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Tag: Speeches

  • Chloe Smith – 2022 Statement to the UN General Assembly in New York

    Chloe Smith – 2022 Statement to the UN General Assembly in New York

    The statement made by Chloe Smith, the Minister for Disabled People, in New York on 14 June 2022.

    Thank you Chair. The UK is committed to implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This is through legislation like the Equality Act 2010 and the new British Sign Language Act 2022, and policies that tackle the barriers faced by disabled people, in order to realise their full participation and inclusion in society.

    We want to help people start, stay and succeed in work. Last month the Government met the commitment made in 2017 to see one million more disabled people in employment – in half the time expected. We’re aiming to prevent health-related job losses.

    Recognising the need for wider societal change, our 18 Disability and Access Ambassadors are using their expertise and influence in business, driving and supporting changes in access for disabled consumers and employees.

    We recognise the importance of co-ordinated action across government, reflecting the full range of services and opportunities that deliver participation and inclusion. Our Disability Champions are driving forward work on disability.

    We continue to engage with disabled people to ensure their needs are considered, including in the Government’s COVID-19 response and recovery efforts.

    As we continue to rebuild from the global impact of COVID, our work on global disability rights is more urgent than ever.

    The UK remains steadfast in our commitment and co-hosted the first Global Disability Summit in 2018. That pivotal moment has become a movement.

    At the second Global Disability Summit this February, we launched the FCDO Disability Inclusion and Rights Strategy. It reaffirms the UK’s commitment to act as a global leader, recognising disabled people – in all their diversity – must have greater voice, choice, and visibility to enjoy their full rights and freedoms.

    It sets out our ambitious approach to work for – and with – disabled people around the world. Across education to health; economic empowerment to humanitarian action; social protection to climate change.

    As we speak, Russia continues with its unprovoked, reprehensible attack on Ukraine. The deteriorating humanitarian situation is having a devastating and disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable – and many of the 2.7 million disabled people in Ukraine have been left behind.

    That is why we are strengthening our focus on reaching the most vulnerable, as part of which we are entering a new £15 million partnership with UNICEF in Ukraine.

    Thank you Chair. We are delighted to be with everyone, learning and sharing at this conference.

  • Sajid Javid – 2022 Speech at the NHS ConfedExpo

    Sajid Javid – 2022 Speech at the NHS ConfedExpo

    The speech made by Sajid Javid, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, in Liverpool on 15 June 2022.

    Thank you, Victor [Adebowale]. It’s great to be with you all in person – and to be part of the new format. The NHS Confederation has always had an awesome ability to bring people together and this Expo is an incredible example of just that.

    The last time I saw a crowd this size was at the Platinum Jubilee. We came together that week to celebrate an institution we’ve all grown up with. And I think these kinds of moments matter because they make us look forward, as well as back. Few can match the Her Majesty the Queen’s record of sacrifice and service – but the NHS can make a very fair claim. Like the monarchy, its success stems from continually reinventing itself for the times we live in.

    In nearly 74 years, the NHS has reigned over the greatest uplift in health in British history. And 50 of those years were spent safely in Conservative hands. I’m so proud to be the latest custodian of our health and social care system, working in partnership with Amanda, who – I think you’ll agree – has been a real force for good.

    Later this month, I’ll mark my first year in the job. It’s just the blink of an eye when you consider our history. But it’s been a remarkable year. Our Roadmap to Recovery. Omicron, and our fightback against it. And our Covid-19 Elective Recovery Plan. There have been so many unprecedented achievements of which you should be fiercely proud.

    In just a short time, I’ve experienced more highs and lows than in any other job – and I’ve had a few! Highs – like how we rose to meet the challenge of Omicron. Highs – like the way so many of you moved mountains to run a remarkable booster campaign. Highs – like how the social care workforce helped to safely open care homes so family members could visit again.

    But the lows have been profound too. Like receiving Donna Ockenden’s report on maternity failings in Shrewsbury and Telford. Like meeting heartbroken families, bereaved by painfully similar tragedies in Nottingham. Or learning of the allegations about the North East Ambulance Service.

    My experiences of health and care are so many people across the country. We’ve all borne witness to phenomenal bravery and dedication, all while knowing, things still need to get much much better.

    It is possible to love the NHS and still demand change. There’s no contradiction there.

    Like most of us, I watched that recent video from the A&E at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow with a mixture of emotions. Horror – at the thought: how would I feel if it was me in that room? Or one of my children? But also respect. Respect for the colleague who had to deliver that difficult message and her poise in the face of unimaginable pressure.

    We all know that people working in health and care have one of the most difficult jobs in Britain today. So to her, and to everyone else working in health and care: I want to thank you for everything you’re doing in such difficult circumstances.

    And I’m under no illusion about the challenges we face.

    Our Covid-19 Recovery Plan is ramping up to deliver a huge increase in activity, embedding new ways of working. Our new Community Diagnostics Centres are bringing life-saving tests, checks and scans closer to people’s home. It’s a vast effort, of which we should all be enormously proud.

    Yet the scale of the challenge is equally vast. We know that some 11 to 13 million people stayed away from the NHS because of the pandemic. Many of those people are now righty coming forward – and many of them to A&E.

    Omicron was also set-back, with an additional 16,000 Covid positive people in hospitals. And we know the number of people on waiting lists is continuing to rise.

    Not only that, but the Covid-19 backlog sits atop a broader set of generational challenges.

    Improved life-expectancy is one of the great triumphs of the modern age, and in so many ways, an NHS triumph. But it also comes with its own challenges.

    The Resolution Foundation has projected that this decade is likely to see the fastest pace of ageing in any decade from the 1960s to the 2040s. As our population gets older, more and more people are living with increasingly complex long-term conditions. Treating an 80-year-old is around four times more expensive than treating a 50-year-old.

    At the start of this century, in 2000, health spending represented around 27 percent of day-to-day public service spending. By 2024, that figure it is set to rise to 44 percent.

    This government will always make sure our health and care system has what it needs to face the future with confidence. We’ve put in record levels of funding in recent years, including raising billions more through the new Health and Social Care Levy.

    But funding will only ever be part of the answer. Growing health spending at double the rate of economic growth over the next decade, as I’ve heard some propose, is neither sustainable, desirable, nor necessary.

    I don’t want anyone’s children to grow up in a country where more than half of our national budget is taken up by healthcare, at the expense of everything from housing to education. That’s not a fair deal for the British people – particularly young people.

    Obviously, we face many structural challenges, from an ageing population and multiple long-term conditions. But demanding spending growth of this kind suggests that we will fail to reduce demand through prevention, early diagnosis and more effective care – as well as a fail to increase health and care productivity with improved use of capital, skills, management, data and innovative models of care. I refuse to countenance such failures.

    I know that – when it comes to improving productivity and quality over the next decade – there’s no one more ambitious than you. Indeed, it’s one of the four key objectives which Matthew set out for this conference, which I very much welcome.

    When reports came out of Cabinet last week that I’d described the NHS as like “Blockbuster in the age of Netflix”, it caused a bit of a stir. But it’s because I believe in the NHS and its founding principles that I want to focus minds on why some organisations keep pace, while others get left behind.

    Before entering Parliament, I had the privilege to live and work around the world. I can tell you: the NHS is unique. It’s not there to make a profit – and it never will be.

