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Tag: Speeches

  • Richard Murphy – 2023 Comments on NHS Funding and Sajid Javid’s Proposals

    Richard Murphy – 2023 Comments on NHS Funding and Sajid Javid’s Proposals

    The comments made by Richard Murphy, the Professor of Accounting Practice at Sheffield University, on Twitter on 21 January 2023.

    Sajid Javid says we need to pay £20 for a GP appointment and £66 to go to A&E as a way to solve the NHS funding crisis. He’s wrong because there are so many better options in my new report on funding the NHS.

    There are 367 million GP appointments in the NHS each year. Assuming everyone had to pay (and I bet children and pensioners would not) at £20 a time that would raise £7.3bn in extra revenue.

    In England there are roughly 27 million A&E appointments a year, which at £66 each, assuming everyone paid, would raise £1.8 billion a year.

    So, Javid wants to raise £9.1 billion a year by imposing a sickness tax on those wanting to see a doctor. But that’s before exemptions and before the massive cost of actually collecting this money, which can’t be ignored. So, let’s guess it’s £6 billion after exemptions.

    In my new report on NHS funding out today I suggest the NHS needs £30 billion extra a year to function properly. So Javid is not proposing anything that will make any big difference to its fortunes. But he is going to hit the poorest hardest.

    I have suggested how to find the £30 billion required to pay for the NHS we need. Half would come from extra taxes paid simply as a result of spending the extra money on the NHS or by making people well enough to work again. In the real world that’s what happens.

    But that stills leaves £15 billion to find. That could come from halving the tax reliefs given to the wealthiest 10% in the UK on their pension and ISA accounts which cost a staggering £30 billion a year in total. Wouldn’t that be better than charging the sick?

    Or we could double the rate of capital gains tax and collect maybe £15bn a year. It is absurd that right now this tax, paid almost entirely by the wealthiest, is charged at half the rate of income tax. Wouldn’t that be better than charging the sick?

    Alternatively, we could invest £1 billion in HM Revenue & Customs to tackle tax abuse. It is reckoned they collect £18 for every £1 spent. So that could also raise the money needed. Again, wouldn’t that be better than charging the sick?

    And there are other tax options as well on top of which the government could simply run a deficit to pay for this or do QE to fund the NHS as the Tories did for other crises.

    But what we do not need to do is charge the sick what is, in effect, a new tax when being sick is already a good indicator of being on lower than average income and Javid’s sole aim in doing this is to pave the way for NHS privatisation, and his scheme raises insignificant money.

    We need a debate on NHS funding but crass ideas from Sajid Javid and his like on NHS charging need to be dismissed out of hand when vastly better options from taxing the best off more fairly or from borrowing are available.

    My report is at https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2023/01/21/the-nhs-funding-crisis-and-how-to-solve-it/.

  • Sajid Javid – 2023 Article on Charging for NHS Treatment

    Sajid Javid – 2023 Article on Charging for NHS Treatment

    A section of the article published in The Times, written by Sajid Javid, the former Health Secretary and the Conservative MP for Bromsgrove on 21 January 2023.

    Too often we hear doctors and nurses frustrated at people making unnecessary trips to frontline services, which takes time from other patients. Would the same level of demand exist here if this Irish model were adopted? This extends to GP appointments. In Norway and Sweden a visit to the GP comes with a contribution of about £20. For some people, just like my parents, that is a noticeable part of the weekly budget. But as demonstrated by so many other countries, it is possible to means-test this provision. Even a tiny fraction of patients reconsidering their visit to the GP (and perhaps visiting a community pharmacist instead), would save thousands of clinical hours.

    Co-payments are not the only alternative. Germany’s social health insurance model gives the structural benefit of a greater choice of providers, including non-profit community hospitals, and therefore less pressure on the public system. In the UK, more and more people are moving towards private healthcare (including within NHS Trusts). But provision is limited in comparison. Other systems with a contributory principle have seen a range of providers emerge. Patients in the UK are all directed towards the front door of the NHS, which only worsens the queueing.

    For patients, this is not cost free. More waiting can mean an increased risk of illness and discomfort. And for NHS staff, it also means a constant tide of pressure (and sometimes abuse). We have already instilled an element of contribution into the NHS: we ask people who can afford it to pay towards the cost of prescriptions, and dental and optical care. Labour and Conservative governments have had a role in this. We should look, on a cross-party basis, at extending the contributory principle.

  • Simon Thompson – 2023 Parliamentary Committee Hearing with Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee

    Simon Thompson – 2023 Parliamentary Committee Hearing with Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee

    The text of  Simon Thompson’s evidence to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee in the House of Commons on 17 January 2023.

    Members present:

    Darren Jones (Chair); Alan Brown; Ruth Edwards; Jane Hunt; Mark Jenkinson; Andy McDonald; Charlotte Nichols; Mark Pawsey.

    Questions 23 – 88

    Witnesses:

    Simon Thompson, Chief Executive Officer, Royal Mail.

    Q23            Chair: I welcome Simon Thompson, who is the chief executive of Royal Mail. Good morning, Mr Thompson. I understand from your record that you were appointed in 2021. Is that right?

    Simon Thompson: Yes, that is correct.

    Q24            Chair: Is this the first time you have been a CEO of a business?

    Simon Thompson: It is as a CEO, but I have had extensive experience around the world in many different categories.

    Q25            Chair: Why has your predecessor criticised you in public for not having enough experience and mishandling the situation?

    Simon Thompson: I really believe in Royal Mail. I believe in the brand. I believe in the opportunity to grow the business. We have an absolutely wonderful opportunity ahead of us. When the board appointed me, it was around understanding the customer, understanding the digitisation of the business and getting the changes that we need to win.

    I was listening to the debate just before. It is important to home in on the changes we need. I and the team around me are making sure we can compete in the parcels market. The reality we face is that we did 20 billion letters a year back in 2003-04; they are now about 8 billion.

    In our core business, as we had it before, we used to deliver two letters per day per household. We are now down to about one letter per day for every other household. That business has really gone through a massive decline. During that time, the number of houses we have delivered to has increased by around 4 million from around 31 million. The reality is that we are going to 10% more places and yet our business is down 60%.

    What I am focused on and what the business is focused on is growing in the parcels market. We have spent £900 million investing to be able to compete in the parcels market. We have our great superhubs; we have increased our automation. We have made some great progress, but what we really need is a change in working practices so we can turn that investment into competing in, as has been said here at the Committee, a hyper-competitive market.

    Q26            Chair: You did not answer my question. I asked why your predecessor criticised you in public for not having enough experience and for not handling the situation well.

    Simon Thompson: During this dispute, an awful lot of things have been said that are very personal. It is not necessary; it is not nice. It does not change the fact that what we need to do is change the business and compete in the parcels market. That is what I and my team are definitely focused on.

    Q27            Chair: Just now, you said to the Committee that you were appointed as CEO because you understand your customers and digital solutions. You did not say “workers”. Do you understand your workers?

    Simon Thompson: Yes, absolutely. One of the things I have dedicated my time to since I have been CEO is going out and about to be with the workforce. I am out and about on a frequent basis, generally every week.

    I also put in place Workplace, which I know was referenced earlier. Around 50,000 of our team are on Workplace. It is great that they now have a voice. We put on that platform really key information about the changes we need. It is always good to get their reaction.

    I will always explain the changes that we need. I understand that is not always welcome, but it is really important that we have an open dialogue with the workforce.

    Q28            Chair: Why were you given a bonus of £140,000 last year?

    Simon Thompson: The bonus that was paid to me last year was based on the business performance last year and based on the criteria set by the remuneration committee at that point in time.

    Q29            Chair: When I looked at the long‑term investment plan parameters for the calculation of your bonus, I noted that the board had changed the way they measured your performance. Traditionally, it would be looking at revenue, profit and service level delivery. I understand that it has been changed to just shareholder value.

    Is that why you dished out so many millions of pounds last year instead of investing it into the business—because it creates the opportunity for you to get a larger bonus?

    Simon Thompson: No, not at all. In fairness, my bonuses are based on improving the business constitution, changing the revenue, growing profitability and improving in areas such as CO2. I would come back to what I said.

    Q30            Chair: Can I just check? If I have misunderstood, I will apologise. I had read that for 2022-23 the long‑term investment programme for bonuses for you and your colleagues on the board had been changed. According to the organisation, it could not accurately measure your performance on revenue and profits because of the state of affairs at Royal Mail. Therefore, it only looked at shareholder value. Is that not right?

    Simon Thompson: My incentives are based on making sure we deliver good quality to the customer and that we grow the business.

    Chair: So there was not that change.

    Simon Thompson: No, there was that change. I understand the point you are making. What I am focused on every day is making sure we can give the best jobs in town and long‑term job security for the team. We really do need that change. I am not making change for change’s sake. It is change based on the changing needs of the customers and the reality that surrounds us.

    Q31            Chair: The point I am trying to get to is that you are incentivised, as the CEO of Royal Mail, purely by delivering value for shareholders. It does not really matter how you get that. Ideally, you would get shareholder value because you run a profitable, happy and successful business. If you cut costs, cut investments, cut the workforce and still deliver a large dividend, you do well out of that too, do you not?

    Simon Thompson: What I am focused on, as I said before, is changing the business so we can compete in the parcels market. We have invested that £900 million. I am pleased to say that our superhub in Warrington has come on stream and that is working very well. The other investment we are making in the midlands with the superhub is also coming on well. We have grown our parcels automation from some 20% to over 70%. What we need are the ways of working so we can really compete in the market.

    During my time here as CEO, we have led the initiative around low CO2 for parcels, which is the next battleground that is out there. It is great to be able to report that, because of our feet-on-the-street model and our investment in electric vehicles, we are really leading in this initiative. That is something that will be good for the future of the business as well as society.

    Q32            Chair: I congratulate you on that, but if you do not have any workers, I am not sure it is going to go very well. In terms of your transformation plan, which external advisers are advising you on the transformation of Royal Mail?

    Simon Thompson: We have a number of advisers. When I came in from a CEO perspective I changed an awful lot of the executive team.

    Chair: I was asking about external advisers.

    Simon Thompson: I understand.

    Chair: That was my question, if you could answer it, please.

    Simon Thompson: We do have some external advisers, like all large organisations.

    Chair: Which ones?

    Simon Thompson: The point I would like to make—

    Chair: My question was, “Which external advisers?” I am not asking you to make a different point. I am asking you to answer my question.

    Simon Thompson: We have an awful lot of external advisers who do advise us. A lot of those agreements are confidential.

    Q33            Chair: Which advisers are advising you on the transformation of Royal Mail?

    Simon Thompson: If the Committee would like some more information on that, we will certainly—

    Q34            Chair: That is why I am asking you the question. What is the answer, please?

    Simon Thompson: We can certainly write to you and give you that information.

    Q35            Chair: Why can you not tell me now?

    Simon Thompson: Some of the agreements we have with external organisations have an element of confidentiality. I do not want to make a mistake here and get that wrong. We can certainly write to you.

    Q36            Chair: I would encourage you, Mr Thompson. You are covered by parliamentary privilege, so no one can sue you. That is why you can give us honest answers.

    The reason I am asking this question is that, if you look at the wider industry, a certain set of external consultants and advisers are advising all businesses to invest in technology and automated devices, to reduce headcount for workers, to use self-employed drivers and to cut costs—all of the things we are seeing at Royal Mail.

    You might see that at Amazon, Evri or other types of companies, where this Committee has heard testimony of working conditions being entirely unacceptable for those people. You are just following a similar track, are you not, because you are being advised by probably those same consultants?

    Simon Thompson: I do not agree with that. That is not the case at all here. We are very proud that 97% of our team are full‑time employees. We are very proud of the fact that we give the best terms and conditions in town. Those are things we are determined to maintain.

    Q37            Chair: What does “PVA” stand for?

    Simon Thompson: I do not know. I apologise. I do not know what that stands for.

    Q38            Chair: I was told about this by one of your employees. I do not know what “PVA” stands for, but it sounds similar to what Amazon uses. They gave testimony to us about this a few weeks ago. Apparently, it is a bit of technology that tracks how quickly your staff are processing packages and letters, and getting them out of the door. You are using technology to decide on the length of routes and the speed at which they should go.

    I have been told by some of your workers that they are having to run from door to door because the technology is telling them they need to be quicker. Do you have that technology in place?

    Simon Thompson: No. I am not aware of technology we have in place that tells people to work more quickly. I am not aware of that at all.

    Q39            Chair: You have not used technology and automation to decide the size of routes.

    Simon Thompson: We do have a revisions exercise in place, where we have a look at the volumes that are required on routes. This is normal standard business practice and something we have done for many years to make sure the workload for each individual route is equal across the team.

    When I go out, I often get asked, “Why is it that some walks might be two hours long and some walks might also be four hours long?” We do a regular revision exercise to make sure those walks are equal.

    Q40            Chair: You are telling the Committee that your members of staff do not carry bits of technology, whatever that might be, that track how quickly they are doing their job.

    Simon Thompson: They do have a PDA, and that PDA—

    Q41            Chair: It was a PDA, not a PVA. Did I mishear on the phone when someone called me? You do know what a PDA is, do you?

    Simon Thompson: Yes, I do.

    Q42            Chair: What is that?

    Simon Thompson: A PDA is a device our workers will have that helps them in terms of knowing where to go on their route. It might also be scanning items at the doorstep.

    Q43            Chair: You are doing exactly the same as other employers such as Amazon and using technology in this way.

    Simon Thompson: We do use technology. It is the normal course of our business that we do. To the point you are making about this device telling people to go more quickly, that is not something we do.

    Q44            Chair: Why are you tracking the speed at which employees are doing their work, if you are not using that for any purpose?

    Simon Thompson: From a customer’s perspective, what a customer wants is something called an estimated delivery window. What we need to do with that technology is make sure, based on the needs of the customer, the customer has an idea of the window in which that product is actually going to arrive. We do not use that technology when someone returns back to the office in any form of penal way. That is not what we do.

    Q45            Chair: Mr Thompson, you are quite good at evading my questions. The points I wanted to make today are that your bonus package has been changed in order to focus purely on shareholder value; that you are using external consultants to do what is happening in the rest of the industry; and that you are using technology in a way that adds an enormous amount of stress on to your workforce.

