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Tag: Speeches

  • Ursula von der Leyen – 2022 Comments at Press Conference with President Michel and President Macron

    Ursula von der Leyen – 2022 Comments at Press Conference with President Michel and President Macron

    The opening remarks made by Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, on 24 June 2022.

    Today, we had the opportunity to hold an in-depth discussion on the economy during the Euro Summit. The euro area is forecast to continue growing both in 2022 and 2023 although by less than we anticipated before the war. Obviously, the war in Ukraine is having a heavy impact, both on growth and on inflation. We have seen Russia’s disruptive action on gas. And we are seeing price increases beyond energy, on food and elsewhere in the economy. Therefore, we discussed how to mitigate the economic and social impacts, especially on the most vulnerable of our societies.

    This starts with being adequately prepared to deal with potential further disruptions in deliveries of Russian gas to Europe. We are working hard on this. We have reviewed all the national emergency plans to help make sure everyone is ready for further disruptions. And we are working on a common European emergency demand reduction plan with industry, but also with the 27 Member States. We do this because we have learnt our lesson from COVID-19. There we have seen that, when we act together as 27, when we avoid fragmentation, we are strong and we have an enormous impact. I will present this plan in July to the Leaders. There will not be a return to cheap fossil fuels, I think. And therefore, alongside temporary and targeted support to vulnerable families and businesses, it is essential to help our economies and societies adapt to the new conditions. The root cause of our problem is our dependence on fossil fuels, which we must get rid of.

    This is basically the essence of REPowerEU. We are providing through REPowerEU resources of round about EUR 300 billion to do three things: The first pillar is to diversify our energy supply. The second pillar is to increase the energy efficiency. And the third pillar is the supply of our own green renewable energy. We are already seeing results. If I may give you an example for the first pillar, the diversification away from Russian gas: We see that the US LNG deliveries to the European Union are up by 75% this year compared to last year. We have just signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Israel, Egypt and the European Union to make sure that there is natural gas from Israel, liquefied in Egypt and then brought via LNG to the European Union. The Norwegian pipeline gas is up by 15%; Azerbaijan is up by 90%. So there is a lot on the move to really diversify away from the Russian gas to other trustworthy suppliers. Looking at the renewables, I think that there is one interesting figure: The European Union was and is the second largest market globally in terms of increased capacity of renewables in 2021, and will be in 2022. So you also see the big move forward of heavy investment in renewables. That is the energy of the future. That is the way to go.

    A second topic that we have been discussing is, in parallel, that we are working on the review of the economic governance. We know that debts and deficits have soared in all Member States after COVID-19. And at the same time, investment needs are very large for a successful transition to a green, digital and resilient EU society and economy. Therefore, we need to design rules that in a way reconcile these higher investment needs – they are necessary – and at the same time to safeguard sound fiscal finances. One goes with the other: that is fiscal sustainability and growth.

    And let me also end, dear Emmanuel, by congratulating you on an extremely successful French Presidency. The work you have done was colossal. I witnessed every day how intensive your team – and I really want to thank you and your team – has been working on progress in the European Union. It really made a difference. We should keep in mind that when you started, there was a lot on your plate, but you had no clue that there was a war coming. In record time, we delivered together six packages of heavy sanctions. And I think that it was a hallmark and a very defining moment to see the determination of the European Union and the speed at which we can move forward. We have, in this time, welcomed 7.5 million refugees from Ukraine. 3 million are still here. And you and your team, as Presidency, made it possible that we very quickly granted temporary protection, that is access to the labour market, to the education system, to the social security system. All this thanks to the French Presidency.

    I thank you personally for the enormous progress that we have made on the European Green Deal – and here, specifically the huge package of Fit for 55. Dozens of proposals have now been pushed forward. And this is a real step forward. The same goes, and I know that this is very close to your heart, for the DSA and the DMA, so putting the online world in order as well as we have it in the offline world, to protect our citizens and to keep up the competitiveness of our businesses in the online world. This has been – the DSA and the DMA – negotiated with ambition and adopted in record time. You really delivered. There was the Conference on the Future of Europe.

    But I am personally very proud on one specific file that you have concluded during the French Presidency, and this is Women on Boards. It took ten long years; it was stuck for ten years. The French Presidency made it possible that it reappeared and was negotiated and adopted in record time. So not only did you put an end to an injustice for women, but also to an enormous loss of earnings for companies. It is a real big step forward that we have now this agreement on Women on Boards.

    Last but not least, and I would not miss to mention it, we have made good progress on the Pact on Migration and Asylum, especially on the voluntary solidarity mechanism and on the governance of Schengen. Important files. They were difficult to manage, you really pushed it forward. I stop here, but as you can see, dear Emmanuel, I think that France can be very proud of this Presidency. It was outstanding. Many thanks for that.

  • Sajid Javid – 2022 Speech on Suicide Prevention

    Sajid Javid – 2022 Speech on Suicide Prevention

    The speech made by Sajid Javid, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, on 24 June 2022.

    Last Monday would have been my brother Tariq’s birthday. I say it would have been because Tariq is no longer with us. He took his own life.

    And on that Monday it was the first thing I thought about when I opened my eyes and the last thing I thought about when I closed my eyes. Nothing can prepare for you for the loss of a loved one.

    But I want to use this privileged role that I have as Secretary of State to do right by his memory, but also the memories of thousands of others each year who have left us before their time, by preventing more people from going down the same devastating path.

    Almost everyone in this country has been touched by suicide in some way.

    The Samaritans – doing amazing work – answer a call for help every 10 seconds and tragically, around every 90 minutes someone dies from suicide in the UK. When we look across the last decade and look at Government initiatives like the previous Suicide Prevention Strategy no matter how well intentioned, the trends have broadly been going in the wrong direction.

    We must treat suicides with the same urgency that we treat any other major killer and take determined action that reflects the changes and progress that we all want to see in society.

    So we will be publishing a new 10-year mental health plan. At the moment we have a call for evidence asking for people’s views and shortly afterwards we will be publishing a new 10-year suicide prevention plan.

    I want to hear views from far and wide to help shape this work and the roundtable that I chaired here earlier this morning was so illuminating to help us do just that.

    I heard heart-breaking tales of love and loss but also inspirational stories of the work being done to divert people from this painful path including of course the work of Papyrus here.

    I am determined to make a difference on this issue and I wanted to take this opportunity to come and speak to you all, and talk about some of the principles that will drive this future work.

    The first is encouraging those people who are at the greatest risk to come forward and to get the help they need. Talking about our innermost feelings can be uncomfortable and upsetting of course. But it is so important.

    I am 52 years old, the same age as Tariq was when he left us.

    Men in their 40s and 50s they make up a disproportionately high proportion of male suicides, around 40%. We can achieve so much if we encourage people to talk about how they feel and they come forward and ask for help.

    Thanks to the trailblazing courage of campaigners in the public eye and thousands of quiet conversations in homes, schools and workplaces more and more people across the country are being open about their mental health.

    We must keep these conversations going as we live with Covid and look at how we can bring in groups of people together traditionally more reluctant to come forward.

    Last week I heard about a survey published showing that 75% of construction workers said that they regularly discussed emotions with colleagues. Yet there were some people who derided this, some newspapers who said this was evidence of a stereotypically male-dominated industry that had supposedly lost its way. I found the data shocking too.

    I want it to be 100%. Not 75%. Because too many people suffer in silence, based on outdated ideas of what it means to be a man.

    Mental health must not be only talked about in whispers. We must shout about it. Because keeping quiet can kill.

    Traditionally, the construction trade has a suicide rate that is three times higher than the national male average rate and so the fact that people who work there are talking more is a cause for celebration, not castigation.

    To build on this progress, I want to see more local areas doing outreach activities in places that men are likely to attend.

    I’ve heard wonderful stories of a Tyne and Wear gym that gives men a safe space to share their feelings, a group of barbers who are trained to recognise symptoms of mental ill health, and there is a Talk Club, where a talking and listening club has been established and hosted at football clubs for their supporters.