    But it’s also not immune to the same basic choices that face organisations right across the world. We need to be smarter with our capital, digitise and transform our use of data. We need to grow the workforce, improve leadership and management and prevent problems from escalating in the first place. We need to accelerate the development of new, innovative models of care and build a more personalised service in a way that people now come to expect.

    Can you imagine any multinational without access to levers like workforce planning? Or any big supermarket chain without a consistent leadership and management programme? Or any FTSE 100 company with its digital functions outside of its own organisation? I believe there are a great many things still to do before we even think about turning to taxpayers again. And it was great to hear what Amanda said just now about making the best use of taxpayers’ money.

    What we’ve done

    Together with all of you here today, a lot of this work is already under way. Let’s just take a quick look at some of the things we’ve worked on in the last year alone.

    We’ve built new institutions, like UKHSA and OHID to redefine how we do public health in this country.

    We’ve strengthened existing institutions, like NHSE by bringing workforce and digital transformation into the heart of the NHS.

    We’ve announced how we’ll improve the provision of social care, something successive governments have ducked for far too long.

    We’ve set out ambitious public targets to slash long waits in the coming years through the Covid-19 Elective Recovery Plan, and we’re projected to meet the first of these targets by next month.

    We’ve published our Integration White Paper, a blueprint for how we provide better care for patients and better value for taxpayers.

    In March, in a speech at the RCP, I laid out the building blocks for our future around Prevention, Personalisation, Performance and People. I did note Amanda’s ‘4 Rs’ earlier, which I also very much agree with.

    On Monday, I announced our new data strategy, called ‘Data Saves Lives’, to bridge the digital divides between health and social care and ensure we use people’s data safely and responsibly so we can take the public with us on this exciting journey.

    And next month, the bulk of the new Health and Care Act comes into force, including our statutory ICSs. It’s certainly not been a quiet first year in the job!

    But I’ve been determined we keep moving forward, because this moment in time we dare not lose. It’s a moment when we can combine valuable lessons from the pandemic, with incredible new technology and innovative ways of working which when taken together, help us face the challenges of the future.

    It’s a small window of time where we can make a big difference.

    Leadership Review

    For me, an important recent moment was when General Sir Gordon Messenger and Dame Linda Pollard published their landmark review into health and social care leadership.

    I remember Gordon saying: “For a report like this to really have an impact… it has to be supportive and honest”. I think we can all agree, that’s what we got. And I’m pleased it has been welcomed by the NHS Confederation, NHS Providers and many more.

    I’m so grateful to Gordon and Linda for their work, and I’m pleased to accept their recommendations in full. They found countless examples of great leadership, not just at the top but at all levels. More than that, they found great leadership under considerable stress.

    They found that where there’s better leaders, there’s better teams. And where there’s better teams, there’s better outcomes. I’ve seen this for myself, in countless visits around the country including this morning, on my visit to the Royal Liverpool University Hospital.

    But this kind of exceptional leadership isn’t embedded everywhere. The review had some really important insights.

    First, on collaboration. We know that, for years, people have worked tirelessly to do the right things for patients – doing their best to work across the walls that have kept us apart. The walls between health and care. The walls between neighbouring trusts. The walls between one organisation and another.

    We’ve chipped away at these walls for a while now. And through the pandemic, we sent whole sections crumbling down, for instance, the incredible way that we rolled out the vaccine – the incredible job the NHS did. No one wants the walls to go back up, so now we’re bringing more and more walls down. From the changes to NHSE to the new ICBs, colleagues can collaborate as never before.

    Implementing the recommendations of the review will support more collaborative leadership: one where we’re working across the divides where the walls once stood, and embracing a ‘connection culture’.

    I was also moved by the insights on culture in the workplace. They found “too many reports to ignore” of poor behaviour – and that we’ve reached a point where – in some parts of the system bullying and discrimination are – and I quote – “almost normalised”. All of us know, from our own careers, just how toxic that can be. Because when even just a tiny minority behave that way it can be contagious for behaviour and morale.

    We will have zero-tolerance on discrimination, bullying and blame cultures. And that of course includes racism – which was highlighted by the BMA’s report yesterday.

    We know that, if we tolerate it, it doesn’t just make health and care a worse place to work, it makes this country a worse place to live. The examples of Shrewsbury and Telford and Mid Staffs shows the extremes where this behaviour can take us. Standards not met. Complaints ignored. Lives, needlessly lost.

    Let me be clear: the actions of the few should take nothing away from the values of the many. In fact, it’s because of the incredible professionalism of the overwhelming majority of colleagues in health and care that we should be even more determined to get it right.

    And the good news is this: just as Gordon and Linda found that bad behaviour was contagious, they found that great leadership was contagious too. It works best when everyone – even those without the word ‘leader’ in their job title – feels like a leader.

    Other recommendations around training, standards and management will support this effort, helping the workforce at all levels, by creating the conditions for everyone to thrive.

    And when I say everyone, I mean everyone everywhere. Not just those in leafy pockets of England, but where people need it most.

    We know that in some regions, poor leadership is a constant challenge. That’s an injustice we’re just not prepared to tolerate. We need the best people doing the hardest jobs – and getting the right leaders in the right places takes the right incentives.

    One of the first things I did in this job was to read Sir Chris Whitty’s report on the serious health and social challenges in coastal communities. And I’ve seen them first-hand. I did my first speech in Blackpool, on health disparities. And I was recently in Clacton as part of my Road to Recovery tour, where they have the second highest mental health need of anywhere in the country. So I’ll make no apologies for encouraging top talent to areas facing the biggest problems, especially some of our most deprived communities.

    I’m committed to making these changes: To supporting the leadership our colleagues in the NHS and social care deserve – and the leadership everyone everywhere deserves.

    What’s to come

    The year ahead promises to be no less busy. We’ll shortly be publishing: our Digital Health and Care Plan; our Health Disparities White Paper; our 10-year plans on cancer, dementia, and mental health; our update of the NHS long-term plan after Covid; the HEE workforce framework, which, later in the year, will be followed by the NHS’s first-ever 15-year workforce strategy.

    I also recognise that Primary Care is going to be a crucial part of the puzzle. It’s the front door to health and care – and I’m grateful to all the primary care staff who make a difference every single day.

    But I don’t think our current model of primary care is working. That won’t be a surprise to you. I know. You know. Patients know. And everyone working in primary care knows: we need a plan for change.

    We are starting with pharmacy – and I will be setting out my plans shortly.

    I’m grateful to Dr Claire Fuller for her recent review on how we can improve patient access to primary care. I’m confident her recommendations will improve access, including for those with the most complex needs, and, ultimately, help us tackle the Covid backlog and help people live healthier lives for longer.

    I’m determined that when we look back on these years – on this window of change we have right now – that we can say we did all we could to secure the future of health and care for the generations that come after as.

    Reform Partnerships

    So today, I want to focus on one more thing our new Health and Care Act can help us achieve.

    The pressure of the pandemic produced some powerful partnerships. With the ingenuity of people on the front line, including so many of you, walls that had seemed so rigid came crumbling down. As we face the challenges of recovery, those ways of working can work again.

    Back at the RCP in March, I talked about the potential power of ‘partnerships for reform’. Now, we have a legislative framework that encourages it. For ICSs to fulfil their full potential – and make the changes truly worthwhile – I want to see the creation of many more of these reform partnerships.

