fix, such as defective street lights, potholes, overgrown verges or broken drain covers.

    The Home Builders Federation notes the unacceptable inconsistency between local highway authorities, with inspection fees varying between 5% and 15% of the bond value and the length of time between a technical submission and technical approval for both section 278 and section 38 agreements varying between one week and one year. The Home Builders Federation requests that costs imposed on it by local highway authorities be reasonable and consistent, and that the process for technical approval and legal engrossment be simple, effective, rapid, trackable and measurable—all very reasonable demands. It asks that councils do not seek betterment schemes over and above the engrossed legal agreement, so preventing adoption as a result.

    I want the Department to take a lead on this issue and deliver significant improvement in how we provide roads on new estates with the associated facilities that are critical to prevent our constituents from being exposed to danger. I say again that that danger could lead to loss of life.

    In Wales, a good practice guide has been adopted, to which local highway authorities and house building federations have signed up. At the pre-application stage, the highway authority is involved. If five or more properties are served by public highways, the highway authority serves an advance payments code notice on the developer within six weeks of building approval. Once the notice has been served, works cannot commence without a bond being in place, equivalent to the total cost of construction of roads as estimated by the highway authority. During this period, a section 38 agreement can be negotiated, or ideally it is done even sooner.

    My plea to the Minister is to take the learning and evaluation of what has happened in Wales and to build on that for England, and to take the sensible points made by local authorities and the Home Builders Federation to get agreed and enforceable national standards, and to do so with speed and determination.

  • Neil O’Brien – 2022 Speech on World AIDS Day

    Neil O’Brien – 2022 Speech on World AIDS Day

    The speech made by Neil O’Brien, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of Health and Social Care, in the House of Commons on 1 December 2022.

    Let me start by congratulating all Members from across the House who have taken part in what has been an incredibly informative and high quality debate. Let me join others in congratulating the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), on a speech that mixed huge personal experience and knowledge, years of advocacy and successful campaigning, and a huge number of insights.

    I undertake to look at numerous issues raised by the hon. Member, but to pick just a few, he asked about: the bureaucratic barriers stopping syphilis testing from being added to the opt-out testing that we already do for HIV and hepatitis B and C; some of the risks around the shift to online clinics; people on PrEP being tested regularly; and the promising experiment by the Terrence Higgins Trust with saliva testing for HIV. He raised a number of other points, including the important issue about patent waivers. There was a huge amount in his speech to take away and look at.

    The same is true of other hon. Members. My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) made hugely important points about women and girls, and gave some incredibly striking and harrowing statistics. She made important points about the barriers to testing, particularly among minority groups. We can learn from the way that we are tackling that problem in other fields, including in covid vaccination work.

    The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) gave us insights on what is happening in Northern Ireland, such as the role of the Public Health Agency there and what it is doing on PrEP. He talked about the role of the church in his constituency and the connection between Swaziland and Strangford, which might surprise outsiders. He talked of the work of the Positive Life charity in Northern Ireland, which I commend.

    My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards) spoke powerfully about her constituents’ experiences of stigma. She made the important point that, as a high prevalence area, it should be considered for the expansion of opt-out testing. A similar point was made by the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) and my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson). I join my hon. Friend in commending the work of Middleton Health Centre.

    The hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar) talked about some important lessons that we can learn. We are keen to learn across the UK about the rollout of PrEP in Scotland. On the roll-out of our world-leading vaccination campaign against mpox—one of many issues raised by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) in his speech—we are talking to that relatively small number of clinics that have had to deliver the huge majority of the campaign about its impact financially and on their day-to-day work.

    World AIDS Day is an invitation to underline our commitment to tackling HIV, to show our support for people living with HIV and to remember those we have lost to AIDS. I am proud of how far we have come: from the stigma and the sidelining of the past, which a number of Members have mentioned, to where we are today thanks to collaborative efforts and the commitment of the Government, together with HIV patients, their friends and family, campaigners, medics, researchers and the health and care system at all levels.