    In the long run, the answers to all of those questions have been yes. I would politely suggest to you that, when we have talked to other businesses doing that, it does not really go in the interests of the business and their customers. It is not the best way to go.

    I will ask you one more time. For all the criticism that has been levelled at you for mishandling this situation and the state of affairs at Royal Mail, do you not have any humility to recognise that it has really not been going very well since you were appointed CEO?

    Simon Thompson: Clearly, there are some things that have not gone as well as we would have wanted. I totally understand that. As the CEO of any business—

    Q46            Chair: You said “we would have wanted”. Is it not your responsibility?

    Simon Thompson: Of course I am accountable for the business. No one would have wanted the disruption we have had for our customers over the last nine months. That is absolutely clear.

    Q47            Ruth Edwards: Mr Thompson, can you explain the cyber incident that happened at Royal Mail on 11 January, which stopped letters and parcels being delivered overseas?

    Simon Thompson: Yes. I would first like to apologise to our customers who have been disrupted by this particular incident. Secondly, I would like to give a thank you to the national security agencies that have been supporting us in this particular incident as well. The other thing is, just to make it clear for the Committee, that I have been told that to discuss any fine details or any additional details on this particular topic at this point in time would be detrimental.

    The situation we have is that we are no longer able to provide a service for export parcels and letters through our postal services. Our domestic reality is that nothing has changed. All of those services are working well. From an import perspective as well, everything is working exactly as we need.

    That is the situation we are in. Within a day of realising what it is that had gone on with this cyber incident—of course, we had to validate that it was not other things—we asked our customers not to send us any letters and parcels at this point in time for postal export in that situation, and our advice remains the same today.

    Q48            Ruth Edwards: Do I take it from your comments that the incident is still ongoing? It has not been resolved.

    Simon Thompson: The incident is still ongoing. The investigations are ongoing in terms of the impact of it. The team has been working on workarounds so we can get the service up and running again. In the very near future, we will have some more news to share.

    Q49            Ruth Edwards: You say “the very near future”. It has already been down for a number of days. When will you get it up and running again?

    Simon Thompson: As I said, in the very near future we believe we will be able to give some more information to customers about the workarounds we have implemented.

    Q50            Ruth Edwards: Okay, so you do not know. If you are working with the national security agencies, we can safely say you have experienced a cyber-attack.

    Simon Thompson: Yes, that is right. We have confirmed we have had a cyber-attack, yes.

    Q51            Ruth Edwards: Has there been any breach of personal customer data as a result of this cyber-attack?

    Simon Thompson: Based on our investigations so far, we believe there has been no compromise of any form of customer personal information. As a precaution, we did let the ICO know straightaway. If that situation should change, we will of course let the customers and the authorities know immediately.

    Q52            Ian Lavery: I just want to say that Mr Thompson is being absolutely disingenuous when he mentions the tagging. That is what it is. Posties are tagged. If they are on their routes and there is a bit of a gap in delivery, they are hauled into the office and asked for explanations. Would you deny that?

    Simon Thompson: That is not my understanding. That is not something I am aware of, no.

    Q53            Ian Lavery: You say it is not happening.

    Simon Thompson: Not to my awareness, no.

    Q54            Ian Lavery: That is astonishing, coming from the chief executive. You are not understanding that the posties of today are basically tagged during the time of their employment from the morning until the end of their delivery.

    Simon Thompson: No, that is not the case. We have technology in place to assist people in terms of the routes and where they go. It is very helpful for people who are new starters as well. I cannot remember the words you used, but I am not aware of any form of penal system, as you have described, that would say at the end of a walk that somebody would be—

    Ian Lavery: They are hauled into the office.

    Simon Thompson: Being hauled into the office is not our standard practice. That is for sure.

    Q55            Ian Lavery: I just want to refer to the financial viability of Royal Mail. It is of massive concern, particularly under your watch. Up to March 2022, the company made £758 million profit and £567 million was given to shareholders immediately. There was no consideration whatsoever, in the halcyon days of £758 million, of rewarding the people who provided the service and provided that profit. You immediately doled it out to shareholders in dividends. That is extraordinary.

    Within days—days might be an exaggeration; certainly weeks—Royal Mail then announced a loss of £1 million per day. That is absolutely incredible, I have to say. At the same time, under your watch, under the watch of Mr Thompson, chief executive of Royal Mail, you announced tens of thousands of redundancies. You want to introduce agency workers on insecure contracts.

    Every single performance target in the last two years was missed by your company under your stewardship. As has already been explained, a former Royal Mail chief executive said recently that you were extremely inexperienced and labelled the leadership of Royal Mail as toxic and confrontational. Do you really think you are a fit and proper person to run this national infrastructure company?

    Simon Thompson: I want to roll back to some of the information you mentioned there. If we go back to the point of privatisation, between our group of Royal Mail and GLS, Royal Mail in the UK represented 83% of the turnover in the business. From a profitability perspective, it was about 73%. Where we are at today is that Royal Mail in the UK, from a turnover perspective, is about 60%, but from a profitability perspective it is zero. As you have quite rightly identified, we are losing £1 million a day.

    In terms of the dividend you mentioned there, back in 2018 we started to cut the dividend payment based on how Royal Mail in the UK was performing. During Covid no dividend was paid. The dividend that was paid that you referred to there was paid by GLS, the organisation that is now very profitable. It is GLS that paid all of that dividend.

    From an investment perspective, since privatisation we have invested about £2 billion. We have invested £700 million in the last three years and, under my watch, have invested £441 million in our future, including our superhubs, our electric vehicles and automation. We have really invested in the organisation to make sure we can grow. During the time of Covid as well, when the shareholders did not get a dividend, we also paid a 2.7% pay increase to our workers as well.

    Q56            Ian Lavery: Do you accept, as the former chief executive said, that your style of leadership is toxic and confrontational?

    Simon Thompson: No, I do not think we are toxic and confrontational at all. I would say is we are really focused on making sure we can meet the needs of the customer and we can grow this business, which we all want. I heard Dave talk about it as well, and I am totally aligned with that. We want to grow the business and give our team the long-term job security they deserve. We will only do that through changing and growing the business and by maintaining the best conditions in town. That is what we want to do.

    Q57            Ian Lavery: The posties have done a fantastic job. In many ways, they are looking to advance the company more than the management themselves. Do you understand their anxiety? Mr Thompson, the chief executive, is on 23 times their average earnings. As the Chair said, you got a bonus of £140,000 at a time when—I have already said this; I am not going back over old ground—Royal Mail had basically failed as a company. It had £750 million profit, and days after it was making a loss of £1 million a day. Are you really worth that amount of money, Mr Thompson?

    Simon Thompson: The £758 million that you mentioned was made at a group level. Royal Mail in the UK made £416 million of that £758 million.

    In terms of the pay ratio you mention, my pay versus the posties’ pay is 23:1. Our average postie takes home £25,700 a year, which is between 18% and 40% more than the market norm. From a personal perspective and a CEO perspective, it is very positive that these pay ratios have to be reported. I know it is something the remuneration committee chair keeps a very close eye on.

    Q58            Ian Lavery: It is very kind of you to say it is good that that is reported. That really was not the question. I asked whether you were worth it, given the obvious financial failure of Royal Mail. You have already said it has faced extreme difficulties under your watch. How do you get a bonus for that?

    Simon Thompson: Last year is different to this year. This year we are losing £1 million a day. The situation is a very serious situation, which is why we are very focused on the change that we need to meet the needs of the customer.

    As I said before, we have done the investment in the infrastructure, the £900 million over the last three years. What we now need is the change in ways of working to go with it from the team so we can turn that into a real growing business. The only other thing to add is that a lot of the changes we are requesting from our delivery staff are already well embedded in our organisation, in processing and other parts of the business as well.

    Q59            Ian Lavery: Can I ask you another question? It has been suggested in the press that Royal Mail executives have been boasting about this war chest of £1.7 billion. It has been suggested that this is perhaps a union-busting fund. Would you like to comment on that?

    Simon Thompson: The £1.7 billion that was referenced was not a war chest. What was referenced was that it was liquidity or access to money that the organisation could have. Like any access to money, whether it be a loan or a mortgage that you have yourself, you have to pay it back. What we need to do is turn around Royal Mail in the UK and get it back to a profitable trajectory. Then, yes, there is access to money so we can continue to invest and grow the business.

    On the union busting side of things, I want to make it really clear that there is more than one union at Royal Mail. We also have Unite, a union we partner with. What we had with Unite this year is one of the largest organisational changes we have ever had in our history. In fact, it is the first time we changed our frontline management structure for 35 years.

    Some of the agreements there were over 40 years old. I am pleased to say that, working alongside Unite, we delivered that change very successfully. That makes us fit for the future. We also agreed a pay deal with Unite as well, which was aligned with what we have offered the CWU. That was agreed within three weeks. We absolutely can work with unions very well and have shown that to be the case.

    Q60            Ian Lavery: I have a final question on the universal service obligation. We had the Secretary of State here a couple of weeks ago, and he was asked whether the company, Royal Mail, had written asking for six-day delivery to be reduced to five days. He said there was no way the Government would accept that and he had said that to Royal Mail. When are you going to stop trying to get rid of the USO?

    Simon Thompson: The first thing to say is that we are very proud to be the provider of the USO.

    Q61            Ian Lavery: Why are you trying to dilute the USO if you are very proud of what it achieves?

    Simon Thompson: We want to make sure of two things. When the company was privatised, there were two conditions around that from a USO perspective. The first one was that the USO would be viable. The viability measure that was set on the USO was that Royal Mail would make between 5% and 10% return. We have done that in two years since privatisation, so there is a viability question.

    The other side of things is what the customer wants. We have talked about the changes in letter volumes during this period of time as well. There was an Ofcom user needs review done a few years ago, and what the Ofcom user needs review said was very clear: a five-day service was something that would meet the needs of 97% of people. Again, if you looked across different locations in the country and different demographics, the feedback was exactly the same.

    When we did our research, what the customer also said to us is they want a seven-day parcel service that goes everywhere for the same price, to and from their doorstep, with low CO2, with deliveries by the trusted postie who everyone loves. Dave mentioned trust at the doorstep earlier, and I am totally aligned on that as well.

    What we want is a viable USO and one that also meets the needs of the customers. From everything we have seen, that means that five days would be fine. When I spend time out and about with our posties, they also recognise that maybe five days would be fine.

    Q62            Andy McDonald: Am I right in saying that we have declared that you have a bonus of £140,000? What is your base salary?

    Simon Thompson: It is £540,000.

    Q63            Andy McDonald: Then there is £140,000 on top of that. Despite the job losses that Royal Mail has announced, it has introduced owner‑drivers into the business. They are on approximately 20% less pay and with insecure contracts, and you have retained and recruited thousands of agency staff. Postal workers are going to lose their jobs while casualised workers replace them. That is fire and replace, is it not?

    Simon Thompson: No, there is no fire and rehire. I think that is the phrase.

    Q64            Andy McDonald: No, I did not say “fire and rehire”; I said “fire and replace”. Those people are gone. They are out the door. They are bulleted. You are getting people back on casualised labour. Is that the way to run a cherished national asset such as Royal Mail?

    Simon Thompson: I apologise; I had misunderstood there. No, that is not what we are doing at all. As I said before, we have 97% full-time employment, which is something that we want. In terms of the agency workers, we had 18 days of industrial action and had to make sure that we kept our service running. That meant that we had to increase our level of agency workers to make sure we could keep the service running during industrial action days as well.

    Something that Dave and I discussed was that we would reduce those agency workers, which I am pleased to report we have rapidly done. We are back in talks now. We are very pleased that we are back in talks now, and it would be good to get an agreement as soon as we can.

    Q65            Andy McDonald: It is pleasing to hear that you are talking. One of the reasons that you cited for the operating loss of between £350 million and £450 million in the 2022 half‑year results was as a direct result of the industrial action. What is stopping you from reaching an agreement with the CWU to end the dispute?

    Simon Thompson: We would love to get an agreement, and I am delighted that we are back in talks. Dave called me just before the new year. We had a conversation on New Year’s Eve, actually, and I am delighted that that has led to where we are.

    In terms of where we have got to, we have now made 12 concessions, including an increased pay offer and items such as voluntary working on a Sunday. I do not want to prejudice where we are with those talks, but we have some more days to go and we should keep our efforts to try to get an agreement. What we really need here is everybody pointing in the same direction so that we can reinvent Royal Mail for the next generations, which means we can compete in that parcels market.

    As I have said before, we have the infrastructure in place. It is there, ready. It is coming on stream. We are making progress with it, but we must have the ways of working. It is an urgent situation, because as everyone here on the committee will understand £1 million lost a day is not sustainable forever.

    Q66            Andy McDonald: If you have those losses, why did you distribute £567 million to shareholders in 2021-22? If Royal Mail is financially unstable, how on earth is that possible?

    Simon Thompson: That was paid out of GLS’s profits, as I referenced earlier.

    Q67            Andy McDonald: So you carved the business up to justify those costs. What about the sick pay that you are going to be giving? You have announced that you want to reduce sick pay for postal workers. Do you not acknowledge that by cutting sick pay you endanger them and their family, as well as creating extra pressure on the NHS? It is the Royal Mail. You have duties beyond any other business. You are not any other business; you are the Royal Mail. How can you take such a step against your own workers? My colleagues talked about your £1.3 billion war chest. Is this a really fit and proper way to run such an important business as Royal Mail?

    Simon Thompson: We do not have the war chest, as I mentioned earlier. That was access to liquidity.

    Q68            Andy McDonald: The Telegraph described it as a war chest and it was Royal Mail stating to its own investors that it had that money. Are you saying that the Telegraph is lying or has been misinformed?

    Simon Thompson: A correction was made on that particular article. Picking up your point around sick pay, our current sickness level that we have in the organisation is about three times the norm, if you look at ONS results. If we have a look at the vast majority of our team—and it is a magnificent team—they take around one and a half days’ worth of sick absence per year. Our sickness policy is significantly better any of the competition. In fact, in some of the competition, if you do not turn in when you are sick, you get no pay at all.