    This is already happening. We’ve already taken forward the Provider Collaborative model where are group of providers of acute or mental health services agree to work together to improve the care pathway of their local population.

    For example, there are currently 47 NHS-led Provider Collaboratives for mental health, learning disabilities and autism. We’ve seen the success of this approach in London, where the South London Health and Community Partnership has been able to bring out of area patients down by a third, and readmissions down by two-thirds.

    There are also some 50 acute trust collaboratives and mixed collaboratives, bringing together acute, specialist, mental health and community providers. It’s about listening to the innovators already doing incredible things within the system – then giving them a platform to do it.

    They’ve already shown that when we partner like this, challenges that appear intractable in one place can be resolved in another. These partnerships work. They deliver for patients. And they’re helping us to tackle the Covid backlog.

    So for me, the logical next step is to think about how we can use these kinds of partnerships to support underperforming trusts.

    Earlier, I talked about using incentives to get the right leaders in the right places – places that have been let down for too long.

    Reform Partnerships will be a central way we can spread good leadership to those places. So as part of the work on Reform Partnerships, I want to explore whether we make being part of a Reform Partnership a requirement for underperforming trusts.

    I believe this could be powerful way to ensure that the leadership we need doesn’t stay in the walled gardens of England’s best performing trusts, but is there to help turn trusts round and with it, the health and happiness of those who live there.

    So I’m looking forward to working with all of you on these plans.

    I know you’ve faced – and continue to face – the most unimaginable kinds of pressures. And you continue to do so with passion and innovation.

    You have, not just my admiration, but my full support.

    I’m proud to work with you and call you my colleagues.

    Because if there’s a theme that unites all of this work, it’s this: that the ideas and the ways working we need are already here – with so many of you in the room today.

    I believe we can continue to reinvent ourselves for the times we live in; for this institution we’ve all grown up with to be the one we grow old with – with dignity and with good health.

    And the moment to do it is now. We have no time to lose. We have a small window of time to make a very big difference.

    Let’s keep breaking down the walls between us. To meet the challenges before us. So that, together, we can deliver better health and care for everyone everywhere.

    Thank you all very much.

  • Kwasi Kwarteng – 2022 Comments on Supporting Technology Projects

    Kwasi Kwarteng – 2022 Comments on Supporting Technology Projects

    The comments made by Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, on 15 June 2022.

    The incredible work of the Vaccine Taskforce, housed at my department through the pandemic, demonstrated that this country is home to some of the best scientists and innovators in the world.

    I’m immensely proud of the work we have done to support ground-breaking research so far, having confirmed £40 billion in funding for R&D over the next 3 years and placing it at the very top of our agenda. London Tech Week itself is testament to that.

    And today, we’re announcing over £743 million in investment – including in the latest quantum technologies, to ensure Britain has pole position in the global marketplace in a host of new areas.

  • Victoria Atkins – 2022 Speech at the Modernising Criminal Justice Conference

    Victoria Atkins – 2022 Speech at the Modernising Criminal Justice Conference

    The speech made by Victoria Atkins, the Prisons Minister, on 15 June 2022.

    One of the reasons I came into politics was thanks to a 12-year-old boy called ‘Billy’.

    Before I was elected to Parliament in 2015, I spent nearly two decades working in criminal courts as a barrister. In one of my earliest cases, I was sent to a Youth Court to represent Billy for an opportunistic commercial burglary.

    I arrived at court to find Billy there, completely alone, with no appropriate adult. It was his first offence and he was terrified.

    When I asked him whether mum or dad were coming to court, he replied “I’ve never known my dad and my mum will be flat-out drunk on the floor”.

    It was 09.30 in the morning…

    With that first criminal conviction, twenty years ago, Billy’s diminishing life chances could be predicted with depressing certainty – as could the harms for society that his future offending would mean.

    Two decades later, it is the mission of this government to make our streets safer and it follows that modernising the criminal justice system is a priority. I welcome this opportunity to share the Government’s ambitious plans for delivering on these aims in partnership with you.

    We want to prevent harm from happening in the first place. If we can prevent young people from being ensnared in a life of crime, we spare the pain of potential victims and we save the taxpayer billions-a-year on services such as policing, children’s social care, courts and even detention.

    These costs continue into adulthood as 80 percent of prolific adult offenders commit their first crimes as children. It is therefore in our best interests to try to stop harm from happening in childhood – not just for today and tomorrow, but for the decades to come.

    This is why last month we announced our new £60m “Turnaround” early intervention programme which will support up to 20,000 more children in England and Wales. It will target those at risk of criminality before they start a cycle of offending which, if left unaddressed, can escalate towards more serious crime.

    This is just one part of our determined efforts to tackle youth offending. Our ten-year, £200m Youth Endowment Fund is not only funding intervention programmes but it is evaluating what works to help local commissioners spend tax-payers’ money on the most effective interventions – again, modernising our processes to ensure the best results for the public. To back this up, in the Ministry of Justice alone, we will be investing a total of over £300m over three years to tackle youth offending.

    We have already seen a dramatic reduction in the last decade of children entering custody, down by two thirds, but we want to go further. This is not only the right thing to do for the children themselves, it is also the right thing to do for society, helping to make our streets safer.

    As part of this intervention and prevention work, one of the most pressing facts that we must confront in criminal justice is racial disparity. In 2020/21, two thirds of children arrested in London were from minority ethnic groups. We are working at all stages in the youth justice system to address disparities, including helping youth justice services to understand the needs of ethnic minority children; tightening the tests applied to ensure that custodial remand for children is a last resort; and improving the diversity and training of Youth Custody Service staff to maximise the chances of rehabilitating young people in custody.

    We are also working with the Metropolitan Police to trial the automatic receipt of legal advice for children in Brixton and Wembley custody suites. This will mean that vulnerable children, a disproportionate number of who are from a minority ethnic background, will receive the legal advice they need automatically – an “opt out” model, as opposed to the usual “opt in” model, removing the perception some may have that they have to ask for help. If successful, this trial could be rolled out further to help ensure that justice is served.

    Our work in the adult system includes our detailed cross-government responses to the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparity report, the David Lammy Review and our Race Action Programme for prisons and probation. Some of the actions taken include reform of prison processes that led to unexplained disparities, better support for ethnic minority-led services, and encouraging diversity in our court and prisons workforces. This is vital work for a justice system in the 21st century.

    One of the areas in criminal justice which is seeing the most modernisation is our work to tackle violence against women and girls. I have the responsibility of drawing this work together across government, focusing particularly on the treatment of rape and sexual violence cases.

    Last year will be remembered for the shocking murders of women going about their lives – walking home from a friend’s, or out for a drink, attending a party in the park or walking their dog. These appalling murders led to a national conversation about women’s experiences and what we can all do to stop this.

    We wanted women and girls to help shape our new national Strategy to Tackle Violence Against Women and Girls. We re-opened the government’s consultation and in just two weeks, we received 160,000 responses – an unprecedented level which demonstrated the public’s anger and expectation that things must change.

    We published the new cross-government strategy last summer and its work is well underway. For example, a new public communications campaign – #Enough – has been launched to break the biases and attitudes that contribute towards these crimes. Again, this work is about preventing the harm from happening in the first place.