    We know, from all the research that’s already out there, that it’s easier to talk about your feelings when you’re pursuing your passion.

    When we recently awarded over £5 million of funding to the voluntary sector as part of our Suicide Prevention Grant we backed a number of organisations that work specifically with men.

    As we take forward our plans for suicide prevention we will also keep focusing on those communities where suicide is the greatest risk so for instance, the LGBT community which makes up a third of people who access an organisation called SHOUT, a suicide prevention hotline.

    This work goes hand-in-hand with our mission to tackle disparities across the country and transform local communities.

    Men in the lowest socioeconomic groups, who live in some of the most deprived areas are up to ten times more at risk of suicide than those in the highest socioeconomic groups, in other words those living in the most affluent areas.

    There are regional disparities too.

    For instance, you are twice as likely to die in the North East by suicide, than you are in London. It’s fantastic that we have charities from across the UK here today many I met in the roundtable we just had and my Department is working with many of you here today to get to the bottom of these disparities and work out how we can put them right.

    One of the golden threads running through all my work in this role has been a commitment to tackling disparities of all kinds that have been overlooked and ignored for far too long.

    A relentless focus on suicide prevention will help us to break the cycle of devastation and deprivation in some of our most deprived communities and so too, focusing on transforming communities can lift so many of the strains on our health and happiness what the economist and Nobel Prize winner Sir Angus Deaton recently called the ‘deaths of despair’ that sit behind so many of the tragic stories in this country.

    As well as looking at those communities at greatest risk we must also look at the risk factors that lead to suicides across all communities and this is the second area of what I wanted to talk about today.

    We know that the causes of suicide are complex and intertwined but the data does show that there are some areas where we can have a big impact.

    For example, there is a project in Kent that found that 30% of all suspected suicides in a two year period were linked to domestic abuse.

    Our new Plan will look at risks like domestic abuse and gambling these weren’t looked at in the previous strategy.
    It will also place a greater focus on the online world which has created new challenges when it comes to suicide prevention.

    Now we have made real progress in some areas like working with manufacturers and online platforms to limit access to methods of suicide online. But there are also areas where we’ve found it harder to keep up with the proliferation of digital content for example when it comes to pro-suicide related content.

    Research has found that suicide-related internet use was relevant to a a quarter of suicide deaths in those aged under 20 and Google searches for suicide methods from UK browsers have risen by over 50% in two years.

    Just think about that. When we use the internet we use google and search for suicide rates has gone up by 50% in two years.

    When I was Home Secretary I spoke at the launch of the Online Harms White Paper. I talked about how we cannot allow leaders of some of the tech companies to simply look the other way and deny their share of responsibility for content on their platforms. Because if you run a business, of any kind, you have a duty to protect your customers.

    I believe this strongly then as Home Secretary when I was thinking about sexual abuse but is just as important now.

    Although the Internet contains a wealth of helpful content for those who are struggling too many people, especially those who are young or vulnerable they are also exposed to abhorrent and unacceptable content that promotes suicide and self-harm.

    I will be convening a roundtable with social media platforms and search engines to encourage them to take more action and the Online Safety Bill that we have already brought before Parliament which will give us a once in a generation opportunity to tackle this issue.

    I will also work jointly across Government to look at both upcoming and current legislation to make sure it meets the rapidly evolving challenges that we face.

    Because when it comes to the encouragement of suicide and related harmful behavior we are currently relying on legislation that was primarily created long before the digital age and there is currently no specific offence that covers those who encourage or assist others to self-harm, or in my view of course a grave and heinous offence.

    We have already announced that we will be creating a new offence of encouraging or assisting self-harm and I will work with my colleagues to see what else we can do where we might be falling short.

    Our Suicide Prevention Plan will set out more about how we will do this.

    We know that debt and economic uncertainty can be a factor too. We saw from the recession in 2008 which tragically led to a rise in suicide rates over the following years especially among men.

    I know that people are facing real strains over the cost of living. There is a huge cost of living challenge now for so many people.

    We protected millions of jobs during the pandemic through man incentives and we are now providing economic security at a time of great uncertainty.

    During Covid-19 the suicide rate mercifully remained stable, despite the monumental impact on people’s lives.

    But the next few months are critical and we must do everything in our power to make sure that we support the most vulnerable as they deal with these financial pressures.

    Our public servants of course have a hugely important role to play here. They interact with people when they are at their most vulnerable and they deal with issues like debt and gambling that can be major risk factors.

    I want to ensure that all front line Government employees and workers who interact with people in these situations have suicide prevention training and I’m also going to be working with the Speaker of the House of Commons to encourage access to suicide prevention training for all MPs and their staff.

    I’ve been hosting surgeries in my own constituency for over 12 years, and often people come to see me when they feel they have nowhere else to turn.

    As a result, I think it is really important MPs and their staff who have a unique window into the lives of many people in distress in their local area that they get this training. To recognise the signs of suicidal behaviour, and signpost options for support we can help them to intervene before it’s too late.

    I am determined to focus not just on those who are at risk of suicide, but of course also their loved ones too. The sudden and unexpected circumstances of death from suicide can bring huge trauma. And I know the toll of losing a loved one and we need to be better at supporting those who are left behind. Not only because it is the right thing to do but because those who are bereaved from suicide are themselves at greater risk of suicide.

    The evidence suggests that for every suicide, 135 people are directly affected and so we need to do everything we can to break this cycle of grief and suffering. Through putting in place for example the NHS Long Term Plan, every local area now has services for suicide bereavement support. By the end of this year, those services will proactively communicate with bereaved families within days of a death to offer their support. Removing the onus from the bereaved at their time of grief.

    Third, we must keep improving services to help people who are struggling with their mental health.

    The NHS is offering care and support to more people with mental health conditions than ever before with record levels of investment and more comprehensive round-the-clock support.

    After all, your suicidal thoughts don’t keep office hours.

    They are more likely to emerge when people are alone or perhaps late at night and we hear from our charity partners that their helplines are often busiest between the hours of 9pm and midnight.

    All mental health providers now have 24/7 urgent mental health helplines in place that, together, are managing over 200,000 calls each month. My aim is that by 2023/24, anyone in the country can dial NHS 111 to reach their local mental health team at any time of day, 24/7 which would make England one of the first countries in the world to offer this service.

    We are also making greater use of talking therapies which were pioneered in England and have now been emulated across the world.

    Over a million people have accessed talking therapy in the past year and we’re expanding this access even further. The vast majority of these people who have accessed these therapies have done so through self-referral meaning they can get the help they need more quickly and so the median waiting time to start treatment is now only two weeks.

    But despite this progress we must keep working to drive up service levels and address any unevenness in provision across the board. As part of this, I want to see an improvement in the quality of safety plans.

    These are practical tools to help someone to navigate suicidal feelings and urges for example, removing objects that could be used for suicide or self-harm.

    At the moment, there’s a stark variation in the standard and quality of these plans. I’m pleased to announce today that we will be working with experts in the sector to publish some standalone, best practice guidance on safety plans showing what good looks like, and how we can save lives.

    These urgent services work extraordinarily hard to help people at the greatest risk. But sadly, some two thirds of people who take their own life are not in contact with mental health services at all.

    I was just reminded of this a couple of hours ago when I spoke to a bereaved parent.

    Of course, we want to get this number down but it reinforces the importance of the communities we need around.

    A report for the Adolescent Mental Health programme finds that, and I quote, “in cohesive neighbourhoods defined as a place where people know their neighbours adolescent wellbeing and mental health are stronger”.

    We all know the power to make a positive impact on the mental health of people around us and the answers can often lie within the communities where we live.

    There are two central pillars of my overall NHS reform programme that I think are crucial here, prevention and personalisation. One wonderful initiative that intersects both of these areas is social prescribing where we draw on all parts of the local community that shape our health and happiness.

    This work will benefit the whole community but especially those at risk of suicide reconnecting those who feel lonely or isolated with the world around them.

    I talked earlier about how we need to do more to reach middle aged men, who are at greatest risk. Men of that age typically find it harder to build social connections than women and I’ve been really inspired by groups like Men in Shedswhich give men a place to meet like-minded people and share their concerns.