    What we have is that over the first six months you can get full pay. For the following six months you can get half pay. Those things do not change. For the first three days of absence in any year, again, you would get full pay, but what we recognise is that an enormous amount of our sickness is actually in a small proportion of the team. We are currently discussing a change in the sickness scheme to encourage people to come back to work. We should touch on what we talked about earlier. We need everyone, or as many people as possible, back to work, as long as they are fit and healthy, because that is how we make sure we can deliver a quality of service.

    Q69            Andy McDonald: You are not going to cut sick pay at all. You are not going to make any changes that would reduce workers’ sick pay while they are absent due to ill health—not a penny.

    Simon Thompson: Our overall sickness policy is much better than competition.

    Andy McDonald: No, I asked you the question, “Are you going to make any cuts to sick pay?” It is either a yes or a no.

    Simon Thompson: We are in discussions about how it is that we can make some adjustments that would only impact a small proportion of the team to encourage them back to work.

    Andy McDonald: That sounds to me like a yes—you are going to cut the sick pay for those workers.

    Simon Thompson: We are discussing how it is that our sick policies can encourage as many people back to work as possible. It is also worth understanding that we spend about £250 million a year on sickness, and our sickness level is three times the industry norm.

    Q70            Andy McDonald: You are giving evasive and avoiding answers. You played fast and loose with the Chair’s questions about the technology and about the acronym that was used. Should you not have come in and said “No, actually what we have is X”, or whatever it is? If you are not forthright and candid with us, are we going to be able to trust you? At the moment, these sorts of responses where you do not give straight answers to very simple questions are really causing us some considerable difficulty. Do you not see that?

    Simon Thompson: I can understand that the situation is tense. I would always like to answer as best I can. I hope that I am answering the questions in a way that is acceptable to the Committee.

    Andy McDonald: It is not to me.

    Q71            Chair: Forgive me just for asking a simple question, but when was the decision taken to separate the international parcels business from the USO obligations?

    Simon Thompson: I am not sure of the question. I am sorry.

    Q72            Chair: From your evidence today, as I understand it, you have a profitable parcels business. You called it GLS. You then have the letters business, the USO, which you have been trying to reduce your obligations under with the Government. When was the decision taken to separate the two?

    Simon Thompson: They have been two separate organisations for some time.

    Q73            Chair: Is that since privatisation?

    Simon Thompson: Yes. They have always been run as separate businesses. The GLS business has a chief executive and Royal Mail has a chief executive, which is me.

    Q74            Chair: What you have been saying is that the GLS bit is profitable and viable, but you said earlier that there are viability concerns about the Royal Mail bits.

    Simon Thompson: That is right, but we presented a turnaround plan for Royal Mail in the UK to the market back in November. It can be a very profitable business that flourishes, but we just need the changes that are based on the customers’ needs to make it that way.

    Q75            Chair: It just reminds me a bit of the buses. When buses were privatised, the bus company CEOs said, “Oh, we have a profitable route here but we cannot cross‑subsidise to the routes over here that are not profitable”, so you cut the routes that are not profitable. Then local communities—often low-income local communities—have no bus, and then the CEOs come to Government and the taxpayer and say, “Oh, we cannot cross-subsidise the profitable routes. We can take the profits, but we cannot cross-subsidise. Can you give us some taxpayers’ money to pay for the buses for people over here who need it?” It feels like a very similar conversation. You are probably going to be wanting to ask the Government for more money, a reduction in the USO or something to make viable the bit that you have described as being potentially unviable, are you not?

    Simon Thompson: No, that is not the case. I have been clear on our position on the USO from six days to five days on the basis of viability and customer need. That is something that we have asked for, but there is a great future for Royal Mail. The reason I took the job is that I believe in the business and that it can compete and flourish in the market.

    We do have some great advantages. We go everywhere, as Dave mentioned earlier. That is a massive advantage, and we have great infrastructure as well. We have also innovated in some really great services. We are uniquely positioned to implement Parcel Collect. Dave talked about the fact that we want a bigger role for postal workers. I agree with him. Parcel Collect—being able to pick something up at the doorstep instead of someone having to drive and park to hand over a parcel—is a magical thing, and something that is uniquely ours. We have also appointed a managing director of Royal Mail Medical, so we are looking to build some new businesses as well on the basis that we go everywhere and have that trusted relationship.

    Q76            Jane Hunt: I have a couple of questions, if I may, on service performance. First of all, the Q2 performance figures in 2022 were not great, from what I can gather, and targets were missed. However, Mr Ward, the general secretary of the CWU, said in his submission earlier that reform plans were torn up in September and that there was a power struggle. Talk me through that. What is going on in Q2, what is happening about these torn‑up plans, and what is happening in terms of a power struggle?

    Simon Thompson: Yes, it is true. We can see that, if we have a look at our quality of service in Q1, in first class it was 85% and in second class it was 96%, very close to the target we have set. I would also say to the Committee and everyone else that it is always a disappointment to me. Achieving those targets is something we are very committed to, however stretching they can be.

    What happened in Q2 was that our performance was lower. It was 71% for first class and, from memory, it was about 92% for second class. That was disrupted by industrial action at the end. I think that is the case. If we have a look in December, for instance, we had seven days of industrial action out of the 23 days up until Christmas. During that period of time we will deliver about 30 million to 40 million letters a day, so any form of disruption is going to be a major issue for the quality of service reality.

    I am also pleased to say that during the industrial action phases we totally changed the way that we did our sortation and automation in our machines to make sure we prioritised NHS letters and the likes. We delivered about 34.5 million of those critical letters during that industrial action period by prioritising them.

    Q77            Jane Hunt: Thank you very much for doing that with the NHS letters, actually. I was aware of that and I feel sure it made a huge difference. My second question follows on quite well from that, actually. I did not appreciate that you had made a deal with Unite within three weeks, and yet CWU is yet to come to an agreement here. What is the impact of the CWU strikes on the future performance and development of the business, and indeed the competitiveness of the whole company?

    Simon Thompson: It was referenced earlier. I spend an awful lot of time with our retailer customers as well, asking them what it is that they want. What they really need is a quality service, regularity and confidence that things can be delivered. It is true to say that during industrial action, at the press of a button, they will make a decision to protect their business and their customers, and that business has gone elsewhere.

    The other thing they tell me, on a very regular basis, is that what we are building in terms of our infrastructure—the ability to take an e-commerce order at midnight and deliver it the next day, with low CO2 and with a postie that they trust—is a magical thing. The reality from the retailers is that they are having to make choices that I do not think they would like to make. The choice that they would prefer to make is to put their business with Royal Mail, because what we are building is exactly what they want.

    Q78            Ruth Edwards: Mr Thompson, you have focused a lot in this session on parcels and the profitability of parcels. Would it be fair to say then that reports in the media and from constituents that postal workers have been told to prioritise parcels over letters are accurate? Is that now official Royal Mail policy?

    Simon Thompson: No, that is absolutely not true. We have been very clear that there is no difference between the two. We have written to our teams on a regular basis. In my first year I actually wrote a letter to every postal worker reminding them of the importance of letters, but we have to recognise one thing, particularly after days of industrial action. For anyone who has been to one of our delivery offices, you will all remember the frames. Within the frames we are 100% optimised for letters; there is somewhere to store letters, but we are not at all optimised for parcels. We have occasions at a local level where for health and safety reasons there might be a situation where parcels need to be delivered so that the postal workers can actually get to the frames, but that is not our policy at all. Our policy is very clear that letters and parcels are equal.

    Q79            Ruth Edwards: It is interesting, though, because this situation arose in Rushcliffe and I commented in the local media about it. As a result I was contacted by postal workers from across the country who said the opposite, and who said that they have been specifically told to prioritise parcels. Why do you think it is that so many of them have been told something different to what is official Royal Mail policy?

    Simon Thompson: I do not know the answer to that question. All I will say is that our policy is very clear that parcels and letters are as important. As I said earlier, we are very proud to deliver the USO service, and we understand that quality is important for letters and for parcels.

    Q80            Ruth Edwards: Citizens Advice has submitted evidence to the Committee ahead of this session, and its data has found that customers are far more likely to experience delays to letters than they are to parcels. Does that bear out in your internal data?

    Simon Thompson: No, I do not believe it does, but if the Committee would like any more information on that topic we can certainly write to you. I did see that information from Citizens Advice as well, and it was actually thanks to the Citizens Advice recommendations some years ago that we changed our service update page to make sure that, if there are any issues at any delivery offices, we are very proactive and we let people know.

    Q81            Ruth Edwards: The Committee would like to see that information in terms of delays to letters as opposed to parcels. We need to put this issue to bed once and for all, in a way. What will Royal Mail be doing, given that there is this confusion as to whether parcels are to be prioritised over letters? What will you be doing to set the record straight and to make sure that everybody knows that that is not the case?

    Simon Thompson: We have always been very clear. It is very clear in our policies.

    Q82            Ruth Edwards: How can you have been very clear if so many people have the wrong end of the stick?

    Simon Thompson: It might be time to recommunicate again, but we have always been very clear that that is the situation. That is our policy through our managers and also with our people. We have been very clear about that.

    Q83            Ruth Edwards: Can I take it from what you are saying then that there will be a new communication now from Royal Mail to make it very clear that parcels should not be being prioritised over letters? Obviously people missing letters are missing incredibly important information about NHS appointments, paying bills and all sorts of things.

    Simon Thompson: We are very happy to recommunicate our policy that we have recommunicated several times. That is perfectly fine.

    Q84            Chair: Mr Thompson, I am a bit confused. A whistleblower wrote to me only last week once we had advertised that this session was happening to tell me that you do in fact prioritise parcels over letters. In fact, he sent me a picture of a poster that is on his rack in one of your offices. I will just read you what it says here. This is from last week. It says, “The future is parcels. Unless your manager directs you otherwise these are your priorities on delivery each day: number one, premium items and collections; number two, large parcels; number three, lapsing, including all parcels; number four, at least half of the delivery points on your frame, including letters”. Letters are ranked number four in the priority list, and only half of them. You are unilaterally only delivering on 50% of your USO, are you not?

    Simon Thompson: I am actually aware of that particular correspondence that was done in one delivery office. It was dealt with and it was a local action.

    Q85            Chair: Is this not true? Who wrote this poster?

    Simon Thompson: That is absolutely not our policy.

    Q86            Chair: It is on a Royal Mail poster that your workers are being asked to read when they go to work. If that is not Royal Mail policy, how else do you communicate Royal Mail policy?

    Simon Thompson: That is absolutely not our policy.

    Chair: I will remind you, Mr Thompson, that misleading Parliament is not something that we appreciate here on the Committee. If this is not the case, you are going to need to write to us with sufficient details afterwards to prove that that has changed.

    Q87            Mark Pawsey: Mr Thompson, we have heard about the dynamic marketplace you are operating in. You have a workforce that has been with you for some time, in many cases. When I visited my sorting office, they told me that a postie stayed for either six months or their entire working career, and many of them do choose to stay there for a long time. Do you think that the workforce understands the changes in the market and the need to put the customer first?

    Simon Thompson: Our average tenure of service is around 17 years, which is something we are really proud about. That helps us massively with the trust at the doorstep and the relationships as well. We are very happy about that reality, but we also need to recognise that, if you have done a job in a certain way for a period of time, change can actually be quite difficult.

    What we have also done—and we have worked with the CWU on this particular topic—is to make Sunday working voluntary, for instance, so we are making sure that any changes we are proposing are things that people can work with and adjust to over time. The realities of a parcel market are very different to a letters market.

    I will give you a very practical example. The latest posting time for a letter could be 5 pm or 6 pm. That would be our traditional reality. The reality is now in the parcels e-commerce market those deliveries are at midnight, and of course we have to get those items to everybody the next day. That is a six-hour difference. What we are discussing is how we can get later start times—sometimes up to an hour, maybe two hours, maybe three hours—so that we can make sure that those parcels, which is now 60% of our revenue, can get to the customer in the right way for the right day, because that is what they need.

    Q88            Mark Pawsey: My question is whether you think that the workforce and their representatives recognise the nature of that change, or is that part of the obstacle to finding a way through the present problems?

    Simon Thompson: It is an obstacle and it is something that is going to need more explanation. When I am out and about in the operation the posties will quite often say to me that, when they are home in the afternoon and they look out of their windows, they can see their competitors delivering. Those competitors are delivering business that we could be doing and we want to do.

    Chair: Mr Thompson, if I might politely say so, I have not been very pleased with your answers today. I know this is a difficult job for you, but it is really important that you answer questions clearly and, might I say, as honestly as possible. Your performance gives us grave concern, really, about the narrative that you have provided on many of my questions today, including when there is clear evidence to the contrary. You have suggested that what we have been told and what the evidence suggests is not true. Something has to be true, and I am not sure what that is. I wish you the best in resolving this dispute. I hope that you take our concerns and questions seriously, and if this dispute and these issues are not resolved in a timely fashion, we may have to call you back to answer further questions and update. Thank you.

  • Huw Merriman – 2023 Speech on Train Services in South Gloucestershire

    Huw Merriman – 2023 Speech on Train Services in South Gloucestershire

    The speech made by Huw Merriman, the Minister of State at the Department for Transport, in the House of Commons on 18 January 2023.

    I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall) on securing this important debate on train services in South Gloucestershire and on his informative and impassioned speech. I recognise his hard work in campaigning to get South Gloucestershire moving and improve transport infrastructure for his constituents.

    The Government fully recognise the vital role our railways play in connecting communities and supporting the economy. Taxpayers across the country contributed £31 billion to the railways over the course of the pandemic, demonstrating our commitment to their continued operation. The Government have acted with the biggest intervention in their history to ensure rail fare increases for 2023 are capped at 5.9%, some 6.4 percentage points lower than the retail prices index figure on which they are historically based. This is a fair balance between the passengers who use our trains and the taxpayers who help pay for them.

    My hon. Friend talked in the latter part of his speech about the need to get more staffing and therefore more resilience into the railways. While the Government strongly support the recovery of the railway and the increase in passenger numbers, there remains an urgent need for continued modernisation and significant efficiency improvements to bear down on the cost of operating the railway. Part of this modernisation is to improve the speed and efficiency of staff recruitment, and we are exploring options to reduce the amount of time training takes in an innovative way using technology, while maintaining the exacting standards of safety currently in place on our railway.