    But where horrific offences such as rape and sexual violence are committed, the criminal justice system must respond quickly, effectively and justly. Last year, we conducted a forensic examination of each stage of the criminal justice process, from the moment a victim reports such a crime to the police, to the moment the case results in a conviction or acquittal. We published the End-To-End Rape Review and have identified eight levers which can help secure justice for more victims.

    These include:

    … rolling out suspect-focused investigations techniques across police forces and the CPS; so that the suspect’s behaviour is examined not the victim’s credibility

    … addressing victims’ concerns about handing over their phones to the police for sometimes days or weeks on end through our investment in modern technology and new disclosure guidelines;

    … increasing victim support funding to £185 million by 2025,

    … raising the number of specialist Independent Sexual and Domestic Violence Advisors by 43 percent – a vital service for victims that not only helps them recover but also helps them stay the course with an investigation or prosecution;

    … and rolling out pre-recorded cross-examination and re-examination nationally to improve the court experience for vulnerable witnesses and help them to provide their best evidence.

    We are measuring all of this through transparent reporting of data both nationally and locally, via local Criminal Justice Board areas so that we and the public can see what is happening in their local areas.

    The early signs of progress are encouraging…

    … The police are referring more rape cases to the CPS…

    … More people are being prosecuted…

    … The average number of days for adult rape cases from the CPS charging a suspect to the case being completed has continued to fall, down by 5 weeks since the peak in June 2021.

    … And convictions for rape are up 67 percent compared to 2020.

    But there is more to do – and you will hear more in the coming days and weeks on our efforts to modernise further the criminal justice response to these devasting crimes.

    Finally, I would like to talk about prisons. We need a criminal justice system that stands up for victims, delivers swift justice and protects the public by imprisoning offenders and rehabilitating them. We set out our plans in for the prison estate in the Prisons Strategy White Paper in December. I would like to thank everyone who responded to the consultation and I am pleased to announce that we published the response yesterday.

    … It’s what the public wants and expects to see.

    … So, we are toughening sentences.

    … We are creating new prison places.

    … And we’re investing £3.8 billion pounds over the next three years that will be used to build modern prisons that prioritise the rehabilitation of offenders.

    HMP Five Wells is an example of what the modern prison estate will look like. With 24 workshops available – more than any other prison in the country – and cutting-edge tech that puts education, training and jobs at its core, prisoners will be given the right opportunities to turn over a new leaf.

    Because, as you know, all these factors are proven to cut crime, reduce reoffending and protect the public.

    And we’re confident that following the same prison blueprint at HMP Fosse Way, when it opens next year, will allow even more offenders to spend their time preparing to give back to society on release.

    We know, however, that our vision for the next generation of prisons is unachievable without the brilliant people that run them, and work in them. Our workforce will grow considerably as we recruit up to 5,000 new officers in line with prison expansion across the public and private estate.

    We are committed to supporting our staff so that they are equipped with the right skills to meet the diverse needs of prisoners in a safe, decent, and secure environment.

    And in order to retain the talent and experience the Prison Service attracts, we have developed a number of new interventions. These include a supervision pilot which is now live in two prisons, a leadership training pilot – where attrition is highest, and two new mentoring and budding schemes which are being rolled out across all prisons.

    An extended part of our reducing reoffending work is tackling the scourge of drugs. If we are to stop prison from being a revolving door for repeat offenders, ensuring drugs don’t get into the hands of prisoners is also of the upmost importance.

    As explained in the Prisons Strategy, we’re taking a ‘zero-tolerance’ approach to the smuggling of illicit items such as drugs, weapons, and mobile phones, which fuel crime and violence behind bars.

    That’s why we have invested £100 million pounds in security over the last three years. We know that body scanners in prisons in England and Wales have foiled twenty thousand plots to smuggle drugs, phones and weapons into jails.

    We want to build on this and so are investing an additional £25 million in new technology and security measures to detect the very latest handsets tucked away in the crevices of cells, as well as microscopic smears of illegal substances such as spice on prisoners’ mail.

    And more of the most challenging prisons will be kitted out with the full range of the most up-to-date, innovative technology specially designed to keep contraband out of prisons – including airport-style baggage scanners.

    As we tackle the conveyance of drugs into prisons, we are also supporting offenders to face up to and beat their substance misuse issues.

    And under our plans outlined in the Prison Strategy White Paper, all prisoners will have access to a full range of high-quality treatment, including abstinence-based treatment options as soon as they arrive at custody.

    When offenders overcome their addictions, they have the best chance of keeping on the straight and narrow once released and our streets become safer as a result.

    We know that education and employment reduce reoffending significantly, with prison leavers in employment being nine percentage points less likely to reoffend.

    We are delivering a Prisoner Education Service within this parliament to raise prisoners’ levels of numeracy, literacy, skills and qualifications with the aim of helping them secure jobs or apprenticeships on their release.

    To do this, we must give prisons the tools they need to succeed. We will invest in digital infrastructure, more training that delivers the skills employers need, more education experts to support Governors and improved support for prisoners with additional learning needs.

    And we are introducing apprenticeships into our prison system for the first time that will not only cut crime and reduce reoffending, but also address local labour shortages.

    We are ensuring prisons are equipped to offer the training and work experience offenders need to secure jobs once released, which we know is another powerful tool in our fight against crime.

    We are rolling out Employment Advisory Boards and employment hubs in every resettlement prison which link offenders with job opportunities on the outside. I have seen for myself the success of these innovative schemes at HMP Lincoln and HMP Thorn Cross.

    We will deliver a presumption in favour of offering offenders the chance to work in prison, on Release on Temporary Licence and on release, including by building stronger links with employers.

    And we have listened to prisoners and campaigners in recognising the value of family.

    Research shows that if a prisoner receives visits by a partner or family member, the odds of reoffending are 39 percent lower than for prisoners who do not.

    So, we’re designing prisons, introducing innovative schemes and reforming regimes to factor this in across the prison estate. HMP Five Wells for instance has a family area, a homework club and facilities that allow prisoners to join parents’ evenings.

    And for female offenders who are sent to custody for short sentences, our new £10 million-pound residential women’s centre in Swansea – opening in 2024 – will support many to live healthy, crime-free lives, whilst keeping them closer to their own community and families.

    In closing, I want to thank all of you for your dedication to improving the criminal justice system.

    Together we can fight for the victims who feel voiceless…

    …Neighbourhoods that feel neglected…

    …And offenders who need the right opportunity to go straight.

    Together, we can make our streets safer for us all.

    From increasing the number of people convicted for rape offences, to getting more prisoners job-ready with their backs turned on crime for good – working together gives us the greatest chance of achieving lasting change for the justice system.

  • Victoria Atkins – 2022 Statement on the Prisons Strategy White Paper

    Victoria Atkins – 2022 Statement on the Prisons Strategy White Paper

    The statement made by Victoria Atkins, the Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice, in the House of Commons on 14 June 2022.

    Today I am publishing the Government response to the prisons strategy White Paper consultation.

    The prisons strategy White Paper was published in December 2021. The commitments in the paper tackle this Government’s priorities for prisons: building the next generation of prisons and managing an estate that is safe and secure for staff and prisoners; supporting rehabilitation and resettlement through education, employment and accommodation; and creating prison and probation services that cut crime and protect the public.

    A total of 19 questions were included in the White Paper to ensure the views of interested parties were considered. The consultation opened on 7 December 2021 and closed on 4 February 2022, receiving 155 responses. The Government have carefully considered the responses and are grateful for all of the contributions.