    Today, when diagnosed early and with access to antiretroviral therapy, most people living with HIV in England can expect a near-normal life expectancy. People diagnosed with HIV can expect to receive world-class, free and open-access HIV care. That has been a result of our collective and collaborative partnerships. However, despite successes, HIV has not gone away. There is still more that we should do. That is why last year, this Government published their commitment to end new HIV transmissions in England by 2030 through the HIV action plan. That plan is the cornerstone of our approach in England to drive forward progress and achieve our bold ambitions.

    We have come far in the first year since its publication. The UK met the UNAIDS 95-95-95 targets for the first time in 2020: 95% of HIV-positive individuals were diagnosed; 99% of those diagnosed were receiving treatment; and 97% of those receiving treatment were being virally suppressed. I am pleased that the number of people being newly diagnosed with HIV in England continues to fall. The latest data on HIV diagnoses shows that 2,955 people were diagnosed with HIV in England in 2021—a 33% decline compared with 2019, when the Government first made their commitment to end all new HIV transmissions in England by 2030. We are conscious of the need to avoid flatlining or slowing the pace in any way. We are still understanding the impact of the covid pandemic and the things that happened during that period, but there has been progress.

    Those successes have been underpinned by clear national leadership and strengthened partnership working. I am grateful to Professor Kevin Fenton, the Government’s chief adviser on HIV, who has been chairing the HIV action plan implementation steering group, involving the key partners in the delivery of the HIV action plan, including local government, the NHS, and our voluntary and community sector. The steering group has met quarterly throughout the year to monitor progress on our commitments and ensure that appropriate action was taken to keep us moving forward with our objectives. Within the remit of the group, they have established specific task and finish groups focusing on key priority areas for action, such as improving equity and access to HIV drug prevention—PrEP—and addressing workforce challenges, among others.

    We are also thankful for the work of the UK Health Security Agency, which excels as a world-class leader running high-quality data collection and surveillance systems to help us to better understand and address the challenges on HIV. Those have enabled us to truly understand developments, emerging issues and where we can have the greatest impact with our prevention efforts, and add to our growing repertoire of world-leading British innovation, systems and technology.

    Of course, none of this could have been possible without the brilliant efforts of our local government, NHS and voluntary and community sector partners to deliver the highest-quality healthcare tailored to the needs of their local populations. We know through their work that different areas face different challenges, and we remain committed to helping level up outcomes for the whole population across the country.

    A key priority, therefore, of the Government’s approach is to ensure that all under-served populations benefit equally from improvements in HIV outcomes. A range of important suggestions have been made in this debate about how to go further. The approach includes scaling up our prevention efforts and increasing access to PrEP. We have already invested £33 million to roll out PrEP access across sexual health services over the past two years. PrEP is now being commissioned as a routine service through the public health grant.

    In delivering against these commitments, UKHSA has now developed and published a monitoring and evaluation framework to support local authorities, sexual health services and other key stakeholders to inform continuous service development in PrEP commissioning and delivery, using the existing available data. I am sure many of the people involved in delivery of those services will have followed this debate with great interest and noted some of the challenges posed by different hon. Members.

    Lloyd Russell-Moyle

    One of the problems is that the Department does not collate data on the average wait times for sexual health clinics or the availability of stocks for PrEP appointments in those clinics. Without that data, we rely on voluntary organisations to make freedom of information requests and report periodically. Having a baseline set from the Department would make a big difference and help us to understand areas that are struggling to roll out PrEP versus areas that maybe are not. Is that something the Minister could take back to the Department? I understand why in the past we have been nervous about publishing data on sexual health issues, but now is the time when we can be a bit more open about that and maybe publish that data, or collate it if that is not already done, so we can start to target our actions.