    The Rail Delivery Group’s latest offer to ASLEF—the drivers’ union—opens the door to a more diverse workforce by introducing part-time contracts and more flexible scheduling arrangements. It looks to address inefficient and arcane practices that have long since been phased out of modern workforces. I am sure my hon. Friend agrees that that would be a huge step forward for the rail industry and build upon the progress made in recent years.

    Moving to my hon. Friend’s specific concerns, South Gloucestershire already benefits from a wide array of train services to areas including Gloucester, Cheltenham, Bristol, London, Cardiff, Portsmouth, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, and the cities in Scotland—I could go on. Users of train services in South Gloucestershire have already benefited from the introduction of through train services between Cardiff and Penzance as part of the December 2021 timetable and the reintroduction of through services between Bristol and Manchester.

    Now for the news my hon. Friend has been waiting for: I am happy to confirm that, subject to the provision of the necessary funding by the West of England Combined Authority, services between Bristol and Gloucester will be doubled to two trains per hour from the May 2023 timetable change as part of the wider MetroWest scheme. I thank my hon. Friend for helping make this happen and the West of England Combined Authority, which has worked in partnership with officials in my Department and the operator, Great Western Railway, to make this possible. GWR has identified all the rolling stock that it will need for the extra trains and is confident that it will have all the staff training completed in time to introduce the additional services from May. I hope that that provides the assurance my hon. Friend was looking for, but as always—and in answer to his request—I am happy to meet him to understand any further concerns, and to help him make this happen.

    Luke Hall

    I hugely welcome the announcement that the Minister has just made, confirming that, subject to agreements at the combined authority level, we are ready to go ahead with doubling services in May. It is fantastic news. I thank him for his work and support on that as well as for the reassurance that the announcement will have provided to the whole community.

    Huw Merriman

    My hon. Friend is kind. The thanks should go to him; I am sure that his constituents will recognise that. He is a dogged campaigner, and I know that he will ensure that my feet are held to the fire in delivering the service. I assure him that I will work with him to that end. I understand the disappointment that services were not introduced in May 2022. Staff training was severely disrupted during the pandemic, which is one of the reasons it has taken a while. I am also delighted to hear that South Gloucestershire Council is developing plans for a new railway station in Charfield to help people to travel more sustainably. It has recently submitted a planning application jointly with Network Rail. I wish all involved the best of luck with that proposal.

    Another exciting potential development for residents of South Gloucestershire is the plan to develop the site of the old Filton airfield, as highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti), who is at the forefront of the campaign. That could unlock a significant volume of new housing and include two new stations at North Filton and Henbury, which would form part of the Henbury line. A new hourly train service would run between Bristol Temple Meads and Henbury calling at Ashley Down and North Filton and serve the new proposed YTL arena. I understand that the next stage is for a planning application to receive consent from South Gloucestershire Council to build the scheme. My officials stand ready to offer any necessary support to the scheme’s promoters.

    Although this is not in South Gloucestershire, significant improvement work continues to be planned for Gloucester station. That will please my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who is not in his place but has had a word with me.

    I conclude by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate once again on securing the debate and this additional service for his constituents. I hope that I have reassured him of our commitment to improving rail services to his constituency.

  • Luke Hall – 2023 Speech on Train Services in South Gloucestershire

    Luke Hall – 2023 Speech on Train Services in South Gloucestershire

    The speech made by Luke Hall, the Conservative MP for Thornbury and Yate, in the House of Commons on 18 January 2023.

    I am grateful to have secured this debate. The ability to move around for work, to travel to see friends and family or to have access to local services such as schools and hospitals is vital. For many people in South Gloucestershire, public transport is fundamental to the way we live our lives. That is why I have campaigned relentlessly to get South Gloucestershire moving and improve local transport infrastructure. We have had some fantastic successes in this respect: we opened the park and ride in Yate this year; we scrapped the Severn bridge tolls; we reopened the right-hand turn from Heron Way on to Kennedy Way; we reinstated bus services to Southmead Hospital, and so much more. However, there are some areas where progress simply has not been quick enough. I have called this debate to highlight the difficulties that South Gloucestershire residents continue to face with local transport, particularly over train services.

    For a number of years, I have been campaigning to increase the frequency of train services from Yate to Bristol and Gloucester from hourly, as they are now, to every half hour. At the moment, these trains are often only two carriages long and at peak times they are already full, with passengers travelling between major urban centres such as Bristol, Yate and Gloucester. People living in Yate, Chipping Sodbury or any of the surrounding areas are often restricted from using train travel because the services just are not frequent enough to be viable or because of overcrowding on the services.

    It is clear there is substantial local demand for this increase in frequency, with recently released figures showing passenger numbers have doubled on the Yate to Bristol line from 68,500 to more than 177,000 a year. South Gloucestershire generally is seeing high levels of housing growth, with more residents in the community, more cars on the road and more people moving and travelling for work. Yate itself has become a hub for inward investment around the west of England. It is a thriving place for people to live, work and raise a family. It is home to major employers, with staff travelling from right across the region to the town. It is vital that the transport infrastructure is in place, connecting residents and commuters to local jobs and allowing residents of the communities in and surrounding Yate to travel to South Gloucestershire and the surrounding areas. I would like to put on the record my thanks to Toby Savage, the leader of South Gloucestershire Council, who has done a great job in pushing for some of these extra services, supporting them through his good officers on the council, and putting his all into this campaign.

    Increasing the frequency of these services from hourly to half hourly would make a huge difference to the community, and has widespread support from everyone involved. I conducted transport surveys across South Gloucestershire, where there is significant support for making this change. One of the barriers we have faced to increasing the frequency to half hourly is the need for track works to be carried out at the Bristol East junction at Bristol Temple Meads, as I raised frequently with the previous Secretary of State. I have been grateful for the support of the Department for Transport and the Minister’s predecessor, and for the £132 million plus that was invested to make that change happen and get the project to where it is today, allowing local decision makers to increase the frequency if they can. Increasing the frequency to half hourly is a key part of phase 2 of the MetroWest project, run by the West of England Combined Authority with the DfT, and is fundamental in connecting the areas surrounding Yate.

    Network Rail and the local operator, Great Western Railway, have stated that they are keen to expand their timetable to accommodate these extra services. However, despite being such a critical part of the vision for the region, we have had serious delays in implementation. There were initially plans for half-hourly services to be delivered from December 2021—clearly, it is now early 2023 and they are still not in place.

    In November, we had confirmation of the new timetables up to May, but we still do not have the half-hourly services. I have raised that time and again with Great Western Railway, which has explained that due to the backlog that built up during the pandemic and high sickness levels, it has not had the crew ready to operate the additional services that we all want to be delivered. Clearly, it has now been nearly a year since all covid measures expired in law, and even longer since the social distancing guidance expired, but the substantial training backlog is restricting the roll-out of services that are fundamental to accommodate growth across South Gloucestershire.

    GWR has also confirmed the positive news that it has now submitted the timetable bid for the extra MetroWest services that it will run from Bristol to Gloucester, which includes the Yate station, in May 2023. That is currently with Network Rail’s timetable team as part of the validation process that it has to go through. The last thing that anyone wants now is a situation where, in May 2023 at the next set of timetable reviews, staffing levels are still not where they need to be so the service is stopped from being delivered again.

    I have been offered assurances from GWR’s managing director, who has been clear that his team have identified the rolling stock required for the extra trains and that the training will be in place for May. There are also provisional plans for the service to be funded by the West of England Combined Authority for three years after it is operational, as part of an agreement with GWR.

    Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)

    I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and on his fantastic campaign to get South Gloucestershire moving. Does he agree that the proposed new Brabazon station on the Filton airfield site will help connectivity across South Gloucestershire by serving that new town as part of phase 2 of MetroWest? If we can work with the West of England Combined Authority and South Gloucestershire Council to get that expedited and built quickly, it will help residents across South Gloucestershire.

    Luke Hall

    I thank my hon. Friend for that clear point, on which I completely agree. Connecting areas such as Cribbs Causeway with Yate is also hugely beneficial for the many people in Yate and the surrounding area who work in the Filton and Bradley Stoke constituency and in the wider South Gloucestershire area. He is right to champion that and I completely support him in that quest.

    The total proposed funding commitment for this project so far from the West of England Combined Authority is almost £3.9 million, which is hugely welcome. I understand that that is planned to be submitted to the combined authority committee and the joint committee on 27 January as part of the MetroWest phase 2 funding request. As we await the outcome of that, I thank all the local authority leaders across the west of England who have supported the new service in principle, and the West of England Metro Mayor Dan Norris for his support and helping us get to this stage in Yate.

    I ask the Minister: what efforts are being made centrally to drive recruitment in the rail industry? Staffing shortages are beginning to hold up essential improvements to services such as the Yate half-hourly train service. My understanding is that the extra services have now also been submitted as part of GWR’s annual business plan to the DfT; I would be grateful for any update that he can provide on the process for signing that off at his end.

    It is important that the rail industry should not be cutting costs at the expense of already approved timetable improvements in the south-west—many hon. Members feel strongly about that—so I would be grateful if the Minister could outline his thoughts on that. Will he meet me, Network Rail and GWR to discuss the support that the DfT can offer to ensure that the proposed half-hourly services can go ahead in May, which would mean that the Government could secure that vital return on their investment in the Bristol East junction?

    Getting half-hourly service patterns in place is critical to enabling the opening of Charfield railway station, which is a separate project but is equally important for unlocking some of the roads and for connecting towns across South Gloucestershire with the wider region. It was opened in 1844 and was a vital hub prior to its closure in 1965. Plans are advanced to rebuild and reopen a new Charfield station in the heart of the village and there was a 12-week consultation that closed last year. It will be a hugely important development if it goes ahead; the application is currently with the local council. The importance of getting the Yate services must not be understated in terms of the wider impact on the surrounding railway network and helping us reduce congestion.

    Yate is continuing to grow, but the current train services are too infrequent, with too few carriages. Delivering on the pledge to introduce half-hourly train services between Yate and Bristol and Gloucester is vital. It will improve access to local public transport, take cars off the road, cut journey times, and reduce emissions. The demand is there, and we have the local support; I hope the Minister will assure residents in south Gloucestershire that these plans are firmly back on track.

  • PRESS RELEASE : Deposit Return Scheme for drinks containers moves a step closer [January 2023]

    PRESS RELEASE : Deposit Return Scheme for drinks containers moves a step closer [January 2023]

    The press release issued by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 20 January 2023.

    Recycling plastic bottles and drink cans is set to be easier for tens of millions of people thanks to a new deposit return scheme, Environment Minister Rebecca Pow announced today.

    New plans set out in a consultation response detail that, through small cash deposits placed on single-use drinks containers, people will likely be incentivised to recycle their drinks bottles and cans, reducing litter and plastic pollution.

    The scheme would include special machines, known as reverse vending machines, and designated sites where people can return their bottles and receive their cash back. In most cases it would be the retailers who sell drinks covered by the scheme who would host a return point.

    Every year UK consumers go through an estimated around 14 billion plastic drinks bottles and nine billion drinks cans, many of which are littered or condemned to landfill.

    The new scheme, covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland, is set to be introduced in 2025, following extensive work with industry to prepare for the necessary changes – including setting up infrastructure and amending labelling. It aims to ensure 85% fewer drinks containers are discarded as litter after three years of its launch.

    Environment Minister Rebecca Pow said:

    We want to support people who want to do the right thing to help stop damaging plastics polluting our green spaces or floating in our oceans and rivers.

    That is why we are moving ahead using our powers from our landmark Environment Act to introduce a Deposit Return Scheme for drinks containers.

    This will provide a simple and effective system across the country that helps people reduce litter and recycle more easily, even when on the move.

    The UK Government will work with the Devolved Administrations, and industry to press ahead with delivery of the scheme. The response to the consultation, published today (20 January 2023), showed that 83% of respondents were in favour of the new system.

    International examples show that a deposit return scheme can become a simple part of daily life to make recycling easier, with recycling rates above 90% in Germany, Finland and Norway. Current recycling rates for drinks containers in the UK sit at around 70%.

    A target is in place to collect over 85% of returnable drinks containers once the scheme is up and running.

    Following today’s announcement, focus will now turn to bringing forward legislation and beginning the appointment process of the Deposit Management Organisation – an independent, industry-led organisation, which will be established to run the scheme. The Deposit Management Organisation will set the amount for the refundable deposit.

    Dusan Stojankic, VP of Operations at Coca-Cola in Great Britain & Ireland, said:

    We strongly welcome today’s commitment by the Government to introduce Deposit Return Schemes in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Coca-Cola has long called for a well-designed Deposit Return Scheme that works seamlessly across Great Britain to reduce litter, and enable more packaging to be collected and recycled at the highest quality.

    The plans outlined by DEFRA are a step to achieving just that. We’ll continue to work closely with officials, retailers and our peers across the industry to ensure that the scheme is easy for consumers to use, while delivering the best outcome for the environment.

    Gavin Partington, Director General of the British Soft Drinks Association, said:

    We welcome Defra’s commitment to introducing an all-in can/PET deposit return scheme in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. By kickstarting the UK’s circular economy for drinks containers, the Deposit Return Scheme will help consumers play their part in ensuring the containers they buy are returned for recycling. We look forward to working with officials to help guarantee its success.

    These plans build on efforts to eliminate avoidable plastic waste. Last week the UK government announced that a ban on single-use plastic plates, trays, bowls, cutlery, balloon sticks, expanded and extruded polystyrene food and drinks containers, including cups, will be introduced in England from October 2023.

    The UK government has already introduced a ban on microbeads in rinse-off personal care products, restrictions on the supply of single-use plastic straws, drink stirrers and cotton buds, and the world-leading Plastic Packaging Tax introduced last year.

    Meanwhile, our single-use plastic barrier charge has successfully cut sales by over 97% in the main supermarkets.