    Since publication of the White Paper, this Government have moved swiftly to deliver its aims:

    HMP Five Wells opened in March, delivering 1,700 modernised places.

    Digital upgrades have been delivered to a further seven prisons, with four additional sites completed by October 2022.

    The landmark security investment programme was completed in March 2022, including the deployment of enhanced gate security across 42 high-risk sites.

    Committed an additional £25 million investment in prison security: installing high-specification drugs trace detection, mobile phone blocking technology, x-ray baggage scanners, and an intelligence management system.

    Secured £34 million to improve prison safety and move towards a more preventative approach.

    Accelerated the roll out of employment hubs with 23 now established and the appointment of 20 employment board chairs.

    Announced that we will legislate to enable prisoner apprenticeships, in collaboration with the Department for Education.

    Committed to action on Friday releases to tackle the strain this can cause if prisoners cannot access essential services; this includes pursing legislation to address this issue for those at risk of reoffending, when parliamentary time allows.

    Plans to open a residential women’s centre in Wales to provide a community-based alternative to a short custodial sentence.

    Launched our staff retention toolkit into all prisons alongside a number of new initiatives to support retention, including a new buddy scheme.

    Key performance indicators, introduced in April 2022, set clear expectations of delivery, and governors will be held to account as part of their performance reviews.

    As the consultation response makes clear, this is the start of an ambitious delivery plan in the years to come and the Government are committed to continued engagement with stakeholders to ensure we deliver on it.

    Today, I lay in Parliament this response, which sets out the views of respondents to our consultation questions and how the Government propose to implement the commitments in the White Paper.

  • Anne-Marie Trevelyan – 2022 Statement on the Singapore Digital Economy Agreement

    Anne-Marie Trevelyan – 2022 Statement on the Singapore Digital Economy Agreement

    The statement made by Anne Marie-Trevelyan, the Secretary of State for International Trade, in the House of Commons on 14 June 2022.

    Today, I am proud to announce that the UK-Singapore digital economy agreement (DEA) enters into force, following the completion of the necessary domestic procedures on both sides. This will allow UK businesses to start benefiting from the provisions contained within the agreement, helping them to trade and grow.

    This groundbreaking agreement is the world’s most innovative digital trade agreement, concluded as it was between two of the most advanced digital trade nations. The UK-Singapore digital economy agreement is deeper and wider than previous trade agreements covering the modern digital economy. Complementing and building on the G7 digital trade principles that we brokered under the UK’s G7 presidency, the Singapore digital economy agreement will serve as an ambitious model for modern trade agreements in future—cementing the UK’s place as a world leader in digital trade.

    By securing open digital markets, prompting the free flow of trusted data, and cutting red tape through overhauling outdated paper-based processes, businesses across the UK can expand into new markets and thrive.

    Now that this groundbreaking trade agreement has entered into force, businesses and consumers across the UK will start to benefit from:

    Support to UK businesses to access Singapore’s digital markets. Digitally delivered services make up around a third of UK services trade globally—this was worth over £361 billion in 2020, and this deal will help strengthen this further.

    Securing and locking-in trusted cross-border data flows, the foundation for today’s modern digital economy—representing up to 26.3% of UK GVA in 2019. This will enable businesses to trade more easily, cheaply, and more quickly, facilitating everything from more efficient manufacturing and supply chains to more reliable infrastructure.

    Cutting red tape by supporting the overhaul of outdated, paper-based trading systems. For example, the agreement contains specific commitments around maintaining legal frameworks that enable the digitisation of trade documents such as bills of lading.

    Keeping our country and citizens safe through deepening our partnership with Singapore in areas such as cyber-security, as well as legally binding commitments covering online consumer protection and personal data protection.

    Supporting our bid to join the comprehensive and progressive trans-Pacific partnership (CPTPP), alongside Singapore and 10 other vibrant trading nations. Membership would mean access to a £9 trillion free trade area with some of the biggest and fastest-growing markets in the world.

    With this agreement coming into force, our economy and brilliant businesses can build back better from the pandemic and start to benefit from easier, quicker, and more trusted access to the valuable Singapore market.

  • Wendy Morton – 2022 Speech on Portishead Railway

    Wendy Morton – 2022 Speech on Portishead Railway

    The speech made by Wendy Morton, the Minister of State at the Department for Transport, in the House of Commons on 14 June 2022.

    I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) on securing this debate on the future of Portishead railway. He has been a passionate advocate of reopening the railway from Bristol to Portishead for many years—since long before I became the Rail Minister. I recognise that the project has strong support in his constituency and I am grateful to him for setting out its benefits this evening, as well as some of the challenges.

    John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)

    The Minister is right to congratulate our right hon. Friend, my neighbour and co-MP for north Somerset, but it is not just his constituency that is affected. Right next door in my constituency, many people are in favour of the project, not only because of the reductions in the environmental impact of all those trips to and from Bristol, but because of the levelling-up impact, particularly on less well-off places such as Pill and others in our area.

    Wendy Morton

    I hear my hon. Friend’s comments and recognise that the project runs beyond the boundaries of the North Somerset constituency.

    The proposal is now part of MetroWest, a third-party metropolitan rail programme promoted by West of England Combined Authority and North Somerset Council. The Government have already committed funding support of £31.9 million to close the funding gap for the project to reopen the Portishead line to passengers, and a further request from the joint promoters for £15.6 million of additional funding was recently received. I assure my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset that the case is being carefully considered by the Government. The Department will continue to work closely with WECA, NSC and Network Rail counterparts on the approval process for the scheme’s full business case.

    I want it to be clear that I fully recognise that the scheme is of great importance to my right hon. Friend’s constituents and to the wider Greater Bristol area. The congestion on the A369 between Bristol and Portishead, with journey times of about an hour in peak periods, is a barrier to travel. Reintroducing a rail connection would bring the communities of Portishead and Bristol closer together, improving work opportunities for local residents and for leisure and tourism. It would also bring people closer to the rest of the country.

    The funding is subject to the granting of a development consent order, which is a statutory requirement, and a satisfactory full business case. The full business case will also need to progress through my Department’s rail network enhancement pipeline approval process, a framework by which all publicly funded rail enhancements are considered.

    My right hon. Friend will be aware that, with regard to the scheme’s development consent order, the Secretary of State issued a “minded to approve” decision on the 19 April. This sets out that the Secretary of State is minded to make the order, subject to receiving further information and evidence regarding the costs and funding of the project, with the reasons for that set out in the letter. The Secretary of State has requested that this information be provided by 30 November. To allow sufficient time for this information to be provided and for the Secretary of State to consider it, the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts), issued a written ministerial statement on 19 April extending the deadline for the DCO application to 19 February 2023. Should satisfactory information be provided ahead of November, the Secretary of State will look to issue a final decision on the DCO application as soon as possible and ahead of the February 2023 deadline.

    It is important to note that I am not involved in the decision on this application, but I am sure my right hon. Friend will understand that this is still a live application under consideration in my Department. I am therefore unable to take part in any discussion on the pros and cons of the development consent order itself, to ensure that the process is correctly followed and remains fair to all parties.

    I must also stress that the development consent order process is a statutory requirement under the Planning Act 2008. The process for considering an application must follow the legislative requirements, and the Secretary of State can request any further information that he considers necessary to allow him to undertake this consideration and to fulfil his statutory duties.