    Neil O’Brien

    That is certainly something I will take away and look at. As the hon. Gentleman points out, there are a number of challenges in doing that and in unpicking the activities of sexual health services on different diseases, and he has already alluded to some of the risks. However, I will certainly undertake to go away and look at that important point.

    We know there is still more to do to improve PrEP access for key groups and we are in the process of developing a plan for provision of PrEP in settings beyond sexual and reproductive health services, to help us to reach those who are underrepresented—something a number of hon. Members have called for. Our efforts are also focused on scaling and improving testing levels in targeted, high-risk populations, including in black African communities, to be able to reach those 4,500 individuals who we believe are living with HIV but unaware of their status.

    As part of implementation of the action plan, NHS England is investing £20 million over the next three years to expand opt-out HIV testing in A&E departments in the local authority areas across the country with the highest prevalence of HIV and across the whole of London. As a number of hon. Members have pointed out, it is a proven effective way to identify new HIV cases, as it promotes testing on admission to hospital of anyone who has not previously been diagnosed with HIV, therefore rapidly helping to identify the virus. Some 33 A&E departments are now live, delivering that important initiative.

    We also took the opportunity to link the initiative to the hepatitis C elimination programme, backed by a further £6.85 million, to provide hepatitis B and C testing as well. As several hon. Members alluded to, NHSE published its report on the first 100 days yesterday, describing the progress, challenges, results and learning from the first period of this initiative.

    Those very early findings show the benefits of the approach: more than 200,000 HIV tests were conducted over just the first 100 days of opt-out testing across London, Manchester, Salford, Blackpool and Brighton, which meant that more than 600 people were identified with a previously unknown blood-borne virus. Of those, 128 people were newly identified as living with HIV and an additional 65 people living with HIV who were previously diagnosed but were not under the care of an HIV clinic were also identified.

    This approach is important to ensure everyone living with HIV can access testing and rapid linkage to treatment and care, allowing them to live a long and healthy life. Moreover, 325 people were newly identified with hepatitis B and 153 people were newly identified with chronic hepatitis C virus; a further 50 were found who had disengaged from care for both diseases and seven people were identified who had previously cleared the hepatitis C virus.

    We will be considering the initial evidence from the first year of testing alongside the data on progress towards our ambitions to decide how and whether we further expand this programme. We are in the very early days of evidence on this, but I must say that evidence is extremely encouraging. I hear what hon. Members across the House are calling for, given the success of that programme in its first 100 days, but we need further evidence as it develops.

    We redoubled our efforts to increase HIV testing throughout the country during National HIV Testing Week, which took place in February this year. Results are promising: 30% of the almost 25,000 users who ordered an HIV and syphilis self-sampling kit during the campaign had never tested before, and a majority of the campaign’s target audiences reported having taken some kind of preventative action as a result of the campaign.

    We know there is still more we need to do to achieve our ambitions. The HIV action plan monitoring and evaluation framework developed by UKHSA, published today, will explore in detail the inequalities and gaps in HIV prevention, testing and care and other indicators of the progress required to achieve our shared ambitions and will help inform our progress. Our actions continue to be closely monitored by the HIV action plan implementation steering group, which includes key delivery partners such as local government, the NHS and the voluntary and community sector, to ensure we remain on track to meet the 2025 and 2030 objectives. The Secretary of State will report annually to Parliament on progress towards our objectives.

    World Aids Day gives us the chance to reflect on progress and challenges, being accountable for what we have done over the past year and where we need to continue improving. But, most importantly, it gives us the possibility of coming together to restate our collective commitment to continue working together to end new HIV transmissions in England by 2030 and to finish the race.

  • Andrew Gwynne – 2022 Speech on World AIDS Day

    Andrew Gwynne – 2022 Speech on World AIDS Day

    The speech made by Andrew Gwynne, the Labour MP for Denton and Reddish, in the House of Commons on 1 December 2022.