    Through tailored opportunities for social prescribing and personalised support we can help those who are traditionally reluctant to come forward and give them the help and support that they need.

    There have now been almost a million referrals to social prescribing services in this country with now some record 2,500 social prescribing workers in place who have all been encouraged to do e-learning on suicide awareness.

    I’ve set a target of four million people to benefit from personalised care, like this, by March 2024 and I want to get more people into community-led schemes to tackle the social and economic drivers of their distress.

    Finally, we will make the most of the kind of new technologies that helped this country through the pandemic.
    This was a time when our mental health system just like others across the world, was put under huge strain.

    But it was also a time when we saw new ways of accessing care that we can take forward now as we enter this next chapter.

    We must make greater use of the apps and online services that can provide new pathways for care and help us to give more people the kind of access they need more quickly.

    We must apply this approach to data too. During the Covid crisis, our decisions, my decisions were underpinned by real-time data that gave us an up-to-date picture of the situation on the ground.

    But there are currently too many gaps when it comes to data around suicide prevention that means we don’t currently have a clear picture in certain areas for example, any link between suicide and ethnicity.

    By bringing data together, we can identify concerning trends and respond at a much faster pace. We’ve been working with OHID – the division in my department- to trial a national suspected suicide surveillance system.

    This allows us to look at patterns of risk like data on new and emerging methods of suicide and on suicide rates across different population groups to provide more sophisticated real time information that will allow us to make better decisions.

    These trials have already shown to be a great success and I’m pleased to confirm today that we will now be rolling this initiative out nationally and it’ll be operational from early next year.

    Last week, during London Tech Week I also launched our Data Strategy which shows how we will use the intrinsic value within data to tackle the twin challenges of recovery and reform.

    I called the strategy, I named it Data Saves Lives and there are few greater opportunities to save lives than this vital work on suicide prevention.

    This issue is deeply personal to me, and I feel a heavy sense of duty to use my time in this role to make a difference.

    The dark cloud of suicide means that too much potential has gone unfilled and that there are too many families that have been left incomplete.

    I’m determined to work with you to tackle this source of grief and heartbreak so that fewer people get the news that will one day perhaps turn their lives upside down.

    Thank you all very much.

  • Boris Johnson – 2022 Comments at Opening of CHOGM in Kigali

    Boris Johnson – 2022 Comments at Opening of CHOGM in Kigali

    The comments made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, in Kigali on 24 June 2022.

    Your Royal Highness, President Kagame, Madam Secretary General, Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, I’m honoured to perform the final duty of the United Kingdom as Chair-in-Office of the Commonwealth and hand over the baton to President Kagame, and wish him every success as Chair of our unique association, encompassing 54 countries and a third of humanity.

    One of the newest members is now at the helm, and more nations are seeking to join, which tells you everything about the health and vitality of our Commonwealth, because for all the differences between us, we are united by an invisible thread of shared values, history and friendship.

    The Head of the Commonwealth, Her Majesty the Queen, incarnates everything that brings us together and it’s fitting that in the year of her Platinum Jubilee, the association she cherishes should be gathering in the continent where she became Queen.

    When the UK became your Chair-in-Office in 2018, the word “Covid” had not been invented many of us had no idea what a “coronavirus” was, and nobody could have known that the worst pandemic for a century would soon claim millions of lives.

    The British government put together the partnership between Oxford University and AstraZeneca that produced the world’s most popular vaccine, and during our time as Chair-in-Office, the UK supported the delivery of more than 1.4 billion doses of Covid vaccines to Commonwealth countries.

    The pandemic posed a common threat to all humanity and the same is true of catastrophic climate change.

    No-one understands this better than our Commonwealth friends in the Caribbean, the Pacific and the Indian Ocean who can see the incoming tides surging ever higher up their beaches, threatening to inundate their villages and towns, and, in time, the entire land mass of some island states.

    For them, the baleful effects of climate change are not vague or theoretical, but already happening before their eyes.

    When we hosted COP26 in Glasgow last November, it was these fellow Commonwealth leaders who spoke with greatest urgency and authority about the perils of quilting the earth with greenhouse gases.

    And we in the developed world have an obligation to help our friends to cope with a danger they had no hand in causing, and during the UK’s time as Chair-in-Office, the Commonwealth Finance Access Hub mobilised over $38 million for the most vulnerable members, but of course we must press on and do more.

    And if I could imagine a silver bullet that would solve an array of problems and transform countless lives, it would be to give every girl in the world the chance to go to school.

    At the last CHOGM in London in 2018, the UK announced £212 million for the Girls’ Education Challenge, and I’m delighted to say that this initiative is now at work in 11 Commonwealth countries, ensuring that girls are able to gain at least 12 years of quality education.

    We need to empower them to play their full part in the economy when they leave school, so the UK is funding the “She Trades” Commonwealth programme, which has already helped over 3,500 women-owned businesses to become more competitive and generate more than £32 million of sales.

    And if there is anyone who doubts the ability of the Commonwealth to speak with one voice, it was in 2020 that the UK delivered the first ever Joint Statement by all 54 Commonwealth members before the Human Rights Council in Geneva, recalling – and I quote – our “proud history of acting to strengthen good governance and the rule of law”.

    One of the gravest affronts to everything we stand for is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Putin’s blockade of the ports that would otherwise be shipping food to the world’s poorest people.

    At this moment, nearly 25 million tonnes of corn and wheat is piled up in silos across Ukraine, held hostage by Russia.

    Britain supports the United Nations plan to get that food out and we will invest over £370 million in global food security this year, including £130 million for the World Food Programme.

    We want to work alongside our Commonwealth friends to understand your needs and priorities and deliver joint solutions to a crisis that Putin has deliberately engineered.

    For now, it only remains for me to thank every Commonwealth member for having given the United Kingdom the chance to serve as Chair-in-Office.

    And as I pass on this responsibility to President Kagame, a close friend and partner, I know that he shares my boundless optimism about the future of the Commonwealth at the forefront of the international agenda, and benefiting all our peoples.

    Thank you all very much.

  • Rishi Sunak – 2022 Statement on Cost of Living Payments and Welfare Cap

    Rishi Sunak – 2022 Statement on Cost of Living Payments and Welfare Cap

    The statement made by Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the House of Commons on 23 June 2022.

    In accordance with HM Treasury’s obligations to operate the welfare cap, set out in the charter for budget responsibility, the Treasury is required to determine items of welfare expenditure within scope of the welfare cap. Today, I would like to inform the House that the cost of living payments, which I announced to this House on 26 May 2022, are outside the scope of the welfare cap.

    The welfare cap plays a key role in the fiscal framework, underpinning the Government’s commitment to sustainable public finances over the medium term by setting a predetermined cap for welfare expenditure in a target year, together with a pathway and margin for welfare spending to reach that point. The cap, margin and pathway were last set out by the Government at autumn Budget 2021.

    The cap will be breached if spending in scope exceeds the cap plus margin at the point of formal assessment, which will next occur in 2024-25.

    The welfare cap is designed to support the management of the more predictable elements of benefit expenditure. It already categorises benefits most directly linked to the economic cycle, such as universal credit payments to jobseekers, as outside the scope of the cap.

    The cost of living payments are one-off payments, designed to support millions of the most vulnerable households facing cost of living challenges as a consequence of acute global economic pressures. Given their temporary and exceptional nature, we have therefore taken the decision to categorise these payments as outside the scope of the welfare cap. As the cost of living payments are outside the scope of the cap, they will not form part of the expenditure that will be formally assessed by the OBR against the cap and pathway.

  • Mims Davies – 2022 Speech on DWP Office Closures

    Mims Davies – 2022 Speech on DWP Office Closures

    The speech made by Mims Davies, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in the House of Commons on 23 June 2022.

    I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) for securing the debate and for his immense interest in this issue, and I also note his register of interests declaration, but I want to take this opportunity to reassure him that there are currently no planned changes that would affect his constituency.