    More broadly, with regard to the Government’s commitment to rail schemes, we have committed to levelling up the country, and reconnecting communities to the railway is central to that ambition.

    Karin Smyth

    I have been a Member of Parliament for only seven years. I do not recall, off the top of my head, how many Ministers I and the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) have appeared before on this very issue. A range of reasons have always been given as to why this is not happening. Last year, we understood that there were some environmental questions to be answered. I gently say to the Minister and her officials that each time a new Conservative Minister comes to the House with a new range of hoops to jump through and a new range of excuses as to why our part of the country does not have this commitment, which we long believed we had, the worse it is for the Conservative party.

    Wendy Morton

    As I set out earlier, I can assure the hon. Lady and my right hon. Friend that the Department —this Government—will continue to work closely with the West of England Combined Authority, with North Somerset Council and with Network Rail counterparts on the approval process for the scheme’s full business case. I give that commitment this evening.

    Dr Fox

    As Secretary of State, I was rather too fond of saying to my officials that the difference between a doctor and a civil servant was that, for a doctor, a good outcome was that the patient got better, and for a civil servant, a good outcome was that the patient was treated for a very long time. It seems to me that we are in one of these examples where the process is almost becoming an end in itself. We actually need results. I entirely understand the point that my hon. Friend is making about the DCO and the fact that she cannot comment on it, but what we need is a decision to be brought to a conclusion as soon as possible. We need a real railway for real jobs and for real environmental benefits. I understand the financial constraints and would not be calling for greater overall spending, but within the budget that exists in the Department for Transport we must have movement, because the delay that we are facing is becoming intolerable.

    Wendy Morton

    I appreciate what my right hon. Friend is saying, but obviously there is a process that I and the Department must go through.

    When it comes to the Government’s commitment to rail, I gently remind colleagues in the Chamber that, as part of our levelling-up agenda, in January 2020 the Government pledged £500 million for the restoring your railway programme, to deliver on our manifesto commitment to start reopening lines and stations. That investment is about reconnecting communities across the country, regenerating local economies and improving access to jobs, homes and education.

    We reopened the Dartmoor line in November last year, restoring passenger services between Exeter and Okehampton for the first time in 50 years. That has been a great success, with passenger journeys double the anticipated level. In May this year the service frequency on the Dartmoor line was doubled so that passengers now have an hourly service. That followed further infrastructure work that has delivered an improved journey time of around 35 minutes between Okehampton and Exeter St David’s. The line opened two years ahead of schedule and significantly under its approved budget.

    The Government also announced, in January 2021, £34 million of funding to progress plans to reopen the Northumberland line to passenger services between Ashington and Newcastle, with six new stations and a service of two trains an hour by the end of 2023. I gently say to the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) that those are some strong examples of this Government’s commitment to investing in the railways.

    The Government also recognise the importance of the Greater Bristol area as one of the UK’s most productive and fastest growing city regions, which is why we continue to make significant investments there. For example, on Friday 10 June funding of £95 million for phase 1 of the Bristol Temple quarter regeneration programme was announced. That investment will transform access to Bristol Temple Meads station, delivering new and improved station entrances to the north, south and east, with related transport interchange and active travel provision. The new entrances will make it much easier to reach the station from the city centre and surrounding neighbourhoods, and the eastern entrance will connect to the Temple quarter—one of the largest urban regeneration sites in Europe and soon to be home to the University of Bristol’s enterprise campus.

    That project will complement wider investment in the regional and national rail network already being made, and the Temple Meads station upgrade will unlock transport to south Wales and the south-west of England, significantly increasing passenger capacity and improving connectivity between Bristol, Cardiff and London. This work is complemented by the recent refurbishment work at Bristol Temple Meads station, which will provide better passenger facilities and improved accessibility.

    The Government also invested £132 million in the remodelling of the railway in the Temple Meads area, which was the largest enhancement project on the Great Western route in 2021. That work will mean more regular and reliable trains with more seats coming through the station. The new railway layout is also a key enabler of the MetroWest scheme, which is allowing new local services that improve connectivity between Bristol and its neighbouring communities, enabling people across the south-west and south Wales to benefit. A new parkway station at Portway on the MetroWest line towards Severn Beach, which received £1.7 million of backing from my Department’s new stations fund, is also being built. The station will serve both the adjacent park-and-ride site and local residents, and is expected to open in December this year.

    To conclude, the Government are committed to improving rail in the wider Bristol area as part of the levelling up of the west of England. I listened carefully to what my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset set out this evening, and we will continue to support the West of England Combined Authority and North Somerset Council to develop their business case for the reopening of the railway between Bristol and Portishead. We fully acknowledge and appreciate the importance of this project to his constituency.

  • Liam Fox – 2022 Speech on Portishead Railway

    Liam Fox – 2022 Speech on Portishead Railway

    The speech made by Liam Fox, the Conservative MP for North Somerset, in the House of Commons on 14 June 2022.

    Here we go again. Portishead railway has become something of a perennial favourite of those Members who flock to the Chamber to hear these important issues debated, but I will recap for those who have not caught up on the politics of the saga.

    The story so far is that we had a Labour Government, for whom our project met all the criteria—environmental, transport and economic—yet no progress was made. We had a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition Government, for whom the project met all the criteria and very little progress was made. We now have a Conservative Government and more progress has been made, but much too slowly.

    Why do we need the Portishead rail link at all? Because congestion across the region costs £300 million a year and causes major delays every day, particularly at junction 19 of the M5. Traffic queueing times are increasing and are predicted to grow by 74% by 2036. The alternative to this programme would be a major new bridge, which would cost a minimum of £250 million —and we all know how these numbers get inflated—and would not be deliverable until 2030 at the earliest, for which we can read “not in our lifetime.” Alternatively, Portishead and its line would be open by 2025.

    The environmental cost of the increased traffic congestion is considerable, so improved rail transport will clearly have enormous benefits, but that is by no means all. When looking at the Government’s levelling-up agenda, we have to recognise that there are areas within affluent parts of our country that are themselves much poorer. North Somerset, as a constituency and as a district, is extremely affluent, but it is not uniformly affluent. Pill in my constituency has a high index of deprivation, and it will have a station on the new line.

    The question of growth and jobs is one of the main issues for the railway line. Portishead is a centre of innovation and creativity with numerous successful and burgeoning small businesses, but labour is at a premium in my constituency. Unemployment is at 1.6%, compared with the national average of 3.8%. The rate in neighbouring constituencies is: Bristol East, 4.4%; Bristol South, 4.3%; and Bristol West, 4%. They are all above the national average.

    The line is not just about improving the convenience for people who live in Portishead and work in Bristol; it is also about giving people in those areas of higher unemployment access to areas where they can build businesses, provide new jobs and be hugely involved in the Government’s efforts to increase economic activity.

    Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)

    I am disappointed to be debating this subject again, but I am pleased to support the right hon. Gentleman. Reopening the passenger line both ways is important, as he says, but opening new stations near Parson Street and Bedminster in Bristol South is crucial to pursuing low-carbon forms of transport and to supporting the new housing that is coming forward. I am keen to work with him in the interests of the entire Bristol and North Somerset area, and I urge the Government to do more.