    I, too, congratulate both my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) on securing this debate, and the Backbench Business Committee on granting it. In thanking my hon. Friend, I want to say that we listened intently to his opening contribution. It was full of wisdom, insight and personal advocacy and showed the commitment that he brings to the issue in this place. The House of Commons is a better place when we speak openly and challenge those in power about the issues that still prevail, not just in this country but across the world when it comes to HIV/AIDS.

    On this day, we remember the 40 million people who have lost their lives to the worldwide AIDS pandemic and related illnesses since the disease was first found in the 1980s. In this debate, Members from across the House, in a small, but perfectly formed manner, have raised some important issues. I particularly thank the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) for the way in which she always challenges inequalities around the world, especially inequalities facing women and girls, and, of course, this is an issue that affects women and girls around the globe. It is an equalities issue, and I thank her for her contribution. I also thank the hon. Members for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards), for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson), and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and even the SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar), for their contributions. The great thing about this issue is that it brings us together in unity on World AIDS Day. This is not a party political issue. As with covid, if we are to defeat the first pandemic, we must work together across party lines, and this has been a good debate because of that.

    We all recognise the extraordinary work of those who have fought to eradicate the virus. As has already been said, we have come a long way since the first World AIDS Day in 1988. Here in the UK, we have seen unprecedented scientific advancement. We understand more about HIV, and we have legislated against discrimination to better protect those living with HIV. We have seen some long-overdue justice delivered to victims of the contaminated blood scandal, with interim payments being granted for some—but not all—of those impacted. This victory is a testament to the unstinting work of campaigners and, indeed, colleagues from both sides of the House. However, as has been made clear in the Chamber today, there is still much more work to do with regards to this injustice. I hope that, in his response, the Minister will provide an update to the House on when the Government will respond in full to the 19 recommendations laid out in Sir Robert Francis’s framework for compensation.

    This World AIDS Day is not just about recognising and celebrating how far we have come, but about issuing a call to action. There can be no room for complacency in the late stages of this campaign. Today, we stand on the brink of achieving something extraordinary: ending all new HIV transmissions in England by 2030. That goal is ambitious, but achievable, and it is one that Labour is proud to support and to push the Government on to achieving. None the less, too many opportunities are still being missed, and sexual health services are struggling to keep up with demand. A total of 46% of people diagnosed with HIV are still diagnosed too late, and 38% of people attending sexual health services were not offered an HIV test last year. That is not good enough. Some 20% fewer people were tested for HIV in 2021 than in 2019, and research shows that 57% of people have waited more than 12 weeks for PrEP.

    Shockingly, in 2021, no local authority in England—not one—reported more than five women accessing PrEP, and there are still stark racial disparities in treatment and in support that must be addressed. I wish to use this debate to press the Minister on what steps the Government are taking to tackle unequal access to sexual health services and, in particular, to PrEP.

    In a recent study, 40% of people surveyed reported difficulty in booking a sexual health appointment online; 23% of people were turned away due to a lack of available appointments. With that in mind, what assessment have the Government made of sexual health accessibility levels, and what consideration has the Minister made of making PrEP available beyond sexual health services—for example in GPs, gender clinics, pharmacies and abortion clinics? I assume that that work would be included in the promised PrEP action plan, but that has yet to materialise. Will the Minister commit to an implementation date for this plan today, and if not, why not? Furthermore, what recent assessment has the Minister made of the eligibility criteria for PrEP, and are there any plans to expand it?

    PrEP is one side of the coin, but we do not often talk about the other side anymore—partly because of the success of PrEP—and that is access to post-exposure prophylaxis. The publicity has fallen for that, but it is still an important tool in the box for people who are fearing that they may have been inadvertently exposed to the HIV virus. There is a small window for those people who fear that they may have been exposed, or who have been exposed to HIV, to get access to PrEP for it to be successful. What are the Government doing to ensure that there is adequate advice and information on the availability of post-exposure prophylaxis?