    I have very proudly held the role of employment Minister at the Department for Work and Pensions for almost three years now and I greatly recognise the tireless efforts of our workforce up and down the country. From St Austell to Loughborough to Forres, I visit offices and meet staff regularly, and hear at first hand their experiences and some frustrations with the poor quality buildings, some of which have no proper kitchen facilities for example, but in which they are nevertheless delivering truly excellent DWP services.

    Our staff are always positive and focused, and this was especially noticeable during the pandemic when their agility and commitment shone through as thousands of DWP staff were redeployed to process new claims, which doubled in a matter of weeks. This was a truly heroic effort, resulting in payment timeliness for our claimants remaining incredibly high and, vitally, vulnerable people receiving the support they needed in their time of need. I am proud and immensely grateful that our DWP Jobcentre Plus offices remained open throughout the pandemic for the most vulnerable.

    Importantly, this transformation needs to be viewed alongside the significant recent investment in DWP frontline services. Since the start of the pandemic we have —or, rather, I have—opened 194 new temporary additional jobcentres as part of our rapid estate expansion programme to support our Plan for Jobs. We have also recruited 13,500 new work coaches in order to provide our claimants with the tailored face-to-face support they need. This new boost to our DWP workforce has played a leading role in delivering on our vital plan for jobs, getting people back into work and transitioning into growing sectors as we focus on building back better. I am incredibly proud of the over 163,000 young people under 25 most at risk of long-term unemployment due to covid impact who took advantage of the life-changing ability to take up a first job through the kickstart scheme and our brilliant Way to Work scheme which is on track to get half a million more people into work this year.

    I want to strongly reassure Members here today that staff are being fully supported throughout this modernisation. While we are right-sizing our estate and making the DWP a better place to work—which is at the heart of this—we understand, and I very much do, that a change of work- place can be unsettling for people. However, we are committed to our plan of making our estate smaller, greener and—importantly, as we have seen with covid—more resilient.

    These new sites will enable further progression and career opportunities due to larger teams being able to come together, meaning staff can more easily move between business lines and react to operational requirements, with more support in these larger cohorts. The support we are offering to our teams—to our people—absolutely includes regular one-to-ones with line managers about the impacts and confidential advice and support through the employee assistance programme, as well as CV and job application support if needed.

    The DWP is absolutely committed to continuing to deliver for our customers, families and the economy. We need to continue to work positively with our teams to modernise and transform the way we deliver our service. As the hon. Gentleman says, that builds on the approach that was announced back in 2017. I am always struck by, and thankful for, just how positive and willing our DWP teams are to embrace the new changes and the challenges that we face in such a large operational Department. We believe that that means that we will drive better experiences for claimants and employees alike by building increased resilience in modernised and, crucially, higher quality sites, which will also reduce fraud and error.

    These actions will generate savings for the taxpayer, which is the right and responsible approach that the Government must adopt, considering the fiscal position that we face. Given the recent increase in the cost of living, driven by global demand shock, the impact post covid and Russia’s unacceptable invasion of Ukraine, we are always looking for opportunities across Government to make taxpayers’ money go further. In reality, for the DWP, that means taking the decision to exit oversized, poor-quality estates when opportunities or—as in this case—lease breaks arise, making our public services more efficient and space-saving where we can.

    Chris Stephens

    I join the Minister in praising the supreme efforts of Department for Work and Pensions staff over the past couple of years, but why should those who will find it difficult to travel 20-odd miles to another site because of transport issues or disabilities face the prospect of losing their job? That seems to go against everything the Government claim to want for disabled customers, for example.

    Mims Davies

    I am trying to give some context and to reiterate to the hon. Gentleman that the DWP is the biggest public service Department. The current issue is that we occupy 20% of the civil service estate. It is right that we seek to reduce our footprint while committing to retain what makes us great—I absolutely agree with him about that—in our national presence, which means that we can deliver locally for our customers. I think that hon. Members will find it helpful if I provide some numbers to illustrate the point and, I hope, answer some of the hon. Gentleman’s questions.

    The DWP currently operates from more than 920 buildings. In March 2022, it employed just over 92,000 people, but based on recent estimates, our buildings have the capacity for more than 158,000 people. More than 60% of our buildings are 30 years old or more; 3.3% of them currently meet the top two energy performance certificate ratings. The Department is committed to occupying only A and B-rated buildings by 2030. To answer one of the hon. Gentleman’s questions, we will be investing in the quality of the remaining estate, making sure that our buildings are the right places for our people to work. I believe that that will please him and those he represents.

    The modification to a better estate will generate significant gross savings: it is estimated that £3.5 billion will be saved over a 30-year period, with ongoing annual savings of £80 million to £90 million realised from 2028-29, supporting the delivery of efficiency savings across Government. Importantly, we are bringing in a better quality of workspace for our employees, as the hon. Gentleman and many of our workers have requested. It is important to stress that the estates-driven rationalisation programme is ambitious in terms of how we reshape the DWP and how the Department works. I recognise the impacts on people, but it supports the ongoing modernisation and transformation that we also need to provide for our people to create career progression.

    These changes will also support those Government priorities of fewer and better-quality buildings, investment in the condition of buildings, the future sustainability of the estate and, above all, our commitments to net zero. It is also about ensuring, vitally, that the Department maintains a footprint in Scotland and Wales and shows a firm and vital commitment to our precious Union. [Interruption.] You have to let me have that one. We are supporting our places for growth programme by committing to roles outside of London. It also supports levelling up. We are committed to retaining a presence in some of the most deprived areas throughout the nation and regions and creating career opportunity for our people.

    Chris Stephens

    It is good to see the Department for Work and Pensions preparing itself for an independent Scotland, but that is not the point I want to make. The point I want to make to the Minister is on areas of economic deprivation. Some of these offices will be closing in areas of economic deprivation—I am thinking of Springburn in Glasgow, for example, and I have raised the concerns that the businesses have—which seems to go against the levelling-up agenda. How would the Minister square her argument with the fact that offices in areas of high economic deprivation are closing?

    Mims Davies

    I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, and I will go on to say how we are managing this and the opportunities that hybrid working affords us and our staff and how it supports caring and other responsibilities that people may have. I also draw back to the point of the nearly 200 new jobcentres—we are also heading towards 200 new youth hubs—that the DWP has invested in and brought forward as part of our plan for jobs. We are looking at a small part of a very large moving picture of a very large operational Department. For those affected, of course, this situation is concerning. The Department intends to make progress and during this pending review period, we have to set the foundation of the modernisation and transformation I have described.

    Let me take the hon. Gentleman through the situation in Springburn in Glasgow, where 138 people are moving to Atlantic Quay. As part of the first tranche of conversations, all of the one-to-ones have been completed. I reassure him that only one of those 138 people is currently at risk. If people continue to live in the area, they will continue to spend in the area, especially through hybrid working.

    On the question of fixed-term appointments, 8,800 permanent positions have been confirmed, with more offers. We have had to safeguard the opportunities for permanent staff, with 500 more offers—I do not know the exact number; it is around that number but it is a moving picture. I am trying to give the House an idea. We are continuing to engage with the attrition we have with an older workforce and with people looking to progress and stay, but we are also trying to make sure that those who have come in and given their all to the Department get the opportunity to stay with us.

    To respond to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), I will take him through the issues in Northern Ireland. The areas are operated, as he will know, through the Department for Communities, and the sites affected are GB-only. Homeworking was a covid business-related opportunity measure. Hybrid working is absolutely there. It is not our preferred operating model for the DWP—our people need to be face-to-face with our claimants, and that is very important—but we have opportunities in terms of GB for outreach and help through the flexible support fund and partnerships within our local communities, and that is something I encourage. The DWP is not only in jobcentres; it is working in youth hubs, it is partnership working and it is supporting communities in a completely different way—not everyone will come and meet us in a jobcentre.

    The recent additional JCP closures mentioned by the hon. Member for Glasgow South West are not related to the wider network design. However, the Department is taking opportunities over the coming years, as I have said, to improve incrementally our jobcentre network and the quality of the buildings both for colleagues and for customers. For example, we should get those jobcentres into town centres and on bus routes. We should use the opportunity to take forward some of those new temporary jobcentres, which offer better quality buildings and, above all, a better quality working experience.