    Through the Environment Act, the UK Government is bringing in a wide range of further measures to tackle plastic pollution and litter, including:

    • Our Extended Producer Responsibility scheme will mean packaging producers will be expected to cover the cost of recycling and disposing of their packaging.
    • Our plans for Consistent Recycling Collections for every household and business in England will ensure more plastic is recycled.
    • Plastic pollution is a global issue and the government is committed to working with international partners to tackle it. As such, the UK was proud to support the ambitious resolution at the United Nations Environment Assembly that kickstarted negotiations for a legally binding treaty to end plastic pollution.
  • Orlando Fraser – 2023 Speech to the Institute of Chartered Accountants for England and Wales

    Orlando Fraser – 2023 Speech to the Institute of Chartered Accountants for England and Wales

    The speech made by Orlando Fraser, the Chair of the Charity Commission, on 19 January 2023.

    Good morning all.

    I am delighted to be taking part in ICAEW’s annual charity event, which brings together such an important group of finance professionals to share ideas, learn, and connect. The roles you hold and the organisations you work for may vary. But each one of you plays a crucial part in keeping the wheels of this remarkable sector turning.

    As it’s the start of a new year, and I’m now nine months into my term as Chair of the Commission, I’d like to do two things.

    First, I’d like to share my reflections on the months since April last year, when I joined the Commission, and then I’d like to look ahead, setting out the principles of my vision for the Commission during my term of office, and say a little about our concrete priorities for 2023.

    My time as Chair so far has, of course, coincided with an extraordinarily difficult period for many charities. I said last March, during my pre-appointment hearing in Parliament, that the rising cost of living was my greatest concern for the sector, and I’m afraid that hasn’t changed, far from it.

    The energy crisis, and the resulting increase in the cost of living, is forcing many who were once able to make ends meet to seek the help of charities. At the same time, and as you will know all too well, charities themselves are reeling from sky rocketing bills, and there are understandable fears that, in time, donations too will be squeezed, as people across the country tighten their belts.

    During my first few months as Chair, I’ve had the privilege of visiting charities across England and Wales. This has given me a real sense of the acute need for charitable support among so many people, and the difference charities are making in relieving that need.

    Last month, I visited a charity in Manchester that has seen a nearly ten-fold increase in demand for its services. Visits to the charity’s three food clubs have risen from 250 a week at the start of the pandemic, to 2,000 a week now.

    Similarly, I went to see a Bristol charity, which among other activities runs an advice line for people struggling with their energy bills. It won’t surprise you to hear that the charity last year saw a record spike in calls – in 2021-22 they fielded 25,000 enquiries from over 15,000 people. Tendency: rising.

    I have no doubt that the burden of responding to the current pressures falls especially heavily upon your shoulders as finance professionals. Especially those of you working in-house. Your mettle may well be tested in the months ahead, as you demonstrate yet again the crucial importance of intelligent, prudent, purpose-driven, financial planning and management. Your work is your charity’s engine room, providing the fuel and energy required to deliver for your beneficiaries.

    This work is of course always important. But ensuring that charities use their resources wisely will become ever more crucial as this economic crisis unfolds.

    As donors and supporters feel the pinch, their expectations of efficiency and effectiveness in charities is only going to increase. Charities, I expect, will come under ever more intense scrutiny as to how they set their priorities, how they use their resources, and the difference they make.

    One crucial answer to this, which you contribute to directly, is transparency, notably around financial matters. You play a key role in ensuring your charities report accurately, clearly, in line with requirements and in a way that promotes public understanding and confidence.

    While the Commission as regulator cannot directly resolve charities’ financial pressures, we are determined that we do whatever we can within the limits of our statutory purposes to support charities at this time.

    Just before Christmas, we released new guidance on responding to the cost-of-living crisis. This doesn’t impose any new rules or legal principles, instead it brings together relevant existing guidance in a format that we hope trustees will find easy to access and navigate.

    My hope and expectation is that, supported by your expertise and professionalism, and with a watchful, supportive Commission, charities will rise to this challenge.

    Again and again charities have demonstrated resilience, the determination to bounce back from challenge, and the ingenuity to respond to new or changing need. This was very evident during the Covid crisis, in response to the war in Ukraine, and we’re seeing it again now.

    I’ve been impressed with the dedication and passion I’ve seen in the many charities I’ve visited or met over the past 9 months, and a hardnosed realism, a recognition that sometimes, fulfilling your core purpose faithfully, means doing something new or different. The charities I’ve come into contact with have varied enormously in their size, and type of operation, but they have all had in common an iron focus on the needs of the people they were set up to help and support.

    So while the outlook is in some ways bleak for many charities, I am not pessimistic. My mood is one, instead, of cautious optimism.

    Not least because I have also seen first-hand how determined those working at the Charity Commission are to support and strengthen the sector.

    In our contact centre, in our guidance team, our accountants, our legal team, our case workers and investigators, our policy and comms teams – across the board, there is a shared sense of mission.

    There is much we need to do more of, or better, or differently, which I will come on to.

    But my reflection, having now come to understand the work of the Commission in great detail, is that we need to evolve and improve, rather than change fundamentally what we do, or how we do it.

    This brings me onto my vision for the Commission in the years ahead. What we do – the functions we perform – are set out in statute, most recently in the Charities Act 2022.

    As I see it, my role, and the role of the board, is to set clear direction as to how the Commission carries out those functions. The principles that inform our work, the values we aspire to.

    And my ambition in that respect is in some ways quite simple. I am determined to lead an expert Commission that is fair, balanced, and independent.

    I would like to explain a little as to what we mean by this, and give some examples of these values from the Commission’s work over recent months.

    Being expert means that we need the best people, with diverse, relevant skills and experience. Our resources do not allow for huge numbers of staff, and so we need to focus on quality. We need the best accountants, lawyers, caseworkers, customer service professionals and so on.

    I’ve been very impressed with the work I’ve seen so far in that respect.

    As a lawyer myself, I am of course especially aware of the work of our professions, including those working under the leadership of Aarti Thakor, our director of legal and accountancy services.

    On the legal side, our litigation team has had a near total success rate in the charity Tribunal in recent times. It has been two and a half years since a decision was overturned at Tribunal, pointing both to the expertise of our lawyers, and the judiciousness and care of our case workers in getting decisions right in the first place.

    We also take pride in the legal accuracy of our guidance, such as our guidance on investment by charities, the underlying principles of which were recently confirmed by the High Court in the Butler-Sloss case, and which we will update this year.

    And you may be familiar with the expertise of our policy and operational accountants, who have unique knowledge and experience of the charity accounting framework, and who are absolutely crucial in our work both to support charities, and in examining any concerns about charities’ work.

    Our accounting colleagues are, of course, key experts feeding into the Commission’s involvement in the SORP-making body, which continues to develop the next Charities SORP. A crucial piece of work, with wide-ranging implications, which I know is of direct relevance to the work many of you do in your charities.

    And I’m also delighted to have recruited two excellent, expert board members in recent months. Ann Phillips is a renowned and respected charity lawyer with immense expertise. Pippa Britton, our new Welsh board member, has extensive experience in a wide range of charities and has in-depth knowledge of the voluntary sector in Wales, as well as being a distinguished Paralympian.

    But we must never become complacent. We must continue to recruit and retain the right people, and that means being clear about what we offer candidates, about the professional and personal rewards of working for us, which are considerable.

    Fair is well understood by us all, I think it’s a principle all human beings instinctively understand, and expect from others.

    In the context of our work, it means that people who come into contact with us – regardless of the context – should feel they were treated with dignity, that the process we followed was transparent and without bias, even if the result of their engagement with us is not what they hoped for.

    So, for example, we cannot register all organisations that come to us – many do not provide the right information or indeed are not capable of being charitable in law.

    But all must feel that their application was considered in the same way as all other applications were, that no-one is favoured, and no-one disadvantaged.

    Balance is of course of particular relevance to our work with trustees in the context of compliance case work. And here I mean that we must respond proportionately to the issues we encounter, and be measured in our response.

    We cannot always be lenient. We cannot turn a blind eye to harmful neglect, wrongdoing or abuse. And, as regulator we do at times need to take tough action.

    But we must not come down hard on trustees who make honest, reasonable mistakes. We must always remember that we are regulating a voluntary sector, run by people, overall, with good intentions, who are doing their best in often difficult circumstances.

    To give some examples of what balanced means in concrete terms:

    We are often made aware of accusations against and concerns about charities that are in the public eye. This can mean that we come under intense pressure to respond, sometimes that pressure comes from people with a particular agenda or axe to grind. We respond with care, calm. We neither allow third party agendas to determine our response, but nor do we dismiss information brought to us point blank. Instead, our experts examine the issues thoroughly, before deciding on the most proportionate, consistent response. That, to me, is balance – and, indeed, fairness – in action. That is what it means.

    Similarly, last week we opened an inquiry into a charity in default in filing its accounts. This followed extensive engagement. First we sent the trustees numerous reminders. When that didn’t produce a result, we issued an Official Warning, and only when that also failed to result in compliance, did we open an inquiry.

    This demonstrates that we like to give trustees an opportunity to comply with their requirements. But, ultimately, submitting accounts is a legal requirement for this charity, and we have to uphold the law.

    But balance is not just important to our case work, but also in the way in which we describe trustee duties in our guidance.

    In October, we published a new five minute guide summarising the rules on charities and political activity. The way it is drafted, and the way in which we presented it, is, I feel a good example of balance.

    We were keen to ensure the guide explains what charities can do, and in a speech to launch the guide, I stressed the important role charity campaigning has played over the decades, making our nations kinder, better places.

    But we also stressed, for those concerned about charities’ involvement in political matters, that there are rules in place, there are limits to what is permissible for charities. And that we will hold charities to account where those boundaries are breached.

    Finally, I am determined that under my leadership, the Commission will be independent. That means independent of party politicians, government, interest groups, the media and the sector itself. We report directly to Parliament for our overall performance. But in enforcing the law, we will be beholden to no-one, and nothing, but the law itself.

    And this independence also relates to the way in which we use our authority as regulator – our willingness to speak out on urgent matters that are relevant to the sector we regulate.

    I personally, am determined to use the voice and platform I have as Chair of the Commission to influence where appropriate for positive change.

    For example, just before Christmas, I spoke publicly about my concern at the state of philanthropy in this country.

    I am troubled that the very richest in our society give less than their counterparts in comparable countries such as Canada and New Zealand, and they give proportionally less than those on lower incomes.

    This worries me for two reasons. First, quite simply, because charities are missing out on a potentially very important source of income. It’s important not just in quantity, but quality.

    Often, donations from philanthropists come with fewer strings attached. Because they are using their own money, philanthropists should, in my view, be better able to support risk taking innovations, for example, than governments or charitable grant-givers. Risk taking and innovation are especially important during times like this, where clever solutions are needed to new and entrenched problems alike. Charities can be powerhouses of innovation, if they are enabled, resourced to do so.

    Second, I worry that those with the deepest pockets are undermining the long established social contract in this country, according to which the very successful, and very fortunate, give back to support others who have not been so lucky. This is always important, never more so than during times such as this.

    There are many great examples of philanthropy supporting charities in England and Wales. Today I’ll name-check a few who made their fortunes or whose families made their fortunes in retail or technology.

    We have, for example, Sir Tom Hunter who together with his wife has, over the years, donated millions to a wide range of causes, recently to address the impact of Covid, and support education, and children’s causes. He has also spoken publicly about why this matters to him, saying in an interview that “making money is only half of the equation”, the other is to give it away.

    Then there is Strive Masiyiwa, who in recent times has given over £8m to a range of humanitarian, educational and medical causes, and who is estimated to have provided scholarships to over a quarter of a million young Africans through his family foundation.

    And of course there is the Weston family, which is globally active, in this country through the Garfield Weston Foundation, and who in recent times alone has donated a staggering 182.5 million, in support of a range of causes including education, welfare and the arts.

    We at the Commission will do what we can to encourage more such philanthropic efforts, including by creating an environment in which giving is celebrated.

    Where those who use their great wealth for good are welcomed, not subject to additional scrutiny.

    In this context, and given your professional interests, I would also like to mention a matter much discussed at the moment, namely whether charitable donations or philanthropic projects should form part of the checklist for financial advisers to the wealthy.

    This strikes me as a very sensible idea, and a great way of encouraging those with means to consider how they might give back to their communities.

    So I hope I’ve provided a sense of what I mean by fair, balanced and independent, and what those values might look like in practice.

    There’s another aspect of our work matters to me, and that I’d like to elaborate on a little.

    And that’s collaboration with the sector, openness, the willingness as regulator to listen, as well as to broadcast.

    This is hugely important.

    Effective regulation of so vast a sector should largely be achieved by consent.

    That is to say – the vast majority of charities need to be willing and motivated to follow the legal requirements, to do what the law and we as regulator expect.

    There are two principal ways in which we must engage with the sector.

    The first is by, where relevant and appropriate, seeking the input of the sector as a whole in our charity-facing work.

    There are times when this is required by law, when we must consult formally, such as in the recent example of the Annual Return for 2023.

    But we should not limit our conversation with the sector to those circumstances.

    In that vein, earlier this week, we started a consultation on new social media guidance for charities.

    The aim of the guidance is to help trustees make the most of the great opportunities social media use presents, while also managing the potential risks carefully.

    The draft guidance is therefore intended to be supportive, helpful, enabling.

    We did not need to formally consult on this guidance, as it presents no new requirements or duties.

    But it is important to me that we seek the view of those involved in charities before we finalise the guidance, to ensure it is drafted as clearly as possible, empowering charities to use social media wisely and with confidence.

    Please do encourage your charities to take part in that consultation, and to let us know what they think of the draft guidance.

    The second important way in which I want the Commission to engage better with the sector is through our digital services, using technology to be a more accessible, supportive presence for trustees.

    The new My Commission Account is at the centre of this.

    With time, we expect the new portal will offer authoritative, accessible and timely guidance to individual trustees, as and when they need it.

    So in other words that our engagement with each trustee will be tailored according to his or her circumstances – how long they’ve been a trustee, what their charity does, and whether they are on the board of more than one charity.

    This will not happen overnight, but with time, I have every confidence that the service will prove a ‘game changer’ in our relationship with individual trustees. Helping them understand what is expected, supporting them to meet their responsibilities, preventing problems from arising in the first place.