    Sexual health services are under unprecedented pressure due to mpox. Service displacement means that appointments for PrEP, STI testing and long-active, reversible contraceptives have been cut. That has also led to reported hesitancy by clinics to deliver mpox vaccines. What action will the Minister take to ensure that all those who need the mpox vaccine can access one, and not to the detriment of other vital sexual health services?

    Moving to testing, the Minister will no doubt be aware that yesterday, NHS England released its report on HIV and hepatitis opt-out testing in areas of very high prevalence. Labour has been proud to support that for several years. The report shows that because of the tests, more than 800 people living with undiagnosed HIV and hepatitis have been identified in these areas. We have saved an estimated £6 million to £8 million on treatment costs. Put simply, opt-out testing has been a huge success. With that in mind, can the Minister set out whether there are any plans to change the current scope of HIV opt-out testing to include all areas of high prevalence?

    Finally, I want to touch on stigma. A study recently published by the Terrence Higgins Trust found that just 38% of people knew that those living with HIV and on effective treatment cannot pass the virus on to partners. Only 30% of people said that they would be comfortable dating somebody with HIV. The HIV epidemic is exacerbated by stigma, ignorance and misinformation. If we want equitable access to HIV treatment, we must proactively tackle the myths and bigotry that still permeate discussions around HIV. I am sure that the Minister will agree wholeheartedly with me about that.

    I would be interested to hear the Minister’s assessment of current legislative barriers affecting those living with HIV. A clear example is the fact that LGBT+ people with HIV are still not allowed to access fertility treatment, despite the fact that heterosexual people with HIV are able to do so. That is an out-of-date barrier and it needs scrapping. I am proud that the next Labour Government will equalise access to fertility treatment for LGBT+ people living with HIV. Will the Minister join us in committing to that, and pledge to introduce legislation now—before the general election—to end the restrictions that prevent people with HIV from starting a family?

    Labour is committed to the HIV 2030 pledge. It is more than prepared to work on a cross-party basis to make this ambition a reality. But we must address some incredibly concerning trends in HIV treatment and access, and not become complacent because of the progress that has come before us. No new transmissions of HIV by 2030 is still possible. We want to succeed, but there is no time to waste. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown said, let us all, together, sprint to that finish line.

  • Steven Bonnar – 2022 Speech on World AIDS Day

    Steven Bonnar – 2022 Speech on World AIDS Day

    The speech made by Steven Bonnar, the SNP MP for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill, in the House of Commons on 1 December 2022.

    I join all Members in commending the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) for leading this debate and for informing us so well on a subject on which he is such a powerful crusader and advocate. I thank him and commend him for his contribution today.

    Today, 1 December, is the annual World AIDS Day. From the inaugural World AIDS Day in 1988, the first ever global health day, until today, it has given an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, to show support for people living with HIV and to commemorate those who have, sadly, lost their lives as a result of AIDS-related illnesses. More than 105,000 people are living with HIV in the UK, and globally an estimated 38 million people have the virus. Despite the fact that the virus was only identified in 1984, more than 35 million people have died of HIV or AIDS-related illnesses, making it one of the most destructive pandemics ever known.

    Each year in the UK more than 4,000 people are diagnosed with HIV. Many people do not know the facts about how to protect themselves and others, and stigma and discrimination remain a reality for so many people who are currently living with this condition. About 6,000 people in Scotland are living with AIDS, according to Health Protection Scotland data, and 98% of those attending HIV specialist treatment and care were receiving antiretroviral therapy—ART. In 95%, the virus cannot be detected in their blood, meaning they have an undetectable viral load and cannot transmit HIV. We know that many within our society are still largely unaware of the disease and the risks of it. A recent survey from the National AIDS Trust found that only 16% of people surveyed knew that if someone with HIV is on effective treatment, they cannot pass on HIV and can expect to live a long, happy, healthy and fulfilling life.