    Let me turn now to hybrid working. The Department has introduced hybrid working, where colleagues are expected to spend 40% of their time in the office. It is anticipated that this will help those colleagues who may need to travel a little further to get to their new sites. Relocating individual teams into current roles or into existing smaller offices does not fit. What we do not want to do is create more smaller offices. We are trying to create hubs of 300 to 500 plus people. As I have said, those hubs work well in terms of people being able to pivot into the operational needs.

    Chris Stephens

    That was a helpful response to my questions on hybrid working. Does that suggest that all redundancies can be completely avoided if there were an offer of either hybrid or home working for staff? Is that the Department’s intention?

    Mims Davies

    Let me take the hon. Gentleman back to the point that I just made with regard to Glasgow Springburn. A total of 138 people are moving to Atlantic Quay. In terms of the one-to-ones, only one person is at risk at this point. This is, of course, an ongoing process of conversations around the redeployment, retraining and retaining of staff. We have an ageing workforce. We need to future-proof things and look after people and bring them forward. As I have said, this is only one moving part of what we are doing with our 92,000 people.

    Drawing on that, the DWP is taking advantage of shifts in post-covid expectations around customer service delivery—not at the expense of face-to-face work—making use of the opportunity of estate lease breaks in 2023 to enable the Department to achieve its future service delivery aspirations. I want to reassure hon. Members that our people are at the heart of this transformation and that their needs will not be overlooked. The transformation is being delivered in two tranches over the next 18 months. Where possible, if an alternative strategic site has been identified, subject to colleagues’ ability to move to that new site, they will transfer, in their current role, to that new site. Where no consolidation site is available, all efforts—I reiterate the words “all efforts”—will focus on retaining and redeploying colleagues.

    I have consistently reassured hon. Members, whose constituencies are affected, that the driver for this programme is not a reduction in our headcount. Where possible, colleagues in offices that are due to close are being offered opportunities to be redeployed, or retrained so that they can undertake a new role in the DWP, or be offered opportunities with other Government Departments. We are currently working with 15 other Government Departments, which are madly keen on having those people with DWP operational experience join them. Absolutely, we note that recent announcements about the future of the civil service may have caused additional concern. The DWP will consider its response to the challenge and will come forward with its proposals in due course.

    Chris Stephens

    The Minister has been extremely generous in taking my interventions. She outlined the discussions that she has had with other Government Departments, which is very welcome. Can she outline the discussions that she is having with the trade unions within the DWP, because, as yet, that is not something that she has mentioned in her reply?

    Mims Davies

    The hon. Gentleman keeps interrupting me. I can assure him that I will get to that in good time. Let me just follow through on this and then I will reply to his question.

    Let me return to how we will support those who may be affected by our estate changes. Again, our focus continues to be on the best quality of estate, alongside retaining colleagues and supporting them. We are absolutely determined to continue to follow up on the conversations that we are having with individuals. Around 5,800 individual conversations with colleagues took place in 29 of the 43 affected sites. Pleasingly, following those conversations, more than 80% of colleagues have confirmed that they can move to a new site.

    On trade union engagement, consultation is ongoing with the trade unions. Meetings are scheduled for twice a week, and they ensure that appropriate time is dedicated to discussions with the unions about their members’ concerns. In the period from 6 January to date, we have spent more than 65 hours in discussions with the unions, and we are fully committed to continuing that as we deliver the programme’s outcomes. Officials have also arranged a number of deep-dive sessions in consultation with the unions, including one with MyCSP on the civil service compensation scheme. I hope that that allays the hon. Gentleman’s fears about our conversations, which are ongoing, important conversations. I do not want this transformational change to impact our operations and, above all, the morale of our staff.

    A clear measure of the success of the DWP’s updated hybrid working is that we have more flexible and inclusive workplaces that are capable of adapting to the needs of employees—those with health conditions, for example—and our customers. That has been welcomed by much of our workforce. In return, as I mentioned, the Department has been able to retain more people by enabling them to commit to moving with their role to an alternative, larger site. At those sites, they will get more training, learning and progression.

    On 11 May, the Department started the engagement of redeployment activity for about 1,000 colleagues in the first tranche who were impacted by the closure of their site. The process has already successfully matched more than 100 colleagues with new roles, and it continues to happen on a weekly basis. As a responsible employer, the Department has had to explore all options, including voluntary redundancy. That just might be an option for some, depending again on personal circumstances and on the outcome of our redeployment activity. However, voluntary redundancy is the absolute last resort, and it is boring, but I will continue to say that all our efforts are to retain, retrain and redeploy both within the DWP and in all other Government Departments. We will continue to do that until all avenues have been exhausted. Importantly, the scheme does allow our colleagues to request a quotation to allow them to consider what it might mean for them if an offer is made. No offers will be made until September. Every effort throughout this period is about supporting colleagues with redeployment.

    Colleagues will be delighted to hear that I will conclude. Reducing the back-of-house estate’s footprint will deliver value for money for the taxpayer, with significant gross savings of £3.5 billion over a 30-year period. We will deliver better quality estates and better quality working experience and progression opportunities. I hope to have reassured the hon. Gentleman and the House that we at the DWP are doing everything we can to redeploy and support DWP colleagues who are impacted by the modernisation and that they will continue to be fully supported throughout the process.

  • Chris Stephens – 2022 Speech on DWP Office Closures

    Chris Stephens – 2022 Speech on DWP Office Closures

    The speech made by Chris Stephens, the SNP MP for Glasgow South West, in the House of Commons on 23 June 2022.

    I want to raise the issue of Department for Work and Pensions office closures. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, in particular my role as chair of the Public and Commercial Services Union parliamentary group.

    Madam Deputy Speaker, I believe you have made representations on behalf of your constituents who are employed in the Department for Work and Pensions. This issue affects DWP staff across these islands. The PCS is the largest trade union in the civil service, representing 180,000 members, with workers throughout the civil service and Government agencies, including 50,000 members employed by the DWP. They are concerned, as hon. Members across the House are, about the DWP’s announcement of 17 March 2022 that more than 40 of its processing sites are to close, which we believe has the potential of putting more than 3,000 jobs at risk of redundancy.

    There are three categories of processing site closures. The first is where the site is closing and the work will not be consolidated anywhere in the vicinity. I understand there are 13 sites in that category. The second category is where the site is closing but work will be consolidated into an office that the DWP has deemed is within the vicinity, which I understand is 28 sites. The third category is sites that were originally announced as transitional, which will be retained in the short to medium term but will remain badged as transitional. That is eight sites.

    Despite the initial assurances given by Department Ministers at an urgent question I secured, the real concern is that we were told that the closures would not impact frontline services, but a further announcement, on 30 March, was for the closure of five jobcentres. That is very concerning and seems to be the latest push by the DWP to implement its network design strategy, which will put jobs and services at serious risk, and there is concern that the latest announcements could signal further jobcentre closures.

    The PCS parliamentary group is clear that, following the previous closures under the people and locations programme, these closures will have a devastating impact on the services that staff provide and the local communities where the offices are based. They are a serious threat to DWP staff jobs.

    On 17 March, when the original announcement was made, there were 1,118 staff in processing sites that will close without the work being consolidated within the vicinity and 7,341 staff in sites where the work is being consolidated into other offices. The speed at which the Department is operating and has moved to issue “at risk of redundancy” letters to staff across 25 of the 43 sites vindicates the concerns that many of us have that jobs will be lost as a result of the closures.

    While some of the sites in the second category are seeing work moving into buildings that are very close by—the Falkirk and Preston sites, for example—other offices that the DWP has classed as being in the vicinity, and so plans to move staff to, are actually some considerable distance away. That includes the proposal to move the Doncaster office to Sheffield, which you will be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, is 22 miles away. In many of the offices, one-to-one meetings have taken place with members of staff and it is clear that many will not be able to move; it is therefore certain that many DWP staff will be faced with the very real prospect of redundancy.