    At the moment, we are rolling the service out to charity contacts.

    It’s important therefore that we have the right people listed as contacts – please check in your charities whether this is the case. At least one person in each charity must have an account, so that you can access online services, such as the annual return.

    Then, later this year, we hope to on-board individual trustees, and in the longer term to build on the functionality and service the account offers.

    The final specific piece of work I would like to mention is the Annual Return 2023, which I alluded to earlier.

    The Annual Return is a crucial way for us to gather information we need both to regulate individual charities, and to ensure we have intelligence about the sector as a whole.

    This intelligence feeds into our guidance, strategic policy, research and so on.

    I’m very grateful to those who took part in the recent consultation. We listened carefully, and made a number of changes to the question set in response.

    For example we have reduced maximum number of questions that can be asked of charities by three, and introduced income thresholds for 5 of the new questions, to further reduce the regulatory burden on smaller charities.

    I hope you have seen the final question set that we made available before Christmas, to help charities familiarise themselves with what is required, ahead of their 2023 filing deadline.

    Ensuring that charities understand, and then complete the next annual return is another important project for us this year.

    So I hope I have given you a sense both of my impressions of the sector and the Commission during my time as Chair, and of my priorities in the months ahead.

    I would like to end by thanking you for the work you do on behalf of charities.

    I’m aware, in particular, that many of you are involved on a voluntary basis, as trustees, in the sector. That contribution of time and expertise is very much noted, and appreciated.

    The work you do is rarely easy, and is often unseen and unacknowledged publicly.

    But the Commission, and I personally, know that your professionalism and knowledge is absolutely crucial to individual charities, and the sector as a whole.

    So thank you – and I wish you courage and fortitude in the difficult months ahead.

  • Ian Bauckham – 2023 Speech at the Sixth Form Colleges Association Winter Conference

    Ian Bauckham – 2023 Speech at the Sixth Form Colleges Association Winter Conference

    The speech made by Sir Ian Bauckham, the Chair of Ofqual, on 18 January 2023.

    Good afternoon. It is a pleasure to be with you this afternoon as Chair of Ofqual. Unfortunately, the Chief Regulator is unable to be with us today, which I know she very much regrets. She spoke to your winter conference last year in remote format, but it’s obviously much better to be here face to face and talk in person.

    And what a difference a year makes. Last year saw the very welcome return of a normal series of examinations and formal assessments, or nearly normal. Thank you for everything you did to enable those to run smoothly in your colleges. I know it wasn’t always easy but we had a really good outcome for young people, nonetheless.

    I will be saying something later on exams this summer, but I wanted to start with what is happening on the review of level 3 qualifications, including, for example, courses like BTECs at level 3, but also the whole range of alternative academic and technical qualifications at level 3.

    I know that there are questions and potentially some concerns about what is happening, including the approval process for continued funding, and why all this is happening, so I thought it might be helpful for me to offer a brief overview.

    Aside from a small number of exceptions, all level 3 alternative academic and technical qualifications (qualifications at level 3 which are not T Levels or A levels, like for example level 3 BTECS, alongside many others) are being required to re-apply for funding as part of a government-led streamlining programme for these qualifications.

    The government’s aim for this exercise is in essence threefold:

    • firstly, to simplify the landscape, including addressing what is seen as in some cases unnecessary duplication where that exists
    • to drive up the quality of qualifications and the assessment that underpins them
    • and to ensure that appropriate priority is given to T Levels and their place in the landscape

    These alternative and technical qualifications constitute a large and complex area in comparison, say, with A levels and T Levels. For example, there are more than 60 awarding organisations offering the qualifications that are in scope, and several thousand different level 3 qualifications in the alternative academic and technical space.

    Some of these are large entry and well known to you in your colleges, and some, of course, are very small in terms of entry, and not likely to be on your radar as college leaders.

    Last week the government published details of their new qualifications funding approval process for qualifications at level 3. Talking to your colleagues, I know that that is under scrutiny by your representatives and I am sure debate will continue. What the document sets out to do is bring clarity on what type of L3 qualifications are likely to be publicly funded alongside A levels and T Levels, and bring clarity on the timescales.

    I recommend that you take a look at this for more detailed information. I believe the Department for Education will be running some webinars to look at some of this in more detail, which may be useful for colleagues here as well.

    As part of the process that awarding organisations are going through, re-applying for funding, we, Ofqual, are contributing by providing qualitative feedback to the DfE on each qualification where funding is being reapplied for, as well as on the awarding organisation itself.

    This means that these qualifications are coming under much greater individual regulatory scrutiny than has been the case up to now. Ofqual has put in place a range of higher expectations relating to quality that we expect awarding organisations to meet in their reapplications. It is against those expectations that we provide our qualitative feedback to the DfE and the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE).

    As the process plays out, the DfE is taking decisions on funding for the reapplications it receives taking into consideration the quality-based advice Ofqual provides, as well as the contribution of IfATE, that represents the employer voice.

    It is probably important to flag that the government absolutely recognises that, alongside the aim of simplifying the landscape, there will, in the future, still need to be a range of qualifications at L3 available alongside A levels and T Levels.

    For many students these qualifications are important, not only as vehicles for their continued education and engagement in education, but also because they provide important routes for further study or employment. So there will likely be many decisions to approve applications for funding, alongside decisions not to continue to fund.

    You might be wondering what this means for you as a college leader.

    In short, unless you are a college which offers only A levels and GCSEs, or T Levels, it is almost certain you will be offering some of these qualifications, maybe for example level 3 BTECs or equivalent.

    It is also at least possible that the government will determine that some of those qualifications do not meet the criteria for continued funding, which may mean you will need to take decisions about changing the portfolio of courses you provide in the interests of your students to reflect what is available and funded in the future. So following this process, including through your representatives in this association, to make sure that you are up to speed with decisions being taken is critically important. I am sure you will also continue to make your views heard.

    Grading in 2023

    Moving on now, I will now say something about arrangements for grading GCSEs, AS and A levels in 2023. We published our plans back in September so that higher education institutions could factor in decisions that were being made about grading before they embarked on their offer-making, and of course because some of you will have been arriving at UCAS predictions for students. We felt it was important you had as much information as possible before you started that process. Our plans for 2023 take us a step further on the road to normality, building on what happened in 2022, while also recognising the impact of the pandemic.

    You will recall that in summer 2022, we aimed for a staging post on the way back to more normal grading. In 2023, we will return to pre-pandemic grading, but with some protection in place for your students, a soft landing, if you like.

    Students in the 2023 cohort have not, during their exam courses, experienced the level of national school or college closures experienced by students in the 2 years before them. But I know, from listening to teachers, college leaders and students themselves, that many have certainly experienced some level of disruption.

    So, to achieve that extra bit of protection, Ofqual will put in place the same sort of safeguards used for the first students taking reformed GCSEs and A levels from 2017 onwards.

    Back in the reform context, that meant not disadvantaging students in the first cohorts if overall they performed less well because they were the first to sit the new exams.

    So how will it work this summer? In practice, as in any year, grade boundaries for every specification will be set by senior examiners after they have reviewed the work produced by students in their exams.

    But those senior examiners will be guided in their decisions about where to set grade boundaries by information about the grades achieved in pre-pandemic years, along with prior attainment data for the cohort.

    So that means students in 2023 will be protected in grading terms if their examination performance in 2023 is a little lower than it might have been had the pandemic not taken place. That is what I mean by a soft landing.

    What that means is, a typical student who would have achieved an A grade in their A level geography before the pandemic will be just as likely to get an A in summer 2023, even if their performance in the assessments is a little weaker in 2023 than it might have been before the pandemic.

    We expect that overall results in summer 2023 will be much closer to the pre-pandemic years than results since 2020. In other words, we expect that overall, nationally, results in 2023 will be lower than they were in 2022.

    Individual providers, including colleges and schools, should be prepared for this. I know, as a school leader myself, it’s worrying if you look at figures that are lower than the previous year.

    It’s important that we don’t compare the results in 2022 with any other year. Lower results in 2023 compared with 2022 will not mean, by itself, that your college’s performance has fallen. It will be much more likely to reflect the return nationally to normal grading standards.

    It is important to note that, while we aim to return pretty much to normal grading in 2023, this does not mean there is any nationally pre-determined ‘quota’ of grades. Every set of grade boundaries, qualification by qualification, is determined by human, senior examiners, taking account of all the information they have available, including actual student performance.

    I did want to sound one note of caution: if you are using summer or autumn 2022 papers as mock or trial exams, the grade boundaries set for those papers are likely to be more generous, reflecting the approach we took in 2022, both summer and autumn. Do bear that in mind if you are using the results from mocks to give indicative grades for students being examined this year.

    For vocational and technical qualifications (VTQs) taken alongside or instead of GCSEs and A levels, awarding organisations are expected to take account of the grading approach being used in GCSEs and A levels. So for VTQ qualifications certificating in 2023, this also means a return to normal grading arrangements.

    And a word about universities and higher education: decisions about grading by themselves have no effect on the number of higher education places available. That is determined by other factors and has got nothing to do with grading decisions.

    Universities themselves will take account of how exams will be graded when they make their offers, including any differences between the 4 nations of the UK (which already exist). Universities are well-experienced in factoring those in to their offering arrangements.

    UCAS wrote out to all schools just after Ofqual announced our grading decision, to explain how offers will be made this year, and to confirm that universities would take our grading decision into account. The Chief Regulator also wrote to admissions officers just before Christmas.

    Formulae/equation sheets, MFL and resilience

    Further points on 2023: there are one or two changes to support students taking GCSEs. Students will be given formulae sheets for GCSE maths and revised equation sheets for GCSE physics and combined science, which we did in 2022 for those GCSEs. This will give some additional reassurance to GCSE students in the exam itself.

    And for modern foreign languages GCSEs, Ofqual’s changed requirements mean that exams do not have to test unfamiliar vocabulary. That’s to make it feel a bit more accessible for students this year.

    Delivering exams

    Turning now to resilience, the arrangements in place should the unthinkable happen in summer 2023. Clearly the closer we get to the summer, the less likely that becomes, but we’ve all learned to be cautious in how we predict the future. In November, Ofqual and the DfE jointly published guidance on resilience, in the very unlikely event that exams are not able to go ahead as planned. Some colleges may be running mock exams now and I know this is a big operation, particularly in colleges such as yours with large cohorts of students. You are also, simultaneously, preparing students to take their end of year exams. Ofqual was conscious of this when we published the guidance.

    The thrust of that guidance, designed to minimise the burden on you and your students, is that any assessment opportunities you plan should be in line with your normal approaches, as far as possible.

    As well as all the work you do to prepare your students to take their assessments through your teaching and learning, we know that the administration and delivery of exams is something you take seriously. We take our hats off to people in colleges leading the examinations operation.

    It is enormously complex, but there is training and support available, and I encourage you to make sure those who are charged with doing this work get access to the range of training available for them so they can benefit from it and deliver as well as possible on behalf of students.

    If you’ve looked at the GCSE and A level exam timetables for next year, you’ll see there are some changes from 2022.

    The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) listened to feedback about the spacing between exams in the same subject in summer 2022. They have taken this on board for 2023.

    They will largely be preserving those gaps, to reduce the risk of students missing all exams in a subject, but the spacing between some papers is slightly less next summer.

    I did just want to draw your attention to the contingency days that they have built in. Both the 8 and 15 June will be ‘contingency afternoons’ and the 28 June will be a contingency day in case there is national or local disruption that would mean exams had to be re-scheduled.

    Do please let your students know about this and remind them that they might have to be available on those dates. It’s particularly important for them to be aware if they are planning holidays.

    There are more details on the JCQ website, and a quick plug for Ofqual’s resources as well: every year we provide a guide for students and a guide for schools and colleges. These will be published in the spring, and always live somewhere central on our website. I hope you’ll be able to point your students to them.

    Vocational and technical qualification results in 2023

    And finally, just as Ofqual regulates in the interests of students of all ages and apprentices, we are also convinced of the need for parity of treatment for students across the different sorts of qualifications your colleges provide, whether vocational or academic.

    So I wanted to reassure you that we have in train a series of actions to prevent a repeat of the delayed results in vocational and technical qualifications that we saw last August. I know this affected some of you and your students.

    We were shocked by what became apparent in August. Not only that around 20,000 students from 1,550 centres had delayed results, but that for some time, there hadn’t been a single date by which VTQ students could expect results – even when they were used for progression. That is not acceptable and Ofqual will work with the sector to fix this, not just for this summer, but for the long term and in the interests of being fair to students taking these qualifications.

    Our investigation of the awarding organisations involved continues, as does our review of the extent of the problem. We will consider whether enforcement action is appropriate after that concludes.

    In December, we published the 5 key actions that Ofqual, working with you and others in the sector, will deliver.

    These actions cover a range of areas, and there isn’t time to cover them in detail here. They include putting in place clear deadlines, improving data sharing, introducing check-ins for colleges and awarding organisations, improving information accessibility about these qualifications, improving communications from awarding organisations to centres, improving training for staff running exams, and monitoring the implementation of all this via a joint taskforce from around the sector chaired by the Chief Regulator.

    We are certain that taken together these actions will to a very significant extent address the issues we saw playing out this summer (and which to a greater or lesser extent have been endemic in the system).

    Thank you very much for your attention – I think we still have a few moments for any questions.

  • Nusrat Ghani – 2023 Statement on EU Retained Law

    Nusrat Ghani – 2023 Statement on EU Retained Law

    The statement made by Nusrat Ghani, the Minister for Industry and Investment Security, in the House of Commons on 18 January 2023.

    It is a pleasure to be here, and I thank all Members who have tabled new amendments and new clauses and who will speak in the debate. I also thank the members of the Public Bill Committee for their work.

    I will address the Government new clauses and amendments first, but I will say more about them in my closing speech when other Members have had a chance to contribute. I will also address some of the concerns that have been raised, and some of the misinformation about the Bill.