    HIV continues to be a major public health crisis both in the UK and across the world, as we have heard today. Although we know that HIV disproportionately impacts segments of the LGBTQ+ community, the two issues should not be conflated; HIV is by no means confined to LGBTQ+ communities or certain black or ethnic minority communities. The fact is that anyone, regardless of sexual orientation, gender, age or any other factor, can acquire HIV or AIDS.

    We in Scotland are extremely proud to be the first country in the UK to make PrEP available free of charge to those at a high risk of acquiring HIV. We have made huge progress in detecting and treating HIV, and people with the virus are able to live those long, happy and fulfilling lives. PrEP is free of charge from NHS Scotland for anyone who is more at risk of getting HIV. As we have heard from the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown, it is simply an oral medicine, in pill form, comprising two HIV antiretroviral drugs. It is prescribed to HIV-negative people at risk of becoming infected as part of a comprehensive approach to HIV prevention. We know that the drug is highly effective at stopping HIV from being passed on. In clinical trials, PrEP has been shown to reduce the risk of sexually transmitted HIV by between 75% and 86%, so it is hugely successful. Research lead by Glasgow Caledonian University’s Professor Claudia Estcourt shows there has been significant reduction in HIV infections since the implementation of the first PrEP programme in Scotland in July 2017, and that new diagnoses in Scotland have fallen by 20%.

    The SNP Scottish Government will continue work to reduce the stigma of HIV, raise awareness of the condition and reduce its transmission. Support is being provided for new research on reducing transmission of the virus, and a separate working group will also look at the clinical utility of PrEP in Scotland.

    The SNP Scottish Government have also provided £337,000 to develop a national online service for sexually transmitted infections and blood-borne viruses, which will allow people to request a test online and conduct that home self-sampling that we have heard about today from across the House. Every tool possible will be required in our fight against HIV/AIDS. These are all excellent tools and the Scottish Government remain committed to being on course to reach their target of eliminating HIV transmission in Scotland, and across the rest of the UK, by 2030.

    As a fierce defender of minorities in this place, I must also mention the plain fact that many of those living across these nations with HIV are vulnerable. Some experience language, faith and cultural barriers associated with long-standing stigma, while others have complexities, such as mental health and societal issues, that impact their access to health and social care services, leading to poorer health outcomes. As we are all too aware, socio-economic inequalities drive health inequalities. Will the Minister outline the steps being taken by his Government to mitigate the impact of austerity and reduce inequality for all our minority communities?

    The Government need to take an intersectional approach to healthcare—an approach that recognises that many people in the United Kingdom will face multiple and often overlapping disadvantages and barriers to accessing good healthcare, and sometimes, as we have heard, a postcode lottery.

    Finally, on the matter of funding, the SNP is once again calling on the UK Government to reverse, in effect, the 83% cut to UNAIDS funding, which is a consequence of their decision to cut the aid budget from 0.7% to 0.5% of our GDP. On 31 Oct 2022, the UK Government missed the deadline to donate to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. At the time, Mike Podmore, UK Director at STOPAIDS, said:

    “The UK is acting as an unreliable partner and preventing the Global Fund from communicating clearly to its grantees about what funding is now available for them to work with, creating uncertainty.”

    The consequences of that action could be immeasurable when it comes to the number of lives affected. Although the UK did provide some funding, it was £400 million less than in 2019. Again, we in the SNP call on the UK Government to do the right thing. The aid budget must be restored to its 0.7% level, especially if the UK does not want to be known as an unreliable partner among its counterparts.

  • Chris Clarkson – 2022 Speech on World AIDS Day

    Chris Clarkson – 2022 Speech on World AIDS Day

    The speech made by Chris Clarkson, the Conservative MP for Heywood and Middleton, in the House of Commons on 1 December 2022.