    There are two processing sites in Wales due for closure from a previous round of closures, where staff have also been confirmed as at risk of redundancy as part of the 16 June announcement. That is because there are more than 120 staff based across the two sites who are unable to make the long journey to the proposed new office. The offices are closing in two tranches. On 16 June, the Department for Work and Pensions announced that, of the 29 sites in the first tranche, at 25 sites a total of 903 staff were at risk of redundancy. We believe that at the remaining 14 sites, which are due to be closed on a slightly slower timeline, similar numbers of staff are likely to be at risk of redundancy.

    Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

    Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

    Chris Stephens

    No Adjournment debate would be complete without an intervention from the hon. Gentleman.

    Jim Shannon

    Adjournment debates do not usually come this early in the day, Madam Deputy Speaker, as you and I know, but none the less we are very pleased, and I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on coming forward with it. He is assiduous when it comes to these issues, and I thank him for that. I think the whole House should thank him for it, by the way.

    Coming from a rural constituency, with intermittent public transport as well as an intermittent internet and mobile service, I know that centralisation or closure of services is never a good suggestion for people in isolated areas. I know the hon. Gentleman is referring to towns, but does he agree and will he call on the Minister to consider, where this is possible, the suggestion of having satellite offices in rural areas such as where I live as well as in the centralised urban areas he has mentioned?

    Chris Stephens

    I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention because I have family members in his constituency, as he knows, so I am well aware of his constituency. He raises a very important point about satellite offices, but there is also homeworking. We were told that homeworking was a suggestion, but it seems now that the Government want to force people away from working at home into offices—only the Government are now closing these offices, so there do seem to be some mixed messages from the Government. I do thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He makes a very important point, and I hope the Minister will respond to it.

    On 16 June, a voluntary redundancy scheme was offered to those staff at the 25 sites identified as being at risk of redundancy. Most of these closures are based on plans originally drawn up in 2016 and announced in 2017, and they are seriously out of date. The sites chosen for closure have, according to the Department, been selected after not just looking at the condition and suitability of buildings, but considering the potential impact of taking work out of locations that score more highly for economic deprivation.

    However, many of these closures do not seem to make a lot of sense if their impact on the local economy has been taken into account. Many of these closures are in areas of economic deprivation that can hardly afford to lose good-quality public sector jobs. For example, 29 of the 41 processing sites are in constituencies that have higher than the national average claimant rates, and 18 of the 33 England office closures are in constituencies rated in the top 100 most deprived constituencies in the country. I do not call that levelling up.

    My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) has done a survey of businesses near the Springburn site, which is earmarked for closure. It makes interesting reading, and I will take a moment to mention what has been identified in that community impact assessment. There are many businesses that staff at the Springburn site use. The off-sales, where people may perhaps buy a bottle of wine before they go home for the evening, and the Chinese restaurant next door, have concerns about the closure of that office.

    The local florist is very concerned because the staff use that service, the local pharmacy has concerns about the closure and the local butcher has made representations about the closure of the Springburn office. That is the very real impact, just in Springburn alone, that such office closures will have on the local economy. It seems—perhaps the Minister can confirm this—that the overriding reason for many of these closures is that the Department for Work and Pensions has itself let the buildings in which it is located fall into major disrepair.

    Let me now turn to concerns about the lack of opportunities to redeploy staff. When offices have been closing, Ministers have sought to reassure Members that staff will be redeployed elsewhere in the DWP or in other Departments whenever possible. However, the potential for redeployment elsewhere in the civil service has become less likely following the Government’s announcement on 13 May, through the press and without consultation with staff or trade unions, of their plan to cut 91,000 civil service jobs. The DWP’s decision not to make permanent thousands of staff on fixed-term appointments will, I believe, have come as a blow to staff as well as service delivery.

    Under the recent permanency exercise for 12,000 work coaches who joined the Department on fixed-term contracts, only 9,300 have been offered permanent posts. Perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us whether those who are not among the 9,300 will be offered permanent employment in the DWP. Not all the posts have been offered to staff in their preferred workplaces, so they face making significant journeys if they want to continue their employment with the DWP.

    The current position is that 1,400 full-time equivalent staff are on a waiting list but are being told that their contracts will end on 30 June 2022. Other FTEs have not been put on the waiting list and have been selected out of the process, despite having joined the DWP on the basis of fair and open competition. If this position does not change, it will lead to significant shortfalls in staff in jobcentres and DWP offices, which face staff reductions of up to 5,000. That will lead to increased workloads, place greater pressure on existing staff, and have a detrimental impact on the services that the public receive from the DWP. We believe that it makes no sense to threaten experienced staff with redundancies when the Department needs more staff, not fewer, to deal with higher workloads. If these closures and job cuts are allowed to go ahead, we will face the absurd prospect of staff being made redundant in one area while new staff are recruited in another to do the same job. That would be both costly and inefficient.

    There is also the issue of the buildings. I understand that the Department aims to rationalise its estate, taking into account matters such as hybrid working, making offices fit for the future, and considering the green agenda as it reviews existing offices. I am told that all offices will be looked at, including jobcentres, and that the Department wants to ensure that everyone is working in an office that is of good quality.

    The employers seem to believe that much of the DWP’s existing estate is no longer fit for purpose. They will seek to leave sites that are no longer suitable and relocate in new premises in the vicinity where they want to maintain a presence, overhauling some sites and closing others where they believe the DWP no longer needs to be located. They also seem to believe that having fewer, bigger buildings is a more efficient way of running the Department, although, as we heard earlier from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), that will not necessarily always be the case.

    However, many of the processing sites are based in buildings from which the DWP will still operate. For example, jobcentres remain in the same location in Doncaster, a site that could easily accommodate the 300-plus staff that the DWP considers to be the minimum number to make a building viable. It will not be possible to sub-let parts of the buildings that it will be vacating, so we question the sense in making experienced staff redundant only for the part of the empty office space that they have vacated to—potentially—become unused. One such example is the Gloucester jobcentre at Cedar House, where only one part of one floor is being vacated and more than 40 staff who are unable to move to Worcester have now been identified as being at risk of redundancy.

    The Department and Ministers have claimed that the estate programme is in support of the Government’s commitments on sustainability and net zero carbon. However, these plans are likely to lead to staff having to travel further to work as a result, which in turn would lead to more carbon emissions. No doubt the hon. Member for Strangford would agree with that, given his earlier intervention. It is also worth considering that the DWP is not totally vacating many of the buildings in question but has not said whether it plans to invest in making these buildings more energy-efficient in future. There is little evidence that the DWP is doing anything to improve the rest of its estate. Much of the remaining estate is similarly unsuitable and unsustainable. We also have concerns that not all the buildings the DWP proposes to move staff to will be able to accommodate the numbers.

    That brings me to the issue of equality impact assessments. The restrictions on the equality impact assessments have been lifted by the Department and they are now available in the House of Commons Library. However, there are concerns that the equality impact assessments have identified that there will be groups disadvantaged by the closures but said very little about what is being done to mitigate those impacts. The assessments were produced before the one-to-one interviews were conducted with staff facing closure of their offices. It is likely that this process would further confirm the impact on people with protected characteristics.

    Women form a significant majority of the DWP’s workforce, on some sites constituting over 75%. There are no tangible mitigations offered in these documents that are likely to compensate for the clear detriment that women face from this office closure programme. People with disabilities, particularly if they impair their ability to travel to work, are likely to face disproportionate impact from office closures as they will have to travel, in some cases by making significant journeys, further to work.

    The DWP aims to mitigate the impact on disabled staff by exploring reasonable adjustments and flexible working arrangements. However, this is unlikely to provide sufficient mitigation as the Department is currently not prepared to fully embrace working from home as a redundancy avoidance. I am sure that people in Strangford and other rural parts of these islands have benefited, and Departments have benefited, from staff working from home, particularly those in the DWP, where there was a huge increase in the number of universal credit claimants, for example. DWP staff should be congratulated on the work that they did during that period and should not now have to face their offices being closed and the prospect of redundancy.