    Dr Fox

    I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady, who makes a very good point, which augments what I was saying. Housing is being built in Bedminster, for example. Where are people going to go to work? We need high-income, good-quality jobs. The businesses we have in Portishead—the spin-offs from avionics, for example—provide those kinds of jobs. The problem is: how do we get people in those areas of high unemployment and where the new housing is going to be built to where the jobs are? The danger at the moment is that not only are we unable to do that, but companies are unable to grow because of the restrictions on labour availability, they move to somewhere else and we lose the wealth from our region.

    As ever, it all comes down to money. In 2017, the scheme budget was set at £116 million, assuming a line opening date of December 2021 and excluding a new requirement to fund operational costs. Following three separate Department for Transport-directed delays to the development consent order approval—one of which we debated here only last November—the pandemic, and unprecedented inflationary and market pressures, the revised forecast at completion was £210 million in December 2021. Following cost mitigations amounting to £47 million, the latest forecast sits at £163 million. After further increased regional budget contributions, that leaves a funding gap of £26.82 million, comprising £15.58 million in capital and £11.24 million in revenue, which we have requested the DFT to cover.

    Just in case anyone has forgotten our debate in November, I remind them that I said then:

    “A six-month delay, as suggested by the Secretary of State’s office, would have a potentially devastating impact. It is important that we understand whether this six-month figure was simply plucked out of the air and whether a shorter delay would deal with any reservations from the Department.”

    That mattered a great deal to us. I also said:

    “It has been assessed that the impact on cost beyond 14 January 2022 will be in the order of an additional £13 million at minimum”.—[Official Report, 26 November 2021; Vol. 704, c. 653.]

    I warned in November that the extra six-month delay for what I believe was an unjustified environmental assessment, or other similar delay, would put pressure on the partners in the project, who simply would not be able to find extra money of that order.

    What am I asking the Minister for tonight? First, I am seeking agreement to an additional £15.58 million—that is the capital funding provision. Secondly, I am asking for agreement to implement the previously proposed governance structure, with the DFT taking on the client role. If that is not agreeable, incidentally, the funding gap increases by another £14 million. Thirdly, I am asking for agreement to work with North Somerset Council and the West of England Combined Authority to find a solution to fund the forecast additional MetroWest 1 operating subsidy cost of £11.24 million, recognising that North Somerset Council, a small unitary authority, and WECA have no funding streams for additional revenue.

    The Minister recently indicated that there would be no more money in the Department, but the latest ministerial position ignores key cost drivers that have arisen in the interim period, since 2017, which are largely outside the control of the project team. Those include unbudgeted operational costs; requirements and inflationary costs, linked to associated programme delays, arising from the Department’s development consent order—that adds £28 million; DFT-led changes to the project procurement strategy, which add £6.1 million; market price increases, which are outside the control of the Government and add £39.5 million; and of course the pandemic, which adds an estimated £4.8 million.

    Those numbers are tiny when we are talking about projects such as HS2. Let me remind my hon. Friend the Minister about the benefits that the project will bring that fall within the full aims of Government policy. It will significantly reduce travel time from Bristol to Portishead to 23 minutes, compared with 60 minutes-plus—on a good day—by bus and an optimistic 50 minutes-plus by car, and greatly improve people’s access to employment and services, as I outlined. It will bring more than 50,000 people in Portishead and Pill into the direct catchment area of a railway station for the first time in more than 60 years.

    Regeneration of our railways has been a key aim of the Government. This project will deliver 1.2 million additional rail journeys and £7 million of revenue within 15 years of opening. It will produce benefits to the regional economy of £43 million gross value added per annum. It will remove 13 million car kilometres annually by 2041. It will bring new employment opportunities regionally and bring the benefits of economic growth to Portishead and wider North Somerset. There will be sustained environmental benefits, and the major improvement in travel to work times will bring associated personal quality of life and community benefits. What is not to like about this project?

    One more push from my hon. Friend the Minister and her colleagues and we can get this project across the line. What could give our region a better boost in this time of uncertainty than to put all the worries behind us, once and for all? I look to my hon. Friend for the push.

  • Ben Bradley – 2022 Speech on Channel 4 Privatisation

    Ben Bradley – 2022 Speech on Channel 4 Privatisation

    The speech made by Ben Bradley, the Conservative MP for Mansfield, in the House of Commons on 14 June 2022.

    It is a pleasure to take part in this debate on a topic I have not shied away from in the public discourse. In fact I found myself, not for the first time, in the middle of the usual Twitter storm when I tried to cut across the predictable hysteria about the announcement of this privatisation. There were accusations from the Opposition Benches that this decision was fascism in action, a ridiculous statement and nonsense—because, of course, the first thing every fascist dictator does is relinquish state control of the media. Once again the Twitter commentariat, wound up by certain Members on the Opposition Benches, proved that they are incapable of seeing any debate in sensible or nuanced terms and instead go for the clickbait headline. That is incredibly frustrating, so I am pleased to be able to debate this today.

    I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) that we should do more privatisation. There would perhaps be less ability to create such hysteria if there were a steady drumbeat of measures from the Government on privatisation, driving the private sector and innovation.

    Opposition Members have said that this is ideological. We have heard from Ministers and others on the Conservative Benches all the practical reasons why privatisation makes sense in many cases. I do not speak for the Government, but for me part of it is indeed ideological, however; I fundamentally believe the Government should not be involved in stuff they do not need to be involved in, and if the private sector can drive this kind of innovation, then it should. If the Government want to bring forward more measures to remove their hands from things they do not need to be involved in, I will welcome that. That is a challenge for the Minister, and perhaps she will take me up on it.

    Before I take a more critical viewpoint it is important to say that Channel 4 will continue to play an important role in British life, because it makes some cracking content. I am not as old as my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt), but I go back a bit as well, and I like Channel 4. I remember the time in the ’90s when “The Simpsons” was on at 6 o’clock on a Friday night; I used to sit down after my tea, and then there was “Malcolm in the Middle” and I would be allowed to stay up late until “Friends” had finished. That was my bedtime viewing on a Friday night. Those are all American programmes, actually, so they are probably not the best example. [Interruption.]

    Lucy Powell

    What about “The Word”?

    Ben Bradley

    Before my time, I’m afraid.

    Channel 4 has also recently won the rights to a number of England games, and it is only positive to have more football on free-to-air television. All that should be celebrated, but the decision to privatise Channel 4 comes with mutual benefits. I strongly believe there is more potential for Channel 4 to compete and to make tremendous progress in the private sector. State ownership is impractical in the long run. If the channel is to find investors to find the cash to grow and expand and do more, it needs private enterprise. We have heard from Conservative Members why it is struggling to do that, which I will come on to again shortly.

    Why do we continue to limit the growth and ability of a much-loved TV channel when we can easily sort it out? Questions need to be asked about why running media companies needs to be a role of Government. Government ownership has implications. Through being funded by advertising alone Channel 4 has a valuation of about 1% of that of Netflix, for example. Channel 4 clearly needs more funding if it is to compete in an ever-changing and growing market and if it is to expand. Where is that meant to come from? Its advertising funding is already falling, it cannot sell its content as other companies can, and its spending is declining. It is limited by Government ownership.

    Members have pointed to good things Channel 4 does, and Opposition Members have jumped to the worst possible conclusions about the risks to all those things, but there is no reason why those good things cannot continue. Words such as “abolish” have been used, but Channel 4 is not going anywhere. I do not believe that those terms reflect what is happening.