    The Government new clauses and amendments are minor and technical. They cover four areas. The first is updating the definition of “assimilated law” and how it should be interpreted, and, in the case law provisions, ensuring that the High Court of Justiciary is covered in all instances. I thank the Scottish Government for their engagement: there has been engagement between our officials and those in the Scottish Government, and with the Advocate General. Our new clauses also clarify the fact that the use of extension power also applies to amendments to retained EU law made between the extension regulations and the sunset, and clarify the application of clause 14 to codification as well as restatement. These are technical drafting measures, and I ask the House to support them.

    Let me now explain why the Bill is crucial for the UK. My explanation will directly cover many of the new clauses and amendments. The Bill will end the special status of retained EU law on the UK statute book by the end of 2023. It constitutes a process. Considerable work has been done with officials across Whitehall and with the devolved authorities; that work has been proportionate, and has been taking place for over 18 months. I cannot stress enough the importance of achieving the 2023 deadline. Retained EU law was never intended to sit on the statute book indefinitely. It is constitutionally undesirable, as some domestic laws, including Acts of Parliament, currently remain subordinate to some retained EU law. The continued existence on our statute book of the principle of supremacy of EU law is just not right, as we are a sovereign nation with a sovereign Parliament.

    Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)

    We all accept that the status of EU law must change and that it will have to be reassimilated into domestic law in due course. No one argues with that. Will the Minister not reflect that it is constitutionally unacceptable to create what the Law Society—which might know a little more about the law than politicians and civil servants—described as a “devastating impact” on legal certainty and business confidence? To do so by means of Henry VIII powers so wide that all scrutiny is, in effect, removed from this House is not taking backing control but doing the reverse of what the Government seek to do.

    Ms Ghani

    I always respect my hon. Friend’s opinion, but he is fundamentally mistaken. We have undertaken a considerable amount of consultation with our courts and have worked with them consistently. It is absolutely right that we deliver Brexit by ensuring that laws made here are sovereign over EU laws.

    Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)

    My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) is fundamentally wrong. The Bill is providing legal certainty. Rather than having a flow of EU law interpreted according to EU principle, from now on we will have a single set of laws within this country. That must be certainty rather than otherwise.

    Ms Ghani

    Having a single set of laws across the UK will provide far more certainty.

    Several hon. Members rose—

    Ms Ghani

    Before I take any more interventions, I want to address the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) about the Henry VIII powers. That is a misrepresentation of what is happening. Each Department will review and then amend, assimilate or revoke EU law. Each Department’s Secretary of State will be responsible for the decisions they take. All the laws are on the dashboard, which will be updated once again, and we will be codifying the retained EU law. In the absence of the application of supremacy, restating a rule in primary legislation could lead to the same policy effect as the rule itself currently has. The Bill just sets out a process to allow each Department to take a decision. Why would we not want to review the EU law that is out there and assess what needs to be assimilated? If we can amend and update it, why would we not do that?

    Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)

    Notwithstanding the charmingly innocent faith in lawyers of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the key thing about our decision to leave the European Union is that sovereignty lies in this place and with the people to whom we are accountable. The point about this measure is that it will allow exactly that sovereignty to be exacted in practice with regard to retained EU law.

    Ms Ghani

    Absolutely. When decisions are taken either to amend or to revoke, the usual channels will be followed in Parliament. Committees will be put in place and decisions will be reviewed the Leaders of both Houses. Decisions can be taken openly and transparently. We also have the dashboard, which will be updated and already has thousands of EU laws on it.

    Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)

    The Minister is right that the whole point of Brexit was to take control of our own laws. She is also right that there needs to be a single set of laws across the United Kingdom. But the Bill makes it clear that we will not have a single set of laws across the United Kingdom, because a wide range of laws in Northern Ireland are exempt from the provisions of the Bill. Furthermore, in future when EU law changes and applies in Northern Ireland, the gap between the laws in the rest of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland will get ever wider. Does she accept that unless the protocol is dealt with, there is a real danger that Northern Ireland will be treated differently and be constitutionally separated from the United Kingdom?

    Ms Ghani

    My right hon. Friend raises a very important issue. As it is sensitive, he must allow me a moment to ensure that my response is accurate. The UK Government are committed to ensuring that the necessary legislation is in place to uphold the UK’s international obligations, including the Northern Ireland protocol and the trade and co-operation agreement after the sunset date. The Bill will not alter the rights of EU nations that are protected, or eligible to be protected, by the relevant provisions in the Northern Ireland protocol. The Bill contains provisions that, when exercised appropriately, will ensure the continued implementation of our international obligations, including the Northern Ireland protocol.

    It is our preference to resolve the Northern Ireland protocol issue through talks. The Government are engaging in constructive dialogue with the EU to find solutions to these problems. I must put on record that officials have been working with officials in Northern Ireland for the last 18 months. We know how important and sensitive this issue is.

    Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green) rose—

    Ms Ghani

    I will just make a little progress before I take more interventions.

    I cannot stress enough the importance of achieving the deadline. The retained EU law was never intended to sit on the statute books indefinitely. On 31 January last year the Government announced plans to bring forward the Bill, which is the culmination of the Government’s work to untangle ourselves from decades of EU membership. It will permit the creation of a more agile, innovative and UK-specific regulatory approach, benefiting people and businesses across the UK.

    It is a priority of the Government that the United Kingdom will be the best place to start and grow a business. The Bill contains powers that will allow us to make good on that promise. It will allow outdated and often undemocratic retained EU law to be amended, repealed or replaced more quickly and easily than before. It will remove burdens on business and create a more agile and sustainable legislative framework to boost economic growth.

    Sir James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)

    I am sure that my hon. Friend will remember being on the Back Benches and sitting in statutory instrument Committees in which we had no ability whatsoever to change the legislation going through, because it was driven by the European Union. This is about taking back control by giving democratic authority to this place. Furthermore, on things such as maternity leave, minimum wage, annual leave, product safety and international regulations we are already doing better than the EU minimum standards. This Government will promise to keep those standards and, in many cases, increase them.

    Ms Ghani

    My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There has been a lot of misinformation about the environment. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has committed to maintain or enhance standards. He is right that we had very little say over positions taken in Brussels, but now, in the Bill, those decisions are taken by the devolved authorities. That will remain devolved and they will have a say, so why would they want to give away that power?

    Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)

    The Minister spoke of taking back control, but the harsh reality is that the Government are taking back control from the Scottish Parliament. Yesterday we heard about the UK Government enacting section 35 to strike out a Bill of the Scottish Parliament. The Scotland Act 2016 contains the Sewel convention, which requires the UK Government to obtain the consent of the Scottish Parliament when they are acting in devolved matters. The Scottish Government are not giving their consent. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Why should the Scottish Government not have the right to veto this Bill, which tramples over devolution and our laws in a way that we do not consent to?

    Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)

    Order. Could I gently say to the Minister that in order to facilitate Hansard and hon. Members seeking to hear, it would be helpful if she could address the microphone rather than the Back Benches?

    Ms Ghani

    My apologies, Mr Deputy Speaker.

    The question is, why would the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) not take the power that the Scottish Government will be given through this Bill when it comes to devolved matters, to look at the EU laws and see whether they want to maintain them or enhance them for their own people? Why would they want to reject the power that they have been offered through this Bill? We remain fully committed to the Sewel convention. It is an essential element of the devolution settlement. The UK Government continue to seek legislative consent for Bills that interact with devolution. The right hon. Member’s argument does not make any sense. My worry is that Scottish Government do not want the powers because then they will have to exercise them. I know it is a little bit of work, but it is worth doing.

    This Bill provides the opportunity to improve the competitiveness of the UK economy while maintaining high standards. It will ensure that the Government can more easily amend, revoke or replace retained EU law, so that the Government can create legislation that better suits the UK. This programme of reform must be done. The people of the UK did not vote for Brexit with the expectation that nearly a decade later, politicians in Westminster would continually rehash old and settled arguments, as those on the Opposition Benches so love to do. We must push on and seize the opportunities that Brexit provides. That will ensure that our economy is dynamic and agile and can support advances in technology and science.

    Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)

    On agility, the Minister will know that the majority of the thousands of rules that need to be changed are in the environmental area. Does she think it is a good idea that civil servants are completely distracted and focused on the changes to these rules when we have one in four people in food poverty, 63,000 people dying a year due to poor air quality, sewage pouring into our seas and crabs dying off the north-east coast? Would it not be better if the civil servants and the Government tackled those problems rather than going down a rabbit hole and inventing worse standards than the EU, such as trying to get to World Health Organisation air quality standards by 2040, which the EU is trying to get to by 2030?

    Ms Ghani

    I think many people coming into the debate today think that this is the start of something, but this process has been in place for more than 18 months, and DEFRA has committed to maintain or enhance standards. The constant misinformation given out over what is happening on the environment is simply incorrect. DEFRA has already taken decisive action to reform areas of retained EU law and it already has flagship legislation on our statute book, including the Environment Act 2021, the Fisheries Act 2020 and the Agriculture Act 2020, all on powers that the SNP wants to give back to Brussels. The Environment Act strengthens our environmental protections while respecting our international obligations. It is simply incorrect to suggest that the Government will be weakening any of those protections. The Environment Act has set new legally binding targets, including to halt and reverse nature’s decline. Those targets, with oversight from the Office for Environmental Protection, will ensure that any reform to retained EU law delivers positive environmental outcomes. DEFRA will also conduct proportionate analysis of the expected impacts, so it is absolutely incorrect to misrepresent this Bill.

    Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)

    The hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (Sir James Duddridge) talked about statutory instrument Committees. I think all of us have sat on statutory instrument Committees, where we know that it is a question of like it or lump it when it comes to what is being proposed. Under this Bill, Ministers will have powers over key issues that our constituents care about. The Minister talks about the dashboard and admits that it still needs to be updated. As a matter of good democratic practice, will she give us, here and now, today, the exact number of laws covered by this Bill, so Members of this House can at least have some sense of the task that they are voting for? If she cannot tell us how many laws are covered, it is definitely not clear to us how any of us can influence them.

    Ms Ghani

    The hon. Member was very astute in Committee, and we spent many hours together discussing this. The dashboard is public. It has had more than 100,000 views to date. I was on it only last night. It has thousands of laws on it, and it will be updated again this month. There is a process within each Department, which is why a unit has been established to work with each Department across Whitehall. Every EU law that is identified will be put on the dashboard. So it is public, it is accessible, and all the information is out there.

    I must just respond to another point that the hon. Member raised, once again, about scrutiny in this place, because it is being misrepresented—[Interruption.] Unfortunately, it is. The Bill will follow the usual channels for when laws are being either amended or revoked. The Leaders of the two Houses will meet and the business managers will take a decision. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in the House of Lords has already said that it is comfortable with the way the Bill will progress and the laws will be scrutinised, and the European Statutory Instruments Committee has said that it is comfortable with the way the laws will be scrutinised and assessed. So there is a process in place, as there was for a no-deal Brexit. The crunch is: if you do not like Brexit and if you did not like the way the Brexit vote that took place, you are not going to like any elements of this Bill.

    Saqib Bhatti (Meriden) (Con)

    Just before that intervention, the Minister was talking about the environment. Is it not the case that Members on this side of the House have delivered the Environment Act, that we are perfectly capable of making our own laws and delivering for the British people and that we do not need guidance from the European Union, unlike those on the Opposition Benches?

    Ms Ghani

    Absolutely. We on this side of the House have done a tremendous amount of work that did not require us to be directed by bureaucrats in Brussels. This gives me a great opportunity to point out all the fantastic work that we have achieved.

    First of all, I must just say again that we will be maintaining and enhancing environmental standards. I want to touch on a list of things that we have achieved, especially on animal welfare, which has been a huge priority for Government Members. We have had the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021 and the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022. Since 2010, we have had new regulations on minimum standards for meat and chickens, banned the use of conventional battery cages for laying hens, made CCTV mandatory in slaughterhouses in England, made microchipping mandatory for dogs in 2015, modernised our licensing system for a range of activities such as dog breeding and pet sales, protected service animals via Finn’s law, banned the commercial third-party sale of puppies and kittens via Lucy’s law, passed the Wild Animals in Circuses Act 2019 and led work to implement humane trapping standards. Our Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill will further the rights of animals outside the EU, including the banning of export of live animals for slaughter and fattening. It is remarkable how much we can achieve when we are left to our own devices.

    Caroline Lucas rose—

    Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab) rose—

    Ms Ghani

    I will just make a little bit of progress.

    As I have said, the sunset clause is necessary and is the quickest and most effective way to pursue retained EU law reform. It is only right to set the sunset and the revocation of inherited EU laws as the default position. It ensures that we are proactively choosing to preserve EU laws only when they are in the best interests of the UK. It ensures that outdated and unneeded laws are quickly and easily repealed. It will also give the Government a clear timeline in which to finish the most important tasks. Some retained EU laws are legally inoperable, and removing them from the statute book easily is good democratic governance. Requiring the Government to undergo complex and unnecessary parliamentary processes to remove retained EU law that is no longer necessary or operable, and can more easily be removed, is not good governance.

    Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)

    Surely parliamentary sovereignty is giving Members of Parliament control, not the Executive or bureaucrats in Whitehall.

    Ms Ghani

    The reality is that Ministers take decisions all the time, and there is a process in place where laws are amended or updated if there is a significant policy change. The same policy process will be in place. If the hon. Member is not comfortable with Conservative Ministers taking those decisions or with the SI process that is already in place, fundamentally he is just not comfortable with the decisions we are taking because we are taking these rules from Europe and placing them here on our UK statute book. That is a different argument altogether.

    Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)

    I want to react to what I think I heard the Minister saying when she suggested that those of us who did not support Brexit in the referendum would not support this Bill. That is not the case. As someone who did not vote for Brexit but who absolutely recognises that democratic choice and respects the referendum, I do support the premise of the Bill. We need to look at the EU law, although there are elements of the Bill we could improve on to give some certainty, and I hope that I will be called to speak later.

    Ms Ghani

    I would not want to misrepresent my right hon. Friend’s position. The point I was making was that Opposition Members who have complained about the Bill have a particular position that has been long held because of the outcome of the vote that took place.