    In some sites—for example, Hackney—there is a high percentage of staff from ethnic minority backgrounds. The proposed solution inevitably means longer travel at greater expense if they are able to relocate, which is a clear detriment for those impacted. In Blackburn, 36% of staff have been identified as being ethnic minority. Despite this, the DWP’s analysis is that there is no evidence to suggest that they will be negatively impacted. We believe that that analysis is flawed. There are high proportions of part-time workers, who are more likely to be carers, in many of these sites. Again, there is little by way of mitigation offered to those workers.

    We are aware that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the permanent secretary invited a limited number of staff to attend a meeting on 26 May 2022 that they addressed with a presentation of the departmental plan for 2022-25. Once again, the DWP and Ministers have gone to staff without proper engagement with the trade unions. I would suggest that there should be full and proper consultation with the trade unions on the detail of a plan that has huge implications for trade union members, DWP staff and the public they serve. The plan identifies a cut in funding for staffing resources while at the same time introducing more work. It suggests a 12% cut in funding for staff over the three-year period. It also suggests a 16% increase in payments for universal credit, legacy benefits and pensions. This can only mean more work for less staff.

    We want to see the Department take a realistic approach to a likely surge in demand for services as the impact of the war in Ukraine and the fall-out from the pandemic devastate the economy. I hope that the Minister will be able to answer many of the points that have been raised on this office closure programme and the concerns that we have for DWP staff, who deliver a great service. I hope that she will be able to confirm that there are no redundancies for those staff.

  • Fabian Hamilton – 2022 Speech on British Council Contractors in Afghanistan

    Fabian Hamilton – 2022 Speech on British Council Contractors in Afghanistan

    The speech made by Fabian Hamilton, the Labour MP for Leeds North East, in the House of Commons on 23 June 2022.

    I am grateful to the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) for securing this important urgent question.

    On behalf of the Labour Opposition, I extend my thoughts to all those currently suffering in Afghanistan following the dreadful earthquake earlier this week.

    In February it was revealed that hundreds of British Council staff were left stranded in Afghanistan following this Government’s botched evacuation from Kabul. The Minister told the House at the time that the Government were supporting those in need and that 50 British Council contractors had been evacuated. Four months on, we are faced with the same problem: hundreds of former British Council contractors are stranded, with reports that they are being attacked and beaten by the Taliban due to their previous work on behalf of the United Kingdom.

    Many of those still in Afghanistan are security guards who protected British staff at the embassy as they undertook an extremely difficult task during the evacuation last August. We owe so much to these courageous British Council contractors, and the fact that they are still in Afghanistan and facing daily violence due to their co-operation with the UK is, frankly, nothing short of a disgrace.

    I would therefore be grateful if the Minister could tell us how many British Council staff are still stuck in Afghanistan today. What urgent measures are being put in place to evacuate the rest of the staff who are still stranded in Afghanistan? What engagement has she had with regional partners to facilitate safe passage for the former staff who attempt to leave? Once again, what message does it send to other British Council contractors who work in challenging environments around the world if the UK leaves Afghan contractors stranded in this way?

    It is high time the Government got their act together and stood up for those who worked with the United Kingdom to promote security, tolerance and democracy in Afghanistan.

  • Vicky Ford – 2022 Statement on British Council Contractors in Afghanistan

    Vicky Ford – 2022 Statement on British Council Contractors in Afghanistan

    The statement made by Vicky Ford, the Conservative MP for Basildon and Billericay, in the House of Commons on 23 June 2022.

    Last August, when the situation in Afghanistan was deteriorating so rapidly, the UK Government worked at great speed to evacuate more than 15,000 people from the country within a fortnight. This was the biggest mission of its kind in generations, and the second largest evacuation carried out by any country. We are right to be proud of what our British forces and others achieved at that time. Those evacuated included British nationals and their families and about 500 particularly vulnerable Afghans, including some British Council contractors, journalists, human rights defenders, campaigners for women’s rights, judges, and many others. All former British Council employees who wished to resettle have arrived in the UK, with their family members.

    The British Council played an important role in Afghanistan in working to support the UK mission there and to promote our values. It is right that the Government do the right thing for British Council employees and contractors, and that includes resettling eligible contractors if they are at risk. Therefore, in January this year the then Minister for Afghan Resettlement, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), announced the launch of a new Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, which will resettle up to 20,000 eligible people over the coming years. There is no application process for the scheme, but people can express an interest in resettlement.

    Eligible individuals will be referred for resettlement via three referral “pathways”. Under pathway 3, we are committed to considering eligible at-risk British Council and GardaWorld contractors as well as Chevening alumni. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will refer up to 1,500 people from Afghanistan and the region to the Home Office for resettlement, including eligible family members. On 20 June the FCDO opened an online system, whereby eligible individuals can express their interest in resettlement.

  • Stephen Doughty – 2022 Speech on EU Retained Law

    Stephen Doughty – 2022 Speech on EU Retained Law

    The speech made by Stephen Doughty, the Shadow Minister for Brexit Opportunities, in the House of Commons on 22 June 2022.

    I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for advance sight of his statement.

    This appears to be simply a vanity project. It is quite extraordinary that on a day when inflation has topped 9%, when the cost of energy is soaring, when families are facing massive pressures and wondering how they will put food on the table, and when prices are rising at the fastest rate in 40 years, the Government’s offer to the British people is a digital filing cabinet of existing legislation that the right hon. Gentleman describes as “marginal”—his own word.

    While the Government plan to cut 20% of civil servants, the Minister for so-called Government efficiency is running his own make-work scheme in the Cabinet Office, creating tasks for it to satisfy his own obsessions. How much has this exercise cost the taxpayer? How many civil service hours? Perhaps we could have a running meter counting them up on the dashboard so that we all know. What is the expected number of users among the general public? Is the dashboard even active? I am an eager beaver, but I could not find it on gov.uk this morning.

    The reality is that gimmicks do nothing to address the real challenges that the public face today. For all the Government’s talk about changes that we can make outside the EU, they still refuse to make the one concrete change that the Labour party has demanded for months, with the overwhelming support of the British people, and the Prime Minister himself has promised: the removal of VAT on home energy bills.

    Other changes that are now possible post Brexit and which Labour has called for but the Government have refused include a ban on the import of fur; the imposition of VAT on private school fees to fund a transformation in the provision of mental health; and the introduction of US-style bans on the import of goods from China produced using slave labour. Those are all changes that the Government could make right now, but they were not mentioned in the right hon. Gentleman’s lengthy oration.

    As for the regulatory changes that the Government propose, I have not heard a single example today of a specific change that depends on the passage of the planned Brexit freedoms Bill, nor have we heard an example of additional changes that will follow in due course as a result of that Bill. What is that Bill for? In the absence of any answers, it is only right that we are cautious about what the new legislation will mean and whether it could be used as a mechanism to fast-track changes that could, for example, impinge on the devolution of powers to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, threaten workers’ rights or threaten the environmental protections and food standards that the British people were repeatedly promised would be maintained post Brexit.

    It is also vital that we ensure that any changes proposed under the legislation are subject to the proper processes for scrutiny, consultation and impact assessment. Anyone in doubt about why that is necessary need only look at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s proposals, included in the paper “The Benefits of Brexit”, to ditch the UK’s current data protection standards. That one move, which has been confirmed in recent weeks, would jeopardise tens of billions of UK exports that depend on the ability to sell services online to EU customers quickly and easily. However, there has been no mention whatever of that threat, let alone a full assessment of its impact, and it did not feature today. That is all further evidence of a Government entirely driven by rhetoric and increasingly detached from reality.

    Could it be that the dashboard is designed not only to satisfy the right hon. Gentleman’s obsessions, but to distract members of the public from the Government’s shambolic handling of the Northern Ireland protocol? All this self-congratulation comes from a Government who are now trying to convince people that what they described as their flagship achievement was not a negotiating triumph, but a deal so flawed that they cannot abide by it. Not only is their Northern Ireland Protocol Bill a blatant breach of international law, but it risks the integrity of the Good Friday agreement, risks causing divides across Europe when we should be pulling together against Putin’s war on the continent, and risks causing trade barriers in a cost of living crisis. We need negotiation, graft and statecraft, not unilateral action or gimmicks.