    To return to the money, if Channel 4 is to grow at scale and take full advantage of market growth and compete effectively, its only current option is to borrow, with that risk underwritten by the Government, and I do no not think that that is an option; nor should the taxpayer be asked to do that. That takes me back to my earlier point: do the Government need to do this, or could someone else do it? The answer is firmly that somebody else could.

    Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)

    On money, Channel 4 has directly invested £12 billion in the independent production sector since its creation. How much do the Government estimate that a privatised Channel 4 will invest in our production sector? If they cannot say how much, why are we taking this risk?

    Ben Bradley

    I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. She will have to ask the Government—I am not in the Government—but Channel 5 is a privately owned public sector broadcaster that invests a higher proportion of its revenue in small broadcasting companies than Channel 4, so that is a model that works. The shadow Secretary of State said that she felt that privatisation would stifle growth and innovation in British jobs. As I have said, examples exist in this country of privately owned public sector broadcasters who invest in those businesses and support our wider media sector. There are systems here that can work.

    To me, this is fundamentally a much bigger debate: it is a question about the role of the state. If we want best value for taxpayers in not only financial value but freedom and choice, the state should not be in charge. If the state does not desperately need to run something and there is no practical reason why it should be the Government’s job, it should not do so. We should approach this issue and others by asking ourselves: do the Government specifically need to do this, or could the market do it? Could the private sector do it? Could the third sector do it? Could the community do it? In the case of the media, all of the above already do it.

    As a council leader, I have started by questioning whether we do things as we do because that is the best way or because we have always done it that way. It is often the latter, and I have found that much more can be achieved through change. The state should be prioritising its responsibilities to deliver public services, to create the environment needed for jobs and growth and to tackle the major geopolitical challenges in the world. It should not be running and working in the TV industry.

    Once upon a time, the state needed to do so to promote choice and sustain something very new—there was just a handful of channels and the industry needed that support—but now, that could not be further from the truth. Mrs Thatcher set up Channel 4 to promote competition and create content that would not otherwise exist. We now have content coming out of our ears—content galore. In fact, I have got content in my pocket right now. We have got content everywhere. We do not need to be putting the state’s energy into that—[Interruption.] Do not ask what kind of content. [Interruption.] Juicy. But there is no space any more where the Government needs to do that. It is brilliant to see a Conservative Government doing what I believe to be fundamentally Conservative things. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) disagrees, but my version of this is that the sale underpins the conservativism that I believe in of a small-state, pro-enterprise, innovation-focused Government who are handing the reins over to the creatives and innovators in the industry instead of sticking with state control because that is what we have always done. That is a good thing, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull said, more of it, please, Minister. I will take much more of it.

    At a time when we want to be proud of our British institutions, let us have faith in Channel 4’s ability to compete. Let us release it from state ownership and allow it to do so.

  • Jesse Norman – 2022 Speech on Channel 4 Privatisation

    Jesse Norman – 2022 Speech on Channel 4 Privatisation

    The speech made by Jesse Norman, the Conservative MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire, in the House of Commons on 14 June 2022.

    It has been a good debate, but I must say that I am not persuaded by many of the arguments that have been put forward, even by my distinguished colleagues, the former Chairs of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) and my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins). It is a pity that the consultation was carried out in the way that it was. For a subject as vexed and contentious as this, it would have been more appropriate for at least the individual and organisational contributions to have been if not published, then at least digested in more detail and reflected.

    If the Government are committed to exploring all the options, as has been recognised by many hon. Members on both sides of the House and as I think it is fair to say the Government have said, it is important that there should be an options paper to show which options have been considered. I was sad to see that the option of mutualisation has not been considered, because it has been effective in other areas. Welsh Water, which is in many ways the best of the water companies, is a mutual company limited by guarantee. I still hope that mutualisation will be considered.

    The truth is that, notwithstanding some of the concerns that have been raised, Channel 4 is not a problem, and this measure comes at a time of severe and rising concern among people of this country about the cost of living, inflation and slow growth, and, in policy circles, about the loss of productivity. It is not just that Channel 4 is in rude health—although, as has been pointed out, revenues can go up and down over time—and has been sustained by its huge growth in digital advertising and its remarkable ability to reach interesting younger audiences; it is also that it is a highly dynamic organisation and a highly managerially innovative organisation. Therefore, for the Government to start to panic now about what its future advertising revenues may be is to rule out the possibility that diverse, interesting, engaging and innovative responses may be undertaken by this innovative team.

    It is also strange for a Conservative Government to wish to sell off a business in the face of competition, rather than embracing and welcoming that competition and expecting the business to fight its corner. Let me remind the House that the intellectual property does not go anywhere. The fact that it is not trapped in Channel 4 does not mean that it does not reside within independent production companies, and that creates the dynamic tension and energy that has always sustained the sector.

    I am afraid that I regard this as an unnecessary attempt to address a non-problem at a time of much wider concern. I refer hon. Members and the Government to the ancient Conservative principle: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

    Kevin Brennan

    On the point about intellectual property, is it not interesting that the people behind some of the most successful productions in recent years, such as Michaela Coel, have refused to go to streamers such as Netflix because they insist on keeping the intellectual property, rather than letting it reside with the British small production companies, writers and creators who are responsible for it?

    Jesse Norman

    The hon. Member makes an interesting and fair point. Of course, if advertising revenue were so unattractive, the rest of the market would not be piling into it. At the same time, no matter who the owner of the enterprise will be, they will not be immune from wider inflation in programming costs. That is the nature of the business, and the question is what innovative and constructive responses will be undertaken by the management team to address that.

    The plan is also bad economics from a public standpoint. The House will know that I spent a couple of years as a Treasury Minister, including during the period the Secretary of State talked about when all the support was given to the cultural sector, and I think it is bad economics. Even if the constraints were relaxed in the way that has been described, the revenue to be derived would be only, on a net basis, in the order of £500 million to £1 billion. My successor, the present Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), has pointed out that that is a drop in the ocean compared with the wider problem. At a 4% interest rate, £500 million amounts to £20 million a year. Are we really going to give up all the control, energy, drive and impetus that exists in Channel 4 now, and the £200 million of directed programming from independent production companies that comes from that, in return for the equivalent of a £20 million annuity? I do not think that makes any economic sense at all.

    Overall, this is not a Conservative proposal. What matters in this case is the quality of the ownership. Channel 4 has an independent ownership structure; it happens to be owned by the state, but its ownership structure has made it resilient to political pressure and able to commission highly innovative, risky and interesting forms of programming, for which we celebrate it.

    Robin Millar

    Will my right hon. Friend give way?

    Jesse Norman

    I cannot, as I do not have much time, but I may take my hon. Friend’s intervention later.

    It is not a Conservative proposal to sell Channel 4, and even if it was sold now does anyone really think the value generated would not itself be a reflection of the proposed doom scenario in advertising revenues because of the way in which future cash flow works? The key issue here is that we should support an enterprise that itself supports independent production companies, many of them in our nations and regions, that proactively supports disabled people, that supports the Union, and that supports levelling up. That is what Channel 4 does.

    I have no doubt that Channel 4 can be further improved and enhanced, and I see its next episode as a down payment on the next generation of its own thinking about how its module could be further leveraged and enhanced, but at the moment it is doing a superb job. We should not sell it; we should proceed and support it in any way we can in the future.