    It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards). I welcome this debate and I thank the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) for bringing it to the House today. I also wish to praise him for his leadership in this area and for the work he has done to educate the public on the realities of people living with HIV. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of prejudices out there, and his speaking openly about his own experience as somebody living with HIV is incredibly powerful and important. When people see that their representatives are representative of society as a whole it makes a real difference. I will not speak at length, because we have heard a series of excellent speeches and I am going to use some of the same facts and figures that have been mentioned. However, I want to say how pleased I am that we are still having these debates, because this problem has not gone away.

    The Government committed in December 2021 to achieve zero new HIV infections, HIV or AIDS-related deaths in England by 2030. That is an ambitious target, but I am sure everyone across this Chamber can agree it is essential. The framework for achieving that means ensuring equitable access to and uptake of HIV prevention programmes, scaling up testing in line with national guidelines, optimising rapid access to treatment and retention in care, improving the quality of life for people living with HIV and addressing the stigma surrounding infection and testing.

    We must work to address the lazy stereotypes associated with HIV/AIDS, especially those surrounding the LGBT community. I am pleased to see that real progress is being made. The Government have provided £20 million to ensure that HIV opt-out testing is expanded to areas with a high prevalence, including Manchester, London, Blackpool—I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton) for his dogged determination in getting Blackpool included—and Brighton. That has helped to reduce diagnosis times and improve diagnosis rates.

    In Rochdale borough, where my Heywood and Middleton constituency is located, 2.2 in every 1,000 adults are living with HIV. I would particularly like to thank the teams at Middleton health centre and Heywood clinic for their work in providing sexual health testing and support, and I hope we will be able to take advantage of opt-out testing too, as it is essential. The roll-out of opt-out testing saw 128 people newly diagnosed with HIV, 325 people newly diagnosed with hepatitis B, as has been mentioned, and 153 people newly diagnosed with hepatitis C. At a cost of just £2.2 million across 100 days, the opt-out testing paid for itself, saving the NHS an estimated £6 million to 9 million, through early diagnosis and treatment. Opt-out testing also goes some way to addressing health inequalities, with higher proportions of women and people from black African and black Caribbean backgrounds being diagnosed compared with the national average.

    In March 2020, the Department of Health and Social Care provided £16 million in funding to local authorities to provide PrEP. I warmly welcome that, but barriers still exist. More than 57% of people waited more than 12 weeks to access PrEP and only 35% who attempted to access PrEP services were successful. It is essential that that changes. PrEP is a game changer for all of us. It is an essential tool if we are to end new infections by the next decade in the UK.

    Of course, we know that this is not just a problem here at home. The truth is that covid-19 was the second pandemic of our lifetimes and we are still living through the first; this is a global matter. That is why I am proud that the UK provides funds to UNAIDS, the Robert Carr Fund and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. I will join the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown in saying that I would have liked to have seen the levels sustained, but my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) made the important point that there are other things we can leverage as a country to help other countries in their fight against this disease. The UK is a co-founder of Global Fund and the third largest donor historically—my hon. Friend mentioned the figure of £4.4 billion in that regard—and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office announced on 14 November that the UK will contribute a further £1 billion, so at least we are still in the fight. As with covid, the truth is that none of us is safe until all of us are safe, and we have a role to play in supporting those parts of the world less able to tackle HIV/AIDS than ourselves.

    As we aim for our 2030 target, I would also like to draw the Government’s attention to the recommendations of the Terrence Higgins Trust and National AIDS Trust, which are calling for the expansion of opt-out testing to all areas of high prevalence—I cannot stress how important that is—the provision of PrEP to all who could benefit from it, which is very important, and a refocusing of sexual health services that have been displaced by the recent mpox outbreak.

    There is a huge amount of work to do if we are to reach our 2030 target, and that will rely on adequate funding, access and information across society. It will need those of us in this place to speak openly and honestly about HIV/AIDS and to be collaborative, working across the piece. I am confident that we can get to that 2030 target and I will continue to support everyone working to that endeavour for as long as I have the privilege to be in this place.