    Those are just some of the very real and serious problems that will affect the lives of ordinary people in the UK and beyond for years to come. The dashboard that the right hon. Gentleman described will provide little comfort. A Labour Government would make Brexit work by unleashing the potential of British businesses and entrepreneurs so that we can lead the world in new industries. We would seize the opportunities of the climate transition to create well-paid, secure jobs in all parts of the country. Rather than pursuing vanity projects, the Government should focus on the real problems facing the British public.

  • Jacob Rees-Mogg – 2022 Statement on EU Retained Law

    Jacob Rees-Mogg – 2022 Statement on EU Retained Law

    The statement made by Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Minister for Brexit Opportunities, in the House of Commons on 22 June 2022.

    With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement about EU retained law.

    Earlier this year, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister set out that:

    “The United Kingdom’s uncoupling from the rules, regulations and institutions of Brussels was never simply about the moment of our departure; the act of Brexit was not an end in itself but the means by which our country will achieve great things.”

    Now that we have left the European Union the sovereignty of Parliament has been restored and we are free once again to legislate, regulate, or deregulate as this sovereign Parliament redux pleases. As we maximise the benefits of Brexit and transform the UK into the most sensibly regulated economy in the world, we must reform the EU law we have retained on our statute book. Only through reform of this retained EU law will we finally be able to untangle ourselves from nearly 50 years of EU membership.

    In September 2021 my predecessor the noble Lord Frost announced a review into the substance of retained EU law. The purpose of the review was to catalogue which Departments, policy areas and sectors of the economy are most saturated by European law—law that was imposed upon us in a time when Parliament was unable to refuse consent. The road to reform remains a long one; not all Brexit freedoms can be grasped at once. I am pleased to report that Whitehall fired on all cylinders to complete this review. As a result, Members across the House can properly appreciate the extent of EU law on our statute book and the extent of the opportunities that reforming this law provides.

    In the 2022 “The Benefits of Brexit” announcement, the Prime Minister committed to making the outcome of this review available to the public. It is right that the public know how much retained EU law there is and that they should be able to hold the Government properly to account for reforming it. The public have already shown great interest in the EU law that remains on our statute book, as evidenced by the huge amount of correspondence I received in response to my request for details of EU legislation that still burden them—and I am grateful to readers of The Sun and the Sunday Express for their many replies. I am also encouraging some competitiveness between my right hon. Friends in the Cabinet, and hope that this spirit will inspire rapid reform, with returns published every quarter by Departments.

    Therefore, I am pleased to announce that today we publish an authoritative catalogue of over 2,400 pieces of legislation, spanning over 300 individual policy areas. This catalogue will be available on gov.uk through an interactive dashboard. It will be updated on a quarterly basis so the public can “count down” retained EU law as the Government reform it. I commend the Cabinet Office officials who developed this dashboard; it is a fascinating resource in its own right, and is of both political and—in my view—historic constitutional importance.

    The pertinence of publishing the dashboard today should not be missed. Six years ago tomorrow—that day of legend and song—the United Kingdom voted decisively to leave the European Union. The public voted to take back control, and while it took some time to get there—two general elections and some constitutionally fascinating parliamentary prestidigitation between 2017 and 2019—the Prime Minister has delivered such control in spades. His Brexit agreement, which guaranteed regulatory autonomy for Britain, means that the publication of this dashboard offers the public a real opportunity: everything on it we can now change.

    The author E. M. Forster once said

    “two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety, and two because it permits criticism.”

    Therefore, as I did earlier this year, I am inviting the public from across the country—whether in Wakefield or in Tiverton and Honiton, or in other places selected at random for the purposes of illustration—to once again share their ideas of reform and to look further into pieces of retained EU law that have an impact on their lives. By using this dashboard, the public can join us on this journey to amend, repeal or replace retained EU law. Together we will make reforms that will create a crucial boost to productivity and help us bring the benefits of growth to the whole country.

    Of course, Her Majesty’s Government are legislating to seize the opportunities of Brexit and have been since 2020. From introducing our points-based immigration system and securing the integrity of the United Kingdom’s internal market to boosting growth and innovation by allowing gene-edited crops and recognising high-quality professional qualifications, we are already showing—among others—the benefits of Brexit to the British people.

    There are countless other opportunities for reform ahead of us. Members will know that the recent Queen’s Speech was full to the gunwales with the opportunities of Brexit, ranging from financial services to agriculture, data and artificial intelligence, transport, energy, and restoring sense to human rights law. This Government will work to develop a new pro-growth, high-standards regulatory framework that will give business the confidence to innovate, invest, and create jobs.

    Those are the big, headline-grabbing issues, but the dashboard is, I hope, an opportunity to tackle hundreds of matters. They may seem marginal on their own, but all these measures in the margin will combine to usher in a revolution: not a French- style revolution with blood running in the streets and the terror of the guillotine, but a British-style revolution whereby marginal improvements move inch by inch so that soon we will have covered the feet, and the feet will become yards, and the yards will become chains and then furlongs and miles, until the journey is complete. With inflation running high, we need to search everywhere—under every stone and sofa cushion—for supply-side reforms that will make products and services cheaper, will make things easier for business, and, ultimately, will grow the economy and cut the cost of living.

    The dashboard, therefore, is the supply-side reformer’s El Dorado, and, naturally, I am pointing to the treasure trove of opportunity that this publication represents. It highlights unnecessary and disproportionate EU regulations on consumer goods, such as those regulating the power of vacuum cleaners—why should that trouble Her Majesty’s Government?—and the expensive testing requirements mandated by REACH—the regulation on the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals—for the plastics that make up items we use every day, requirements that shut out the newest and most innovative materials. Thankfully, we left the EU before it decided to mandate what sort of phone chargers we can have, a typically short-termist and anti-innovation measure which will only have a long-term negative effect for consumers.

    The dashboard includes the overbearing reporting requirements which add costs to businesses and slow down progress, whether by building new developments in areas that need housing the most or by making it more expensive to hire people at a time of a labour shortage and to respond to militant strikers. We will continue to work with Departments to cut at least £1 billion of business costs from EU red tape to secure greater freedoms and productivity. Ensuring that we have the right regulation is crucial. Excessive and unnecessary regulations which burden business or distort market outcomes, reduce productivity, pushing up prices and negatively affecting everyone’s cost of living. Using our new-found freedom to address the over 2,400 retained EU pieces of legislation on our statute book, the Government will be able to remove and amend regulation that is not right for the UK. This will make a real difference to the process of reducing the number of unnecessary EU regulations that contribute to the cost of living.

    Some—perhaps dozens—-of these rules we might wish to maintain. That will be a decision for the Queen in Parliament, our Parliament, rather than the European Commission. We will preserve retained EU law that is required for our international obligations. We will preserve high standards, such as those for water, and we may even be able to go further in some ways to move ahead of the European Union.

    The publication of this dashboard will mark a pivotal step towards reform of our statute book and those 2,400 pieces of retained EU legislation, ahead of the introduction of the “Brexit Freedoms” Bill. That Bill will allow the United Kingdom to take the next step in reclaiming the sovereignty of Parliament. It will address the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which preserved and incorporated too much EU-derived law at too high a status, giving much of it the same status as an Act of Parliament. That is clearly mistaken, and means that many changes to retained EU law require primary legislation.

    Undoing this vandalism to our constitutional order policy area by policy area would dominate the legislative agenda for Parliaments to come, which would affect the Government’s ability to deliver more fundamental domestic reforms and the opportunity for the UK to reap the benefits of Brexit. The “Brexit Freedoms” Bill will create a targeted power to allow retained EU law to be amended in a more sustainable way, and will go with the grain of the British constitution. This will help us to deliver the UK’s regulatory, economic and legal priorities.

    Ahead of the Bill’s introduction, I invite Members to review the dashboard themselves, and to delve into the legislation that affects the communities that they serve.