    We believe it is right that the public should know how much legislation there is derived from the EU, and know about the progress the Government are making. For that reason, we have published a public dashboard—perhaps colleagues would like to go on to the site for a moment—containing a list of UK Government retained EU law. The site will also document the Government’s progress on reforming retained EU law and will be updated regularly to reflect plans and actions taken. It will be updated again this month. I was slightly inaccurate earlier: there have in fact been 148,727 visitors to that site. It is not as if people are in the dark. There are many opportunities to be aware of what we are doing.

    Caroline Lucas rose—

    Ms Ghani

    I will give way to the hon. Lady because she has been so patient.

    Caroline Lucas

    I am grateful to the Minister for finally giving way. She is suggesting that those of us who oppose the Bill are opposing it for some kind of ideological reason. I draw her attention to the words of the chair of the Office for Environmental Protection, who herself said:

    “Worryingly, the Bill does not offer any safety net, there is no requirement to maintain existing levels of environmental protection”.

    Not only that, there is actually a requirement not to go on and make the legislation stronger. That is written into the Bill.

    On the issue of certainty, I do not know how the Minister can stand there and pretend that this is about certainty when businesses have no idea which laws will be in or out and when she does not know how many laws are on her dashboard.

    On democracy, when we were in the European Union we at least had Members of the European Parliament who had a say over these things. When the laws come back here, we have no say over them at all; it is all with Ministers. Is that what she means when she says this is supposed to be a good Bill that is full of opportunities from Brexit?

    Ms Ghani

    The hon. Lady has got the meme for her Facebook page. Unfortunately, she wholly misrepresents what the Bill is doing. Environmental standards will be maintained or enhanced. At the moment, the laws that come down from Brussels on the environment and land cover everything from the Arctic to the Mediterranean. This Bill is a great opportunity to maintain, to enhance and to review what more we can do to make things better for our environment across the UK. We already have flagship legislation in place: the Environment Act 2021, the Fisheries Act 2020 and the Agriculture Act 2020. The Office for Environmental Protection has been fully established to enforce those elevated environmental rules and standards. The water framework directive covers our water. Instead of misrepresenting what the Bill does, why not take the opportunity to ensure that we enhance provision for what we are not maintaining?

    Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)

    Listening to the Opposition, we might think that the EU is the land of milk and honey when it comes to the environment. This is the same EU that put fossil fuels and gas in last year’s green taxonomy. Getting out of the EU allows us to have our own taxonomies and to make far greener efforts than naming gas as a green technology, which it is not.

    Ms Ghani

    We can make sure that we have a better focus on renewables, and we can take the decisions that work best for our communities. Fundamentally, we are maintaining and enhancing. We must not forget that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has been able to introduce substantial law on water, animals and land. I have covered the dashboard, and I assume colleagues will now be pouncing on it.

    Departments have been actively working on their retained EU law reform plans for well over 18 months to ensure that appropriate action is taken before the sunset date. Additional work to lift obsolete laws will inevitably be slow, but that work will continue. We cannot allow the reform of retained EU law to remain merely a possibility. The sunset provision guarantees that retained EU law will not become an ageing relic dragging down the UK. It incentivises the genuine review and reform of retained EU law in a way that works best for the UK. What reforms are desirable will differ from policy area to policy area.

    As my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell), the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, said on Second Reading, the environment is one of the Government’s top priorities. We will ensure that environmental law works for the UK and improves our environmental outcomes. As I said, we will be maintaining and enhancing. The Bill does not change the Environment Act, and we remain committed to delivering our legally binding target to halt nature’s decline by 2030.

    Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)

    Many constituents have been in touch with me with their concerns about habitat protection, maternity leave protection and other issues. The National Archives says that 1,300 additional pieces of legislation are not necessarily in scope. Can the Minister give more clarity on how many pieces of legislation this Bill will cover?

    Ms Ghani

    We are working across Departments to cover laws that will either be assimilated, amended or revoked. We are finding that a number of those laws are obsolete, and the fact we are still identifying them is good. We are putting them on the dashboard as soon as we can, and we will update the dashboard again this month. It is right that we conduct this exercise to know where we are and to ensure that we refer to UK law where we assimilate, and that we amend it to improve the situation for our communities and businesses. If the laws are not operable in the UK, we can revoke them.

    The hon. Lady mentioned maternity rights, which is one of the unfortunate misinformation campaigns on this Bill. I struggle with the fact that colleagues are sharing misinformation, as people who may be vulnerable are made more vulnerable by such misinformation. The UK has one of the best workers’ rights records in the world, and our high standards were never dependent on our membership of the EU.

    Indeed, the UK provides far stronger protections for workers than are required by EU law. For example, UK workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks of annual leave compared with the EU requirement of four weeks—we are doing better here. We provide a year of maternity leave, with the option to convert it to shared parental leave. The EU requirement for maternity leave is just 14 weeks—we are doing better here. The right to flexible working for all employees was introduced in the UK in the early 2000s, whereas the EU agreed its rules only recently and offers the right only to parents and carers—we are doing better here. The UK introduced two weeks’ paid paternity leave back in 2003. Who can remember then? The EU legislated for this only recently—once again, we are doing better here. I ask Members please not to hold up Brussels as a bastion of virtue, as that is most definitely not the case.

    Stella Creasy

    Will the Minister give way?

    Ms Ghani

    I will make a little progress.

    Significant reform will be needed in other areas, which is why the powers in the Bill are necessary. The people of the UK expect and deserve positive regulatory reform to boost the economy. Via this Bill, we will deliver reform across more than 300 policy areas. We cannot be beholden to a body of law that grows more obsolete by the day just because some in this House see the EU as the fount of all wisdom.

    Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)

    My hon. Friend is setting out a very powerful case. On the one hand, she is making the case that in Britain we have many laws that are superior and offer greater benefits and protections to residents, and on the other hand, she is making the self-evident point that we should unshackle ourselves from laws that will become increasingly historical, some of which were assimilated into British statute without scrutiny.

    Will the devolved Administrations be able to preserve retained EU law where it relates to devolved areas of competence?

    Ms Ghani

    My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If the law is already devolved, the devolved Administrations have the ability to assimilate, amend or revoke, which is why some of the interventions from Opposition Members are slightly absurd. Why would they not want the opportunity to have a review? If the devolved Administrations want to assimilate the law, they can. If they want to amend it, they can. If they wish to revoke it, they have that choice. Why would the devolved Administrations not want to embrace the powers this Bill will give them?

    Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)

    The Minister talks about the devolved Administrations hanging on to their powers. Will she ensure that the dashboard on retained EU law is updated to identify which legislation is reserved and which is devolved, as well as how legislation in Wales might be affected?

    Ms Ghani

    Yes. The hon. Gentleman may have missed the earlier part of my speech. Government officials have been working with devolved Administration officials for more than 18 months, and that work will continue. When we discover an EU law, we put it on the dashboard. Of course, there are conversations with officials in the devolved authorities, and it is important that we continue to work closely with them.

    I was going to say more about the UK’s tremendous work on the environment, because I saw some dreadful, inappropriate coverage in the press, including nonsense about marine habitats. I have just had some information from DEFRA about its fantastic work in Montreal on marine. We have done more work on environmental standards and status outside the EU, including in protected areas such Dogger Bank, to enhance protection by 2030. We are also integrating our ocean and coastal mapping.

    Unfortunately, colleagues who are uncomfortable with the Bill have also peddled misinformation about our water bodies and water standards. There is an assumption that the target is being moved, which is absolutely incorrect. Targets are not being moved. It is incorrect to say that the target for the good state of England’s water bodies has been changed—it is still 2027, as outlined in the water framework directive. Hopefully that will cancel out any other misinformation on this stuff being shared on social media sites.

    Reform will be needed in other significant areas, which is why the powers in the Bill are necessary. It has been suggested that the Bill will somehow be a bonfire of workers’ rights. We are proud of the UK’s excellent record on labour standards, and we have one of the best workers’ rights records in the world. Our high standards were never dependent on our membership of the EU. Indeed, the UK provides far stronger protections for workers than are required by EU law. I have already spoken about maternity rights, but we can also look at maternity cover, holiday pay and other rights for employees.

  • Alex Davies-Jones – 2023 Speech on Fertility Treatment (Transparency)

    Alex Davies-Jones – 2023 Speech on Fertility Treatment (Transparency)

    The speech made by Alex Davies-Jones, the Labour MP for Pontypridd, in the House of Commons on 18 January 2023.

    I beg to move,

    That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require providers of in vitro fertilisation to publish information annually about the number of NHS-funded IVF cycles they carry out and about their provision of certain additional treatments in connection with in vitro fertilisation; to require such providers to publish a report about their provision of NHS-funded IVF treatment in certain circumstances; and for connected purposes.

    It is an honour to speak on this Bill about a subject that colleagues will know is very close to my heart. I thank the Bill’s sponsors, many of whom are here today, for their support. Indeed, I am extremely grateful to have support from colleagues across the House who have recognised that there are currently gaps in IVF policy more widely.

    Ask anyone who has experience of IVF, whether personally or from watching loved ones go through the process, and they will tell you that IVF is one of the most emotionally and mentally challenging processes that someone can ever undertake. My own IVF journey began in 2018, and I have been very open about the fact that I knew from the start that my road to pregnancy would be difficult. While I am certainly one of the very lucky ones—after only one round of IVF, I was blessed with my beautiful son Sullivan—I still had many eye-opening experiences during my fertility journey that have led me to this point today.

    Let us be clear: the current state of the IVF offering across the UK is far below what would-be parents deserve. I will be honest with the Minister: none of the devolved nations, or England, is currently getting it right.

    It was those first-hand experiences that brought me to this issue and prompted me to introduce the Bill. Since I was elected three years ago, I have campaigned extensively to “right”’ the “wrongs” that I have experienced at first hand as an IVF patient. I passionately believe that many of the problems that currently affect patients seeking IVF can be addressed by an improvement in the transparency requirements to which clinics must adhere.

    In my view, there are two areas in which inadequate transparency levels are most pressing. First, there is an unacceptable lack of transparency in respect of the number of NHS-funded cycles that IVF clinics are offering. We need to be able to hold the clinics to account for their failures to adhere to guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence which clearly state that NHS England should offer three full cycles of IVF to all women under 40 if they have been trying unsuccessfully to have a child for more than two years. The reality is that across the UK fewer than half of all IVF cycles for under-35s were funded by the NHS, and in England it is even worse: just 36% of IVF cycles are funded by the NHS. The result is a patchwork of different IVF services across the country, with unacceptable regional disparities. Not only will compelling clinics to publish the extent to which they are abiding by NICE guidelines empower patients to make informed choices about paying for treatment, but we will be holding clinics to account over where they fall short. Because of these regional disparities, the vast majority of clinically eligible patients ultimately face funding their own treatment. Such a high proportion is plainly and simply against NICE guidelines. Some couples are having to pay up to £15,000 for a single IVF cycle, and that cannot be right.

    The second transparency issue that the Bill seeks to address relates to the controversial “add-on” treatments that IVF clinics market to their patients, often without sufficient information about their efficacy. Different clinics call these products by a wide variety of names. Some refer to them as “supplementary” treatments or “adjuvant” treatments, or, most ambiguously of all, simply “embryology treatments”. These add-ons often add thousands of pounds’ worth of extra “treatment” to the overall cost of IVF, and the science behind them is often murky, or at least unclear.

    The mis-selling of IVF add-ons is an issue of particular importance to me. I know at first hand that for many would-be parents seeking IVF treatment, especially those on low incomes and those who have endured several rounds of IVF already, being offered these additional products can often mean making heart-wrenching decisions. When you feel that you would do anything just to increase your chances of successfully having a baby, perhaps even by just 1%, shelling out thousands of pounds for procedures including “endometrial scratching”, “preimplantation genetic testing” or perhaps an “intrauterine culture” seems a reasonable—perhaps even routine—step to take, but the reality is that none of those add-ons has a solid evidence base to support its effectiveness, no matter how scientific they sound. We know that they lack solid clinical evidence because of the work of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and its “traffic-light” system for rating add-ons.

    Of course that rating system is useful to many thousands of IVF patients and I commend the HFEA for its work, especially its calls for clinics to be more open about the add-ons they provide, but I strongly believe that we need to do more, which is why the Bill’s second primary purpose is to mandate that clinics publish data on the number of add-on treatments that they sell. We cannot allow a situation in which desperate would-be parents are not properly informed about the efficacy of eye-wateringly expensive add-on treatments, and are exploited and seen as cash cows by clinics that just want to make money. As with the regional disparities issue that I mentioned earlier, by requiring the publication of data on add-on services we can hold clinics to account far more easily, and use that data as a key tool to improve the way in which IVF services are offered across the country.

    Put together, the transparency issues that plague our IVF services contribute to what is commonly known as the “postcode lottery” of IVF. Up and down the country, IVF clinics are offering vastly different levels of NHS-backed IVF, often in breach of NICE guidelines, and all with differing approaches to selling add-ons. The NHS’s new integrated care systems, introduced by the Government’s Health and Care Act 2022, were set up specifically to tackle inequalities in access and health outcomes, including IVF outcomes, but if the issues of transparency are not addressed, those inequalities will simply continue to persist. That is why I believe that the Bill is a vital step in ensuring that ICSs fulfil their obligations.

    This Bill is a starting point. With the useful data that it will provide, we will have the tools to address the issues that I have raised today. In no way is it trying to fix all the problems that prospective IVF parents currently face. Indeed, I pay tribute to colleagues on both sides of the House who have campaigned tirelessly on other important issues relating to fertility access. I pay particular tribute to one of my co-sponsors, the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), for her work on her own Private Member’s Bill requiring employers to provide paid fertility leave.

    We have much more to do if we are to improve the way in which our country provides IVF, and improving our cultural attitudes to it, including attitudes in the workplace, is no exception. I believe that the Bill is an important starting point. From transparency will come accountability, and with accountability we can finally address the IVF postcode lottery once and for all.

    Question put and agreed to.

    Ordered,

    That Alex Davies-Jones, Nickie Aiken, Tonia Antoniazzi, Steve Brine, Stella Creasy, Dame Caroline Dinenage, Christine Jardine, Dame Diana Johnson, Justin Madders, Siobhain McDonagh, Charlotte Nichols and Caroline Nokes present the Bill.

    Alex Davies-Jones accordingly presented the Bill.